Even though he could afford them, meals out and expensive holidays never really interested Dad. When he had any down time, he preferred to be at home, swapping his suits for sweats and working in the garden, or vegging out on the sofa with me and Mum, watching movies and grazing on popcorn.
The garden was our special place. Dad’s and mine. Mum had the opposite of green fingers. She always joked that she could kill a plant with a single look from a hundred yards. But right from being small, I loved helping Dad in the garden.
He showed me how to build a compost heap, grow vegetables in raised beds and plant marigolds, which kept pests and even rabbits from eating what we grew. I planted strawberries and watched with excitement as the little plants emerged from the soil under the netting and finally grew plump fruit, which we picked and took in proudly to show Mum.
We spent even more time in the garden after Mum died. We planted a rose bush - pink, her favourite colour – and in those first few months after the funeral, we held each other up, Dad and I, growing closer than ever before. We were a unit, facing the future together.
But I was glad when he found Eleanor because it meant he started to smile again. We were spending less time together, just the two of us, and I missed that. But I told myself I was pleased Eleanor had come into our lives…
I shiver, feeling suddenly icy cold.
But I need to press on. When I get to Pengully Sands and the sun comes out tomorrow, everything will be better…
I can’t take my eyes off the rain-soaked windscreen long enough to coax the van’s heating into life, so after a couple of hours, I pull into a roadside café car park and put on a jumper. Deciding to grab a coffee while I’m there, I get out and lock the van and head into the café with my overnight bag, intending to dig out my phone and study the route.
There’s a mum and dad, and their teenage daughter, in the queue in front of me. They must be off somewhere on holiday because they all have that shiny, excited look, and the daughter is teasing her dad about his bad taste in music.
My heart lurches.
We were like that once. The three of us.
Sitting down with my coffee, I search in my bag for my phone, and panic clenches my insides when I realise it’s not there. I left in such a hurry, I must have forgotten to put it in.
I sit back, wondering how I’ll manage without it.
But then I think maybe it’s for the best. If I had my phone, I’d have to cope with all the calls and text messages from home, wanting to know where I am, and I might be tempted to go back. That makes me think of how worried Amber was for me, and I stare out of the window into the darkness, wishing she was here to cheer me up. And tell me again that I’m not going mad.
We met at school, Amber and I. Our personalities were so different. I was too loud in those days, hiding my teenage insecurities beneath a bolshy attitude, while Amber wouldn’t say boo to a goose. But we bonded over a disgusting, slimy rice pudding and we’ve been friends ever since.
The rice pudding in question was the fault of Mrs Moderate, my home economics teacher. The apple crumble had turned out fine the week before, but the look of the pale, milky pudding quivering in the dish had everyone miming that they were about to throw up. But we duly packed them away in our little Tupperware boxes to take home to our ‘lucky’ mums and dads.
It happened to be last lesson and afterwards, on the way home, was the first time I spoke to Amber. It wasn’t your normal sort of introductory chat. What happened was that when I reached the underpass near where I lived, I saw Amber standing red-faced by the entrance to it, looking as if she might be about to burst into tears. It quickly became apparent that a girl called Marjorie Johnson (a bully with the nickname ‘Fadgy Madge’) was in the subway, shouting (to the entertainment of her mates, who were falling about laughing) that she was going to do Amber in if she took even one step into the underpass. The only other way through was by crossing a busy dual carriageway, so poor Amber was stuck, and the jeering was growing more threatening by the minute.
I couldn’t stand Fadgy Madge. She was a hulk of a girl with greasy blonde hair and mean little eyes. She’d always left me alone, I think because she knew I’d fight back. She definitely needed teaching a lesson, but how?
Inspiration came with the contents of my backpack.
‘Stay there,’ I instructed Amber, ‘and when I shout for you, run!’
She nodded, hope flaring in her eyes.
I strolled into the subway and told Madge to stop picking on Amber.
‘Keep your nose out, you skanky redster,’ she growled, with a frown designed to intimidate (it was working). ‘It’s none of your business.’
‘Yeah? Well, I think it is. I don’t like bullies.’
There was a ripple of interest from the crowd that was gathering, and Madge turned to them with a sneery grin, as if to say: Watch me make mincemeat of this loser.
‘If you let her through, you can have one of my cookies,’ I offered, getting the Tupperware out of my backpack.
She laughed in my face. ‘You’ll have to do better than that, unless you want my mates to give you a good kicking as well.’
‘Oh, I can do better than that. How about rice pudding instead?’ I quickly flicked off the lid, dashed forward and hurled the gloopy slime over her. She ducked away from me at the last minute, but a family-size portion of the luke-warm milk pudding splatted onto her hair and slid down one side of her face.
I stared transfixed for a second as Fadgy Madge started shrieked with rage and bent her head to try and flick off the gloop. ‘Amber!’ I yelled, and she ran towards me, I grabbed her wrist and we legged it, to the whoops and laughter of the crowd.
‘Great shot!’ Amber congratulated me as we hurtled out of the underpass and dived into the shopping centre to hide.
‘There was plenty to aim at.’ I grinned. ‘And thanks to you, rice pudding’s off the menu for tonight.’
No-one knew how fast my heart was racing as I stood up to Fadgy Madge because I always did a good job of hiding my fear.
I smile sadly at my reflection in the darkened window of the café, thinking about my younger, braver self. I wish I could have just a fraction of my old confidence, to face what lies ahead…
Back in the van, I turn the key but nothing happens.
Closing my eyes tightly, I try again, murmuring, ‘Please, Effie!’ And thankfully, after several goes, the old engine hums into life.
Relieved, I pat the steering wheel and set off again. Effie won’t let me down. With a bit of luck and a strong wind behind us, we’ll make it all the way to Cornwall!
The CD in the player is one of Mum’s favourites, a Lisa Stansfield album, and it reminds me of happy times. Every time it ends, I press play again and drive on, singing along to the familiar songs.
Mum always joked that Effie had human emotions and could sense what sort of a mood you were in. I smile to myself. My much younger self lapped all that up – the idea of a camper van with a heart. But maybe she was right. Maybe Effie understands the fix I’m in and is doing her utmost, even after lying idle for so long, to carry me where I need to go…
When, eventually, I start seeing signs for familiar towns in Cornwall, a weight lifts off my chest. Nearly there. The dual carriageway turns into single lane traffic as I make for the villages and towns lying along the beautiful north Cornish coastline.