One Plus One(41)
Author: Jojo Moyes

It rolled on. The weather cleared. They headed past Coventry and up towards Derby, with its ring roads and its big dark red factories, and she gazed at the landscape as it got wilder and woollier, and let the numbers run through her head in little strings, trying to do calculations in her head without actually looking at them so she wouldn’t get nauseous.

Mr Nicholls’s phone rang and a woman immediately started shouting at him in Italian. He just turned it off without saying anything.

Mum sat in the front and counted the money in her purse. She had £63.91, but she hadn’t yet seen that one of the ten-pence pieces was actually foreign money so it was going to be £63.81 unless she could get someone else to take it.

‘Nicky.’

He looked up. Mr Nicholls was watching him in the rear-view mirror.

‘You want to borrow my phone? It doesn’t have many games on it, but you could log onto Twitter or Facebook or whatever it is you lot are into these days.’

‘Really?’ Nicky pushed himself upright from his slumped position.

‘Sure. It’s in the pocket of my jacket.’

Mum took it out and handed it to him. ‘Be very careful with it, Nicky.’

‘I’ve deactivated the PIN. Just … you know, no movies.’

‘Cool.’ Nicky didn’t actually smile – he didn’t really do smiling much any more, Tanzie thought – but you could tell he was pleased.

‘Not you, Tanzie.’ Mum’s voice came across the seats. ‘Don’t you look at it or you’ll get sick.’

Tanzie sighed. It was SO boring being her sometimes. Norman’s head was really heavy on her lap and she tried to move it gently because her legs were getting pins and needles. She wondered how long it would take them to get to Scotland. She was really, really bored, but she knew that if she said so Mum would get all We’re all bored, Tanzie. There’s nothing I can do about it. She started to doze off, her head bumping against the window frame. Mum and Mr Nicholls started talking. It was possible they’d forgotten anyone else was in the car.

‘So, tell me about your wife.’

‘Ex-wife. And no thanks.’

‘Why not? You weren’t unfaithful. I’m guessing she wasn’t, or you would have made that face.’

‘What face?’

There was a short silence. Maybe ten lampposts.

‘I’m not sure I would ever have made that face. But no. She wasn’t. And, no, I don’t really want to discuss it. It’s …’

‘Private?’

‘I just don’t like talking about personal stuff. Do you want to talk about your ex?’

‘In front of his children? Yup, that’s always a great idea.’

They carried on in silence for a few miles. Mum started tapping on the window. Tanzie glanced over at Mr Nicholls. Every time Mum tapped a little muscle tweaked in his jaw.

‘So what shall we talk about, then? I’m not very interested in software and I’m guessing you have zero interest in what I do. And there are only so many times I can point at a field and say: “Oh, look, cows.”’

Mr Nicholls sighed.

‘Come on. It’s a long way to Scotland.’

There was a thirty-lamppost silence.

‘I could sing if you like. We could all sing. Let me see if I can find something –’

‘Lara. Italian. Model.’

‘Model.’ Mum laughed this great big laugh. ‘Of course.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Mr Nicholls said grumpily.

‘All men like you go out with models.’

‘What do you mean, men like me?’

Mum pressed her lips together.

‘What do you mean, men like me? Come on.’

‘Rich men.’

‘I’m not rich.’

Mum shook her head. ‘Noooo.’

‘I’m not.’

‘I think it depends how you define rich.’

‘I’ve seen rich. I’m not rich. I’m well-off, yes. But I’m a long way from rich.’

Mum turned to him. He really had no idea whom he was dealing with. ‘Do you have more than one house?’

He signalled and swung the wheel. ‘I might.’

‘Do you have more than one car?’

He glanced sideways. ‘Yes.’

‘Then you’re rich.’

‘Nope. Rich is private jets and yachts. Rich is staff.’

‘So what am I?’

Mr Nicholls shook his head. ‘Not staff. You’re …’

‘What?’

‘I’m just trying to imagine your face if I’d referred to you as my staff.’

Mum started to laugh. ‘My woman-servant. My cleaning wench.’

‘Yeah. Or those. Okay, well, what would you say is rich?’

Mum pulled one of the buffet apples from her bag and bit into it. She chewed for a minute before speaking. ‘Rich is paying every single bill on time without thinking about it. Rich is being able to have a holiday or get through Christmas without having to borrow against January and February. Actually, rich would be just not thinking about money all the bloody time.’

‘Everyone thinks about money. Even rich people.’

‘Yes, but you’re just thinking what to do with it to make more money. Whereas I’m thinking how the hell we can get enough of it to get through another week.’

Mr Nicholls made a sort of harrumphing sound. ‘I can’t believe I’m driving you to Scotland and you’re giving me a hard time because you’ve misguidedly decided I’m some kind of Donald Trump.’

‘I’m not giving you a hard time.’

‘Noooo.’

‘I’m just pointing out that there’s a difference between what you consider to be rich and what is actually rich.’

There was a sort of awkward silence. Mum blushed like she’d said too much and started eating her apple with big, noisy bites, even though she would have told Tanzie off if she had eaten like that. She had come awake again by then and she didn’t want Mum and Mr Nicholls to stop talking to each other because they were having quite a nice day, so she put her head through the front seats. ‘Actually, I read somewhere that to qualify for the top one per cent in this country you would need to earn more than a hundred and forty thousand pounds a year,’ she said helpfully. ‘So if Mr Nicholls doesn’t earn that much then he probably isn’t rich.’ She smiled and sat back in her seat.

Mum looked at Mr Nicholls. She kept looking at him.