‘But you need to know that nobody got it right.’ Ed’s voice was calm and certain. ‘The man told me it was impossible. Not a single person in that examination room got question one correct.’
Nicky had appeared behind him, holding a plastic bag full of stationery from his shopping trip. It was hard to tell how long he’d been there.
‘So, yes, your mum is quite right, and you absolutely don’t have to go,’ Ed said. ‘But I have to admit that, personally, I would quite like to see you whup those boys at maths. And I know you can do it.’
‘Go on, Titch,’ Nicky said. ‘Go and show them what you’re really made of.’
She looked round at Jess. And then she turned back and pushed her glasses up her nose.
It’s possible that all four people held their breath.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘But only if we can bring Norman.’
Jess’s hand went to her mouth. ‘You really want to do this?’
‘Yes. I could do all the other questions, Mum. I just panicked when I couldn’t get the first one to work. And then it all went a bit wrong from there.’
Jess took two more steps down the stairs, her heart racing. Her hands had started to sweat in her rubber gloves. ‘But how will we get there in time?’
Ed Nicholls straightened up, and looked her in the eye. His expression was both determined and oddly unreadable. ‘I’ll take you.’
It’s not easy driving four people and a large dog in a Mini, especially not on a hot day and in a car with no air-conditioning. Especially if the dog’s intestinal system is even more challenged than it once was, and if time constraints mean you have to go at speeds of more than forty miles an hour with all the inevitable consequences that brings. They drove with all of the windows open, in near silence, Tanzie murmuring to herself as she tried to remember all of the things she’d become convinced she’d forgotten, and occasionally pausing to bury her face in a strategically placed plastic bag.
Jess map-read, as Ed’s new car had no built-in satnav, and tried to steer a route away from motorway traffic jams and clogged shopping centres. Within an hour and three-quarters, all conducted in a peculiar near-silence, they were there: a 1970s glass and concrete block with a piece of paper marked OLYMPIAD flapping in the wind, taped to a sign that said ‘Keep Off the Grass’.
This time they were prepared. Jess signed Tanzie in, handed her a spare pair of spectacles (‘She never goes anywhere without a spare pair, now,’ Nicky told Ed), a pen, a pencil and a rubber. Then they all hugged her and reassured her that this didn’t matter, not one bit, and stood in silence as Tanzie walked in to do battle with a bunch of abstract numbers, and possibly the demons in her own head. The door closed behind her.
Jess hovered at the desk and finished signing the paperwork, acutely conscious of Nicky and Ed chatting on the grass verge through the open door. She watched them with surreptitious sideways looks. Nicky was showing Mr Nicholls something on Mr Nicholls’s old phone. Occasionally Mr Nicholls would shake his head. She wondered if it was his blog.
‘She’ll be cool, Mum,’ said Nicky, cheerfully, as Jess emerged. ‘Don’t stress.’ He was holding Norman’s lead. He had promised Tanzie they would not go more than five hundred feet from the building, so that she could feel their special bond even through the walls of the examination hall.
‘Yeah. She’ll be great,’ said Ed, his hands thrust deep in his pockets.
Nicky’s gaze flicked between the two of them, then down at the dog. ‘Well. We’re going to take a comfort break. The dog’s. Not mine,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back in a while.’ Jess watched him wander slowly along the quadrant and fought the urge to say that she would go with him.
And then it was just the two of them.
‘So,’ she said. She picked at a bit of paint on her jeans. She wished she had had the chance to change into something smarter.
‘So.’
‘Yet again you save us.’
‘You seem to have done a pretty good job of saving yourselves.’
They stood in silence. Across the car park a car skidded in, a mother and a young boy hurling themselves from the back seat and running towards the door.
‘How’s the foot?’
‘Getting there.’
‘No flip-flops.’
She gazed down at her white tennis shoes. ‘No.’
He ran his hand over his head and stared at the sky. ‘I got your envelopes.’
She couldn’t speak.
‘I got them this morning. I wasn’t ignoring you. If I’d known … everything … I wouldn’t have left you to deal with all that alone.’
‘It’s fine,’ she said briskly. ‘You’d done enough.’ A large piece of flint was embedded in the ground in front of her. She kicked at some dirt with her good foot, trying to dislodge it. ‘And it was very kind of you to bring us to the Olympiad. Whatever happens I’ll always be –’
‘Will you stop?’
‘What?’
‘Stop kicking stuff. And stop talking like …’ He turned to her. ‘Come on. Let’s go and sit in the car.’
‘What?’
‘And talk.’
‘No … thank you.’
‘What?’
‘I just … Can’t we talk out here?’
‘Why can’t we sit in the car?’
‘I’d rather not.’
‘I don’t understand. Why can’t we sit in the car?’
‘Don’t pretend you don’t know.’ Tears sprang to her eyes. She wiped at them furiously with the palm of her hand.
‘I don’t know, Jess.’
‘Then I can’t tell you.’
‘Oh, this is ridiculous. Just come and sit in the car.’
‘No.’
‘Why? I’m not going to stand out here unless you give me a good reason.’
‘Because …’ her voice broke ‘… because that’s where we were happy. That’s where I was happy. Happier than I’ve been for years. And I can’t do it. I can’t sit in there, just you and me, now that …’
Her voice failed. She turned away from him, not wanting him to see what she felt. Not wanting him to see her tears. She heard him come and stand close behind her. The closer he got the more she couldn’t breathe. She wanted to tell him to go but she couldn’t bear it if he did.