We pull away from the kerb, waving at Barbara and Ron as we go. The car – Kate’s Nissan, which I’ve hardly used in recent months – is packed to the rafters. I’ve insisted that Martha sits in the front with me, so I don’t feel like a taxi driver all the way to Dorset.
Ron puts his arm around his wife as we turn the corner, and the whole basis of my belief system crashes in when I see her wiping tears from her eyes. Why did she have to choose now to suddenly become human?
I grit my teeth, beep the horn, and drive on.
I think Martha’s still in a state of shock, silent and pale beside me. After our impromptu night out at The Dump, she seemed to have some weird idea that dancing to one David Bowie song was enough to make me want to stay – perhaps she thought we’d become buddies, and go out boozing together, maybe do the festival season or something.
Instead, it just made me realise that I was in as much danger of spiralling out of control as she was. This was for my sanity as well as hers, which might be selfish, but there you go – don’t they always tell you to put the oxygen masks on yourself before you try to help others?
Part of me feels sorry for her. I had to watch as she wrestled with her own lack of power, her own inability to come up with an alternative. She had three choices: live with her grandparents, run away, or stick with the crazy red-head. I genuinely thought option two might be a goer, so I’d kept a close eye on her in the intervening time, checking for escape tunnels and the sudden disappearance of essentials like her phone charger or her eye-liner.
Instead, she seemed to grudgingly accept it – which made me nervous. Was she lulling me into a false sense of security? Did she have an evil masterplan? Would a group of teenaged ninjas land on the car roof from a helicopter, hooking her up to ropes and winching her away to safety? Would Peter Parker – my secret code name for the guy with the spider tattoos – emerge from the shadows and whisk her away to a life on the fringes of society?
I glance over at her as we pull out onto the main road. She is staring straight ahead, and I know she’s also worried about her grandparents.
Barbara had blustered and flounced once I told her our plans. Blustered, flounced, and ultimately had to accept it – because Martha didn’t want to come and live with them instead. That, I know, must have hurt. She’d lost her daughter, and now she must feel like she was losing Martha as well.
I feel for her, I really do – but my priority has to be Martha, and at least giving her the chance to move on with the rest of her life.
The cottage is booked; the college has confirmed that they can take Martha, and my boss at the book shop had barely disguised her relief when I said I was leaving – not because I’m crap at my job or anything, but because times had been hard there, and she didn’t really need an extra pair of hands.
I’d said my farewells to the friends I have; bought Steph the police lady a bunch of flowers, cancelled the milkman, and sorted our finances. I’d spoken to Cal, Martha’s dad, on the phone, and explained what was happening – he seemed concerned but laid-back, in that Aussie way I’d come to expect from him.
He’s not a big part of Martha’s life in the real world. Theirs was a chance encounter, and he lives thousands of miles away. Kate had always been happy with that, and as a result, so had Martha. He’d wanted to come over for the funeral, but in the end we all decided it would be too much of a head-fuck for Martha – your mum’s dead, but here’s your dad.
Now, we were finally on the road. Leaving the house wasn’t as hard as I’d expected. It makes me feel guilty to say it, but in some ways, it’s a relief.
A relief to get a bit of a break from all the casual heart-break that living there sprinkled over every day: coming across one of Kate’s hair bobbles down the side of the sofa, strands still entangled in the metal bit; dealing with the junk mail that still arrived in her name; finding that TV shows she’d set to be recorded still popped up on the box.
I didn’t want to forget Kate – neither of us did – but I think we both needed a calmer time to at least try and heal. This was what I thought, anyway – Martha was staying quiet on the subject.
I glance over at her, her black hair tucked behind her ears, Doc Marten-clad feet propped up on the dashboard, phone in front of her, thumbs flying.
“Who are you texting?” I ask, still slightly concerned about the invasion of the teenaged ninjas.
“Donald Trump,” she replies, deadpan.
“Oh. What’s he saying?”
“He says you’re a loser. And that you have worse hair than him.”
I glance into the rear-view mirror.
Donald may have a point on both counts.
I’ve been in this part of the world before, but today it feels like I am seeing it with fresh eyes. Today, I am not visiting for a holiday, or here for a day trip. Today, I am arriving at my new home.
Maybe for that reason, everything feels especially vivid and bright.
It’s the beginning of September, and though the sun is still shining, the temperature is lower; as though Mother Earth is trying to prepare us for the change in season. As we leave the sprawl of modern life behind us and disentangle ourselves from the congested snake of the roads around Bristol, everything seems to slow down.
The roads themselves become smaller, less busy. The cars slowly change character: less nippy city-mobiles and more tractors. Fewer flashy number plates and more function. We see less signs for McDonalds and services and more for country pubs with quaint names: The Thatched Cottage, The Jolly Sailor, The Fisherman’s Rest.
The surroundings grow more green, the fields stretching out endlessly around us, the hills and valleys curve and undulate like verdant streamers. The sides of the roads are edged by hedges and gnarled trees and wildflowers in their final bloom; by old-fashioned red post boxes and cattle grids and turn-offs into distant farms.
We stop seeing places that sell Krispy Kremes and pizza, and start seeing small stands at the side of the fields, solitary ladies reading books by tables of fruit and fresh bread; a booth of free range eggs and an honesty box next to them; we see unfamiliar place names and men perched on combine harvesters and sunlight dappling through the arched boughs of the trees stretching overhead. We see a whole different world starting to unfold.
Martha pretends not to be interested, but I can tell she’s noticing everything. Taking it all in, digesting it. Whether it makes her want to vomit or rejoice is impossible to figure out, her face is completely dead and still, carefully schooled not to show any emotions at all.
I try not to dwell on this, to worry if I’ve broken her. If I’ve dampened down her resistance to the point where she has nothing left. If I’ve done exactly what Kate didn’t want me to do, and forced her into a shape she doesn’t fit.
We came to Dorset and Devon and Cornwall a lot when she was little. When she thought that hunting for crabs in rock pools was the height of excitement.
Days of endless sunshine and sometimes endless rain but always endless fun. Me, her and Kate, free-wheeling around the countryside, traipsing along the coastal paths, singing in the car and dancing on the beach. I suppose we’d taken that for granted – everyone does. We all notice the disasters, and never make time to appreciate the small acts of happiness. Of companionship and laughter and ease.
Now, I’m making this drive in what feels like solitude. Martha has spoken little other than to tell me when she needed to stop for the loo, and has remained glued to her phone. I ponder throwing the phone through the window, hoping it might land in a field and get pecked to death by a flock of confused crows, but know that a digital