She wondered what it would be like to just keep on walking through this desiccated landscape of stunted shrubs and red dust. Maybe if she walked far enough, she’d come across a farmhouse where kind people would take her in, the woman plump and motherly, the man strong and protective. They would help her get Niran back, help her settle and make this place her home.

She continued to daydream as she walked against the wall of heat, slowing down in the small patches of shade and fantasising about a life that could be. A creature of the night, it was hard to imagine adapting to this country of dry, dazzling brightness.

An eagle soared above her head. It was far bigger than any she had seen at home and big enough to shade her like a parasol as she walked. The grass caught her attention again. She wanted to touch it, see if it was as real and as soft as it looked. She stooped to caress it and pulled her hand away with a sudden shock of pain. Looking down she saw a tattoo of tiny red pricks patterning her palm.

It was a sharp awakening.

In a nearby bush mischievous spirits disguised as small, finch-like birds twittered and laughed at her discomfort. The eagle dropped upon an animal nearby and the unseen victim cried out. No, she realised then, she hated this place as much as any other. Nothing would induce her to run off into it. It was too big, too empty, too dry, and like everything she had encountered since leaving home, that which looked kind invariably wasn’t.

Mai had always lived in close proximity to others. The greatest punishment imaginable to her was to be left alone. Surely, anything was better than this. Turning her back on the phantom birds and the evil pricking grass, she hurried back to the others and the safety of the bus.

The countryside changed again. Every now and then the ground would drop away on either side of the road in gradations of orange and red. The gorges here were so steep it looked as if the ogress Pantoorat had gashed them from the primeval earth with her axe.

They’d been driving almost non-stop for nearly twenty hours and no one had had much sleep. Mai’s eyes were full of grit, as were her clothes, hair and toes, and her palm still stung from the prickly grass. But however bad she felt, she knew Rick fared worse. To counter the effect of the ganja he’d smoked at the last roadhouse, he’d been devouring the small white pills as if they were sweets, rattling them down with water from a plastic bottle. Mai swapped seats with one of the other girls and sat in the single seat near the front of the bus, close behind him. He shook his head to and fro to help wash the pills down. Dandruff speckled the neck of his black T-shirt. If she had Jimmy Jack’s knife, she thought coolly, she was close enough to reach out and cut his throat.

The tension crackled and jumped between the two men as if the air were filled with goong den, dancing shrimp. Jimmy Jack kept telling Rick to pull over and swap seats so he could drive and Rick kept on refusing. Jimmy Jack shouted something and Rick swore back. Rick turned and yelled at the girls to shut up. His eyes were netted with red veins, his pupils wide as satellite dishes. No one had said a word.

Jimmy Jack raked through the bag at his feet and produced his mobile phone. ‘Pull over now fucker, or I’ll call the Mamasan, tell her what an arse-wipe you are.’

He’d already called the Mamasan, several hours ago; Mai knew that, she’d heard him talking to her on his mobile phone during their last stop.

‘Don’t be a jerk, JJ. She just wants us there fast, doesn’t give a flying fuck how,’ Rick said.

‘We won’t be getting there at all at this rate.’

‘And we’ll be arriving a day late with you driving like a grey nomad—what’ll the Mamasan say when she finds out she’s lost a day’s income?’ Grey nomad was the name the men gave to the old people who towed caravans and held up traffic. Mai had heard them say the phrase a lot since the beginning of the journey and it was usually accompanied by much swearing.

To prove his point, Rick surged forward, almost nudging the caravan crawling up the road in front of them. Leaning on the horn, he swung into the middle of the road to overtake, only just missing the gravelly shoulder and deep drop on the other side.

Jimmy Jack swore, the girls behind screamed. The open road stretched before them once more across the desert, smooth, straight and empty. Rick laughed and turned to them. ‘Scared youse, did I, girls? Don’t worry little darlings, you’re in safe hands with Uncle Rick.’

With disgust, Jimmy Jack threw his phone to the floor of the bus. ‘Out of fucking range. Pull over arsehole,’ he said. He put his knife to Rick’s throat and buried the blade in his beard, stopping just before it reached skin. Mai’s stomach lurched. Pepped up with speed, she knew Rick’s reactions would be unpredictable at best.

‘You’re a pussy, JJ, you wouldn’t dare,’ Rick growled, keeping his bleary eyes fixed on the road ahead.

Mai leaned over and placed her hand upon Jimmy Jack’s shoulder. It was all very well for her to dream about doing this herself, but JJ doing it now was a crazy idea. With her other hand she covered his on the knife and carefully tried to ease the blade from Rick’s throat. ‘Please...’

Jimmy Jack shrugged her off, swore and kept his grip tight upon the knife.

Rick slammed a heavy foot onto the accelerator. The sudden jolt of speed made Jimmy Jack drop the knife and lunge with both hands for the dashboard.

‘You want me to pull over, JJ?’ Rick shouted as he gave the wheel a sharp left turn. ‘You got it!’ The bus careered off the road, smashed through the safety barriers and commenced a flight path across a deep ravine.

Everyone screamed. For several seconds they flew through the air.

Hung there.

And then they dropped.

They hit the ground, catapulted around the bus in a tangle of arms and legs, loose luggage and shattered glass. Mai’s head hit the roof of the bus. Something slammed into her leg. The snap of bone, jarring pain, she felt as if her leg had shattered into sharp splinters. Her screams joined those of the others as the bus rolled into darkness. (Image 25.1)

Image 25.1

SATURDAY

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Stevie gritted her teeth against the pain in her shoulder as Monty pulled her into a hug. She speared her fingers up his neck and into his russet hair and massaged his scalp in the way he liked. They stayed like that for some time until she felt the cold begin to leave her bones. As he continued to hold her she marvelled how almost everything that was precious in her life came from this man: Izzy, the life they shared as a family. The house didn’t matter. What mattered was that Monty had pulled through the operation and within a few months he would be as good as, if not better than before his health problems had started.

‘Are we going to have to start all over again?’ Monty asked.

Stevie avoided the soft brown eyes that seemed to stare straight through her. Pressing her cheek into his neck she breathed his scent, surprisingly untarnished by hospital odours. ‘I don’t know, Mont, I really don’t know.’ Who gives a stuff about bricks and mortar? she said to herself. It was only a house. She would not read anything more into it.

Nevertheless she’d still not told him about the explosion or her trip to the emergency department, only told him about the fire, what she’d told her mother and Izzy too.

‘It’s my fault,’ he said when they finally pulled apart. ‘I should have taken that first electrician’s quote instead of farting around for the cheapest. If I wasn’t such a tight-arse the wiring would all be done by now.’

Stevie forced a smile. ‘You’re a Scot. You recycle dental floss.’