After a quick breakfast, we work our way out of tiny, quaint Arrowtown and onto a narrow winding road that’s supposed to lead us from here to Christchurch. Before the Routeburn Track, I’d contacted Tibald to see where he was and it seemed like Christchurch was the only place where our paths would intersect.
In our original plans, we were supposed to stop overnight at a bed-and-breakfast in a town called Twizel and go on a Lord of the Rings Tour, which my inner geek was flipping out over, but now with Nick gone, Gemma seems hellbent on getting us to decent civilization.
She drives Mr. Orange as if her life depends on it, and even when we stop at Lindis Pass to take pictures of the yellow flowers dotted on rolling suede brown hills, she seems like a woman on a mission. None of what we’re witnessing seems to be sinking into her brain, and her face remains impassive and dull, as if she’s not really here.
The ache she was talking about, well, I’m starting to feel it now. I look at Amber and she doesn’t seem to notice that Gemma has gone into autopilot, her own attention focused out the window at the rolling hills of tussock under a saturated blue sky, not on our driver. But mine is, and I just want to beg her to stop driving, to just take a moment and breathe.
Luckily—or unluckily—Mr. Orange decides to do that for us, and it’s all thanks to me.
Outside of Twizel there’s a turnoff for Mount Cook, the tallest mountain in New Zealand. I get Gemma to turn onto what looks to be a private drive. From where the main road is, it looks like it climbs and snakes its way up a hill, providing spectacular views of the brilliantly blue Lake Pukaki and Mount Cook. I want a view that will knock Gemma’s socks off. I want her to feel.
Mr. Orange has gone through a lot and I assume the Shaggin’ Wagon can take some more. We’re about three minutes up this rough, steep, drive when the bus starts to cough and shake and then comes to a stop.
Then it starts rolling backward.
“Put on the hand brake!” I manage to yell before the back wheels go over the side of the hill and the bus slumps to a stop amid a cloud of dust. Wind whistles in through the open back window.
Gemma slowly turns around and eyes me, her face pinched and panicked. I hate being the voice of reason. I want to flap my arms and panic, too.
“We’re good,” I manage to say. “Let’s take a look at her.”
I get out of the bus and come over to Gemma, opening her door. Once again she’s clad in shorts and I have a hard time concentrating on the bus instead of her smooth, fine legs, but I manage. Either Mr. Orange has run out of gas way before his time or he’s overheating.
One look at the engine tells me that it’s not the problem.
We’ve run out of gas and in the worst place possible.
Gemma looks absolutely embarrassed, and though she should be, I also can’t blame her. Considering everything that’s been going on with her, I should have been the one driving, not her. She needed to sit back and pull herself together. Or let herself unravel. I would be fine with either one.
“I’m such an idiot,” she moans, her head pressed against the steering wheel.
I place my hand on her back and rub. She flinches at first but I try not to take offense. I keep doing it, persistently, and eventually she relaxes into me. She’s saying more than she realizes; I just wish she’d let her body call all the shots.
“It’s just petrol,” I tell her, remembering to use the proper term. “I’m sure there’s someone just up the road who will give us some. People tend to understand this shit out in the country. I bet whoever lives here gets people like us once a week, dumbasses like me who think it’s a great idea to come up here and take pictures.”
Naturally, it’s up to the dumbass to journey up the rest of the steep, winding drive to find out if anyone actually lives up here. Gemma and Amber stay behind, keeping each other company, and I start the climb, hoping I don’t run into some backward sheep farmer.
Of course, that’s exactly who I run into.
I get to the top of the crest, my body covered in sweat, when I see a small, ramshackle farmhouse amid rolling fenced pastures as far as the eye can see.
There’s a man between it and me, holding a shotgun, a border collie at his side, staring up at him as if waiting for directions. Do I kill the punk or not, master?
“Uh, hi,” I say loudly, raising my arm in a wave. “We had a bit of car trouble down the road.”
The man stares at me. He’s wearing a leather coat over dirty jeans and a thick wool sweater, a cowboy hat on his head. His face is smudged with oil or something. He couldn’t look more stereotypical if he tried.
Somewhere in the distance, among the waving tussock, a sheep baahs.
I feel like I’ve wandered into an episode of Flight of the Conchords and someone is having a laugh at my expense.
I continue, slightly unnerved. “It’s nothing major, we just ran out of gas—sorry, petrol. We’re wondering if you have a jerry can and any petrol to spare, or maybe you could give us a ride into the nearest town?”
“Nearest town is Glentanner,” the man says, totally monotone. “Nearest petrol is Twizel. They’re both out of my way.”
“Okay,” I say, trying not to sound panicky. Guess I’ll be going back down to the bottom of the hill and trying to hitchhike or something. “Thanks anyway.”
I turn around and he calls out, “What will you give me?”
I stop and look at him. “Sorry, what?”