Jess looked at her. ‘What?’
‘I think I might live in a university. I don’t really want to grow up near the Fishers.’ She scribbled a figure in her workbook, then rubbed out one digit, replacing it with a four. ‘They scare me a bit,’ she said quietly.
‘The Fishers?’
‘I had a nightmare about them.’
Jess swallowed. ‘You don’t need to be scared of them,’ she said. ‘They’re just stupid boys. What they did is what cowards do. They’re nothing.’
‘They don’t feel like nothing.’
‘Tanze, I’m going to work out what to do about them, and we’re going to fix it. Okay? You don’t need to have nightmares. I’m going to fix this.’
They sat in silence. The lane was silent, apart from the sound of a distant tractor. Birds wheeled overhead in the infinite blue. Mr Nicholls was walking back slowly. He had straightened up, as if he had resolved something, and his phone was loose in his hand. Jess rubbed at her eyes.
‘I think I’ve finished the complex equations. Do you want to see?’
Tanzie held up a page of numbers. Jess looked at her daughter’s lovely open face. She reached forward and straightened her glasses on her nose. ‘Yes,’ she said, her smile bright. ‘I would totally love to look at some complex equations.’
It took two and a half hours to do the next leg of the journey. Mr Nicholls tapped the steering-wheel as if they were stuck in a jam (they weren’t), took two calls during the journey, one from the woman called Gemma, which he cut off (his ex-wife?) and one that was obviously to do with his business. He said he would ring them later. He was silent for a whole forty minutes after he’d taken the second. A woman with an Italian accent called just after they pulled into a petrol station, and at the words ‘Eduardo, baby’ Mr Nicholls ripped his phone from the hands-free holder and went and stood outside by the pump. ‘No, Lara,’ he said, turning away from them. ‘We’ve discussed this … Well, your solicitor is wrong … No, calling me a lobster really isn’t going to make any difference.’
Nicky slept for an hour, his blue-black hair flopping over his swollen cheekbone, his face briefly untroubled in sleep. Tanzie sang under her breath and stroked the dog. Norman slept, farted audibly several times, and slowly infused the car with his odour. Nobody complained. It actually masked the lingering smell of vomit.
‘Do the kids need to grab some food?’ Mr Nicholls said, as they finally drove into the suburbs of some large town. Jess had already stopped noting which. Huge, shining office blocks punctuated each half-mile, their frontages bearing management- or technology-based names she’d never heard of: ACCSYS, TECHNOLOGICA and MEDIAPLUS. The roads were lined with endless stretches of car parks. Nobody walked.
‘We could find a McDonald’s. There’s bound to be loads of them around here.’
‘We don’t eat McDonald’s,’ she said.
‘You don’t eat McDonald’s.’
‘No. I can say it again, if you like. We don’t eat McDonald’s.’
‘Vegetarian?’
‘No. Actually, could we just find a supermarket? I’ll make sandwiches.’
‘McDonald’s would probably be cheaper, if it’s about money.’
‘It’s not about the money.’
Jess couldn’t tell him: if you were a single parent, there were certain things you could not do. Which were basically the things that everyone expected you to do: claim benefits, smoke, live on an estate, feed your kids McDonald’s. Some things she couldn’t help, but others she could.
He let out a little sigh, his gaze fixed ahead. ‘Okay, well, we could find somewhere to stay and then see whether they have a restaurant attached.’
‘I had kind of planned we’d just sleep in the car.’
Mr Nicholls pulled over to the side of the road and turned to face her. ‘Sleep in the car?’
Embarrassment made her spiky. ‘We have Norman. No hotel’s going to take him. We’ll be fine in here.’
He pulled out his phone and began tapping into a screen. ‘I’ll find a dog-friendly place. There’s bound to be somewhere, even if we have to drive a bit further.’
Jess could feel the colour bleeding into her cheeks. ‘Actually, I’d rather you didn’t.’
He kept tapping on the screen.
‘Really. We – we don’t have the money for hotel rooms.’
Mr Nicholls’s finger stilled on the phone. ‘That’s crazy. You can’t sleep in my car.’
‘It’s only a couple of nights. We’ll be fine. We would have slept in the Rolls. It’s why I brought the duvets.’
Tanzie watched from the rear seat.
‘I have a daily budget. And I’d like to stick to it. If you don’t mind.’ Twelve pounds a day for food. Maximum.
He looked at her like she was mad.
‘I’m not stopping you getting a hotel,’ she added. She didn’t want to tell him she’d actually prefer it if he did.
‘This is nuts,’ he said finally.
It was only when he turned back to the wheel that it occurred to her he might not want to leave them alone in his car.
They drove the next few miles in silence. Mr Nicholls had the air of a man who was quietly pissed off. In a weird way, Jess preferred it. Two, three days max, she told herself. In fact, she’d just let him drop them at the maths competition and tell him they would make their own way back. She wasn’t sure she could take more than another forty-eight hours of being stuck in a car with him. And if Tanzie did as well as everyone seemed to think she would, they could blow a little of her winnings on train tickets.
The thought of ditching Mr Nicholls made her feel so much better that she didn’t say anything when he pulled into the Travel Inn.
‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ he said, and walked off across the car park. He took the keys with him, jangling them impatiently in his hand.
