At the night-stop hotel, placed between the main road and a railway line, their room was only a few steps away from the dining-room, a bungalow sort of settlement which, he said, would have to do because you were forced to put up with what you got while on the road. She hoped he wouldn’t refer to her fit of rage that day, but he said: ‘I don’t particularly mind when you try to kill me, but I object to you wanting to do yourself in, not to mention the child you’re going to have.’
She stopped herself, by an effort as violent as when she had lunged at his hand on the steering wheel, from saying she was sorry about everything. Couldn’t help myself. Don’t know what got me going. Never.
He stood in his underpants to shave, face hidden from her, thinking that what he had said was the end of the matter.
‘Life’s not real any more,’ she said.
He laughed. ‘Isn’t it, by God? It’s real enough for me. You sometimes make it too bloody real for words, I’ll say that for you. Not that I want to talk about it, though not to do so would be worse for me than for you, so I suppose I have to.’
She felt exultant at his admission, petty as it was, sly as all get-out, and did not regret anything she had done or said. His eyes, when he turned, were troubled by a fire in the void behind them, which was more intense and painful than he would admit even to himself. Thus he could only smile, fresh-faced and smooth, a cut below the ear from which blood oozed. The smile was a shadow of his acquiescence to whatever demands she’d make, and he clearly expected many. Whether or not he guessed anything specific about them was unimportant, his expression said – which made her run to him and hold him.
Weeping with relief, she drew the flat of her hand over the rough hair of his chest. Every day ended in victory, when it had not seemed possible, when it had seemed that even defeat would be denied. Life might not be real, but the fight was, and so was the happiness she felt that came after it.
12
He cruised north-west along the motorway at between sixty and seventy knots. They had left the south, what little had been seen of sea and luxury-green. She was not saying farewell for long. The hills were bare and gentle, and to get north did not seem so imperative. They were behind a high, broad-wheeled safari sort of wagon laden inside and out with bedrolls, jerrycans and canvas bags. Tom kept at the regulation distance. The vehicle looked dependable for all terrain, an All-Europe construction heavy with purpose, yet capable of speed. It must shine well in advertisements and glossy brochures. She asked if he wouldn’t like that sort of thing, assuming that part of his character was similar to its virtues.
He nodded. ‘Maybe. I’m not sure. But I’ve often thought of driving through Turkey, Persia and Afghanistan to India, so it would do, certainly, though I read that there’s now a paved road all the way from Calais to Katmandu. An ordinary car like this would be good enough.’
‘If you go on that kind of journey,’ she said, ‘I’ll come with you. Sounds just the kind of trip for us.’
He laughed. ‘As long as you promised to behave!’
They watched the safari wagon move briskly, almost brusquely out, and increase speed so as to overtake a saloon car that appeared to be dawdling by comparison. Tom looked in his mirror. ‘Maybe I’ll overtake as well, for a change of view.’
‘OK to go,’ she said.
He swung to the outer lane.
She felt a twinge of worry. The heavy safari car swerved, skidding as they followed. Had the driver fainted? Had a heart attack? It weaved ponderously across the motorway, smoke pluming from the rear wheels and filling their own car with the smell of hot rubber and scorching bakelite, plastic and tin.
He braked slightly, some of his tension transferring to her. She was too fixed by her stare to speak. Bits were breaking off the wagon, now to their right-front, and a car steaming up close behind seemed about to come through his rear mirror. Her feet treddled as if she also could slow the car.
The height of the safari wagon diminished, its body nearer the tarmac, while pieces from around the back wheels were spat up and away by the force of rims hitting the ground. The wheels appeared to be disintegrating, as on a stricken aircraft that had touched the runway too fast.
The only safety lay in speed. He knew it instinctively. Pam was fascinated, no fear possible. She watched the falling to pieces of the car, the helplessness of the man at the wheel as his vehicle hit the side of the road and was carried back towards the centre, then again to the side and in a more or less straight line as their own car with a few inches of gap shot by and suddenly had the whole motorway to itself.
Tom slowed when it was safe, seeing the damaged car stopped on the hard shoulder behind. ‘It was a close call,’ he said, ‘but I think they’re all right.’ He set hazard lights going. ‘I’d better have a look, though’ – and backed a few hundred yards to get close.
The driver was laughing. Tom might have been, he supposed, in a similar plight. Not much else to do. The man’s face was pallid, his one concession to fear. He knew he’d been breathed on by death, so was letting his wind out by noise. He bellowed, amused at his own luck.
Two children and a woman were silent inside, as if blaming him for what happened. If he had been gibbering with guilt and hopelessness they wouldn’t have been so ready to blame. He treated the collapse as a bit of a lark, unwilling to get down and pray thanks for his deliverance. But he couldn’t do that because maybe he’d forgotten how.
Perhaps he had been driving the car too roughly for its own good, Tom said, when he had been told there was nothing to be done. The man didn’t want anyone to share the harvest of his downfall. Since it had happened, he would relish this crack-up. It would be his and his alone, an experience that, dangerous though it may have been, and (perhaps fortunately) rare enough in one’s life, was not to be divided with anyone, or diminished by an offer of help, which could not alter the fact that he was stranded on the French motorway miles from anywhere, after his car-marvel of automobile technology had so undeniably packed up on him.
Tom read this and more into his face, and thought he wasn’t far wrong. The man thanked him for the offer of help, and motioned him away, not wanting any other being to come between him and the breakdown gang or the one-way alley to the knackers’ yard. It was understandable, yet childish; and while Tom thought he really ought to consider his wife and children (though perhaps they weren’t his – who was to say? If they were they had every right to be far more angry), the man held up his other hand and waved a sheaf of insurance papers which, to judge from the wide grin, would bring all the necessary assistance, and pay for it, and put them into the best hotel while his wagon was repaired or replaced, or transport of the plushiest category was provided to get them home. He had no problems – but thank you very much.
Which was all very well, but there was a risk of explosion and fire from leaking petrol. It was a hot day. Tom explained, in spite of the man’s grinning vociferations turning into anger, and opened the doors gently to get the passengers out. They climbed the barrier off the hard shoulder and walked fifty yards up the slope. The driver, clutching his papers, thanked him very much, and went to find a telephone.
When he saw a breakdown car already on its way to the stricken landboat Tom drove on. ‘What I would like,’ Pam said, ‘is to get off at the next exit, and go up to the Channel in a leisurely way on ordinary roads.’