by Jenny Colgan
‘Hi, Evan, yeah, sorry,’ he said immediately, as if apologising for his very existence.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Polly. ‘It took a little longer to get over than I thought.’
‘Where do you live?’
‘Mount Polbearne,’ said Polly, waiting for the customary intake of breath as people wanted to know how it was possible to live there. What did they do? How did they get to the shops? Didn’t they get drowned all the time? But Evan barely raised an eyebrow.
‘Huh,’ he said. ‘Right.’
Polly would have liked a glass of water, but she wasn’t sure whether she should ask, or whether the Huckle School of Business would say this made her look weak, so she didn’t mention it.
‘Uh, the van?’ she said. Evan looked anxious.
‘Oh yes,’ he said, fumbling with keys. They were outside a tumbledown row of little terraced houses, and she followed him through to the back garden, the thought briefly crossing her mind that statistically very few serial killers advertised catering vans, right?
‘Have you had many people look at it?’ she asked perkily, wondering if she should try to dial the first two 9s on her phone just in case.
‘No, just you,’ came the dolorous voice.
The garden was larger than she’d expected. It was overgrown and messy, bits of cracked paving stone here and there, rampant weeds, stained plastic chairs and, at the bottom, a large garage. It took Evan a while to find the right key, but he managed to in the end.
‘So,’ said Polly brightly. ‘You’re out of the catering van business, huh?’
In answer to this, Evan just let out a shiver, and a low ‘hmm’ noise. There was also something that might have been ‘Thank God.’
The garage was dark, the dirty windows letting in hardly any of the bright light of the day outside. At first it was difficult to make out anything but the big looming shape. Polly blinked and moved forward. Evan hung back, as if reluctant to approach it.
‘So…’ said Polly, but Evan still didn’t move. She looked back at him. He had a look of unabashed disgust on his face.
‘Um,’ said Polly. ‘Are you all right?’
Evan’s shoulders shook a little, and Polly wondered if he was going to cry.
‘This damn van,’ he said, finally.
‘Oh,’ said Polly. The front of the garage was a normal up-and-over door. ‘Do you mind if we just open this so I can take a look?’
Evan shrugged, so Polly took hold of the handle and twisted it. The door rose with a groaning noise, and light flooded in.
The van was in even better nick than it had looked in the advert. There was no smell of old grease or decay, which she had feared. There were some scratches on the dark red bodywork, but this was easily handled, she reckoned. She went all round it, and, nervously, kicked the tyres. She had absolutely no idea why anyone would do this, but Huckle had told her to do it to look like she knew what she was about.
Evan showed no sign of moving to help her, so she pulled open the door by herself. Sure enough, inside were the rows of immaculate stainless-steel baking trays she’d seen in the advert, perfect for fresh loaves. The large oven wasn’t a brand she was familiar with, but she could see immediately that it was well put in, with good ventilation and space for it to get very hot at minimum discomfort to the chef. The sink was plumbed in and looked nearly new. She didn’t understand.
She stepped down from the little van. The canopy that extended out above the selling side was in a cheery red and white stripe. She walked round the van again and again, but couldn’t find a single thing wrong with it.
‘Evan,’ she said. ‘What happened here?’
Evan hung his head. ‘Do you wanna cup of tea?’
Polly nodded.
They sat on stained deckchairs in the garden, sheltered from the wind. Polly stared at the van through the open door.
‘It was me and my brother.’ Evan was staring at the floor as if confessing something. ‘We were going to work together. Make pasties, take them round the festivals, you know what I mean?’
Polly nodded. ‘Great!’ she said.
‘Sunk our life savings into doing the van up,’ said Evan. His skin was pale and unhealthy-looking in the sunlight. Polly wondered if he spent a lot of time playing computer games.
‘It was that summer, our first summer… Do you remember? Three years ago?’
‘Was that the year all those people nearly drowned at Glastonbury?’
Evan nodded.
‘Oh God, the rain. It rained and rained and rained and rained. Half of Devon fell down the cliffs. Everywhere we went, we just got besieged by people trying to shelter under the canopy. They didn’t want pasties, they just wanted not to get any wetter. Everything covered in mud, everything. Wet. Cold. Up at the crack of dawn every day. Insane traffic. Stuck in the mud. Parked. Couldn’t move. And the other concessions. It’s a war zone out there, you know. A war zone. They stop at nothing. Tyres down. Fire put out. Although that could have been the sideways rain.’
He looked up at her, eyes burning.
‘We were at one of the field parties. Stuck as usual. Nobody who wanted a pasty could get to us because everyone was trying to shelter under the canopy. We asked them to move. Do you know what they did? DO YOU KNOW WHAT THEY DID?’
Polly shook her head, clutching her tea.
