‘Maybe she’ll try and hitchhike?’ Rodney suggests. ‘Hail someone down?’
‘Maybe,’ I say slowly. ‘Or she might try and walk. I think she’ll assume we came off the motorway as soon as we could, right? How long would it take her to walk from where we dropped her to here? Rodney?’
Rodney busies himself clicking away on his phone.
‘We were driving for, what, a few minutes? It can’t be that long a walk?’
‘An hour,’ Rodney says. ‘It’s an hour’s walk, unless she cuts across the fields, which would save her some time.’
‘An hour’s walk?’ Marcus says, leaning forward to look at the phone over Rodney’s shoulder. ‘Are you sure your phone isn’t broken? All you do is tell us everything takes fucking for ever.’
‘Sorry,’ Rodney says, stretching the phone out for Marcus to look. ‘It’s just . . . what it says . . .’
Marcus rolls his eyes. ‘Well, I’m getting out,’ he says. ‘Deb isn’t the only one who needed a piss. Do you think that place has toilets?’
‘The Budget Travel? Yes, I think it probably does have toilets, Marcus,’ I say.
‘Excellent.’ He climbs out the car, shaking his damp T-shirt with two fingers, unsticking it from his body. ‘Ugh,’ he says, as he slams the door behind him.
‘Thoughts on driving off now?’ I say.
‘Deb, though,’ Dylan says.
‘Yeah. Damn,’ I say, watching Marcus amble his way towards the hotel entrance.
‘I am really sorry about him,’ Dylan says quietly.
Rodney unclicks his seat belt and shifts up into Marcus’s seat so he and Dylan have more room. They each sigh with relief.
‘Yeah, well. Marcus is Marcus,’ I say, still watching him go.
‘Do you two not like him?’ Rodney asks.
‘I don’t like him, no,’ I say flatly.
‘I don’t like him most of the time, either,’ Dylan says.
I glance at him, surprised.
‘He . . . he’s a complicated man. But he’s family, really. I’m holding out hope that one day he’ll turn things around and change. It’s just . . . When do you give up on a person, you know?’
‘When they’re bad for you,’ I say, before I can stop myself. ‘It’s like any relationship, romantic or friendship or family or whatever. If it’s toxic, you should walk away.’
‘I think . . .’ Dylan pauses, choosing his words carefully. ‘I think you step back when it’s toxic, certainly. But I’m not sure I would want to give up. Not if I thought there was good in someone, and that I might be able to help them find that good. Not once I’d recognised how the relationship was hurting me, and hardened myself to that.’
I look at him. I don’t agree with him – I don’t think you can harden yourself against the hurt someone like Marcus inflicts on people. But if I’ve learned anything over the last year or two, it’s that there’s no one way of dealing with pain.
‘Someone should stay here, in case Deb figures out where we’ve gone,’ I say after a moment. ‘But I think the rest of us should split up and go looking for her. If we all take our phones, there’s no harm in that, right?’
‘Marcus should stay here,’ Dylan says immediately. ‘He’ll definitely wander off if we leave him to it, then we’ll have two wedding guests to track down.’
I snort. ‘OK, fine. You tell him, would you? I’m going to go over the fields. I feel like I need to . . . do something.’
Dylan nods. ‘Are you happy to leave Marcus with the car keys?’
I pause for a moment. ‘Umm.’
‘Yeah,’ Dylan says.
‘He’s an adult,’ I say. ‘He wouldn’t drive off without us.’
We all think about it.
‘Maybe you should stay with him,’ I say. ‘Just in case.’
Dylan The first emergency phone call comes from Rodney, approximately forty minutes after he and Addie have left in search of Deb.
‘Oh, hi? Dylan?’
‘Yes?’ I say patiently, watching Marcus pacing the perimeter of the car park, kicking an empty Coke can as he goes. He’s antsy, which is concerning: if he doesn’t find entertainment soon, he’s going to create some. A line of poetry takes root as the sun beats down on my neck – Heavy-handed heat/Drumbeat, a Coke can skits between his feet . . .
‘Oh, hi, it’s Rodney. Umm? I think I’ve, I think I’ve found something. Was Deb wearing white trainers?’