Back from the dead, p.13
First Date, page 13
“What?”
“I’ve always wanted to say that,” she explained.
“Yours,” Connor decided. “I’ll get us a taxi. What’s your address?”
She told him. He pulled out his phone and tried to order a cab while Amandine shivered in her thin jacket beside him. It was the coldest night she could remember in a long, long time. Glittering frost crunched under her heels. The stars were brilliant, the sky a deep, brutal black. An almost-full moon, replete with a distinct halo, lit the pub car park, which was handy, as all the other lights apart from a distant streetlamp had been switched off. That was the problem with country roads and pubs, she thought, especially around here. It really was the middle of nowhere once darkness fell. Buses didn’t run, no lights, no pavements, no nothing.
Just moonlight and reeds and barn owls hooting softly in the night.
Romantic, if a person’s idea of romance was being completely alone and barely able to see.
Amandine smiled. It was.
And the moon was undeniably beautiful, the halo rainbow-tinged and clear. Amandine, who found she was far more drunk than she’d realised on leaving the warm restaurant, lost herself staring into it, reflecting on the evening she’d just had even as she felt herself getting rapidly chilled to the bone.
“Hey,” Connor said, apologetically breaking into her reverie. “I don’t suppose you could try, too? I can’t get anyone to come out on mine.”
He showed her his screen. Locating driver… Unable to… A location marker jumped crazily around the map of the area as the app searched for a ride and was unable to find one.
“Sure.” Amandine drew out her own mobile and ran a cold finger across the screen, but there was no familiar glow in response.
“Oh, shit,” she said, eyes wide. “I think it’s run out of power.”
“Ah, fuck,” Connor swore softly. “Mine’s only got a little bit left too. Don’t worry. I’ll keep trying.”
“What happens if nobody comes? A lot of the cabbies knock off at ten out here.”
“Yeah, but it’s unusual for them all to have stopped for the night. It is Friday, after all. I’ll keep trying. We’ll get one eventually.”
He sounded confident, but she knew enough about him now to understand that how he sounded and how he actually felt were two very different things.
“But,” said Amandine, playing devil’s advocate, “what if we don’t?”
“Guess I’m carrying you home, then.”
She grimaced. “You’re such a bullshitter,” she said, poking him in the ribs.
He winked.
“What? It’s only a few miles to my place. I’m closer. Well, about seven. Can’t expect you to walk all the way back in rented heels, can I?”
She leaned on him for warmth, trying not to think about how much her feet were hurting and how tired she suddenly was.
Connor kept trying to order a taxi until his battery ran out.
“Ah, shit. Phone’s dead,” he said, dejectedly.
By then, Amandine was too cold to reply. She shook violently, failing to hide her discomfort. She didn’t want to spoil a good night by coming across as high maintenance, but it was well below freezing. She could see frost patterns on puddles in the car park, and her fingers and toes had gone numb. Her nose and ears hurt when she rubbed at them.
Connor looked her up and down, concerned.
“Look at you. We have to get you home before you freeze,” he said, and then he squatted, motioning for her to jump, and hoisted her up onto his back. Amandine shrieked in glee, convinced she was about to squash him entirely, then clung on for dear life, like a shell on a turtle’s back (isn’t there a joke about this? Michelle?) legs wrapped around Connor’s waist, arms locked about his shoulders.
“You can’t carry me like this the whole way!” she gasped, secretly delighted. He was a lot stronger than he looked.
“Just watch me!”
He set off like a horse at the races, galloping along the pitch-dark road away from the pub, using the faint gleam from the cat’s eyes set into the tarmac to keep himself in a straight line, and stop them both from rolling off into the deep drainage ditch that lined both sides of all the country lanes.
“Let me down!” Amandine hooted, half laughing, half serious, after only a few hundred yards of being bounced and jolted around. “I’m going to be sick on the back of your head if you keep going like that!”
