Page 89 of The One Plus One
Jess lunged over the seat at the dog, grabbing for his collar. They dragged Norman back down from the window. He whined, shrill and hysterical, straining at their grasp, great gobs of drool spraying across the interior.
‘Norman, you big idiot! What the hell –’
‘He’s never seen a cow before.’ Tanzie, struggling upright, always defending him.
‘Jesus, Norman.’
‘You okay, Tanze?’
‘I’m fine.’
The cows continued to part around the car, unmoved by the dog’s outburst. Through the now steamed-up windows they could just make out the farmer at the rear, walking slowly and impassively, with the same lumbering gait as his bovine charges. He gave the barest of nods as he passed, as if he had all the time in the world. Norman whined and pulled against his collar.
‘I’ve never seen him like that before.’ Jess straightened her hair and blew out through her cheeks. ‘Perhaps he could smell beef.’
‘I didn’t know he had it in him,’ Ed said.
‘My glasses.’ Tanzie held up the twisted piece of metal. ‘Mum. Norman broke my glasses.’
It was a quarter past ten.
‘I can’t see anything without my glasses.’
Jess looked at Ed. Shit.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Grab a plastic bag. I’m going to have to put my foot down.’
They drove at speed, half frozen, the wind from the open windows a buffeting roar that thwarted conversation. The Scottish roads were wide and empty, and Ed drove so fast that the satnav had repeatedly to reassess its timing to their destination. Every minute they gained was an imaginary air punch in his head. Tanzie was sick twice. He refused to stop to allow her to vomit into the road.
‘She’s really ill.’
‘I’m fine,’ Tanzie kept saying, her face wedged into a plastic bag. ‘Really.’
‘You don’t want to stop, sweetheart? Just for a minute?’
‘No. Keep going. Bleurgh –’
There wasn’t time to stop. Not that this made the car journey any easier to bear. Nicky had turned away from his sister, his hand over his nose. Even Norman’s head was thrust as far out into the fresh air as he could get it.
Ed drove like someone in a luxury car advert, speeding through empty bends, along the winding base of ancient windswept hillsides. The car gripped the greasy roads as if it had been meant for this. He forgot he was cold, that his car interior was pretty much destroyed, his life a mess. There were moments, in that astonishing landscape, his whole being focused on driving as fast and as safely as he could, when it felt like an almost spiritual experience. A spiritual experience broken only by the occasional sound of a child gagging into a fresh plastic bag.
He would get them there. He knew this as surely as heknew anything. He felt filled with purpose in a way that he hadn’t done in months. And as Aberdeen finally loomed before them, its buildings vast and silver grey, the oddly modern high-rises thrusting into the distant sky, his mind raced ahead of them. He headed for the centre, watched as the roads narrowed and became cobbled streets. They came through the docks, the enormous tankers on their right, and that was where the traffic slowed, and slowly, unstoppably, his confidence began to unravel. They slowed and then sat in an increasingly anxious silence, Ed punching in alternative routes across Aberdeen that offered no time gain and often no sense. The satnav started to work against him, adding back the time it had subtracted. It was fifteen, nineteen, twenty-two minutes until they reached the university building. Twenty-five minutes. Too many.
‘What’s the delay?’ said Jess, to nobody in particular. She fiddled with the radio buttons, trying to find the traffic reports. ‘What’s the hold-up?’
‘It’s just sheer weight of traffic.’
‘That’s such a lame expression,’ said Nicky. ‘Of course a traffic jam is sheer weight of traffic. What else would it be down to?’
‘There could have been an accident,’ said Tanzie.
‘But the jam itself would still comprise the traffic. So the problem is still the sheer weight of traffic.’
‘No, the volume of traffic slowing itself down is something completely different.’
‘But it’s the same result.’
‘But then it’s an inaccurate description.’
