Saturday 24th March 2007
I hate surprises. So much so that when Ben rang me at work on Monday and told me to keep the weekend free because he was going to surprise me, I almost ended the call. Instead I pretended to be thrilled.
‘You okay?’ he asks now. ‘You don’t get travel-sick do you?’
If I look pale it’s got nothing to do with the fact that we are rocketing down the A2 in Ben’s battered VW Golf.
‘I’m fine,’ I say. ‘But I wish you’d tell me where we’re going.’
He taps a finger against the side of his nose and smiles. ‘You’ll find out soon enough.’
Ben was never meant to be more than a one-night stand. I figured he’d be straight out of my bed, and my life, the moment our sweat-slicked bodies cooled. But he stuck around. He stayed all night and then insisted on taking me out for breakfast the next day. I said yes, partly because it was less awkward than saying no. Mostly because I was hungry and I didn’t have any food in the house. We ended up staying in the café for over two hours. I learnt that he was a self-employed graphic artist, he’d never been to a gig, and his dad was a massive hypochondriac. He learnt that I was an only child, a project manager for an eLearning company and that my dad had recently died. Ben immediately reached across the table, squeezed my hand and said how sorry he was. When he asked if we’d been close I changed the subject.
I need to go back there at some point, to my childhood home in the rolling green Worcestershire countryside, to clear and clean the farmhouse and put it on the market, but there’s a good reason why I haven’t been back in eighteen years.
‘Not long now,’ Ben says as a sign to Dover/Channel Tunnel/Canterbury/Chatham flashes past us. ‘Any idea where we’re going yet?’
My stomach tightens but I keep my tone light. ‘Canterbury has a nice cathedral. You’re not planning on marrying me, are you? I haven’t packed a dress.’
If Ben knew me well, he’d realise that my voice is half an octave too high and my smile is pulled too tightly over my teeth. He’d ask if I was okay instead of laughing and making a quip about Gretna Green. But Ben and I have only been seeing each other for a month. He barely knows me.
I try to quell my anxiety, first by singing along to Ben’s Artic Monkeys CD, then by talking crap. As the miles speed by we discuss the DVD boxed set we’ve been binge-watching for the last week, the latest celebrity scandal that’s been splashed all over the broadsheets and where we watched the lunar eclipse. Logically I know that I have nothing to fear. I’m thirty-two, not fourteen. And Ben didn’t ask me to pack my passport. But the knot in my stomach remains.
‘Are we nearly there yet?’ I ask, as Ben presses a bottle of water to his lips.
He laughs, spraying the steering wheel with a fine mist. ‘Are you five?’
‘No, just impatient.’
‘I knew I should have blindfolded you. No,’ he nudges me lightly. ‘Gagged you.’
I tense but force a laugh. ‘Please tell me you’re not into all that S&M shit.’
‘Who says it’s shit?’
More laughter. We laugh a lot. We have since we met, in a pub in Soho. I was at a work leaving party and I’d just managed to spill the best part of a glass of red wine down my top. Ben came out of the men’s toilets as I swerved into the ladies’, dropping my purse in my haste. He waited outside so he could give it back to me. He was a nice-looking bloke, friendly and, because I was drunk, I said yes when he asked if he could buy me a drink.
One month since we met. Two months until we split up. If that. Thirty-two years old and I haven’t been in a relationship that’s lasted longer than three months. Sooner or later I’ll fuck things up. I always do.
The sign as we leave the M2 at junction 7 says Canterbury/Dover/Margate/Ramsgate. I can’t imagine he’s taking me to Margate for the weekend, although it could be fun. Canterbury then. It has to be. Maybe I should have packed a white dress.
‘Please tell me where we’re going,’ I plead.
Ben smiles but says nothing. The grin doesn’t leave his face as we exit the roundabout onto the Boughton Bypass and rejoin the A2.
‘No peeking,’ he says as I reach for my phone. ‘If you look on Google Maps you’ll spoil the surprise.’
Which was exactly my plan.
My grip on the hand rest tightens as we speed past the junction to Canterbury and I spot a sign saying ‘Dover 17 miles’. The only reason we could be going there would be to get a ferry to Calais. But Ben didn’t ask me to bring my passport. He must have discovered some kind of idyll nearby, a picturesque fishing village maybe, out of sight of the ferries and the boats.
‘Nearly there,’ he says as we drive through Dover and a grey stretch of sea appears between the buildings. ‘Trust me, you’re going to love it.’
Trust me. You need to trust me, Lou. I will keep you safe, I promise. I love you. You know that don’t you?
‘Ben.’
We’re only a couple of hundred metres from the ferry terminal now, a slab of grey, slapped up against the sea. We speed along the seafront then Ben slows the car as we approach the customs gates.
‘Ben, I—’
‘Don’t stress.’ He slows the car to a halt as we join the queue. ‘I’ve got your passport. Don’t kill me but I swiped it from your desk drawer when you were cooking dinner the other—’
‘I can’t do this.’
‘What?’
I yank on the door pull but the passenger door doesn’t open.
‘Lou?’
I try again. And again. Pull. Release. Pull. Release. The piece of black plastic flaps back and forth but the door doesn’t open. He’s locked me in.
It’s going to be okay, Lou. It’s what we wanted. Just you and me. A new life. A new start in a place where no one will judge us. We can be together, forever.
The window then. If I open it, unclip my seat belt and lean out, I’ll be able to open the door from the outside. I’ll be able to get out.
‘Lou?’
I try and turn the handle on the passenger door but my hand is slick with sweat and it keeps slipping from underneath my fingertips.
‘Are you going to be sick or something? I’ve opened the door. Sorry, it’s central locking and—’
A cold gust of air whips my hair around my face as I leap out of the car. In an instant I am fourteen years old again.
Mike is the love of my life and I am his. He’s taking me to France for a romantic weekend away. This morning I put on my school uniform as usual but, instead of getting the bus all the
