The Road Trip(40)

‘I can probably pump in the car,’ Deb says. ‘Rodney, can you reach that bag?’

There is a short spell of what looks like Twister in the back of the car. Rodney eventually produces the bag with Deb’s breast pump in it. Deb fiddles around with her top. Rodney contorts himself so that he is facing the other way, closing his eyes and covering his face with his hands. I stifle a grin. Meanwhile Marcus opens the Fruit Pastilles and scatters them absolutely everywhere. One hits me in the ear.

‘Fuck’s sake,’ he says. ‘Pass that red one over there, would you, Rodders? I’ve never been with a woman who’s breastfeeding. What happens when you have sex, Deb?’

‘Marcus!’ Dylan snaps.

‘No? I can’t ask that? Christ! Being well behaved is exhausting.’

I hear the whir of the battery-powered breast pump starting up. It sounds a bit like there’s a washing machine in the back of the car.

‘All right. Five questions for Dylan,’ Marcus says after a while.

He sounds more subdued now. Hmm. Worrying. At least when he’s pissing around he’s not up to anything evil.

‘I’ll start,’ Marcus says. ‘Why haven’t you tried to get your poems published yet?’

I dial down the volume on the music and glance at Dylan. I want to hear the answer to this one.

‘I don’t think they’re ready,’ Dylan says eventually.

Interesting. It’s the only answer I’d accept, and one he never gave when we were together. It was always, Oh, they’re just drivel, or, Nobody wants to read that.

‘Well, all right,’ Marcus says. He shifts in his seat. ‘When will they be ready?’

‘Is that another question from my five?’

‘Yes, it’s another question,’ Marcus says testily.

‘They’ll be ready when . . . I . . . I don’t know. When I can read them without wincing.’

I frown. ‘What if they’re meant to make you wince?’

‘Hey?’

‘I don’t know a lot about this stuff – you know I don’t – but your best poems were always the ones you let me read last.’

Quiet descends again. The music’s a whisper now, and I can feel sweat trickling down the inside of my upper arms.

‘You never told me that,’ Dylan says.

‘Didn’t I?’

‘No. I could never tell when you liked a poem.’

This genuinely surprises me. ‘I always liked them.’

‘Next question,’ says Marcus. ‘Why did you suggest we drive to the wedding together?’

I look at Dylan and catch his reaction. He’s startled.

‘I guess I thought – we were ready for that,’ he says.

‘Why? You cut me out for almost a year, and then, what, I did something good? What was it? I’m jumping through hoops in the dark, here, Dyl.’

Dylan cut Marcus out for almost a year? I shoot him another look, but he’s turned his face towards the window.

‘It was Luke, actually,’ Dylan says. ‘He told me about your . . . apology thing.’

Another long silence, just the sound of Deb’s breast pump, the low music and the wheels on the road. The traffic is beginning to slow again. Cars close in around us.

‘I suppose I thought I’d give you an opportunity to get around to apologising to me, too.’

I keep glancing in the mirror. Marcus catches me looking at him and I quickly turn my eyes back to the road.

‘I assume it was your therapist’s suggestion,’ Dylan goes on. ‘And that there was a reason you’d managed to apologise to Luke, Javier, Marta, your stepmother, your father, and my mother for your various indiscretions and misbehaviours, but not yet got around to me.’

His voice is rising – he’s hurt, maybe, or angry, but he’s keeping it in check. I know that tone well.

I catch Deb’s eye in the mirror. I widen my eyes, like, Don’t ask me what all this is about.

‘Whenever you’re ready, Marcus,’ Dylan says lightly. ‘I’m listening.’





Dylan A phone rings in the long, stifling silence; Deb fumbles around and swears as she tries to find her mobile without letting go of the breast pump.

‘Saved by the bell,’ Marcus says under his breath, just loud enough that I can hear him. My heart is thudding unsteadily; I really thought we were getting somewhere there, but of course Marcus wouldn’t perform his apology on cue – I’ll likely never get one now I’ve asked for it. And besides, he hardly knows the depth of what he ought to be apologising for; no wonder he feels like he’s jumping through hoops in the dark. I clench my fists in my lap. He’s trying, I remind myself, and I think of what Luke said when we last spoke: Write Marcus off if you want to, I won’t judge, believe me – but don’t pretend you’re giving him a chance when you’re clearly just not.

‘Hello? Is Riley OK?’ Deb says.

Addie’s on alert immediately – her eyes dart towards Deb in the mirror as the traffic crawls around us, hunched cars inching along like beetles, sunlight glinting on their backs.

‘OK. Oh, yeah, of course, now’s good,’ Deb says, and Addie relaxes.

They’ve always had that bond, the Gilbert sisters; I’ve envied Deb more than once for the way she slots in with Addie so instinctively, as if the two of them were made to come as a pair.