“Ooh, kinky,” Connor gasped. But he stopped, shifting his grip on her as she slipped.
She smacked him gently on his left shoulder. “I mean it! You have to let me down.”
Panting, Connor did as he was told. “Maybe you’re right,” he said, wheezing as he let her slide down off his back. “Maybe I can’t carry you the whole way. Peaked too soon, didn’t I?”
“It’s okay.” She patted him on the back of his hot neck and ran fingers through his hair again, which now felt crispy, covered in a light film of ice. “I’m a big girl. I can walk. Really, I can. These shoes aren’t that bad. Just let me lean on you.”
Connor straightened up, still trying to catch his breath, and took her hand, slipping it into his own pocket and keeping it there.
“You know, if you ditched the heels, we’d be the same height, I reckon,” he said, giving her a side-eye.
She shook her head. “I can’t believe that’s all you’re thinking about at a time like this. If my height was a problem, you could have said something a lot earlier.”
“It isn’t a problem,” he chuckled. “I’m into it.”
“Humpf,” Amandine said.
They hobbled on, Connor’s shoulder bearing the load as Amandine leaned on him.
He remained encouraging, despite their snail’s pace.
“You’re taking this a lot better than many other people would,” he said after they’d gone a little further up the road. “I wouldn’t blame you for being annoyed. I feel like a fucking idiot for letting my phone run out like that. A gentleman would have ordered a taxi inside, before we left. I feel awful.”
“Hey, I let mine run out too,” Amandine replied, focusing on balancing in her heels in the dark without turning her ankle over and spraining it. There was ice on the road, lethal if she placed her foot down in the wrong way. She slipped every second step and had to correct herself constantly. She felt like a stork landing on ice, all long legs and fluttering wings.
“Besides, a little exercise never hurt anyone,” she panted, as much to herself as to Connor. “And it means we get to spend longer with each other, if you think about it.”
She felt, rather than saw, him shaking his head.
“Where have you been all my life?” he asked, squeezing her tight with one arm.
“Burning through vibrators at an alarming rate,” she stated, dryly. “I’ve got one in my handbag. My emergency vibrator.”
He shook his head again. “You’re ridiculous,” he said.
“I know.”
Their good humour only got them a mile down the road before Amandine had to stop and rest her feet again. They had begun to bleed in several places where the inflexible patent leather of the rented shoes pinched and rubbed. There were holes in her tights too, and multiple ladders snaked all the way up from her feet to her knees.
“Oh, god, the state of me,” she said, softly, examining her legs in the moonlight. “I look like a scarecrow.”
“Your shoes still bad?”
Amandine walked a few more steps, then hissed in pain.
“Ahh… yes,” she confirmed. “Really bad.”
“Let me carry you again,” Connor offered, but Amandine turned him down.
“No, I can manage. Maybe… maybe I can take them off, walk barefoot,” she said, resting on a long metal crash barrier cradling a hairpin bend in the road. “You’ll finally get your wish,” she panted. “Heels off, so you can look me straight in the eye.”
The barrier was jarringly cold, sharp-edged and uncomfortable. Amandine was aware she was probably getting her new dress filthy with the second-hand exhaust-fume-muck coating the metal barrier, but she didn’t care. She needed to get the weight off. Her legs were about to give out entirely, she realised.
“You’ll get frostbite on that perfect arse of yours if you sit on that too long,” Connor warned. “It must be arctic temperatures out here now.” He rubbed his hands together and jumped up and down on the spot, slapping himself to try and keep warm as he waited for her to recover a little.
“The forecast said minus fourteen, in some places. Record-breaking temperatures for this time of year.”
“Yeah, I saw that. Weather’s so fucked up these days. Global warming and all that shit. Doesn’t feel very warm now though, does it?”
Amandine’s shivering became once again pitifully pronounced now that she was no longer moving. She reached down and tried to hook off her shoes, but stopped when she realised doing so would expose the raw, blistered flesh on the backs of her ankles to the cold. She wasn’t sure she could bear that, no matter how sharply the leather rubbed.
