**** 

It turns out that the man who’d saved us was the same busker we’d seen earlier in the day. He carried his guitar case and a rucksack to a small overhang on the edge of a building and gestured with a quick roll of his eyes for us to sit down. 

Ayamin helped me crawl into the space which smelled faintly of drugs and pigeons. It felt good to sit, yet at the same time, I felt my headache increasing. I laid my head against the cold concrete wall as Ayamin pulled a blanket from the pack. 

The old man sat opposite us, cross-legged. He pulled a small resealable bag from his rucksack and proceeded to roll a joint. Ayamin and I watched in silence. When he finished, he lit it, took a puff, then offered it to me.

Ayamin shook her head, ‘No, no,’ but the man just stretched a little further. 

‘Ma, ma… madicine,’ he said, touching his head, ‘Pain.’

Gently I took the weed from him. Ayamin watched, her eyes so wide they almost covered her whole face. I took a slow draw on the joint. It reminded me of my time in high school. 

After a few puffs, I began to feel the weed clouding my mind even further. Only this time it was a comforting cloud-like mist that hugs the land and makes it feel warm and protected. 

I handed the joint back to the old man who offered it to Ayamin. She stared at the joint for a moment before taking it awkwardly in her hand. Gently she sucked in the smoke and as she tried to exhale, she coughed. The old man and I laughed.

Ayamin handed back the joint with a red face, ‘This is a crazy night,’ she whispered. 

I grinned and rested my head against her. After a few more hits I felt so relaxed and so tired at the same time. We pushed the pack and our jacket behind us and used them as a pillow. 

I looked at the old man, he’d extinguished the joint and was now in a similar position to us, gazing up at the sky.

‘Thank you.’ I said, with a bow of my head.

The man just sniffed, then spat out of the entrance and murmured something vaguely Hungarian. 

I felt Ayamin’s hand on my tender shoulder and I gently laid my arm over her. The weed and concussion combined to send me into a very deep sleep. 

****

Morning came. I felt groggy, but I’d survived the night. I opened my eyes just slightly. The sun was beginning to shine down on us and Ayamin sat next to me, staring out into the street. 

‘You awake Danny?’ she asked as I shifted around.

 I tried to open my eyes a little further, the daylight was almost blinding, ‘That was the longest sleep of my life.’

Ayamin still had a few rings around her eyes, but they seemed smaller than before. ‘I couldn’t wake you.’

With a hearty groan, I sat up. Aside from a few cigarette butts, the other side of the overhang was empty.

‘He’s working,’ Ayamin said, holding up her hand, ‘Just listen a moment.’

We both stopped, and slowly my ears began to pick up a familiar tune.

‘It’s Bob Dylan,’ I said, ‘Blowin’ in the Wind.’

We sat listening, watching the people go by. Ayamin had found leftover burgers from the night before so hunger was far from our minds. It was peaceful. 

As the sun rose, we shifted out onto the street. We passed the old man strumming his guitar, ‘Good morning,’ I said. 

He just nodded and kept strumming. 

We sat on our jacket, held our hands out, and waited to see what the day would bring. I could see the old man watching us and shaking his head as he strummed. 

By midday, we had the equivalent of half a pound. The old man walked over to us and stood with his hands on his hips. He shook his head. ‘Nem.’

We watched as he pointed to the guitar case he’d had in front of him. It was half-full with coins. He reached into the bin near us and pulled out a coffee cup. After washing it under a dripping pipe he sat the cup in front of us, then left back to his guitar without a word. 

In the next two hours, we made more money than we had the previous day. It was like the little coins and notes needed someplace to rest.

Towards the end of the day, we collected our jingling cup of coins, found two boxes of half-eaten pizzas, then walked over to our new friend to celebrate. 

The old man sat counting his riches, with his guitar he’d managed to make far more than we had, probably enough to last him the week. He nodded at us and took a slice of pizza. 

