‘I’m positive. As I said you’d be doing me a favour.’
‘Well if you put it like that … well yes, it would be wonderful,’ Godfrey said patting my hand. ‘I’m fed up with going to bed in a tracksuit. And, of course, the smell of damp is very depressing. Once the heating is going again the building will dry out in no time but until then, well yes, we’d love to. And thank you.’
‘No riotous parties though,’ I said, handing him my spare keys.
Peter wagged his head from side to side, his eyes twinkling.
‘Well I can’t absolutely promise.’
*
On the morning of the 16th March I was awake at two-thirty a.m., three-forty-five a.m., four-fifteen a.m., and five-oh-five a.m. At this point I gave up pretending I was going back to sleep, got up, had a shower, and dressed. My case had been packed, repacked, and re-repacked and I was taking a backpack with my laptop and all my other cables, pens, and stuff. Pippa still hadn’t replied to my email so I took an executive decision and packed my kitchen knives in their canvas roll as well. It was as though I was going into battle. Now this was going to be an adventure.
At six o’clock I was waiting just inside the front door, ready to leap out and throw myself across the car’s bonnet if necessary. I wondered if I was going to be sharing the drive to Ludlow with Pippa (ghastly thought) or maybe Oliver (scary thought) or possibly both of them (worst of both worlds).
At three minutes past six – just when I was starting to panic – a car with blacked-out windows, polished to impressive brilliance, pulled up and a driver got out. He wasn’t wearing a peaked cap or anything, but he was obviously not a taxi driver and by the look of it this car wasn’t a taxi.
He ascertained I was who I said I was and then he very respectfully placed my rather old and unglamorous bags into the boot. He then handed me into the back seat, asked about my preferences regarding car temperature, offered me still and sparkling water in pretty bottles and a crisply covered pillow and what felt like a cashmere rug in case I wanted a snooze. He then closed the partition between us and we were off.
Actually, I was rather tired having spent a restless and largely wakeful night, so I decided I would have a sleep. I knew the journey to Ludlow would take a few hours so it wasn’t likely I would miss anything. The car was wonderfully quiet and comfortable and my driver, whose name was Henry, drove as though he had a bucket of water on the back seat so no swerving around corners or sudden braking. It wasn’t hard to just close my eyes and Mmmmm.
I woke up some time later slightly confused because we were still on the motorway. I knew from my in-depth research (I’d googled it) that Ludlow was nowhere near a motorway. I blinked a few times and took a swig of the still, designer water. It tasted just like water.
Yes this was definitely the motorway and we were passing junction 4. I sat up a bit straighter. Had Henry got lost? Was I being abducted by white slavers?
I tapped on the partition and Henry slid it open a bit.
‘Ma’am?’
‘I just wondered where we are?’
‘Nearly there, ma’am, we won’t be long now.’
He closed the partition and I took another sip of water.
And then I saw the sign.
Heathrow – Terminal 5.
I nearly spat my water out again and had to put a hand over my mouth to protect the beautiful leather upholstery.
I tapped on the glass partition and Henry opened it.
‘We’re at Heathrow?’ I said.
‘Terminal 5, ma’am. I told you we wouldn’t be long.’
‘But aren’t we supposed to be going to Ludlow?’ I said.
‘I was told to deliver you to Terminal 5, ma’am. Miss de Witt will be meeting you.’
‘Oh,’ I said doubtfully.
Perhaps everyone was gathering here and we would go on in a minibus or something? It seemed a long-winded way of doing things. I looked at my watch; we had been travelling for over two hours.
We pulled up to the departures doors and Henry got out and went to find a trolley. Then he opened the boot and retrieved my luggage.
‘If you go into the hall and ask at the information desk, Miss de Witt should be there,’ he said. And then he drove off.
I felt like a right idiot. All my thoughts of medieval castles and the green rolling hills of Shropshire (I’d never been there so I wasn’t sure if there were any) faded as I lugged my case into the glass and steel portals of Terminal 5.