‘They overturned the van! Our Nancy! They overturned her in the mud and left us sprawled there, five hundred best pasties squashed in the muck, rain coming down, St John’s Ambulance and the Manic Street Preachers. It was like the Somme. Except worse, because of the Manic Street fucking Preachers.’
He shivered again.
‘I’m never going back.’
‘What do you do now?’ asked Polly politely.
‘I’m joining the army,’ said Evan, unexpectedly. ‘I figure it can’t be worse. And also, one day I can shoot those hippy bastards.’
Polly wasn’t quite sure what to say to this, so she sipped her tea in silence.
‘And how long did you run this business?’
‘Don’t do it,’ said Evan, fiercely. ‘You seem like a nice girl. Get out while you still can. Don’t go up against the ice cream vans, whatever the hell you do. Most vicious bastards on the face of the earth.’
‘Ice cream vans?’
‘Ice cream vans OF DEATH.’
‘Okay,’ said Polly. ‘Did it get damaged when it fell over?’
Evan shook his head.
‘She’s brilliantly engineered, Nancy. Couldn’t put a foot wrong. She was a loyal and faithful workhorse in a war we couldn’t win.’
Polly thought he was definitely spending too much time in his bedroom.
‘Okay, well… Can I take her for a test drive? I’ll leave my passport with you.’
‘I’m telling you, don’t ruin your life.’
‘Ha,’ said Polly. ‘Honestly, it is far too late for that.’
She looked at him again.
‘Have you got the keys?’
‘They’re in there,’ he said. ‘I can’t watch. Honestly. I can’t see her go again. I’ve got PTSD. My doctor said he might put me on medication and everything.’
‘I’ll just take her round the block,’ said Polly patiently. ‘Also, are you sure you really want to join the army?’
‘I’ll wait at the corner,’ said Evan. ‘If you lose your nerve, we’ll push her back together.’
Polly had driven a van before, when she’d moved her furniture from her old apartment in Plymouth over to Mount Polbearne, and this was smaller than that one, although she could feel the weight of the oven at the back. But it was cleverly situated and balanced out by the engine, which had plenty of pull in it, so actually it wasn’t that difficult at all. Stupidly, because she couldn’t park in the car park overnight, she would have to move the van every day, but she could manage that if she got the tides right.
Inside, everything was in remarkable nick. There was less than 5,000 miles on the clock. Polly felt
sorry for Evan, because she thought this van might be worth a lot more than he was selling it for. On the other hand, she had Huckle’s voice of business ringing in her ears, plus only a certain amount of money in her pocket.
She pressed the horn experimentally. It gave out a jolly tooting noise that made her smile. Then she stopped the van on the corner to see how easy it would be to set up. The canopy was wound out by a handle, and she propped it up on the two stands that slotted into the sides. The serving hatch was a nice size, and on the back of the sliding door on the other side of the van was a fold-down work surface, on hinges. The trays for fresh produce were to her left, looking out of the hatch, and the big oven, a little fridge for drinks and a tiny sink were to her right, blocking the back of the van, which she guessed wasn’t meant to open at all. She moved around. She didn’t know where on earth they’d put a coffee machine. Regretfully she shelved, yet again, the idea of running a little coffee shop too. One day.
She looked over the serving hatch cheerfully, seeing in her mind’s eye a whole line of people queuing up… She’d need lots of those little paper bags, quick twist over, hand them over, then the next one. She wondered if she could do a sail-in service for the fishermen and the pleasure boats, given that her pitch was at the back, next to the sea wall. She could throw them sandwiches and they could chuck fish back as payment… She smiled at the daftness of the idea, but she felt, deep down, that it could be done. Could it?
‘’Ello!’
There was a small child there, not more than eight years old and covered in freckles. He screwed up his eyes.
‘What you got? What you got in the van?’
‘Uh, nothing yet,’ said Polly, smiling. ‘What were you after?’
‘Dunno,’ said the boy. ‘But I like your van.’
‘I will take that as a good sign,’ said Polly. In fact, she did have some gingerbread she’d whipped up the day before, dense with treacle, rich and not too sweet so it could be spread with butter. But she thought better of giving treats to a strange child, so she winked instead.
‘One day there will be food in this van,’ she promised. ‘And you can buy some.’
‘Cool,’ said the kid. ‘Will it be chips?’
‘No.’
‘Aw. I like chips. Pizza?’
‘It’ll be bread,’ said Polly, smiling. The boy looked at her.
‘What, toast and that?’
‘Um, yes, or just fresh bread.’
He looked at her sceptically.
‘Seriously?’
‘Yes! It’s a good idea!’
‘So people will come and want chips and you give them some plain boring old bread?’
‘Yeah, all right, kid.’
‘I think they’re going to be totally cross when there’s no chips,’ said the boy. ‘What about ice cream?’
‘I’m just driving off now.’
