The Road Trip: The heart-warming new novel from the author of The Flatshare and The Switch by Beth O'Leary (books to read now TXT) 📕

into the kitchen in sagging knickers and a French band T-shirt she picked up on a one-night stand in Avignon, then pauses, listening.

‘Where are they all?’ she asks.

‘No idea. I’m pretty sure there’s just one guy here.’

She yawns and takes the mug of coffee I hold out for her. ‘Huh. Weird. Maybe this guy killed all his family on the journey over.’

We can always tell if it’s a man or a woman from their footfall. Men are stompier.

‘That’s your first thought?’ I say.

Deb shrugs and begins sawing at yesterday’s bread. A spattering of crust fragments go flying like chippings in a wood shop.

‘What else have you got?’

‘Maybe they’re all coming later,’ I say. ‘Maybe they stopped off in Nice to see some pals, yah.’

This is one of those summer things that won’t be funny next year, but cracks me and Deb up right now. Ever since we got here we’ve collected the phrases we hear through the ceiling or drifting over from the terrace: pals, décor, blotto, divine. I’ve never met people like the Villa Cerise guests before. They don’t ask the price of stuff before they buy it. They drink champagne like it isn’t even a thing. They own multiple houses and animals and have opinions about literally everything. It’s almost too easy to mock them.

‘Cherry’s mum would’ve texted if they were coming late,’ Deb points out.

I pull a face, like, Oh yeah, true. Deb spreads butter on to her bread, laying it on as thick as a slice of cheese.

‘I don’t think he’s old, you know,’ I say. ‘He walks too fast.’

Deb’s eyebrows go up. ‘Maybe he’s staff?’

This is another new phrase we’ve learned. Staff as a job title.

Our mysterious solo guest moves into the kitchen, directly above our heads. We pause, me with a glass of orange juice halfway to my mouth, Deb with butter on her nose.

The fridge upstairs opens. Something clinks. The fridge closes.

‘A day drinker,’ Deb says. She pauses in thought. ‘If there’s only one guy here all week, do we really both need to be here?’

‘Are you ditching me again?’

Deb looks at me, frowning, trying to guess if I really mind. I’m not sure, to be honest. It was always the plan that while we were here, we’d each go off to explore France when we could. As it’s happened, though, Deb’s gone adventuring more than me. I do get it: she’s more easily bored than I am. And I love this villa – the infinity pool, the vineyards, the way the air smells first thing in the morning. Deb’s not sentimental like that. It’s just a house to her, albeit a big one.

Sometimes I like the extra space when she’s gone. But I also kind of hate being the one who’s left behind.

‘There’s a guy outside Nîmes with an empty house. Kind of a commune thing,’ Deb says. ‘But like, a party commune. Not the nun kind. Do you not want me to go?’

She’s never really got the concept of half-feelings, Deb. I turn away, irritated, and shoot ‘Of course you should go’ over my shoulder as I stare vaguely at the contents of the fridge.

‘If you need me here, you know I’ll stay,’ she says.

I glance back at her. Her expression is totally open. It’s impossible to stay irritated with Deb. She’s just got someplace else she wants to be, and in her head, why would that affect me unless I needed her here?

‘No, you go,’ I say, closing the fridge. ‘Find yourself a sexy French hippy.’

We pause again. Upstairs our solo guest has walked out of the kitchen and on to the terrace. He’s speaking. Muttering. I can’t quite catch the words.

‘Is he talking to himself?’ Deb asks, tilting her head. ‘Maybe a madman’s found his way in. Maybe we’ve got a squatter.’

I move closer to the door to our flat and crack it open. The villa’s built on a hill – our door is tucked away to the right of the building, hidden from view under the walkway that leads from the kitchen to the raised terrace with its infinity pool.

Through the gap in the door, I can see the guest’s lower half passing the balustrades around the terrace. He’s wearing stone-coloured shorts and no shoes. A half-drunk bottle of beer taps against his thigh as he paces. His legs are tanned pale brown. He doesn’t look like a squatter.

‘What—’

I shush Deb and try to listen. He’s reciting something.

‘Upon a great adventure he was bound, that greatest Gloriana to him gave . . .’

‘Is he reading out some Shakespeare or something?’ Deb asks in my ear. She shoves me aside and opens the door wider.

‘Deb, careful,’ I hiss. Caretakers aren’t meant to spy on guests. This job is the best summer gig I could have imagined. Every so often I’m hit with a pang of fear that one of us will screw up so badly someone’ll notice and call Cherry’s parents.

‘To win him worship, and her grace to have, which of all earthly things he most did crave, and ever as he – even as he . . . Fuck.’ The man stops and lifts his beer. ‘Fucking shitting fuckity shit.’

He’s posh – he sounds like Hugh Grant. Deb covers her mouth to stifle her laugh. The man stills. I breathe in sharply and pull her back from the doorway.

‘Come on.’ I drag her back through to the living room. ‘Let’s not piss him off on day one, whoever he is.’

‘I think he’s fit,’ Deb decides, flopping down on the sofa. Like most of the furniture in the flat, it lived in the main house once, then got downgraded when Cherry’s mum fancied giving the place a new look. It’s dark pink velvet and has a massive red wine stain on the right arm – nothing to do with us, thank God.

‘You got that from his feet?’

Deb nods. ‘You can tell a lot from feet.’

This is the sort of Deb comment I’ve learned to just skim over, because you get into