From Italy With Love

For some reason his punctuality surprised her. Robert lived his life to the second, a slave to perfect timing. She’d assumed Cam would be either very early or very late.

With a last glance around the kitchen, she picked up her bag and hurried for the door. Her fingers toyed with her engagement ring. It would be mean and petty to dump it on the hall table. Reducing herself to Robert’s level. It didn’t feel right leaving without saying a proper goodbye but he’d left her no choice. Leaving her ring would have made a symbolic statement which would hurt him. A bit of distance now was probably exactly what they needed. The row about not getting married was utterly stupid and for him to carry it on and refuse to talk to her was even more stupid.

Crossing quickly to the front door, she yanked it open. She didn’t want Cam wondering if she’d chickened out or to see the indecision lurking on her face. She had to go, for Miles and … Robert had to understand.

She crossed her fingers, hoping she was doing the right thing.

Forty-eight hours had lapsed since Robert issued his final ultimatum and he hadn’t uttered a word to her. She hated going away without settling things between them but when he’d gone ahead and booked an appointment at the registry office, despite everything she’d said, it had made her dig her heels in. She felt bruised and exhausted. Having spent the last two nights on her own in the double bed in the master bedroom, with Robert in the spare room and pointedly refusing speak to her as they played dozy doe around the kitchen, it was a huge relief to get out of the house and away.

As soon as she opened the door, the car’s low level rumble buzzed through her making her legs turn to jelly as the enormity of the adventure hit her. For a moment she wanted nothing more than to turn back into the dark hallway of home, beg Robert’s forgiveness, call the head librarian and say she was cancelling her very short-notice holiday and didn’t want to be considered for voluntary redundancy after all. Then the dragon’s roar of the engine pulled at her, as enticing as a siren call and as she stepped into the summer sunshine, excitement shimmered with the promise of something wonderful.

In the tiny garden, dancing delphiniums, phlox and lupins nodded their heads in unison, urging her on as if all the elements had conspired to send her off.

Cam met her half-way down the path.

‘Morning. Let me take that for you.’ He looked beyond her expectantly at the door. Is this everything?’ he asked, an odd look crossing his face. If she’d had to guess she’d have said it was disappointment.

She nodded feeling disconcerted. Didn’t men prefer to travel light?

In response he snatched up her bag and then with a sigh he touched her elbow as if to guide her toward the car which waited at the gate, the silver bodywork gleaming in the sunlight. ‘I’ll take these as well.’ He took her jacket and an ancient beige cardigan she’d grabbed at the last minute. She gave a reluctant smile. Despite his odd demeanour, he had good manners and being looked after felt rather nice.

Bugger, just his luck, the first female of his acquaintance who didn’t need an entire wardrobe at their disposal. He’d deliberately avoided talking to her about luggage. A hard shell case was hopeless, you needed something that would squash into the tiny luggage areas. Whether by luck or by judgement, she’d got it right. No, judgement, she was one of life’s sensible girls and about as low maintenance as they came … and he was an expert. Sylvie had never travelled light; she couldn’t leave the house without packing half the contents of the bathroom cabinet in her handbag. The size of Laurie’s bag wouldn’t have contained Sylvie’s accessories let alone a week’s worth of clothes.

It messed plan A up though. She was supposed to have a great big suitcase full of clothes which he would have made her unpack and repack into a much smaller bag right there on the doorstep, accompanied with constant reminders that they had to get on the road otherwise they’d miss their train. The idea was that with his interference, she’d make decisions in such haste that she’d end up with all the wrong sorts of clothes for the trip.

At least he’d snaffled her cardigan and coat, he thought with a wry grin, as they went with her bag into the boot. She might live to regret handing them over quite so easily.

‘Good bag choice,’ he lied, flashing a smile, hoping it might loosen her up. This was going to be a long journey and it was going to be damn uncomfortable for the first leg. He ignored the twinge of guilt as he looked at her short-sleeved T shirt. Crossing his fingers behind his back, he hoped she was one of life’s stoics otherwise he was in for a lot of earache. He didn’t have her down as a sulker. In fact he didn’t have her down for anything. She seemed incredibly self-contained, distant and buttoned-up. Nothing emotion-wise leaked from her face. Even her mouth measured out in a straight line of neutrality, neither disapproving nor approving.

