Page 27

‘He says he wants to tell me something about …’ I can’t say Ethan. Mariam doesn’t know that side of the story, orabout my suspicions that someone had tried to hurt him deliberately. ‘Something important he found out about that time.’
She scoffs. ‘He is probably making it up to get you to talk to him.’
‘Maybe. But you heard him on the podcast – he was obsessed with the case. He had a whole notebook full of his research and there’s a chance he can answer a question I have.’
Mariam shrugs. I’m not surprised she’s a sceptic. I have no reason to trust Jason, and it’s far more likely he wants to somehow manipulate me into an interview. I am the missing factor from his vast ‘Glenn Affair’ equation.
My phone beeps. I glance down to see a message from Pete wondering if I’ve heard the podcast and telling me it’s not too late to leave the race. I swipe it away.
I still can’t believe he failed his drug test. Pete is meticulous about his health and what he puts in his body – he eats a vegan diet, scrutinizes his supplements, tracks every macronutrient. No matter how bad he wants it, he wouldn’t resort to performance-enhancing substances. Would he? Maybe he felt the pressure to perform in light of who his future father-in-law might be.
I entertain the thought for about a microsecond before dismissing it outright. It must be a mistake. Mixed up blood vials – I don’t know. I do know how gutted he must be feeling to be out of the race, though. He’d been training for this for months. Made it his entire life.
He’s not alone on that. Earlier, I’d listened to my two other tentmates – a Canadian guy named Alex and a Japanese runner called Hiroko – discussing their plan for therun. Biding their time over the first stage, trying not to go out too quick. Keeping an eye on the Moroccan runners, not letting them get too far ahead. Working together to keep a good position until the very last leg. In a stage race strategy is important. The time is cumulative, and you can’t fall too far behind or else there will be too much of a gap to close.
I wonder if I should be planning too. There’s been nothing conventional about the way I’ve prepared for this race. In the years since my last race, I’ve become a more intuitive runner, choosing not to adhere to a strict training schedule but instead just listening to my body and going with the flow. And of course I don’t have the time I used to, pre-Ethan, to be that regimented. The time, oh, the time! How I wish I could send a message back to pre-parenthood-Adrienne, to tell her to luxuriate in all the free hours she had. Hours that had been hers and hers alone, to do with what she wished. The number of times I’d hop in the car and drive to some remote trail, carrying a bivvy on my back and running until my legs gave out. Or at the last-minute I’d sign up for a run along the Jurassic coast and spend the night kipping in the back seat of our car. Even casual mid-afternoon sessions on a track were out, unless they were carefully negotiated around after-school clubs and play dates.
Motherhood altered every aspect of my life – but especially my running. I had to learn how to move in my new body, one that had grown another human, stretching and changing almost beyond recognition. I had to knit together muscles in my stomach that had been ripped apart, gaps in my abdominals so large I could almost put my fist through.I figured out how to pump at the side of the trail, bottles of breast milk sloshing in my backpack until I could get home to Ethan. Training squeezed into times I could find childcare. Pete’s life changed too, sure, but not in such a visceral, primal way. Becoming a mother both ruined and remade me.
And I wouldn’t change it for a second.
The urge to talk to my son is suddenly all-consuming. I don’t know what the signal will be like deeper into the race. So I call him.
‘Mum!’ he says. ‘What’s it like? Have you seen the camel yet?’
I laugh. ‘Not yet, but then I don’t want to catch his attention!’ It was one of Ethan’s favourite Hot & Sandy facts that if you got caught by the camel, you were out of the race. I try to describe the tent and my companions to him, but he doesn’t seem to hear. The connection fails as the wind outside picks up.
‘Sorry, honey, I don’t think we’ll be able to chat long,’ I say, once the connection is back.
I hear his sigh. ‘OK,’ he replies, dejected. My heart aches with the sudden urge to be with him. It’s missing so fierce it’s as piercing as an arrow. ‘Don’t worry, Mum. You know the way,’ he says. Our phrase. A show of confidence. It’s the thing I say before every one of his tennis matches. To remind him that all he needs he already knows.
And now he’s reminding me.
‘I love you!’ I almost shout it, as the connection begins to break up again.
‘Love you too,’ he says.
I click off. Anxiety builds in my stomach. What if Jasonis going to tell me that something else is going to happen to Ethan? I remind myself that he’s with Pete’s parents. They’ll protect him. And so will Pete now that he’s headed home. I can’t help but feel a tiny bit grateful for that, even though I know Pete will be devastated.
But it’s not enough. I’ll never forgive myself if I let my pride get in the way of finding out what information Jason has. I grab my backpack and jump to my feet.
‘Wait!’ Mariam says. ‘Have you not seen outside? The storm has arrived.’
To punctuate her words, dust and stones are blown into the tent, swirling round our ankles. I jump on Alex’s sleeping mat to stop it flying away. The tent sides billow, straining against the guy ropes, and Mariam clings to the centre post to stop it falling over. We’re not the only ones struggling. Outside the Berbers who helped set up the bivouac are scrambling to secure the sides of each tent with heavy rocks.
With a quick nod to each other, we decide not to wait for help. We crouch down low, but even so we’re almost knocked off our feet by another gust.
I read about this phenomenon. A Saharan sandstorm. If we’re lucky, it will blow through in a few minutes. But that’s enough time for any loose gear inside our tents to be swept away, so we follow the Berbers’ lead and grab as many heavy rocks as we can, layering them on the edges of the black fabric.
‘Where are the others?’ I shout over the wind, thinking of Hiroko and Alex.
‘At dinner, I think?’
‘What about their things?’
‘Securing the tent is the best way to keep them in.’
I nod, though I doubt our efforts will be enough if the storm gets much worse; already some of the tents on the outer edge of the semicircle are coming apart in the strong winds. I hear shouts as people rush to keep their tent posts upright. There’s debris flying everywhere and I spot a running shoe rolling away like tumbleweed in the wind. Someone’s going to find it difficult to run without that.