“Oh my god! Get the hell out!Now!”
James huffs. “Fuck’s sake,” he mutters as he climbs back out of the tiny space. And, shit, it is a tiny space. Definitely a two sleeper. It narrows in height so you must have to sleep with your head at the top, toes pointing down. Once I’ve done the zip up behind me, I can hear James telling me he’s not going to wait long so to “hurry the fuck up”. So, despite claustrophobia creeping in, I peel my clothes off, unclipping my bra too, and pull on some clean, dry items that Michael packed for me. Interestingly, despite his (or Millie’s) keen attention to detail, he did not pack me a spare bra. I suppose I should be grateful he doesn’t know my bra size. My bra is wet too but if I hang it somewhere (where to hang it without James seeing?) I can maybe dry it overnight ready for us to get started in the morning.
“You have ten seco-puh-onds!” James yells.
“Alright, alright…”
Practically throwing the rest of my stuff on, I start to climb out just as James grabs the zip. He dives back into the tent as if he’s outrunning wolves. He lands with a thump on his sleeping bag.
At least we have two of those. Ever the optimist.
I slide my feet into my trainers and, whilst whipping my hands in front of my face, look around for a suitable place to hang my bra. Thankfully, there’s a low branch on a nearby tree, which I lay it over, mentally reminding myself to get up first tomorrow and remove it before James sees.
Cannot let the worst man in the world discover my bra size. It would be like feeding candy to an arsehole.
Once I’ve clambered back into the tent, I see James has managed to change super-quickly too and is now studying the map. “Do you even know where we are?”
“Nope.”
“What about here?”
I squint. The light is waning quickly, especially in the tent. Without a fire or any sort of torch, we’re kind of screwed. “Maybe we should do this tomorrow.”
James exhales slowly. “What do we do now then? Talk?”
“Definitely not… We should, erm…”
We sit in silence for a moment. I’ve tucked my legs into myself in order to avoid touching him. It’s not a sustainable position. He’s taking up most of the space. I’m going to say it’s a 70/30 ratio. A shiver racks through me. My hands and feet are freezing. As if James notices, he raises his eyes to mine. “You should get into your sleeping bag and start warming it up. You’ve probably got a chill from walking in the rain. Don’t need you going hypothermic, do we?”
“I’m fine,” I say. But I climb into the bag anyway, awkwardly shuffling around, then end up sitting there like a slug, with my legs pointing down the tent, only my face visible with the hood up.
James pretends to be busy with his bag but we both know there’s nothing left in there.
“Tell me about your sisters,” I say after about ten minutes, meeting my silence quota for the week. I find silence suffocating. I always have. It’s probably partly to do with my people-pleasing tendencies. Silence means I’m not doing anything to ease the tension. And the tension pulls at my weak self until I cave and talk nonsense.
James climbs into his sleeping bag too, lying down beside me, and I think this might be the weirdest moment of my life so far.
“Josie, Hannah and Sophie. Josie’s the baby. She’ll be twenty this year. Hannah’s getting married in two months. She’s twenty-eight. And then Sophie, well, she’s possibly a mum now… She’s thirty.”
“I’m sorry you can’t be there for her.”
James shrugs. “I’m sure I wouldn’t be much help at this stage. It’s not as if I’d be in the room. It’s weird though, not being there. We’ve always been close. There’s only ten months between us in age.” He’s quiet for a beat. “I should be meeting my nephew.”
“You will,” I say.
“Yes, but I’ll have missed the birth, missed the first week of his life. I shouldn’t’ve come. I should’ve stuck to my guns.”
“You were going to bail?”
I turn my head to get a proper read on his face in the dying light. He’s staring blankly at the roof of the tent. “I told Michael I couldn’t come. I’d missed our flight anyway. Sophie called my mum to say she was in labour. That’s who I called at the church in the fishing village earlier. Dean, her husband, didn’t answer, but I suppose it was an unknown number. So, I don’t know how she’s getting on.”
“Well, I guess now we know why Michael insisted on you coming?”
James’ eyes lock with mine, the dark blue almost black in the dark. Something about the intensity sends a shockwave through me, forcing me to look away. “Please don’t tell me you’re apologising for him? You know he’s an arse-raving lunatic, don’t you?”
“You said I was a lunatic earlier. Maybe you’re the problem.”
James laughs with frustration. “You are! You’re making excuses for him in your head. I can hear your brain ticking.”
