The Road Ahead

by Amanda Radley

  Rebecca snorted. “The places we’ve been driving past make that look like a palace. We’re really out in the sticks.”

  Arabella got her phone out and started to tap away on the screen. “There must be somewhere around here where we won’t catch tetanus.”

  Rebecca looked around the road. For as far as she could see in all directions, there was nothing. Scrubland and the odd wreck of a building. Closed hotels and bars were few and far between.

  “We’re in the middle of nowhere,” Arabella announced.

  “I told you.” Rebecca smothered a yawn behind her hand.

  “What was that?” Arabella asked.

  Rebecca frowned. “Nothing.”

  “That wasn’t nothing, you yawned.”

  “It was just a small yawn, nothing much. I’d drink more of my energy drink, but I don’t want to do that until I know we’re near a bathroom.”

  Arabella looked up at the scenery. “Maybe we should pull off the road? Look for a town?” She looked back at her phone and started to tap in a new search.

  “There’s a garage about forty minutes up the road we’re on,” Arabella said. “It’s a dive, but it promises to have a bathroom, petrol, and food. Or we can turn off and be at a garage in twenty minutes, but we will be heading generally away from our route.”

  Rebecca pressed lightly on the accelerator pedal, pushing the car ever so slightly over the speed limit. It wasn’t something she was comfortable doing, but she wasn’t about to start going backwards.

  “I can hold on for forty minutes, you?”

  “As long as you’re sure?” Arabella asked. “I mean, I don’t want you to kill us both.”

  Rebecca rolled her eyes. “You nearly said something nice then.”

  “I’ve said plenty of nice things,” Arabella defended.

  “Must have missed them.” Rebecca winced at her own tone.

  She didn’t want to speak to Arabella like that, it wasn’t in her nature to be rude. She was just getting frustrated with the situation. She desperately wanted to be home and her back was aching, but that was no reason to take it out on a nearly innocent bystander.

  “Then you’ll just have to pay more attention, I’m not likely to repeat them,” Arabella said with a jokey tone.

  Rebecca smiled. It would have been easy for Arabella to reply sarcastically, but she hadn’t.

  Maybe she’s not that bad, Rebecca thought. Just takes a while to get through the thick skin.

  “I’ll listen out for them,” she promised.

  “On reflection, I’m not sure I want that walk around the car after all,” Arabella said as they pulled into the garage and came to a stop.

  Rebecca leaned forward and wrapped her arms around the top of the steering wheel. She looked at the rickety old shack. The building looked like it was made of scraps of wood and metal and was precariously close to the edge of a steep cliff.

  There were no petrol pumps, just tyre tracks that had burrowed a groove into the ground in front of the building. A cardboard sign, written in marker pen, hung clumsily by a single nail on the door. The light of the setting sun made it all the more ominous.

  “How’s your Spanish?” Rebecca asked, indicating the sign.

  “Ring for service,” Arabella translated.

  Rebecca looked at the old-fashioned brass bell that hung by the door. “Right, so I should—”

  Arabella grabbed her forearm and spun to face her. “Do we want to do this? This is the kind of place where innocent travellers like you and I go missing.”

  Rebecca scoffed. “Says who?”

  “Movies!”

  “Yeah, on a Halloween fright night special, maybe. The last movie I saw was a musical. No one died. In fact, everyone was happy and dancing.”

  “Why am I not surprised?”

  Rebecca shook her head and removed Arabella’s hand from her arm. “I’m going to ring the bell. If an axe murderer appears, beep the horn to warn me, okay?”

  She opened the door and got out of the car. Stretching her hands above her head, she enjoyed the sounds of her lower back cracking. She walked towards the shack, examining the property for any signs of life as she went.

  An old caravan was parked around the side of the building, but she couldn’t tell if it was lived in or abandoned.

  A thought occurred to her that the whole place might be abandoned. They may have driven forty minutes to find a closed garage. Maybe the next one was an hour away. She was pretty sure her bladder wouldn’t survive that kind of wait.

