experience I’d want to repeat, we both emerge alive, which, considering there were sharp impÜwerpan>
After the meal, Nate offers to give me a lift back to the inn in his rental car, which is lucky, as on leaving the restaurant, we discover it’s started raining heavily.
‘Probably a storm coming,’ comments Nate, pausing in the doorway to put up his collar. ‘You get some pretty big ones here in the summer.’
‘Big storms?’ I repeat. ‘How big?’
‘Oh, pretty big.’ He shrugs, then dashes out into the blackness, holding his blazer above his head. ‘C’mon, run!’
Fuck. Bracing myself, I race after him across the car park. A few seconds is all it takes, but by the time I get in the car I’m drenched.
‘Didn’t you have a jacket?’ he says, stating the obvious.
‘If I had, I’d be wearing it,’ I gasp, slamming the door closed behind me and peeling off my soaking cardigan. I glance across at Nate. He’s totally dry. ‘You know, a gentleman would have lent me his.’
‘Why should I lend you my blazer?’ he remarks, putting the car into gear and heading out of the car park. ‘It’s your fault if you’re not sensible enough to bring a jacket. That’s the problem with you, Lucy. You’re never sensible.’
My jaw sets hard. ‘How was I supposed to know there was going to be a storm?’ I reply, trying to stay calm.
‘Didn’t you check the weather report?’
‘No, Nate, I didn’t check the weather report,’ I fire back.
‘Well, there you go,’ he says smugly. ‘Let that be a lesson.’
Argggghhh! He’s so patronising I want to hit him over the head with his bloody weather report, but instead I take a couple of deep breaths and, ignoring him, sit on my clenched fists and stare out of the window.
Outside it’s pitch-black. The island isn’t like New York – there aren’t a million lights illuminating the sky – and we head out of town and start driving down a small road, into thick, velvety darkness. Nate puts on his high beams, but rain is pelting against the windscreen, making it impossible to see.
‘Be careful,’ I say after a moment. ‘You need to slow down. You’re driving too fast.’
‘I’m not driving too fast,’ he replies. ‘It’s fine.’
‘Don’t you know what happened to Teddy Kennedy?’ I reply. ‘In fact . . . are you rel H€. are yo“€rel H€. ated?’
He tuts impatiently. ‘Just quit it, OK?’
Unknown
My patience snaps. ‘No, I won’t quit it,’ I cry above the...
‘Jesus, I’d forgotten what a nag you are!’ he grumbles.
‘And I’d forgotten what a bad driver you are!’ I mutter, my mind flicking back to when we were teenagers and Nate drove me from Venice to Florence for the weekend and nearly crashed because he insisted on racing the Italian drivers.
He swerves to avoid a giant puddle spilling across the road and I’m thrown back into my seat by my seatbelt.
‘Are you trying to kill me?’ I shriek.
‘Well, that would be one way of getting rid of you,’ he yells, glancing sideways at me.
‘What are you doing? Keep your eyes on the road!’ I yell back.
‘My eyes are on the road!’
‘And slow down!’
‘Lucy, am I driving or you?’
‘You are, but you’re going too fast.’
‘I am not going too fast!’
A huge bolt of lightning splinters the sky, illuminating the inky darkness, followed by a deafening crack of thunder. Every nerve ending jumps and I grip the seat with my fingers. Shit, we’re really in the eye of the storm now. Rain is lashing down, pummelling the car and flooding the road. I feel the back wheels skidding.
‘Be careful. You’re going to hydroplane!’ I roar over the din.
‘Of course I’m not going to hydroplane!’ he roars back.
‘Nate, be careful. Look where you’re going.’
‘Argghhhh!’
Everything happens so fast. All I’m aware of is our voices sounding in stereo, me shrieking, him yelling, as suddenly he loses control of the wheel. Now we’re being flung across the road. The car is spinning out of control. We’re veering off into the blackness . . . I hear the tyres screeching . . . see fla
a
And then . . . boom!
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Dazed, I open my eyes and am immediately blinded by bright lights. Oh my God, so this is it. It’s all over. I’m in heaven. Any minute now I’m going to hear piped musak, arrive at the pearly white gates and see my grandma, waiting for me with a big pile of her homemade coconut macaroons.
‘Shit!’
I swivel sideways, but instead of Grandma and her coconut macaroons, it’s