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I’ve got a numb bum. My thighs are sore. Is this how it’s going to be from now on, all achy limbs and body?
I’m getting impatient and trying my best not to sound like a petulant child by constantly asking: ‘Are we there yet? Are we there yet?’ But seriously, how are we not there yet?
I’ve made this journey by car only a handful of times. The train is usually my transport of choice (actually, circumstance) and the trips have been tolerable. I’ve loaded up with a bag of crisps and the rolling British countryside for company and it’s been all good. This time, however, it’s the first of many, many trips up and down the motorway. Are we seriously going to be doing this journey from Manchester to London and back every single month?
The M6 is long. The M1 is longer. It’s all starting to look the same. We’ve just passed Coventry. I wonder how many more junctions there are before the final destination. I’ve lost count and I’m trying to hold my wee in, too.
“Are you okay?” asks M. “You’ll let me know if you need to stop off, right?”
“Yeah, of course,” I reply, because it feels like the right thing to say. Though I know I can’t ask for a pit stop. Not now. Not after M spent most of the afternoon muttering about how, if we leave at 6pm on the dot, we’ll miss the busiest time and have a good run on the motorway. Not after I made him turn back to my parents’ house a mere 20 minutes into our journey, just as we got onto the M56, to get my purse that I accidentally left behind.
It’s time to busy myself to ignore the feeling of fullness in my bladder. I reach inside my bag for my phone. That’s funny. After a good rummage, I manage to find my sunglasses, my glasses, which have fallen out of their broken case, my purse that I went back for, a crumpled up tissue which I hope isn’t used, and a dusty old lip liner. No phone.
Oh, crap.
“Are you okay?” M asks for the second time in the space of five minutes. “Have you left something?” He must have felt the heat radiate from my face.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I lie, also for the second time in five minutes.
There’s no point telling him. It’s not like he can turn back now. We are more than halfway along our endlessly long journey. We are closer to my new home than we are to the old one that was mine for 27 years.
Of all the things to leave behind, though...