Inside everything was noise and flashing departure and arrivals boards. People were milling about with crying children and buggies and wheelchairs. Four people were standing in the middle of the hall unpacking their suitcases, looking for something. There were fast food outlets and a bureau de change. A man driving an electric buggy loaded down with luggage and some cross-looking people nearly ran me over. It was everything I hate about travelling.
A posse of flight crew strutted across the concourse with their little wheeled bags behind them, ignoring us mere travellers. With the lift of an eyebrow they managed to convey they had just been somewhere exceptionally glamorous and were about to go somewhere even better. I bet they’d just got off the Easy Jet flight from Birmingham.
I stood in everyone’s way for a few minutes and looked around for an information desk. There was a coffee shop to one side. What a great idea that would be for someone who hadn’t had any breakfast. There were signs for oversized luggage. Toilets. Various time zones, a pharmacy, check-in, a newsagent.
I sent Helena a text.
‘You won’t believe this, I’ve been driven to Heathrow. Looks like I’m flying to Ludlow. Bit weird? Private plane?’
‘Billie! Billie – over here!’
I turned to see Pippa in a tight pair of leather trousers and some vertiginous heels clip-clopping towards me. She wouldn’t get far in those on Ludlow’s cobbled streets.
‘You’re rather late!’ she said as though I had encouraged Henry to go more slowly just to annoy her. I started to voice this thought, but she cut across me.
‘Yes well you’re here now.’
She rummaged in a capacious leather tote bag with a metal clasp bearing the name of some overinflated designer I’d never heard of. She was wearing some sort of complicated wrist support, which didn’t make the task any easier.
‘Can I help?’
‘Take these.’ She handed me a brown manila envelope with my name on the front. It was like we were conducting a drug deal or something.
I half expected a couple of burly airport policemen to come dashing towards us with cries of Up against the wall and spread ’em or Right, Chummy, you’re nicked, and wrestle us both to the ground.
‘What’s this?’ I said looking at it.
‘Your travel details, tickets, information,’ Pippa said in a tone implying ‘duh’ at the end. ‘And this is a note Oliver told me to give you when I saw you. Now look, the flight leaves at one-fifteen. You’ll have to look for the gate number up there.’
She handed over a blue envelope and waved vaguely at the information board.
‘I didn’t know Ludlow had an airport?’ I said. ‘Wouldn’t it be just as quick to drive?’
Pippa looked at me as though I was simple.
‘Don’t be daft. Look I’m off to a private lounge to find Jake and have some well-earned champagne. Knowing what the next few days is going to be like I’m going to need it. It’s one-fifteen OK? Don’t forget.’
‘Yes fine. Um – what—’
‘Look in the envelope. The one-fifteen flight to Boston BA203. Got it?’
‘Boston?’
‘Boston. Logan International Airport. Massachusetts.’
‘Do you mean the Massachusetts in America?’
She patted me on the arm. ‘Well done, you’re getting there.’
‘I can’t go to America for four days!’ I spluttered.
‘Well you should have said so before now,’ Pippa said looking confused. ‘I did tell you.’
> ‘Sorry, I thought we were going to Ludlow. Shropshire,’ I said, trying hard to hang on to the last threads of my sanity.
‘Ludlow. Vermont,’ Pippa said very slowly. ‘When I phoned you up to ask if you were free. Look, are you up for this or not?’
Had she told me? Surely not. I would never have agreed to this.
I hesitated and Pippa looked at her watch.
‘Well?’
Aha! Wait a minute. Oliver had said I should seize opportunities, have adventures. Well this was deffo an adventure. The new improved Billie Summers would say yes. Absolutely!
Sometimes you have to stop being scared and just go for it.
Either it will work out or it won’t. That’s life.
This was going to be my new mantra.
‘Yes!’ I yelled, with perhaps an excessive amount of excitement.
‘Right, well calm down. I’ll see you later.’
