Chapter Seven
It was mid-afternoon when the tension in the Range Roger exploded again. April reckoned that they’d been traveling for about four hours through Vancouver to somewhere called Horseshoe Bay, where they boarded a ferry across the millpond-smooth ocean to Vancouver Island. All the way, Rory had been winding her up by talking in a French accent or humming bars from Moulin Rouge. Now he started in on the corset again.
“I bet that thing’s uncomfortable,” he said as he drove.
“You’re wrong,” she snapped. “It’s actually extremely comfortable, and anyway, it’s not a thing, it’s a corset.”
Rory grinned. “Still, I’m not sure it’s the best choice for camping.”
“Yeah, like I’d ever know.”
“Have you camped before?”
April narrowed her eyes. She wondered where the conversation was going. Maybe he was trying to steer her into a trap by getting her to say something stupid, so he could tease her about it for hours. Not for the first time, she fantasized about smothering him with the corset.
“So you haven’t been camping before?” he pressed.
“Actually, I have,” she said. “At the V Festival.”
It was the year when Hunter wellies had been huge and she’d written a piece for The Mail on the dos and don’ts of festival fashion. The organizers of V had seen the article and liked it so much, they’d invited her to the festival, where she’d stayed in a fully kitted-out yurt. It had been more glamping than camping, but she wasn’t going to tell Rory that.
There was a pause. She watched his long fingers curl around the steering wheel.
“Still, it’s brave of you,” he said.
“To do what?”
“To sign up to camp for a whole week.”
A jolt traveled through April. She spun around toward Miranda, who was sitting in the back seat cuddled up to Dan. She had a love bite on her neck. He was twirling a strand of her hair around and around his finger like he was trying to unravel her.
“Miranda.” April kept her voice light like because surely this was a joke. “What’s this about camping?”
Miranda’s eyes grew wide. “You knew we were going camping. I told you at Whispers. You were excited about the idea. You even made a speech about how people needed to be outdoors because it was part of their psychological makeup.”
“But I was drunk,” April wailed.
She turned back around, grabbed her phone, and brought up Google. Then she typed “Tofino accommodation” into the search bar. A listing for the Tofino tourist center appeared.
April pressed the number.
“Hello?” a man’s voice answered.
April felt a surge of relief. “Oh, hi. I wondered if you could help. I’m looking for a place that sleeps four.”
“For next July?”
“No, for now.”
The man laughed. “Sorry, we’re fully booked.”
“What, everywhere? But you can’t be.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. Tofino’s a small fishing town. It gets booked up by January for the summer. Now, you have yourself an awesome day.”
April ground her teeth together. An awesome day, her ass. The man was clearly deranged, senile. How could a whole village be booked?
She clicked on another website for Tofino, which showed a cabin on a beach. But when she called the number, it went through to an answering machine. Next, she called a bed and breakfast. The rooms on the website looked amazing. They had high ceilings, views of the harbor, and Aboriginal art on the walls. Again, it was full. April tried another place, then another, then another, without success.
A scream rose inside her. She felt it beating against her voice box.
“Turn the car around,” she said to Rory. “You need to drop me back at the airport.”
Rory drove on for a couple of minutes before pulling onto the shoulder. April raised her eyebrows. She was surprised he’d listened to her for once.
He stopped the engine, sprang out of the Range Rover, and marched around the front. Then he opened her door, took her by the arm, and frog-marched her away from the Range Rover. A vein pulsed in his temple.
“What the hell are you playing at?” he snapped.
“I’m not going camping. I refuse.”
His eyes sparked. “Listen. Dan really likes your friend. She’s the first girl he’s liked in a while. I won’t let you ruin this trip for him. We’re going camping whether you like it or not. Dan and I have gone to a lot of trouble to accommodate you both. We bought you a tent and some sleeping bags. But you’d have known that already if you hadn’t been so drunk.”
April turned to march off. Rory gripped the top of her arm.
“Let go,” she shrieked. “You’re hurting me.”
His eyes blazed. He was breathing very hard. They were inches away from each other, and she could feel the heat coming off his body.
“You will not ruin this vacation,” he said slowly and clearly, enunciating every syllable of each word. “I’m not going to let you pout like a spoiled princess. You will stop thinking about yourself. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Now, do you need us to stop so you can get extra supplies?”
April tilted her chin. “I’ll be fine.” Her voice wobbled. It was taking all of her self-control not to cry.
They got back in the SUV and drove past several strip malls and a few small towns lining the road. Then civilization ended. They passed fields and lakes. April spotted mountains in the distance.
The road narrowed into a single lane, and soon they became stuck behind a motor home with seemingly no hope of overtaking it. The road twisted left, then right, then left again. April’s stomach churned. She wound down her window and stuck her head outside to take gulps of the chilly air.
“Are you carsick?” Rory asked.
She brought her head back inside. “No. I was doing that for fun.”
He didn’t laugh. Clearly, he had no sense of humor. “I’m afraid it’s going to be like this for another fifty miles,” he said.
April swallowed. “I’m fine,” she said brightly.
“Cool,” he whispered. “You’re doing great.”
“Thanks for the pep talk,” she hissed. She felt a spark of satisfaction when his nostrils flared.
