For dinner we finished up the odds and ends of food that had accumulated in the fridge, and after watching TV for an hour and a half went upstairs, each of us to our own rooms, all of us probably wishing we did not have to sleep alone.
***
Cheerful as ever the next morning Lizetta sat between us in the front of the van on the drive to Edinburgh Airport. She hugged and kissed us both at the boarding gate when we said goodbye, and Darren and I returned to the van to begin our long drive down to London. 'She really loves him, doesn't she?' he said, as we picked up speed to take our place amid the stream of vehicles on the motorway.
'Hard to say. What is all this about being in love?'
'Was the firm like that when you were there?'
'Not as bad. There were clashes - it was a competitive place - people don't leave their bad habits and problems behind them at the reception desk when they come into work. In any organisation where hundreds of people are thrown together day after day you get little cliques forming, trying to outmanoeuvre each other. Some people seem to thrive on it. Perhaps I did. I've changed.'
Traffic reports on the radio told us that roads south of Edinburgh were clear of snow, and we escaped the motorway for a while by driving down on the A7 to Carlisle. On a quiet stretch I let Darren, who had yet to pass his driving test, take the wheel for about twenty minutes, but traffic built up and when light drizzle near Langholm made visibility difficult, I thought it best to take over from him again.
In the Midlands we were caught for miles in a long crawling tailback caused by a serious accident. We knew we were close to it when we saw cars in front being directed onto the hard shoulder to pass the blocked carriageways. We turned our heads, as everyone does, to see what we could of the crash. There were three mangled cars, one of them lying on its roof, and a van very similar to our own lying on its side near the central barrier. Fragments of glass, plastic and unrecognisable bits of vehicle littered the tarmac. Paramedics were putting a stretcher covered in a dark red blanket into the rear of an ambulance.
A few seconds later the carnage was behind us and the road ahead fairly clear. Darren twiddled the controls of the radio, switching from station to station until he found a news report, the announcer saying in a voice of practised concern that a man and a woman were thought to have been killed and a number of people seriously injured. We sped on south, keeping our place in the long lines of traffic stretching ahead and behind, glad to be with the fortunate majority whose journey had not been violently cut short. Darren put in the earpieces from his portable stereo and became absorbed in his music, leaving me to concentrate on the drive.