The Vintage Ice Cream Van Road Trip (Cherry Pie Island - Book 2) (9 page)

‘Au revoir,’ Wilf said.

The guy nodded and replied, ‘Good luck with the bébé.’

Wilf waved a hand in goodbye and thanked the policeman and then walked with Holly out of the station and into the sunshine before saying, ‘I was a prat. I’m sorry. I know you hate me. It was all my fault. Please forgive me. I’m sorry.’

Holly stopped and looked at him without replying.

‘I am genuinely really sorry. I’ve had a long chat with Pierre over there, the van driver, about fatherhood. It was very enlightening. I admit I’m not prepared. You were right, it hadn’t sunk in. I’m getting there though. Four hours is quite a long time to think,’ he laughed. ‘I’m getting there. I’m sorry.’

Holly nodded. ‘It’s OK,’ she said, ‘I think I’m only just getting there myself. I think you’ve done your time.’

‘I was hoping you’d say that. I had to pee into a bucket,’ he laughed, then said, ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’

‘Yeah I’m fine,’ she said, shielding her eyes with her hand as they walked to the van.

‘I was really worried about you,’ Wilf said as he opened the passenger-side door for her. ‘It was horrible seeing you slumping to the floor. I thought… I don’t know. I thought…’ He paused, bit his lip and looked at her as she strapped herself in and looked back at him, amusement on her face.

‘I’m fine, Wilf.’

He nodded, one hand holding onto the door, the other resting on the back of the passenger seat behind her. ‘I suppose I thought I would only be worried about the baby,’ he said. ‘But actually I was…’ He glanced back at the station. ‘I was really worried about you too.’

Holly tilted her head and studied him, his eyes looked like they might be welling up.

‘And…’ He paused, ‘When the guy wouldn’t let me come over, I don’t think I’ve ever felt so helpless. It was so annoying.’ He huffed a laugh.

She didn’t know what to say, just felt him really looking at her. Then, before she realised what was happening, he stepped up onto the footplate so he was level with her in the cab and bent down and kissed her. Full-square on the mouth. Warm and hard and intoxicating. It buzzed her back to their first kiss behind the festival marquee. Illicit and unexpected. He took his hand from the door of the van and put it on her cheek, his fingers stroking the softness of her skin, cupping the back of her neck, threading through her hair. He smelt like sweat and prison cell and sunshine. Then she heard someone wolf-whistle and snapped back, embarrassed.

‘We’re in a police station car park,’ she whispered.

Wilf straightened up and looked around, ‘So we are,’ he said with a grin and then, jumping down from the cab, went round to the driver’s side and they got the hell out of there.

Chapter Fourteen

The police station debacle had pushed them into the late afternoon. The sky, which had been like a blue sheet all day, was beginning to pepper with splodgy white clouds that threw shadows on the shimmering road ahead of them.

Holly wasn’t thinking about anything other than the kiss.

Neither of them had mentioned it since.

In her head she was alternating between the kiss and the look on his face when he’d said that he had been worried about her.

She was replaying it over and over, each time trying to nail the exact glint in his eyes, the exact tilt of his head, the exact way his hair had fallen forward over his forehead.

‘You alright?’ he said and Holly pulled herself back to the present.

‘Yeah fine, absolutely fine.’

Wilf’s mouth curled down as he nodded. ‘Good.’

‘Good,’ she repeated and they carried on in silence.

She wondered if they would mention the kiss at any point.

They should probably put it behind them because it just complicated everything.

There was a baby to think about.

‘About earlier,’ Wilf said, taking her by surprise.

‘There’s a baby to think about,’ she said, the words slicing through the humid air like a hatchet. Unnecessary, untake-backable, not what she meant, in completely the wrong tone. She winced, tried to turn it back by saying, ‘I don’t mean…’

‘No, I’m totally on-board.’ Wilf nodded, taking a swig of the water she’d got from the supermarket. ‘We’ve just got to do whatever is best for the baby,’ he said, ‘How is the baby?’ he asked as they sped past wide green fields and forests, the lines of trees peppered with sunlight.

‘Fine, I think. You OK, baby?’ she asked.

‘Do you think we should name it?’

‘Not really.’

Wilf shrugged then, changing the subject, asked, ‘Have we got anything to eat?’

Holly bent forward and found the bag Annie had given her the day before. ‘Cherry pie? And cold coffee.’

‘That’d do. I definitely think we should give it a name. Like Algenon.’

