Never Saw You Coming

by Hayley Doyle

  ‘But, what if another tree falls on the line?’

  ‘What if the sky comes crumbling down?’

  ‘Good point.’

  The man returns to wait for his taxi.

  ‘It’s gonna cost you a fortune,’ I tell her. ‘Just to warn you.’

  ‘Well, what choice do I have, Jim?’

  ‘Don’t snap at me.’

  ‘I’m not snapping.’

  ‘You are. Your highness.’

  ‘You think I’m some stuck-up spoilt little princess, don’t you?’ she cries.

  Well, right now, she is acting a little, how can I put it? Grand? But, I can’t be bothered to elaborate. She’s leaving. I’ve got my own problems to sort out. A mountain of them.

  ‘I’m not, you know,’ she continues. ‘I’m not a princess. At all. And I know why you think that. You’re as cliché as everybody else. It’s because you know I live in Dubai. You just presume I live in a palace with servants and camels, that I’m about to be married off to some mega rich sheikh …’

  ‘Well … are you?’

  ‘NO!’

  I’m holding back a sly smile. I fail.

  ‘You don’t believe me, do you?’

  ‘I didn’t say anything, love.’

  ‘You still think I’m a princess.’

  Christ. I’m not going to entertain this.

  ‘Just because I went to boarding school doesn’t mean I’m a princess.’

  I raise my eyebrows, dare to give a little whistle.

  ‘I went to school with actual princesses. I was like dirt on their shoe in comparison.’

  ‘Me heart bleeds.’

  ‘And I was expelled.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Anyway, that’s beside the point. I’m just sick of people presuming I’m someone I’m not. I don’t have a job, and –believe it or not – I really wish I had one, and I don’t have much of … anything. And! I have to pay my father rent for a room in a villa he gets to live in for free from his company.’

  The man with the soggy newspaper turns around again, adjusts his glasses.

  ‘For free?’ he asks, gently.

  Zara nods. ‘For free.’

  ‘Can you afford a taxi all the way to London?’

  ‘What choice do I have? Thanks to that damn tree.’

  A waiting black cab honks, impatient. The man’s now at the front of the line. Zara’s next, her black cab turning into the rank and crawling up beside us. The driver steps out to assist with the bags.

  ‘Going the airport, love?’ he asks.

  I open the taxi door.

  ‘Your carriage awaits,’ I joke. ‘Your highness.’

  ‘You’re an asshole,’ Zara says.

  ‘It’s been a pleasure.’

  The driver settles back in his seat, and looking through the glass shield, he barks at Zara to ‘get a move on’. There’s no need for that; she hasn’t been taking her time. If anything, quite the contrary. As she gets in, I’m still holding her canvas bag, swinging it from its straps. I look properly at the cartoon image printed on one side. It’s a meerkat sat in a jacuzzi. It’s pretty funny, actually. Zara leans across from her seat and snatches it.

  ‘Why so tetchy?’ I ask.

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Ah, come on. Is this some cult foreign cartoon you’re into?’

  ‘No. I drew it. Okay?’

  ‘What? You drew it? The meerkat?’

  ‘Yes. And the hot tub, and the … everything. It’s my design. My cartoon.’

  ‘Ooh, get you. It’s good,’ I admit. ‘You got others?’

  ‘I love how you wait until now to spark up a conversation, Jim.’

  Zara pulls the twisted knot on top of her head and her hair falls loosely down her back, around her shoulders. The driver knocks on the glass shield. It’s time to go.

  ‘See ya later, your highness,’ I say, and close the door, giving the roof of the cab a tap.

  ‘Bye, Jim,’ Zara says through the open window. ‘And thanks.’

  I’m free.

  Approximately thirty seconds later, I’m not even out of the taxi rank, psyching myself up to run back through the rain, I hear Zara yelling again. Only this time, it’s not directed at me. She’s back at the front of the line, the driver placing her luggage around her.

  ‘Please take me,’ she’s begging.

  ‘You’ve wasted me time, love.’

  ‘I’ve done nothing of the sort. You’re a taxi driver, you take people where they need to go and you get paid for it.’