The rare view of the carefree girl on the race track had vanished again as if he’d imagined it. She inclined her head but still didn’t say much. He sighed loud enough to make the point. Her handbag suddenly seemed to command all her attention, and he watched as she touched her passport, and smoothed a bunch of papers.

‘You happy for me to drive the first leg. Get us to the tunnel?’

She nodded and he wondered at the flash of relief crossing her face. She didn’t need to worry; her driving rated well above competent. Hell, she knew how to handle a car. Amusement flooded anew through him. Who’d have thought it, although she’d scared the shit out of him at the time?

‘Not got any more surprises for me?’ he asked with a wry smile, thinking of what he’d got in store for her.

Her eyes widened. ‘No. Why?’

She sounded nervy again, with that tone of almost guilt. ‘Just wanted to check you weren’t going to pull any more stunts like the last one.’

She shook her head, her ponytail whipping out quickly, reminding him of a dog shaking itself dry.

‘Got everything?’ he asked firing up the ignition.

For a moment he saw her hands grip together around the bag, as if clutching a lifebelt.

‘Yes,’ her chin lifted as if she’d come to a decision. ‘Let’s go.’

For the first couple of miles he concentrated on the road and had to go at a relatively steady pace. In the heavy sweater he felt too warm but he sat it out, knowing that as soon as they hit the faster road, he’d be grateful for it.

Once they joined the M25 and started to pick up speed, nipping along in the fast lane, the temperature began to drop inside the car. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Laurie shrink into her seat as if trying to escape the chilly breeze that was leaking through the nearly closed windows.

‘Sorry, the windows don’t fit as well as they do in a modern car,’ he shouted over the shrill whine of the wind that filtered through the small gap. ‘Should have forewarned you,’ he lied. Before he’d set off that morning he’d deliberately tampered with the windows, opening them just a few millimetres so that they would let the air whistle in to make the journey as uncomfortably draughty and noisy as possible. Now they were cruising along at seventy, the full effect had made itself felt.

‘You OK,’ he yelled, cheerfully mindful of the goose bumps appearing on her arms.

‘Fine.’

He smiled to himself and then focused on the road, nipping into the outside lane and starting to pick up speed. At eighty the whistling was horrible and starting to hurt his ears, but no pain no gain. For the next twenty minutes he needed to keep his wits about him. The M25 was a pig at the best of times, with a tendency to back up with no notice and invariably you got some pillock spotting the badge and deciding to take you on.

It was only when he realised how cold his hands were that he risked a glance at Laurie. Unfortunately the effect of the cold on Laurie’s body had made itself very apparent and her nipples on her small rounded breasts were suddenly very prominent. Like a magnet they drew his gaze and Laurie glanced round and caught him in the act. With a florid blush staining her cheeks, she crossed her arms and determinedly looked out of the window.

He swallowed hard. Shit the last thing he’d meant to do was embarrass her.

‘Do you want me to stop? So you can get a jumper or something?’

‘No,’ she muttered, her head still turned away from him.

He felt a complete arse but despite that, now that he’d registered the peaked nipples, he couldn’t seem to help himself keep checking her profile.

Letting her freeze was one thing, humiliating her was another.

‘Do you want to see if you can do something with the windows, sometimes the mechanism works loose during the journey. You might be able to wind it up a bit.’ The lies sounded lame to his own ears.

She gave him a sharp glance and with quick neat fingers, wound the old fashioned lever. The glass slid smoothly into place with a sharp clean move, immediately quenching the awful whistling and the cold wind.

Watching the road, he didn’t need to turn to her to see her steady gaze on him; he could damn well feel it boring into him.

‘Funny that. Do you think your side might have “worked loose” too?’

He wound his window up feeling like a chastened schoolboy. OK, so that hadn’t gone so well, but they had a long way to go and he still had plan C.

Hopefully without talking and no music, Laurie would quickly get bored and realise that ownership of this car was quite different to the comfort and ease she was used to.

An hour into the journey, he realised that although she seemed quiet and contemplative, she’d relaxed a little. Like a student determined to learn everything she could, she watched the gear changes and studied the flow of the traffic around them. He smiled at her concentration. She looked like a rapt robin, her head bobbing up and down, her lower lip caught between her teeth as she took everything in.

