One Plus One(61)
Author: Jojo Moyes

‘There could have been an accident,’ said Tanzie.

‘But the jam itself would still comprise the traffic. So the problem is still the sheer weight of traffic.’

‘No, the volume of traffic slowing itself down is something completely different.’

‘But it’s the same result.’

‘But then it’s an inaccurate description.’

Jess peered at the satnav. ‘Are we in the right place? I wouldn’t have thought the docks would be near the university.’

‘We have to get through the docks to get to the university.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘I’m sure, Jess.’ Ed tried to suppress the tension in his voice. ‘Look at the satnav.’

There was a brief silence. In front of them the traffic-lights changed through two cycles without anybody moving. Jess, on the other hand, moved incessantly, fidgeting in her seat, peering around her to see if there was some clear route they might have missed. He couldn’t blame her. He felt the same.

‘I don’t think we’ve got time to get new glasses,’ he murmured to Jess, when they’d sat through the fourth cycle.

‘But she can’t see without them.’

‘If we look for a chemist we’re not going to make it there for midday.’

She bit her lip, then turned round in her seat. ‘Tanze? Is there any way you can see through the unbroken lens? Any way at all?’

A pale green face emerged from the plastic bag. ‘I’ll try,’ it said.

Traffic stopped and stalled. They grew silent, the tension within the car ratcheting up. When Norman whined, they growled, ‘Shut up, Norman!’ as one. Ed felt his blood pressure rising, even as the weight of responsibility for getting them there seemed to grow heavier. Why hadn’t they left half an hour earlier? Why hadn’t he worked this out better? What would happen if they missed it? He glanced sideways to where Jess was tapping her knee nervously and guessed that she was probably thinking the same thing. And then finally, inexplicably, as if the gods had been toying with them, the traffic cleared.

He flung the car through the cobbled streets, Jess yelling, ‘GO! GO!’ leaning forwards on the dashboard as if she were a coachman driving a horse. He skidded the car around the bends, almost too fast for the satnav, which actually started to burble, and entered the university campus on two wheels, following the small printed signs that had been placed haphazardly on random poles, until they found the Downes Building, an unlovely 1970s office block in the same grey granite as everything else.

The car screeched into a parking space in front of it, and everything stopped. Ed let out a long breath and glanced at the clock. It was six minutes to twelve.

‘This is it?’

‘This is it.’

Jess appeared suddenly paralysed, as if she couldn’t believe they were actually there. She undid her seatbelt and stared at the car park, at the boys strolling in as if they had all the time in the world, some reading off electronic devices, others accompanied by tense-looking parents. They were all wearing the uniforms of minor public schools. ‘I thought it would be … bigger,’ she said.

Nicky gazed out through the dank grey drizzle. ‘Yeah. Because advanced maths is such a crowd-puller.’

‘I can’t see anything,’ said Tanzie.

‘Look, you guys go in and register. I’ll get her some glasses.’

Jess turned to him. ‘But they won’t be the right prescription.’

‘I’ll sort it. Just go. GO.’

He could see her staring after him as he skidded out of the car park and headed back towards the city centre.

It took seven minutes and three attempts to find a chemist large enough to sell reading glasses. Ed screeched to a halt so dramatic that Norman shot forward and his great head collided with his shoulder. He resettled himself on the back seat, grumbling.

‘Stay here,’ Ed told him, and bolted inside.

The shop was empty, aside from an old woman with a basket and two assistants talking in lowered voices. He skidded around the shelves, past tampons and toothbrushes, corn plasters and reduced Christmas-gift sets, until he finally found the stand by the till. Dammit. Why the hell hadn’t he checked whether she was long- or short-sighted? He reached for his phone to ask, then remembered he didn’t have Jess’s number.

‘Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.’ Ed stood there, trying to guess. Tanzie’s glasses looked as if they might be pretty strong. He had never seen her without them. Would that mean she was more likely to be short-sighted? Didn’t all children tend to be short-sighted? It was adults who held things away from them to see, surely. He hesitated for about ten seconds and then, after a moment’s indecision, he pulled them all from their rack, long- and short-sighted, mild and super-strength, and dumped them on the counter in a clear plastic-wrapped pile.

The girl broke off her conversation with the old woman. She looked down at them then up at him. Ed saw her clock the drool on his collar and tried to wipe it surreptitiously with his sleeve. This succeeded in smearing it across his lapel.

‘All of them. I’ll take all of them,’ he said. ‘But only if you can ring them up in less than thirty seconds.’

She looked over at her supervisor, who gave Ed a penetrating stare, then an imperceptible nod. Without a word, the girl began to ring them up, carefully positioning each pair in a bag. ‘No. No time. Just chuck them in,’ he said, reaching past her to thrust them into the plastic carrier.

‘Do you have a loyalty card?’

‘No. No loyalty card.’

‘We’re doing a special three for two offer on diet bars today. Would you like –’

Ed scrambled to pick up the glasses that had fallen from the counter. ‘No diet bars,’ he said. ‘No offers. Thank you.’

‘That’ll be a hundred and seventy-four pounds,’ she said finally. ‘Sir.’

She peered over her shoulder then, as if half expecting the arrival of a prank television crew. But Ed stabbed out his PIN, grabbed the carrier bag and ran for the car. He heard, ‘No manners,’ in a strong Scottish accent, as he left.

There was nobody in the car park when he returned. He pulled up right outside the door, leaving Norman clambering wearily back onto the back seat, and ran inside, down the echoing corridor. ‘Maths competition? Maths competition?’ he yelled at anyone he passed. A man pointed wordlessly to a laminated sign. He bolted up a flight of steps two at a time, along another corridor, and into an anteroom. Two men sat behind a desk. On the other side of the room stood Jess and Nicky. She took a step towards him. ‘Got them.’ He held up the carrier bag, triumphantly. He was so out of breath he could barely speak.