Chapter 3

Take the burden
Carry the weight
Dodging the eye
Away from the light
Make it work hard
Keep it sightless of fate
Pay it dear and precious
Always, (always, always) out of that sight
Rings (B. Lake) 2005

Zero hour +1

Summer and I were lost in a crossword. At least that’s how it felt. Intersections would appear every couple of miles, forming a never-ending grid of regimented crops with no sign of civilisation on either side. I guessed that even wheat needed roads to get to mills, feed stores and bakeries, but I couldn’t swear to it as there was no sign of any of those as we drove on and on.

Summer, or more correctly Charlotte, had lapsed into a sullen silence after I regaled her with the story of how I first got a date with Phoebe; her hearing me working on a song in the woods, stopping to chat – and to my astonishment, admiring my work. I had persuaded her to sing along and recorded her voice, and as a reward promised her pizza. I’d stopped at that point – getting lost in memory.

More worryingly than Summer’s attitude, I realised that she was sliding her butt forward and slumping down in the seat whenever a car or truck came towards us. When on one occasion we were overtaken, she slid off the seat altogether to crouch in the footwell. I raised one eyebrow and she scowled up at me, her lips screwed up tightly into a little bud that looked alarmingly kissable. As the truck breezed past us, I saw what seemed to me to be a very ordinary man, wearing a checked shirt and a cowboy hat. He glanced over and then concentrated on his driving.

When I described him to Summer, she seemed relieved, but refused to say who she was watching out for, turning her head away and looking out of the window, keeping her thoughts to herself. For a while I thought about how she refused to tell me who was chasing her, and the words in my head seemed to flow like tributaries of a river. As the scenery slowly rolled past, they all came together into a delta to form the song that would eventually become Chasing the Fast Road.

Aiding the composition of that was the fact that we were travelling on what I would normally consider a gravel road – a farm road – a seemingly infinite off-white path that simply went straight for mile after mile, crunching under the tyres as it unwound in a continually direct uniform strip. I kept the speed down to thirty miles an hour, all too used to the sudden inexplicable bends that appeared in British roads solely to challenge a driver’s skill at getting around a corner while going too fast. I didn’t want to face that on a surface made of stones kept together only by the force of gravity, but other drivers seemed to regard it as perfectly normal, sweeping past us at much greater speeds.

Gravel seemed to be fairly standard for the area, and little heaps of grit appeared on the verge from time to time, probably for top up or repair purposes. One of my main concerns was that this would turn out to be the grit that I’d been instructed to try when I visited Nashville, the next stop on the tour that Lappies’ personal assistant had strung together for me: a tour of icons, musical greats, and the offices of their agents. My preferred ideal of seeing America would be from the upper deck of one of those luxury trains I’d seen in movies – hopefully in first class – with some excellent catering. I also wanted to see the real America behind the shadows on movie screens, so I guess it was my own fault.

Now I was here, it felt a bit weird. It was all too a bit too big for my liking, and I felt almost itchy within my skin. The whole country was too big, with too much sky. I was seated next to a pretty, albeit goblin-tempered woman, in a huge car that effortlessly swallowed every bump in the road, surrounded by wheat as far as the eye could see. This was not what I’d expected this trip to be. I missed my little corner of the world. I needed to see more people, more buildings, more hills, more rain. One day out of London, and I was already homesick.

I was also in trouble. I had the gnawing certainty that this thing with Summer, whatever it was, would turn out badly. Not for the first time in my life, I mentally swore at the part of me that forced me to remain with her. It had been bad before, but after she’d hugged me, my oh-so-wonderful syndrome was buzzing along merrily like a Japanese Shinkansen – a bullet train – seemingly unstoppable and moving too quickly to ever halt, or even slow down enough for me to jump off.

I sighed, and then brightened a little as houses came into view and we drove into a town ... a village ... a roadside camp? I had no idea what to call it. The houses were an almost uniform white with very little to differentiate between them – apart from some having grey roofs and some red – with huge spaces of bare land between them. Little huddles of these were gathered together here and there, and the sum of those clusters was more like a clot on the landscape than anything else I’d ever experienced.

Some had cars – or fridges, stoves or sofas, or all of the above – in the front and back yards; which couldn’t be called gardens by even the most enthusiastic stretch of the imagination. The surrounding fields were a rich, emerald green or a bright, shining gold – while the yards and public grassed areas were a lifeless brown. There were way more basketball hoops than the flagpoles proudly flying the Stars and Stripes that I’d been led to expect. To be honest, I couldn’t help comparing it to the remnants of a gypsy camp I’d seen once, after the caravans and trailers had moved on.

More promising for Summer’s empty belly were the bigger houses and neater yards that appeared a few blocks further into what turned out to be the township of Lincolnville. In the distance, I spotted the first sparse signs of life with a few people moving in and out of what was obviously some sort of trading store. My hopes were dashed once again, when I got closer and realised it sold auto parts. Okay, it was mid-afternoon and most of the residents were probably either working in the fields, or somewhere with a few more enterprises, but this looked like a ghost town.

I let out a noise of annoyance. How could anywhere with more than a dozen houses sell auto parts but not food?

“What’s bugging you?” Summer asked.

“I can’t find a place to eat,” I complained.

“You passed a diner a few blocks back. I thought you weren’t going to stop so I didn’t say anything.”

I cocked my head at her, askance. I sighed. “Okay, I’ll turn around.”