A torturous hour later, the SUV turned off the main road onto a smaller track. Forest sprang up on either side, but it was forest like April had never seen before. The pine trees were so tall that even when she put her head out the window again and craned her neck upward, she still couldn’t see their tops. They grew thickly together, cutting off most of the light. Lichen dangled from the branches and the ground looked springy with moss.
She shivered. The trees were so tall she bet they were hundreds of years old. They had to be ancient, prehistoric even. She imagined dinosaurs crashing through the woods or those velociraptors from Jurassic Park. She pictured them skittering along with the frilly wings of their jowls flapping as they went on the attack.
The Range Rover reached a ticket booth by the side of the road, and Rory stopped the Range Rover. The ranger, a chirpy-looking woman in a khaki uniform, slid down the window. Rory handed her his phone, which April saw had the reservation details for their site.
“Cash or card?” the ranger asked.
April got out her purse but Rory shook his head. “Don’t worry,” he said with a chuckle. “It’s my treat.”
She resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at him.
The ranger handed Rory a receipt and a parking pass for the windshield, then she waved a brochure at him.
“I’d like everyone in your party to read this,” she said. “These are the rules for the campsite. We’ve had several sightings of bears in the area recently, so everyone in your group needs to be bear-aware.”
April gasped. Bears. The second the ranger handed Rory the pamphlet, April snatched it from him and scanned the first page. It had a sketch of the some of the animals that lived in the national park. They were drawn sideways and arranged in height order, starting from the smallest and ending with the biggest.
First, there was a wolf. A wolf! Next to it, some kind of big cat. Then, prowling along with its claws at the ready, was a massive bear. April whimpered. She felt like she was about to throw up.
“Are you worried about the bears?” Dan called from the back. “If you are, you don’t have to be.”
April turned and gave him a smile. At least someone was being nice to her.
“Oh, no,” Dan continued. “It’s the cougars you’ve got to worry about.”
“The cougars?” she said faintly.
“Those.” Dan reached through the gap between the front seats and pointed to the cat on her leaflet. “Cougars are mountain lions. They’re sneaky, unlike bears. They stalk people in the woods for hours, then pick them off one by—”
“Hey,” Rory cut in. “Maybe April doesn’t need to hear this.”
He drove down the road and into their campsite, then stopped the Range Rover. April climbed out. Mud oozed around the sides of her running shoes. They were ruined. She knew in her soul, in her heart of hearts, that they were never going to be white again, not even if she put them though the washing machine. And surely, she thought, it was sacrilege to put anything by Stella McCartney into the washing machine.
She shivered and looked around the campsite, although “campsite” was a kind word for it—it was just a clearing in the forest with two fire pits and two picnic tables, which Rory pushed together. The trees gave off a heady, woody smell so strong that it felt aggressive.
She watched Rory climb onto the bumper of the Range Rover and undo the straps on the roof rack. Then he and Dan began to unload the camping gear. Rory was whistling like he was enjoying himself. Or maybe he was just doing it to annoy her. Still whistling, he wandered over with a water container.
“Can you fill this for us?” He held the container out to her.
“Of course,” she said brightly. She was determined to prove that she was tough.
She took the container from him and walked out of the site and down the path, on the hunt for a tap. All the time, she kept a look out for bears, cougars, wolves, and velociraptors. In the next clearing, a couple stood over a gas burner on a picnic table, where they were heating up a kettle. They looked grim-faced and their raincoats were zipped up to their necks. And they were on vacation, April thought. They’d chosen to do this of their own free will.
She wandered on a few more paces until she came to a tap attached to a post. She unscrewed the lid of the container, placed it under the tap, and switched it on. Water splashed onto her shoes. She sighed. Now they were wet as well as dirty.
Once the container was full, she closed it and picked it up. Wow, it’s heavy. She staggered with it for a few steps then, with a grunt, she set it back down onto the dirt. Already, callouses were forming on her palms. And to think, she thought, some women did this every day of their lives when they fetched water from the wells. It was incredible. She would never use water so casually again.
She picked the container back up and soldiered on, walking and stopping and walking again until her arm muscles screamed out in pain. At long, long last, she staggered, panting, into the campsite, her hair sticking to the sweat on her face. Rory sauntered up to her, drinking a can of beer.
“Here, let me.” He took the container from her. Then, seemingly for fun, he swung the container like it weighed nothing.
April glared at him. “Which one’s mine?” she asked, pointing at the two tents that had been erected side-by-side next to the picnic tables.
Rory gestured to the blue tent. “We bought that one for you and Miranda. You’re not going to bed now, are you?”
She nodded.
“But you haven’t eaten.”
“I’m fine.” April stomach was close to rumbling, but she didn’t care. She wanted to sleep so this day from hell would end.
Rory led her to the jeep and found her a sleeping bag and a foam mattress, then handed her a torch.
“In case of bears?” she asked.
“No,” he said gently. “For the washrooms at night. And please don’t worry about bears or the cougars. We should never have gone on about them so much.”
April took the torch from him and felt a flash of gratitude, which she put down to tiredness. Her arms still ached from carrying the water container.
She went to the tent, unzipped it, and crawled inside. Then she laid out her foam mattress and her sleeping bag. Normally before she bed, she undertook an elaborate skincare routine. But not tonight. She folded the corset into a makeshift pillow, then crawled fully dressed into the sleeping bag. She was facing downhill but was long past caring. A rock dug into her hip. She closed her eyes and within a few minutes, she mercifully fell asleep.