One Plus One(60)
Author: Jojo Moyes

The phone rang and he glanced over, his heart sinking. ‘Lara.’

‘Eduardo. Baby. I need to talk to you about this roof.’

He was aware of Jess’s sudden rigidity, the flicker of her gaze. He wished, suddenly, that he hadn’t chosen to answer the call.

‘Lara, I’m not going to discuss this now.’

‘It’s not a lot of money. Not for you. I spoke to my solicitor and he says it would be nothing for you to pay for it.’

‘I told you before, Lara, we made a final settlement.’

He was suddenly conscious of the acute stillness of three people in the car.

‘Eduardo. Baby. I need to sort this with you.’

‘Lara –’

Before he could say anything more, Jess reached over and picked up the phone. ‘Hello, Lara,’ she said. ‘Jess here. I’m awfully sorry but he can’t pay for your roof, so there’s really no point in ringing him any more.’

A short silence. Then an explosive: ‘Who is this?’

‘I’m his new wife. Oh – and he’d like his Chairman Mao picture back. Perhaps just leave it with his lawyer. Okay? In your own time. Thanks so much.’

The resulting silence had the same quality as the few seconds before an atomic explosion. But before any of them could hear what happened next, Jess flipped the off button, and handed it back to him. He took it gingerly, and turned it off.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I think.’

‘You’re welcome.’ She didn’t look at him when she spoke.

Ed glanced into his rear-view mirror. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought Nicky was trying very hard not to laugh.

Somewhere between Edinburgh and Dundee, on a narrow, wooded lane, they slowed and stopped for a herd of cows in the road. The animals moved around the car, gazing in at its inhabitants with vague curiosity, a moving black sea, eyes rolling in woolly black heads. Norman stared back, his body rigid with silent, confused outrage. Tanzie took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes, gazing back at them, half blind.

‘Aberdeen Angus,’ said Nicky.

Suddenly, without warning, Norman hurled his whole body, snarling and growling at the window. The car physically jolted to one side and his deafening bark bounced off the interior, amplified in the confined space. The back seat became a chaotic mass of arms and noise and writhing dog. Nicky and Jess fought to reach him.

‘Mum!’

‘Norman! Stop!’ The dog was on top of Tanzie, his face hard against the window. Ed could just make out her pink jacket, flailing underneath him.

Jess lunged over the seat at the dog, grabbing for his collar. They dragged Norman back down from the window. He whined, shrill and hysterical, straining at their grasp, great gobs of drool spraying across the interior.

‘Norman, you big idiot! What the hell –’

‘He’s never seen a cow before.’ Tanzie, struggling upright, always defending him.

‘Jesus, Norman.’

‘You okay, Tanze?’

‘I’m fine.’

The cows continued to part around the car, unmoved by the dog’s outburst. Through the now steamed-up windows they could just make out the farmer at the rear, walking slowly and impassively, with the same lumbering gait as his bovine charges. He gave the barest of nods as he passed, as if he had all the time in the world. Norman whined and pulled against his collar.

‘I’ve never seen him like that before.’ Jess straightened her hair and blew out through her cheeks. ‘Perhaps he could smell beef.’

‘I didn’t know he had it in him,’ Ed said.

‘My glasses.’ Tanzie held up the twisted piece of metal. ‘Mum. Norman broke my glasses.’

It was a quarter past ten.

‘I can’t see anything without my glasses.’

Jess looked at Ed. Shit.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Grab a plastic bag. I’m going to have to put my foot down.’

They drove at speed, half frozen, the wind from the open windows a buffeting roar that thwarted conversation. The Scottish roads were wide and empty, and Ed drove so fast that the satnav had repeatedly to reassess its timing to their destination. Every minute they gained was an imaginary air punch in his head. Tanzie was sick twice. He refused to stop to allow her to vomit into the road.

‘She’s really ill.’

‘I’m fine,’ Tanzie kept saying, her face wedged into a plastic bag. ‘Really.’

‘You don’t want to stop, sweetheart? Just for a minute?’

‘No. Keep going. Bleurgh –’

There wasn’t time to stop. Not that this made the car journey any easier to bear. Nicky had turned away from his sister, his hand over his nose. Even Norman’s head was thrust as far out into the fresh air as he could get it.

Ed drove like someone in a luxury car advert, speeding through empty bends, along the winding base of ancient windswept hillsides. The car gripped the greasy roads as if it had been meant for this. He forgot he was cold, that his car interior was pretty much destroyed, his life a mess. There were moments, in that astonishing landscape, his whole being focused on driving as fast and as safely as he could, when it felt like an almost spiritual experience. A spiritual experience broken only by the occasional sound of a child gagging into a fresh plastic bag.

He would get them there. He knew this as surely as he knew anything. He felt filled with purpose in a way that he hadn’t done in months. And as Aberdeen finally loomed before them, its buildings vast and silver grey, the oddly modern high-rises thrusting into the distant sky, his mind raced ahead of them. He headed for the centre, watched as the roads narrowed and became cobbled streets. They came through the docks, the enormous tankers on their right, and that was where the traffic slowed, and slowly, unstoppably, his confidence began to unravel. They slowed and then sat in an increasingly anxious silence, Ed punching in alternative routes across Aberdeen that offered no time gain and often no sense. The satnav started to work against him, adding back the time it had subtracted. It was fifteen, nineteen, twenty-two minutes until they reached the university building. Twenty-five minutes. Too many.

‘What’s the delay?’ said Jess, to nobody in particular. She fiddled with the radio buttons, trying to find the traffic reports. ‘What’s the hold-up?’

‘It’s just sheer weight of traffic.’

‘That’s such a lame expression,’ said Nicky. ‘Of course a traffic jam is sheer weight of traffic. What else would it be down to?’