  ‘I’m not taking you all the bloody way to London.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘And how am I supposed to get the bloody hell back from London?’

  ‘Drive?’

  ‘You know what that’ll cost me in petrol? In time? Me and the wife are going to a silver wedding tonight. I won’t make it back for last orders.’

  ‘I’ll pay for your petrol, your time. Just take me. Please.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Bloody tourists.’

  Another driver steps out of his black cab.

  ‘What’s the hold up, mate?’ he asks.

  Zara’s driver stretches out his arm and points a finger right in her face.

  ‘This one here wants me to drive her all the bloody way to London.’

  ‘Well, you can’t do that, mate.’

  ‘I bloody well know.’

  ‘Listen, girl, he can’t take you to London. Now move.’

  Those waiting in the queue are having a gander, standing on their tip toes to get a good view, muttering mixed opinions on whether or not this girl should be taken all the way. Some woman shouts, ‘Don’t be a lousy get, take the poor girl!’ Another questions why on earth anybody would ever want to go to London in the first place. A few agree. And yet, there’s Zara, struggling with getting her bags onto the pavement whilst still pleading, asking the next taxi driver, then the next. Nobody’s helping her. And why should they? Nobody knows her.

  Except me. I’ve known her for about four hours now.

  ‘Excuse me, mate,’ I say, jumping in front of the first taxi, another passenger now in the back seat and the driver about to exit the rank. I wave my arms, the brakes of the vehicle squeaking from the rain. ‘You can’t just leave this girl stranded.’

  ‘Jim, what are you doing?’ Zara asks.

  ‘You can’t treat her like that, mate. Have a heart, will you?’

  The taxi honks his horn and moves forward a little, threatening.

  ‘Don’t be such a tosser!’ I shout.

  The driver steps out. Shaved head and shaved chin, he’s equal to me in height, but three times the build, tattoos across his knuckles. I very nearly shit myself.

  ‘Who you calling a tosser? You fucking gobshite.’

  ‘Eloquent choice of words, mate,’ I say.

  Variations of horns honk, drivers hang out of their windows. Some are quietly trying to see what the problem is, and others aren’t so polite, vomiting the most vulgar vocabulary. The driver squares up to me, his round, hard belly pressing into my ribs. On instinct, I push back.

  Somehow, Zara gets herself in between me and the driver. Well, she is small enough to appear from nowhere, and she muscles in, trying to break us apart. I place a hand around her waist, an attempt to keep her away from our spat, but the driver grabs the strap of her dress and throws her against the brick wall.

  A small gasp escapes the onlookers.

  ‘I’m fine, I’m fine,’ Zara says, shaking off the gravel, but her voice is trembling.

  This is bang out of order. I take hold of the driver’s sweatshirt and swing a punch with my free hand right across his jaw. A larger gasp now filters through the taxi rank, a couple of cheers and a round of applause from the hen party huddled in the stage door opposite. Fuck. My hand aches. I’m by no means a fighter, and, in all honesty, I’m panicking. The driver’s eyes are bulging, his round head becoming very red. His tattooed fists
curl tight, his browning teeth drip with riled spit. Another driver barges in, holding the first driver back and telling me to fuck off.

  ‘Go fuck yourselves,’ I say.

  My knees are quivering. Either I’ll have to swing another punch or await my own beating. I haven’t had a fist fight since I was ten and some lad nicked my cola pips in the park.

  ‘Stop this,’ Zara says. ‘None of this is going to get me to London.’

  And, great. A couple of police officers have spotted the incident and are stomping towards us all. I back off, hands up high. Both drivers get into their respective black cabs, drive off. They even manage to get willing passengers. You can’t blame them in this weather.

  ‘What was all that about?’ a police officer asks. She’s female, much younger than me.

  ‘A misunderstanding,’ I say, chancing a smile.

  The second police officer strolls into the rain with confidence, as if immune to getting wet. Zara shivers.

  ‘Where’s your coat?’ the young police officer asks.

  ‘Uhm. In my suitcase,’ Zara says.

  ‘Why aren’t you wearing it?’

  ‘I like the cold.’

