‘The tour?’ I shrug. ‘Honestly, I’ve no idea. But maybe she felt it was… kind of unfinished?’
‘Because we never did that last gig? The Huddersfield one?’
I cringe inwardly. ‘Exactly, yes. But I still can’t understand why that would have mattered to her, after all this time.’
‘I guess it really did though, didn’t it?’ he suggests.
‘Seems like it, yes.’ A small silence hovers.
‘But obviously,’ he starts, ‘it’d be really difficult for us to do it…’
‘Yes, of course,’ I say quickly. ‘I mean, you have your shop, right?’
‘Yeah, that’s right.’
‘And Rupert always insists that I book time off way in advance…’
‘And there’s your family too,’ he adds. ‘Your granddaughter?—’
‘Oh, yes.’ The family who leans on me so heavily!
‘Although,’ Shane says thoughtfully, scratching at an eyebrow, ‘it would only be a few days.’
‘A few days up here,’ I remind him. ‘And how on earth would we get around?’ Because obviously, travelling from one entirely well-connected town to the next would be logistically impossible! ‘And where would we stay?’ I go on. ‘Five nights in hotels, that’d cost—’ I break off, not wanting to admit what a mess my life actually is.
That I barely make my mortgage every month.
And the fact that my boyfriend’s solution is to sell pictures of my alluring peasant feet.
That staying in hotels – even cheap hotels – is beyond my means right now. Hence the bus travel and this ill-fitting Vinted dress and the mainly charity shop books I keep buying for Poppy because I want to give her things. Things we can enjoy together. ‘We’re a bit overloaded with books at the moment,’ Zack had announced last time. ‘But this is lovely of you. We’ll keep it for when she can read!’
Shane seems to be studying me, and I meet his gaze. ‘There is a way, though,’ he starts. ‘I mean, one way we could do it without having to book hotels. That is, if we were going to do it…’
‘Which we’re not,’ I remind him.
‘Nope. Absolutely not!’
Curiosity is bubbling up in me now. ‘But… if we were?’ I prompt him. ‘What were you thinking?’
He pauses, smiles and drains his glass. ‘Well, I know a man with a van…’
‘A van?’ I repeat.
‘Yeah.’ He chuckles. ‘A campervan, I mean. This guy Boris owns it. He’s been popping into the shop for years, mainly to chat and hang about. Buys the occasional plectrum. A set of strings once a decade…’
I nod, willing him to get to the point. ‘What’s this campervan like?’
‘No idea – I’ve never seen it. But I do know he’s very fond of it. Of her, rather. Calls her Doris?—’
‘Boris and Doris?’ I grin.
‘That’s right. Travels all over, apparently. I think it makes him feel like he’s still a man of the road.’ He laughs fondly, and I smile. Just for an instant, I wish it hadn’t turned out like this. I wish we’d stayed friends – or something at least. That somehow, out of the wreckage of everything, we’d remained in each other’s lives, even tentatively. But too much had happened, and if I allow myself to even remember any of it, I can hardly look at his face. ‘He’s always saying I can borrow it,’ Shane adds.
‘Well, it’s a nice idea but…’ I pause, shaking my head. ‘What am I saying? It’s a terrible idea!’
‘I guess you’re right.’ He laughs, and as we finish our drinks and travel back up to the third floor together, it’s a little less awkward this time. ‘Night then,’ he says with a smile. ‘Hope it all works out for you.’
I blink at him.
