by Sally Bryan
I wanted to go to Arwen, if only to show there was still someone in this city who was thinking about her but for whatever reason, I hesitated and knew it was because she’d kissed Floor in front of me. What had become of her tonight? If she was having problems then she’d brought them on herself but still, on at least three occasions I had to physically stop myself approaching, but if she wanted me then I was here, always.
“Foul shot!” Dan shouted at Luuk for fumbling but I’d seen the shot, which had been so bad he’d missed the cue ball entirely, so technically it wasn’t even a foul.
“How can it be a foul when I made no contact with the white?” The dreadlocked Dutchman yelled back and leaned over the table to attempt the shot again.
“My advice is don’t play for cash when you’re too drunk to hold a cue.” Dan let it slide and strutted around the table and because he was concentrating on the balls, almost clattered into Arwen who’d suddenly appeared at the corner.
“Dan, can we please have a moment outside?” Her voice was so choked up she was likely to burst into tears from the slightest provocation.
He blanked her completely and I don’t know how she managed to keep it together as she backed up to the wall, found Floor close by and sidestepped several paces away from where she continued to sulk.
I touched her arm, “Arwen, are you all right?” I’d never seen her like this and just had to check on her.
She sniffed and nodded appreciatively but I knew she was lying.
“Fucking hell!” Dan shouted at my ex. “Get a new pair of glasses you fucking blockhead.”
It was the first time I’d seen Gabe playing pool and as it turned out, he was about as useful as Luuk, which had prompted Dan to verbally scold him in front of everyone. I didn’t like it one bit, not so much Dan, but more the way Gabe allowed it to happen, to be spoken to like that and doing nothing to defend himself, which reminded me of the incident in that French cornfield just outside of Carcassonne and how, at the time, I’d been so disgusted.
I crossed the floor to where Gabe was looking down at the floorboards, for some reason thinking it was still my business. After all, an injustice was an injustice. “Are you going to allow yourself to be treated that way?”
“Well, I’ve had a lot to drink, Doc, um, Freya, so my aim’s all askew,” he smoothed back his hair and glanced at me helplessly, “and we’re playing for money so it’s kind of understandable.”
What could I say to that? Absolutely nothing was the answer, so I threw up my arms and stamped away, exchanging a mutual look of disdain with Arwen, and I wondered what she was thinking, not just about this sorry display but everything.
There was a cheer when Samuel potted the black, he collected the money from beneath the glass and handed half the winnings to Luuk who then commenced dancing at close range in front of the losers. I held my breath because he was taunting them and under the circumstances, Dan was liable to do something stupid but mercifully, Samuel had the foresight to pull his friend away before offering to shake Dan’s hand.
“Well played there, close game.”
Dan held back, “double or quits.”
Samuel hesitated, “I think it’s probably for the best if we just quit whilst we’re ahead, things are getting a little heated in here.”
Arwen used the intermission to again approach Dan. “Hey, could we please have a word, I’m really sorry, I should have…”
“Fuck off!” He turned his attention back to Samuel and raised his voice, “if that twat’s gonna dance like that in front of me when he’s as bad a player as that then he can at least play again for double or quits.”
Luuk pointed his cue at Gabe. “I’m not as bad as he is.”
“Then you’re on for double or quits.” Gabe retorted.
It was on, though not before even more alcohol had been brought over to fuel the fire.
Dan twisted open a fresh bottle of Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce and, to Luuk and Samuel’s utter disgust, sank two thirds in one shot and where the previous game had been loud with the occasional joke, now it was silent but for the music as all players gave their full concentration so that there was a palpable increase in tension.
I didn’t want to be around for the outcome but like a bad car crash playing out before my eyes, I couldn’t look away regardless, and now there was one hundred Euros, no small amount for travellers on a budget, awaiting the winners.
The game was evenly matched and around halfway through, Floor slinked closer to Arwen but she moved away from her and nearer to me and then Floor moved between us, coming so close to me that I had to back away to keep a distance. It was pathetic, stuff I could never remember having to deal with even in my teenage years. Floor had been drinking cocktails all night and I’d left my wine just in case I was again threatened and had to be alert.
That was when I noticed Arwen but what really caught my attention was her expression. She was smiling but it was a smile filled with sadness, but more than that, it was the way she was looking at each of us, Dan, Gabe, Floor, Samuel, Luuk, Karla, myself. She held her gaze on me the longest and I saw the tear roll down her cheek and I’d never before seen Arwen looking so fragile and so lost as that moment and never before did I so badly want to reach out to her.
But my attention was wrenched away by a roar when Dan slammed the black home. He snatched up the money and gave Gabe a high-five before the two of them positioned themselves strategically close to Luuk and commenced their little handshake celebration routine.
After enduring a mere ten seconds there was a loud crack.
Everybody stopped to look around, stunned, and then found Luuk’s foot embedded within Dan’s guitar that had been propped against the wall. He tried pulling his foot out but it was tangled in a mass of mangled wood and strings and Dan, needing a second to comprehend the horror, grabbed his pool cue, screamed and lunged for Luuk, only to find Samuel, who was still holding his cue, in his path, and I had to spin away as there was an almighty crack of wood followed by screaming.
