Trepidation (n.) – A feeling of fear or agitation about something that may or may not happen
Tonight was going to be the ‘party night’, to celebrate Shelley’s last night of freedom as a single woman. I could finally bring out all the penis-shaped goodies that I’d packed, plus the wine, Prosecco and some fluorescent-coloured liquid called ‘Intenze’ to do shots with that had been rolling around in the boot of the car for long enough. What sort of hen do was this, after all?
As we left Willie, Cara found some CDs that were stuffed in one of the seat pockets. Our soundtrack so far had been a mix of the best of ABBA and a scratched disc of George Michael, which jumped every time we hit a slight bump on the road. I’d taken over the driving to give Shelley a break but also so I could tick off being behind the wheel on the other side of the world.
‘You sure you’re ready for this?’ Shelley had asked, nervously chewing her bottom lip as I ungracefully heaved myself into the driver’s seat.
‘’Course. You’ve done so much driving, plus the roads are practically dead.’ I swung my arm across the deserted lanes around us. We hadn’t seen another car for at least the last hour. ‘I’ll be fine.’
‘Just take it slow. It’s probably not like other cars you’ve driven before.’
I gave her a Brownie Guide salute. It would be fine. Shelley had made it look easy, and surely once you’ve driven one car then the rest are all pretty much the same. I didn’t tell her that I’d only been behind the wheel of three other cars in my lifetime.
‘Oww,’ Cara grumbled, rubbing her head as we aggressively lurched forward for the first fifty metres.
‘Sorry!’ I wiped the sweat off my forehead as I eased off the worn rubber pedals a little more slowly than before.
After a slightly jumpy start, I’d managed to get the hang of it by having my foot at a strange angle that for some reason seemed to keep us at a constant speed. Shelley announced she was going to have a nap and closed her eyes next to me. Hearing her settle into piglet-style snores and Cara humming along to the music as she pouted for Snapchat selfies, I smiled to myself.
I was driving in Australia. This may not sound like much, but a small part of me wanted my ex Alex to see. To know that the girl who he’d moaned could only drive him mad was in fact in charge of a slightly un-roadworthy four-wheel-drive vehicle and was loving it. I’d forgotten about the feeling that comes with having a steering wheel between your hands, the warmth of the rubber grasped under your fingertips and the sense of freedom this gives you. We coasted along with the breeze through the open windows bringing in smells of pine and churned-up dirt. Driving over here was nothing like battling rush hour on the M56.
The view had changed dramatically as we’d moved further inland from the coast. Gone were the crumbling cliffs, winding, thin lanes hugging the side of looming rock faces and signs for forgotten towns or sheep farms. All I could see on either side were flat plains, tumbleweed and gnarled wooden posts indicating oddly-named creeks and bogs. Not a building, house or sign of life anywhere. If we broke down now we would literally be up shit creek without a paddle. I felt myself shiver at the thought and glanced at the petrol gauge. It was three-quarters full still; apparently this thing was fairly economical after all.
‘Looks like someone needed that break.’ Cara jolted her head towards Shelley who was catching flies.
‘She must have been exhausted. I wish she’d told me, I could have taken over ages ago,’ I said quietly.
‘That’s Shelley though.’ Cara shrugged, fanning her face with an old road map.
‘What do you mean? She loves to drive?’
‘No, well I don’t think she’s that bothered by it. I mean that she’ll never ask for help. She wants to do everything, even if it means exhausting herself. She doesn’t like to put people out. That’s why she’s been so on top of this wedding as she wants all the control.’
‘How’s it going with them living with you? It must be difficult sharing your space with soon-to-be newlyweds?’
‘Nah, it’s cool,’ Cara mused and began picking at a hangnail. ‘I’m still figuring out the whole living by myself thing, so having noise in the house again makes me happy. I’ll actually be a bit gutted when they do get their own pad, to be honest. It’s been so great having her back; she’s been travelling for so long that I’m just happy to spend any time with her in one place.’
‘You never fancy doing the travelling thing?’
‘I get to see enough of the world with work. I mean, modelling is one of those jobs where you never know where you’ll be sent for a shoot, but I’ve never fancied backpacking. I’m more comfortable with luxury than slumming it and would never imagine going solo like you did.’ She shuddered, as if thinking about the weird hostel last night. ‘To be honest, I don’t really like living by myself, never have. I only moved there because it was too good an offer to turn down. I’d been used to living with my ex, but that ended so …’ She trailed off, lost in some painful memory.
‘What happened?’ I asked softly. I didn’t want her to think I was prying, but we also had a fair few hours to fill and it wasn’t like the view provided much distraction.
‘He was shagging his personal trainer. How fucking cliché can you get?’ She rolled her eyes, trying to hide how hurt she obviously still felt. ‘I don’t want to go into it, but it’s hard when you think you have everything lined up to go a certain way and then – BAM! – it all comes crashing down.’
I nodded. I knew this better than most people. ‘But being dumped can also be just the beginning. You not on the lookout for love then?’
‘Pfft, no.’ Cara made a noise that was between a snort and a cough.
I took my eyes off the road, glistening in the hazy sun, to look at her face in the rear-view mirror. She was bloody gorgeous, willowy, sinewy, or whatever other weird terms they use for girls who lucked out on the model genes, with impeccable bone structure and a body made for showing off clothes. ‘I doubt you’d struggle to find a fella!’ I blurted.