Holly snorted. ‘There is no way I’m calling it Algenon.’

‘Algenon was my father’s name,’ Wilf said, giving her a look like she should have thought before she criticised.

‘Really?’

‘No. But it could have been. What about Frank?’

‘I think of Frank Butcher from
Eastenders
.’

‘I’ve never seen
Eastenders
.’

Holly unscrewed the flask and poured a cup of cold coffee for Wilf. ‘You really are from another planet.’

He laughed and they drove on for a bit in silence. He sipped the coffee and intermittently scooped cherry pie into his mouth. Holly looked out the window at the trees and the lush grass, the cows in the fields and the ramshackle farmhouses.

‘What was the Olympics like?’ Wilf asked, taking her by surprise.

‘It was brilliant. I loved it,’ she said. ‘Every minute of it. I loved that my dad saw it, and Enid was there. I think that meant everything. I think it was more nail-biting for them than it was for me,’ she laughed.

‘Did your mum go?’

Holly shook her head. ‘I asked her not to. I feel bad about it now, actually. It was stupid. I thought that she’d put me off and I didn’t want her there with my dad.’ She looked down at the cool bag in her lap, at the slice of cherry pie on a paper plate. ‘I'm also worried I did it out of spite,’ she said, cringing a bit, and then glanced at Wilf to see his expression.

He took a sip of coffee and then shrugged one shoulder. ‘I think that’s OK. It’s not brilliant, but it’s understandable.’

‘It would have been a nightmare if she’d come. But, you know, really stupidly I just wanted her to come anyway. Even though I told her not to. That’s what was really stupid.’

‘I don’t think that’s stupid,’ he said, looking over at her and making her blush under his scrutiny.

‘Can you keep your eyes on the road?’

Wilf looked back to the road, a grin on his face, then said, while putting a huge forkful of cherry pie in his mouth, ‘We’re passing the historic town of Lyon. Lyon’s quite good. Gives it some sense of place.’

‘Are we talking about the baby?’ Holly frowned. ‘I’m not calling my baby Lyon.’

‘Not the baby, the bump. The baby will be Wilfred Jnr. Whatever the sex.’ Wilf turned to look at her again and when she caught his eye he smiled and winked, his eyes crinkling, a wicked glint in the green.

‘Keep your eyes on the road,’ she said, holding in her smile, her body tingling because she was really enjoying herself and, against her better judgement, didn’t want the journey to end.

Chapter Fifteen

They stayed the night in Avignon. Both of them were too knackered to drive any further and Wilf was desperate to change his clothes after wearing them for two days straight and a stint in prison.

He booked them into a swanky hotel just inside the city wall ‒ two rooms ‒ and declared that they were going shopping before dinner.

The sun had dimmed to a more acceptable temperature and they strolled around town, pointing into the window of shops for little babies at ridiculously expensive blazers and frilly dresses. Holly bought Wilf an ice cream ‒ he had pistachio, she had cherry ‒ and they sat on a bench together watching a group of tourists taking pictures.

When they were done Wilf said, ‘We’ve got to shop. These clothes are killing me.’

‘You are beginning to smell a bit!’ Holly laughed and he held his hands wide as if to say I told you so.

They went into a couple of flash shops that made even Wilf baulk at the prices, and then they discovered the main street with a Lacoste shop where he bought a pale-blue shirt and a pair of black shorts that he put on straight away. A couple of doors up, in a little independent boutique he bought a navy polo shirt and another shirt and a pair of jeans.

‘Do you have a shopping problem?’ Holly asked, sitting on a leather armchair by the till, sucking on a lemon sherbet from the pot on the counter.

Wilf laughed. ‘I just don’t ever get any time to buy anything.’

Holly watched him pull the polo shirt off as he was walking into the changing room. His back was tanned and the muscles defined like pebbles on the beach. She wondered if he’d done it on purpose so she would see and decided he definitely had when he turned ever so slightly to see if she was looking his way. She turned away quickly so that he wouldn’t be able to tell that she was.

‘Do you need anything?’ he shouted from the now-closed curtain of the changing room. ‘Like for the wedding?’

‘I’ll be serving ice cream at the wedding,’ Holly said.

‘Really?’ He poked his head out the changing room and frowned. ‘That’s no fun. We can get one of the waiters to do that. You should be able to enjoy yourself.’

‘Wilf, I haven’t been invited to the wedding. I’m here to work.’ She shook her head like he was mad.