“I don’t think I can take these off without making things worse,” she said, feeling increasingly exhausted.
“Ah, shit,” Connor said, now thoroughly dejected with how things were going.
He came over to her and slotted himself in between her legs, opening his coat wide and closing it over her body to make a heat seal. “I’m so sorry, Amandine. You deserve a better first date than this.”
“Shut up,” she replied, shaking and shuddering. “I’ve had a great time.”
“Serious? I feel like it’s been a giant disaster.”
“Serious. I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.”
He kissed her again, then, hard and urgent, and Amandine let herself get lost in it despite her discomfort, tongues clashing, teeth crashing into teeth, and she could feel him getting hard again, and she thought, despite the cold, that maybe they would do it right here, that he was about to spin her around and bend her over and fuck her there on the side of the road, pinned against the crash barrier, he felt so desperate for her, but just as hands began to wander with real intention, just as they both began to warm up and forget about the cold, a light came upon them, accompanied by a deep purring noise.
Two lights.
Headlights.
“Ah shit, flag it down, flag it down!” Connor said, blinking and ripping himself away from Amandine. He jumped back from the crash barrier, out into the road, and started waving his arms like a lunatic, shouting. He was barely visible even as the headlights approached, and Amandine had a sudden vision of the car rounding the bend and ploughing straight into Connor, knocking him into the ditch, leaving him bloodied and broken in the trench as it sped off into the night.
“Careful!” Amandine cried. “You’ll get hit! Connor! Get out of the road, you idiot!”
But the car, which cornered the sharp hairpin carefully, slowed, the headlights – which had been on beam – dimming.
“Oh, thank fuck,” Connor breathed, then he turned to Amandine, his face brightly illuminated. “There’s hope for us yet,” he said, a cocky grin back on his face.
Amandine was not so sure.
Red Flags
The car pulled up next to them and sat in the road, engine idling.
Connor went to the driver’s-side window. Tapped on it.
The glass slid down, only an inch: just enough of a gap to talk through.
“Mate! Thank you for stopping,” Connor effused, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet with nervous energy. “You don’t know it, but you’re a lifesaver.”
Silence from the interior. The engine filled the conversational gap, turning over crankily.
Amandine frowned. Was this car familiar?
Connor tried again, clearing his throat.
“Listen, I’m sorry to ask this, mate,” he continued, “I’m so sorry. But we were having dinner at the Boat, and they kicked us out before we’d managed to order a taxi, and our phones have run out of juice, and we could not get one single fucking cab to come get us.”
More engine noise. The car sounded as if it hadn’t passed its last MOT. The whole thing rattled and juddered as it sat there idling.
Connor’s voice went up, became pitchy.
“Anyway… We’re stranded in the cold. My girlfriend can barely walk. If we could possibly get a lift… just up the road, like, not far…”
Connor trailed off, waiting anxiously.
Girlfriend, Amandine thought, feeling numb.
Chugchugchugchug.
Then, from the dark interior:
“Can’t you call someone?”
The voice was soft-spoken, hard to hear over the engine.
Connor spread his hands. “I told you. Both our phones died. I’d ring a cab from a phone box if I could find one that still worked, but I don’t think I could remember a taxi number if you paid me. I promise we’re for real, mate. We’re in dire straits. It’s freezing out here. If you could just give us a lift to the nearest taxi stand…”
More silence. The driver was probably considering his options, Amandine thought.
Connor had a brainwave and tried one last thing.
“I can pay you!” he cried, desperate. “I have cash.”
Connor pulled out his wallet to demonstrate that he did, indeed, have money. Amandine thought he might even get down on his knees and beg.
Does he really want to fuck you that badly? she wondered.
Begging turned out not to be necessary.
A resigned sigh came out of the small gap in the window. It made a cloud of white in the night.
“Where do you need to get to?”
