Maddie Please - The Mini-Break

Did I need help? Well yes I did. He looked a capable sort too, and very tall, at least six feet four I would guess, and wrapped up in a big waxed jacket. He was rather broad, with bright blue eyes in a tanned face, actually quite yummy under different circumstances.

‘Yes,’ I shouted, ‘yes I do!’ By now I was so excited I was hopping from foot to foot.

‘Well?’ He raised his eyebrows, waiting for me to go on.

‘Have you got a charging cable for a MacBook Air?’

He looked puzzled.

‘A what?’

‘It’s my sister. Jassy. Her laptop has run out of charge and she’s forgotten …’

My voice tailed off as I realised the idiocy of my question. Of course he didn’t have a bloody charging cable for my sister’s laptop. I’d be surprised if he’d ever heard of a MacBook Air or broadband or electricity for that matter.

He grinned at me, a big sort of Olympic-standard grin that would have been lovely if it hadn’t been directed towards my daftness.

‘Have you tried putting a new elastic band in it?’ he said.

I stopped to process this idea with my mouth open and then realised he was almost laughing at me.

‘No, but thank you for the suggestion,’ I said with more than a touch of acidity, wiping the rain out of my eyes. This was perhaps a mistake as I had been messing about with flicky eyeliner that morning; anything to postpone the evil hour when I would have to get on with some writing.

‘Well, have you considered putting some shoes on?’ he said.

We both looked down at my feet, which were encased in blue cashmere socks and mud. I’d been so keen to dash out and stop him I’d forgotten about putting on wellingtons.

‘I came over because my mother said she saw lights on the other day. Wanted to make sure there weren’t squatters or burglars. You’re not from round here are you?’ he said, and now he really was laughing.

‘No, I’m not,’ I said, almost tearful. ‘I’m from a place with proper roads and shops and phone reception. I need to somehow get in touch with a garage or the AA so they can fix my flat tyre and my sister and I can get back home!’

‘Got a puncture, have you?’ he said.

No, I just let the air out of my tyre for the fun of it.

I took a deep breath. ‘Yes, I have.’

It’s the only thing keeping me here in this bloody place.

‘Well, perhaps I could help?’ he said.

‘What? What? Really?’ I spluttered, my heart lifting.

‘Have you got a spare tyre?’

I had no idea. How should I know?

Surely they had to give you a spare tyre when you bought a car? Wasn’t it the law? But if he wanted to know where it was I was scuppered. I’d only had the car for three months. I didn’t actually know how to open the bonnet either.

‘Of course,’ I said at last, in a confident voice.

The rain was now lashing down and my feet were frozen. It was getting dark too, which made the whole thing even more depressing.

‘I’ll pop back then,’ he said and he climbed back into his tractor.

He started up the engine with a throaty roar, turned round in a nearby gateway and drove back the way he had come, leaving me sopping wet and muddy.

‘When?’ I yelled after him as he passed me. ‘When will you pop back?’ but all I got was a jaunty wave.

I went back into the house and stood peeling off my muddy socks.

‘God, shut the bloody door!’ Jassy shouted.

I did so with feeling and went to get a towel to dry my hair.

‘Who was that?’ she said. ‘And why are you so wet? You’ve got black splodges all over your face.’

‘I don’t know and because it’s pissing down,’ I replied, glancing in a mirror and realising I looked like a sad clown. I scrubbed at the black streaks with a tissue. ‘He was passing because someone had noticed there were lights on and he was checking we weren’t squatters.’

‘Who in their right mind would squat here?’ Jassy grumbled.

‘He’s offered to do the spare tyre.’

Jassy brightened up. ‘Oh my godfathers! When?’

‘Don’t know, he says he’s going to pop back.’

‘Pop? Pop back? Oh FFS! It took ages for him to notice we were here in the first place so I won’t hold my breath!’ Jassy said. ‘Why didn’t you grab him, Lulu? Make him do it now?’

‘Because it’s getting dark and it’s bloody raining!’ I said, furious with myself for not doing exactly that.

‘Jeez,’ Jassy said, sending me a dirty look, ‘we could have been out of here in the morning. We could have made it to Kirsten’s book launch. Now I expect we’ll be stuck here for another fortnight. We’re going to die here, starve to death. Sally will eventually realise I still haven’t delivered Evil Has a Price and then she’ll come looking for me with a bread knife. By then it will be too late and all because you didn’t ask some filthy old farmer to change a tyre.’

‘Actually he wasn’t filthy or old. He was rather attractive,’ I said, but Jassy wasn’t listening, she was too busy refilling her wine glass.

We waited with scarcely concealed impatience for another two days. Okay, the first day we concealed our impatience; the second day we weren’t concealing it at all. Jassy and I were at each other’s throats; snapping and snarling like a couple of barely house-trained puppies.

‘I mean what did he mean by pop back ?’ Jassy moaned for the billionth time.

‘I have no idea, Jassy. Stop asking me. I would mean I’d be back in five minutes but this is the country, isn’t it? He might mean next week or next year – who knows?’ I said unhelpfully. ‘He might never come back.’

Jassy threw back her blanket and stomped unevenly to the window to look out at the rain. It was still raining.

‘Come back, you sod,’ she shouted and then turned back to me. ‘Are you sure you don’t know how to change a tyre?’

‘No, I don’t know how to change a tyre,’ I snapped back. ‘I wouldn’t know where to start.’

Jassy slumped back down onto the sofa, her mouth drooping with misery. ‘Nor would I. Surely there’s an instruction book? We’re never going to see London again. We’re going to die in this bloody place, just die.’

She sounded so mournful I went to give her a hug.

‘No we’re not,’ I said. ‘Don’t be silly. People don’t die just because it’s raining and they have a puncture. There’s plenty of food in the freezer and we have four bottles of wine left. And the green stuff if we get desperate.’

She shrugged me off.

‘Stop being so bloody cheerful,’ Jassy said, huddling down into the cushions.

‘Well you’re being miserable enough for both of us.’

‘Oh, just shut up!’

‘You shut up, Jassy! We could have gone to Vanessa’s flat-warming party. This was your idea remember – your big drama about Ralphie and that woman, the draft that needed finishing. I could have done my editing anywhere—’

‘Don’t give me that! You wanted some time away from Benedict in the hope that he would stop taking you for granted!’

‘—I was expecting to have a lovely time with roaring fires and a restful few days before we went back to London.’

‘Well so was I! You agreed! I didn’t force you to drive here!’ Jassy shouted.

I could feel my temperature rising.

‘Yes, but I didn’t expect to be still stuck here, listening to you moaning twenty-four seven!’ I yelled back.

‘I’m an invalid!’

‘You’re not a bloody invalid.’

‘I am!’

‘You’ve got a bandage on one knee. This apparently means you can’t cook a meal, wash up, tidy your stuff away, or do anything except sit on the sofa drinking wine and complaining.’