********************
Location: Restful Haven Bed and Breakfast
Radio station: BBC Radio 2
Track playing: ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’ by Abba
Miles travelled: 350.3
Miles until Captain Poldark: 193.2
‘All I’m saying,’ Ray said, ‘is that Restful Haven sounds a bit like a funeral parlour.’
‘No, it does not,’ Lisa said, as she peered out of her windscreen at the guest house. Its walls were black against the darkening sky. ‘Restful is a nice word. Haven is a nice word. There is nothing deathly about either. That’s why I chose it! If it was something to do with funerals, it would be Green Meadows, or Heaven’s Gate or …’
‘Restful Haven,’ Abby said, unhelpfully from the back seat.
‘Well, it isn’t,’ Lisa said with more confidence than she felt. The spiky outline of the house did look a little creepy against the moonlit sky. ‘And it beats sleeping in the car.’
‘You OK?’ Lisa asked Kirsty, the last to get out. She looked tired, as if she hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in a very long time. There was something else about her too, that Lisa couldn’t quite define. But whatever it was it troubled her. It didn’t frighten her exactly, which would had been normal, for Lisa anyway. No, instead for some reason Lisa felt protective of Kirsty, frightened for her. And then she realised why.
Kirsty reminded her of herself, the way she’d been after her mum died and everything went wrong. And that surprised Lisa. She’d thought for a long time that she’d been stuck in that moment, ever since. But that wasn’t true. She didn’t have the same look that Kirsty had any more. And yes, her journey from there to here had been long, twisted and mostly in the wrong direction, but still she’d got this far. Which meant that maybe, just maybe, she could get even better. She could even perhaps become the person she had once been.
As soon as Lisa had that thought it terrified her. That person had been the reason she’d got into this state in the first place. Being that person again simply wasn’t an option. Keep your head down, stay invisible, and keep an eye on Kirsty, Lisa thought. That you can do.
Kirsty smiled feebly. ‘I’m fine.’ It was the most she’d said since she got into the car. She’d sat silently in the corner listening to Ray and Abby argue over the best way to skin a rabbit. And after that Abby had told them an unlikely story. She had once got all the way to Gary Barlow’s dressing-room door, she said, and had rung the bell before security threw her out.
‘It is a bit weird, isn’t it?’ Lisa said, trying to get Kirsty to talk. ‘Going on holiday with a bunch of strangers.’
‘A bit.’ Kirsty shrugged. ‘But it’s not as bad as it is at the home.’
‘The home?’
Kirsty shrugged again. ‘Home, just home. It’s just … I just broke up with my boyfriend, that’s all.’
‘Oh I see. I’m sorry.’ That made sense to Lisa. When you were Kirsty’s age, boyfriends seemed like the most important things in the world, the be-all and end-all.
Of course, what with not going out, not using social media, and barely using the Internet, she hadn’t had a boyfriend of her own since … well, since the last one, which was almost six years ago now.
But honestly, Lisa didn’t care. She didn’t need a real man in her life, not when she had someone a thousand times better than reality could ever create. She had Captain Ross Poldark to wrap her in his manly arms and throw her wantonly onto a four-poster bed and rip off her top any time she wanted. In her head anyway.
‘Are you two going to stand there gabbing all night?’ Abby called from the doorway of the B&B where a lone bulb flickered over the entrance.
‘Coming!’ Lisa called back, hooking her arm through Kirsty’s. ‘Try and put it out of your mind. Just think this time tomorrow we’ll be halfway to Captain Poldark!’
‘Yay,’ Kirsty cheered, but somehow her heart didn’t seem in it.
‘Two twin rooms, yes?’ Mrs March, the landlady, said. She yawned to show them exactly how late it was. It was only just after nine, but apparently at Restful Haven guests who hadn’t checked in by seven were frowned upon. She slid two keys with large numbered tags across what wasn’t so much a reception desk as a reception coffee table.
‘Oh! That was before we found out Demelza was a man!’ Lisa said, biting her lip.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Mrs March, narrowed her eyes. ‘All bookings are non-refundable.’
