by Jojo Moyes
"I can't forget it. I wanted to explain--"
"Nothing to explain. You were right. It was a stupid idea." She tucked her legs under her and stared away from him out of the window.
"It's just my life is too--"
"Really. It's not an issue. I just"--she let out a deep breath--"I just want to make sure we get to the Olympiad on time."
"But I don't want us to end it all like this."
"There's nothing to end." She put her feet on the dashboard. It felt like a statement. "Let's go."
"How many miles is it to Aberdeen?" Tanzie's face appeared between the front seats.
"What, left?"
"No. From Southampton."
Ed pulled his phone from his jacket and handed it to her. "Look it up on the Maps app."
She tapped the screen, her brow furrowed. "About five hundred and eighty?"
"Sounds about right."
"So if we're doing forty miles an hour, we'd have had to do at least six hours' driving a day. And if I didn't get sick, we could have done it--"
"In a day. At a push."
"One day." Tanzie digested this, her eyes trained on the Scottish hillsides in the distance ahead. "But we wouldn't have had such a nice time then, would we?"
Ed glanced sideways at Jess. "No, we wouldn't."
It took a moment before Jess's gaze slid back toward him. "No, sweetheart," she said after a beat. And her smile was oddly rueful. "No, we wouldn't."
--
The car ate the miles sleekly and efficiently. They crossed the Scottish border, and Ed tried--and failed--to raise a cheer. They stopped once for Tanzie to go to the loo, once twenty minutes later for Nicky to go ("I can't help it. I didn't have to go when Tanze did"), and three times for Norman (two were false alarms). Jess sat silently beside him, checking her watch and chewing at her nails. Nicky watched groggily out the window at the empty landscape, at the few flinty houses set into rolling hills. Ed wondered what would happen to Nicky after this was over. He wanted to suggest fifty other things to help him, but he tried to imagine someone suggesting things to him at the same age, and guessed he would have taken no notice at all. He wondered how Jess would keep him safe when they returned home.
The phone rang and he glanced over, his heart sinking. "Lara."
"Eduardo. Baby. I need to talk to you about this apartment."
He was aware of Jess's sudden rigidity, the flicker of her gaze. He wished, suddenly, that he hadn't chosen to answer the call.
"Lara, I'm not going to discuss this now."
"It's not a lot of money. Not for you. I spoke to my solicitor and he says it would be nothing for you to pay for it."
"I told you before, Lara, we made a final settlement."
He was suddenly conscious of the acute stillness of three people in the car.
"Eduardo. Baby. I need to sort this out with you."
"Lara--"
Before he could say anything more, Jess reached over and grabbed the phone. "Hello, Lara," she said. "Jess here. I'm awfully sorry but he can't pay for any more of your stuff, so there's really no point in ringing him anymore."
A short silence. Then an explosive: "Who is this?"
"I'm his new wife. Oh, and he'd like his Chairman Mao picture back. Perhaps just leave it with his lawyer. Okay? In your own time. Thanks so much."
The resulting silence had the same quality as the few seconds before an atomic explosion. But before any of them could hear what happened next, Jess flipped the Off button, and handed it back to him. He took it gingerly, and turned it off.
"Thank you," he said. "I think."
"You're welcome." She didn't look at him when she spoke.
Ed glanced into his rearview mirror. He couldn't be sure, but he thought Nicky was trying very hard not to laugh.
--
Somewhere between Edinburgh and Dundee, on a narrow, wooded lane, they had to slow down and then stop for a herd of cows in the road. The animals moved around the car, gazing in at its inhabitants with vague curiosity, a moving black sea, eyes rolling in woolly black heads. Norman stared back.
"Aberdeen Angus," said Nicky.
Suddenly, without warning, Norman hurled his whole body, snarling and growling at the window. The car jolted to one side, the backseat a chaotic mass of arms and noise and writhing dog. Nicky and Jess fought to reach him.
"Mum!"
"Norman! Stop!" The dog was on top of Tanzie, his face hard against the window. Ed could just make out her glittery pink jacket, flailing underneath him.
