Jessie exploded. ‘Will you shut the fuck up, Mr Whingealot! This is supposed to be a freewheeling adventure, not an expedition planned with military precision.’

Stanley giggled, then went quiet for a few moments before pointing suspiciously at Matilda’s bonnet. ‘Anyway, how do I know she hasn’t got intestinal cancer or some other disease?’

‘Matilda is Russian. Comprenez? Which means she was built to withstand those freeze-your-bollocks-off Siberian winters. She throws a fit only if pushed too hard.’

‘Better not push her too hard, then.’ He glared at her.

To which she replied, ‘I’m not the sort of person to rise to the bait.’

‘But you have to have the last word,’ he added, mumbling. ‘Like someone else I used to know.’

‘No, I don’t, and what was that?’

‘Nuttin’.’

Stanley didn’t want to be childish, but he couldn’t help himself. He began ticking off a new list of concerns with his fingers.

‘No return plane ticket. No insurance. No hotel reservation. No holiday rep with a smile and clipboard. No “Orientation Cocktails at 6 p.m. in the hotel bar”.’

‘No grumpy Monday-morning starts,’ Jessie responded. ‘No rush-hour stress. No incarceration in an office block. No worrying about what you’ve left behind, Stanley.’

‘No, but lots of worrying about what lies ahead.’

‘Look, we’re turtles now. We’ll find an empty campsite, I’ll cook summat, then we’ll turn off the lamp and wait for a gang of Neo-Nazis to jump out of the bushes and set fire to the caravan.’

Stanley burst out laughing.

‘This is what I want to see. I need you with me completely, laddie. Not with your head back in London, worrying. Just relax and enjoy the adventure.’ She patted his knee.

‘I forgot to add, first time in love too.’ He paused, grinning. ‘With an older woman.’

‘May I remind you, Mr Incipient Middle Age, that I’m not even old enough to be your mother? Same generation, so stop fantasizing, boyo!’

‘Are you going to beat me for being naughty?’

Jessie cuffed him around the head. ‘Get away with you. That’s a treat for when you’re being good.’

La France

Fresh grapes for popcorn –

my very own motion picture

not grainy monochrome but pastoral

with Dolby Surround Sound.

Never noticed birds at home

(club-foot pigeons).

Here, a gull, crow, there – sparrows.

I tune into Morse code.

Militaristic crew-cut,

hippie’s dehydrated blonde,

acres of dark mossy armpits,

who’d have thought it, of grass.

What colour my office carpet?

Shade of brown my father’s eyes?

My computer – black or grey?

Passing cities of outlaw forests

(brick does not grow),

a witch-doctor’s whisk of horses,

a rabbit, flattened by the roadside.

Her hands are moths when talking.

She crochets her plaits when excited.

She palms my knee at 80° Fahrenheit.

Let’s freeze-frame/our first/on-screen/kiss (Indie).

The Freeway