Chapter 3

On the day they were due to leave. Mary heard that Rupert had passed his test. She heard from Tracey, whose mother worked in the shoe shop part time. It was a parting comment when she was out having her hair trimmed to look good for the wedding. She rang Rupert to confirm, then spoke to her father. He was, like many older men, pleased to be able to add a male to the named drivers on the insurance. Women, he was convinced, were not as good. The statistics showing that women were generally safer and less like to have or cause accidents were all discounted. Of course if a man drives all the time, the woman is less confident, so she will not want to drive, so the man drives all the time.

Mary rang Abi and told her, Abi rang Rupe; who shrugged and said he was happy to be chauffeured by two girls. Actually he was hoping he’d get a turn to drive, but he wasn’t going to be pushy.

Mary and Amelie kissed their mother goodbye. “Now drive safely, drive carefully, let us know when you arrive in Liverpool. Be careful on the motorway. Don’t drive too fast. Don’t get distracted. Don’t -”

“Mum! It’ll be fine. We’ll ring from Liverpool, and from Dublin, and from Strangford. We’ll be careful and we’ll see you very soon. Love you.” Their father had kissed them that morning and gone to work. It wasn’t that he wasn’t worried, but he was more worried by the meeting that was meaning he (and Mairead) would fly over. It sounded like a reorganisation was in the offing. That meant good or bad news. He could only really worry about one thing at a time. Mary drove off as smoothly as she could, with the result that she stalled it at the junction; luckily her mother didn’t see.

Round to Abigail’s, where exactly the same conversation took place with Abi’s mother. As they drove off, Abigail said “Good grief! I know they worry, but it isn’t like we are off to join the Foreign Legion.”

“Ah,” said Amelie from the front – she wasn’t giving up the front seat without a fight “you haven’t told her yet, then?” They all laughed and stopped at Rupert’s house. The same conversation again. Rupert smiled and assured his mother that he wasn’t driving anyway and even if he did, he’d be very careful.

“And ... don’t forget the other.” Emerald said, in the kind of quiet voice that was easily heard by the occupants already in the car. He got in the back.

“The other?” asked Mary.

“What other?” Abigail said.

“Did she mean ‘Don’t forget to take plenty of precautions’?” Mary asked.

“I think they are illegal in Ireland, they’ll be confiscated. I think she meant...” Amelie giggled “Don’t forget to try and get inside that other hole that they promised you. Give them a good fuc-”

“Amelie! You are disgusting! You deserve a sound thrashing.” Mary interrupted.

“Rupe would love that, wouldn’t you Rupe?” The thing was, he couldn’t deny it. He really would like to get her across his knee. He tried not to think about it, and was grateful that she was in the front.

They drove out of the town and into an adventure. The music was on, the motorway opened up to the North, and the three passengers did what teenagers everywhere do on family trips – they fell asleep. They were unaware of Mary’s broad smile as she moved into the middle lane and overtook a line of traffic. They didn’t see her take a packet of Percy Pigs in her teeth and carefully tear the top; for them to tumble out. One fell out and down between her legs; another fell into her teeshirt. As she overtook a lumbering campervan, the fifty something driver looked down and saw a girl driving at seventy with a hand inside her bra. As she overtook a coach of old men, they saw a car speeding past with the driver having her hand up under her skirt. Two of the men got too excited and had to take their angina medicine. Another just got excited, closed his eyes and imagined it was his hand, not hers. She found the Percy Pig and pulled it out from under her left thigh and popped it into her mouth. One of the men with the angina medicine couldn’t believe it, it had been thirty two years since he’d last seen a woman finger herself and then suck her fingers. A man sees what he wants to see.

Mary was entirely unaware of the effect she was having on people around her. Shut in her little steel box, she found herself in the same position as many others, totally oblivious to other real people beyond. They were just alternate steel boxes to avoid. She sucked on her sweets and happily drove towards the ferry port. After an hour, Rupert woke and suggested they might need a break soon. By the time the next services appeared, twenty miles later, all four needed a visit to the toilets. Then they grabbed an overpriced coffee each. As one, they wondered if their various mothers offers of ‘a flask’ might have been a good idea. They sat in the car and ate cheese (Amelie), ham (Abigail), tomato (Mary) and peanut butter and beetroot (Rupert) sandwiches. “You really do eat that crap!” Amelie said “I thought you made them on the Guide camp just to gross them out.”

“As I told our lovely little charges, you can put peanut butter with anything, and I often do.”

“Do either of you two want to take over? I’m happy to share – providing I can drive onto the ferry.” Mary said. She really wanted to be the one to take the car onto the ferry. She was driving abroad for the first time ever. Abi looked at Rupe, Rupe looked at Abi. He really didn’t want to be too pushy.

“You take it Rupe, I can see you are all but wetting yourself to drive.”

“Sure? Okay.” he replied, not giving her a chance to change her mind. He pulled out and they drove on. Amelie was still in the front passenger seat. “You have to stay awake Amelie. You have to talk to me.”

