Live a Little

by Madeleine Reiss

  There would be time enough on the long and dreary bus ride to feel the burn and the hurt. He didn’t want the last thing he ever said to her to be unkind.

  ‘I hope you find Landing Rock,’ he said. ‘I hope everything works out for you,’ and he gave her the kind of quick embrace you give to someone it doesn’t break your heart to be parting from. She hung listlessly in his arms.

  Later, on the bus, he clutched the meteorite tightly as if he was holding onto what he had left behind, feeling its scorched crust bite against his palm.

  Chapter 33

  ‘IF YOU WERE A DOUGHNUT, what kind of a doughnut would you be?’ Tina asked.

  Lottie, who was slumped in the front seat of the car, pulled the brim of her hat down over her eyes and didn’t bother to answer. She had agreed to stay on and finish the trip, but she was damned if she was going to make Tina feel as if she had forgiven her for what she had done. She was just going to grit her teeth and get through the last three days and then she would go home to face the wreckage of her life. Her heart clenched at the thought that Dean might not be there when she got back. She supposed if it really was over, and she couldn’t imagine Dean ever changing his mind, they would have to sell their flat with the iron fireplace that had taken them three days to scrape clean, and the postage-stamp-sized garden in which the clematis had been patiently coaxed to spread its velvety purple flowers all over the back wall. They had built their home together so carefully, with tester pots of paint and swatches of cloth and trips to furniture shops to contemplate one grey sofa over another. They had made their seasonal plans so that the year was punctuated with places and events to enjoy. They had built their happiness around each other, finding in their regulated life more than enough to be glad and grateful for and yet, despite all of this, some sort of greed had lodged itself inside her. An unspecific longing so apparently strong that she had been ready to throw away all that they had so painstakingly constructed. She couldn’t even remember now what it was she had thought was missing.

  ‘I’d be a custard one sprinkled with hundreds and thousands,’ Tina said, and Lottie shrugged indifferently.

  ‘I’ve apologised over and over again,’ Tina said, fretfully, putting her finger up at the driver in the next car who was goggling at them at the traffic lights as if he was in a safari park.

  Lottie made a harrumphing noise from under her hat.

  ‘I don’t know what else you want me to do. I can’t wind the clock back. And in any case, some of it is your fault.’

  Lottie sat up and pushed the hat back off her face. ‘How like you to say sorry and blame me in the same sentence!’ she exclaimed. The man in the next car took off with a screech when the lights changed and then fell back, so that he was driving alongside them. Tina glanced his way to see him waggling his tongue up and down at them.

  ‘What the fuck?’ Lottie said furiously, following the direction of Tina’s gaze. She grabbed at the carton of orange juice at her feet and with one swift movement sent the contents through his car window and right into his face.

  ‘Bull’s eye!’ Tina said with approval, and Lottie allowed herself the smallest glimmer of a smile.

  ‘What did you say to Spike before he left?’ Lottie asked, propelled by curiosity to break her silence.

  ‘Not much,’ Tina answered. ‘He seemed in a hurry to get away.’

  She thought about how awkward Spike had seemed in the hotel room, as if he was trying to find a way to let her down lightly. Perhaps he had been terrified that she was going to throw herself into his arms and tell him she loved him. Thank God she had held back and taken her lead from him, rather than done anything rash, which would only have ended up embarrassing them both. He had talked about buses and departure times as if he was longing to escape.

  ‘You’re an utter idiot,’ Lottie exclaimed. ‘Not only are you a manipulative old bag, but you have about as much insight as a tree slug.’

  ‘Well gee, thanks,’ Tina said sarcastically.

  Lottie wrestled briefly with herself. If her sister couldn’t see what was staring her in the face, why should she, betrayed and humiliated as she had been, explain it to her? Tina didn’t deserve Spike or anyone else’s love. She had already told her sister about her suspicions and Tina had not reacted at all. What would Tina do with the knowledge anyway, other than suck it up into her already rapacious ego? Perhaps it would be kinder to protect Spike’s pride from her sister’s indifference, although she didn’t know why she was concerned with his feelings – it wasn’t as if he had been particularly concerned with hers. In the end, her better nature, the part of herself she had always believed to be strong until Mia’s death had shown her that it was a poor, weak thing, won through.