Gabe dived into the melee from the side as my skin turned cold and the two male receptionists were approaching far too slowly and as I willed them to be quick, my eyes refocused to the movement behind them because Freya, the ginger cat had leapt up onto the front desk and amidst all the mayhem, she alone remained cool.
Arwen trundled past with her bag.
My heart jumped into my mouth and without even thinking, I dashed for the door and as I passed the cat, I knew that if God existed, he was with us in animals.
“Wait! Please, wait.” I called after her and she stopped but didn’t turn around. Her face, I recalled from a few moments before, she’d been looking at me for the final time. I stopped in front of her, blocking her path and screeched. “You’re leaving?”
She nodded and the tears were streaming down both cheeks. “Can you blame me? This isn’t me, I can’t deal with it. The stress … I don’t do stress.”
No, just cause total chaos and run.
But I was not losing her again. “Will you wait?”
She sniffed and wiped at her eyes, “what?”
“Promise me you’ll still be here in five minutes.”
She nodded without thinking and I ran back into the hostel, I only needed three minutes, and returned with my bag and something else. I jingled the keys in front of her nose and was so relieved when she laughed and spluttered her tears all over me.
“Are you fucking serious?”
“Quickly,” I told her and we were both in hysterics as we ran across the road to the waiting camper, opened the side door, threw in our bags, slammed it shut and jumped into the front.
“Frey?” She looked at me with an expression of complete astonishment but she was no longer crying and that was good enough for me. “Have you gone insane?”
“Oh fuck!” I shook my head and laughed again. “I don’t know, probably yes.”
“From this moment on, I can never again call you Vanilla.”
My hands were digging into the wheel and I turned to look at her, her face, her, Arwen, sitting beside me and although I was so terrified, I knew I was doing the right thing, the only thing I could possibly have done. “I’m sure you’ll come up with something else.” I turned the key and the engine fired up. There was almost a full tank of fuel.
She giggled, slapped the dashboard, bounced in her seat and screeched. “But Frey, where are we going?”
I was still gazing at her and couldn’t look away because in her eyes I was seeing exactly how she felt about me and I was sure she was seeing the same in my own eyes, a look of hopelessness, of vulnerability, that we’d unwittingly placed our entire lives’ happiness in someone else’s hands. “Anywhere, I don’t care.”
Yes, it was a mess. Yes, I’d completely fucked up my entire life. And no, right now, as Arwen and I left Lisbon in a stolen camper, I didn’t give a shit.
What a summer.
Chapter Ten
Iberia
The first night we’d been full of adrenaline and made it almost as far as the Spanish border before finally pulling over to sleep in a national park. We awoke to bleak ranging hills, marshland and low flying birds cawing all around us and within ten minutes we were moving again.
By this time, it had hit. What we’d done.
It wasn’t the mere act of having taken the camper that caused consternation but that I’d burned my bridges, that I’d split from the group, alone but for Arwen. Once the adrenaline had worn off and there was only hours of empty road ahead, there was time to think about that.
It was not how I wanted to leave things with Gabe and Dan but what had been the alternative? They were acting like childish thugs and the woman I loved had been running out the door.
Still, there was not one bloody thing I’d change.
By midday neither of us had yet received contact from anyone, which either meant nobody missed us, they hadn’t yet discovered we’d absconded or they were presently spending time in an Iberian cell, to which at least two of them were becoming accustomed. There was also frequent periods, driving through the mountains, that we had no signal, which might have been a factor.
I worried about how Gabe might take things after discovering what I’d done but I tried to push those thoughts away. I’d made my decision and now had to own it.
It took most of the day to reach San Sebastián close to the French border and by that time I most certainly was aware of the split-second, life-changing decision I’d made only the night before.
“Still no idea where we’re heading, huh?” Arwen was sitting opposite with her plateful of tapas.
I shook my head and wondered if this was how Thelma and Louise felt. “I thought you were used to drifting?”
“I am but you’re not.” She peeled a prawn in about three seconds, sent it down with a mouthful of beer and gestured to my plate. “Not touching yours?”
“Just the prawns. You may have them if you want.”
She took them and I marvelled at her lack of anxiety, typical Arwen, just going with the breeze, even now. “Are you sure you’ll be ok? Doing this, I mean. You’re used to structure and order and now you don’t even know where you’ll be tomorrow.”
I stared blankly forward, “I’ll have to adapt,” and rubbed my ear.
“Well, don’t feel bad about borrowing the camper. From what you said, it’s yours just as much as, if not more than his.” She waved around the empty bar. “Do you see any police? He’s not about to dob in his ex-girlfriend for borrowing the camper and even if he did, they wouldn’t give a shit.”
“He can have it back when we’re done with it.” Because, at the very least, he knew where I lived and would probably have things to say if and when he ever saw me again. How would that conversation go?
