Page 87 of A Colourful Country Escape
Lexie felt a tiny smile sneak up on her. ‘Who couldn’t love Grace?’
‘So not all rich people are mean. Like, if you instantly decided all people with money were snooty dick-monkeys, you’d be no better than wealthy people who judged you for your second-hand jumpers.’
Lexie exhaled, the weight of her sister’s words making her head feel even heavier.
‘I don’t think I judge people. It’s just … urgh. The same thing keeps happening. Hanging around with people who are better than me always comes back to bite me on my charity-shop-clad arse.’
‘Better than you? Lex, what are you even on about? Is this what they call a superiority complex?’
‘Inferiority,’ Lexie mumbled. ‘And no.’ But she was already hanging her head. She knew if she’d felt good enough, she wouldn’t have had to lie on her CV or avoid ever mentioning the Inkie drug scandal. Maybe inferior was exactly how she’d felt.
‘Sometimes we just need to work on ourselves,’ said Sky. She put her hands on her heart and started looking all mystical. ‘Because knowing that we are good enough must come from within. We must be the lotus flower and rise up through the mud of life, being unafraid to bloom wherever we may land.’
Sky’s arms shot upwards to the roof and spread out like petals. Lexie busied herself with trying to remember if she’d ever shown her sister the tattoo she’d never even blossomed into. This was not the time to decide whether the girl had gone quite mad, or whether good sense sometimes came from the mouths of slightly annoying babes. Lexie needed more sleep.
A couple of hours later, Lexie reluctantly climbed out from under the duvet and looked for something to change into. The smell of her own body reminded her she hadn’t even showered since Marrakech. She felt positively crawling, not to mention ravenous.
‘We’ll make a move,’ Lexie told her sister. ‘We can’t live like this. It’s bloody miserable.’
‘Ooh, is the depression on its way? I could order pizza?’
‘Save your battery. You can’t charge your phone and we might need it for emergencies.’
‘Totally,’ said Sky. ‘Like if we get really bored and need to play Candy Crush.’
Lexie found it strangely reassuring when her sister returned to saying only dumb things.
Before long, Lexie was sitting in Penny Two’s driver’s seat with Sky at her side. Though, as she looked around her at the muddy field, she felt a worrying sense of foreboding. The rain was still attacking and Penny Two was no four-by-four. Would she even have the power to pull through the bogginess?
Lexie switched on the engine, put the van into gear, accelerated and prayed. But her prayers were rudely ignored.
‘Shit!’
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Sky, clearly missing the obvious.
‘The van won’t budge.’ And the more Lexie tried to accelerate, the further into the mud the vehicle dug itself. Bloody, bloody typical. She should have listened to her instincts and got out of there earlier. Much like with Nutgrass Hall.
‘Is this what you meant by an emergency?’ Sky waved her phone. ‘I could ring those breakdown people?’
‘I don’t have breakdown people.’
‘Grace has one of those Jeeps, doesn’t she? She could tow us out.’
Lexie considered the options. She hadn’t been in touch with Grace since any of this had kicked off. Or even her own parents. Nor bought a new SIM card yet. Not that she didn’t trust anyone, but the sooner people knew where she was, the sooner it could get back to Ben, if he made any attempts to snoop. She wasn’t ready to be found. If she ever had to face him again, it wouldn’t be as some loser living in a swampy field in the arse end of nowhere.
‘We’ll manage by ourselves for now,’ said Lexie. ‘Please don’t tell anyone where we are. I just need to process things. Decide on my next steps.’
‘Can the next steps involve food? It’s lunchtime and I can’t survive on handbag leftovers for ever.’
‘The next steps will involve food and a bucket-sized glass of wine. We’re going to leave the camper van here and find the nearest pub. I think I’ve hit the pain stage of this breakup, and it would feel less hideous if it was rosé tinted.’
Lexie pulled the keys from the ignition and the sisters climbed over the seats and back into the body of the van. As they searched for wellies and waterproofs, Lexie explained the plan of attack.
‘As well as eating a mountain of bangers and mash, we need to sort out a few things.’ If she’d learned anything from the last few months, it was that you couldn’t just bury your head and ignore logistics. She wasn’t a total pig in the mud. She grabbed the camping battery pack. ‘We need to pay someone to charge this for us.’
‘Got it,’ said Sky, grabbing a pen and paper from her bag and writing it down.
‘Then we need to find out who owns this land and see if we can pay them to stay here for a while.’