  ‘He’s in love with you. I was right when I told you so before. Can’t you see it?’

  Tina turned her head and stared at her sister.

  ‘Keep your eyes on the road,’ Lottie yelled, as they narrowly missed ploughing into the back of the vehicle ahead.

  ‘What makes you say that?’ Tina asked, braking inches away from the bumper. ‘It’s rubbish. We’ve been over this already.’

  ‘He told me, you fool,’ Lottie said.

  ‘When?’

  ‘This morning.’

  Tina lapsed into silence as the traffic moved inch by inch along the congested highway. Lottie had no idea what her sister was thinking.

  ‘He said the actual words, I love her?’ Tina asked incredulously after a moment or two.

  ‘Well, to be strictly accurate, he nodded when I asked him the question.’

  ‘Are you sure he hadn’t just developed a nervous tick, or was trying to get the attention of the waiter, or something?’

  ‘Yes, Tina, I’m sure.’

  ‘How come he slept with you then?’

  ‘Probably because he’d been driven to desperation by the horrible way you were treating him,’ she said, thinking it undiplomatic to mention that he had said she was hot. She knew that Tina thought of herself as far hotter, and she was willing to give her that.

  Tina lapsed into silence again. Lottie couldn’t remember the last time her sister had stayed quiet for so long. It gave her the opportunity to look out of the window at the desert populated by cathedrals and totem poles. She still couldn’t take in the strange, random beauty of it. It was so huge it made her feel agitated.

  ‘I hate the amount of time women spend talking about men,’ Tina said.

  ‘Well, when I’m not on a road trip with you, I barely mention them,’ Lottie said.

  ‘They suck up all the energy you should be spending on thinking about other things. I’ve hardly taken a decent picture this whole trip.’

  ‘If you hadn’t been plotting to undo me and primed your devoted hitchhiker to say nice things about my hair and skin, perhaps you would have taken the definitive picture of the American West and I would have read the three books I brought with me and done some sketches of seals and freight trains and monuments.’

  ‘Let’s stop and have something to eat,’ Tina said, pulling off the road into the forecourt of a diner.

  Tina ate a strange thing called a ‘masher’, which was a burger on a bun topped with mashed potato with a thick, beige gravy poured over the whole lot, while Lottie picked her way through a soggy Caesar salad.

  ‘At the risk of doing what you so deride,’ Lottie said, trying not to watch as her sister enthusiastically wiped up the gravy with her bun, ‘what do you really feel about Spike?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Tina said.

  ‘You don’t know, or you don’t want to think about it?’

  ‘What’s the point of thinking about it? We failed last time round. I don’t think we really trust each other, and besides, he lives on the other side of the world. I think it’s better if I just move on and forget about it.’

  ‘So your heart didn’t do a flip when I told you he loved you?’ Lottie asked, scrutinising her sister.

  ‘Stop staring at me as if you’re trying
to work out if I’m the main suspect in your investigation. Eat your croutons.’

  ‘What are you so scared of, Tina?’

  ‘I’m not scared. I’m never scared. I just don’t know exactly what I feel about him and I can’t see the point of tying myself to someone unless I’m a hundred per cent sure.’

  ‘This old chestnut again!’ Lottie exclaimed impatiently. ‘I’ve told you a million times that no one is ever sure.’

  ‘So you’re not sure that you love Dean then?’

  ‘Not sure the way you think of it. Not sure like I’m sure that eating chocolate makes me feel better, or that the world is full of horror and wonder or that I’m going to die at some point. I’m just sure that I want to love him, although it seems I may have missed my chance.’

  ‘You feel like that about him and yet you still slept with Spike.’

  ‘That’s what I mean. You can’t be certain about what you’ll do and feel or what they’ll do and feel either. You just have to go for it and hope for the best.’

  ‘I’m beginning to think you’re much braver than I am,’ Tina said.

