Chapter 4

Down on the car deck, the smell of diesel was all-pervading. Several other families looked like they would rather just sit somewhere. A lorry driver with a huge belly was climbing into his lorry cabin with half a bacon sandwich in his hand, a line of tomato ketchup on his shirt showed that he had eaten the other half already.

“Oh, God! I’m gonna be sick!” Mary said.

“No, you bloody well aren’t. I’m not sitting in a car stinking of sick. And Dad would have a fit, WILL have a fit if it smells. No, no. You aren’t fucking driving.” Amelie grabbed the keys. Mary didn’t argue, Abigail was already in the back, Rupert was going round to the other side.”No, Rupe, you’re in the front with me.” He looked the least green and she needed some help in navigation.

She got in to the driver’s seat, took a deep breath and said under her breath “It’ll be fine.” She had no idea what the punishment was for not having a full driving licence. Oh! Or having insurance (because she had no licence so she was not insured). Oh! And carrying passengers. Oh! And not having permission from the owner. She would pretend to be Mary at the customs. She was already thinking all this as the car in front moved off, she started the car, put it in gear and moved smoothly away (she was rehearsing the moves in her head. She actually signalled as she moved off in the ferry hold – look, signal, manoeuvre).

Half way up the steel ramp, the cars ahead stopped. She stopped, convinced that this was when she got caught. She would slip and slide, she was sure. The cars moved off, and, once again she rehearsed the process in her head – this time for hill starts. There was no official process for hill starts on a slippery, oily steel ramp. Edging in the clutch, the car lurched and stalled. Handbrake back on, select neutral, restart, rev up a little more, let in the clutch and let off the handbrake. The car slid forward and she breathed a sigh of relief. What she didn’t see behind her was the next car, also on the ramp, driven by a man who had been driving for twenty seven years, also stalled, once, twice, three times, before moving up with tyres spinning.

Up and out, into the Irish daylight. Into the Irish grey, overcast, drizzling daylight. The aftermath of the gale were banks of cloud and rain. Actually rain was not an uncommon greeting for visitors to Ireland. At the customs office they were simply waved through. Any security checks would have been done even before they went on to the ferry; random stops did happen, but even that was rare. Out onto the roads of Dublin, Amelie followed the traffic in front and looked to Rupert for help. He was asleep again, so were the two in the back. Amie sighed, but smiled. Unlike her mother and sister, unexpected adventures were not something to be fretted and worried over, they were something to welcome. She headed out, looking for sign posts that simply said ‘The North’ and slowly, with a couple of diversions where the signs vanished and she found herself in a housing estate - ‘that was a horse in the front garden. It was! I’m in a foreign country!’ - she just kept driving until she found a main road again.

It took an hour to extricate herself from Dublin’s crowded streets. The traffic was manic; but, she told herself, that was good, it meant it moved slower and gave her time to see road signs. She was a glass half full person, someone who saw the sliver lining to a cloud. She had once written about the sliver linings of clouds, and everybody in her class had laughed. She laughed too now and always talked about slivers instead of silver linings.

“At last! A friggin’ motorway.” She said quietly, and moved up to 70. She had tried to stick to speed limits in the city, when it said 45, she had gone at a maximum of 45 mph. She wasn’t going to get caught for speeding. Only later did she realise that 45 meant 45 kph, which was around 30 mph. She was tired-er than she had thought. At least motorways were the same, weren’t they? She didn’t know. She had no idea about any of this, she hadn’t looked any of it up because she wouldn’t be driving. The others hadn’t looked it up either because they were self-confident, over-confident, self-satisfied, teenagers.

Applegreen services appeared on the horizon and she breathed another sigh of relief. At the very least, she needed a coffee. She pulled over to the left hand lane (‘at least the Irish drove on the right side of the road, not the right side!’ She giggled to herself. Fancy having to drive on the wrong side of the road!) and then slid off to the services, parking at the far end of the car park.

