Page 10 of The Clockmaker's Cottage
‘Honestly? Iconic! But change your shoes. There’s a pair of trainers by the front door.’
Pippa hurried into the hallway then stared at her reflection in the mirror hanging on the wall by the front door. Her mascara was slightly smudged, veil askew, bouquet abandoned on the foot of the stairs. ‘Well… I’m kind of already dressed for a dramatic flight, aren’t I?’ She laughed, jamming her feet into the trainers while Rose packed some clothes then wrestled the suitcase from the bedroom into the hallway, along with a rucksack that dangled precariously from her other arm.
‘Take snacks and a coat!’ Rose commanded, suddenly all military efficiency.
Pippa lunged for the kitchen counter, snatched a cereal bar and a banana, and shrugged into Rose’s enormous parka. The hem of her wedding dress ballooned beneath it, making her look like a yeti. She tried to zip it but gave up when the teeth refused to cooperate over the meringue-shaped layers.
Rose flung the suitcase upright. ‘Right. Go, go, go!’ she ordered, grabbing the car keys. ‘We have no time to waste.’
They hurtled out of the front door and into the rain-lashed street like two women in a heist film, only instead of balaclavas, one of them was tangled in a bustle of tulle and a crooked veil which she cast aside.
A neighbour’s terrier went berserk, barking from the arm of a chair in the house opposite, as if alerting the entire street to some scandal unfolding outside. Across the road, a man crouched beside his car, swearing quietly at a flat tyre. When he spotted them he straightened up and gawped. ‘Afternoon wedding or evening escape?’ he called.
‘Bit of both!’ Pippa yelled back.
Rose bundled the suitcase onto the back seat and slid behind the wheel– Pippa was already in the passenger seat– then switched on the engine. The car coughed, spluttered, then grudgingly roared to life.
‘Please don’t crash,’ Pippa muttered, clutching the rucksack on her knee like a comfort blanket.
Rose gunned the accelerator, the tyres skidding on the slick tarmac. ‘Relax, I’m basically Lewis Hamilton.’
‘You stalled three times on your driving test.’
‘And still passed!’ Rose retorted triumphantly, sending the windscreen wipers into overdrive.
The roads were treacherous, slick with rain and strewn with puddles that reflected the flashing glow of headlights. Storm winds rattled the trees and sent leaves skittering across the tarmac. It wasn’t the kind of weather Pippa would usually venture out in, but needs must. Every roundabout was a white-knuckle turn. Every red light felt like a negotiation between momentum and Rose’s brakes.
‘Okay, if we skid, just scream,’ Rose said, leaning forward in her seat and squinting through the windscreen at the lashing rain.
Pippa gnawed on the cereal bar as if it could double as a stress ball. Her phone buzzed in her lap with another message from Rob, followed by one from her aunt who lived in Devon. She shoved it back into her coat pocket. She couldn’t deal with any of them now.
‘Think positive thoughts,’ Rose sang as they fishtailed slightly around a bend.
‘Positive thought: I’m going to die in a Ford Fiesta, and the headline will read “Runaway Bride Ploughed Off Road”.’
‘Catchy,’ Rose said, eyes fixed ahead. ‘But maybe let’s workshop that later.’
By the time the train station came into sight, Pippa’s nerves were stretched tighter than the elastic in her garter. The digital clock above the entrance ticked forward with merciless efficiency.
‘One minute!’ Rose gasped, swerving into a space with a dramatic handbrake turn that absolutely no one but her would have called ‘controlled’.
They bolted across the car park, dragging the suitcase through puddles, the once romantic waves of Pippa’s hair reduced to a soppy mess. A group of teenagers loitering by theticket machine whooped as though they were watching the best episode of a soap opera they’d ever seen.
‘Good luck, missus!’ one of them shouted, filming the whole scene on his phone.
Pippa would no doubt be a meme by morning:Runaway Bride vs. Train Timetable.
The tannoy announced, ‘The four p.m. to Sea’s End is now arriving at platform two.’
‘Oh God, that’s mine!’ Pippa cried.
The train nosed into the station. Commuters shuffled into place, casting Pippa wide-eyed looks, and it was no wonder. It probably looked as though Miss Havisham herself had decided to take public transport.
Rose shoved the suitcase towards her. ‘Go, Pip! I love you!’
‘Thank you! I love you too!’ Pippa shrieked, pelting down the platform, her trainers splashing in every puddle.
The guard’s whistle pierced the air.