That night the three of us gathered in his little den and ate. The man poked holes in the bottom of a small tin, put pieces of wood and paper inside, then lit it. Pretty soon our little nook had a little fire. Ayamin held my hand and rubbed the back of it with her thumb. Opposite us, the man pulled out his guitar. He placed a calloused finger to the string, then stared up into space for a moment.

He began with Hobo’s Lullaby. Mashing the English words to make it sound like a cry. His voice suited the song. Old and gravelly. I felt like I was on a train with him. 

Do not think 'bout tomorrow
Let tomorrow come and go
Tonight you're in a nice warm boxcar
Safe from all that wind and snow…

****

The old man’s song was still ringing in my ears a week later when I found a way for us to keep moving. 

We’d almost saved up enough to get us on a bus to Vienna, but Ayamin wanted a little more money for when we got there. 

‘We’re safe at the moment,’ she said, ‘and winter is coming.’

We’d felt it in our bones when we sat on the hard-cold street. Rainclouds meant two days had been spent begging under a roof. We made next to nothing, but couldn’t afford to stop. 

Other than begging and listening to our new friend play his guitar, our time was spent travelling the city. We explored everything that was free and open to us and a couple of places that weren’t. It was on one of these trips that we passed a CCD Bank.

The bank was made of big white stone shaped into gothic spirals and pillars. Its entrance was gaping, like a giant eating all the mortals that stepped into it. 

I turned, stared at Ayamin with her knotty black hair and face gone pale from the cold. I pointed at the bank.

‘I think I might know how to get some money.’

Ayamin shook her head, throwing the cardboard crust of a three-day-old pizza into the bin, ‘You can’t rob a bank Danny.’

‘I don’t want to rob a bank…. I want to rob myself. I had an account there with maybe two hundred pounds in it.’

The two of us stood outside the bank for an hour discussing the best way to get money out. I had no card to withdraw it and as Ayamin pointed out, my clothes and hair were very hobo-like. 

‘I think,’ she said, attempting her best snooty Paris fashion designer impression, ‘I think what you need is a makeover.’

I laughed until she grabbed my hand and dragged me in the direction of a clothing shop, we peered through the windows of five of them before we came to a christian second-hand store with big crosses either side of the doorway and rows of slightly stained fabrics heaped together on racks.

We pushed open the door and went inside, ‘How are we going to buy anything?’ I whispered, eyeing up the labels. 

‘We’re not,’ she said, ‘Or at least I hope not.’

Two women were manning the shop front. A middle-aged Hungarian and an elderly woman with Syrian features and a distinct grandmother look about her, like at any moment she’d pop up with a tray of biscuits still hot from the oven.

Ayamin approached the grandmother. 

‘Excuse me miss,’ she said in Arabic, lowering her voice, ‘My friend and I are looking for some clothes.’

The woman smiled at the language and looked both of us up and down, ‘I can see that my dears, what’s your budget?’

Ayamin blushed and held out a single note which wouldn’t have covered buying a pair of second-hand socks.

The woman stared at it for a moment then nodded, ‘We’ll see what we can do with that.’

I gazed across at the younger woman who was staring at us. She said something in Hungarian, which the lady helping us completely ignored.

‘Come along kids,’ the woman said in Arabic.

I smiled, ‘Thank you.’

‘He’s got a big appointment,’ Ayamin explained, ‘I thought I’d better dress him up a bit.’

‘A job?’ the woman asked.

‘He’s going to see the bank.’

The woman nodded like she’d been given an enormous task, ‘Okay, but you also want something that you can travel in, right? A suit wouldn’t be practical.’

Ayamin nodded, ‘Yeah something light, that won’t be worn through next week. Also, the colour green suits his eyes…’

They both laughed, the woman held a shirt up next to me and Aya inspected it critically. I felt like some Hollywood star on his way to a red-carpet event.

