The sun was up at some unearthly hour.
Eventually I stopped cursing its brightness and decided I might as
well join it, with no cloud in the sky there was little chance of
anything beating it.
I found myself alone in the cabin with
no note explaining this occurrence. It crossed my mind that I might
have been marooned here by the pair of odd brothers, but the keys to
the hire car were still hanging on a hook. I had got as far as
filling the kettle and lighting the gas before an aquatic commotion
down on the lake shore disgorged Bracken onto the beach.
“Morning,” he said leaving a
sodden trail on his path through the cabin. “Let me get some
clothes on and I’ll make a start on breakfast.”
Some clothes turned out to be a pair of
baggy shorts and a t-shirt bearing the legend ‘Atlantis 2008 –
still soggy’, he had towelled his hair until it was a damp mess and
left it like that.
“Now, my lady,” he said, taking a
bow. “Wouldst thou liketh a cup of tea?”
He busied himself around the kitchen
area, emptying most of the contents of the fridge into a large frying
pan and sourcing some clean cups. With a steaming mug of tea in my
hand, I asked him where Egg was.
“He’s gone for a walk to clear his
head, poor little fellow was up all night trying to divine the future
in the entrails of goats,” he replied. “Plus we might have
decided to finish off that bottle of whisky.”
“Goats?” I asked.
“Oh, don’t worry,” Bracken
answered. “Nowadays we use computer simulated goats, it's just as
accurate but there’s far less bleating.”
He lit the grill, cut the remains of a
loaf of bread into thick slices, fussed over seasoning and then broke
the remaining supply of eggs into the pan.
“I’ve been recalled, so we might as
well use everything up,” he explained. “Roll-mop herring?”
I looked into the proffered jar and
declined.
“I was going to set the little
blighters free, but it looks like they’re too far gone for that.”
He took one himself and chewed it slowly and noisily, a look of
bliss on his face. “How burnt do you like your toast?”
Egg arrived just as Bracken was serving
up, pale faced and sunken eyed.. The meal looked just like randomly
fried leftovers, but smelled divine. We ate in silence. The toast
was only very lightly burnt.
“So what now?” I asked, a second
mug of builders-strength tea in my hands.
“Bracken’s contact says Mother flew
to Florence, which means she is probably visiting an old friend who
has a villa not too far from there,” Egg answered. “I’ve
booked a flight and hotel there, or you can return home with Bracken,
if you want.”
I cancelled thoughts of shoe boutiques
and chic little restaurants and replaced them with spaghetti trees
and olive-throwing competitions, still it appealed, so I agreed to a
little Italian adventure.
“And the goat entrails?” I
enquired.
“You learn to ignore anything my
brother says eventually,” Egg replied. “Everything’s done on
spreadsheets now. The best I can scry is that you should save your
work often. Something’s not right.”
I drove the hire car while Egg dozed in
the back seat. Bracken was navigating, although somewhat randomly,
insisting that we stick to the gravel back roads that wound through
the forests and calling turnings according to his whim. He cautioned
me to watch out for the locals who all thought they were rally
drivers.
“Admit it,” I said. “You have no
idea where we are and we are going to miss our flights.”
“Nonsense, my dear lady,” he
replied. “Has Egg ever explained to you about following roads
where they want to take you, rather than forcing them?”
“I think he mentioned it once,” I
said. “It didn’t make any sense then either, the quickest route
is the shortest one, any navigation app will tell you that.”
I pulled the car over to the side of
the trail and came to a halt. My phone woke at my touch, I flicked
across to the appropriate icon, launched the program and held the
device in front of Bracken’s face.
“See!” I told him.
“Yes,” he said. “Not far to go
now.”
He tilted the phone so that I could see
the screen clearly, the arrow indicated we were only a few miles from
the airport. I tapped at the screen like it was a faulty dial, but
the situation did not change.
“But, that’s not...” My words
faded off. “But, look, we’re facing the wrong direction, right
now you’re taking us further away.”
“I tell you what, how about a little
bet?” He said. “Loser buys the winner a drink. We have to join
the main road anyway, so you turn the car around and follow the map
to here.” He indicated a spot close to the airport. “I’ll
continue straight on and meet you there. I warn you though, I’m
going to jog.”
“You’re on.” I told the maniac.
Once Bracken had closed his door, I
turned the car quickly and set off with vigour, imagining I was one
of those rally driving locals. Trees dashed by and stones rattled
against the underside of the car. Coming around a corner it slid
slightly so I reigned it in. A left turn took me onto a metalled
road and I increased my speed.
The phone chimed and told me I should
make a right turn, I slowed down as this was our finish line.
Bracken was impossibly sat by the side of the road, a wild flower in
his hand, he looked like he had not even broke into a sweat.
“You owe me a drink,” he said as he
settled back into the passenger seat and threaded the flower into my
hair.
As we parted in the airport, Egg urged
Bracken to patch things up with Huggy, while Bracken urged Egg to
grow a moustache. Bracken went down on one knee to kiss my hand and
then flounced off to flirt with the girl at the check-in desk. Egg
smiled and shook his head.
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