by John Marrs
CHAPTER 12
TODAY
‘It’s taken us almost twenty hours in that shitty old truck with the air vents throwing out hot air for this? FOR THIS!’
Eric’s frustration reached boiling point, which felt like the same temperature as the cracked brown mud surrounding Buffalo Springs Lake. ‘It’s just a lake, like any other bloody lake in the world.’
‘What were you expecting?’ replied Nicole. ‘Narnia?’
‘I don’t know, but something more definitive than this. Something that made it obvious that what was written in the letter was not just the ramblings of a daft old cow on her deathbed!’
‘Don’t you dare call her that!’ shouted Nicole. ‘You don’t know anything about her.’
‘And you do? You barely knew her, but you were still willing to go off on a wild fucking goose chase around the world on her say so.’
‘You didn’t have to come with me,’ Nicole replied, close to tears.
‘No, and I wished I hadn’t. I don’t know which one of us is the more stupid.’
After a day and night driving 1,223 miles, only interspersed by broken sleep and catnaps, Nicole and Eric had finally arrived in Lubbock. And they’d spent their whole day driving around the town and looking at schools, shops and public amenities to see if anything Mrs Baker had written or spoken about jumped off the page.
They’d downloaded ‘American Pie’ from iTunes and played it over and over again, trying to find more clues hidden in the lyrics, but if they were there, they’d been very well camouflaged.Buffalo Springs was their final stop, and they were still looking for answers.
‘It’s Cooler at the Lake!’ a colourful banner over the car park entrance promised. But once they passed under it, it turned out to be no more than a body of water surrounded by campsites, stores, fishermen, a nature trail and a small, sandy beach.
‘Shit, shit, shit, shit!’ continued Eric, walking towards the passenger side of the truck and throwing himself into the seat. Then he lifted his foot and twice kicked the air vent on the dashboard with all his might. He glared at Nicole, climbed out of the truck again and stormed off up the beach.
It was the angriest Nicole had ever seen her friend. She accepted his occasional moodiness and ever-present sarcasm but she’d never witnessed an out and out temper tantrum before. At first, she saw the humour in it, especially when his arms flailed from side to side and reminded her of how puppeteers made the Muppets run. But as his rant continued and his eyes darkened, she felt something new towards Eric – unease.
As Eric’s figure grew ever smaller, Nicole took a deep breath, unaware of the favour he’d unwittingly done her.
CHAPTER 13
It had been a long, cold night sitting outside Zak’s home in the Hollywood Hills.
To fend off the chill, Ruth wore the jumper she’d almost completed for Zak. Expensive looking cars and yellow cabs dropped a couple of dozen people off at the gate up until around midnight, and although she strained her eyes to get a better view of them, it was too dark to make out their faces. Ruth was envious when they were granted immediate access to Zak’s estate and could only imagine what celebrities he was playing host to so close but yet so far away. Dance music blasted from his garden until the sun began to rise, and Ruth began to resent the laughter coming from behind the gates that separated her from her soulmate.
An exhausted Ruth slept through the guests’ departures and only woke at the sound of a van’s exhaust pipe back firing. She stretched, took off Zak’s jumper, wiped her armpits and face with the same moist tissue from the KFC box she’d bought earlier that night and felt her stomach rumble. She had long run out of food but she risked missing another chance to talk to Zak if she left now.
Ruth’s eyes were blurry and too sore to finish knitting the last cuff of the sweater and instead she reflected, admitting to herself that her first meeting with Zak hadn’t gone according to plan. She didn’t blame Zak for being standoffish with her; it made sense once she’d had time to think about it because she’d sounded like an idiot when she’d spoken.
But as soon as Zak got to know her, his opinion would surely change. She was excited about their next meeting, and it came much sooner than she’d anticipated. Because by mid-morning, his gates opened and his SUV began to pull out of the drive. However, the vehicle braked sharply before it reached the road.
‘Jesus H…?’ began Zak, opening the driver’s door and pulling off his sunglasses. ‘Have you been here all night? Are you paparazzi? Because you can’t prove shit about anything.’
