the cars that are not passing me are beeping at me even though I’m driving at – I glance at the speedometer – ohmydearlord – sixty-five miles an hour. I slow down. More beeping.
The motorway would have been quicker of course, but I do not thrive on motorways. I did it once. The M50. Even elderly drivers honked their horns, albeit apologetically, as if they had no alternative.
Iris yawns and stretches. ‘Where are we?’ she says. But I can’t answer her, because I don’t know. ‘Tell me again why you don’t have a GPS system in the car?’ she says, connecting her phone, which has run out of battery, to her charger.
‘Because I don’t need one,’ I say. ‘I usually know where I’m going.’
I hand Iris the road map. Except it turns out that Iris is not as good at map reading as I had assumed.
‘Why had you assumed that?’ Iris wants to know, and it is a fair question. In fact, now that I know the truth, my assumption seems preposterous. She picks my phone out of my handbag, tosses it back inside when she sees the ‘no service’ sign on the screen.
Dad, realising that things are not brilliant, has taken to reading aloud every road sign we pass, and there’re rather a lot of them, so there’s a lot of reading aloud, which would ordinarily be fine, but, in this instance where there is a sizeable chance that we have missed our turn – or turns – it is not fine.
I am sorry to say that it is annoying.
‘Dad, it’s okay, you don’t have to—’
‘Bangor,’ he calls out. ‘Is it that one, Terry?’
‘No, I don’t thi—’
‘Chester,’ he shouts later.
Iris abandons the map.
‘Birmingham,’ roars Dad.
It begins to rain. Traffic builds up as the afternoon dwindles. Iris slumps against her seat, as if she too has run out of battery. If pressed, she’ll say that fatigue is the worst thing about MS, even though she never seems tired. Apart from now. But I suppose today is … well, it’s not your common-or-garden kind of day.
I long to pull onto the hard shoulder and consult the map, but you can add hard shoulders to the list of things I’m terrified of. You’re putting yourself in harm’s way, stopping on a hard shoulder.
I drive on.
‘Milton Keynes,’ shouts Dad.
I glance at the petrol-tank gauge. It is less than a quarter full. And I can’t mention it, because if I do, Dad will worry, and when he gets hold of something to worry about, he keeps at it and at it, like the skin he picks off his ears and his lips even though you beg him not to, and you lather them with Vaseline when the medicated cream the doctor prescribes fails to work.
I keep on driving.
Iris’s plan was to travel by taxi on motorways through England and France.
In this first part of her plan, she has allowed herself to be thwarted. Which gives me cause to hope.
The rest of her plan contains a worrying paucity of logistical detail. Other than the deed itself. Which is scheduled for Saturday morning.
Five days. Not three.
She has packed light.
But there is a meeting with the doctor on Friday evening. To get the prescription. And to make sure Iris is of sound mind. Or, if my plan goes to plan, to cancel the deed because Iris will have changed her mind.
Iris never changes her mind.
But there is a first time for everything.
And a deed is not a deed until it is done.
Today is Monday.
I have time.
‘Luton,’ Dad calls out.
‘Watford.’
I am cautiously optimistic that we are going in the right general direction.
Ahead, a petrol station. Where I can fill the tank and consult my A–Z. Get my bearings. It’ll be alright.
The apartment Iris has booked is in Stoke Newington.
‘Is that near the Hippodrome?’ I ask, leafing through the guidebook.
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Promise not to laugh?’
‘I’m pretty sure I won’t laugh.’
‘It’s got a secret garden.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, it’s a roof terrace really,’ Iris admits, reddening. ‘But there’s a touch of The Secret Garden about it. You’ll see.’
Iris seems so certain that I’ll get us there. Today. On time.
Stoke Newington is an hour’s drive from Watford, according to the book. Which also tells me that it is 7.4 kilometres from the Hippodrome in Leicester Square where Jason Donovan is playing tonight. Or 4.6 miles, since it’s England and this is the measurement used here. I allow myself a small moment of optimism when some signal returns to my phone. I manage to find the apartment using an app on my phone, which I’ve never used before, since I’ve never driven anywhere I didn’t know the way to before. The woman’s automated voice sounds bored with an edge of impatience. Now, I’m worrying about roaming charges and the congestion tax, but Iris tells me roaming charges have been discontinued, while, with a couple of casual swipes on the screen of her freshly-charged phone, she pays the tax.
She makes everything seem so simple.
What is not simple is the London traffic, lines of it stretching through gridlocked junctions, along what seems like the same street, over and over again. But then I see the street signs, the names of which bring home to me how far away from home we are.
Turn left. Turn right. Turn right. Turn right again. Turn left. Take the second exit here. Straight through the junction there. It feels as though this is how I will spend the rest of my life, following the endless directions issued by an automated voice. It feels as if we will never arrive, so when we do, I am awash with equal measures of drenching shock and exquisite relief.
I look around. I am stopped outside an efficient-looking custom-built apartment block that does not suggest gardens, secret or otherwise. It does, however, have an underground car park to which Iris has the code.
The apartment itself, on the top floor of the block, appears spacious, and this impression is enhanced by the furniture, which is spare. And the echo of our footsteps bounces against the bare walls. There are narrow, steep steps up to the roof, which will be difficult to negotiate on crutches. However, Iris will negotiate them because she was right. There is a secret garden. Although garden might be a little suggestive. The area is small, and what there is of it has more in common with
