Page 26 of Break the Ice

‘I thought you couldn’t look at my pictures because you’re driving.’

‘Well, we’re literally crawling along this road, I think I can make an exception.’

I get my phone out and open the first photo of my favourites, my seventeenth birthday party, the last time I remember her being really well and happy. I turn the phone in his direction.

‘She’s beautiful.’

‘Right?’

‘You look just like her.’

I smile. I do, a bit. However, the urge to tease him for the compliment is far too strong. ‘Did you just indirectly call me beautiful, Joshy? Thank you.’

He blushes awkwardly, not knowing where to look. ‘You have different-coloured hair though?’

‘Oh yeah, the blonde was always a shock to her. She used to call me her little platano.’

‘Her little banana?’

‘Yep.’

‘I get that.’

‘Because I’m so sweet and a tasty little snack,’ I say, winking at him.

‘Because you are slightly bananas?’ he replies.

‘Rude…’ I pause as I realise that he has seen through me so quickly. My bananas usually peeks through much later.

‘What’s your dad’s name?’ he continues.

‘Malcolm. Mal. He was an accountant. You can talk to each other in maths.’ My dad has those very frames that Joshua is wearing. I know because I helped Dad pick them out in Specsavers.

‘Does he miss your mom?’ he asks.

More than any of us really. It was the reason he moved away, because our house, London, every street corner, he once told me, reminded him of her. ‘I think he misses her pollo al ajillo more than anything. It’s why we all make the effort to get down to him at Christmas, she was a big Christmas person.’ She was big when it came to everything, in heart, in love, in celebration, and that might be what’s missing in my life most of all, especially at this time of year. I stare out at the snow for a bit, watching it now coming down softly in gentle showers and resting on the ground.

Joshua slows down, puts his hazard warning lights on and looks around at other cars. He puts a hand out, hovering around the area next to my seat. I put my hand in his and squeeze it gently, grateful for the empathy, until he takes it back.

‘Oh. No. I mean, I’m sorry about your mom but I was hoping for another chocolate,’ he says, his cheeks now fiery with blush.

I have to laugh. ‘Will a Snickers do you?’

‘Have you eaten all the other Maltesers?’

I scour through the remaining chocolates and the wrapper debris I have left in the tin. ‘I have.’

‘Then a Snickers please, thank you,’ he says, looking horrified that the tin is now half empty. That, or the fact that he touched my hand.

TWELVE

JOSHUA

Phoebe does this thing where if chocolate gets stuck in her teeth then she flips down the sun visor to look at the mirror and then picks bits of caramel out of her teeth with her finger, making a strange clicking sound. It’s strange and unhygienic. Just wait until you’re alone with some floss and a bigger mirror, no? And what’s with putting all the wrappers back in the tin? You know who does that? People who are into subterfuge and trickery. It’s lazy, especially when she knows there’s a trash can in the car. I have shown her the trash can.

We’ve been on this A303 road now for at least an hour and I’m certain we’ve moved the equivalent of two hundred yards maximum. I know this because I could recite the number plates of our surrounding motoring neighbours to you and also tell you the make and colour of said cars. In the silver Nissan Micra now to my right, I can also tell you, the gentleman wears a tweed flat cap and a grey scarf and his wife is a vision in sea green. I don’t know how to break it to Phoebe that I think our mission has a high probability of not happening. I don’t know what we should do. Traffic on the other side of this road also seems to have stalled, so we can’t turn back. I’m also conscious that she’s giving Steve quite a bit of Evian.

‘This is my dad’s favourite song, by the way,’ I say as she turns to pat Steve on the head, while he laps up the water.