Page 34 of You Lied First
Flynn’s about to drive off when Celine yells, ‘I’ll come!’ and climbs on behind him, slinking her arms around his waist. I see Flynn roll his eyes at Liv. They roar off and then, with the ever-changing colours in the darkening sky and the birds wheeling, silhouetted, across my view of the sinking sun, the accident I’ve been picturing since I first set eyes on the quad bike actually happens.
I mean, come on. We’re town dwellers from England, with a good few drinks inside us, on a powerful quad bike, at dusk in an unfamiliar desert. What would any sensible person say?What the hell were you thinking, you absolute muppets? How was that ever going to end well?
27
MARGOT
Margot knows from the slow speed at which the quad bike engine is turning that something’s happened. The sun’s completely disappeared, and a glorious rising moon lends the bushes sharp, black shadows as she stands at the edge of the campsite and peers into the gloom. When she finally identifies the dark shape of the bike idling on the sand, she’s relieved to see there are still two figures on it.
‘Flynn!’ she calls as he comes into hearing distance. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Had a small accident,’ he says as he draws up.
‘Oh my God!’ Liv cries as she surges towards Flynn, but Margot is more analytical. She notes that neither is holding a broken limb at a funny angle, both of them appear to be conscious, and she can’t see any blood.
Celine climbs off the back of the bike and flops into a chair. ‘Fuck, Flynn! Talk about a wild ride!’
Margot’s eyes flick to Flynn in time to see him exchange the briefest of glances with Liv, who bites her lips together.
‘What happened?’ Guy asks. ‘Were you being an idiot? I told you to be careful.’
‘Most important thing,’ Sara interrupts, ‘are either of you hurt?’
‘I’m fine,’ Flynn says, but he’s rotating and stretching his neck as if checking it works properly.
‘We’ll live, won’t we?’ Celine says with a laugh. ‘What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, eh?’
‘What happened? Did you lose your balance?’ Margot asks Celine, thinking about the amount of alcohol Celine had necked before she got on. She’s never seen anyone drink faster, and that’s saying a lot given who she’s married to.
‘Margot!’ Guy snaps. ‘You can’t blame the victim!’
‘It was at the top of that huge dune,’ Celine says. ‘Verstappen here decided to do a ninety-degree turn and over we went! I mean …’ She shrugs as if it were obvious.
Guy looks carefully at Celine, his eyes travelling up and down her body as he scans for injuries. ‘Are you really okay? Nothing hurts? Head, neck, spine?’
He raises his hands as if he’s about to put them on her lean, tanned back to check, and Margot’s breath catches – but he stops himself in time.
Celine nods. ‘Yeah. Maybe a bit sore tomorrow but nothing a few painkillers won’t solve. I’m young. I bounce!’ She picks up the remains of her drink. ‘Cheers to that!’
‘As for you,’ Guy jabs his finger at Flynn. ‘What the hell were you playing at? Imagine the bike had overturned! Imagine we had a spinal injury – or worse – on our hands! Out here in the middle of nowhere! It would all be your fault! You can’t act the fool on these things, not with a passenger.’
‘Are you going to ask your son if he’s okay?’ Margot says.
Guy glares at her and she raises her eyebrows back, telling him silently to calm down. The ‘nice guy’ facade is slipping, as it so often does when he’s been drinking.
‘You’re all right, aren’t you?’ Guy says tersely.
Flynn flexes his neck again and rubs at the side of his head. ‘A bit sore, but nothing’s broken, so … yeah.’
‘Okay, great,’ says Guy. ‘It seems you got away with it. Right, let’s get on with the evening.’
‘Actually,’ Sara says, ‘head injuries aren’t always obvious, and necks are not something you should take chances with. Maybe we could drive to—’
She hasn’t even finished her sentence when Guy holds up his hand.
‘Nope. Stop right there. No one’s driving anywhere. We can’t. We’re in the middle of nowhere. We’ll never find the road in the dark and, if you’re thinking about going to a hospital, the closest one that’ll be covered on insurance is probably in Muscat.’
They all stare at Celine and Flynn for a moment. They really do look okay. Margot knows she would never forgive herself if there was a serious injury that they missed but, equally, she knows Guy is right.
