The Vintage Ice Cream Van Road Trip (Cherry Pie Island - Book 2) (8 page)

‘You don’t have a very high opinion of me, do you?’ he asked, downing the espresso in one.

‘It was a joke.’

‘Yeah, but I think you think I’m just some loafing public school boy who plays polo and dabbles in restaurants.’

‘If the cap fits.’

He smiled and shook his head. The impression he gave was that he enjoyed the challenge she presented him with. ‘To be honest he said, ‘You sound like more of a loafer than me, not that I’m a loafer at all.’

Holly laughed. ‘Yes, that’s probably a fair enough assumption. I gave myself a year after giving up rowing to just see and it’s been nearly a year. I wasn’t really expecting this…’ She pointed to the beginnings of her bump, ‘But I need to decide what to do soon because government maternity pay isn’t great and I need a solid future plan.’

‘You don’t have to worry about money,’ he said, breaking off a bit of croissant. ‘I’ll support the baby.’

‘That’s very sweet of you to say but I do.’ She took a sip of her juice, the liquid thick with bits of orange that stuck to her lips. ‘Whatever happens, I have to be able to support myself.’

‘But I can help you,’ Wilf said. ‘You don’t need to worry about it.’

Holly didn’t say anything.

‘Do you not trust me?’ he asked, tilting his head to one side as he looked at her.

‘No, I didn’t say that.’

‘You say an awful lot, Holly, with just a look.’ He raised his eyebrows at her and she looked down at the remains of her pain au chocolat.

‘Well, I don’t mean to,’ she said. ‘It’s just, this is my reality now.’

‘It’s my reality too, you know,’ he said.

‘Yeah I know, but you can just leave.’

‘Why would I just leave?’

‘I’m not saying you would, I’m saying you could. And I need to know that I’m financially secure. And I need a job because…I’ve always had a job.’

‘No I get about the job, I just…’ He ran his hands through his hair. ‘I don’t understand why you think I would just leave you to do this on your own.’

She looked at the scratches on the cafe table. She breathed in through her nose and wondered whether she wanted to say what she knew she would say next. ‘Because I don’t think you’ve quite grasped that we’re having a baby.’

‘What?’ He sat back in his seat, aghast. ‘Are you kidding me? All I think about is the fact that we’re having a baby.’

‘Yeah, but do you actually think about the fact we’re having a baby?’

‘Didn’t I just say that I did?’

‘An actual baby.’

‘Yes.’

‘A live thing. A thing we’re going to have to look after. That you will have to look after. You won’t be going to all the clubs and the polo matches and the whatever else you do—’

‘I know. I’ve told you, it’s mainly PR spin anyway.’

Holly shrugged.

‘You don’t believe me?’

‘I don’t believe that it’s sunk in yet that you’re about to have a baby.’

Wilf was about to say something back, but then he paused.

Holly watched him swallow.

She watched his shoulders slump slightly and his eyes focus on the empty espresso cup.

She bit down on her thumbnail.

He didn’t say anything.

She felt her eyes well up slightly and brushed the moisture away with the tips of her fingers as if there was something in her eye.

‘I’ll pay the bill,’ Wilf said after a second.

‘OK.’ Holly nodded.

As he got up and disappeared into the cafe, she watched the town wake up, the people hurrying out of the tabac with newspapers under their arms, the traffic lights change to red, the fumes from the cars miraging in the heat.

‘Shall we go?’ Wilf asked a couple of minutes later, slipping the receipt into his wallet, not looking at her in the eye.

‘Yep.’ Holly picked up her bag and they walked in silence to the ice cream van.

Chapter Twelve

‘Right, so it’s Dijon, Lyon, Avignon, Provence?’ Wilf handed her his phone so she could read the map. He had barely looked at her since the baby chat. His jaw was set rigid. Having thought she understood exactly what was going on in his head, she realised quite how little she knew him. She had no idea what he was thinking. Apart from the fact that it
had
clearly just hit him that they were actually having a baby and, rather than it being something fun he could buy Mickey Mouses for, it was going to change his life completely.

‘Look at that guy! He’s driving like a maniac. This is a bloody nightmare,’ Wilf said, pointing to a white van in front of them as they approached Dijon.

‘Why did you take that turning?’ Holly asked, pointing behind them. ‘We’re not meant to come into the city, we should have bypassed the town.’

