Page 82 of Road Trip to the Riviera
It’s a little sad watching the scenery slip past and realising that everything – France, the road trip with Hal, Louis’s wedding – is all behind me and that I’m going back to normality and work. But that’s how people feel when they come back fromholiday, isn’t it? It’s normal to slightly dread the drudgery of everyday office life. But you soon slip back into the routine.
My thoughts slip to Peter and his confession to me just days ago. I’d promised him we’d go to dinner to talk – after all, it’s the least I owe him. But in no way did I ever intend for him to see this as a date. Peter’s a great partner in work, but not someone I could see myself with in any real way. He’s texted and called me regularly over the past few days, but I’ve tried to keep the conversation strictly work-related.
Perhaps that’s one of the reasons I’m feeling so sad to be going home? The thought of an awkward conversation waiting in my future is hardly a tempting prospect.
Instead, I think about the wedding, about the sense of hope and new beginnings it has created. And how Mum and I have finally sort of learned to talk to each other. And I think about Hal, how ridiculous but lovely it’s been to actually spend time with him after all these years. Away from the obligation and the shared responsibility; just being us again.
I’ve cursed Hal time and time again over the past two decades. When he’s been thoughtless or late, or taken Louis out for too many treats before depositing him, hyped and sugared up, back at my place come bedtime. I’d forgotten that he is someone I used to like spending time with before everything changed.
I laugh to myself as I think of Hal’s flying trunks at the swimming pool, of the moment when Mum burst into my room and found us having a crisp fight. And I’m glad in that moment that we were forced together for the trip – I’d probably have forgotten that version of him, and of myself, if that hadn’t happened.
I’m not crazy enough to be grateful for breaking my leg, obviously. I’m not completely insane. But it’s been a silver lining at the very least.
The driver’s turned up the air-con, making the blue sky and open ocean outside feel wrong somehow. Outside is lush, warm, sweat-inducing; here in the car everything feels sterile, dark and chilly. I am literally travelling in a fridge.
But it beats the train. And it’s probably a good idea that I decided not to go back with Hal. Because if I’m honest, I was starting to enjoy his company too much. Maybe because I’ve been lonely, and nostalgic, and have felt a bit vulnerable with my broken bone. Hal’s got Georgie and I’m happy for him.
From time to time, I catch a glimpse of the driver’s eyes in the rear-view mirror. It’s an odd sort of eye contact – I’m never 100per cent sure if he’s aware it’s even happening. But as I glance up, I notice them again. This time, the rather thick brows are lowered, a deep crease running between them as if he’s concerned.
‘Merde,’ he mutters to himself.
‘Is everything all right?’ I ask, trying to keep my voice light.
‘Oh, yes.Oui,’ he says, speaking English with a thick and rather charming French accent. ‘I am sorry if you heard me curse. It is just some of the other drivers on this road. They are animals!’
‘It’s fine. I know what you mean,’ I say, nodding at a sports car that shoots past, almost in a blur. ‘People think they own the road.’
‘Exactly,’ he agrees. ‘They want to overtake, they want to speed, they stop suddenly, they don’t signal, or they try to force you to increase your speed by driving too close.’
I grimace. ‘Nightmare.’
‘Do you mind if I turn up the music? It helps me to relax. Calm down.’
‘Go for it.’ If I’m honest, knowing that my driver feels the need to calm himself down isn’t particularly reassuring.
We fall silent. He fiddles with the buttons on the radio, and some music starts to play, a little louder than before. The soft sound of Paul Young’s ‘Every Time You Go Away’ fills the car; it’s one of my dad’s favourites and I feel a sudden pressure at my eyes, tears fighting to come through. But I can hardly ask the driver to switch the song off. I’ll simply have to get through it.
I listen to the lyrics – how the guy singing feels his girl takes a little piece of him whenever she leaves. And I can’t help finding new meaning in them. But there’s comfort there too. The idea that you carry pieces of the ones you love with you: I lost Dad, but I didn’t lose everything he gave to me. The happy memories and the life lessons. I think about how it’s Dad, really, who brought Mum and me closer together even four years after his death. We used him as a way to bridge the gap between us.
And Louis. My son has a new life ahead, a new wife, and soon, a baby. He’s left a few times over the years – his backpacking year before uni, then again when he went off to study, only returning every couple of months. But this time, he really has left for good. But I carry him in my heart as well, moments from his childhood, the pride I feel for the man he’s become. Hal’s there too, I realise. The boy he was back then, the man he is now. Whatever happens next, we’ll be part of each other’s lives forever. This isn’t an end. Not really.
This sort of introspection isn’t doing me any good at all. I need a distraction. Luckily – or perhaps lucky is too strong a word – I’m offered one almost instantly.
The driver, who doesn’t seem to have been particularly well soothed by the music at all, starts muttering under his breath in rapid French. I don’t have a hope of understanding him, but it’s clear he is very angry about something. I’m about to ask him what is wrong when he starts waving one of his arms around.
‘These drivers!’ he says. ‘What do you want me to do, huh? You want that I drive the car off the road? Is that what you want?’
It is absolutely, categoricallynotwhat I want. But I’m pretty sure he’s not talking to me. I shrink a little in my seat, remembering times when my parents had quarrelled on family holidays and feeling very much the eight-year-old in the back, wishing things would just calm down.
They do not calm down.
‘I am sorry,’ the driver continues, catching my eye again. ‘But this driver, he is insane. He is going too fast. He flashes his lights at me. He wants me to speed up for him,non? But I do not wish to do this. So I slow, I flash, I beckon. I tell him that he can go past if he wants.Mais non! He does not wish to do this. He wishes, I think, to travel so close to me that anyone would think we were lovers.’
It’s an odd thought, but I get his drift. ‘Oh,’ I say.
‘And his van, it is a wreck! How can a camper-van from prehistoric times go at 80kilometres per hour? Huh? Surely it will explode.’
Something tugs inside my chest. With difficulty, I twist farther around in my seat and peer up out of the tiny back windscreen.
