The Road Trip(68)

‘No! We have to keep going!’ I say, without lifting my head.

‘Hey? Couldn’t hear you there over the sound of your unrealistic expectations,’ Deb says, sliding the menu out from under my face, forcing me to move.

‘I hate giving up,’ I groan. ‘And I don’t want to have to pay for a night in a bloody Budget Travel! We paid for that Airbnb in Ettrick, and . . .’

It dawns on me that I’m talking about money in front of Dylan. My face flushes.

‘Don’t offer to pay, either of you,’ I say quickly, in Marcus and Dylan’s direction.

‘Nothing was further from my mind,’ says Marcus. ‘And Dylan’s a truly penniless poet these days, anyway, so don’t look to him for a handout.’

‘Oh, right, I . . .’ I’m all distracted now. I guess I should have figured Dylan would have stopped taking his parents’ money if he wasn’t speaking to his dad any more. ‘Can’t we just drive through the night?’

‘You’ve got a sprained wrist and I have what I believe may be actual dog shit on my leg, Addie. I just tried to teach myself to hand-express breast milk in a copse on the edge of a field. I need to shower, and I need to chill the breast milk bottles and cool bag. And we all need to rest, or one of us will kill someone.’

‘It’s true,’ Marcus says. ‘I’m this close to murdering Rodney. If he cracks his knuckles again . . .’

Rodney pauses mid-knuckle-crack. ‘Sorry sorry sorry . . .’

‘Or apologises.’

‘Sor . . .’ Rodney cringes. ‘Whoops.’

I sigh. ‘All right. Fine. Let’s see if the Budget Travel have rooms.’ I raise a finger as Marcus opens his mouth to speak. ‘No, we cannot see if there is somewhere five-star where we could stay instead. If you want more glamorous accommodation, you have to find it yourself, and I am not driving you there, and neither is Deb.’

‘It’s true,’ Deb says. ‘I’m not.’

Marcus meets my eyes for a moment. I’m actually pretty proud of myself for that little raised-finger rant. Standing up to Marcus isn’t easy, even if it’s just about hotel rooms.

‘I wasn’t going to say that. Whatever you choose to believe about me, I can cope without room service for a night. I was going to say, let me ask Maggie about rooms.’ His trademark grin looks a bit more exhausted than usual. ‘She’ll probably upgrade us all to VIP.’



‘This. Is bloody ridiculous.’

Deb and I exchange a glance over the double bed and then look away quickly. It’s too hard not to laugh.

‘Where am I sleeping? In the fucking cot?’ Marcus says. He looks genuinely mystified.

I’ll admit, the Budget Travel family room isn’t designed for five adults. But it was good of Maggie to let us have the room at all – the hotel is full tonight, with a wedding going on somewhere nearby.

There’s one double bed, two singles separated by a short corridor, and a cot.

Deb presses a hand to her stomach. ‘Oh,’ she says in a small voice, looking at the cot. God, it was so not worth her leaving her son at home for this disaster of a road trip.

‘If anyone’s got to go in the cot,’ Marcus says, ‘it should be Addie. She’s basically child-sized.’

I examine the cot. It’s a largish cot. But it’s still a cot.

‘I’m having the double bed,’ I say. ‘With Deb,’ I clarify quickly as everybody immediately looks at Dylan. ‘You three can sort the rest amongst yourselves.’

Deb’s on her phone now, flicking through the latest pictures Mum has sent of Riley on the family WhatsApp. I can’t see the phone screen, but I don’t need to. Deb’s eyes have gone soft and wistful.

‘Come on,’ Dylan says, tugging at Marcus’s arm. ‘Let’s give Deb and Addie some space. Rodney, you too – let’s get the rest of the bags from the car and decide who’s sleeping on the floor.’

I catch his eye as he ushers them out of the room, grabbing the car keys as he goes. Thank you, I mouth, and he smiles.

‘Oh, dear,’ Deb says, putting down her phone as the door clicks shut.

‘What?’

‘That,’ Deb says, pointing at my face. ‘That thank you.’

‘Was polite?’

‘Was something you would not have said twelve hours ago. Which tells me . . . something has changed?’

I sit down on the bed and cradle my injured wrist in my lap. The swelling has got a little better, but it’s still tender and the skin feels too tight.

‘Nothing’s changed. Well, I guess we’ve spent more time together, so . . . I’ve figured out how to be civil. Out of necessity. That’s it, though.’

‘No feelings?’

‘Many, many feelings,’ I say, lying back so my feet are dangling over the edge of the bed. ‘Too many to figure out.’

Deb lies down beside me.

‘You should really wash before you get anywhere near this bed,’ I tell her.

She ignores that. ‘Tell me.’

‘You sure you don’t want to talk about missing Riley?’

‘Absolutely certain. That will not help. Tell me all the Dylan feelings.’