Charlie was thrown sideways, scalding latte covering her hand, her shoulder bashing against the window frame. Behind her, Sally screamed, and Stuart took a step backwards, his features contorting in alarm.
‘Shit.’ Charlie tried to right herself and the bus lurched again, this time sending up a thick spurt of mud from the front wheel onto Stuart’s jeans.
‘We’re sinking!’ Sally screamed. ‘Is it a sinkhole? Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!’ She ran through the bus and flew down the steps.
Charlie tried again to pull herself up and Gertie lurched for a third time, the front left-hand wheel sinking further into the mud. Stuart’s latte cup was almost empty now, most of it dripping over Charlie’s hand, and she had dropped the scone after lurch number two. Stuart was standing back, looking at her as if she’d turned into a monster, and he wasn’t the only one.
A crowd had formed, and as Charlie scanned the faces of the people who were standing and staring, rather than helping, she saw that their expressions ranged between horror and glee.
After the third lurch the bus seemed to settle, and Charlie dragged herself to standing, which was difficult now that the ground below her was tilted.
‘Jesus Christ, Charlie,’ Stuart said, somewhat pompously, she thought. ‘This bus is a death trap! Anyone could have been standing at the front.’
‘The ground’s too soft, that’s all. And nobody would have got hurt even if they had been standing at the front. It hasn’t rolled. It’s just … sunk a bit.’ She peered out of the hatch and looked at her submerged wheel. Would she be able to drive it out? Would anyone help with planks?
Her ex took a step closer, his hands on his hips. This was classic Stuart: he would rescue her, fix her calamities and errors of judgement like the wonderful, patient human being that he was, and expect her to be eternally grateful. Charlie narrowed her eyes, preparing to do the opposite of whatever he suggested, when there was a flapping sound and the banner, which they had secured so tightly at the beginning of the morning, came free of its restraints and fell towards the ground. Except that Stuart was in the way, so it landed, quite expertly, on top of him, as if he was a fire that needed extinguishing.
‘For fuck’s sake, Charlie!’ came Stuart’s muffled voice from somewhere beneath the banner. Even though Charlie’s audience seemed less than approving of her, and poor Gertie was clearly wedged quite solidly in the mud, and this probably meant that her time running The Café on the Bus was already at an end – the shortest-lived career in history – Charlie started laughing. Once she’d started, she couldn’t stop, tears of mirth pouring down her cheeks as she surveyed the carnage from the hatch window, trying to keep her footing on the lopsided floor. As Stuart emerged, flustered and fuming, Charlie hid inside her bus, where scones and flapjacks were scattered like autumn leaves, and the coffee machine was beginning to leak.
‘Shit,’ she said. ‘Shitting hell.’ The sight was sobering, and her laughter left her as suddenly as it had started.
She heard footsteps and looked up, prepared to brace herself against her ex-boyfriend’s anger, and found another man standing in the doorway, his movements hesitant as he tried not to succumb to gravity and fall into her.
‘Hello,’ she said, wiping her eyes. ‘How can I help?’ In the circumstances, it was a ridiculous thing to say. She wasn’t in a position to help anyone.
‘Are you all right?’ He had dark blond hair crafted into some sort of quiff, and was wearing a denim jacket over dark cords and a black T-shirt with a green logo on it. His skin looked impossibly smooth above the designer stubble, and his hazel eyes were warm.
‘I’m OK,’ she said, raising her arms hopelessly.
‘I’ve had this happen before.’ He edged forward and held out his hand. ‘Oliver Chase. I run The Marauding Mojito.’ He gestured over his left shoulder. ‘I’ve got experience of sinking, leaking, wasp swarms – you think it up, I’ve had it happen. But this is your first time?’
‘First and last, I should think,’ Charlie said, shaking his hand.
He gave her a gentle smile. ‘No need to be so dramatic. First thing we need to do is get her upright. And I’d like to say I can help, but I’m a man, not a god. So … recovery?’
‘I have a number in my phone.’ Charlie walked hesitantly to the cab, holding onto anything she could, and took her phone out of the valuables box. She didn’t know Oliver or The Marauding Mojito, but she was grateful for his calmness. Of course she would have made this decision on her own, but it was as if he’d sucked all her panic away.
He was peering out of the hatch towards the site of the submergence. Some of the crowd was still there, and Stuart was tersely dusting himself down, his ego more bruised than anything else. Charlie took a deep breath. It was a hiccup, nothing more. She could still do this.
And then there were more footsteps. She and Oliver both turned to see who else had come to help, and were met with a face that was very familiar to Charlie, and yet stormier than she had ever seen it.
Bea Fishington gripped onto the walls of the bus as if it was a sinking boat, still rocking violently.
‘Oh Charlie,’ she said, her expression a mixture of pity and distress, ‘what on earth has happened here?’
‘A sabbatical? But I—’
Bea held a hand up to shush her, picked one of the fallen sausage rolls off a seat, dusted it down and bit into it. Charlie glanced out of the window and was relieved to see that the crowd had mostly dispersed now the action seemed to be over. They were waiting for recovery to come and haul them out of the mud.
‘My niece, Nora, is coming to stay with me over the summer,’ Bea said. ‘I know that’s a way off, but I can train Sally up. She may be timid, but she’s got baking experience and a willing attitude.’
‘But you can’t do without me,’ Charlie replied, failing to keep the shock out of her voice.
‘Charlie,’ Bea sighed and lowered herself into a tilting seat, ‘you’re taking on too much. This would have been a good idea, I think, if you had been able to give more time and thought to its execution, but I’m just not sure you’re capable of that at the moment. Losing Hal, breaking up with Stuart and having the responsibility of the bus, too. You’re trying to run at a hundred miles an hour when, really, you should be slowing down.’
‘I don’t need to slow down,’ Charlie said. ‘I need to keep working, to stay busy and—’
‘Sometimes we have to let other people decide what’s best for us,’ Bea cut in, ‘and I am telling you to take a break. Come back to the café after the summer. Spend time looking for a new place to live, go and see Juliette or go and lie by a pool, somewhere hot. But stop thinking about work. Give yourself time to heal.’
Charlie opened her mouth to respond, but Bea’s warning look said it all. Instead, she slumped into a chair and surveyed the destruction around her.