  She reached up and rang the bell a couple of times, hard.

  She took a step back and looked around for any attendants. She looked at Arabella, who had shrunk back into her seat and was anxiously looking around.

  Suddenly the door opened.

  “Si?”

  Rebecca spun around to address the elderly man standing there. “Oh, hi, do you speak English?”

  The man looked from her to the car. He was a frail, tiny thing. “Gas?”

  “Yes.” Rebecca nodded her head. “And, a bathroom? Toilet?”

  The man looked at her with a frown.

  “Lavatory?” Rebecca tried.

  He smiled and nodded in understanding. He indicated around the building, the opposite side to the caravan, towards the cliff. Rebecca wondered if he was suggesting she find a bush.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Um, I mean gracias!”

  She turned to see Arabella struggling to get out of the car.

  “Jesus,” she mumbled under her breath. “Why doesn’t she ask for help?”

  The man disappeared back into the shack, and Rebecca walked over to the car to assist Arabella.

  “You okay?”

  “What did he say?” Arabella asked, pulling her crutch from the car and leaning awkwardly on it.

  “He said ‘gas’,” Rebecca said. “And I said yes.”

  “Is there a bathroom?”

  “Apparently around the corner.” Rebecca gestured with her thumb. “Are you okay?”

  Arabella struggled to stand straight, leaning heavily on the crutch. “Yes, just a little stiff.”

  “Same here.”

  She heard a noise and turned around to see the Spanish man exiting the shack with a large petrol canister that was half the size of him. He walked over to them.

  “Hola, hola,” he greeted Arabella. He looked at the car and made an unlocking gesture towards it before looking at Rebecca.

  “Oh, right, yes… sí,” she said. She walked around the car, leaned in through the driver’s door, and unlocked the petrol flap.

  The man immediately opened the flap and started to undo the cap.

  “I’m going to the bathroom,” Rebecca announced.

  “Don’t leave me here,” Arabella whispered through clench teeth.

  “You’re welcome to come, but no listening.”

  “How crass,” Arabella muttered.

  She struggled to pivot herself. Rebecca moved to stand beside her and easily slipped her arm around Arabella’s waist.

  “Lean on me,” she instructed. “You need to get blood flow back into your leg.”

  Arabella slightly leaned on her but seemed insistent on doing the majority of the work herself.

  They started to walk away from the car, Arabella occasionally turning to look at the man.

  “What if he steals the car?”

  Rebecca turned and looked at the car. She gestured to the shack. “Then you get the caravan and I get the garage.”

  “I’m telling you,” Arabella said. “This is where we’re going to die.”

  “Do you always overreact this much? I’m surprised you even got in a car with me. What if I was a murderer?”

  Arabella was silent, only the sound of the dusty ground under her crutch and plaster cast was audible.

  “Oh my god, you thought I was a murderer, didn’t you?” Rebecca laughed.

  “I was cautiously concerned about you; I didn’t know who you were,” Arabella defended.
“I mean, look at you.”

  Rebecca shook her head and laughed some more, ignoring the comment about her appearance. “So, the natural assumption was that I was a murderer?”

  “I’m not sure what’s so funny,” Arabella said. She pulled away from Rebecca and started to walk on her own.

  They approached the side of the building. A narrow path near the cliff edge led to a wooden outhouse that had seen better days.

  Arabella stopped walking and turned up her nose at the rundown structure.

  “I suddenly don’t hear nature calling so loudly,” she said.

  “Tough, we’re not stopping again until we get to, like, France. I’ll go first,” Rebecca said.

  “Oh, yes, you do that. I’ll just wait out here with the murderer,” Arabella called after her. “Well, the new murderer, I suppose.”

  Rebecca smiled to herself and walked towards the wooden outhouse. She had to admit, Arabella wasn’t quite the worst travel companion in the world. Now and then, she could actually be quite funny. Unfortunately, those bouts of humour were sprinkled in between judgemental comments.