 ‘Oh man you are going to look so good in these,’ Ayamin held up some rough wearing chinos. The woman handed me a different shirt, with a semi-jacket to go over it. 

As I changed Ayamin and the woman chatted, their voices were cut short by a harsh Hungarian voice. I quickly buttoned up the jacket and emerged just as the other storekeeper was leaving with her fists balled up.

‘What’d she want?’ I asked. 

The older woman shook her head, ‘She told me not to speak in Arabic, and to stop looking after my own people.’

Ayamin and I stared as the older woman shrugged, ‘But if we don’t help ourselves who will? We’re not getting much love from anybody else.’ 

She turned back to my outfit and nodded, ‘Anyway, I think my job here is nearly finished.’ 

Ayamin touched my shirt, ‘The only thing you need now is a haircut.’

The woman turned to Ayamin, ‘And you my dear, we can’t have you running around in rags with this handsome man beside you.’

Ayamin grinned, ‘I wouldn’t go as far as to say handsome….’

The two of them laughed again as they walked towards the women’s section. I ran my hands over the new clothes feeling how soft and clean they were. The fabric felt light and when I looked in the mirror, I looked semi-decent, apart from the wad of dust-caked hair that sat on my head.

I heard Ayamin laugh again and felt something warm in my stomach. She hadn’t laughed this much since we got to Budapest. She emerged from the changing rooms like a princess and spun around to show me the pastels of her outfit. 

I clapped, ‘Next stop Paris fashion week.’    

Half an hour later Ayamin and I walked down the street arm in arm, feeling for all the world like a royal couple strolling around in our finery. Ayamin even tried her best high-class English accent. The woman had given us both jackets and even managed to slip in a pair of scissors for the haircuts. 

We climbed up large white steps into a park and found ourselves a little secluded area among the shade of the trees. I sat and Ayamin bent down to kiss my forehead. 

‘Hair cut time.’ 

She pulled out the scissors, then knelt behind me with her legs touching my back. I closed my eyes as her hands slowly wove through my far too long hair. She gently snipped away at what I’d grown. The hair fell in small patches and I smiled as Ayamin touched both sides of my head. Completely focused on making it level. Her arm ran around my neck and I had this sudden urge to kiss her. 

‘Danny!! Do you realise how close you were to a bald spot just then?’

I moved my head back into place, ‘It’d be worth it.’

‘Come on Danny, I’ve got to get you looking semi-presentable.’

She gently trimmed my hair until she was happy with it. Meanwhile, little birds came around and picked up the pieces of hair that had drifted away from us. 

‘Insulation,’ Ayamin said, tossing a clump of the hair to a robin, ‘They know winter’s going to be cold this year.’

After what seemed like hours of careful sculpting Ayamin sat back with a nod of contentment. 

‘I think that’s as good as I’ll get it.’

She passed me the scissors and took a seat in front of me. I stared at the scissors as she ran her hands through her hair, pulling out the knots, ‘It’s your turn to be the hairdresser.’ 

I tried to smile away the look of utter incompetence that crossed my face, but Ayamin caught it. 

‘Danny,’ she said in a low voice, ‘I don’t care what you do to my hair, as long as it’s not a mohawk or a mullet.’

I cocked my head, ‘I think you’d look really hot in a mullet though.’

‘Aww thanks. But no.’

I ran my hands through her hair, feeling the rough edges. Ayamin leant back against me. Slowly I began to snip away. 

‘I can’t wait for England,’ she said, ‘I can’t wait to stop being a refugee and just get on with the rest of my life.’

There were pieces of mud between a few strands. I combed my hand through, then cut. Her dark hair fell away from her head and gathered in little tufts on the ground.

‘I want to become a nurse,’ she said.

My hand slowed and she tilted her head back to look at me with those dark brown eyes of hers. I traced my thumb lightly over her forehead.

‘I think that’s amazing.’

Her grin was like the sun as she tilted her head back down. 