  ‘I am,’ Lottie said and ducked as Tina flicked gravy at her.

  ‘Anyway,’ Tina said, when Lottie had stopped moaning and dabbing at the front of her shirt, ‘we have more important things to think about.’

  ‘I’ll let it rest for the time being,’ Lottie said, ‘but I’m warning you that I will be returning to the subject.’

  ‘The fact is, oh wise sister of mine, that we have very little time left to locate Landing Rock. I’ve spent ages trying to find it on the internet but the only mention of landing rocks is the one on the moon, which marked the place where the astronauts took their first steps, and Plymouth Rock, where the English Pilgrims arrived in America. Nothing about a place in Monument Valley.’

  ‘So how are we going to find it?’

  ‘Well, I’m thinking that the best thing might be to get on some horses and explore,’ Tina said, smiling in anticipation of her sister’s reaction.

  Lottie’s head shot up from her croutons. She stared aghast at Tina.

  ‘No. Just no,’ she said.

  ‘Apparently, you can get a jeep down the main trails, but if you really want to get off the beaten track you have to either go on horseback or hike.’

  ‘Let’s hike then,’ Lottie said firmly.

  ‘I don’t think we have either the time or the stamina to go on foot,’ Tina said. ‘If we go on horses we’ll have a guide who’ll have some local knowledge.’

  ‘Tina, you know I can’t get on a horse.’

  Of all the many things Lottie was timorous about, horses were at the very top of her list. Her dislike had been forged at an early age when she had been chased across a field by a black stallion that had taken an instant dislike to her. She’d had some idea from her avid reading of all things pony- and gymkhana-related that she would feed it the bits of carrot she had secreted into the pocket of her shorts. In a rare departure from her usual timidity, she had climbed over the fence into the enclosure before anyone could stop her. While Mia and Tina had watched in horror, the massive creature had galloped wild-eyed, its tail beating against its flanks, making a great, snorting, roaring sound that was louder than anything Lottie had ever heard before, and she had turned and fled, scattering bits of carrot in her wake. There had been no chance at all that she would be able to outrun it; Tina could still see her bare legs desperately pounding across the grass, making vainly for the gate at the other end of the field. Mia of course had climbed over the fence too and had stood waving her arms in an attempt to draw the fire. In the end, Lottie had decided to throw herself on the ground and roll herself up into a ball with her arms protecting her head, which turned out to be the right thing to do because, having reduced her to abject fear, the horse lost interest and sashayed off with a toss of its head.

  ‘I could see his eyes,’ Lottie had said afterwards, as Mia put her cardigan around her trembling shoulders. ‘It was like he could see right into the centre of me. He knew everything about me.’

  ‘You know what I’m going to say, don’t you?’ Tina said, grinning, and Lottie groaned and put her head in her hands.

  ‘It’s Challenge Five-Hundred-and-Sixty-Seven.’

  Chapter 34

  THEY GOT UP EARLY AND after a hasty breakfast drove to the visitor centre where the jeep was going to pick them up. They had expected to be part of a crowd, but they were the only people there. It was freezing cold, as if winter had arrived during their brief sleep. Despite the anoraks and the gloves they had been instructed to wear, they shivered in the chill air, their breath making smoky plumes, their eyes watering. The sun was barely up and the mittens in the distance were still only dark shapes, although you could see them gathering the light around their bases in a kind of hazy glow. Above, the sky was still full of stars, as if the night was dancing with the day.

  ‘Who’s going to take her?’ Tina asked as she pulled the urn out of the back of the car.

  ‘I think you’d better,’ Lottie said. ‘I’ll probably fall off the horse and scatter her everywhere.’

  ‘It feels all wrong putting her in a rucksack,’ Tina said.

  ‘It feels wrong her being anywhere at all except with us,’ Lottie said sombrely.

  A large man ushered them into the jeep and they set off along the dirt track, lurching from side to side on the back seat. As they descended into the desert, the sun came up suddenly, switching off the stars. Their guide pointed out the monuments as they passed: the Elephant Butte with its curved, stone trunk; the Three Sisters – two tall, slender pillars with a shorter one between them; the Rain God’s gaping mouth; the Thunderbird Mesa with a central cave just the right size for an international rescue aircraft to hide itself in.

