Egress Point

Chapter 16

They split the money up between them. Em reckoned there was a good ten thousand euros in total, plus their scam money. A shopping trip to Rue St Honore would be fun. She figured Em could use some new clothes. And Arebecca always needed shoes. Em was in serious business mode though, so Arebecca kept shopping thoughts to herself, and agreed to start the journey tout suite.

There was a car-rental place a ten minute walk away, back toward the Gare du Nord. Em negotiated a deal to hire a small Peugeot for a week with unlimited miles. The forged license did its job, and Em paid on the Wendy credit card. It was her first time driving a left-hand-drive, and Arebecca had to bite her tongue several times as they slowly manoeuvered off the car-rental forecourt.

The first few hundred metres were just as painful, and Arebecca found herself apologising to the other Parisian motorists through the window as Em crawled along near the curb.

"Would you like me to get us out of Paris?" Arebecca asked as innocently as she could, when they'd stopped at a red light.

"I thought you'd only just passed your test -- wouldn't it be better if I drove?" Em said.

"Well, I did do a lot of practise for the test. And I have driven on the right lots of times before. In some countries you can drive when you're fifteen, as long as you are accompanied."

"Oh, alright. I'm happy to navigate."

They swapped there and then, much to the annoyance of the cars behind them when the light went green mid-swap. Arebecca adjusted the seat, wiggled the gear stick and pulled out hard as the light turned back to red accompanied by a chorus of horns from the motorists behind.

Arebecca liked driving. She like to squeeze the accelerator and feel the seat push her forward. This also meant plenty of hard braking, but that was driving for you. She dodged and wove and ignored traffic signals, just like all the other drivers in the city. Em tried to help with directions, but Arebecca decided they were most likely wrong, and instructed Em to find a good radio station instead. She soon had them heading north out of the city on Autoroute 1, listening to a Frenchman rapping about the holy spirit and war.

When Em got back behind the wheel an hour later, Arebecca was relieved to find that she was much more relaxed. They switched seats and radio stations every hour and drove at a steady pace. Their conversation covered Arebecca's life around the world, more details of Em's previous run-in with Patey and the gang, as well as much reviewing of their current situation. At one point, while Arebecca was driving and they were trapped behind a slow moving lorry, Em asked about her parents.

"It's just my dad and my step mum. My real mum died when I was three, and after that my dad started a job that took us all over the world."

"What did he do before?"

"He and my mother met at university. He was doing a post-doc in urban engineering. My mum was doing research in something complicated to do with chemistry. What about you - what do your parents do?"

"It's just me and mum," Em said. "She's a teacher -- a head teacher at a primary school."

"And your dad?"

"Well, I'm actually adopted. My birth parents gave me up when I was five."

"Oh," Arebecca was surprised. She got the feeling that Em would have been an exceptional child. "Do you see them at all?"

"No. They moved away. I don't really ever even think about them -- apart from when people ask."

"Same here," Arebecca said. "I don't think about my mum at all. I don't really have any memories of her. Sometimes I think it's weird that I'm not sad about it. I'm not sure I would have had much in common with a mega-brained academic anyway."