‘There aren’t many jobs in this world where no matter what you’re doing you’re always trying to help someone.’ As I bent in front of her to trim her fringe she looked into my eyes. ‘I’ve missed a lot of schooling though.’ 

That made me laugh. I lowered the scissors and stared back. 

‘Look at you! If walking all of Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, and avoiding drowning on the Aegean Sea couldn’t stop you from getting here, I don’t think a little missed schoolwork could stop you from anything.’

She tried to smile, but her eyes were watering. She leaned forward and the side of her nose brushed mine. Her lips were soft and tough, hot and cool. She moved forwards, kissed my cheek, then the tip of my ear.  

‘Oh Danny,’ she whispered, ‘I think this is the best haircut I’ve ever had.’

I started to chuckle. I couldn’t help myself. Ayamin was giggling too. I wiped away the tears on her cheeks and then tried to suppress my laughter, but it bubbled back to the surface. Ayamin lost it and we ended up rolling around on the ground for about five minutes until the laughs had subsided. Then we hugged and I finished cutting her hair.

When half of it lay on the ground for the bird’s nests, I took a step back and eyed it critically.

‘Not bad,’ I said… ‘Not bad at all.’

Ayamin stood up. We walked to a small fountain and peered in the water. The change was drastic. I splashed some water on my face. I looked… great. She’d managed to trim the sides short and the bruises I’d got during the street fight had almost faded away. I looked like I could pass for a respectable young professional.

Ayamin elbowed me, ‘You did good Danny,’ she checked both sides of her hair, ‘They’re even the same length!’

I acted like it was nothing, ‘I have been known to be a bit of an artist from time to time.’

She laughed and jumped on my back, both arms around my neck, ‘Okay then Mr Con Artist, let’s see how good you are at convincing these bank tellers.’

It was only as the two of us walked arm in arm to the CCD Bank that I began to have my doubts about the plan. I’d been missing from the Red Cross for over two months, what if they’ve closed my account?  

We stepped through the door and she gave my hand a little squeeze.

‘Good luck,’ she whispered as she went to stand by the wall.

I joined the line and tried to casually glance up at the security cameras that peered down at me. I could feel my breathing increase. There were five foreigners lined up in front of me, and two bank tellers serving us.

I glanced backwards and was met with a stare from the burly security guard.

The two customers at the tellers moved away and the rest of us shuffled forward. A family came through the doorway and stood behind me. I tried to breathe slowly to keep calm. 

It’s not like I’m going to rob the bank, I told myself, just chill out. Yet even then I wasn’t able to relax, at the bottom of my stomach I had a bad feeling about getting out the money, I just couldn’t tell what it was. 

The bank tellers moved quickly and I soon found myself standing at the front of the line. I glanced back at Ayamin and reminded myself why I was doing this.

‘Hello sir?’

I looked across and saw a young bank teller calling me, I let out a sigh and walked over. 

‘You speak English?’ I asked. 

The woman nodded, ‘Sure do sir, most of our customers do… now how can I help?’

‘I need some cash,’

The woman nodded, ‘Do you have your card?’

I shook my head, ‘That’s why I came to see you, my bag disappeared at the hostel I was at. Now I’m running low on money.’

The woman gave a sympathetic smile, ‘Ah… a traveller’s worst nightmare. You’ve contacted your embassy about it?’

I nodded, ‘They’re getting me a new passport.’

She smiled, ‘Your name?’

‘Danny Frey.’

‘And your customer number’

‘76764455.’

‘Okay Danny, I’ll just give the British embassy a quick call, it shouldn’t take very long.’

I shifted my feet as she picked up the phone and began dialling. The line had grown behind me. I wondered how hard it would be to get past them. Then there was the security guard, he’d have a head start on me. I tried to control my breathing. I was trapped.

The woman rolled her eyes as she waited for someone to pick up. The phone kept ringing and a small candlewick of hope began to burn inside of me. 

This was quickly extinguished when the woman started to speak. 

