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The Stones dressed smartly for dinner. They ate early, at four or five PM. Linda wore a three-quarter length cream wool dress, and Kevin put on his resort wear-Bermuda shorts and a polo. Kevin patted on aftershave, and Linda used a curling iron and pinned back her hair.
They took their time walking from their room to the atrium. The car park was busy. People hurried towards and away from them, pulling children by the wrists, tugging on dog leads, and balancing trays of drinks. Doors slammed. The late afternoon sun poured through the skylight in the middle of the rotunda.
*
The east and westbound service stations were built on the site of an old landfill, but you wouldn’t be able to tell today. A green space was created behind the Travelodge. The lawn was populated by starlings, kites, magpies, rabbits and foxes. And rats– Kevin and Linda had noticed the traps on their first night.
The Reading Motorway Service Areas was awarded Loo of the Year in 2006. The official tourist board for England had rated the rest stop 4 out of 5 stars. The westbound moto hosted an Upper Crust Baguette Specialist, a Burger King, a Costa Coffee, a Marks & Spencer, a WHSmith, an Eat & Drink Co., the West Cornwall Pasty Company, a Full Hou$e arcade filled with slot machines, and a coin-operated massage chair.
‘It’s everything you’d need,’ Kevin said. ‘I don’t know why you’d go anywhere else.’
*
They had holidayed the previous year in Magaluf, where Linda had been ill with sunstroke and Kevin didn’t get on with the food. The Travelodge was just 37 miles from Heathrow. The Stones had discovered it the night before their flight to Spain.
Weather permitting, they dined in the Costa Coffee garden next to the rotunda. They were free to order exactly what they fancied. It felt like a liberation at every meal. Kevin had a really nice fish and chips from EDC. Linda bought a steak and stilton from the West Cornwall Pasty Company.
‘Do you know I think I could eat a pasty every day of our holiday and not have to order the same thing twice?” she said.
‘They nearly went into administration,’ Kevin nodded at the West Cornwall Pasty Company van. ‘They were bought out by a football player. I can’t remember his name.’
The Travelodge car park had eighty-six spots reserved for its guests. The spots were available on a first-come first-served basis, free of charge. Parking in the adjacent moto lot was free for the first two hours, then cars were charged £15. The process of paying involved phoning a service to report credit card details, vehicle registration number and a location code.
From the Costa Coffee garden, Kevin and Linda had an unobstructed view of the goings-on: people losing their tempers as they learned they had exceeded the two hour limit; lashing out at the tires of stranger’s cars in frustration as they attempted to pay by phone. They observed non-guests of the hotel parking for hours in Travelodge’s lot, and hands snaking out of windows to toss plastic coated paper cups and greasy burger wraps squeezed into paper balls.
Moto hospitality’s logo rose above them: A crowned man in a turquoise tunic, relaxing into the fold of his own arms. Kevin was hoping to see lots of pied wagtails, which stop in car parks to look for food.
*
Kevin got a massage in the coin-operated chair every day after breakfast. He spent more time in the moto atrium than Linda. She objected to the rest stop facilities, which flushed violently at the slightest provocation.
The Stones bought a stack of paperbacks and camping chairs from WHSmith and sat outside their room facing the green space. Most people say they can’t wait to read on vacation but then never get round to it. Kevin read The Times and The Telegraph from cover to cover every day.
They liked an M&S picnic on the green. Red kites circled over the motorway on thermals. Contrails oozed across the sky. The roar of the M4 reminded Linda of the sea. She could hear it from their bed in the early hours, when night had dimmed the electrical drone of the hotel and the parking lot was still.
Squealing brakes of the delivery fleet marked the dawn. The unloading team divested the trailers of fresh milk, ground beef, industrial grated cheese, and ready-made Carrot, Chickpea & Bulgar Wheat Salads. The car park awakened at the end of the night shift. Managers and crew members traded places. A truck drove off with drums of spent cooking oil.
*
Their daughter was on her gap year, building houses in northern Patagonia with Raleigh International.
‘The same programme Prince William did,’ Linda tells everyone.
‘Have you heard from her?’ Kevin asked when Linda checked her email.
‘Not this week,’ Linda said. ‘But I heard from Judy and Shane. You remember my cousin and her husband in Australia. Judy and Shane?’
Kevin struggled to picture them. He was annoyed by this trait of his wife’s, at her dogged belief that he would be interested in quotidian details about members of her family; their children, their cars, the price of their homes. He nodded.
‘They were going to tear out their kitchen but the builders have told them it would cost twice as much as the original estimate. So they’ve postponed it.’
Linda handed Kevin her mobile. He squinted down at a picture of Judy and Shane, posing in life jackets on a boat with their two sons, who were almost grown.
‘God, he’s gone to look old,’ Kevin said.
A small bird pecked at the crust of an abandoned Eat & Drink Co. sandwich. No printed admonitions forbade the consumption of non-Costa food in the Costa Coffee garden. Everybody was at it: Kevin reasoned that it was good publicity for Costa. Nevertheless, the Stones attempted to mitigate any potential animosity by buying dozens of cups of gingersnap tea.
‘That’s a grey wagtail,’ Kevin said. ‘They’re actually yellow.’
*
Linda queued at Costa for a toastie, even though they cost the earth. Which? Car had determined that the provisions at the east and westbound Reading service stations were among the most expensive in the United Kingdom. Five snacks in the moto atrium cost over ten pounds.
A woman who looked like she’d been dragged through a bush backwards tried to cut ahead in the queue. She stood beside Linda, as though they’d arrived at the same time. It was a long line, because the other barista was on her break. The barista made a latté, rang up an order, and put an Emmental and Mushroom Toastie in the grill.
Linda studied the usurper beside her. She pictured the woman as a child in primary school, pushing ahead in lines and bullying her classmates. Now, she had a hen-pecked husband and a battery of children all her own to bully. Linda could see them waiting in front of WHSmith.
Behind them, a man unfamiliar with the workings of the moto Costa denounced the management for the length of their wait. He would be of no help, Linda knew, in any potential confrontation, being the type who would instinctively side with the wrongdoer.
*
‘There are 490 calories and 19 grams of fat in a West Country Cheddar and Slow Roasted Tomato Toastie,’ Kevin told Linda. ‘Two thousand milligrams of salt. To think, they were worried nutrition labels would put people off.’
Kevin had made arrangements with a trainee hairdresser who worked at Costa to trim his hair for ten pounds.
‘Won’t it be a little awkward,” Linda asked, ‘Having her here, in our room?’
‘I shouldn’t think so, no.’
Kevin had seen another grey wagtail in the Costa Coffee garden, wagging its tail like a pumpjack as it searched for food.
‘Don’t forget to get her to do the hair in your ears,’ Linda said.
It was raining, so they lunched in their room on the king-sized Sleepeezee Dreamer Bed. Linda had a Triple Chocolate Muffin and her toastie from Costa. Kevin had a Pasta Salad with Spinach & Pine Nuts and an opened a bottle of Vin de Pays du Gers, both M&S.
‘I’m so glad we saw that grey wagtail,’ he said.
About Louise Phillips
Louise Phillips lives in London. Her stories have most frequently appeared in Litro, 3AM Magazine, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, the delinquent, and Monkeybicycle.
great story, would make an excellent short film too…