Short Story for Low Wattage

The Journey’s Start

Even as we waited at the coach station I had misgivings. We had been planning this for months – but now Laura had a boyfriend, and that boyfriend, Sam, had come along to see her off on our trip. They stood under the bus shelter engrossed in one another, as if I wasn’t even there. He was tall and blond: slightly androgynous in my view. I suppose I could see what she saw in him, though was so completely not my type, he was very much hers. She fitted neatly under his arm when they walked along side by side, wrapped in each other, her thumb in his belt loop or fingers in his back jeans pocket. His height emphasised her petite frame and her delicate prettiness. He had to tilt his face down to her upturned one to kiss her. They said nothing much and I realised, when I looked up again from checking the tickets that she was crying.

It was late August, it was raining and I was cold. The crowd of people waiting for the bus was growing. A fleeting wave of jealousy struck though me as I watched Laura and Sam. No-one had come to see me off. Well, I didn’t count Dad who had given me a lift and helped with the rucksack, setting it down next to me before giving me a bear hug.

“Take care of yourself, Angie,” he’d said his face hidden in my hair. “I want you back safe and sound.” He released me and pressed something into my pocket. “Open that once you’re on the coach,” he said, “I won’t hang around,” he laughed, “I’d be too embarrassing for you.” He had laughed. “Don’t forget, a text a day and a phone call every Sunday at the very least. To stop your mother worrying.”

So when I say no-one had come to see me off, I suppose I meant no boyfriend. And I guess that was my own fault. Jack had wandered into my life at Easter and had wavered in and out of it since. He’d call and we’d go out for a drink, then I wouldn’t hear from him for a week or two. But that was OK. That’s how I wanted to play it. No commitments. I was only 18 for God’s sake and off to University when we got back. What is it with these people who want to tie themselves down so young? As I stood at the coach stop I thought of Mum, left at home worrying. She always worried, but always let me go, passing it off with a veneer of practicality and efficiency.

“Do it now while you can,” she’d said. “If you need money in an emergency, ring me. You can pay me back later. Don’t put yourself in any danger and keep your wits about you.”

I suppose I was lucky. She had always pushed us, my sister and me, towards self-sufficiency, never to be beholden to anyone, always to have an alternative plan. It made me wonder why she didn’t implement an alternative plan for herself. Anyone could see that she and Dad were pulling each other apart, so not suited to one another, any more, if they ever were.

I checked my watch. The coach was 20 minutes late, already. It needed to get us to the port before 3pm, to give us time to check in and sail.

“Laura, I think I should go to the ticket office see what’s happened to our coach,” I said. She looked around, a tissue to her nose.

“Good idea,” she said.

But the coach arrived moments later, pulling into the slot with a hiss of air brakes, followed by the hiss of the door opening. It slowly spilled out an untidy group of tired travellers.

The driver also got off and locked the door.

“Sorry folks,” he said. “There’s an accident on the M40 – held me up.” He swung a bag onto his shoulder. “Give me ten minutes turnaround time.”  He strode off in the direction of the café.

“Do you want a coffee, or anything, Laura?” I asked, but she shook her head. “Watch my bag, then, would you?” I ran off in the direction of the toilets, suddenly aware of the thought of the loo on the coach. Then I joined the driver in the queue for coffee. I was four behind him. By the time I got back to the shelter he was stowing luggage, his coffee waiting  in the holder by the driver’s seat. Sam, looking dejected, stood by our rucksacks.

“Can you go and keep the seat Laura’s nabbed?” he asked, “and then let her get off for a minute? I’ll make sure the luggage is put in.” Sam smiled at me with his head on one side. He had very blue eyes, I noticed, but dark eyelashes. “I’ll say ‘bye.’” He said, “Hope you both have a good trip.” He kissed my cheek, his hand momentarily on my waist.

As I got on the coach, Laura stood up.

“Here’s your seat,” she said. “Mine’s the one by the window. I’ll just go and say goodbye to Sam.”

“Better hurry,” I said. “The driver’s nearly packed all the bags.”

She hurried down the coach. I sat in the aisle seat and sighed, feeling somehow deflated and waited for her.

She was in floods of tears as the coach drew out of the station, and as she waved madly to a disconsolate looking Sam. Then she turned to me, to cry on my shoulder.

“It’s only a month,” I said, “and if you really love him, you’ve got a whole lifetime ahead of you.”

Slowly she recovered herself. I was about three or four mouthfuls from the bottom of my latte when she asked if she could have a drop.

“Go on,” I said, “finish it.”

“Thank you, Angie. You’re the best.” She sighed one of those broken sighs that a child makes after a bout of crying and gazed out of the window. “I hope it stops raining before we reach the sea.”

By the time we reached the port the sun was out, and we had arrived in time to check in, so things were looking up. The sea was flat calm, and as foot passengers we were allowed on pretty quickly I got to the head of the queue for refreshments while Laura found us a decent seat.

