LITMIR.BIZ

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laughs again, that same boom that reverberates around the van. ‘Not everyone is so lax. Why, Rosie, does it bother you?’

      ‘A little,’ I admit, scrunching my nose.

      ‘It’s fine, really,’ she says. ‘I’ve never run into any trouble doing things this way. Most people are honest and if I lose a book or two that’s nothing in the scheme of things for the freedom I have, right? If I loan a book out I never get back, who cares? I can come and go as I please, and at the end of the day, there’s a little money in the kitty for the next adventure.’

      I doubt I can ever be like Aria. I’d have a nervous breakdown. But in reality we have two very different businesses and I’ll have to be at my post – after all, the tea won’t brew itself. I don’t have to be exactly like her to fit in, do I? My tables and chairs will be outside, so no one has to traipse through my van unless I invite them to.

      ‘What made you pack up and leave?’ she asks, switching the subject while she fills a glass teapot.

      ‘Oh,’ I say, dropping my gaze. ‘Nothing really, I just felt like a change was in order.’ Who wants to be thought of as the dumped desperado, fleeing in disgrace? Not me.

      She doesn’t probe further, but I can tell from the question in her eyes, she wants to. I detect Aria has a story too, from the way she looks knowingly at me – a likeminded soul, perhaps? But she lets the moment pass, balances a pot of tea on a stack of books between us and hunts in a cupboard for cups, finally producing two mismatched mugs, one that reads: Bookworms do it better. The tea is a fragrant blend of vanilla and jasmine and I go to ask her where she procured it from, when she interjects.

      ‘Do you have a rough plan, or will you take each day as it comes?’ she asks, her voice muffled as she reaches in to an overhead cupboard before brandishing a dusty biscuit tin.

      Once the tea has steeped, I pour and the scent of jasmine fills the air. I’m eager to get started on blending a new range of teas for my pop-up shop, imagining the heady fragrance of fresh floral bouquets, or spicy nutty blends. Back in the present, I say, ‘I haven’t got an exact itinerary in place, but I thought I’d follow one of the festival circuits, so I have more opportunities for the tea shop.’

      Her eyes twinkle. ‘You’re opening a tea shop?’

      ‘Rosie’s Travelling Tea Shop! I want to go back to my roots making old-fashioned comfort food served with big pots of house-made tea blends. I can’t wait to get started. I just hope Poppy’s tiny kitchen can handle it.’ Even though I’m muddled with this new version of me, of what I’m supposed be and feel, I know being in my happy place, the kitchen, will help centre me and ease those doubts, when I’m doing what I love.

      ‘Whatever cake and tea can’t fix, the open road can.’ A shutter comes down over her face. It’s so slight, I don’t think anyone else would notice it, but it’s as though what she’s saying doesn’t actually ring true for her. I see it, because I know that feeling well. Suddenly, she’s staring into her tea, her shoulders stiffening slightly. I have an inkling that asking her might cross that fine line between being nosy and potentially ruining a burgeoning friendship. I mustn’t say the first thing that pops into my mind, I’ve learned that the hard way.

      ‘Yes,’ I say, realising she is waiting for a response. ‘The open road … the possibilities are endless.’

      ‘It can be daunting doing that first big trek if you’re alone,’ she says, staring over the edge of her mug at me.

      Poppy could break down at night, the very moment a guy with a hair fetish escapes from a prison up the road and lops off my white blonde locks. I could bake scones and buy fresh cream from a local farm and have not one customer. I could get robbed. My petrol siphoned. Get eaten by bedbugs. Go weeks without speaking to a real person.

      I glance at my watch, wondering if there’s enough daylight left to announce I’ve left the oven on in London, and I’ll be back … never! Note to self: stop reading true crime books for the foreseeable future.

      ‘This might be presumptuous,’ Aria says, blowing her hair from her eyes. ‘But why don’t we stick together? Not to live in each other’s pockets or anything, but books and tea are a match made in heaven, and I think we could do well side by side.’

      Oliver told me Bristol was the meet-up place, and safety in numbers and all that. A ripple of happiness runs through me. Despite turning up looking like I slept on the streets – dirty, grimy, muddy, and a little lost – Aria has managed to ignore all of that and has taken a shine to me.

      Have I made a friend, so easily? I begin to doubt her motivations. She’s known me for all of five minutes. There must be something wrong with her. But what? Is she on the run from police? She doesn’t look like a criminal. Maybe she’s someone famous in hiding. Or is she lonely amid all these people? That, I can understand well. Does she sense I’m lost? She’s a little lost too, despite her apparent popularity, despite being surrounded by people of the same ilk to her. I see it in her eyes, the way they cloud over.

      ‘Stick together?’ I say.

      ‘Think about it,’ she says, gazing past me as if she is picturing us in the future. ‘We follow the festival route. Set up next to each other. Join our tables and chairs out the front for our customers, but best of all we have someone close by to hang out with in those lulls. To drive with on the long hauls.’

      It couldn’t hurt. And as independent as I like to think I am, I’m terrified of driving Poppy through the lonely hours of night-time.

      ‘It could work,’ I say, trying to play it cool. ‘So you don’t have a set route?’ I ask. ‘Or follow any schedule?’ I like knowing where I’m going and where I’ll be. The festival route is a nice, orderly clear-cut circuit, with set dates and schedules.

      She laughs. ‘I’m more a fly by the seat of my pants type of gal. I move whenever I get the urge to, and that’s how I’ve always been, but there’s plenty to see on route as we follow the festival circuit, and I’m happy to stick to that for business, and we’ll only run off course for adventures.’

      Adventures? ‘OK …’ Does it really matter if we go off course every once in a while? Planning my old life down to the minute didn’t work out so well, after all.

      ‘Let’s do it,’ I say before I can change my mind.

      We are opposites, that much is certain, but don’t they say opposites attract? Aria’s effusive, bubbly, and definitely popular, going by the number of waves and hey yous thrown at her as we’d walked past clusters of nomads outside. That’s what I aspire to be like, to have that ability to blend in easily, to not be the person on the sidelines all the damn time. I want adventure, a new purpose, to really grab life by the shoulders and shake it up!

      ‘Brilliant,’ she says, smiling. ‘And I get how you’re feeling, Rosie. At first it’s a little intimidating. Getting off the beaten track, following roads to nowhere, sleeping under different patches of sky every week, but you will learn to love it. And eventually you’ll look for the hidden places, ones empty of footprints and hope that real life never comes calling again.’

      ‘OK, I guess I have a lot to learn.’ A place with no footprints sounds a little too deserted for my liking, but Aria will be there (safety in numbers). Even so, it’s not like we’re going to be attached at the hip. We’re basically just travelling at the same time and setting up next to each other, in order to promote our pop-up vans.

      ‘You can learn as you go. All we need to do is make enough money for our adventures.’

      ‘Our adventures are what exactly?’ I picture myself skydiving, or parachuting, and my belly somersaults with panic. I’m more of a feet-firmly-on-the-earth type.

      ‘This and that.’

      ‘I’m not really fond of—’

      She holds up a hand. ‘Outdoor adventures, Rosie – running, climbing, swimming in the most beautiful

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