Tess glanced at him. “Problem?”
“No, just my house mate checking in. It’s fine.” He hesitated. “Listen, Tess, are you all right? You’ve been a little anxious all morning.”
Her eyes widened and she avoided his gaze. “I’m fine.” She hugged her backpack to her chest. “It’s, ah, not like me to get a lift with a stranger.” Her smile was forced. “It’s a bit awkward.”
“Do you want me to talk to your friends? Or I can call Sheridan back and let him vouch for me?”
“No, it’s fine. You’ve proven you’re nice. I’m, ah, just, ah, an introvert. It takes me a while to open up.”
He studied her a moment, but she seemed sincere. “OK, but tell me if something worries you. I’ll just get changed and we’ll go.” He’d take her at her word, but he wouldn’t drop his guard. The rest had eased some of his fatigue, and his confidence was back that he would be home tonight.
That confidence was shattered an hour later when he approached a large flashing sign and traffic cones blocking the road. He swore and stopped the car.
ROAD CLOSED. FLOODING.
They had to be kidding.
He’d seen the weather reports of the winter storm making its way down from the north, but he hadn’t considered the implications outside of his flight being delayed.
“Can’t we just go around?” Tess asked.
“Yeah, but going around in this part of the country adds several hundred kilometres,” Ed said, getting out his phone to check the best way to go. This van wouldn’t handle any of the dirt roads, so they would have to stick to the bitumen. He also wasn’t confident enough about its reliability to take any road which got little traffic. If they broke down, they might be stuck out there for hours or days, and Ed didn’t have that kind of time.
He sighed as he scrolled through options. They’d have to go back to Geraldton, then across to Mount Magnet and up the Great Northern Highway. He wasn’t getting home tonight.
“Ed?”
He tucked his phone away. “We’ll have to stop somewhere overnight,” he told her. “The detour will add another eleven hours to the trip.”
She gaped at him as he did a U-Turn. “Aren’t there any other roads?”
“None that I’d risk this old thing on.”
“But you’ve got a wedding to get to.”
“Not until Saturday.” He had an extra day up his sleeve, a day when he was supposed to be helping Amy set up everything. At least others in town would pull together for her, plus they had Brandon’s teammates arriving. Ed frowned. He hadn’t considered they might also need a way north. He’d have to ring Brandon’s best friend, Sam, when they got back to Geraldton to tell him about the strike.
They arrived back in town, and Ed pulled in to fill the van with petrol.
“Didn’t you just fill up?” Tess asked.
He nodded. “But there might not be another petrol station until Mount Magnet, so I’m not risking it.” He smiled at her. “When you travel north in Australia you’ve got to be prepared.” Speaking of which, he would head into the supermarket next door and pick up food and water. He wasn’t as familiar with the other highway as he was with this one. Better they had too much food than not enough. He’d check the spare tyre too. And the oil and water.
Ed went through everything, putting more air in the nearly flat spare, hoping it was neglect and not a puncture that had made it deflate. Then he took Tess into the supermarket and headed down the snack aisle. “Anything you want?” Ed asked.
She shook her head.
Perhaps she didn’t have a lot of money. “My shout,” he said. “Add what you think looks good.”
He found a ten-litre bottle of water and put it in the trolley. Perhaps he was overcompensating, but his father always taught him it was better to be over-prepared. He closed his eyes, wishing his father would be at the station to greet him. The house wasn’t the same without his mother’s eighties tunes playing on the stereo, the smell of something baking, and his father coming in at dusk, kicking off his dusty boots at the door and hanging his Akubra hat on the hook inside. Ed’s throat closed over and his vision blurred.
“Ed? Is this all right?”
He swallowed hard and opened his eyes to find Tess holding up a packet of Tim Tams. He smiled over the pang of loss. “Great choice.”
Thinking about his family reminded him of the phone calls he had to make.
Tess bit her lip. “I need to get a couple of things. I’ll meet you at the checkout.”