‘You’re the one map reading,’ he snapped.

‘It was a straight line, I don’t understand why you turned off.’

‘Oh for god’s sake, why won’t this van piss off? Piss off!’ Wilf shouted through the window as the white van swerved ahead and cut him up at a roundabout. Wilf put his hand on the horn. ‘Can you believe this? Can you believe him?’

The van flashed its hazards and the driver stuck his hand out the window, swearing at Wilf.

‘Jesus, the guy’s crazy!’ Wilf put his hand on the horn again and followed him through the traffic, tail-gating his new nemesis.

‘What are you doing? Slow down!’ Holly leant forward and grabbed the dashboard as Wilf swerved in and out to follow the white van. ‘You’re the one driving like a maniac. Let it go. Just forget about it.’

‘He cut me up!’ Wilf looked at her as if that excused the driving.

‘Calm down.’

‘He cut me up!’ Wilf said again, his eyes blazing.

‘Grow up!’ Holly almost shouted. ‘This isn’t about the driving, it’s about what you’re thinking about the baby. Just pull over or slow down or something. Just stop it.’

At the traffic lights, the guy in the van was undoing his window. Wilf had pulled up next to him and, with the ice cream van’s right-hand drive, they were face to face. The guy let out a furious tirade, waving his hands about and Wilf shouted back in immaculate French peppered with English expletives. Then, when the lights changed, the guy in the van put his foot down, cutting Wilf up again.

‘See? See what he’s doing?’ Wilf said.

But Holly didn’t reply, just glared at him, furious. ‘You’re pathetic,’ she said. And Wilf wavered for a moment, but then the van driver slowed down, almost to a stop, forcing Wilf to slam on the brakes and then sped up, gesturing with his hands out the window. Wilf flashed his headlights and zoomed up behind him. Holly held her hands up in frustration. But then, suddenly, a police siren sounded and Wilf’s shoulders stiffened. Next thing, they were pulled over at the side of the road, the van driver waving his hands in the air and pointing furiously at Wilf as two policemen took their statements.

‘This is ridiculous,’ said Wilf, running his hands through his hair and getting angrier with the Frenchman’s version of events. ‘He’s lying,’ he said, gesturing to the policeman taking notes. Then he turned to Holly and said, ‘He says I drove into him. Did I drive into him? No of course I didn’t. He’s lying!’ he said again to the policeman.

Holly watched from where she was leaning against the front of the van, tired and a bit nauseous from the fury and stress. It was just after lunch and the sun seemed to be at its hottest. She could feel it beating down on her head, relentless. She could feel a trickle of sweat down her back and her eyes beginning to blur.

She needed some water but she’d drunk the little bottle that she’d bought. There was nothing around them except the outskirts of Dijon. Houses, schools, playgrounds. No shops. Cars sped past. She looked around for some shade. Nothing.

Wilf was babbling away in French, matching the van driver for hand movements. Her smattering of school French wasn’t good enough to pick out anything that was being said. All she could feel was her heart-rate rising and her vision blurring.

She wiped her forehead and slipped round to the side of the van where there was a ruler’s-length strip of shadow. She put her head in her hands and took some deep breaths.

‘Holly?’ she heard Wilf call, ‘Are you OK?’

‘Excuse me, sir…’ The policeman held Wilf’s arm as he tried to walk over to where Holly was starting to go wobbly by the side of the van.

‘She’s clearly in trouble.’

‘My colleague will check on your wife.’

‘She’s not my wife. Holly! Just let go of me. She’s pregnant. Holly? Go see if she’s OK. For god’s sake, do something.’

Holly woke up with her head resting on the knees of the policewoman. Tiny and elfin, she smiled down at Holly and offered her a sip of water.

Holly struggled to sit up. Then, taking the bottle with a smile and a ‘merci’, took a great gulp and tipped some into her hand and rubbed it on her face.

The woman put her hand on her shoulder to steady her.

She heard Wilf shouting something and looked over to see him being bundled into the back of the police car along with the van driver. ‘Where are they taking him?’ she asked.

The policewoman shook her head and gave Holly a little smile. ‘They are a little hot,’ she said, pointing to her head, ‘We take them to cool off.’

‘Are you arresting him?’ Holly tried to stand up but lost her balance, and the woman tried to encourage her to stay sitting.

‘
Mais non
, just a little time to sit. Oui?’ she said.