In the back, the two older girls rapidly began to slide back into sleep. It wasn’t long before they were both leaning on the bag in the middle. At both sides, dresses and suits had been hung to stop them getting creased, so the two were unable to lean on the sides. It didn’t take long for the two of them to be asleep across Rupert’s bag. There hadn’t been enough space in the boot for his bag because the other three bags were bigger. Rupert had planned carefully, he had two bags (plus suit). His main bag was supplemented by a small bag for the boat. The others were intending to grab spare clothes whilst they waited to board.

He looked behind him, and adjusted the mirror. “Rupe! You are seeing if you can see down her cleavage! You are amazing, you’ve seen everything and more and yet...” Amelie said quietly.

“I know, the thing is. A girl’s cleavage is somehow a promise, a statement of things to be seen that are hidden. It’s like lingerie. Honestly, sexy undies are more sexy than a nude girl. Stupid isn’t it?”

“Yes, and definitely not what you said on the boat. BTW – if only you could turn your head and drive still. My darling sister has forgotten all her well-bredness. She is slouched over, with her skirt – I told her it was too short – riding up. I can see her knickers really clearly. You’d have a monster growing in your pants.”

“Already have, from your description.”

“Rupe! Here, look at this instead.” She unzipped her jeans and edged them down to show the pink lacy trim at the top of her pants. They were overtaking a Chelsea Tractor lookalike. The driver was wondering why he was driving his family up to see his family, since they all disliked his family (he disliked them too), and with good reason, his family being distinctly unwelcoming. He glanced to one side and saw a young woman steadily exposing her underwear. He wanted to speed up to stay in touch with what was happening. Since he couldn’t because of the car in front, he watched as pretty pink panties moved out of view. Behind him, his son was trying not to get an erection visible to his sister from the same sight.

The coffee woke up the two in the back. “Where are we?”

“Are we nearly there?”

“Can we stop?”

“Is it far now.”

Rupert and Amelie were laughing, they finally got why parents lost it occasionally in a car as voices from the back just kept plaguing them with questions. The last M6 services came up, he pulled into them and yawned, driving on motorways was so boring. “They should put humps in the road, or chicanes. Just to maintain the interest.”

“With ideas like that, you should be Minister of Transport. Didn’t you have an idea for paint speed guns?”

“Oh, yeah, it’s good. So if you are clocked say 10mph over the limit, instead of ticket and a fine, you get splattered by a paintball gun. Car is ruined. Good eh?”

“And the windscreen gets covered in paint and you can’t see and crash and die and -”

“And you won’t do it again. Like I said, good eh?”

“Hmm, yes, seems a little drastic, but just keep thinking outside that box, Rupe.”

As usual, they emptied their bladders and then promptly prepared to refill them with Coke or coffee. Abigail took over for the final leg, Amelie giving instructions on how to reach the ferry terminal. No-one said anything in case it sounded patronising, but she was actually very good. She gave instructions well in advance, clearly and without stuff like “left by the sign.” which could mean any sign for the next mile. She would say “left by the sign that says ferry in 200 yards.” She didn’t assume people could read signs, she didn’t even create merry hell when Abi missed a turning, simply suggesting a cut down a road that led to a road that allowed for a right turn back onto the right road. All three non-navigators recalled the panicked voices from navigator and driver on past holidays, like one wrong turn meant that they were in Snake Plissken territory trying to escape from New York (or Horsham).

They were ten miles away when they hit the traffic jam. It looked like it ran for the next ten miles. “Is there another way?”

“Can’t see one. Unless we turn right round and do a huge circuit and come from the other side.”

A policeman was walking past. “Excuse me, sir. What’s the holdup? Only we have a ferry to catch.” Mary put on her politest voice.

“Oh? That’s an emergency. Hang on, I’ll radio for a squad car to clear the way so you can go down the wrong side of the road. We’ll get the ferry to wait, don’t worry.” He didn’t like young people of either sex. He walked on.

“Bastard didn’t even say what the problem was.” Mary said. Amelie put on the radio. “Oh really? You want Radio Bloody Humberside!”

“Merseyside, and shut up and listen.” The traffic report was explaining that a burst water main was causing chaos. The traffic moved three cars forward. There was an air of panic rising in the car.

It got later and they moved very slowly forward, a few car lengths at a time. People looked at watches and showed their different ways of dealing with it. Rupert looked at his watch every two or three minutes. Mary started saying how they were going to miss it, if they had only left earlier (like that helped now). Abigail looked like she was going to burst into floods of tears at any moment, and Amelie sat silent, breathing carefully. She was telling herself that it was out of their hands and in the hands of fate. It nearly helped, but she had to concentrate to stop the panic from escaping from her stomach.

Finally, with twenty minutes to spare before checkin was closed, the traffic freed. Like so many jams, it suddenly evaporated as if it had never existed. Abi was tempted to floor the pedal, but she just edged up to thirty six, any faster and she’d get points if they were flashed. Perhaps she was lucky, or perhaps the old speed camera they passed had run out of film, no flash. They arrived with two minutes. “Right, right, go on. Straight down and onto the boat. There’s been a few that are late, problem on the roads? Well they won’t hold the ferry, so get a move on!” Finally, she felt able to accelerate in safety. The man in the yellow jacket directing traffic felt less safe as a car headed towards him at high speed.