Confused by what he meant, Ruth thrust the jumper into Zak’s chest with a huge, hopeful smile. He held it out to examine it – one arm was longer than the other, the neck hole was huge and the colours garish. And when he realised the crude effigy on the chest was supposed to be his face, he couldn’t contain his amusement.
‘Are you for real?’ Zak continued. ‘This is fucking hilarious!’
Ruth’s face ached with disappointment, and her hopeful smile faded as she watched Zak throw her jumper onto the grass verge and head back to his car.
‘And FYI,’ he added, ‘synthetics give me hives.’
CHAPTER 14
A day in the blazing sun wearing a hotdog costume gave Tommy’s face an oval-shaped redness.
He could smell his own body odour seeping into the costume’s fabric and he vowed to ask Mr Fiaca to think again about how to promote the business. But even though his skin and ankles were sore to the touch, he couldn’t stop smiling at his productivity.
He headed towards room 23 and knocked three times, then twice. Peyk answered cautiously then ushered him inside, glancing behind Tommy to check for prying eyes. Once inside and with his sunglasses on, Tommy fished out handfuls of notes from his shorts and handed them to Ron.
‘Sorry if they smell a bit,’ he muttered, embarrassed.
‘Tommy-boy!’ interrupted Peyk and patted his friend’s back, while Ron began to count the cash. ‘Who knew?’
‘There’s $628 here,’ said Ron.
‘And we only stopped because we ran out of product,’ said Tommy proudly.
Peyk nodded his head. ‘Good work, Howard Marx.’
The buzz Tommy earned from doing something he shouldn’t have been doing satisfied him and he justified his actions by telling himself it was for the future of the hostel. It didn’t harm that he’d siphoned off $100 from his earnings as commission, something he wouldn’t be mentioning to Peyk or Ron.
‘Same again tomorrow?’ asked Tommy, and his co-conspirators nodded their heads eagerly.
For the first time in weeks, Tommy hoped he wouldn’t be crossing paths with the long-lost Sean soon, as his best friend certainly wouldn’t have approved of the direction Tommy’s journey was taking him.
CHAPTER 15
It had been a quiet day for Jake in Venice Beach.
Out of choice, he kept himself to himself, preferring to throw himself into a book in the solitude of the hostel courtyard and then spending time on the roof. But try as he might to concentrate on Shantaram, he couldn’t get past the first few chapters of the 900-page epic and regularly became distracted. Several times Tommy appeared in his thoughts, and Jake wondered what he was up to. He vowed to try and catch up with him later and take him to dinner as he enjoyed Tommy’s company.
Jake couldn’t put his finger on why, but something had brought certain memories flooding back that he’d spent the last two years trying to bury. Sometimes waves from his past came crashing all around him, threatening to drown him, and the only way he could avoid going under was to take some time out by himself and process where everything had gone wrong, and who had been the architect of his misery.
TWO YEARS EARLIER – LONDON
‘So next week is your first Brit Awards, and Lightning Strikes have been nominated for four categories – has your new life sunk in yet?’
Stuart couldn’t decide if the blonde presenter was flirting with him or just doing her job. He struggled t
o hear her from their position on the red carpet in London’s Leicester Square.
‘Yeah, it has, but slowly,’ he replied into the microphone, her eyes darting around his face and struggling to find a fault.
‘But what we all want to know is if there’s any truth in the newspaper stories that you and soap star Katie Begley are getting married in the autumn?’
‘Oh, you know what the papers are like – let’s just as Katie and I are very happy the way we are and who knows what will happen in the future?’
‘Are tabloid rumours the downside of fame?’
‘I guess you get used to it, but the secret is to never give away everything about yourself. Always keep them wanting more.’
Stuart gave the presenter a peck on each cheek before wandering up the red carpet and posing for a picture with actor Zak Stanley, whose film premiere Lightning Strikes had been invited to. Within earshot of their PRs and the press, they offered each other mutual congratulations on their respective success before Stuart rejoined the rest of his band in the cinema foyer.
