Page 66 of To Hell With It

‘Thanks.’

‘Are you from the UK?’

‘Ireland.’

‘Travelling?’

‘Kind of.’

‘Where are you headed?’

‘Te Puke.’

‘Nice.’ She nodded. ‘I’m from Nelson, South Island.’

‘Ah, nice.’ I mimicked her because I had no idea where that was, or who she bloody was. I could still feel where her hand had touched mine.

‘Are you staying at Sky?’ she glanced back to my hostel.

‘Yes.’

‘Thought so.’ She grinned.

‘And you?’

‘My van.’

I thought of Bunty and wondered if she’d had dreadlocks in her hair too when she was younger.

‘I live in it,’ Eve added. ‘Just me and Ginger, my cat.’

‘You have a cat in your van?’

‘I found her rummaging around the bins outside your hostel two years ago and she’s been with me ever since. Can I join you?’ Eve pulled out a chair before I could answer. ‘The burgers are good here, aye.’

I didn’t know if she was asking me a question or telling me but I guessed telling me because I’d not ordered my food.

‘Fancy one?’ she said.

‘I’m all right, thanks,’ I said, but I was not all right, I was starving.

‘Go on, my treat. I need to show you how hospitable us Kiwis are.’

‘Thank you,’ I said as the hunger took over, and I felt guilty that I’d judged a book by its cover.

‘Great.’ She beamed and off she went inside to order our burgers.

And I poured my sanitiser over my hands as soon as she’d disappeared.

* * *

Eve was right, the burger was good, and it was even better that it came with no cutlery and pre-added sauce. I wolfed my food down while Eve told me all about her New Zealand adventures, how she was born in Wellington but left when she was seventeen to travel both islands with her then boyfriend and hadn’t been back since. She lived in her van that she’d bought in an underground car park where travellers bought and sold their vehicles.

Eve’s was fully kitted out and had everything she needed to live in it forever, which seemed like a very long time to me given I found out she was only twenty-two. But she’d managed it that long and I admired her for it.

Eve wanted five kids by the time she was thirty and when I asked her how she would manage living in a van she told me she’d buy one of those buses that people converted into homes and would homeschool her children on life. I liked her independence, she reminded me of Una, which I found comforting because I hadn’t had the headspace to text Una back since she’d said she’d slept with Shaundid everythingand I was missing her more than I wanted to let on.

There was something about the familiarity of seeing the same faces, in the same places that I could only get from home. And I didn’t realise quite how much I’d miss those faces. It felt a bit like when you take the same route every day and then all of a sudden you have to go a different way and there’s that slight moment of panic isn’t there? Not that I would know because I couldn’t drive, but I’d felt like that on the bus a couple of times when the road had been closed and the bus had taken a detour. So I was happy to leave Eve where I’d found her because in the same breath she reminded me of Una, she also reminded me of how far away from home I actually was.

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