Jess lunged over the seat at the dog, grabbing for his collar. They dragged Norman back down from the window. He whined, shrill and hysterical, straining at their grasp, great gobs of drool spraying across the interior.
"Norman, you big idiot! What the hell--"
"He's never seen a cow before," Tanzie said, struggling upright.
"Jesus, Norman." Nicky grimaced.
"You okay, Tanze?"
"I'm fine."
The cows continued to part around the car, unmoved by the dog's outburst. Through the now steamed windows they could just make out the farmer at the rear, walking slowly and impassively, with the same lumbering gait as his bovine charges. He gave the barest of nods as he passed, as if he had all the time in the world. Norman whined and pulled against his collar.
"I've never seen him like that before." Jess straightened her hair and blew out through her cheeks. "Perhaps he could smell beef."
"I didn't know he had it in him," Ed said.
"My glasses." Tanzie held up the twisted piece of metal. "Mum. Norman broke my glasses."
It was a quarter past ten.
"I can't see anything without my glasses."
Jess looked at Ed. Shit.
"Okay," he said. "Grab a plastic bag. I'm going to have to put my foot down."
--
The Scottish roads were wide and empty, and Ed drove so fast that the GPS had to repeatedly reassess its timing to their destination. Every minute they gained was an imaginary air punch in his head. Tanzie was sick twice. He refused to stop to allow her to vomit into the road.
"She's really ill," Jess said.
"I'm fine," Tanzie kept saying, her face wedged into a plastic bag. "Really."
"You don't want to stop, sweetheart? Just for a minute?"
"No. Keep going. Bleurgh--"
There wasn't time to stop. Not that this made the car journey any easier to bear. Nicky had turned away from his sister, his hand over his nose. Even Norman's head was thrust as far out the window, into the fresh air, as he could get it.
He would get them there. He felt filled with purpose in a way that he hadn't in months. And finally, Aberdeen loomed before them, its buildings vast and silver gray, the oddly modern high-rises thrusting into the distant sky. He headed for the center, watched as the roads narrowed and became cobbled streets. They came through the docks, the enormous tankers on their right, and that was where the traffic slowed, and his confidence began to unravel. They sat in an increasingly anxious silence, Ed punching in alternative routes across Aberdeen that offered no time gain. The GPS started to work against him, adding back the time it had subtracted. It was fifteen, nineteen, twenty-two minutes until they reached the university building. Twenty-five minutes. Too many.
"What's the delay?" said Jess, to nobody in particular. She fiddled with the radio buttons, trying to find the traffic reports. "What's the holdup?"
"It's just sheer weight of traffic."
"That's such a lame expression," said Nicky. "Of course a traffic jam is sheer weight of traffic. What else would it be down to?"
"There could have been an accident," said Tanzie.
"But the jam itself would still comprise the traffic," Ed mused. "So technically, the problem is still the sheer weight of traffic."
"No, the volume of traffic slowing itself down is something completely different."
"But it's the same result."
"But then it's an inaccurate description."
Jess peered at the GPS. "Can we just focus here, people? Are we in the right place? I wouldn't have thought the docks would be near the university."
"We have to get through the docks to get to the university."
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure, Jess." Ed tried to suppress the tension in his voice. "Look at the GPS."
There was a brief silence. In front of them the traffic lights changed through two cycles without anybody moving. Jess, on the other hand, moved incessantly, fidgeting in her seat, peering around her to see if there was some clear route they might have missed. He couldn't blame her. He felt the same.
"I don't think we've got time to get new glasses," he murmured to her, when they'd sat through the fourth cycle.
"But she can't see without them."
"If we look for a chemist, we're not going to make it there for midday."
She bit her lip, then turned round in her seat. "Tanze? Is there any way you can see through the unbroken lens? Any way at all?"
A pale green face emerged from the plastic bag. "I'll try," it said.