She leaned back and considered me for a while. “You really surprised me last night. I still can’t quite get over it. You! The girl with the perfectly folded underwear in her backpack, even after all this time on the road. How long’s it been?”
“We left in early July so it’s been a little over six weeks now and you’ve been looking at my underwear?”
“Well, I hope that by the time you get to six months, your bag more resembles mine or I’ll be seriously worried, and of course.”
My sight refocused on her. “Six months?” I was playing with what looked like a meatball skewered onto a slice of French loaf, quite bizarre. “I have to be back home, doctoring awaits me. So at the absolute tops, I have another five weeks of delaying life and then that’s it forever.”
Arwen’s eyes dipped and as the gravity of that statement struck, we both spent several minutes in silence.
Is this how it was supposed to be, Arwen and I finally being alone? I still couldn’t believe I was able to stare across the table at her, just the two of us, no interruptions or obstacles or brick walls or men or anything, as she required a full minute to peel her next prawn.
That we were both subdued was perhaps to be expected, we’d both just ditched people who’d been extremely important to us and so far she’d not once mentioned Dan by name, as I hadn’t mentioned Gabe. Though subdued we both still were and after the painful awkwardness that was last night sharing the pullout bed, I wanted to do something to at least attempt to bring back what we had in Barcelona, to feel close to her again.
I braced and reached over to take her hand and to my relief, she didn’t pull away. “The other day … when you turned up at the camper…” my lips pressed together and my head swirled from the memory, of finding her again only to be left helpless.
“Your face,” her smile lifted, “talk about being stunned.”
I coughed lightly, “yes, well, those things you said…”
“Couldn’t get a word in, could you.”
“Pretty much like right now.” I squeezed her hand and she rubbed my leg beneath the table, it felt so nice yet frustrating at the same time, this was important. “Arwen, I wanted to say that those things you said were true. At first, I did consider you a curiosity…”
“…Because you’ve led such a boring life.” She cut in and seemed pleased with herself.
I nodded, “I’m agreeing with you, I’ve led a relatively boring life and yes, you are, um, what we did was by far the most thrilling thing I’ve ever done…”
“…Or will ever likely do.” She was enjoying this a little too much.
I shifted against the seat, “perhaps. But I want you to know that’s not the reason I’m here with you now.”
Her mouth levelled, “go on.”
I’d thought deeply about my next words, whether or not they should be said, whether or not I’d ever get the chance to say them at all, and assumed that if I ever did, the moment could never be as magical as I’d dreamed. “I’m here with you now because I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.” There it was, I’d just placed my heart in the hands of another woman, and a drifter at that. So much for being in control, Freya.
“Obviously.” It was the answer I should have expected, which unfortunately did not precede us hurriedly undressing each other, as in my dreams. She tilted her head, which was at least something. “And why is that?”
Because I love you, I wanted so badly to say but just couldn’t. It wasn’t due to the risk of further inflating her ego, which was one of the things I loved about her, but because I knew I just couldn’t cope if she didn’t feel the same, it would crush me.
“What happened between you and Floor?” I blurted out instead and immediately cringed at my insecurity. She did this to me.
Her head jerked. “Floor? You want to know about Floor?”
I looked down, “not really but yes.”
“Ok, if that’s where you’re taking this.” She blew out air. “If you truly want to know, I tried to escape her evil clutches as soon as Zaragoza, it wasn’t because of the geocaching, that was just a bonus really. How was I to know the whole lot of them would end up ditching the Camino to follow me? I made a few enemi
es that day, I can tell you, and that Floor girl was one seriously clingy woman.” She spoke with her usual swagger, the same that coming from any other person would have been impossible.
I shook my head. “But you did escape her, she didn’t make it to Lisbon until the night after you?”
“Which just goes to prove my point. Even with everything, I lasted no more than a day as a free woman and that was only because she was laid up in a hospital two stops back with blisters. What kind of idiot does the Camino in heels? And they have the gall to blame me for ruining the experience, not The Piston with her constant stopping to root through people’s compost heaps and not Floor who wouldn’t have lasted another minute anyway, even after buying walking boots. We got to Porto and I took my chance … a fast train to Coimbra and on to Lisbon, freedom.”
Such fun she must have had, it explained much and eased many of my concerns but if all that was true and Arwen felt nothing for Floor, she’d still used the girl to make me jealous, though that would have to remain one of those things I’d just have to let go and forgive. It was I who’d broken her heart in the first place.
I hesitated with the next bit, I didn’t want to come across as being anything like Floor. “Karla told me you were sharing a tent.”
She shrugged half-heartedly, “we did after the second night,” she admitted straight up, to my surprise. “She discarded her tent on a Catalonian hillside because, she said, too many bugs had found their way inside, a lame excuse, and she denied it was for ulterior motives. She couldn’t share with Sam and The Piston and she’s constantly bickering with Luuk, so…” she trailed off, sighed and began grazing my hand with her thumb. “Look, I’m not denying nothing ever happened between us, I know you’re not so stupid to believe that, but it was never anything more than kissing and that was only because I was hurt and pissed at a certain Scottish doctor.”