‘Yes, I see. It’s just that …’ She turned around and looked at Ray. ‘Well, our party changed at the last minute and I’m not sure that any of us feel comfortable about sharing with a gentleman. Do you have any other rooms?’
‘Fully booked,’ Mrs March said, darkly. ‘Only got three rooms. You’ve got two and I’m keeping my husband in the other until he sees the error of his ways.’
‘Oh.’ Lisa turned to Abby who didn’t seem nearly as bothered by the frightening Mrs March as she was.
‘No worries, I can sleep in the car,’ Ray said.
‘Or I can,’ Abby said. ‘I can sleep anywhere. I once slept standing up inside a hollow tree. Best night’s sleep I ever had.’
Lisa thought about handing over the keys to her little car to someone she’d only really known for a few hours and clasped them tighter in her fist.
‘No … No, it’s OK. I’m sure we could work it out. Though I think Kirsty should share with one of us. What do you think?’ she asked Abby.
‘Well, he’s not likely to ravage us in our sleep, is he?’ Abby said. ‘And even if he is, one simple chop to the throat, quick double-eye jab, and I’d fell him like a tree.’
‘Can you decide?’ Mrs March said, looking at her watch. ‘Some of us would like to go to bed before dawn.’
‘Toss you for him,’ Abby said, fishing a fifty-pence piece from her combat trousers.
Lisa lost the toss.
‘Why Poldark?’ Ray’s voice cut into the dark, just as Lisa was about to drift off to sleep. Of all the things she had expected from sharing the tiny twin room with a virtual stranger with a penis, she hadn’t expected it to be so … well, so easy.
They’d barely spoken a word to each other since they’d shut the bedroom door. Ray had waited politely on his bed while Lisa had changed into her PJs in the small bathroom. Then Lisa had got into her bed and pulled the covers up to her chin as she’d listened to Ray clean his teeth.
When he’d eventually emerged, wearing jogging bottoms and a T-shirt, he’d gotten into bed and they’d turned out the light. Lisa had lain in the dark marvelling at herself.
If anyone had said to her that tonight she’d be sharing a room with a strange man and actually feeling pretty OK about it, she’d have laughed in their faces. But here she was, being crazy, carefree and playing with fate, and she liked it.
Closing her eyes she imagined herself in a crowded ballroom as Ross Poldark swept in, glowering at everyone there, until his gaze fell on her. Unable to tear his eyes away from her, he moved towards her, took her into his arms and …
‘Why Poldark,’ Ray asked again. ‘I mean why does it mean so much to you?’
Lisa thought for a moment. She wasn’t exactly sure how to explain it.
‘Escape,’ she said after a while. ‘For a long time I’ve been … sort of trapped, I suppose. In my house, in my job – I’m a school librarian. In my life, in my head. Afraid. Books open doors and windows for me. They let me look out at the world. Then I started to read the Poldark books when the TV series came back on, and … well, to be honest I fell in love. With the places and the characters and the stories. But most of all, most of all I fell in love with Ross. He’s so strong and brave. He’s not perfect. I know that. He’s moody, impetuous, hot-blooded …’
‘Not real …’ Ray said sleepily.
‘I know, I know he’s not real.’ Lisa smiled in the dark. ‘But … I don’t know how to explain it, except that I think that’s part of the reason I love him. A book boyfriend can do everything to make you happy, and nothing to hurt you. If a book boyfriend looks like he’s going to be trouble, all you have to do is shut the pages, and then they can’t get out. They can’t come after you. And when I think about Ross – and his hat, and his horse – I feel safe. I suppose that sounds kind of crazy, doesn’t it? Ray?’
A gentle snore came from under Ray’s covers, and Lisa smiled to herself. She rolled over onto her side, turning her back on him. If she pretended very hard, she could imagine that the roar of Ray’s snores was the crash of the waves against the wild Cornish coastline.
Now Captain Poldark, she thought, where were we?