The Road Trip(7)

‘You still won’t speak to me.’

‘Not speaking was never about punishing you, Dylan. It actually wasn’t about you at all. I needed the space.’

I look down at my hands. ‘I just thought you’d stop needing space eventually, I suppose.’

She glances at me; her eyes are unreadable through the sunglasses’ filter.

‘You were waiting?’ she asks.

‘Not . . . not waiting, per se, but . . .’

I trail off, and the silence rolls ahead of us, ribbon-like, too long. I catch sight of the expression of the passenger in the car across from us on the motorway – a middle-aged woman in a cap, staring wide-eyed at our car. I glance back at the others and imagine what she’s seeing. A motley collection of twenty-somethings cheerfully crammed into a bright red Mini at half seven in the morning on a bank holiday Sunday.

She has no idea. If one could harness secrets for energy, we wouldn’t need petrol – we’d have enough grudges in this car to take us all the way to Scotland.





THEN





Addie

I stare at the ceiling. The caretaker’s flat in Cherry’s villa is underneath the house – same size as the first floor, just at basement level. Beautiful, if you don’t mind not having any windows. When it means living in the south of France all summer for free board and a few hundred euros a month, I don’t mind not having windows at all.

A family arrived this morning, friends of Cherry’s parents. They got a cab from the airport, which is lucky because last night me and Deb drank three bottles of wine on the balcony of the master suite and stargazed until the sky got light. I’m probably still not legal to drive and it’s basically midday already.

I’m pretty sure this is the summer of my life. It’s like . . . there’s an epic backing track playing, or the saturation’s turned up. This summer I’m not little Addie, trailing behind. I’m not the person you forget when you’re telling your mates who’s at the pub. I’m not the girl you ghost because you’ve met someone better. I can be whoever I want to be.

This is my summer, basically. Not that you’d know it right now, because I’m too hungover to move much.

I frown up at the ceiling. Something’s up with this new family. The caretaker’s flat isn’t soundproofed – we always have a pretty good idea of exactly what’s going on up there. More than we’d like, generally. But now I can hardly hear anything. They’re definitely here – the cab woke me when it pulled up earlier. And there’s movement. Just . . . quiet movement. Like, one person’s worth of movement.

One set of steps making its way across the kitchen to the wine cooler and back again. One shower running. One window left open so that a bedroom door slams when the mistral blows through.

I wake Deb at quarter to two in the afternoon. She shuffles into the kitchen in sagging knickers and a French band T-shirt she picked up on a one-night stand in Avignon, then pauses, listening.

‘Where are they all?’ she asks.

‘No idea. I’m pretty sure there’s just one guy here.’

She yawns and takes the mug of coffee I hold out for her. ‘Huh. Weird. Maybe this guy killed all his family on the journey over.’

We can always tell if it’s a man or a woman from their footfall. Men are stompier.

‘That’s your first thought?’ I say.

Deb shrugs and begins sawing at yesterday’s bread. A spattering of crust fragments go flying like chippings in a wood shop.

‘What else have you got?’

‘Maybe they’re all coming later,’ I say. ‘Maybe they stopped off in Nice to see some pals, yah.’

This is one of those summer things that won’t be funny next year, but cracks me and Deb up right now. Ever since we got here we’ve collected the phrases we hear through the ceiling or drifting over from the terrace: pals, décor, blotto, divine. I’ve never met people like the Villa Cerise guests before. They don’t ask the price of stuff before they buy it. They drink champagne like it isn’t even a thing. They own multiple houses and animals and have opinions about literally everything. It’s almost too easy to mock them.

‘Cherry’s mum would’ve texted if they were coming late,’ Deb points out.

I pull a face, like, Oh yeah, true. Deb spreads butter on to her bread, laying it on as thick as a slice of cheese.

‘I don’t think he’s old, you know,’ I say. ‘He walks too fast.’

Deb’s eyebrows go up. ‘Maybe he’s staff?’

This is another new phrase we’ve learned. Staff as a job title.

Our mysterious solo guest moves into the kitchen, directly above our heads. We pause, me with a glass of orange juice halfway to my mouth, Deb with butter on her nose.

The fridge upstairs opens. Something clinks. The fridge closes.

‘A day drinker,’ Deb says. She pauses in thought. ‘If there’s only one guy here all week, do we really both need to be here?’

‘Are you ditching me again?’

Deb looks at me, frowning, trying to guess if I really mind. I’m not sure, to be honest. It was always the plan that while we were here, we’d each go off to explore France when we could. As it’s happened, though, Deb’s gone adventuring more than me. I do get it: she’s more easily bored than I am. And I love this villa – the infinity pool, the vineyards, the way the air smells first thing in the morning. Deb’s not sentimental like that. It’s just a house to her, albeit a big one.