‘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.’