Connor fist-pumped in victory, then clasped his hands together as if praying.
“Yes! Thank you, mate. Thank you!”
“Where?”
“The other side of Hickling Green, a couple of miles up the lane. Not far from Sea Palling Beach. It’s only about a fifteen-minute drive. You’re saving our lives, mate!” Connor resembled a small child, bounding about in enthusiasm.
Amandine winced. The word “mate” was starting to feel a bit overcooked.
Evidently the driver thought so, too. He leaned over and opened the passenger-side door.
“Get in,” his voice said, still barely discernible above the engine noise. “I’ll give you a ride. You won’t find any taxis running tonight. Or a phone box.”
Connor was still in full labrador puppy mode.
“Ah, mate, that’s incredible! I can’t thank you enough, really. I owe you one!”
A large hand motioned behind the window, gesturing for him to hurry up.
“You’re letting all the heat out.”
Connor beckoned Amandine, who still rested against the crash barrier.
“We have a ride, come on!”
But Amandine didn’t feel so good about their new ride home.
Perhaps it was something to do with the way their rescuer spoke, in a soft, resigned voice that was hard to hear, or the fact that the car’s interior was too dark for her to properly see the driver, only his indistinct, bulky shadow; or perhaps it was the speed at which he had agreed to help them, almost as if he’d expected to find them out here like this; or perhaps it was the niggly feeling that she’d seen the car before, somewhere, although she couldn’t say where.
Whatever the reason, her internal warning system was yelling loudly at her to pay attention. Redflagredflagredflag! it said, the words a babble of urgency that grew more hysterical with every passing moment.
The hand came out of the car, gestured again.
“I’m not waiting all night,” the driver said, raising his voice slightly.
“Amandine!” Connor urged, growing irritated. He didn’t want to risk their ride slipping away any more than he wanted them to walk the entire seven miles back to his house during a record-breaking winter night and freeze themselves to death in the process.
Amandine knew this, and she knew that accepting the ride was the only sensible way out of their predicament, which could, given the weather, turn dangerous the longer they were out in the cold, but still she hesitated. She didn’t want to get into the stranger’s car, not one bit.
But she was also cold, and tired, meaning she couldn’t say why, exactly, she didn’t want to accept the lift. She knew she was drunk, and emotional, and she desperately needed to be somewhere warm again so she could start thinking properly, rationally. She could feel ice settling in her lungs. Her nose had lost all feeling. Her cheeks hurt. Her feet were two raw, throbbing wounds.
“Amandine!” Connor was staring at her, annoyed.
Regardless, she still hung back, motioning to Connor to come closer to her instead, unwilling to move without discussing things properly first.
Connor made an exasperated noise, told the driver to wait a second.
“One minute,” came the reply. “Then you’re on your own.”
Connor nodded and jogged over, misinterpreting Amandine’s request and holding out a hand to help her stand. “Come on,” he said, briskly. “We’ll get you warm in no time.”
Amandine shook her head. “Wait a minute,” she said, softly.
“What? Why?” Connor was pulling on her arm. She snatched her hand back.
“Because I’m not sure I like this, Connor,” Amandine hissed. “Being in a stranger’s car… I don’t know if it’s such a good idea. He could be anyone.”
Connor reached out for her hand again. She refused him.
He made a noise.
“Look, it isn’t ideal, I get it,” he said, frustrated, “but we don’t have a huge amount of choice, do we? Besides, it’s fifteen minutes. Max. I promise. That’s no time at all.”
Amandine stared up at him, feeling small and tired.
“But it feels wrong,” she said, miserably.
Connor threw his hands up in exasperation. “Fine, I get it! Woman’s intuition! But what choice do you have? Stay out here with your intuition and freeze to death? Or trust me, and get in the fucking car?”
She didn’t like how he spoke to her.
He’s right, though, she acknowledged reluctantly.
She stood, wincing as she put weight on her ruined feet.
