I Am Margaret (50 page)

Soon we came to a halt in a lay-by.

Bane looked at me.

“Are you sure?”

I swallowed and Jane said, “You’d be better off with us, wouldn’t you?”

“No,” I said quietly. “The Resistance have now done their level best to disappear. They’re heading for the Spanish department by back roads and the EuroGov will probably be vaguely on their tail. But because they can’t be quite sure where they are, there’ll be checkpoints at every major town on the continent. And though they’re unlikely to demand individual ID cards from a coach with a proper group travel pass,” please, Lord? “they will almost certainly take a look at each and every person on board. You see why we have to get off?”

“Can’t we just drive along back roads like this?” suggested Rebecca.

“A coach off the main autoroute will attract attention,” said Father Mark quietly. He’d come up the aisle unnoticed. “Especially one supposed to be driving straight to Venice. When we get to the Italian department we’ll just have to make a break for it, but until then we can’t afford to attract any attention at all. All it takes is for them to demand our actual ID cards and... Well. Enough said.”

The only person on board with a safe ID was Marian Forbes.

I looked at Bane, trying to ignore the pleading in his eyes and the terror writhing inside me. Don’t be silly, Margo. It may even be safer to leave the coach.

“We’d better get changed.”

Wordlessly, he lifted a hold-all from the luggage rack and began to empty it. My jeans and tunic, Jon’s clothes and his own. Time to part company with my plastic sheet. I let Bane help me on with the jeans – still too painful to do by myself and there wasn’t going to be anyone else to do it. His anxious gaze was riveted to my cling-filmy dressings, anyway.

I wobbled and winced my way down the aisle straddle-legged like a cowboy, then Bane scooped me up, carried me down the steps and stood me on my feet again. Jane and Sarah managed to trail us off the coach before Father Mark made everyone else stay in their seats.

Sarah clung to me, crying, while Bane and Father Mark pulled three hiking rucksacks from the coach’s hold and began attaching two of them together. Jane hovered – undecided whether to carry on urging me to stick with them or not?

“Bane,” I objected, “Jon can’t carry both of those!”

“Well, I’m going to be carrying you, so you can’t carry yours.”

True, but... “It’s such a lot for Jon to carry.”

“Bane’ll be carry a rucksack and you. That’ll weigh more,” said Jon stiffly.

“I know, but no offence, Bane doesn’t need to concentrate so hard on where he’s going.”

“He brought me a stick.” Jon held up a long, thin, telescopic hiking stick. He’d left his old garden cane in the hold – too noticeable.

“We’ve no choice, Margo,” said Bane. “The only stuff we could throw out is food and it won’t get us far as it is.”

A shiver ran down my spine at this reminder of the difficulties ahead.

“Well – I s’pose we can always dump some if it is too much.”

“I’ll be fine.” Jon hefted the combined pack up onto his back and staggered slightly. “Phew. Not that I’ll be sorry when you’re walking again!”

“Okay, we’d better move.” Father Mark slammed the luggage holds. “Back aboard, you two.”

“I’ll see you soon, Sarah,” I assured her, a slight exaggeration even if everything went exactly according to plan for both groups. “You’ve got to go back on the coach now. Don’t be upset, Mark will look after you, and Rebecca and Caroline and Harriet will too.”

“And me.” Jane gave Sarah a little pat on the shoulder and pushed her towards the coach. “Go on.”

Jane hovered for a moment more before finally giving me a quick, awkward hug and chasing Sarah up the steps. Father Mark hugged me too and clasped hands with Jon and Bane – blessed us each in turn.

“Good luck. May the Lord be with you.”

“And with you,” we said pretty much in unison, our eyes flicking to the crowded coach behind him.

He climbed back on board, the doors hissed closed, the engine started and the coach began to move, roaring away down the road. We stood and waved until it disappeared among the trees – then stood together in a long silence.

###

Boring Legal Bit

Copyright © 2014 Corinna Turner

First published in the UK by Unseen Books* in 2014

This US edition published in the UK by Unseen Books in 2015

The right of Corinna Turner to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing of the copyright owner or, in the case of reprographic production, only in accordance with the terms of licenses issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, and may not be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All scripture quotations
are from the
Knox Bible
Copyright © 1945 Diocese of Westminster. Used by permission.

Except
p. 53, ll. 36-37, and p. 62, ll. 32-33, which are from the
Revised Standard Version of the Bible—Second Catholic Edition
(Ignatius Edition) Copyright © 2006 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

And
p. 62, ll. 24-25, which are from
The Psalms: A New Translation
Copyright © 1963 The Grail (England) published by HarperCollins. Used by permission.

Cover design by Corinna Turner and Regina Doman.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-910806-06-7 (paperback)

Also available as an eBook

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, incidents and dialogues in this publication are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual locales, events or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

* An imprint of Zephyr Publishing, UK—Corinna Turner, T/A