‘Hello there, Vanessa Harman here from the CCD Bank in Budapest. I have a Mr Danny Frey here, he said he’s lost his passport and ID, can you confirm…. Our number to call back on is….’

I breathed a sigh of relief as she ended the call.

‘They sounded busy, do you want to come in in an hour or so and we can sort it out then?’

‘Yeah, I guess that’d be okay… I was hoping to buy something for lunch and give home a call, even if I can just withdraw maybe a hundred pounds in Hungarian now and then come back for the rest…’ I crossed my fingers as she screwed up her face. 

‘Okay that sounds fair, I just need you to answer a few security questions before I give you the money….’

Ten minutes later and thirty-six thousand forints richer I stepped out of the doors with Ayamin. 

We walked down the street quite casually, but as soon as we were out of sight of the bank Ayamin jumped on me and gave me a massive hug. 

‘I can’t believe you got away with it,’ she looked down at the pile of notes in my hand, ‘I wish you’d seen it earlier; we’re going to live like kings!’

I stuffed the notes into my pocket and hugged her, ‘Vienna here we come!!’ 

The smile on her face was enough for me in that moment. She looked so beautiful and happy as she skipped along the concrete. I didn’t have the heart to tell her about the embassy. I’d let the world know where we were, and although the bad feeling in my gut had grown, I knew it was worth it to have Ayamin smiling. 

****

We had one last task in Budapest before we found a bus.

The old busker-man wasn’t playing his guitar when we arrived at the alleyway. Instead, he sat just watching people pass by.

He looked at us and our new haircuts, and our flash second-hand clothes. He seemed to understand. A small dip of his head let us know that he’d accept no thanks. A hand trailing the cobblestones let us know that it was the way of people on the road. 

Look out for each other his eyes said. 

I smiled, we waved, and then the old busker was gone. 

****

We found a cheap bus that was travelling through the night and climbed aboard. Both of us gazed around as we moved up the aisle, expecting someone to yell at us that we were refugees and that we had to get off.

But the bus was silent. Some people breathed deep as they prepared to sleep. Others were texting with a quick tap-tap on their screens.

We took our seats near the back and felt the driver crunch the bus into gear. 

With a jerk and a slight rumble, we left Budapest behind. I watched the city lights twinkle until they disappeared behind a hill. Ayamin and I looked at each other, she smiled. It was a hopeful smile, but also a tired smile. 

****

The doors to our bus opened in Vienna just as the morning sun began to show. Thirty of us stepped off and rubbed the sleep from our eyes. Ayamin and I hadn’t got much. We’d spent most of the trip talking about the next leg of our journey which would take us through Italy and then France. After that we talked about England and school and Syria and then she tried to convince me that Two Hearts in the French Night was the best book ever by reading sentences from it.

Samantha sat on the steps of the church waiting. The lights of Briancon were dark to save electricity – she had only the moon to find Rudy. 

‘See?’ She’d said, ‘It’s like poetry – but without fancy words.’

As the bus drove off I hoisted the pack onto my shoulders, it seemed lighter than when I’d started carrying it, but maybe I’d got used to its weight. Ayamin did star jumps to get blood back into her arms and legs.

‘What do you want to do first?’ I asked. 

‘I want to do breakfast,’ she said, ‘And a proper breakfast – not some half-eaten McDonalds.’

‘How about that?’ I asked, pointing in the direction of a shop that had a massive pancake sign sitting on top of it. 

‘Oh yeah!’

****

After exploiting the pancake house’s ‘all you can eat’ policy we stumbled out of the shop clutching at our bellies. 

I counted our money, we had about fifteen pounds left. Not quite enough for another bus ride.

We passed old castles, churches, and sleek modern mansions as we walked through Vienna. Stylish young people moved quickly through the city streets dressed in crisp yellows and blacks and whites and reds.