Connor sighed in relief.
“I’ve always wanted to say that,” she explained.
“Yours,” Connor decided. “I’ll get us a taxi. What’s your address?”
She told him. He pulled out his phone and tried to order a cab while Amandine shivered in her thin jacket beside him. It was the coldest night she could remember in a long, long time. Glittering frost crunched under her heels. The stars were brilliant, the sky a deep, brutal black. An almost-full moon, replete with a distinct halo, lit the pub car park, which was handy, as all the other lights apart from a distant streetlamp had been switched off. That was the problem with country roads and pubs, she thought, especially around here. It really was the middle of nowhere once darkness fell. Buses didn’t run, no lights, no pavements, no nothing.
Just moonlight and reeds and barn owls hooting softly in the night.
Romantic, if a person’s idea of romance was being completely alone and barely able to see.
Amandine smiled. It was.
And the moon was undeniably beautiful, the halo rainbow-tinged and clear. Amandine, who found she was far more drunk than she’d realised on leaving the warm restaurant, lost herself staring into it, reflecting on the evening she’d just had even as she felt herself getting rapidly chilled to the bone.
“Hey,” Connor said, apologetically breaking into her reverie. “I don’t suppose you could try, too? I can’t get anyone to come out on mine.”
He showed her his screen. Locating driver… Unable to… A location marker jumped crazily around the map of the area as the app searched for a ride and was unable to find one.
“Sure.” Amandine drew out her own mobile and ran a cold finger across the screen, but there was no familiar glow in response.
“Oh, shit,” she said, eyes wide. “I think it’s run out of power.”
“Ah, fuck,” Connor swore softly. “Mine’s only got a little bit left too. Don’t worry. I’ll keep trying.”
“What happens if nobody comes? A lot of the cabbies knock off at ten out here.”
“Yeah, but it’s unusual for them all to have stopped for the night. It is Friday, after all. I’ll keep trying. We’ll get one eventually.”
He sounded confident, but she knew enough about him now to understand that how he sounded and how he actually felt were two very different things.
“But,” said Amandine, playing devil’s advocate, “what if we don’t?”
“Guess I’m carrying you home, then.”
She grimaced. “You’re such a bullshitter,” she said, poking him in the ribs.
He winked.
“What? It’s only a few miles to my place. I’m closer. Well, about seven. Can’t expect you to walk all the way back in rented heels, can I?”
She leaned on him for warmth, trying not to think about how much her feet were hurting and how tired she suddenly was.
Connor kept trying to order a taxi until his battery ran out.
“Ah, shit. Phone’s dead,” he said, dejectedly.
By then, Amandine was too cold to reply. She shook violently, failing to hide her discomfort. She didn’t want to spoil a good night by coming across as high maintenance, but it was well below freezing. She could see frost patterns on puddles in the car park, and her fingers and toes had gone numb. Her nose and ears hurt when she rubbed at them.
Connor looked her up and down, concerned.
“Look at you. We have to get you home before you freeze,” he said, and then he squatted, motioning for her to jump, and hoisted her up onto his back. Amandine shrieked in glee, convinced she was about to squash him entirely, then clung on for dear life, like a shell on a turtle’s back (isn’t there a joke about this? Michelle?) legs wrapped around Connor’s waist, arms locked about his shoulders.
“You can’t carry me like this the whole way!” she gasped, secretly delighted. He was a lot stronger than he looked.
“Just watch me!”
He set off like a horse at the races, galloping along the pitch-dark road away from the pub, using the faint gleam from the cat’s eyes set into the tarmac to keep himself in a straight line, and stop them both from rolling off into the deep drainage ditch that lined both sides of all the country lanes.
“Let me down!” Amandine hooted, half laughing, half serious, after only a few hundred yards of being bounced and jolted around. “I’m going to be sick on the back of your head if you keep going like that!”
“Ooh, kinky,” Connor gasped. But he stopped, shifting his grip on her as she slipped.