She teetered off at speed towards some frosted glass doors and disappeared round a corner, leaving me with the tickets and the blue envelope in my hand and my suitcase at my feet. I stuffed the tickets in my pocket and opened the envelope. There was a single sheet of paper, a brief handwritten note written in a jagged hand.
Billie – I seem to remember we agreed you should have some adventures. Well how about this for starters? Oliver Forest.
Chapter Fifteen
It was nine-thirty and the first thing I needed to do was get rid of my case. There was of course a long queue for the check-in desk, which I joined in between a group of backpackers who were dressed for a day on the beach and another couple who were quarrelling about whether Pookie would be happy in the new cattery.
I stopped my brain from chanting ‘you can’t go, you can’t go’ over and over again and fought down the nausea I was feeling. Perhaps I was just hungry?
I was going to America for four days. How ridiculous was that? Sort of exciting though, I suppose. This was undoubtedly an adventure. I was doing something thrilling. There wouldn’t be any language difficulty. Well not much anyway.
Oliver had given me something exciting to do.
Actually, I’d been thinking about this ever since the subject of my dull life had come up at the retreat and I definitely remembered doing exciting things in the past. I mean I’d been to Glastonbury a few years ago. I didn’t like it much, especially the toilets which were beyond terrible, but I’d even crowd surfed until a bloke with his arm in plaster had fallen over and dropped me.
I’d shared a joint with Matt. Yes I’d been sick into his baseball cap afterwards, but I’d done drugs.
I’d been pissed more times than I could remember.
I’d even tried to snog a policeman on New Year’s Eve once in Trafalgar Square. A very long time ago. So there!
As soon as I had checked in I would phone Helena and tell her all about this.
At last I got to the desk and a woman with navy blue nails to match her suit typed my details into the computer while at the same time having an arch and flirtatious exchange with one of the baggage handlers.
‘Boston,’ she said when she could spare me a moment. ‘S’nice. Holiday?’
‘Yes and a bit of cooking for some … friends.’
‘S’nice,’ she said again and typed a bit more, frowning at the screen.
‘I’m just popping over the pond. For four days,’ I added casually, hoping she’d be impressed.
Perhaps this was how Michael Palin or Bill Bryson felt when they went off on their round-the-world jaunts?
‘Nice,’ she said still frowning at her screen. Not impressed.
I waited as I always do on these occasions for her to say I couldn’t travel. I was barred from the United States, my passport was out of date, my ESTA was invalid, I had a criminal record, I looked suspicious.
The baggage handler said something under his breath and she turned and slapped his arm. Then she rolled her eyes at me.
‘Honestly, what’s he like? You don’t have to be mad to work here!’
I gave her a weak smile and waited for her to find out that Interpol wanted me.
At last she finished typing out the Book of Exodus and looked up.
‘You’re booked into a mid-section seat, but there is a window seat free right at the back if you wanted it?’
She turned her screen round to show me a lot of little squares.
‘Wow thanks so much,’ I said rather effusively although I didn’t really understand where she was going with this.
She took my suitcase, weighed it, and put a long paper tag around the handle. Then she shunted it on to a conveyor belt and it disappeared through some rubber doors.
‘You’re right at the back, by the window,’ she said. ‘Safest seat on the plane.’
‘Is it?’ I said rather startled.
‘So they say. If the plane crashes the tail section often breaks off. Have a nice flight!’
I gulped a bit. ‘Thanks.’
I took my passport and boarding card and wandered off looking for something to do for three hours. Go through security I suppose. In my nervous state there seemed to be loads of suspicious-looking people wandering about – any one of which could have evil intent. Perhaps once I was through security and been X-rayed a couple of times I’d feel a bit better?
I headed towards the screens and the terrifying-looking security guards and read the thousands of notices about what I was not allowed to do or take on board.
I reassured myself I didn’t have any gas canisters, explosives, animals alive or dead, fruit, fireworks, flares, or magnets and wondered pityingly what sort of moron would want to take those things on a plane anyway.
Ah.
The same sort of moron who had a canvas roll of kitchen knives in their backpack perhaps?