‘Well I’m inviting you. And I’ll pay for one of the staff to serve the ice cream. What are you doing about ice cream, anyway?’

Holly bit her lip, ‘I’m not really sure. I think we’re just going to have to buy it from the supermarket.’

‘Sounds like a very professional organisation you’re running,’ he said. ‘So do you need something to wear?’

Holly thought about what she’d packed. She hadn’t planned particularly well, especially not for this heat. ‘Yeah maybe, but there’s a Hennes down the road, I’ll just pop in there.’

‘Do they have anything here?’

‘Wilf, have you seen the prices here?’

‘Look, Holly, I don't go shopping very often, I’ve spent the day in jail, I’ve recently discovered that I’m going to be a father, so I’m going to blow some cash. Because of me, you’ve passed out in the heat today and sat waiting in a shitty police station, I think the least I can do is buy you a bloody nice dress.’

‘No, you don’t have to.’ Holly shook her head, biting into the sweet, her mouth filling with sherbet.

‘Go!’ He pointed to the other side of the shop, ‘Go and find whatever you like. We’re not leaving here without a dress.’

‘Really?’ She looked unsure.

‘Really!’

So Holly got up and went over to browse around the beautiful clothes hanging in the women’s section of the boutique. Luscious silks and fine filigree taffetas, sharp cotton pencil skirts, floaty shirts and dresses that looked all boho and dreamy. She took a couple of things tentatively into the changing room but they all looked dreadful. Her shape was changing. The pencil skirt had been stupid to even try. The boho stuff made her look like a tent. The scoop neck on the blouse, teemed with her growing boobs, made her look ridiculous. She stood feeling pasty and rubbish, staring at her tired reflection. The image of Wilf and his super muscle-y tanned back made her feel even worse.

‘Ça va?’ she heard a voice ask and peeked her head through the curtain to see a chic sales assistant hovering outside the changing room.

‘
Ce n’est pas bon
!’ Holly said, shaking her head.

The sales assistant made a sad face and then whipped the curtain aside to look at Holly in the dreadful sheer blouse and a pencil skirt that she couldn’t do up. She raised her brows and then shook her head.

‘
Un moment
,’ the young woman said and glided off round the shop. Holly watched her go, frowning as she picked up stuff that Holly wouldn’t have tried on in a million years.

‘Everything OK?’ she heard Wilf shout from where he was sitting in the leather seat she’d vacated, also eating a sherbet lemon and reading
La Monde
newspaper.

‘Fine!’ Holly called back.

The beautiful assistant came back, a selection of dresses hanging over her arm, and she reached into the changing room and swapped what Holly had in there with her own selection, giving a little snort when she saw the other things Holly had picked.

The new stuff was all wrap dresses, maxi skirts, shift dresses and empire-line sundresses. Some of it looked better than others but all, to Holly’s surprise, looked better than anything she would have chosen. The assistant whipped the curtain back every time she had on something new and gave either a face of delight or clear displeasure. Holly was both grateful and slightly put out by her brutal honesty. The last thing she tried was a purple-grey shift dress with a gauzy overlay, embroidered with tiny beads that made it shimmer like petrol in the bright overhead light. The bottom was fringed like a 1920’s flapper dress and the layers of the gauze completely disguised the fact that she was expecting. The neck was cut in a really low V and the sleeves were slightly capped.

‘Ah!’ the sales assistant beamed as she yanked the curtain back. ‘
Parfait
.’

Holly bit her lip as she looked back at her reflection. ‘
Oui
?’ she said.

‘
Oui
,’ the woman said and kissed her fingers and thumb in a gesture that said it was spot-on perfect.

Holly looked at the price tag. ‘Oh shit. I can’t get this.’

The assistant frowned.

‘It’s way too expensive,’ Holly said, shaking her head and rebuffing all the assistant’s cries of how good it looked. Closing the curtain, she pulled the dress off and got back into her normal clothes. She came out of the changing room and, handing the clothes back to the assistant, walked up to the till with an OK-looking black maxi dress that hadn’t looked too bad.

‘Done?’ Wilf asked.

‘Done,’ Holly smiled.

The assistant came round to the till and started to ring up all of Wilf’s purchases and the dress for Holly. She said something in French that Holly didn’t understand and Wilf frowned. They had a little chat that was punctuated with raised eyebrows and hand gestures. And then the assistant went back to her section and came back with the petrol-sheened dress.