The boy watched her all the way down the street, shaking his head sagely.
‘Okay, thanks, Lord Sugar,’ Polly said to herself crossly, looking at him in the rear-view mirror. Her happy mood had been punctured somewhat.
Evan hadn’t moved from the corner when she returned.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I slightly hoped I wouldn’t have to see it again.’
‘I wasn’t going to steal your van, Evan,’ said Polly.
He nodded. They went back into the garden. She wasn’t quite sure how to do this.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’d like to buy, um, Nancy.’
Evan looked at her.
‘But it’s cursed, I told you. You seem nice. You shouldn’t buy it.’
‘I’m sure it isn’t cursed,’ said Polly.
‘What, you’re saying it was our fault?’
‘No!’ said Polly.
There was a silence. Evan let out a great crushing sigh. Polly was worried about him. She also wasn’t sure who should speak first. In the end, they both did.
‘Well,’ said Polly, just as Evan said, ‘So.’
She let him go first, but he was letting her go first, so they fell into silence again. Finally Evan sighed again and sat up a bit.
‘She’s brand new,’ he said. ‘You know, we did all the fitting-out ourselves. The oven, the sink, the fridge. It’s all absolutely new.’
‘I realise that,’ said Polly, getting worried.
‘I mean, nobody had touched that stuff before us. Before those damn festival bastards got their paws on it. Now it’s contaminated.’
‘Mmm,’ said Polly. What had Huckle said? Act calm and unconcerned; stare into the middle distance; pretend this wasn’t really bothering you and that you could easily walk away at any point. That was what to do.
She looked over at the long grass waving in the gentle summer breeze, and tried not to stare at Nancy, the unfortunate red van, parked neatly back in the garage. She couldn’t stop nervously fiddling with her bag, though, which held all the cash she had withdrawn. She had never seen so much money before, not in real life.
There was another long silence. Polly felt her heart thumping. What if he wanted a return on his investment? Maybe if she offered him another couple of hundred… No, she told herself. Huckle had said she should get the price down, not up. She had to bargain down from £5,500 to £4,000. But if she could get it for £5,000, she could always say she had argued and debated the issue for ages but he simply wouldn’t budge. Obviously Huckle wouldn’t really believe this, but it was her plan nonetheless.
‘So,’ said Evan, ‘I’m not letting it go for less than two thousand pounds.’
‘What?’ said Polly, thinking she’d misheard. ‘Two thousand?’
‘Eighteen hundred and that’s my final offer,’ said Evan. ‘Just get that thing out of my sight.’
‘But you can’t sell it for that!!’
‘Okay, sixteen hundred if you’ve got cash and the paperwork.’
‘No, no, I mean, that’s far too cheap.’
‘To pass on a curse,’ said Evan, sombrely. ‘I think you will end up paying far more than money.’
‘Yes, but even so,’ ordered Polly. ‘Two and a half grand. Otherwise I’m stealing off you.’
‘You are delivering me,’ said Evan. ‘Two two-fifty.’
Polly rolled her eyes.
‘Two thousand four hundred,’ she said. ‘And that’s my final offer.’
‘Done,’ said Evan glumly.
Polly leant over to shake his hand.
‘No, thank you,’ said Evan. ‘You carry the dark mark now.’
‘Let me just pay you,’ said Polly, suddenly quite anxious to get out of there. She had bought a cheap-day return, but couldn’t believe she wasn’t actually going to have to use the other half of it. ‘You don’t want a ticket to Looe as well, do you?’
Evan shuddered. ‘Oh God, we did the Looe Beach Festival,’ he said. ‘Someone threw up cider scrumpy all over our serving area. We ended up getting fined for putting down so much bleach we killed all the surrounding wildlife.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ Polly reached for her bag and tried to get up without looking like she was rushing out of there.
‘Anyway, I have to go,’ said Evan. ‘I’ve got a World of Warcraft tournament.’
‘Right, fine, don’t let me keep you,’ said Polly, trying to surreptitiously draw the right money out of her wallet without calling attention to the fact that she actually had much, much more in there.
Evan brought out the logbook – the van was indeed absolutely brand new, three years old, straight out of the factory, major services all up to date, MOT. Polly couldn’t believe her luck. He looked at her as he went to sign it.
‘This is your last chance,’ he said.
‘I’m going to risk it,’ said Polly.
‘You’re brave,’ said Evan. ‘Really brave. I would say good luck, but that… that isn’t possible. I just hope you don’t die trying.’
‘Thanks,’ said Polly, as they finished the transaction.
She looked for him out of the bac
k window. He was watching her drive away, shaking his head mournfully at her foolish hubris.
‘Come on, Nancy,’ said Polly, patting the wood-effect steering wheel. ‘Let’s see if us girls can’t make a better job of it.’