  She opened the door to the outhouse and peeked inside, holding her breath as she did. She looked around, pleasantly surprised at what she found. A clean, modern toilet. A sink. Soap. It was luxury compared to what the exterior of the building had promised.

  She attended to her needs and then left the outhouse, ready to tell Arabella about the five-star facilities she’d discovered. Looking up the path, she couldn’t see Arabella anywhere. She frowned and started to take a step forward.

  “Rebecca, look at this.”

  She turned and looked at the back of the shack. “Arabella?”

  “Around here, look at this.”

  She walked around the back of the garage and saw Arabella standing on the edge of the cliff. Rebecca walked up beside her in awe. The raised position allowed for miles and miles of uninterrupted views. Mountains in the distance, animals grazing, the odd farmhouse. The view was unlike anything she’d seen before. And the way the evening light shone on the valley was casting beautiful shadows and shades of reds and oranges.

  “Wow,” Rebecca breathed.

  “Isn’t it amazing? We couldn’t see this because of the angle of the road, but we appear to be quite high up.”

  “Wait right here,” Rebecca instructed. She took off at a sprint, running around the building and back to the car. The attendant looked at her with a kind smile. She returned the smile and retrieved her backpack from the back of the car.

  She opened the worn flap, removed a couple of items of clothing, and then pulled out her camera. She paused and regarded the lens for a moment before digging in her bag for her wider-angled lens.

  The man looked at her and smiled. “Click, click,” he said, gesturing to the camera and then to the building.

  Rebecca nodded. “Sí!”

  She sprinted back around the building. This was what she loved about travel, you never knew where you might come across the most amazing shot. The view had been completely hidden behind some rundown old buildings. Many people would have driven straight by without having any idea of the wonders that lay a few metres away.

  Back at Arabella’s side, she raised her camera, took a shot, and then looked at the screen, examining the lighting data. She made a couple of changes to the ISO settings and then tapped the shutter again. She meticulously framed the view, adjusting the lens focus by a fraction each time she took a new shot.

  She was lost in her own world, taking distance shots, close-ups, and everything in between. She knew from experience that the chance of her fully documenting the view was unlikely. Photos could never live up to the actual experience. Sometimes, though, tiny details could only be picked up in post-production.

  The light was fading. This meant she must rush to capture the scene, as it grew more beautiful with every passing moment. As the winter sun set, the colours became richer and cast dramatic shadows across the valley.

  “Hello? Earth to Rebecca?”

  She lowered her camera and looked at Arabella in confusion. “I’m sorry?”

  “I’ve been talking to you, but you’ve been in your own little world,” Arabella grumbled.

  “Sorry, I… I didn’t hear you. What did you say?”

  “I was commenting that your camera looks very expensive. Professional, even.”

  Rebecca looked down at her kit. “Oh, yes, it is.”

  “I thought you worked in a bar?”

  Rebecca smirked. “Yes, you did. I might have misled you.”

  Arabella raised an eyebrow. “You don’t work in a bar?”

  Rebecca shook her head.

  “You let me believe—”

  “No, you assumed that because I don’t look like you, I must have some low-paid, temporary job. So… I didn’t give you information otherwise.” Rebecca lifted her camera and took another shot. The sun was setting over a mountain and the light it cast was too beautiful to miss. “I’m a professional photographer. I was in Portugal doing a shoot for a band. Fun work but doesn’t pay much.”

  “You’re a photographer?” Arabella repeated, clearly taking a while to catch up with events.

  Rebecca lowered the camera. “Yup. Not a stripper, or whatever you thought I was when you totally judged me by my appearance.”

  Arabella’s mouth curled into a grin. “Well, you got me. I apologise for my assumptions about you.”

  Rebecca couldn’t help herself, something about Arabella’s stance, her smile, the way the wind blew gently through her hair. She raised her camera, wanting to capture the moment. She snapped a couple of pictures before Arabella began to laugh and bat the attention away with her hand.

  “Oh, don’t, I’m terribly unphotogenic.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Rebecca cried. “You’re beautiful.”

