refused to be run over.
See? Not my type.
“What’s the problem?” he asked. “Tell me, and we’ll fix it.”
All right, that was a little bit my type. I said, “That if we stay there, we’ll be out of the city. With no car.”
“Ah,” he said. “I told you we could fix it. I have a car.”
“You have an extra car,” I said.
“Yes. I have an extra car.”
“That you don’t need. Just sitting around.”
“Yes. Just sitting around. Of course, you don’t have a license yet, but we can take care of that, as long as you have a passport somewhere here. There’s an office in the Octagon, right? You pack some clothes for you and the girls, we stop off there, you get the license, we do that grocery shop while we’re about it, and you’re golden. Also, I hate to mention it, but the dog’s probably weeing all over the back seat of the ute by now, and you know how important a clean truck is to me.”
I looked at Dorian. He looked back at me and shrugged. I wanted him to … I don’t know. Ask Gray his intentions? Something ridiculous like that. I wanted it, and yet I absolutely didn’t. I’d never needed to read The Handmaid’s Tale, because I’d lived it. I’d got out for a reason, and Dorian didn’t make my decisions for me.
It would be nice, though, to have somebody to confer with. Somebody to ask the questions that felt too rude to ask yourself. Even to insist for you, if you needed that. An advocate, we called it in medicine. The friend or the partner who came to the appointment with the patient, because the patient was overwhelmed.
That was it. That was me. I was the patient, and I was overwhelmed.
“Your choice,” Gray said. “I’ll fix your window either way. But I think Fruitful’s ankle is hurting pretty badly.”
All right. That was playing dirty.
23
Not the Mole Hole
Daisy
An hour and a half later, with a driving license and EFTPOS card in my bag, and groceries and dog supplies in the bed of the ute, I was saying again, “This is mad. You realize this is mad. You don’t want to do this.”
“Look on the bright side,” Gray said. “Maybe you’ll hate it so much, you’ll have to scurry back to the Mole Hole, and all of this will just be a bad dream.”
“The Mole Hole? It has lights. It’s only dark in there because we boarded up the window.”
He glanced at me, then back at the road. We were driving past the St. Clair Golf Club now. This house was going to be over the top again, I could tell. St. Clair? St. Clair was the beach and ultramodern apartment buildings and trendy cafés. I’d have to remind the girls to be extra-careful not to damage anything, since they had zero clue how to care for an actual house. Or how to live in an actual house. “And, yes,” I told Gray, “I know all I did was hold the tape while you taped up the window. And that you didn’t need me to hold it.”
“What’s that I hear?” he asked, turning onto another road. Close-packed houses on either side, a new development encroaching on what had been farmland, and the sea down there to our left somewhere. He put a hand to his ear. “Is it a ‘Thank you?’ No? Must’ve been mistaken.”
“I said thank you. I’m saying thank you.”
“You are?” he said. “I’d hate to hear you saying, ‘Bugger off,’ then.”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. He grinned and said, “You don’t have to actually see me. I told you. Separate place. We’ll wave in passing, how’s that? Unless you need my help with Fruitful, of course. Pity you’re so little and can’t carry her.”
“I’m not little,” I said. “I may be a bit short, but I’m strong. Especially my legs. I have very strong legs.”
“Yeh,” he said. “I noticed that.”
“Strong thighs are a good thing,” I told him, not sounding defensive. Sounding factual. I was being factual. “I’m a nurse. How’m I meant to do a hard shift in Emergency, or a triathlon, for that matter, with teeny little matchstick legs? I care about functional fitness, not my thigh gap.”
“No worries,” he said. “I’m a fan.”
“Oh.” He was a fan? What did that mean? That I ran fast, I guessed. Otherwise? Men liked thin thighs.
I was so not used to a man doing this many nice things for me. I was competent. I