‘You do.’
‘Who is feeling bad?’ Dad asks, anxious, and Iris and I look at him, and our expressions are both a little shame-faced, and I think it’s because we sort of forgot about him and because he has no idea what’s going on.
Iris sits down, all of a sudden, as if her legs have collapsed beneath her. She exhales and shakes her head, and I know I’ve won, although won might not be the appropriate word.
‘Two conditions,’ she says.
I can’t believe there are only two. I nod and wait.
Iris holds up the forefinger of her left hand. ‘One,’ she begins. ‘We do not talk about this again for the rest of the trip.’
I cross my fingers beneath a napkin and nod.
Iris leans towards me. ‘Do you agree?’ she says.
‘I do,’ I tell her, which cannot be categorised as a ‘white’ lie. It is an out-and-out blatant lie. I will think about this conundrum later. For now, I need to concentrate, because Iris is holding up a second finger. ‘Two,’ she says. ‘The furthest you can come is the Swiss border. After that, you have to turn around and go back home.’
‘Okay,’ I say. I am shocked at how easily the second lie comes. Already, I am a master of deception.
I can tell Iris is shocked too. In different circumstances, I would be delighted. Iris is a difficult woman to shock.
‘Definitely okay?’ she says.
‘Definitely okay,’ I repeat.
Once again, she reaches for her sticks, hauls herself to her feet.
Dad stands too.
So do I.
‘Please know now that I won’t change my mind,’ Iris says as we make our way to the door of the café.
I nod. I know that Iris believes that today. But there are other days up for grabs. Maybe three of them, judging by the weight of her bag. Enough time for Iris to change her mind. For me to persuade her to change her mind.
The truth is I’ve never been very persuasive.
But this is not about me, it’s about Iris.
Iris won’t do this. She won’t be able to, in the end. The simple fact of the matter is that Iris loves life. Maybe she’s forgotten that. Sometimes that happens, doesn’t it? To the best of us?
All I have to do is remind her of that one simple fact.
BEFORE YOU START YOUR JOURNEY, YOU SHOULD PLAN WHERE YOU WILL STOP TO REST.
My mobile phone beeps, indicating a text message, which is probably either from Brendan or one of the girls. I don’t tend to give my number to people. But I can’t look at the phone because I am driving.
I am driving on an unfamiliar road somewhere in England – we must be in England at this stage, we left Holyhead hours ago – and the cars that are not passing me are beeping at me even though I’m driving at – I glance at the speedometer – ohmydearlord – sixty-five miles an hour. I slow down. More beeping.
The motorway would have been quicker of course, but I do not thrive on motorways. I did it once. The M50. Even elderly drivers honked their horns, albeit apologetically, as if they had no alternative.
Iris yawns and stretches. ‘Where are we?’ she says. But I can’t answer her, because I don’t know. ‘Tell me again why you don’t have a GPS system in the car?’ she says, connecting her phone, which has run out of battery, to her charger.
‘Because I don’t need one,’ I say. ‘I usually know where I’m going.’
I hand Iris the road map. Except it turns out that Iris is not as good at map reading as I had assumed.
‘Why had you assumed that?’ Iris wants to know, and it is a fair question. In fact, now that I know the truth, my assumption seems preposterous. She picks my phone out of my handbag, tosses it back inside when she sees the ‘no service’ sign on the screen.
Dad, realising that things are not brilliant, has taken to reading aloud every road sign we pass, and there’re rather a lot of them, so there’s a lot of reading aloud, which would ordinarily be fine, but, in this instance where there is a sizeable chance that we have missed our turn – or turns – it is not fine.
I am sorry to say that it is annoying.
‘Dad, it’s okay, you don’t have to—’
‘Bangor,’ he calls out. ‘Is it that one, Terry?’
‘No, I don’t thi—’
‘Chester,’ he shouts later.
Iris abandons the map.
‘Birmingham,’ roars Dad.
It begins to rain. Traffic builds up as the afternoon dwindles. Iris slumps against her seat, as if she too has run out of battery. If pressed, she’ll say that fatigue is the worst thing about MS, even though she never seems tired. Apart from now. But I suppose today is … well, it’s not your common-or-garden kind of day.
I long to pull onto the hard shoulder and consult the map, but you can add hard shoulders to the list of things I’m terrified of. You’re putting yourself in harm’s way, stopping on a hard shoulder.
I drive on.
‘Milton Keynes,’ shouts Dad.
I glance at the petrol-tank gauge. It is less than a quarter full. And I can’t mention it, because if I do, Dad will worry, and when he gets hold of something to worry about, he keeps at it and at it, like the skin he picks off his ears and his lips even though you beg him not to, and you lather them with Vaseline when the medicated cream the doctor prescribes fails to work.
I keep on driving.
Iris’s plan was to travel by taxi on motorways through England and France.
In this first part of her plan, she has allowed herself to be thwarted. Which gives me cause to hope.
The rest of her plan contains a worrying paucity of logistical detail. Other than the deed itself. Which is scheduled for Saturday morning.
Five days. Not three.
She has packed light.
But there is a meeting with the doctor on Friday evening. To get the prescription. And to make sure Iris is of sound mind. Or, if my plan goes to plan, to cancel the deed because Iris will have changed her mind.
Iris never changes her mind.
But there is a first time for everything.
And a deed is not a deed until it is done.
Today is Monday.
I have time.
‘Luton,’ Dad calls out.
‘Watford.’
I am cautiously optimistic that we are going in the right general direction.
Ahead, a petrol station. Where I can fill the tank and consult my A–Z. Get my bearings. It’ll be alright.
The apartment Iris has booked is in Stoke Newington.
‘Is that near the Hippodrome?’ I ask, leafing through the guidebook.
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Promise not to laugh?’
‘I’m