‘Yeah. I suppose it is a bit old for you. Well, they filmed Broadchurch there,’ I finally say.
‘The one about the murdered kid?’ asks Lizzie, finally looking up, one eyebrow raised in query just about visible beneath her straight blonde fringe. The fringe has been getting lower and lower for months now – eventually I fear it will cover her whole face and she’ll look like Cousin It dressed by Primark.
‘That’s it, yes, the one with David Tennant in it,’ I reply, encouraged to have finally found some common ground. Even if it is common ground built on infanticide and Doctor Who.
‘Wow. What a great advert for the place,’ comes the sarcastic reply. ‘Remind me to get a rape alarm.’
Okay. Deep breaths. There are at least four hours left of this fun family road trip, I remind myself. In an ideal world, we’ll at least save the shouting until we’re past Birmingham. I consider starting a ‘count the red cars’ game and realise that they haven’t played that since they were a lot younger. And I also realise – for about the millionth time – that I suck at this.
David had a way of making car journeys fun. I’d be the one making sure we all had bottles of water and muffins to eat and spare carrier bags in case Nate threw up, and he’d be the one making them laugh. I’d be studying the map – Sat nav’s for Slackers, he’d always say – and he’d be driving and somehow managing to keep everybody’s spirits up.
Well, they’re older now – and way less easy to amuse. Plus, I’m still not sure how it is going to be possible to read the map, drive the car and keep everybody’s spirits up at the same time. I’m struggling with my own spirits, never mind theirs as well. And, even though I’d never drink and drive (honest), every time I think of the word ‘spirits’, I start to yearn for a large, super frosty G&T. Or maybe a mojito. Later, I promise. Later.
I take the deep breath I’d recommended to myself and ask – silently – the question that plays across my mind at least a few times every day. Even more right now as we set off on this exciting adventure that nobody, including me, seems to find very exciting at all. What Would David Do, I think? WWDD, for short.
David, I know, would be untroubled. He’d smile and ignore the cheekiness, and find a way to deflate the whole situation with a lame joke. Or he’d start to talk in a series of fart noises. Or put on a French accent and sing ‘Barbie Girl’. Something like that, anyway.
But David did have the very big advantage of Lizzie adoring everything about him. He could never do any wrong in her eyes – whereas her feelings towards me, right now, aren’t quite so generous. At best, I suspect they go along the lines of ‘will someone please tell me I’m adopted?’, and at worst, she may be using her birthday money to hire a hitman. To say she’s displeased at being separated from her friends for the summer is something of an understatement – a bit like saying Daniel Craig is passably attractive.
‘It’s on the Jurassic Coast,’ I add, trying again. I can practically feel the black aura creeping over my shoulders from the back seat, but I have to try. Because that is definitely what DWD and I need to keep going. Sat nav’s for Slackers, and Quiet’s for Quitters. It’s 6.30am and I’ve only had one mug of coffee.
If somebody doesn’t talk to me soon, I might actually fall asleep at the wheel, which would be bad for all concerned as I’m in control of a very full Citroen Picasso, complete with equally full roof rack and a fat black Labrador snoring in the boot.
Nate perks up at my latest comment, looking up from his DS for a moment. Presumably Super Mario/Sonic the Hedgehog/Pokémon/delete as applicable is on pause. His hair’s a bit too long as well, but not for style purposes – we just haven’t found the time or the inclination to go to the barbers very much. That was one of his dad’s jobs, too. I’ve been trimming it myself with the nail scissors, which I really must stop doing – he’s twelve. He needs to stop looking like he lets his mum cut his hair, even if he does.
‘So did they film Jurassic World there?’ he asks, hopefully. I hate to disappoint, but feel that leading him to expect a first-hand encounter with a friendly bronchosaurus might ultimately result in him hating me when he realises I lied. He is, as I’ve said, twelve – so technically he knows that velociraptors don’t roam the hills and vales of Dorset. But he’s also a boy, so he lives in hope that he’s about to be whisked off to a super-secret island filled with Scenes of Mild Peril.
‘Erm … no,’ I admit. ‘But we can go fossil-hunting, if you like? Apparently there are loads washed up on the beach.’
He gives me the smile. That small, sweet smile that says ‘I remain unimpressed, but love you anyway’. The uni-dimple makes a brief, heart-wrenching appearance, before he turns his face back to what really matters. The small device on his lap.
I have a fleeting moment of nostalgia for the days when kids weren’t permanently attached to electronic gadgets, and then realise I am being both hypocritical and very, very old. When I was their age, I thought my Walkman was the absolute bees knees and used to pull very rude faces when my mum suggested I might get ear cancer if I didn’t take the headphones off every now and then.
‘That sounds cool, Mum,’ Nate says, already lost in his alternative reality.
‘Are you okay playing on that?’ I ask. ‘You don’t feel sick?’
‘No. It’s okay Mum. I haven’t been car sick since I was eight.’
‘All right. But I’ve put some bags in the glove box you know, just in case …’
He nods and gives me another grin before playing again. Beautiful boy.
I bask in my thirty seconds of maternal glory and glance out at the approaching motorway sign.
Hmmm. Sandbach Service Station – I wonder if they do mojitos to go?
We drive down the M6 without a single mojito incident and very little conversation. It’s quiet on the roads – due to most normal people being asleep – and even quieter in the car.
I combat this by playing Meatloaf’s Greatest Hits very loud and singing along to ‘Bat Out Of Hell’, including all the motorbike-revving noises near the end. I’d do air guitar to the solos, but that’s probably against the Highway Code. I can just imagine the signs: cartoons of Meatloaf with a big red cross through his face.
Nate frowns a little at my performance and I hear an exasperated sigh emitted from the back seat. Even the dog lets out a half-hearted woof. Everyone’s a critic.
I choose to ignore them, as that’s what they’ve been doing to me for the last few hours. Obviously, once I decide on this particular path of action, Lizzie has something to say. Initially, I don’t hear her because of my singing. I’ve had three more black coffees since we first set off, so I feel totally wired and perfectly capable of appearing before a sell-out crowd at Wembley.
‘What?’ I shout, pausing the track when I realise she’s speaking.
‘Do you know,’ says Lizzie, who I see in the rear-view mirror is still staring at her screen, probably googling ‘ways to divorce your parent, ‘that this song is about dying in a terrible crash? Don’t you think that’s tempting fate a bit as we’re driving to the end of the world at 600 miles per hour?’
‘We’re not driving to the end of the world, we’re driving to Dorset,’ I reply. ‘And I think you’ll find that not only was Meatloaf on a motorbike, he was hitting the highway like a battering ram. We are in a ten-year-old Citroen Picasso and I barely ever leave the slow lane in case Jimbo suddenly needs a wee.’
Jimbo is the dog. He’s the third black lab that David owned – his parents had Jimbo and Jambo when we were little; then a new