Traffic stopped and stalled. They grew silent, the tension within the car ratcheting up. When Norman whined, they growled, "Shut up, Norman!" as one. Ed felt his blood pressure rising. Why hadn't they left half an hour earlier? Why hadn't he worked this out better? What would happen if they missed it? He glanced sideways to where Jess was tapping her knee nervously and guessed that she was thinking the same thing. And then finally, inexplicably, as if the gods had been toying with them, the traffic cleared.
He flung the car through the cobbled streets, Jess yelling, "Go! Go!" and leaning forward on the dashboard as if she were a coachman driving a horse. He skidded the car around the bends, almost too fast for the GPS, which hiccupped its instructions, and entered the university campus, then followed the small printed signs that had been placed haphazardly on random poles until they found the Downes Building, an unlovely 1970s office block in the same gray granite as everything else.
The car screeched into a parking space in front of it, and as Ed cut the ignition, everything stopped. He let out a long breath and glanced at the clock. It was six minutes to twelve.
"This is it?" Jess said peering out.
"This is it."
Jess appeared suddenly paralyzed, as if she couldn't believe they were actually there. She undid her seat belt and stared at the car park, at the boys strolling in as if they had all the time in the world, reading off electronic devices, accompanied by tense-looking parents. The kids were all wearing private school uniforms. "I thought it would be . . . bigger," she said.
Nicky gazed out through the dank gray drizzle. "Yeah. Because advanced maths is such a crowd-pleaser."
"I can't see anything," said Tanzie.
"Look, you guys go in and register. I'll get her some glasses."
Jess turned to him. "But they won't be the right prescription."
"It'll be better than nothing. Just go. Go."
He could see her staring after him as he skidded out of the car park and headed back toward the city center.
--
It took seven minutes and three attempts to find a chemist large enough to sell reading glasses. Ed screeched to a halt so dramatic that Norman shot forward and his great head collided with his shoulder. The dog resettled himself on the backseat, grumbling.
"Stay here," Ed told him, and bolted inside.
The shop was empty aside from an old woman with a basket and two assistants talking in lowered voices. He skidded around the shelves, past tampons and toothbrushes, corn plasters and reduced Christmas gift sets until he finally found the stand by the till. Dammit. He couldn't remember if she was far-or nearsighted. He reached for his phone to ask, then remembered he didn't have Jess's number.
"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck." Ed stood there, trying to guess. Tanzie's glasses looked as if they might be pretty strong. He had never seen her without them. Would that mean she was more likely to be nearsighted? Didn't all children tend to be nearsighted? It was adults who held things away from them to see, surely. He hesitated for about ten seconds and then, after a moment's indecision, pulled them all from their rack, far-and nearsighted, mild and super strength, and dumped them on the counter in a clear plastic-wrapped pile.
The girl broke off her conversation with the old woman. She looked down at the glasses, then up at him. Ed saw her clock the drool on his collar and tried to wipe it surreptitiously with his sleeve. This succeeded in smearing it across his lapel.
"All of them. I'll take all of them," he said. "But only if you can ring them up in less than thirty seconds."
She looked over at her supervisor, who gave Ed a penetrating stare, then an imperceptible nod. Without a word, the girl began to ring them up, carefully positioning each pair in a bag. "No. No time. Just chuck them in," he said, reaching past her to thrust them into the plastic carrier.
"Do you have a loyalty card?"
"No. No loyalty card."
"We're doing a special three for two offer on diet bars today. Would you like--"
Ed scrambled to pick up the glasses that had fallen from the counter. "No diet bars," he said. "No offers. Thank you. I just need to pay."
"That'll be a hundred and seventy-four pounds," she said finally. "Sir."
She peered over her shoulder then, as if half expecting the arrival of a prank television crew. But Ed scribbled his signature, grabbed the carrier bag, and ran for the car. He heard "No manners" in a strong Scottish accent as he left.
There was nobody in the car park when he returned. He pulled up right outside the door, leaving Norman clambering wearily onto the backseat, and ran inside, down the echoing corridor. "Maths competition? Maths competition?" he yelled at anyone he passed. A man pointed wordlessly to a laminated sign. Ed bolted up a flight of steps two at a time, along another corridor, and into an anteroom. Two men sat behind a desk. On the other side of the room stood Jess and Nicky. She took a step toward him. "Got them." He held up the carrier bag, triumphantly. He was so out of breath he could barely speak.