The bing of her mobile coincided with them mounting the incline of the Dartford Bridge. The fingers on the hand holding the phone whitened, as she read whatever the message said and he heard her breath hiss out. He waited, sliding into the middle lane, still aware of all the traffic around them, expectant of some moan or complaint. Except that was totally unfair. So far, despite having some cause, she hadn’t moaned or complained once and despite him not talking, she seemed quite capable of holding her own counsel.

Clearly something was going on with the texts, it was the fourth she’d received since they set off and her face had become increasingly grim but she’d not said a word. Not like his ex-wife who liked to share every nuance of emotion and feeling, and had expected the same in response.

He winced at the memories. The constant emotional barrage had pushed him further and further back like a snail retreating into its shell for safety. He didn’t want his emotions picked over constantly but she’d taken it as failure and the more he retreated the more she needed him to ‘talk to her’.

Something had clearly upset Laurie but she seemed content to keep it to herself. Or was that him failing ‘to empathise’ which Sylvie had accused him of on a regular basis.

‘You OK?’ he asked.

‘Yeah, fine.’ She turned her head and looked out of the passenger window. He was getting a little fed up with looking at the back of her ponytail all the time. On the edge of his vision, he could see she lifted her chin and held the tension in the tendons in her neck. Remembering how it felt when Sylvie had persisted, he took her at her word and focused on the traffic.

Cam obviously hadn’t spent much time on public transport. Half her teenage years had been spent travelling on rickety old buses which invariably broke down half way to Milton Keynes. If he thought a bit of a draught bothered her, it just went to show how different they were. No doubt the sort of women he was used to would catch a chill or need to be wrapped up in furs. She curled her lip as much in disgust with herself, if she wasn’t careful she’d turn into a right old curmudgeon. Staring out of the window, she watched the grey choppy waves of the Thames below the bridge. They matched her mood, scratchy and unsettled. Not angry, not sad … just antsy. She hated feeling like this. Only a few weeks ago everything had been fine. Normal.

Robert’s text had her clenching her fists under her thighs, hidden from Cam. The last thing she wanted to do was air her dirty laundry.

I take it you’ve gone then. I might not be here when you get back. Hope you’re happy now.

Of course she wasn’t happy. Upsetting him hadn’t been her intention but it would have been wrong to get married, to rush it now. Not when it didn’t feel right.

Ironically, his childish text pushed aside the guilt that had been mounting ever since she closed the front door, firming her resolve. She’d started this journey; she was going to finish it, with or without Robert’s approval.

Arriving at the Channel Tunnel was disappointing. She’d envisioned a yawning black hole that was clearly visible for miles, a scary looking challenge not for the faint-hearted which brought up images of Stargate, The Hobbit and Dr Who. Instead it was all horribly pedestrian, the most boring train station on the planet immortalised in industrialised concrete.

The only vaguely exotic thing was the paper hanger with the letter G which was propped on top of the dashboard.

As they drew into a parking space in the busiest section of the car park, Cam turned to her. ‘Both of us can’t leave the car at the same time. We’ll have to take it in turns to go in. Unless you need the loo, I’ll go and get us a drink. Tea or Coffee?’

‘I’m fine. Tea, please, milk and one sugar.’

He got out of the car and then leaned back in to call across, ‘You might want to get out and stretch your legs, but stay by the car. You don’t want some little oik scratching it or anything.’

Twisting in her seat, she did feel a little stiff and it would be good to get out in the sunshine. After Cam’s little refrigeration stunt, she could do with warming up. Unwinding herself from the seat, she got out and found herself with an audience. In the few short minutes they’d been there, the car had drawn an interested couple of by-standers. They stared at her and then at the car and she smiled stiffly back at them. It felt a bit like showing off to be standing right beside it, as if to say, look at me and my car. Shifting, she looked down at the floor, wishing she’d grabbed her handbag. She could have pretended to be texting or something.

A woman came up right next to her, and without saying a word, pushed her way between Laurie and the car and put her hand on the bonnet. Too surprised to say anything, Laurie took a step back and watched in amazement as the woman’s boyfriend calmly took a couple of shots of the woman with his phone.

‘Nice car,’ he tossed at her as he draped his arm across the woman’s shoulders and they walked off.

‘Mind if I take a picture?’ asked another man. Smartly dressed in a suit in his mid-forties, he looked as if he were on his way to a meeting.

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