The Scoop by Cat Walker

Author:Cat Walker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: RedDoor Press
Published: 2020-02-12T14:09:05+00:00

The road to Sarajevo is what you might call ‘a bit hairy’. On the one hand we have the Vrbas river winding its merry way through the mountains below a sheer drop, and on the other hand a cliff-face. The road is narrow and the locals tend to drive like maniacs – overtaking on blind corners and dodging round the trucks and convoys of military vehicles on the roads like they’re all in Wacky Races. There are also several tunnels, which are all unlit, so you go from blinding sunlight to pitch dark in an instant. The whole experience is like a fiendish arcade game, and as the designated driver this afternoon I’m very happy to at last spy, round a corner as the afternoon fades, Sarajevo, site of the 1984 Winter Olympics.

Danny has been quiet all afternoon but now starts humming a tune I vaguely recognise as that U2 song with Pavarotti singing in the middle, about a beauty queen competition in the middle of the war, Miss Sarajevo.

‘La la la la la,’ he sings pretty tunelessly, having forgotten everything but some words of the chorus.

‘There’s never a time for East 17,’ I tell him firmly. What the hell did Bono mean by that anyway?

‘Oh, that reminds me,’ Danny says, ‘there was an email from your mum asking me to get you to call home.’

‘What on earth is the connection between East 17 and my mum?’

‘Just postcodes. Made me think of back home, that’s all. Oh, and there was one from Peter to all of us…’

‘It was sent to me,’ Ari pipes up from the back where he’s been listening to tinny pop music on his PSP, shunning my choice of Kylie on the stereo.

‘Yeah, well, it said hello to all of us,’ Danny clarifies.

Ari pops his head through the opening between the two front seats: ‘He said he’s spending a couple of weeks with his granddad and he’s having a great time, and that his granddad’s agreed to come and visit his mum in England this summer.’

‘That’s great,’ I say.

‘Yeah, he says his granddad has started telling him about what happened to him. He was made to fight for Hitler in Greece and that saved him from being sent to the Soviet Union, and then he was actually there when the Wall came down, and Pete says that he might help him to write a book about it all if his granddad agrees. And Pete says he hasn’t stopped talking about his wife, Pete’s grandma, and that they must have been so in love…’ He looks from Danny to me with an odd look in his eyes.

I’m thinking: yeah, like your dad was so in love with your mum that he ran away to another continent. But I say nothing. Ari goes back to his PSP.

‘So, are you going to call your parents?’ Danny asks, ignoring all this.

‘What? Oh, yeah, I guess.’

‘Your mum said I was to make sure to look after you at all times and that we should enjoy our time together,’ Danny teases.

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