  ‘Each of these monuments has a heartbeat,’ their driver said. ‘If you stay very still you can hear it.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ Lottie muttered under her breath. She felt her own heart beating as the jeep drew to a halt by the Totem Pole. Standing at its base was a man holding the reins of what looked like three enormous horses.

  ‘I’m not sure I can do this,’ she said as they disembarked.

  The jeep roared off in a cloud of dust, leaving them with their new companion – a Navajo Indian with long grey hair in a headband who introduced himself as Gilbert.

  ‘My sister’s a nervous rider,’ Tina said.

  ‘Summer is as gentle as a baby,’ he replied. Lottie eyed the horse in question doubtfully. It didn’t look particularly placid; she thought it had a sly, furtive air, as if it was planning on doing something bad. She couldn’t imagine being able to climb up onto its massive back. Seeing her hesitation, Gilbert produced a kind of tall stool and encouraged her to step onto it. Lottie made a last desperate appeal to her sister.

  ‘How about I ride on the back of yours?’ she suggested.

  ‘One lady, one horse,’ Gilbert said firmly.

  She had no choice. She avoided looking into the creature’s eyes while she got up on the teetering stool. She took hold of the shifting saddle and hoisted herself on board. The sweet smell of the horse’s skin and the way it glistened horrified her. She was certain its apparent gentleness was a disguise, that it was simply biding its time before hurtling into a canter. It could probably sense her fear.

  ‘It’s such a long way to the ground,’ she said, and Gilbert laughed as if he had heard it all before.

  ‘People from Great Britain know horses almost as well as we do,’ he said.

  ‘You’re thinking about the Queen. Most British people have never been anywhere near one,’ Lottie said, trying not to squeak as she felt the horse move beneath her.

  Tina waved the stool away and mounted her horse, Billy, with what looked like expert ease. She grinned smugly when Gilbert complimented her on her technique. Lottie gritted her teeth. When had Tina learnt to ride? It was so annoying the way she could do everything so easily.

  After a brief lesson on how to hold th
e reins, they set off. Gilbert led the way on a black horse called Prophet, who had a worrying way of rearing up on its hind legs. Tina followed right behind him and Lottie trailed after. Her horse kept stopping to nibble at the spiky grass and she gasped each time it bent its neck, convinced she was going to slide forward and fall off. It was ridiculous that they were actually allowed to do such a hazardous thing without proper training and hard hats. She was sure it was a contravention of health and safety regulations.

  ‘Have you heard of a place called Landing Rock?’ Tina asked Gilbert, rolling from side to side in her saddle as if she thought she was a flipping cowboy.

  ‘There are many rocks with many names,’ he answered, rather as if he thought it was part of his role to be mysterious.

  Despite her anxiety, Lottie was amazed to be deep in this landscape of silvery sagebrush and weathered yuccas and outlandish rock masses. The soil was the colour of the bricks of a Victorian terrace. It was like no place she had ever been before – and yet, at the same time, it was deeply familiar from a hundred westerns, a hundred shots of horses making their way across this same terrain or standing in silhouette against the great big sky, marked white today in what looked like a Navajo pattern.

  ‘Come along, slowcoach!’ Tina yelled, as Lottie fell further and further behind. Her dratted sister was showing off and making her horse trot. For a while they traversed the cracked hollow of what must once have been a river and then, just as Lottie thought she was beginning to get used to the motion of the horse, the track suddenly sloped steeply downwards.

  ‘Hey, I’m not sure I can do hills!’ she yelled out. Her companions ignored her. Summer descended lazily, sure-footed on the loose stones. Lottie tried to grip the sides of the horse with her thighs, which were already beginning to chafe, but this only had the effect of encouraging Summer into a sluggish trot. Lottie pulled frantically on the reins, and after a few scary seconds when she was sure she was going to be propelled head first, the horse resumed its slow, disdainful ramble. She breathed again.