to follow the cars ahead of her out of the port and onto the local road that cut through countryside dotted with brick houses and slate roofs. Although it was a few years since she’d last done the trip, the same hoardings urging arriving visitors to check out the supermarkets with their cut-price wine and cheese offerings lined the route. She recalled going to one of them on their return from a holiday in Saint-Malo, loading up the back of their estate car with boxes of Merlot (for Ken), Chablis (for her) and a selection of cheeses (for both of them).
A wave of nostalgia almost overcame her and she gripped the steering wheel more tightly. She was suddenly uncertain about the trip and her reasons for doing it. She was unsure if she could manage it on her own after all. She’d told herself that her cabin-crew days had accustomed her to travelling on her own, but of course she hadn’t been on her own back then. She’d been with the team. And hundreds of passengers. This was entirely different.
After about half an hour, the procession of cars, camper vans and caravans from the ferry began to string out, while the sun had risen enough to reflect brightly off the nearby River Penzé. The sight of the cheerfully painted boats anchored along its length banished Grace’s self-doubt, and she recalled the times in the past when she and Ken had hired one. She’d never felt a hundred per cent comfortable on the water, but Ken and the children enjoyed sailing, and he’d been competent, if not accomplished, in a boat. He used to tease her about her dislike of them, saying that planes were a far more dangerous mode of travel, something she always refuted with an army of statistics. If he were beside her now, she thought, he’d start talking about hiring a boat. She could almost hear his voice in her ear.
‘It’ll be fun, Hippo. The children love it. You’ll love it too if you give it a chance.’
She leaned forward and switched on the audio system. Classical music filled the car.
She breathed out.
Relaxed.
Deira was wondering at what point she could drop the roof of the Audi. She glanced at the temperature gauge and saw that despite the fact that the sky ahead was now cloudless and the sun was shining brightly, it was still only 17 degrees outside, so she decided to wait until she spotted a good service station. Or perhaps when the gauge reached 20 degrees. Whichever happened first.
She’d left the extra breakfast croissant, still wrapped in the paper napkin, on the seat beside her, and she nibbled on it as she drove, loving the sounds of the unfamiliar towns as she read them on the signposts. Henvic, Saint-Brieuc, Montauban-de-Bretagne . . . As she passed each one she felt freer and more light-hearted, even though everything that had weighed her down for the last couple of months was still there. Nothing had really changed. But right now, at nine o’clock on a bright Sunday morning, she felt as though it had.
Her phone rang, startling her so much that she dropped the remains of the croissant and allowed the car to veer towards the outside lane. An enormous camper van, with the brand name Vengeance, gave her a long blast of its horn as it sped by. There were three pink children’s bicycles on the back.
‘Asshole,’ she muttered as her heartbeat returned to normal.
She pushed the button on the steering wheel to answer the phone, but she was too late; the caller had already disconnected. It couldn’t be anything important, she told herself, because she hadn’t recognised the number when it had flashed up on the screen in front of her. So she had nothing to worry about. Nothing at all. Not yet.
She increased her speed by another ten kilometres an hour and set the cruise control.
Grace had relaxed into the drive from Roscoff, the memories of previous journeys still crystal clear in her mind. In the early days she’d been in charge of the map-reading, something she was good at, even if Ken occasionally ignored her instructions because he thought there was a better route. In the later years, they’d used the satnav, but Ken still sometimes ignored its advice and took roads he thought might be quicker. (He never had found better or quicker routes, but he used to claim that whichever way he’d chosen was an easier drive, even when it wasn’t.)
She