across the car’s speaker system. ‘Hello?’
‘Garry? Hello. It’s Henry Fairfax here.’
‘Henry! Good to hear from you. How are things?’
‘They’re fine but I wonder if you might do me a favour?’
‘Anything. Ask away.’
‘I believe you have a passenger called Zach, er…’
‘Taylor,’ I shouted.
‘A passenger called Zach Taylor travelling on the 7 p.m. flight out to BA tonight. But I need to give him something before he goes. Official business, you understand. So I’m on my way but do you mind calling him to the information desk in the departures hall?’
‘Not at all. I’ll get one of my team to do it now.’
‘Much obliged.’
‘Consider it done.’
Dad thanked him and Patricia hung up. Ruby whooped again. ‘Dad, that’s so badass.’
‘Is that a good thing?’
She nodded. ‘It’s a very good thing.’
As we pulled on to the motorway and the traffic slowed, I heard a siren start up behind us.
I didn’t look. I was trying to work out what kind of siren it was. If it was a police car, I told myself, then I’d get to Heathrow in time. But if it was an ambulance, this would be a disaster and I was about to experience the greatest humiliation since I’d gone onstage with Percy the pug.
Ruby glanced back and tutted. ‘An ambulance, that’s all we need.’
I took a deep breath.
‘Rubes?’ I said, as we slowed to a crawl.
‘Mmm.’
‘What do South American women look like?’
‘Smoking,’ she said. ‘Think Salma Hayek.’
‘She’s actually Mexican,’ said Mia, from her other side.
‘Oh all right. Shakira, then.’
I stared glumly at the red lights stretched in front of us, thinking about Shakira’s bottom and checking the time on my watch every other minute, wondering what I was going to say when I got there. If we got there.
‘EXCUSE ME,’ I shouted at a man with a clipboard standing just inside the doors of Terminal 5. Dad had pulled up outside and Ruby had quite literally pushed me out of the car.
‘Yes, madam, how can I help?’ he said, casting a surprised glance at my dress. And my fleece. And my shoes. My hair was presumably pretty wild by this point too.
‘Where’s the information desk? The British Airways information desk?’
‘Can I help you at all, madam?’
‘NO!’ I shouted, before lowering my voice. ‘Sorry, no, it’s just that I’m meeting someone at the desk, quite urgently.’
‘Oh I see, that’s quite all right. In that case it’s over there,’ he said, turning to point towards the corner of the building, ‘just to the right of Area G, beside the First Cla—’
‘Florence!’
I turned to see Dad hurrying around the car.
‘Dad? What?’
He stopped in front of me.
‘I just wanted to say…’ then he paused.
He looked so serious that I didn’t want to scream that he had to hurry up but also, he did need to hurry up. ‘Dad, what is it?’
‘I just wanted to say that I’m sorry that I haven’t been around much for you in recent years. And all this…’ He waved a hand around him at the car and the departures area. I glanced at the man with the clipboard; he’d been straining to hear us but suddenly busied himself with a trolley.
‘All this has made me realize how little I’ve known what’s going on in your life.’
‘That’s all right, Dad,’ I said quickly, not wanting to ruin this moment by looking at my watch but, equally, feeling every second tick away.
He shook his head. ‘It’s not all right. It’s unforgiveable and I am going to be better in the future.’
‘OK, Dad, thank you, but I should go an—’
‘I want to be more involved, in all your lives,’ he said, looking back to the car where Ruby was hanging out the window and manically tapping at her watch.
‘Pick your moment, Dad,’ she shouted. ‘Go, Flo, quick.’
‘Sorry,’ Dad said, squeezing my hand. ‘But I love you very much. Now go and find that communist.’
I reached forward and hugged him, and then ran for the door, shouting ‘he’s not a communist,’ over my shoulder. I had to clutch one arm around me to stop the fleece from flapping open and any accidental flashing of breast. Didn’t have time to be arrested right now. ‘Sorry, excuse me, sorry,’ I shouted as I slid past trolleys, families and avoided a small child dragging a suitcase that looked like a tiger.
I saw him leaning on the desk with his rucksack at his feet, and my heart turned over. It was Zach. Just Zach. The same old Zach in his usual mourning outfit of black. But suddenly he