Zak’s assistant had already slipped Stuart an electronic key card to Zak’s hotel room. And Stuart couldn’t wait for the premiere to finish before he and Zak could spend their first night alone together in three weeks.
TODAY
‘Oh, sorry, I didn’t realise anyone was up here,’ Tommy began.
‘I was just thinking I’d not seen you for a while,’ replied Jake. ‘How’s your day been?’
Tommy considered recounting how many laws he’d been breaking but decided against it; he didn’t want to be judged by someone whose opinion he valued.
‘I’ve been working on the beach for most of it,’ he said, and surveyed the roof. ‘So you’ve found my secret bolthole, then?’
‘Ah, so is that your mattress and empty bottles?’
‘Not quite, but it’s a cool place to come and get away from everyone else. I love this hostel but sometimes I need a bit of “me” time.’
‘Same here,’ smiled Jake. ‘Do you—’
But before he could finish his sentence, the railing Jake was sitting back against began to creak. He tried to move his body forward but he couldn’t keep his balance. Instead, he felt his back pushing the railings away from the rusty screws that held them in place. Jake’s arms shot out in front of him and his eyes opened wide in blind panic. Instinctively, Tommy grabbed Jake’s wrist and, with all his strength, yanked him forward as the railing fell three storeys to the sidewalk below.
Both their hearts pounded and they stared into each other’s eyes as their terror gave way to relief. But Tommy’s reactions weren’t as fast when Jake pulled him forward and kissed him. Instead, Tommy remained frozen for the three seconds it took for Jake to realise Tommy wasn’t kissing him back. Jake stared at his friend, immediately regretting his spontaneity.
‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered, and quickly walked away, back down the stairs and towards his room.
Meanwhile Tommy wondered if his day could get any more bizarre.
CHAPTER 16
‘Your hooves are disgusting,’ began Eric, but Nicole kept her bare feet on the dashboard of the truck regardless.
Her red toenail varnish was chipped, and walking around in bare feet had left her soles dry and in desperate need of a pedicure.
‘And while you’re at it, maybe you could remind your legs what a razor looks like. You’re not German, and you’re not a lesbian.’
‘Okay, I’ll shave my legs when you remove that stick from your arse,’ Nicole replied, quietly proud of her comeback. ‘My feet are sweating down there so I’m letting them air.’
‘I love you, but you are a vile beast,’ Eric replied. Nicole took his smile as an apology for his earlier hissy fit, and decided she’d overreacted by fearing his mood swing. Nicole’s ponytail flicked from left to right as the warm wind blew through the open windows, but Eric’s face took the brunt of the sun.
‘Sweet Mary, mother of Jesus, this heat is turning my skin to leather,’ he moaned and pointed to the air vents. ‘And they are making it worse, because it’s like being blasted by a hairdryer.’
‘There’s a garage up ahead,’ said Nicole, ‘so I’ll fill the truck up with petrol and you stock up on more bottles of water.’
Eric pulled the truck onto the dusty forecourt, grabbed his wallet from the dashboard and headed into the store. Meanwhile Nicole grasped the nozzle of the petrol pump and began to fill the tank. Her eyes took in the station that could have come straight from a book of 1940s American photography. The pumps were decrepit but worked, and tiles were missing from the wooden pitched roof of the store.
She looked around the miles and miles of arid land ahead of them and wondered if she should call time on their adventure. This had been Mrs Baker’s final gift to her, she reckoned; the financial means and a kick up the backside she’d needed to climb out of her comfort zone and spend six weeks on the road travelling with her best friend. There was no pot of gold to find at the end of the rainbow because it hadn’t existed in the first place. Her actual reward was being free to do what she wanted to do, when she wanted to do it. And when all was said and done, she couldn’t put a price on that.
As the bell on the petrol pump told her she’d reached $40, the sun caught something in the car that dazzled her eye. She replaced the nozzle and opened the door to inspect the glimmer further, and squinted at the air vent Eric had kicked and cracked. The closer she got, the more it twinkled.