She smacked him gently on his left shoulder. “I mean it! You have to let me down.”
Panting, Connor did as he was told. “Maybe you’re right,” he said, wheezing as he let her slide down off his back. “Maybe I can’t carry you the whole way. Peaked too soon, didn’t I?”
“It’s okay.” She patted him on the back of his hot neck and ran fingers through his hair again, which now felt crispy, covered in a light film of ice. “I’m a big girl. I can walk. Really, I can. These shoes aren’t that bad. Just let me lean on you.”
Connor straightened up, still trying to catch his breath, and took her hand, slipping it into his own pocket and keeping it there.
“You know, if you ditched the heels, we’d be the same height, I reckon,” he said, giving her a side-eye.
She shook her head. “I can’t believe that’s all you’re thinking about at a time like this. If my height was a problem, you could have said something a lot earlier.”
“It isn’t a problem,” he chuckled. “I’m into it.”
“Humpf,” Amandine said.
They hobbled on, Connor’s shoulder bearing the load as Amandine leaned on him.
He remained encouraging, despite their snail’s pace.
“You’re taking this a lot better than many other people would,” he said after they’d gone a little further up the road. “I wouldn’t blame you for being annoyed. I feel like a fucking idiot for letting my phone run out like that. A gentleman would have ordered a taxi inside, before we left. I feel awful.”
“Hey, I let mine run out too,” Amandine replied, focusing on balancing in her heels in the dark without turning her ankle over and spraining it. There was ice on the road, lethal if she placed her foot down in the wrong way. She slipped every second step and had to correct herself constantly. She felt like a stork landing on ice, all long legs and fluttering wings.
“Besides, a little exercise never hurt anyone,” she panted, as much to herself as to Connor. “And it means we get to spend longer with each other, if you think about it.”
She felt, rather than saw, him shaking his head.
“Where have you been all my life?” he asked, squeezing her tight with one arm.
“Burning through vibrators at an alarming rate,” she stated, dryly. “I’ve got one in my handbag. My emergency vibrator.”
He shook his head again. “You’re ridiculous,” he said.
“I know.”
Their good humour only got them a mile down the road before Amandine had to stop and rest her feet again. They had begun to bleed in several places where the inflexible patent leather of the rented shoes pinched and rubbed. There were holes in her tights too, and multiple ladders snaked all the way up from her feet to her knees.
“Oh, god, the state of me,” she said, softly, examining her legs in the moonlight. “I look like a scarecrow.”
“Your shoes still bad?”
Amandine walked a few more steps, then hissed in pain.
“Ahh… yes,” she confirmed. “Really bad.”
“Let me carry you again,” Connor offered, but Amandine turned him down.
“No, I can manage. Maybe… maybe I can take them off, walk barefoot,” she said, resting on a long metal crash barrier cradling a hairpin bend in the road. “You’ll finally get your wish,” she panted. “Heels off, so you can look me straight in the eye.”
The barrier was jarringly cold, sharp-edged and uncomfortable. Amandine was aware she was probably getting her new dress filthy with the second-hand exhaust-fume-muck coating the metal barrier, but she didn’t care. She needed to get the weight off. Her legs were about to give out entirely, she realised.
“You’ll get frostbite on that perfect arse of yours if you sit on that too long,” Connor warned. “It must be arctic temperatures out here now.” He rubbed his hands together and jumped up and down on the spot, slapping himself to try and keep warm as he waited for her to recover a little.
“The forecast said minus fourteen, in some places. Record-breaking temperatures for this time of year.”
“Yeah, I saw that. Weather’s so fucked up these days. Global warming and all that shit. Doesn’t feel very warm now though, does it?”
Amandine’s shivering became once again pitifully pronounced now that she was no longer moving. She reached down and tried to hook off her shoes, but stopped when she realised doing so would expose the raw, blistered flesh on the backs of her ankles to the cold. She wasn’t sure she could bear that, no matter how sharply the leather rubbed.
