Page 8 of Broken Beyond Repair
“No, I was visiting my mum and taking some time out between the jobs that your slave driver boyfriend has me doing.”
James stuck his tongue out at Sydney, earning him a sly smirk from her in return.
“He’s not that bad, surely?” Will asked, smiling around the straw in his mouth.
“Choose your next words very wisely, Miss MacKenzie,” James said, adding a hint of a Scottish accent as he spoke her name.
“James… keeps me as busy as I wish to be,” Sydney settled on. “This is my first break in a year.” Glaring at James, she added, “Which is why I’m so keen to keep it.”
“MacKenzie?” Will asked. “You don’t sound Scottish.”
“We’re not far over the border. You don’t cross Hadrian’s Wall and suddenly develop a Scottish accent.”
“But Scotland is home?”
Sydney considered his question for a moment before answering.Home is where the heart is.Where that was, she couldn’t pinpoint. Thirty-six years on the planet and nowhere felt like home.
Although part of her heart was with her mum in Scotland, the small town an hour from Edinburgh wasn’t home. After they moved there from Australia when she was seven, she’d never bonded with the polar opposite of her early childhood life. Gone were the sandy beaches, sunshine, and barbecues; in came the mountains, rocky shores, and waterproof clothing.
“Syd’s a nomad,” James answered for her. “She and Gertie travel the country wherever I give her a job. It works well, as she doesn’t like to stay in one place for too long. She’s popular amongst my clients that flit in and out of the country regularly.”
“Don’t you get stressed out jumping from one job to the next?” Will asked.
“No. I love it. I spent a lot of time on the sea with my dad when I was younger, so I’ve always had the urge to keep moving and explore new places. I’ve never been anywhere long enough to call home.”
“But where do you keep your shit?”
Sydney twitched her head. “Sorry?”
“That’s home,” Will explained. “Where you keep all your shit from school—the pointless trophies, exercise books, cuddly toys.”
“I threw it all out.”
That was a lie. She’d kept Bertie, a bear her dad had given her when she was ten. She kept him in Gertie to this day. He’d initially come as a disappointment. By the age of ten, she was enamoured by camper vans, the idea of sleeping out and stargazing from the windows excited her like nothing else. Her dad had always promised her one, and each birthday she’d been met with, “Maybe next year.”
She’d begun to give up on the idea when, on her seventeenth birthday, her dad handed her a present. She’d torn the poorly wrapped paper from the box and opened the lid to find a key with a keyring of a pale blue VW T1 camper. Her dreams had finally come true when she peered down from her bedroom window to see a full-sized version parked on the driveway. ‘Gertie’ was the first word from her mouth.
They had worked on restoring her bodywork together during the holidays. It had taken until graduation to give her the finishing touches of a full respray and to fit her new interior. She was a stunner to look at but left much to be desired underneath her engine flap. Sydney returned to her life on the south coast with Gertie, on the promise her dad would upgrade the 45-horsepower engine the next time she returned to Scotland. Sydney felt glum as she recalled how her eventual return had been overshadowed, and Gertie remained underpowered, mechanically on her last legs.
“You threw it all out?” Will gawked. “Seriously?”
“I’ve never needed possessions,” she said. “When we moved from Australia when I was little, we couldn’t bring a lot with us, and then we moved around Scotland quite a bit. We never had a lot of money to buy anything, so I have no baggage and no bills to pay except for Gertie’s and a mobile phone. All we need is a bit of fuel to keep us moving. I find it helps when I take on all that for my clients. I can focus on them.”
James shook his head at her with faux disgust. “You really are dedicated to the cause. I guess I should be proud, but you’d only demand a pay rise.”
“Are you Australian then?” Will asked, unrelenting with his questioning.
“I was born in Australia to Scottish parents. I’m not sure what that makes me.”
“Confused?” James suggested.
“Your lifestyle sounds lush. I’m kind of jealous. I could see myself in a camper, living the dream,” Will said, staring into the distance.
Raising his sunglasses over his receding hairline, James glared at Will. “Don’t you go getting any ideas. I need you at home by my side.”
Will winked at him, scooped up James’s hand, and kissed the back of it.
They were annoyingly cute, as most couples were when they were in their first year together.