Holly nodded, quite pleased it was completely out of her hands. ‘Oui.’

‘Holly?’ Wilf shouted.

‘Yeah?’ she shouted back.

‘Are you OK?’

‘Yeah,’ she said, still mad with him for his driving, for his stupidness.

‘Is the baby OK?’

‘Yeah the baby’s OK,’ she shouted back, softening slightly when she saw him leaning out the car, his cuffed hands resting on the wound-down window.

The siren started.

‘Are you sure you’re OK?’

‘Yes!’ she shouted. Shaking her head at the policewoman who rolled her lips into a little smile.

‘Are you going to come to the station?’ he shouted over the siren, but the car pulled away before she could reply.

‘This van, it is very exciting,
n’est pas
?’ the policewoman said.

‘
C’est pour la glace
,’ Holly replied.

The policewoman laughed, ‘
Mais oui. Camionette des glaces
,’ she said and Holly repeated it as she strolled over to look at the little stickers of ice creams on the window and look up at the forget-me-not patterned ceiling of the van. ‘
C'est tres tres jolie
, very pretty,’ she said, then asked, ‘We go and get your husband?’

‘Oui,’ Holly said. ‘But, just for the record, he’s most definitely not my husband.’

Chapter Thirteen

They kept Wilf in the cell for four hours. When Holly walked into the reception area, she could just see him out the back, sitting on a metal bench, slouched against the wall, his bare feet crossed in front of him. The white van driver was sitting on the bench opposite, his elbows on his knees, his head bent forward. It was boiling in the police station. Sticky and humid, with flies buzzing near electric zappers.

She saw Wilf look up as she came in, trying to catch her eye through the bars, but she didn’t look at him, instead she waited for the policewoman to come back and tell her how long she thought they’d be keeping him in and then left. She walked across the road in the scorching heat towards an Intermarche supermarket.

Ambling up and down the aisles looking at pots of duck confit, French cereal packets, big displays of fresh fish and shiny fresh vegetables, she tried to imagine what Enid would have done in her situation.

She knew she’d have been furious with Wilf. She’d have strung him up for putting added stress on Holly and the baby and she’d be delighted that he’d been thrown in jail, but she’d think that punishment enough. She’d look at the reason behind it all. The fear. She’d make Holly acknowledge that she was scared too and had had longer to get used to it. She would then probably tell Holly that it was time for her to accept it as well. To accept the baby and enjoy it. She’d tell her to turn and face it, head on.

Holly walked away from the vegetable section and found herself searching out the baby aisle. Soon she was standing, perplexed, in front of rows of bottles, bowls, Sophie the Giraffe chew toys, rattles, Calpol, nappies, wipes… It was endless and all a foray into the unknown. On the peg closest to her was a cream comforter blanket with the head of an elephant. It looked so soft and fluffy that her fingers just reached forward to touch it on instinct.

Holding it in her hands she looked down at her tummy and said, ‘Do you want one of these? I don’t know if you’ll want one of these but it’s pretty soft. I think I’d have liked one of these.’

At the till a middle-aged woman scanned the comforter and glanced at Holly, looking at her surreptitiously to see if it was for her own baby. She raised her brows at her with an expectant smile and Holly did a tiny nod and smiled back. The woman put her hand on her chest and gave her a look as if to say how lucky she was. Holly kept her smile in place, paying, then quickly shoving the comforter and a bottle of water into her bag.

In the car park she sat on a bench under a walnut tree and took the elephant comforter out of her bag and looked at it. Then she held it down to her tummy and said, ‘So I got it for you. You don’t have to like it. You can have a different one if you don’t like it.’ She stroked the velvety fur of the toy. ‘You can have whatever you like. Within reason. I don’t want you to be spoilt. But I will do whatever it takes to make sure you’re happy.’ She swallowed. ‘I promise.’

She looked up and out across the car park, her eyes wide to dry out the moisture. ‘That was probably our first proper conversation, wasn’t it?’ she said, her hand on her tiny bump, looking out at the sun beaming off the shiny cars. ‘I’m Holly, by the way. I’m your mum.’

‘OK, he can go,’ the policeman who had taken Wilf in came over as Holly walked back into the station. ‘But you tell him not to drive so fast and crazy. Oui?’

Holly nodded.

She saw Wilf and the white van man shake hands as the door was unlocked and they were both free to go.