“Where are we?” Mary woke and asked. “Oh – you’re driving, I thought Abi or Rupe would be. You aren’t allowed! You aren’t insured!”

“Yes, ‘thank you Amelie, for taking control of the situation and getting us on the road’ ‘that’s all right, big sister, I’m just happy to do whatever is needed’”

“Oh, look, I’m sure we are all grateful.” Abigail said. She could tell that under the jokey sarcasm, Amelie was ready to have a stand up row with her sister. Mary was thinking about the ‘what might have happened’ scenarios, like any old, middle-aged worrier would. Abi patted Amelie on the shoulder. “You’ve done brilliantly. Umm? Where are we actually?”

“Motorway heading North. I though everybody might want to get changed? I do.” With that, she got out, went to her bag and extracted clean clothes. Then she got back in and said to Rupert “Go for a walk, okay?”

“But...” He wanted to say, ‘but I’ve seen every inch of your body, I’ve explored every indentation’. He didn’t, he just said. “Latte’s all round?” Mary shook her head. Black coffee was all she wanted. He headed across the acre of empty carpark, imagining three girls pulling up tops, and down skirts and pants. “Shit! This trip isn’t working out the way I thought it might.”

Amelie was indeed pulling off her pants. She would have liked to have wiped at least a wet face cloth round her sweaty groin; the driving had been more stressful that she liked to admit, even to herself. But a quick spray of anti-perspirant was all it got.

Abi noticed that she sprayed herself between her legs, and determined to have a quiet word later. She was a firm believer in no chemicals near her delicate parts, and especially not inside.

Mary had got out, found some clothes and stood behind the car. Her teeshirt came off, then her bra. The security webcam operator couldn’t believe her luck. She had lived with Sinead for three years now, and they were a firm couple, but a pair of unexpected naked boobs was still an attractive distraction from the boring job. She watched as the girl on camera bent over and stood. Her smooth young body and her pretty well-shaped breasts wobbled as she moved around. The camera wasn’t nearly good enough to get that detail, but the operator was filling in the gaps. Mary bent over again, and some pants appeared in her hand. Unfortunately, the angle of the camera view did not allow for a view of the lower body of this girl who was getting changed in the car park.

Abigail opted to change in the car. She kept her pants (Rupe’s pants) on. They were clean, but also it was just slightly a turn on to know she was wearing the boy’s underwear.

The walk across the car park woke them up, the air was good and clean, the gentle rain actually felt good. By the time they reached the building, all three were thinking they might like some food.

They came out forty five minutes later with smiles, Mary would take over driving. Amelie happily went and sat in the back, she had been commended for her driving and initiative. They had agreed that there was no need to mention any of the problems and illegal driving to parents.

They drove up to Drogheda and into the Boyne Visitor Centre. It wasn’t something a bunch teenagers would normally visit, but Mairead had said how central this was to all the problems since. It had a nice cafe too. “We’re getting like old people, more interested in the cafe than the place.” Mary said, tucking into the cake. They were enjoying this trip again.

When they set off, Mary gave Rupe the keys. “Go on, I know you want to. We’d better get all the passports ready for the border.”

Of course there was no border, not a check anyway. They just sailed through. They knew that they had crossed into Northern Ireland because of the road signs. Rupert drove into Newry, and wondered why. It wasn’t the most attractive place in the world, but there was a supermarket. He started walking around with the other three, but found the debate and discussion about every single solitary item wore him out. He went outside to wait. They had had limited Irish (EU) money, but now they were back in the UK, they simply all put twenty into a pot and Abi held the shopping money. Mary and Amelie started saying “Can we have one of these, Mummy?” to wind her up.

Outside, a policeman in green walked by, the uniform looked odd, the side arm even odder. The policeman’s companion (they were always in pairs in Newry) saw him staring and stopped “Can I help you sor?” Rupert looked at him, he didn’t understand the accent at all.

“Sore?”

“What?”

“I don’t understand, I’m not sore.”