Ayamin sat on the bag while I held out my thumb at the edge of a busy south-bound motorway. We’d been waiting about half an hour when I spotted a sky-blue van with a field of flowers painted on it weaving through the traffic. 

As the van got closer, I could hear hippy-music blasting from it, and then the scream of its engine. 

The van pulled into the lane closest to us and skidded to a stop in front of me. The window opened. There was a young woman in the passenger’s seat with an easy smile, next to her a wild-haired, bare-chested guy in his twenties yelled at us in what was probably Austrian.

I shook my head, ‘English?’ 

His face brightened, ‘Ah… English, very good, where are you critters headed?’ 

‘England.’

‘Ahh of course. We’re going to Italy if you want a ride?’ 

I looked to Ayamin, she was loosening the straps on her backpack.

The side door of the van slid open, in the seat opposite us was a guy wearing a green shirt with a white clover on it. An unlit joint dangled in his mouth. 

‘They’ve got the road dust on them,’ he said, then lit the joint. 

I glanced at Ayamin and rolled my eyes slightly, Are we sure we want to get into this van?

She shrugged, it’s a ride I guess.

We climbed in and went for the back seat. While the outside had been a tapestry of colours the inside seemed stripped bare of everything – including the seat headrests. 

‘If you’d caught me a week earlier,’ the guy driving yelled, ‘You’d have had the greatest seat in the history of seats, but we had to sell everything to pay for gas.’

We took off onto the road with a jerk. The driver picked up his phone and tapped at it. Music began pumping from a speaker at the front of the van.

‘Whose van?’ I yelled over the music.

The driver spun in his seat, clutching the wheel but not facing the road, ‘It’s mine. I’m Dean, from the Netherlands.’ He pointed to the woman that sat in the front seat, ‘That’s Mila – I picked her up at a nightclub in France, and in the back with you is Conor from Ireland. He doesn’t talk much. But when he does he says a lot.’

Conor nodded his head to the beat. 

‘And how about you?’ Mila said, ‘Where have you come from?’ 

‘England,’ I yelled, ‘But we’ve just come from Hungary.’ 

‘Ahh, I dig that,’ Dean yelled, ‘I’m trying to see as much of the world as possible, as fast as possible,’ he turned his attention back to the road, narrowly avoiding a collision with a freight truck. 

Dean drove like a madman for the next two hours, yelling his philosophies on life back to us as he went. 

In the afternoon, when clouds started to appear on the horizon, he swerved into a gas station. 

‘Caca!’ He yelled, ‘Caca!!’ Then wrenched on the handbrake and dived for the nearest petrol pump. 

‘What’s Caca?’ Ayamin said.

Mila was halfway through the passenger’s door. 

‘It’s French for poop, and I wish I never taught it to him,’ she gestured to the gas station, ‘Basically, we have until the car’s finished filling to go to the bathroom, stretch our legs, and buy something. If we’re not in the car by that point he swears he’ll drive off without us.’ 

My eyes met Ayamin’s, we both grinned and dove for the door.

Outside the van, I stretched my legs and walked into the petrol station. We couldn’t afford to buy anything. But I liked looking. I imagined what I’d be able to buy when we got to England. 

I knew that chips would be near the top of the list – good old impractical, hardly filling, chips. I could just about taste the crunch as I wandered the two aisles of the petrol station. 

A television screen in the corner of the station caught my eye. Like the store itself, it was small, rectangular and low quality. But sitting there on the screen with tears dripping down her face, was Donna, the Red Cross woman.

I felt like I’d been slapped, and it only got worse when the television show host appeared on screen again, accompanied by two photos of me. There was a big red WANTED written at the bottom of the screen. The host was interviewing a police officer.

 Why do they care? I wondered as my mouth hung open, there are millions of people in Europe. Why do I make the news?

They switched back to Donna. She was crying. The title they’d given her was ‘Former Red Cross Team Leader.’ 

Former. 