‘Are we staying here?’ Tanzie said, rubbing at her eyes and looking around.
‘Mr Nicholls is. We’re going to stay in the car. It will be an adventure!’ Jess said.
There was a brief silence.
‘Yay,’ said Nicky.
Jess knew he was uncomfortable. But what else could she do? ‘You can stretch out in the back. Tanze and I will sleep in the front. It will be fine.’
Mr Nicholls walked back out, shielding his eyes against the early-evening sun. She realized he was wearing the exact same outfit she had seen him wear in the pub that night.
‘They had one room left. A twin. You guys can take it. I’ll see if there’s somewhere else nearby.’
‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘I told you. I can’t accept any more from you.’
‘I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for your kids.’
‘No,’ she said, trying to sound a little more diplomatic. ‘It’s very kind of you, but we’ll be fine out here.’
He ran a hand through his hair. ‘You know what? I can’t sleep in a hotel room knowing that there’s a boy who just got out of hospital sleeping in the back seat of a car twenty feet away. Nicky can have the other bed.’
‘No,’ she said, reflexively.
‘Why?’
She couldn’t say.
His expression darkened. ‘I’m not a pervert.’
‘I didn’t say you were.’
‘So why won’t you let your son share a room with me? He’s as tall as I am, for Christ’s sake.’
Jess flushed. ‘He’s had a tough time lately. I just need to keep an eye on him.’
‘What’s a pervert?’ said Tanzie.
‘I could charge up my Nintendo,’ said Nicky, from the back seat.
‘You know what? This is a ridiculous discussion. I’m hungry. I need to get something to eat.’ Mr Nicholls poked his head in through the door. ‘Nicky. Do you want to sleep in the car or in the hotel room?’
Nicky looked sideways at Jess. ‘Hotel room. And I’m not a pervert either.’
‘Am I a pervert?’ said Tanzie.
‘Okay,’ said Mr Nicholls. ‘Here’s the deal. Nicky and Tanzie sleep in the hotel room. You can sleep on the floor with them.’
‘But I can’t let you pay for a hotel room for us, then make you sleep in the car. Besides, the dog will howl all night. He doesn’t know you.’
Mr Nicholls rolled his eyes. He was clearly losing patience. ‘Okay, then. The kids sleep in the hotel room. You and I sleep in the car with the dog. Everyone’s happy.’ He didn’t look happy.
‘I’ve never stayed in a hotel. Have I stayed in a hotel, Mum?’
There was a brief silence. Jess could feel the situation sliding away from her.
‘I’ll mind Tanze,’ said Nicky. He looked hopeful. His face, where it wasn’t bruised, was the colour of putty. ‘A bath would be good.’
‘Would you read me a story?’
‘Only if it has zombies in it.’ Jess watched as he half smiled at her. And that smile was what broke her.
‘Okay,’ she said. And tried to fight the wave of nausea at what she had just agreed to.
The mini-mart squatted, illuminated, in the shadow of a logistics company across the road, its windows bright with exclamation marks and offers on crispy fish bites and fizzy drinks. She bought rolls and cheese, crisps and overpriced apples, and made the kids a picnic supper, which they ate on the grassy slope around the car park. On the other side the traffic thundered past in a purple haze towards the south. She offered Mr Nicholls some, but he peered at the contents of her bag and said thanks but he’d eat in the restaurant. She suspected he wanted a break from them.
Once he was out of sight, Jess relaxed too. She set the kids up in their room, feeling faintly wistful that she wasn’t in with them. It was on the ground floor, facing the car park. She had asked Mr Nicholls to park as close to their window as possible, and Tanzie made her go outside three times, just so she could wave at her through the curtains and squash her nose sideways against the glass.
Nicky disappeared into the bathroom for an hour, the taps running. He came out, switched on the television and lay on the bed, looking simultaneously exhausted and relieved.
Jess laid out his pills, got Tanzie bathed and into her pyjamas, and warned them not to stay up too late. ‘And no smoking,’ she warned him. ‘Seriously.’
‘How can I?’ he said, grumpily. ‘You’ve got my stash.’
Tanzie lay on her side, working her way through her maths books, locked into a silent world of numbers. Jess fed and walked the dog, sat in the passenger seat with the door open, ate a cheese roll and waited for Mr Nicholls to finish his meal.
It was a quarter past nine, and she was struggling to read a newspaper in the fading light when he appeared. He was holding a phone in a way that suggested he had just come off another call, and he seemed about as pleased to see her as she was him. He opened the door, climbed in and shut it.
‘I’ve asked Reception to ring me if anyone cancels their booking.’ He stared ahead at the windscreen. ‘Obviously I didn’t tell them I’d be waiting in their car park.’
Norman was lying on the tarmac, looking like he’d been dropped from a great height. She wondered whether she should bring him in. Without the children in the back, and with the encroaching darkness, it felt even odder to be in the car beside Mr Nicholls.
‘Are the kids okay?’
‘They’re very happy. Thank you.’
‘Your boy looks pretty bashed up.’
‘He’ll be fine.’
There was a long silence. He looked at her. Then he put both hands on the wheel, and leant backwards in his seat. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, and turned to face her. ‘Okay … so have I done something else to upset you?’