“I don’t think I can take these off without making things worse,” she said, feeling increasingly exhausted.
“Ah, shit,” Connor said, now thoroughly dejected with how things were going.
He came over to her and slotted himself in between her legs, opening his coat wide and closing it over her body to make a heat seal. “I’m so sorry, Amandine. You deserve a better first date than this.”
“Shut up,” she replied, shaking and shuddering. “I’ve had a great time.”
“Serious? I feel like it’s been a giant disaster.”
“Serious. I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.”
He kissed her again, then, hard and urgent, and Amandine let herself get lost in it despite her discomfort, tongues clashing, teeth crashing into teeth, and she could feel him getting hard again, and she thought, despite the cold, that maybe they would do it right here, that he was about to spin her around and bend her over and fuck her there on the side of the road, pinned against the crash barrier, he felt so desperate for her, but just as hands began to wander with real intention, just as they both began to warm up and forget about the cold, a light came upon them, accompanied by a deep purring noise.
Two lights.
Headlights.
“Ah shit, flag it down, flag it down!” Connor said, blinking and ripping himself away from Amandine. He jumped back from the crash barrier, out into the road, and started waving his arms like a lunatic, shouting. He was barely visible even as the headlights approached, and Amandine had a sudden vision of the car rounding the bend and ploughing straight into Connor, knocking him into the ditch, leaving him bloodied and broken in the trench as it sped off into the night.
“Careful!” Amandine cried. “You’ll get hit! Connor! Get out of the road, you idiot!”
But the car, which cornered the sharp hairpin carefully, slowed, the headlights – which had been on beam – dimming.
“Oh, thank fuck,” Connor breathed, then he turned to Amandine, his face brightly illuminated. “There’s hope for us yet,” he said, a cocky grin back on his face.
Amandine was not so sure.
Red Flags
The car pulled up next to them and sat in the road, engine idling.
Connor went to the driver’s-side window. Tapped on it.
The glass slid down, only an inch: just enough of a gap to talk through.
“Mate! Thank you for stopping,” Connor effused, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet with nervous energy. “You don’t know it, but you’re a lifesaver.”
Silence from the interior. The engine filled the conversational gap, turning over crankily.
Amandine frowned. Was this car familiar?
Connor tried again, clearing his throat.
“Listen, I’m sorry to ask this, mate,” he continued, “I’m so sorry. But we were having dinner at the Boat, and they kicked us out before we’d managed to order a taxi, and our phones have run out of juice, and we could not get one single fucking cab to come get us.”
More engine noise. The car sounded as if it hadn’t passed its last MOT. The whole thing rattled and juddered as it sat there idling.
Connor’s voice went up, became pitchy.
“Anyway… We’re stranded in the cold. My girlfriend can barely walk. If we could possibly get a lift… just up the road, like, not far…”
Connor trailed off, waiting anxiously.
Girlfriend, Amandine thought, feeling numb.
Chugchugchugchug.
Then, from the dark interior:
“Can’t you call someone?”
The voice was soft-spoken, hard to hear over the engine.
Connor spread his hands. “I told you. Both our phones died. I’d ring a cab from a phone box if I could find one that still worked, but I don’t think I could remember a taxi number if you paid me. I promise we’re for real, mate. We’re in dire straits. It’s freezing out here. If you could just give us a lift to the nearest taxi stand…”
More silence. The driver was probably considering his options, Amandine thought.
Connor had a brainwave and tried one last thing.
“I can pay you!” he cried, desperate. “I have cash.”
Connor pulled out his wallet to demonstrate that he did, indeed, have money. Amandine thought he might even get down on his knees and beg.
Does he really want to fuck you that badly? she wondered.
Begging turned out not to be necessary.
A resigned sigh came out of the small gap in the window. It made a cloud of white in the night.
“Where do you need to get to?”