I froze to the spot with horror. What should I do?
I could see through to where huge security men and granite-faced women were frisking people and X-raying their hand luggage. I backed off a few paces. My knives were valuable, the tools of my trade, and I loved them. They were honed to a perfect pitch of sharpness. I could shave the whiskers off a gnat with some of them.
But I couldn’t take them with me. Damn it. Why hadn’t Pippa said something? Why hadn’t I thought before checking my suitcase in? Trying to sneak a load of knives through Heathrow security was probably one escapade too far.
I waited until no one was looking too closely and took the canvas holdall out of my backpack. I felt the weight of them one last time and then put them into the secure bin along with the half-drunk water bottles, submachine guns, arsenic, and detonators. And then I went through security, was frisked, took my shoes and belt off, watched my bag being X-rayed, and then I stopped bemoaning the loss of my knives; after all I was into duty free!
I wandered around looking at glitzy fashion boutiques, strangely coloured handbags, enormous teddy bears, and hundreds of different neck pillows. Perhaps I should buy a neck pillow? Perhaps I needed some hideous crystal-embellished sunglasses? Or a tin of caviar? I looked at the prices; how did people afford these things?
No, it was breakfast time, and if I was going to fly the Atlantic what I needed was a bar and a drink! If I was having an adventure, I was jolly well going to have one!
I got my phone out, plugged it into a convenient socket and rang Helena, hoping she was out of bed for once and not at work. Her phone was switched off so either of the previous options could apply. I left her a text telling her brief details of my ongoing adventure. Then I tried ringing my mother but couldn’t get hold of her either, which was annoying because I could have really wound her up.
Then I ordered some Eggs Benedict and a glass of champagne because it was a special occasion and Mum had given me some spending money, which was both very welcome and slightly embarrassing. Anyway, I felt quite sophisticated, even though I was sitting next to two men in Arsenal shirts who were drinking pints of lager as though their lives depended on it.
‘So why Heathrow?’
&nbs
p; It was Helena.
I texted back.
‘Apparently I’m off to Ludlow, Vermont. Flying in to Boston.’
‘:-o Flipping heck!’
My phone rang.
‘So what’s going on?’ Helena said.
I explained while the two Arsenal fans next to me shamelessly eavesdropped. I swear they looked impressed.
‘So I’m on the afternoon flight to Boston,’ I said. ‘I’m going to America for four days and I’m drinking champagne.’
‘Blimey!’ Helena said. ‘With your new best friend Pippa?’
‘She’s disappeared somewhere. I’m on my own.’
Gosh, this was on my list wasn’t it? I was flying somewhere on my own. I hadn’t really taken that in.
‘Well have fun. Buy yourself something in duty free. Some of those end-of-range designer things. You’ve been on that diet for ages. You deserve a treat.’
Hmm, well yes I had been on a diet and like most things you go on I’d also been off. Still I had lost a few pounds so perhaps she was right?
I finished breakfast and my champagne, grabbed all my stuff, and went shopping. I was going to be reckless and crazy. I was going to think outside the box. As a result I almost bought a skirt patterned with rainbows but at the last minute decided against it. Apart from anything else it was wrongly sized and there was no way I was going to reward myself for a week avoiding bread with a skirt labelled XXL. And I couldn’t afford it. Instead I bought a giant Toblerone; well you have to don’t you?
Then I went into a bookshop and bought a copy of The Fool in Charge. It was a very satisfying fat book with a cover rich in sandy colours, exploding starburst bombs, and a lean hero walking away, his machine gun propped over one arm.
A roller coaster ride of betrayal, courage, and loss.
Ross Black’s unforgettable portrayal of one man’s fight against terrorism and prejudice.
There was even a tiny picture of Oliver on the back cover. Arms folded, staring into the camera with that wary glance I knew so well. I stood looking at it for several seconds while people barged into me with their maps and neck pillows and new iPads. I suddenly felt a bit important.
A Year of New Adventures Page 13
