“Uh-huh?”


The truck jolts.

“Sorry.”

“Are all the roads around here like this?”

“Getting that way.”


More potholes flare in front of them, like a rash. Rudd misses most, but not all. Simi, both hands on the dashboard now, turns towards him.

“How old are you?” she asks.

“22.”


“22!”

 “Ja,” he says, eyes trying to hold on to the distance.

“And you’re the manager? You know I’m almost twice your age.”

Rudd says nothing. He feels her eyes search across him, and knows there’s a gap he should fill with words but he doesn’t know what to say. His neck is hot red still, and now his back is sweating, sticking to the seat.

“I surprised you, didn’t I?”

“Well …”

“You didn’t expect me to be black, did you?”

Rudd’s stomach curls. She’s right, so right, and he has no idea what he’s supposed to say. He begins to shake his head, and then stops. Simi Bishop. How was he supposed to know?

“Never had any black guests?”

“Ja. Of course, hey. Just not from London. Never entered my head.”

He sits straighter, trying to keep his eyes on the road, his mind playing back over his rush to airport, and his hopes of collecting some glossy young Londoner. All he’d been told about was the last minute booking.

The road is better now. Simi releases her brace position, smooths down her kaftan and places her hands in her lap.

“And? Is it a problem?”

“No. Not at all. Nothing like that. Just didn’t have time to get …. Anyway data costs too much here to check stuff you don’t need to, and the lodge WiFi is useless. Plus the wedding… Just knew you needed collecting, and that …”

Rudd’s voice drifts away into the tall grass on either side of the road. He wants to vanish with it. To hide. Questions kick inside his head. What did he do to deserve the Queen of Sheba? How did she pick his lodge for her big adventure?  What did the agent say? Wants somewhere different. Off the normal circuit. Where no-one goes. Brilliant.

Rudd sighs.

Simi turns her back to him and stares out the window.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

Rudd chews the edge of his lip. His mind is not on the road, and he knows it should be. He takes the next corner without thinking, and by the time he sees the cow it is almost too late for all of them.

“Jeeeze …”

He forces the truck on to the verge, wrenching the steering wheel hard right. The cab lurches to one side then back again. Beside him, Simi screams. He brakes, corrects, and then swings the tyres back up on to the tar.

“OH MY GOD! You trying to kill us.”

Rudd feels his heart thumping. He’s not sure if it’s with her fright or his. He glances across at her.

“Are you alright?”

 She has one hand flat against the door, and the other planted like a steel rod on the dashboard. Twisted half-round to face him, her eyes are wide, her earrings swinging.

“Oh my God! What was that?”

“A cow,” he replies.

“I know it’s a cow, but what’s it doing there? In the middle of the road. A proper road. A main road.”

Simi’s alarm makes Rudd want to laugh. He looks away, fixing his eyes on the rearview mirror. It was only a cow. It looks smaller now, but is still exactly where it was when he first saw it. Not bothered.

He feels the seat next to him dip, and sees that Simi has turned to look through the back windscreen. The bright orange and purple of her kaftan is stretched tight across her shoulders. He is about to look away when her eyes catch him.

“Is this the only way to the lodge?” she demands.

He nods.

“Sorry. That was a bit close,” he says.

“A bit close,” she whispers, an eyebrow raised.

“Ja, even for me, hey.”

 “What do you mean? Even for me?” Her voice rises.

Rudd’s explanation falters. He knows there’s nothing funny about what’s just happened, but it, or something like it, happens so often, that it feels normal.

 “Well … just …”

“Just what?”

He looks away, and clears his throat, hating the red flush that he knows is creeping up his neck. He scrunches up the words ‘old’ ‘female’ and ‘English’, and swallows them.  Could have been a joke, he thinks, with someone else, a Zimbabwean, but not with her. Not with someone he’s only just met.

“Just what?” Simi repeats the question, rounding out the what.

“It’s just that I live here. I’m used to it,” he says, the words jarring as the truck thumps into a pothole.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023