She poked her fingers inside, but the broken diagonal plastic strips were in her way. So, using both hands, she yanked at the air vent until it came away. Again Nicole wiggled her fingers inside, and this time, she pulled out a small, partially open velvet pouch with a drawstring. Puzzled, she undid the knot and poured the contents into her open palm.
It took a moment for her to understand it wasn’t a pouch full of broken glass, but of diamonds.
‘Only when you allow the warmth of new experiences to fill your heart, will you truly realise how precious a gem your life is,’ she whispered to herself, recalling the words written in Mrs Baker’s note. Then she recalled how Mrs Baker had spoken of the night she and her husband had spent by a lake while the stars above them ‘shone like diamonds.’ She turned her head and saw Eric at the cash register, paying for fuel and water.
‘Eric!’ Nicole shouted, and waved frantically to get his attention.
She poured the diamonds back into the pouch so Eric could experience the same surprise she felt, when she saw a small piece of torn paper crammed in the vent. The beaming smile spread across her face was rapidly replaced with confusion, then alarm, when she read the words.
‘Don’t let her son find these – they’re not for Eric.’
TWELVE WEEKS EARLIER – HOLLY COTTAGE, GREAT HOUGHTON, NORTHAMPTON
They had never met in person, but Mrs Baker’s housekeeper Maria recognised Eric from old family photographs now locked in a chest in her deceased employer’s attic.
Maria had expected someone to arrive at the cottage after Mrs Baker passed away but she hadn’t expected it to be Mrs Baker’s son.
‘Hello, my name is Nicole Grainger and this is my friend—’ the girl began.
She was as pretty as Mrs Baker had described her when Maria visited her in hospital. But she clamped her mouth shut and tried to hide her uneasiness at the sight of Eric. He had not been part of the plan.
‘I know why you’re here,’ Maria interrupted, and went back into the house leaving the front door open. She guessed Nicole and Eric were probably looking at each other, unsure of what to say when they followed her into Mrs Baker’s lounge.
‘Wait here,’ she ordered and left the room.
Maria closed the kitchen door behind her and uncharacteristically began to panic. She’d last seen Mrs Baker a few days before her death, when she’d told Maria of her plan to change a young nurse’s life. With Maria well provided for and bequeathed the cottage, Mrs Baker desperately wanted Nicole to experience the world. So
she dictated a letter which Maria wrote. The diamonds were already in the truck’s air vent as instructed, and on the passenger seat was a box with enough money to get the truck up and running and exported to America. Nicole was then to pick it up at a dock in Chicago, the city that was the starting point of Route 66.
In the event that Nicole failed to discover the diamonds, Mrs Baker told Maria that at least her protégé would have had the trip of a lifetime if she followed a vague map, her cryptic note and could recall their conversations together. But Maria knew the last thing Mrs Baker would have expected, or wanted, was for the boy she once described as ‘a wolf in wolf’s clothing’ to have benefited from them.
So Maria needed a Plan B. She darted around the kitchen, silently opening and closing drawers until she found a notepaper and pen. She hurriedly scribbled the words ‘Don’t let her son find these – they’re not for Eric’, and poked it into the air vent before regaining her poise and showing her visitors the pick-up truck.
Then she clasped her hands, entwined her fingers and hoped for the best.
TODAY
The note tore Nicole apart like a bird hitting a propeller.
She was familiar with the expression ‘blood running cold’ but had never experienced it until that moment. It didn’t make sense, she thought – how on earth could her best friend of two years be the son of Mrs Baker? Why wouldn’t he have mentioned such a crucial piece of information while his mother was dying in a room next to him or as he and Nicole planned their trip? Why had he never visited her? He’d had every opportunity to do so, so there could only be one probable reason for his silence – he was using his friendship with Nicole to find his inheritance.
Nicole’s mind continued to race, still trying to find alternative meanings in the scribbled note, but there were none. It was what it was, and gradually memories of the last couple of months began to fit together like pieces in a jigsaw – Eric’s recent criticism of a woman he never knew; his eagerness to take two-month, unpaid sabbatical from work and accompany Nicole, and then his fury when they reached Buffalo Springs Lake.
