moment, suddenly very wary of what might be inside. Her key had been poised inches from the lock when the phone rang. It was still hovering inches away now. There was no ambiguity there. Dad said to ‘get the hell away’ from her digs. If he’d said that in any other way; a nagging, hectoring tone, a snotty irritable voice, his softly-softly do it for me voice, she would probably have decided to tune him out.
But he’d said it in just the right way to scare the shit out of her.
Leona put the key back in her pocket, turned as quietly as she could on her heels and took the stairs quickly down to the front door of the building.
He was still splayed out on his bed, dead to the world, fast asleep.
She crossed the room and knelt down beside him. ‘Dan. Wake up, Dan,’ she said quietly.
He stirred almost immediately, stretching, squawking out a strangled yawn and then rubbed his big blue eyes with the backs of his hands.
Baby eyes.
Leona had to ask him a favour. She had to try. Walking briskly back across the centre of town she had tried the Virgin ticket line only to find out that for some unspecified reason, there were no trains down to London. She’d had the same luck with Express coaches. Oh God, she hated that she had to ask such a big favour, with them only being an item for what . . . no more than 24 hours? Not that they were officially an item yet. It’s not like any of it was official - they were both sort of still finding their way through whatever it was they had going together.
‘Dan?’
‘Yeah,’ he muttered sleepily, reaching out with one hand and cupping her small chin in it. ‘Ask me anything you want, sexy babee,’ he added.
‘Dan, I need a favour. A really big favour.’
Oh crap, here goes. And if he says ‘NO’ you know you can’t really blame him.
‘Could you drive me to London?’ she blurted, wrinkling her face in anticipation of his answer. It really was unfair to ask him like this, and she really did feel like a selfish, needy cow for—
‘Sure,’ he muttered sleepily.
They drove the first half an hour in silence, some music blaring from the van’s cheap stereo. Leona wasn’t really listening to it; instead she was wondering how she was going to explain this sudden, desperate need to head home, without sounding like a total doomsday propeller-head, like Dad.
Daniel drove on quite happily nodding his head to the music, trundling uncertainly along in the slow lane as his van, an ancient-looking rust-encrusted Ford given to him by his foster mum, struggled doggedly to achieve a steady sixty miles per hour.
As the A11 merged into the M11, they managed to overtake a surprisingly long convoy of army trucks. Daniel counted twenty of them, all of them full of soldiers, some of whom had spotted Leona in the passenger seat as they passed by and waved, grinned and made some crude and suggestive gestures towards her. She stared rigidly ahead, determined to ignore them.
It wasn’t until they eventually hit the M25 and the outskirts of London that either his patience finally ran out, or the idea occurred to him to actually ask. He turned the music down.
‘Why are we going to London anyway?’
Leona sighed. ‘Dan, you’re going to think I’m a bit mad.’
He smirked, ‘I know you’re mad.’
So, she wondered, how do I begin?
‘Have you seen the news?’
Daniel shook his head, smiling goofily. ‘Uh . . . no, not recently. It’s all ugly old members of the government humping office staff, and losing lots of money, isn’t it?’
Leona ignored his joke. ‘Well, give me an idea of the last news you saw or heard?’
He was silent for a moment, giving the question serious consideration. ‘Last time I was home, I guess,’ he pursed his lips, counting silently, ‘yeah . . . about five weeks ago, I saw some.’
Leona shook her head. ‘My God, we could be facing the end of the world, and you wouldn’t have the first idea, would you?’
Daniel thought about that for a moment, before turning to look at her, still smiling. ‘Are we?’ he asked.
Leona shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I really don’t know.’
The last track on the CD came to an end, and he reached out to restart it.
‘Can we put the radio on?’
‘Sure,’ he said, ‘I s’pose I better find out if the world is ending, huh?’
As they began to