I glanced at the cashier, he was busy helping Dean, Mila was flicking through a magazine rack, Conor was outside smoking something illegal, and Ayamin: she was… in the toilet. 

I breathed out. Glanced up at the T.V screen. They’d put up a security camera picture of me in the bank. I crossed my fingers. Mila had given up on the magazines… she was turning around. She saw the T.V, and let out a gasp.  

‘Dean, look at that!’ 

Dean and the cashier turned. I think Dean swore.

‘Really? Really? How the hell did we lose to France again?’ 

I turned to the screen. The news programme had switched to sport. The Netherlands had taken a thumping in the football. 

While Mila taunted him I let out a laugh of relief, ‘That was damn close.’ 

Dean shook his head, ‘It wasn’t close. We don’t know what we’re doing on the field this year.’

 

Back on the road, everyone else took turns roasting the Netherlands football team. Dean, their most loyal supporter was also their harshest critic. 

‘Conor. You, me and Mila could give them a whipping. We’ll make our own team. This can be our tour bus.’ 

Conor shook his head, ‘I’ve got the reflexes of a whale.’ 

‘You’ll still be better than The Flying Dutchmen,’ Ayamin yelled. 

There was a chorus of cheers from Mila and Conor, and sobbing from Dean. 

But all the fun seemed muted to me. My mind just kept cycling back to the gas station. It seemed like the world was closing in on me.

And I haven’t even told Ayamin yet. 

That was the part that was freaking me out. How’s she going to react? How am I going to tell her?  I could feel my past catching up with me.

‘Danny?’ 

I looked away from the window. Ayamin was staring at me. She had a smile on her face.

‘All good Danny?’ 

I shrugged, trying to put myself back in the moment, ‘Yeah I’m good.’ 

I slapped a fake smile on my face and raised my voice, ‘Better than the Netherlands national football team anyway.’ 

Everyone laughed. But Ayamin didn’t laugh quite as much as the others. She nudged my shoulder with her chin, ‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m sure Aya.’ 

Ayamin nodded and leaned her head against my shoulder, ‘It’s getting dark outside.’ 

Out the window, the first stars were beginning to appear. They flickered and disappeared when we passed through towns, but re-joined our journey in the countryside. I looked at Ayamin, she had this warm sleepy smile on her face that broke my heart a little. 

Forget about it, I told myself, enjoy this Danny, live in the moment. 

 I wrapped my arm around her and tried to focus on the rise and fall of her body as she breathed. Her eyes closed and not long after she slumped against me.

‘People’s faces never lie when they’re asleep,’ Connor said from the seat in front of me, ‘You’ve got a genuine human right there Danny.’ 

I stared at him, and his hoody pulled up around his head. 

‘I know. Hell, I know.’ 

He smiled and nodded away to some beat in his head. I turned back to the window and wondered, what does my face look like when I’m asleep?

****

I was hot, had a sore neck, and felt kind of sick when the sun woke me. Armed with a twelve-pack of Pepsi Dean hadn’t stopped all night. The twisting and turning of the van meant sleep was snatched five minutes at a time. 

When I blinked my eyes open, I saw the front seats and then the back seats were empty. I stood, feeling like I was about to throw up, and opened the passenger’s door.

The first thing that made me smile was the scent – almost minty but more comforting. Then there was the colour – light purple stretching as far as the eye could see. We were in the lavender fields. 

‘Danny!’ Ayamin said, lavender hung from the French braid in her hair, ‘You slept in.’

I stepped out of the van. It was almost like stepping into a fairy tale – only Dean was swearing loudly in Dutch from the other side of the van. 

‘What’s going on?’ 

Ayamin took a lavender stem and put it behind my ear. She smiled, ‘Apparently we got a flat tyre in the middle of the night. Dean got like two hours of sleep and spent the rest of the time yelling at the wheel for getting a puncture.’

We walked around the van to where the wheel was propped off the ground on a flimsy tyre jack. 

