breath of stifling air and stepped alongside Samantha. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lash out at you. I’m tired and letting the heat get to me, that’s all.’
‘Really?’ Samantha tilted her head to one side.
Jaddi shrugged. ‘It’s nothing. You wouldn’t understand.’
‘Try me.’
‘I think I might be a bit homesick,’ Jaddi said in a low voice, feeling the last of her frustration slip away.
‘You’re what?’ A curious smile spread across Samantha’s face.
‘I’m homesick, OK? I know it’s stupid but I miss my life in London—’ Samantha’s cackling laugh stopped Jaddi from saying more.
‘How can you, of all people, be homesick? All you’ve ever talked about since the day I met you is how much you want to travel the world.’
‘I know,’ Jaddi muttered, ‘I’m as surprised as you are.’
Samantha snorted and threw her arm around Jaddi. ‘It’ll be all right. You’ll feel better when we get to Cambodia.’
‘If we get to Cambodia.’ Jaddi wished she could laugh too. It was ludicrous to even comprehend being homesick. After everything she’d done to get them here. Maybe it wasn’t homesickness, but the growing realisation that she was never going home to the life she’d had before.
A flash of colour on the road caught Jaddi’s attention.
‘Hey look, a car’s coming,’ Lizzie shouted.
‘What do we do?’ Samantha hopped over the bushes before scrambling up the ditch to the road.
‘Wave it down,’ Jaddi said, a few steps behind Samantha.
The three of them jumped into the centre of the road and waved their arms in the air until the maroon car pulled over and wound down its window. The familiar smiling face of Tic popped out. ‘One thousand Baht. Phnom Penh. Yes?’
The three girls glanced at one another for a moment.
‘Yes,’ Jaddi said, the others nodding.
Tic smiled and bounced out of the car. Despite his small frame and skinny arms, he collected their backpacks with ease, and returned them to the boot of his car.
‘Maybe we should try and haggle the price down a bit more,’ Lizzie whispered as they slid back into the cool interior of the car.
‘Or maybe we should just thank our lucky stars that he came back, and hope he takes us to Cambodia rather than selling us to pirates,’ Samantha said.
‘Good point.’ Jaddi breathed a sigh of relief as a blast of cold hair tickled her skin. ‘Right now, I’d pay ten thousand baht for five minutes sitting in this car.’
‘Shhh,’ Samantha hissed. ‘Don’t say that or Tic will start charging us for the air con.’
‘By the way, Ben,’ Lizzie said, leaning forward as Ben climbed into the front passenger seat with his camera bag, ‘thanks for being such a great help back there. The way you stayed silent as Tic threw out our backpacks was almost as good as your lack of input into a way out of our predicament.’
‘Anytime.’ He grinned, not appearing to notice Lizzie’s jibing tone, or more likely, ignoring it, and causing Lizzie to throw back her head and laugh.
Jaddi glanced at the smiling face of her friend and felt her own sour mood lift. Lizzie was happy; they were finally on the adventure they’d always dreamed of. It was time to take her own advice and start living in the moment.
Jaddi
Jaddi watched Tic’s car disappear around the corner and surveyed the empty street. She checked her watch – nine pm. Not late by anyone’s standards, but after the journey they’d had it felt more like midnight. Hunger, thirst, and exhaustion battled for first place in her list of needs. Not to mention a shower. By the looks of Lizzie, Samantha, and Ben, they felt the same way.
She stared at the archway leading to their hostel and wished she’d booked the more expensive hotel, much closer to the city centre, with the air conditioning, the pool and the restaurant, rather than the shell of a building staring back at her, promising them nothing but a bed and the most basic of facilities.
‘Won’t a pool be fun though, Jaddi?’ Caroline had asked her when they’d poured over Jaddi’s plans in the Channel 6 boardroom two weeks before Christmas. ‘After all the time on a bus, won’t a swim be nice?’
With the blue-and-white Christmas lights blinking on the tree in the corner of the boardroom, and the rain, running in sheets down the windows, it had been impossible to imagine the heat and the tiredness they would feel. ‘We’ll have a much better experience in this one,’ she’d replied, tapping her finger on the print out of her plans. ‘This isn’t a holiday to us. We want to see the real life of the places we visit, not stay in some high-walled four-star resort.’
Looking up at the hostel, Jaddi shook her head at her principles. Right now, she’d happily trade real for a chance to jump in a cold pool, or sleep in a comfortable bed.
‘This looks … authentic.’ Samantha said.
Jaddi looked between Samantha and Lizzie, their bemused exhausted faces causing her to laugh out loud. A second later Samantha and Lizzie joined in.
‘OK, OK.’ Jaddi held up her hands. ‘I might’ve got a bit carried away booking us into the cheapest accommodations. We can upgrade tomorrow. How about a drink before we go in?’ She nodded to a bar next door. It was empty apart from a young man slouched on a stool by the bar. A neon-blue light above the door flashed 24Hours.
‘You’re on.’ Samantha scooped up her backpack. ‘First round’s on me. After the day we’ve had I owe you that much.’
Lizzie hooked her arm through Samantha’s. ‘We’re here now, and anyway, you don’t get much more authentic that being abandoned by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere.’
‘Second round’s on me then,’ Jaddi called after them. ‘And I’m getting Sambuca if they have it.’
Samantha shot her a look and laughed.
‘What’s the joke with Sambuca?’ Ben asked from beside her.
Jaddi glanced at the small area of Ben’s face not covered by the camera. ‘Shall I tell him, Sam, or do you want to?’
Samantha stepped into the bar, dropped her backpack at the nearest table and spun around. ‘I will tell him, thank you very much. I don’t need you two blowing it out of proportion.’ She turned to Ben and shook her head. ‘Years and years ago I had a few too many Sambuca shots and ended up in a karaoke bar singing Dolly Parton at the top of my voice. And these two won’t let me forget it.’
‘Er …’ Lizzie giggled, stepping into the camera shot. ‘You forgot to mention the fact that it wasn’t karaoke night; it was quiz night, but you strong-armed the barmen into switching the machine on just for you.’
‘And,’ Jaddi added, feeling a burst of renewed energy, ‘completely derailed the quiz. The team set to win were fuming.’
‘Well, I don’t remember that bit so I’m disputing that it actually happened that way.’ Samantha dropped into her chair and retied her hair into a tight ponytail. It had already turned a shade blonder in the sun and looked almost white under the dull orange lights of the bar.
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