‘I get by. But the men I meet aren’t exactly marriage material.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Plus, you saw that old couple.’ She shivered. ‘That’s not exactly something to aspire to. I’m single and loving it! Seriously, Georgia, it’s so much effort having a man all the time. The worry, the trust issues, the way they make you feel like you’re losing your mind at the smallest of things,’ she listed.
‘Mnrrpmmm.’ Shelley woke up with a start, interrupting her cousin’s man-bashing sesh. She wiped the dribble from the side of her lips and grabbed the bottle of water at her feet. ‘God, I needed that! What have I missed?’
‘Nothing much: saw some kangaroos, tried to get the radio to work as we are officially ABBA and George Michael-ed out.’ Cara shrugged, looking down at her phone screen.
‘Ah cool. So, where are we?’ Shelley asked between gulps.
‘We’ve just been going straight on this road like you said,’ I replied, stifling a yawn.
Shelley rubbed her eyes and picked up the map, looking around for a marker to indicate where we were. ‘Boggy Waters Creek. We’re not too much further. The Grampians should be coming into view soon,’ she said excitedly.
‘Thank God. I need to stretch my legs,’ Cara chimed.
I nodded. ‘Me too and I need a wee.’ My neck was aching, my wrists felt sore and my bum had gone numb long ago as I bounced around on the springy seats.
‘Well, ladies, I reckon, according to this, we’ll shortly be in Halls Gap!’
Halls Gap was the largest town in the Grampians and was where we’d be spending the night. The guide book said it was a small, pretty town, but with enough going on to keep you occupied. I daydreamed about cute coffee shops lining sun-dappled streets, cheerful hikers waving good day as they set off with their day packs full of sandwiches and flasks of coffee.
‘How we doing for petrol?’ Shelley asked, stretching her arms in the air as another yawn escaped her mouth.
I glanced at the dial. ‘Fine. We’ve still got three-quarters of a tank.’ I shook my head. This Beast was amazingly efficient on fuel.
‘Err, Georgia, are you sure?’ Shelley narrowed her eyes. ‘Three-quarters left?’
‘Yep.’ I nodded.
Her eyes grew wide. ‘But that’s as much as it had when I was driving. And that was a few hours ago now,’ she said slowly.
I heard Cara’s sharp intake of breath.
‘Oh, erm, well, I did think it was a bit weird how it hasn’t moved.’
‘What? It hasn’t moved at all?’ Shelley leaned over to have a look at the dials in the dashboard herself. ‘Fuck!’ she cried.
‘What?’ Cara and I asked in unison.
‘The dial must be broken. Lord knows how much gas we’ve got left.’ The sandstone ridges of the national park were slowly coming into sight but they still looked a hell of a way off. Between us and them were only open plains, straggly trees and the odd rusting road sign. ‘Did you not think there may have been a problem?’ she asked, in a tone that was a lot sharper than I’d ever heard her use with me before.
‘I … I just thought this was surprisingly economical,’ I mumbled, realising how ridiculous that sounded. I mean, one look at it was enough to realise the only hybrid that this car could be described as was a cross between a dinosaur and a monster truck.
Despite the sun beaming through the open windows, the atmosphere had suddenly grown very frosty. I felt awful for not questioning the fuel gauge earlier, especially as we’d passed a petrol station a while back.
‘Shit. We need to turn everything off to save as much fuel as we can. If we break down here then I don’t fancy our chances walking all that way to town, if there’s even a petrol station there,’ Shelley ordered. ‘Turn off the radio, any dials that might be the air con and close the windows. Are the lights definitely off? Georgia, you need to keep your speed as constant as you can. If we go too fast then what little we have left will burn faster.’
I nodded, feeling a bit like Keanu Reeves in Speed and a bit like a giant numpty. Shelley’s mouth was set in a straight line, her arms tightly folded and her face sporting a pretty pissed-off expression.
‘Crap!’ Cara cried.
‘What?’
‘My phone battery has just died.’
‘I think we’re kind of dealing with other more important things here,’ Shelley snarled through gritted teeth, keeping her eyes on the fuel gauge.
‘That is important! No Google Maps, no Siri to ask for help. Fuck, if we break down we’re going to be vulture food!’ Cara pouted and scowled out of the window.
‘I’m sorry, I just didn’t think to check. I’m sure we’ll be fine. It’s managed to get us this far so I’m sure we’ll make it to—’
Just as the end of that sentence was forming, The Beast let out a loud wheeze and juddered beneath my tight grip on the steering wheel.
‘What the hell!’ I was losing control of the bastard car. We were slowing down even though my foot was still pressed to the ground on the gas pedal.
‘Shit!’ Cara and Shelley cried in unison.
The Beast jerked forward as if still moving, but then glided to a complete standstill. We’d run out of petrol, going as far as the fumes would take us. We’d reached the end of the tank. I turned to look at them both. ‘I think we’ve reached the end of the tank.’
‘Try the ignition again, maybe we’ve just stalled?’ Shelley ordered, her pale cheeks beading with sweat, as without the cool breeze coming in it was like a sauna in here.
I did as she said and forced the key to turn but it was pointless. Nothing was coming to life. I flicked on the hazard lights and slumped back into my seat. Now what? I’d never broken down before and between the three of us we didn’t exactly know our way around a car bonnet.
‘Get out and grab that map,’ Shelley snapped at Cara, who was flicking her head between the two of us, hoping this was some sort of wind-up. ‘We need to work out exactly where we are and how the hell we’re going to get out of here.’