to take another, so I do, and hand him back the camera. He thanks me and fiddles with his gear. I slurp my Tango and wonder why I’m not hungry, even though it’s almost noon and all I’ve eaten since I left Ed Brubeck asleep is a packet of Ritz crackers. I keep doing sausagey burps, too, which makes no sense. A white VW camper drives up and stops at the barrier. Two girls and their boyfriends are smoking and looking at me, all
What does she think
she’s
doing here?
even though they’ve got an REO Speedwagon song on. To prove I’m not a no-friends sad-sack I turn back to the cyclist. “Come a long way, then?”
“Not far, today,” he says. “Over from Brighton.”
“Brighton? That’s like a hundred miles away.”
He checks a gizmo on his handlebars. “Seventy-one.”
“Is taking photos of bridges, like, a hobby of yours, then?”
The man thinks about this. “More a ritual than a hobby.” He sees I don’t understand. “Hobbies are for pleasure, but rituals keep you going. My son died, you see. I take the photos for him.”
“Oh, I …” I try not to look shocked. “Sorry.”
He shrugs and looks away. “It was five years ago.”
“Was it”—why don’t I just shut up?—“an accident?”
“Leukemia. He would have been about your age.”
The klaxon blasts again, and the road section’s lowering. “That must’ve been awful,” I say, hearing how lame it sounds. A long, skinny cloud sits over the humpbacked Isle of Sheppey, like a half-greyhound half-mermaid, and I’m not sure what else to say. The VW revs up and moves off the moment the barrier’s up, leaving a trail of soft rock in the air behind it. The cyclist gets on his bike. “Take care of yourself, young lady,” he tells me, “and don’t waste your life.”
He circles around and heads back to the A22.
All that way, and he never crossed the bridge.
C ARS AND TRUCKS wallop by, gusting seeds off dandelion clocks, but there’s no one to ask the way to Black Elm Farm. Lacy flowers sway on long stalks as trucks shudder by, and blue butterflies are shaken loose. The tigery orange ones cling tighter. Ed Brubeck’ll be working at the garden center now, dreaming of Italian girls as he lugs bales of peat into customers’ cars. Must think I’m a right moody cow. Or perhaps not. The fact Vinny dumped me is fast becoming exactly that, a fact. Yesterday it was a sawn-off shotgun wound but today it’s more like a monster bruise from an air-rifle pellet. Yes, I trusted Vinny and I loved him, but that doesn’t make me stupid. For the Vinny Costellos of the world, love is bullshit they murmur into your ear to get sex. For girls—me, anyway—sex is what you do on page one to get to the love that’s later on in the book. “I’m well rid of that lechy bastard,” I tell a cow watching me over a gate, andthough I don’t feel it yet, I reckon one day I will. Maybe Stella’s done me a favor, in a way, by tearing off Vinny’s nice-guy mask after only five weeks. Vinny’ll get bored of her, sure as eggs is eggs, and when she finds him in bed with another girl it’ll be
her
dreams of motorbike rides with Vinny that’ll get minced, just like mine were. Then she’ll come crawling back, eyes as red and sore as mine were yesterday, and ask me to forgive her. And I might. Or I might not. Up ahead there’s a roundabout and a café.
And the café’s open. Things are looking up.
T HE CAFÉ ’ S CALLED Smoky Joe’s Café and it’s trying hard to be an American diner off
Happy Days
with tall booths you can’t see into, but it’s a bit of a shit-hole, really. There’s not many customers, most of them glued to the footy on the knackered telly up on the wall. A woman sits by the door, reading the
News of the World
in a cloud of cigarette smoke coming from her pinched nostrils. Buttony eyes, stitched lips, frizzy hair, a face full of old regrets. Over her head is a faded poster of a brown goldfish bowl with two eyes peering out and a
What does she think
she’s
doing here?
even though they’ve got an REO Speedwagon song on. To prove I’m not a no-friends sad-sack I turn back to the cyclist. “Come a long way, then?”
“Not far, today,” he says. “Over from Brighton.”
“Brighton? That’s like a hundred miles away.”
He checks a gizmo on his handlebars. “Seventy-one.”
“Is taking photos of bridges, like, a hobby of yours, then?”
The man thinks about this. “More a ritual than a hobby.” He sees I don’t understand. “Hobbies are for pleasure, but rituals keep you going. My son died, you see. I take the photos for him.”
“Oh, I …” I try not to look shocked. “Sorry.”
He shrugs and looks away. “It was five years ago.”
“Was it”—why don’t I just shut up?—“an accident?”
“Leukemia. He would have been about your age.”
The klaxon blasts again, and the road section’s lowering. “That must’ve been awful,” I say, hearing how lame it sounds. A long, skinny cloud sits over the humpbacked Isle of Sheppey, like a half-greyhound half-mermaid, and I’m not sure what else to say. The VW revs up and moves off the moment the barrier’s up, leaving a trail of soft rock in the air behind it. The cyclist gets on his bike. “Take care of yourself, young lady,” he tells me, “and don’t waste your life.”
He circles around and heads back to the A22.
All that way, and he never crossed the bridge.
C ARS AND TRUCKS wallop by, gusting seeds off dandelion clocks, but there’s no one to ask the way to Black Elm Farm. Lacy flowers sway on long stalks as trucks shudder by, and blue butterflies are shaken loose. The tigery orange ones cling tighter. Ed Brubeck’ll be working at the garden center now, dreaming of Italian girls as he lugs bales of peat into customers’ cars. Must think I’m a right moody cow. Or perhaps not. The fact Vinny dumped me is fast becoming exactly that, a fact. Yesterday it was a sawn-off shotgun wound but today it’s more like a monster bruise from an air-rifle pellet. Yes, I trusted Vinny and I loved him, but that doesn’t make me stupid. For the Vinny Costellos of the world, love is bullshit they murmur into your ear to get sex. For girls—me, anyway—sex is what you do on page one to get to the love that’s later on in the book. “I’m well rid of that lechy bastard,” I tell a cow watching me over a gate, andthough I don’t feel it yet, I reckon one day I will. Maybe Stella’s done me a favor, in a way, by tearing off Vinny’s nice-guy mask after only five weeks. Vinny’ll get bored of her, sure as eggs is eggs, and when she finds him in bed with another girl it’ll be
her
dreams of motorbike rides with Vinny that’ll get minced, just like mine were. Then she’ll come crawling back, eyes as red and sore as mine were yesterday, and ask me to forgive her. And I might. Or I might not. Up ahead there’s a roundabout and a café.
And the café’s open. Things are looking up.
T HE CAFÉ ’ S CALLED Smoky Joe’s Café and it’s trying hard to be an American diner off
Happy Days
with tall booths you can’t see into, but it’s a bit of a shit-hole, really. There’s not many customers, most of them glued to the footy on the knackered telly up on the wall. A woman sits by the door, reading the
News of the World
in a cloud of cigarette smoke coming from her pinched nostrils. Buttony eyes, stitched lips, frizzy hair, a face full of old regrets. Over her head is a faded poster of a brown goldfish bowl with two eyes peering out and a
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