this shitbox. All you had to do was say "right" back there before Edinburgh.'
'Oh come on, there were like six different lanes, and fifty signs with arrows going all over the place. My compass is all screwed up.'
'You're fucking useless.'
'Gimme a break. It's this bloody tank. My arse cannot take another minute of it.'
'You're a waste of fucking space.'
'And the stink of petrol is giving me a headache. Man, we're getting poisoned. That battery should have a cover. It gives off explosive fumes or something.'
Dante watches Tom flick his Zippo lighter open to spark up another cigarette. He begins to laugh.
'What you laughing at?'
Ignoring Tom, he leans forward across the steering wheel to gaze at the sky. 'It's beautiful. Look at that sky. Don't you feel we're getting somewhere?'
'Sure, never doubted it for a minute. It's you I worry about.'
'I was only thinking out loud.'
'Yeah, well no more of it. We are going to be in St Andrews. Man, that's in another country. In a different dimension. Just think of the ocean and the beach. There's a ruined castle, and all those cute student chicks. It's going to be so cool.'
Dante nods his head in approval and opens a packet of chocolate buttons while gripping the steering wheel with his knees. They pass a can of Cherry Coke between them and Tom lights another cigarette before leaning across to place it on Dante's bottom lip. 'Cheers,' Dante says, and relaxes into his seat, daring to steer the Wagon with one hand. 'There's something I'm curious about, Tom.'
'Oh shit. What are you, a homo?'
'No,' he replies, smiling, and flicks his fringe out of his eyes. 'But don't knock it until you've tried it.' Tom's mirth hisses between his teeth and stabs through the cigarette smoke that gathers around his face. Killing his smile, Dante says, 'We tell each other everything, right?'
'Right,' Tom says, frowning.
'Well, there's one thing that doesn't sit right with me. We've been incurable romantics since school. Always looking for the Muse.'
'Fussy means less and settling is forbidden, or so we used to say.'
'You used to say. I never had the bone structure to be so arrogant.'
Tom chuckles.
'But you had her,' Dante says.
'Who?'
'Don't give me that who crap. You had Imogen. You should have dropped me like a hot coal and lived happily ever after.'
'You're so sweet on her. You should have gone out with her,' Tom says, quietly. He looks away and out of the window and Dante cannot see his face.
He grips the steering wheel tighter than he needs to. He clears his throat. 'I'm being objective. Come on, I have some integrity. I would never have fooled around with her.'
'That was low.'
Dante changes gear down to third to round a tight corner. The face of Punky, their last and best drummer, enters both minds. Tom split the band apart by sleeping with Punky's girlfriend – and it was the best line-up they'd ever managed to assemble. 'Tom, I'm not having a go, believe me, but Imogen is a doll. So why are you sitting next to me in the War Wagon, driving four hundred miles away from perfection?'
'Long story. I really don't feel up to talking about it.'
'Come on. She loved you, man. You had the greatest times. I always envied you her. I admit it.' Dante clears his throat again. This is further than he's ever gone toward the mystery of Tom leaving Imogen. Their umbilical bond, their empathy, seems to have frozen somewhere by the hand-brake.
'Drop it, Dante,' Tom says after a long silence. 'Just accept that it wasn't right and I should be on the road with you. You'd be lost without me.' He feels the knuckles in Tom's hand press against his shoulder, providing a friendly nudge.
For over an hour, no one speaks.
When Dante next checks his watch it has gone four in the afternoon and the sun shows no signs of abating. It flows into the Land Rover cabin, warms his face and glints off the dusty instrument panel. Inside, he feels his muscles relax and even the engine, humming in fourth gear, seems to mellow in sympathy with him. They rumble through villages built out of stone, and thread between the small hills, the name of St Andrews now appearing on every directional board they pass. And for a moment, just before Tom turns the stereo on to play The Black Crowes, Dante senses something grow inside him. It is the same sensation he experiences when the right combination of