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us!’ Normally I’d never speak to anyone like that, not even Nick. ‘Oh my Go o o o o d, help meeeee!’
    We were plummeting, spiralling, a heinous lunatic rollercoaster, towards earth. My hair stood on end, every follicle prickled, and I had to swallow and swallow, to gulp down the saliva, the nausea, the fear. I couldn’t even grabthe controls. I screeched and Stuart
smiled
. He cried, ‘Wheeeeeeeee!’ I just cried.
    â€˜Never,’ I choked, as he soared upwards, ‘do that again.’ As it was I could barely speak for quaking. ‘Take me down. Properly. Carefully. Or I’ll be sick on you. Or I will have a heart attack from fright and my parents will sue.’
    â€˜Holly. A spiral is just a bit of fun. It’s not dangerous. It’s like the natural fall of a paper plane. It’s a glider movement, a natural way of swooping. It doesn’t even put stress on the plane. I thought you’d find it exhilarating. I’d never put us in danger. It’s not like a full 360. I’d never do something as brash as that. That’s best left for the circus.’
    He patted my knee and I wanted to jam a pencil through his hand. ‘Stuart. You’ve forfeited your right to preach about responsibility. Back. Down. Now.’
    The remainder of our flight was conducted in silence. The only talk was with air traffic. Landing was as violent as take-off, but I was too enraged to scream aloud. The rain was fierce as we touched down and we got soaked as we crossed the tarmac, but I was so delirious to be alive I didn’t care. Once we were back in Stuart’s car, he stuck the heating on high and touched my hand.
    â€˜Sorry,’ he said, ‘if I scared you. I didn’t mean to. I thought you’d enjoy it eventually.’ His blue eyes looked pained, and I knew he meant it. Giddy with the euphoria of cheating death, I banished the nausea to the back of my throat, and sighed. ‘Forget it. You loon.’
    Then Rachel’s dress – soaked in the downpour – started to dry, giving off, as it did so, the smell of sicked-up crayfish. That was it for me. What with the terror, the trauma and the shake it all about, the surprise bonus of eau de crayfish puke was more than my guts could handle. I projectile vomited my fry-up, mostly over the cream interior of Stuart Marshall’s Mercedes Kompressor and some over Stuart Marshall himself.

Chapter 4
    HE WAS ACTUALLY very kind. I looked at him aghast, straight after I’d finished puking. I’m not sure what shocked me most. The fact that I’d been sick on a stranger and his lovely upholstery, or that so much vomit could fly that fast out of my mouth in a horizontal jet. Stuart’s face, at that moment, was a study in naked horror. The stench grabbed you by the gut and, by the speed of the pulse throbbing in his neck, I thought he might throw up too. That or punch me.
    â€˜My fault,’ he’d said, after a terrible second. ‘Oh
lordy
, the car!’
    Already I felt much better, if a little shaken by ‘Oh lordy’. We both leapt from the Mercedes stink prison, grateful for the fresh sting of the rain. I tore off my soiled pink jumper and Stuart pulled off his sick-splattered shirt, revealing a tight white T-shirt. Very
Top Gun
. I remembered the blue Speedos. I spat discreetly on the ground before speaking.
    â€˜Stuart,’ I said. ‘I’m so embarrassed. I will, of course, pay for the car to be cleaned.’
    I didn’t wish to appear excessively contrite, as privately I felt that none of this was really my digestive system’s fault. I fumbled for chewing gum, and Stuart held up a hand. I noticed that his hair was curling in the wet. My personal preference is straight hair on a man. I find curly hair less masculine. Shame on me. Nick’s hair is caramel – half-way between brown and blond – shiny, thick and
straight
.
    â€˜Holly, forget