  Arabella laughed and looked down at the canyon floor, obviously embarrassed by the attention.

  Rebecca lowered her camera. “I’m sorry, I’ll stop.” She smiled.

  “Good.” She adjusted her hand on her crutch. “I’m going to use the bathroom. I assume it wasn’t too horrible, as you survived?”

  “You’ll be pleasantly surprised,” Rebecca reassured her.

  “Good. You can continue taking your pictures, but no more of me.” Arabella started to walk away. “I know where that can lead, I saw Carol,” she joked over her shoulder.

  Rebecca burst out laughing. “I thought you only watched slasher flicks.”

  Arabella paused and turned around. “It was practically a thriller. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. They were lesbians, I was terrified they’d be killed.”

  She turned and started walking towards the outhouse again. “Thank goodness for a happy ending,” she called back.

  Chapter Nine

  Arabella looked at the time on her phone. It was seven in the evening. They’d been driving for ten hours and were about to enter France.

  At the outset, the journey had seemed doable. Now, not even halfway in, it seemed ridiculous to think they could drive back to England in one sitting.

  Despite stopping and admiring the amazing view at the petrol stop a few hours ago, she was again feeling the pain of sitting still. Her leg was numb, as was her back and her backside. But worse than that, she could feel herself drifting off to sleep. The mind-numbing country views had given away to nothing but darkness. As soon as the sun had set, she’d longed for an abandoned farmhouse or scrubland as far as the eye could see.

  Her efforts to engage Rebecca in conversation had been futile. It seemed that the girl didn’t want to speak about herself or her personal life. And the more she retreated into her shell, the more Arabella tried to prise her out of it. With no success.

  She now knew that Rebecca was not a bartender, a dancer, nor a prostitute. She was a photographer. Who lived in Croydon and wanted to get home to spend Christmas with her mother. Other than that, she was a mystery. Oh, and she was gay.

  Arabella
didn’t even know why she wanted to know more about Rebecca. At first, she had wanted to learn more about her potential murderer. To somehow make a connection between them so Rebecca would be less likely to mug her and leave her for dead in an abandoned farmhouse.

  But that wasn’t the case anymore. Now she trusted Rebecca. As much as she trusted anyone, anyway.

  She looked at the road and spied a promising sign up ahead.

  “France,” she said. She turned to Rebecca and smiled.

  Rebecca didn’t return the smile. She sat forward, focusing rigidly on the road. She looked exhausted.

  “Another country down,” Arabella tried again.

  “Yup,” Rebecca bit out.

  They hadn’t known each other for long, but Rebecca’s silence was worrying. Arabella returned her attention to the road. They were passing over a bridge, with the promise of a toll booth up ahead. She looked at the satnav and saw that they had another thirteen hours to go. They weren’t even halfway home. Rebecca looked utterly exhausted.

  “Maybe we should stop?” Arabella suggested carefully.

  “Ha! You’re the one going on about how long this is taking and how late you’ll be for your party. No, we keep going.”

  Arabella frowned at the outburst and turned to look out of her window.

  “I’m sorry,” Rebecca said. “I’m just a little tired, I didn’t mean to snap at you. I’ll get my second wind soon.”

  “It’s okay, it’s a lot to take on,” Arabella said. “I do think we should stop.”

  “What time does your party start?”

  Arabella looked at Rebecca. She knew what she was thinking. She wanted to work backwards from the start of the party and tell Arabella that they didn’t have time to stop. Suddenly she felt an uncomfortable guilt for having pressured Rebecca so much at the start of the journey.

  “Well, it starts at nine,” she lied. “But it goes on until Christmas morning. I don’t have to be there at nine.”

  “What about your hair appointment? You said that it was imperative that you made that appointment. And your massage, let’s not forget your massage,” Rebecca mimicked Arabella’s tone.

  She let out a sigh. “I may have said that in order to encourage you to drive a little faster. At this point I’ll just settle for turning up to any of the party. You know, alive. And not wrapped around some tree in France because you crashed due to exhaustion.”