“My turn for the window seat,” I said, as I handed her coffee and croissants. During the two hour coach trip from Oxford she had managed to fall asleep and ignore the view. She stuck her tongue out at me and started to say something, but then her phone beeped for a text and she dug in her handbag to find it.

“I’m going on deck.” I said. “You can have the window seat until I get back.

As I watched the receding port glinting in the sun, and the seagulls drifting above as we left a creamy trail of wake, the excitement of our holiday soothed my irritations. It’ll be OK, I told myself, once we are properly in France. We’ll get along fine.

It wasn’t alright though. By the time we disembarked I had soothed two more lots of tears, felt emotionally drained and it was nearly 7pm. We needed to find the hotel we had booked into for our first night and then get some food. Laura’s rucksack was so heavy and unbalanced she could hardly lift it.

“Any way you can reduce the weight you’re carrying?” I asked her. “I don’t see how you’ll manage this.”

“And just how? Are you suggesting I throw stuff away?”

Yes, I thought, but didn’t say so.

“Let’s look at your packing when we get to the room,” I said, “and maybe we can re-distribute things so you don’t feel so top heavy?”

The room was basic, but clean. We had twin beds and as I was too exhausted to argue I took the one furthest from the window without any discussion, unpacked what I needed from the top and sides of my rucksack and went to the bathroom, with my phone. I rang home.

“Hi, Mum, We’ve arrived!”

“How’s it going?”

“It’s OK,” I said, “but Laura’s being a bit of a pain. Tears and upset nearly all the way. And she’s so disorganised.”

“I’m sure you’re exaggerating, Angie,” she said, “give her a little while and things will be alright.”

“Maybe.”

“You’re not a saint yourself, Angie,” said Mum, laughing. I never said I was.

 

When I came back Laura had emptied everything out from her rucksack – and spread the lot over all the spare surfaces in the room.

“I haven’t packed any toothpaste,” she said, “could I have a squeeze of yours?” She looked up and saw my expression.

“I know, I know. I’m sorry,” she said, “I’ll sort myself out. I promise.”

“I’m very hungry, Laura,” I said, as I put on a jumper, “Let’s just get out of here now, out to a restaurant and get some food. And a glass or two of vino?” She nodded. “We can tidy up and re-pack when we get back.”

Everything felt better after that first glass of wine. Philosophically I wondered if my anxiety about the trip had been exaggerated by frustration with Laura. Well, now we had arrived, she hadn’t mentioned Sam for a couple of hours and we had found a lovely small bistro and ordered our food I felt my shoulders relax and I caught myself taking deep breaths right down to the base of my lungs. We had a small table out on the pavement overlooking the harbour.

“Tomorrow we should get up early and find the railway station,” I said. “Here’s the map, we can have a look to see what’s on the agenda.”

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

“Aren’t you going to get that?” said Laura.

“It’s a text. It’ll wait,” I said. “More importantly I have a present my Dad gave me when he dropped me off. Shall I open it now?”

“Ew, yes! I love presents,” she said, “even other people’s.”

It was a small box, carefully wrapped and tied with a ribbon… I hadn’t noticed this before as he had put the whole thing inside a paper bag to protect it.

The wrapping was easy to remove: the ribbon came undone and the paper unfolded as it was not stuck down, revealing a small box. And inside the box was an old fashioned silver locket on a long chain. Quite a big locket, about 3cm lengthways. Beautiful. I opened the locket and inside there was a family photograph, one taken earlier in the Summer, and we are all looking happy. On the other side, on a concertina of paper, in tiny writing Dad had written my details and who to contact in the case of an emergency. My eyes fill up. Dear old Dad. Then I realised that the wrapping paper was actually a letter written on airmail paper.

 

I looked up. Laura was staring at her mobile phone.

“Laura?”

“Oh, let me see,” she said and she took the locket. “That’s rather lovely. Let’s see it on?”

I folded up the letter carefully, without mentioning it to her. Laura poured me another glass of wine.

“Is your phone working OK over her?” she asked.

“I rang Mum earlier. Seems OK. Why?”

“Mine’s saying there’s no reception.”

I took a look at it.

“Did you let your phone company know you were coming abroad?”

“No.”

“That explains it, Laura. I wondered why your phone had been quiet since we landed.” I start to laugh. “Now at least we’ll have some peace.”

But instead of laughing with me, all she could do was dissolve into tears I found myself consoling her and telling her we’d find a way of putting it right.

“Tomorrow,” I said, “We’ll ring from my phone and ask them to put it right.”

“Can’t we do it now?”

“Now?”

“Well they are open 24 hours. Why do we have to wait until tomorrow?”

“I don’t suppose we do,” I sighed. “But can we at least wait until the end of the meal?”

 (I know this is incomplete as a short story  and is 130 ish words over, but I’m hoping for an allowance of 10% word count error…. and didn’t want Ara to be alone 🙂 )