Connor fist-pumped in victory, then clasped his hands together as if praying.
“Yes! Thank you, mate. Thank you!”
“Where?”
“The other side of Hickling Green, a couple of miles up the lane. Not far from Sea Palling Beach. It’s only about a fifteen-minute drive. You’re saving our lives, mate!” Connor resembled a small child, bounding about in enthusiasm.
Amandine winced. The word “mate” was starting to feel a bit overcooked.
Evidently the driver thought so, too. He leaned over and opened the passenger-side door.
“Get in,” his voice said, still barely discernible above the engine noise. “I’ll give you a ride. You won’t find any taxis running tonight. Or a phone box.”
Connor was still in full labrador puppy mode.
“Ah, mate, that’s incredible! I can’t thank you enough, really. I owe you one!”
A large hand motioned behind the window, gesturing for him to hurry up.
“You’re letting all the heat out.”
Connor beckoned Amandine, who still rested against the crash barrier.
“We have a ride, come on!”
But Amandine didn’t feel so good about their new ride home.
Perhaps it was something to do with the way their rescuer spoke, in a soft, resigned voice that was hard to hear, or the fact that the car’s interior was too dark for her to properly see the driver, only his indistinct, bulky shadow; or perhaps it was the speed at which he had agreed to help them, almost as if he’d expected to find them out here like this; or perhaps it was the niggly feeling that she’d seen the car before, somewhere, although she couldn’t say where.
Whatever the reason, her internal warning system was yelling loudly at her to pay attention. Redflagredflagredflag! it said, the words a babble of urgency that grew more hysterical with every passing moment.
The hand came out of the car, gestured again.
“I’m not waiting all night,” the driver said, raising his voice slightly.
“Amandine!” Connor urged, growing irritated. He didn’t want to risk their ride slipping away any more than he wanted them to walk the entire seven miles back to his house during a record-breaking winter night and freeze themselves to death in the process.
Amandine knew this, and she knew that accepting the ride was the only sensible way out of their predicament, which could, given the weather, turn dangerous the longer they were out in the cold, but still she hesitated. She didn’t want to get into the stranger’s car, not one bit.
But she was also cold, and tired, meaning she couldn’t say why, exactly, she didn’t want to accept the lift. She knew she was drunk, and emotional, and she desperately needed to be somewhere warm again so she could start thinking properly, rationally. She could feel ice settling in her lungs. Her nose had lost all feeling. Her cheeks hurt. Her feet were two raw, throbbing wounds.
“Amandine!” Connor was staring at her, annoyed.
Regardless, she still hung back, motioning to Connor to come closer to her instead, unwilling to move without discussing things properly first.
Connor made an exasperated noise, told the driver to wait a second.
“One minute,” came the reply. “Then you’re on your own.”
Connor nodded and jogged over, misinterpreting Amandine’s request and holding out a hand to help her stand. “Come on,” he said, briskly. “We’ll get you warm in no time.”
Amandine shook her head. “Wait a minute,” she said, softly.
“What? Why?” Connor was pulling on her arm. She snatched her hand back.
“Because I’m not sure I like this, Connor,” Amandine hissed. “Being in a stranger’s car… I don’t know if it’s such a good idea. He could be anyone.”
Connor reached out for her hand again. She refused him.
He made a noise.
“Look, it isn’t ideal, I get it,” he said, frustrated, “but we don’t have a huge amount of choice, do we? Besides, it’s fifteen minutes. Max. I promise. That’s no time at all.”
Amandine stared up at him, feeling small and tired.
“But it feels wrong,” she said, miserably.
Connor threw his hands up in exasperation. “Fine, I get it! Woman’s intuition! But what choice do you have? Stay out here with your intuition and freeze to death? Or trust me, and get in the fucking car?”
She didn’t like how he spoke to her.
He’s right, though, she acknowledged reluctantly.
She stood, wincing as she put weight on her ruined feet.
Connor sighed in relief.