"She's gone in," she said. "They've started."
He looked up at the clock, breathing hard. It was seven minutes past twelve.
"Excuse me?" he said to the man at the desk. "I need to give a girl in there her glasses."
The man looked up slowly. He eyed the plastic bag Ed held in front of him.
Ed leaned right over the desk, thrusting the bag toward him. "She broke her glasses on the way here. She can't see without them."
"I'm sorry, sir. I can't let anyone in now."
Ed nodded. "Yes. Yes, you can. Look, I'm not trying to cheat or sneak anything in. I just didn't know her glasses type so I had to buy every pair. You can check them. All of them. Look. No secret codes. Just glasses." He held the bag open in front of him. "You have to take them in to her so she can find a pair that fits."
The man gave a slow shake of his head. "Sir, we can't allow anything to disrupt the other--"
"Yes. Yes, you can. It's an emergency."
"It's the rules."
Ed stared at him hard for a full ten seconds. Then he straightened up, put a hand to his head, and started to walk away from him. He could feel a new pressure building inside him, like a kettle juddering on a hot plate. "You know something?" he said, turning around. "It has taken us three solid days and nights to get here. Three days in which I have had my very nice car filled with vomit, and unmentionable things done to my upholstery by a dog. I don't even like dogs. I have slept in a car with a virtual stranger. Not in a good way. I have stayed places no reasonable human being should have to stay. I have eaten an apple that had been down the too-tight trousers of a teenage boy and a kebab that for all I know contained human flesh. I have left a huge, huge personal crisis in London and driven five hundred and eighty miles with people I don't know--very nice people--because even I could see that this competition was really, really important to them. Vitally important. Because all the little girl in there cares about is maths. An
d if she doesn't get a pair of glasses she can actually see through, she can't compete fairly in your competition. And if she can't compete fairly, she blows her only chance to go to the school that she really, really needs to go to. And if that happens, you know what I'll do?"
The man stared.
"I will go into that room of yours, and I will walk around to every single maths paper and I will rip them into teeny-tiny pieces. And I will do it very, very quickly, before you have a chance to call your security guards. And you know why I will do this?"
The man swallowed. "No."
"Because all this has to have been worth something." Ed went back to him and leaned close to him. "It has to."
Something had happened to Ed's face. He could feel it, the way it seemed to have twisted itself into shapes he had never felt before. And in the way Jess stepped forward and gently put her hand on his arm.
She passed the man the bag of glasses. "We'd be really, really grateful if you took her the glasses," she said quietly.
The man stood up and walked around the desk toward the door. He kept his eyes on Ed at all times. "I'll see what I can do," he said. And the door closed gently behind him.
--
They walked out to the car in silence, oblivious to the rain. Jess unloaded the bags. Nicky stood off to the side, his hands thrust as far into his jeans pockets as he could manage. Which, given the tightness of his jeans, wasn't very far.
"Well, we made it." She allowed herself a small smile.
"I said we would." Ed nodded toward the car. "Shall I wait here until she's finished?"
She wrinkled her nose. "No. You're fine. We've held you up long enough."
Ed felt his smile sag a little. "Where will you sleep tonight?"
"If she does well, I might treat us to a fancy hotel. If she doesn't . . ." She shrugged. "Bus shelter." The way she said this suggested she didn't believe it.
She walked around to the rear door of the car. Norman, who had glanced at the rain and decided not to get out, looked up at her.
Jess stuck her head through the door. "Norman, time to go."
A small pile of bags sat on the wet ground behind the Audi. She hauled a jacket out of a bag and handed it to Nicky. "Come on, it's cold."
The air held the salt tang of the sea. It made him think suddenly of Beachfront. "So . . . is this . . . it?"
"This is it. Thank you for the lift. I . . . we . . . all appreciate it. The glasses. Everything."
They looked at each other properly for the first time that day, and there were about a billion things he wanted to say.
