Page 85 of The Flowers of Bay C
I gaze out of the window, hoping for a lit-up house, for any signs at all of civilisation. There is nothing, just wild rural countryside, fast turning ghostly white, crystals dancing in the beam of the headlights.
‘No,’ I say, shaking my head from side to side. ‘No. Sorry, please, just take us to the next village.’
‘No more words from any of you?’
I zip my thumb and finger across my mouth.
He yanks the steering wheel to his right and floors the accelerator, the whole thing squealing as it wrenches itself out of the mangled bush. ‘Damn it.’
He manages to wrestle the thing into compliance and drives on. Snow falls harder, drifting over the car and settling on the windows. He turns the windscreen wipers to full and curses again.The sound of them swishing across the glass is strangely soothing, their rhythmic scrapes and groaning squeals mingling with the warm fug in the car, settling my ragged pulse and dragging me into a fitful doze.
I jolt awake as the car comes to a rolling stop. I’m confused for a few seconds, looking around me and trying to work out where I am.
‘Damn thing’s broken down.’ DCD turns, scowling, spitting out his words. ‘Stay here while I try and get this sorted out.’
Kat digs her phone out again, but her resigned exhale tells me all I need to know.
‘Are we near the village?’ Jodie says sleepily.
‘I don’t think so,’ I say, peering out of the window at the whitewashed landscape. All I can see are fields of snow, stretching on for ever, falling away on both sides, and skeletal trees with their winter-bared branches bending and twisting to the grey skies. Way up ahead I think I can see something that might be a light, but it’s too far to tell.
DCD pops his bonnet and slams his door closed after him, leaving us sitting in silence, the car cooling far too quickly. There’s a slight acrid stench in the air, the engine overheated by dragging a great ancient caravan in these conditions.
‘It’s one thing after another, isn’t it,’ Kat says.
No one replies.
Jodie huddles deeper into her blanket and stares out of the window, her eyes paler than ever as they reflect the barren snowscape.
‘At least we’re indoors. At least we’re not still out there on the road,’ I say.
‘Shouldn’t’ve come in the first place,’ Violet mutters.
‘Nothelpful,’ says Kat.
We wait as he clatters and clanks around out there, the car shaking back and forth, the chassis squawking in misery. We wait and we watch as our breath begins to form small clouds in the air.
‘Bit chilly in ’ere,’ Barbara says.
For some reason this tickles me, and I laugh out loud. The others look at me as though I’ve lost the plot, and I stare down at my hands.
After too many minutes I hear him shout, ‘Finally!’ and then he slams the bonnet down and wrenches his door open. ‘Right. Out, you lot.’
‘What?’ Kat says.
‘Get out. I’m late and I can’t dilly dally no longer for you lot.’
It’s not our fault your useless car broke down, I want to say.
None of us move. I watch as his face changes before us, his eyes narrowing, the door light revealing a pulsing vein in his neck as he leans in.
‘The village isn’t far,’ Kat says, though I’m not sure there is a village up ahead at all.
‘I don’t care. I’ve got to go the other way.’ He points to a road up ahead, a tiny country lane that looks like it might lead to some desolate farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. ‘I’ve brought you this far. Besides, there’s a bus stop right there.’ He points over to the other side of the road where there is, indeed, a bus shelter, one of those old-fashioned wooden ones with three sides enclosed. ‘You can get a bus somewhere, I’m sure one’ll be along soon. Now, piss off.’
I’m not at all sure about the bus. I’m not even sure any buses come along this lonely road anymore. With its snow covering it looks like something from an alien planet, so far from civilisation nothing and no one ever comes here. We haven’t met another car since we started out, back at the beach.
‘I’m not gonna ask you again.Get out of my car.’
