Page 81 of Lean On Me
I shook my head and shrugged.
He gave my arm a fist bump, gentle enough not to spill my tepid coffee. ‘If you think of anything, or just want to talk, you know where I am.’
The next day, I spent two hours on buses getting to a hotel that would have taken me forty-five minutes to reach along public footpaths, and then spent the whole journey on the verge of panic anyway. At least if I was walking, I could run away. The thought of being trapped on a bus with Kane gave mepalpitations. I waited nearly an hour for a taxi to show up at the end of my shift, and then forked out most of my tips on the fare.
As I climbed out of the taxi, the red car glinted in the evening sunlight. I stopped and looked at it for a moment. It had sat there useless on the road for months now. Was I being an idiot, resisting Perry’s present? If I daren’t walk anywhere, that heap of shiny metal might end up being the only way to keep my independence. I bet it had safety locks to keep killers out. I marched inside, kicked off my work shoes, dumped my bag on the kitchen counter, and picked up my phone before I could change my mind.
Perry set up a driving lesson for me the next day. Bob Chase, a forty-something instructor wearing a crumpled pair of shiny trousers and a Formula One cap, turned up in a Vauxhall Corsa. His eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw my car. He had a change of heart about my first lesson being in his specially modified vehicle, spending the first twenty minutes driving the sports car to a suitable location to start me off (I suggested a few quiet roads and empty car parks nearby, but for vague reasons, he picked one a good few miles further away).
Groaning with delight at every twist and turn, closing his eyes way more than the Highway Code must surely recommend, he slid to a stop in a large layby in the middle of nowhere. A couple of times he began explaining something about the driving process, only to get side-tracked by the apparent amazingness of the car.
Eventually, we swapped seats and he talked me through how to turn the engine on and get moving. Hands and legs trembling, I gave it a go.
Screeeech!
Bob yelled in alarm over the hideous sound of scraping metal, diving across to undo whatever I’d done. I opened my eyes to find the car hadn’t moved a millimetre.
‘Promise you won’t do that again,’ he said in a strangled voice.
‘Okay.’ I had no idea how to keep that promise. My frayed nerves were not coping well with being pushed further out of their comfort zone by a man they didn’t know.
‘Right. Let’s have another try. Be gentle with her now. This princess needs to be stroked. She’ll refuse to play if you treat her rough.’ He caressed the dashboard with his fingers.
I swallowed down my urge to vomit. Who knew what Bob would do if I threw up on the princess?
We tried a few more times, Bob’s increasing distress at my ineptitude only pushing my stress levels higher. When he let out a whimper, I’d had enough.
‘I think we’d better call it a day,’ I said, climbing out of the driver’s seat and moving back to where I belonged.
He didn’t need to be told twice. Funny how the journey home took half the time.
He made a lukewarm attempt to book a second lesson, but even Bob wasn’t convinced another drive in the princess was worth the pain of watching me mistreat her.
I stomped inside, whipping open the fridge door and taking out an enormous piece of Marilyn’s butterscotch tart. Spooning off a huge chunk, I wolfed it down furiously before calling Perry.
He found the whole thing hilarious.
To be honest, if it hadn’t been for my underlying urgency to be able to drive, I would have done, too. He did coax a smile out of me by the time I’d finished venting.
‘Do you want me to find someone else?’ he asked.
‘No. I don’t think learning with a stranger is going to work.’
‘Well, you know I’d happily do it, but the Hampton deal is reaching the crucial stages. I’ve got a load more trips coming up in the next month or so. Is there anyone else you can ask? Someone just to get you started?’
I thought about it: the few people I knew, the even fewer number who had a car and were available during the day, and the fewer still whom I would feel comfortable having driving lessons with. That left two people. And there was no way on earth I could be in control of a moving vehicle with one-year-old twins strapped in the back seat. But hadn’t the other one recently offered me help, with eyes so honest, I genuinely believed he meant it?
With Perry’s approval, albeit coated with a layer of bemusement, I called Dylan.
Knowing something of the situation with Kane, suspecting even more and detecting the desperation in my voice, he cautiously agreed.
The following Saturday, I had my second driving lesson. Sat in Dylan’s truck on a deserted back lane (he said the sports car would cost a fortune to fix if I happened to bump into anything, whereas the truck was so dented, one more scrape wouldn’t make any difference), I squared my shoulders, took a deep breath, checked my mirror, gingerly lifted one foot off the clutch while pressing down on the accelerator with the other, and stalled. Again.
‘It’s no good.’ I threw my head against the steering wheel. ‘I can’t do it. This is a waste of time. I’m too old for this. You might as well take me home.’
‘And how old is too old to learn how to drive?’ He tried to keep a straight face, but the smile showed in his voice.
I mumbled against the steering wheel. It was nice down here. The sun shone through the windscreen onto my hair. It smelled of leather and machinery. In fact, it smelled a lot like Dylan.