Mila sat on her bag watching Dean kick the deflated tyre across the road. He yelled in Dutch for half a minute before flopping into a sitting position on the road. 

‘That’s the last time I try to take a shortcut.’ 

Mila laughed, ‘You said the same thing in Germany and Austria!’ 

Dean joined her laughter, ‘Yeah I suppose I did.’ 

‘Do you have a spare?’ I asked. 

‘Nah I had to sell it for gas, along with pretty much every other tool that would be useful right now.’ 

He sighed and looked around, ‘Damn these are cool fields. I really dig the colour purple, and the scent, and Mila you look gorgeous this morning.’ 

He got up, threw the tyre back onto our side of the road and picked up Mila bridal style. 

‘I’m going to make the most of this,’ he said, kissing her mouth and grinning and running for the lavender fields all in the same moment. Mila was screaming with laughter.

Ayamin stood opened mouth as they disappeared behind a row of lavender.

‘Are all Europeans this crazy?’ 

I shrugged, ‘Only when it comes to football.’

My fingers slid into her hand, ‘Where’s Conor gone?’ 

She moved closer, her legs brushed mine, and her free hand moved up my shoulder, ‘He said he was going to find something to smoke. He’s been gone a while.’ 

‘Well, we’re alone,’ I said. 

‘I think you’re right,’ she said. 

My lips found hers, her mouth was hot and her hands found my chest. The smooth skin of her waist felt heavenly under my rough finger… 

‘Hey guys.’ 

We froze. I turned my head to see Conor standing on the road with sunglasses on, a smoking blunt in his mouth, and a wheel under his bare foot. 

Conor shrugged, ‘I found a new tyre.’ 

Ayamin touched my ear, ‘Let’s finish this later,’ she whispered. Reluctantly I let her go. 

 Conor seemed oblivious to everything. He had a serene smile on his face. 

‘Seriously Conor where’d you get the tyre?’ I asked. 

He pointed down the road, ‘I was just walking along looking at the flowers and then bam! There’s a wheel in my hand and I thought to myself, that’s serendipity because we were just looking for a tyre.’ 

Aya shook her head, ‘Serendipity?’ 

Conor stared out into the field. That serene smile floated over his lips again. 

‘It’s kind of like when two stones from different beaches fit perfectly into each other.’ 

He took a long drag on his joint and exhaled. The scent of it mixed with the lavender. We waited for Conor to speak again, but he seemed content with just standing there smoking. 

Ayamin helped me roll Conor’s wheel over to the van and with dusty fingers, we put the wheel back on. 

Dean and Mila arrived back at the van just after we’d finished and Ayamin told Mila about the wheel appearing in Conor’s hands. 

Mila just rolled her eyes.  

‘That’s the sort of thing he’s always doing.’ 

She walked over to Conor, took his sunglasses off, and gazed into his eyes. 

‘Did he mention serendipity?’

One laugh was all the confirmation she needed. 

‘Dean, Conor’s wasted.’ 

Dean just shrugged as he finished his inspection of the ‘new’ wheel. 

‘Who cares? The road’s waiting baby.’ 

With an insane grin on his face, Dean ran over to Conor and wrapped an arm around him. 

‘Let’s go! Go! Go! Go!’ 

We ran for the van and barely had time to get in our seats before Dean threw the van into gear, sending dust flying. 

The van thundered down the narrow country road. We screamed around a corner and swerved past a police van sitting on the side of the road. 

‘Damn,’ Dean said as the police van’s lights flashed and it pulled out onto the road, ‘There’s no way we can outrun them.’

But the police van had other ideas. It skidded back onto the grass edge of the road, then refused to budge. 

‘Oh my,’ Mila said as we zoomed off, ‘They’ve only got three wheels.’

Ayamin and I exchanged a look, then stared at Conor who was flopped backwards in his seat. He breathed out a puff of smoke, then spoke one word:

‘Serendipity.’