I retraced the route until she pointed out what I’d previously taken to be a double-length garage with a couple of small windows in the side. It looked very similar to some of the houses: four metal covered walls and two plain roof sections leaning against each other. It reminded me of photos of the old prefabricated houses they churned out by the thousand after the war for the hordes of returning soldiers and their families.

“That’s a diner?” I asked, disappointed at the shredding of my movie-inspired expectations.

“It’s not where Harry met Sally,” she agreed, picking up on my dismay. “But it’s food.”

I parked and she fussed with the handkerchief on her head. I realised that she was making sure it covered her hair completely. Yep, she was being followed all right, and that being the case, that magical hair would draw attention like a lighthouse in the middle of Trafalgar Square. In my imagination, I placed a huge rotating lamp on the top of Nelson’s head and sniggered at the incongruity.

She glared at me, and I did my best to look innocent. After a moment she sat back and looked at the diner.

“I don’t have any money,” she said finally.

“I kinda guessed that, I’ve pretty much seen everywhere a pocket might be expected.”

She snorted her annoyance. “Jeez, you’re not going to give me a break, are you?”

“Well, apart from not going mediaeval on your arse when you tried to mug me, not leaving that same arse for the children of the corn to munch on, then helping you shower, giving you a ride and now about to fill that growling belly of yours – no. No breaks from me. You pretty much hit that nail bang on the head.”

Her hands formed those claws again, and my throat definitely felt threatened.

Wanting to forestall any more physical animosity, I climbed out of the car, went around and opened her door. “After you, milady.”

Even barefoot and clad in clothes that threatened to drown her, she entered the diner as if she owned it, and I found myself smiling at her manner.

Lunch, dinner, or tea – depending on how you regarded that meal – was interesting. She ordered a burger and chips, which order I doubled, and then ordered a coffee with milk and some pecan pie for myself. When the food arrived, I immediately regretted doubling up on her order, and stared aghast at the massive size of the patties, the sheer bulk of the bacon, cheese and other sundry items within the buns, and just shook my head. In the end, however, she somehow managed to munch her way through both burgers, all the chips and then stole half my pecan pie – which was almost sublime it was so good – before finally giving up. I had to tap her knuckles with my spoon before she gave up trying to snaffle the ice cream as well. I realised it was true: everything was bigger in America, and I had to learn to think in those terms.

“Damn, I needed that!” she said, reclining in the cane back chair and slurping noisily at the huge glass of soda, the top of the straw only just managing to break the surface when it was served.

“How much was it?” she asked when the bill arrived, then looked completely blank when I told her.

“What the hell’s a pony got to do with it?”

“A pony, my poor uninformed colonial lass, is twenty-five pounds, although this time I’m talking dollars. How much should I leave?”

“Leave five dollars for the tip.” She frowned at my raised eyebrows. “Twenty per cent, cheapskate! They need the tips!”

“Don’t they pay their staff properly?” I asked, dropping thirty-five dollars on the table. Her comment had stung. I wasn’t a cheapskate by any means, but I thought a surcharge of twenty per cent for simply taking an order and bringing the food to the table was still a bit steep. I wondered if I was supposed to tip the cashiers and shelf-packers in the shops, and mentally shrugged; perhaps that was just how it worked here.

I checked our bearings with the cook behind the counter, who was wearing a rather grubby apron and a white ... whitish hat of some sort. Disappointingly, and contrary to my expectations, he was quite thin, wasn’t sweating hugely and was clean-shaven. He gave the information I needed, but when he pointed out directions for me, he waved his spatula in wide arcs. I felt redeemed. To my mind, that was how a short-order cook was supposed to act.

“Head toward the silos over that way. Turn onto 6^th and keep going till you hit 56.”

“But I need to be on 77,” I protested.

He sniggered. “Same thing...”

I could hear the word ‘dummy’ unsaid in that sentence. At least it explained how I’d got so lost while never deviating from the right road.

“Aah. Thank you,” I said, and after a few more questions, returned to the car.

“There’s no sheriff in this place,” I commented to Summer. “We can find one in Wichita, I guess, although I don’t think we really need to.”

There was a silence between us as we passed an attractive brick church and a few rather more upmarket houses. The local council or its US equivalent should put in a one-way system to ensure that all visitors had to go through this part first, I thought.

We reached the highway, and turned south towards the I35, the silence stretching out to uncomfortable levels. I was about to make some inane remark, when she turned to me.

“Tell me a joke.”

“Really?” I had definitely not expected that.

“Why not, we’re both on edge. It couldn’t hurt.”

“Okay.” I put on a West Country accent. “Near my house there’s a little office park with just two offices. One is a genealogist and the other is a gynaecologist. A friend asked me what the difference was. I explained that one looks up the family tree and the other looks up the family bush.”

Summer stared at me for the longest moment, while I kept my face absolutely straight. I was about to apologise to her and berate myself for the inappropriateness of the joke in her circumstances – although she hadn’t actually told me of them, so how was I to tell her I’d guessed? Then her mouth twitched and her nostrils flared a couple of times. She snorted, then giggled and then loudly gave one of the sweetest and yet filthiest belly-laughs I’d ever heard. Soon we were both laughing - her at the stupid joke, me with pleasure at the sound of her mirth. Damn, she had a sexy laugh.

The rest of the journey passed very pleasantly with both of us telling jokes, and silences suddenly broken by a cry of, “I know one, I’ve got one! Listen to this...” The jokes ranged from pre-school all the way to filthy, with both of us rocking from side to side with laughter.