  ‘You look a little lost. Are you with this man here?’

  I find myself placing my arm across Zara’s shoulders. ‘Yep, she’s with me.’

  ‘And everything’s okay?’

  ‘Everything’s fine,’ I say. ‘It’s them taxi drivers you should be talking to, not us. They started it.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Erm …’

  It’s impossible to sound like an innocent citizen when facing the police.

  ‘Jenny?’ the second police officer calls from the other side of the road.

  The tingling ache in my fist subsides. But, the adrenaline pumping in my chest beats stronger. Zara squeezes my arm. I follow Jenny’s head, turning in response to her partner. A complicated knot sitting behind my belly button, the one that started with the crash four hours ago and has been feeling tighter, tighter, tighter as this bloody day progresses, tightens again.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Jenny says and goes to join her partner.

  Beside the stage door of the theatre, beneath a huge poster advertising the forthcoming pantomime starring Jane McDonald and some fella from Hollyoaks, is my BMW, being inspected. Both police officers are drawn to the boot, one bent over and scanning the damage, the other taking down some notes. I watch, willing for the car to be left alone. Jenny is reading the number plate aloud, speaking into her radio. Her partner looks at the bonnet, the perfect undamaged bonnet, rain water its only enemy.

  ‘I didn’t mean to park it there,’ I say, indicating the weather by holding out my palms, a prayer for it to let me off the hook. ‘Desperate times, you know …’

  ‘So this is your car?’ the policeman asks.

  Shit. Shit, shit, shit. They’re not going to take it away, are they?

  ‘I’m just running some checks,’ Jenny says.

  She’s mid twenty-something, I reckon, but could pass for sixteen, the sort who gets annoyed that she still gets asked for ID buying a bottle of prosecco in the Asda. It’s not cool or attractive being as cute as a squirrel, and this girl must’ve fought hard to get her warrant card and wear that hat. But, I can’t feel sorry for her. She’s making me take a breath test, standard procedure, apparently. Twelve hours have passed since my binge, but my nervous system isn’t enjoying having to comply, to wait, to wonder if today’s truly going to become much, much worse.

  ‘You passed,’ Jenny’s partner, the policeman confirms.

  That sounds like good news. Yet I pause, afraid to get excited by an answer that I maybe misunderstood. If I passed, what does that actually mean? That I passed and I’m drunk? Or I passed, meaning I’m not drunk?

  ‘You’re fine,’ the policeman says, kindly.

  I embrace the rainfall. But Jenny’s still checking my number plate.

  She tells me she’s just discovered that this BMW M3 isn’t insured. Okay, I know I never read the small print when I signed for the car yesterday, but for fuck’s sake, who reads the small print? I’m buggered, aren’t I? It’s over.

  ‘Keys,’ she says, holding out her hand. And she confiscates them like a swiss army knife being taken from the bad boy in school.

  ‘You’ll get it back,’ she says now, daring to tap my arm. ‘Once you get some insurance and pay the impounding fee. It’s only two hundred pounds.’

  ‘Just bear in mind,’ the policeman adds, ‘it’s twenty quid a day on top of the release fee, so you mightn’t wanna leave it too long. Got it?’

  ‘Loud and fucking clear,’ I say, then, ‘sorry.’

  The penultimate scene from a horror movie is more pleasant than watching the recovery truck arrive, the monstrosity taking over the whole street. A man shorter than Zara rubs his hands together with glee as he takes my place – MY PLACE – in the driver’s seat. He manoeuvres the BMW onto the truck, the hazard lights flashing a burnt orange, a burst of colour too intense for such a miserable afternoon.

  I know my lip is quivering. ‘Bye,’ I mumble.

  The truck slowly turns right past the Empire Theatre and as the mangled boot begins to disappear from sight, I fall to my knees in the empty spot where my car had once been. I squeeze my fists, my eyes, every muscle keeping my torso warm to save myself from screaming. Christ, even at my dad’s funeral I kept my shit together, giving my ma and my sisters the freedom to cry as much as they needed to. But, honest to God, I feel like crying now.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I mutter aloud, perhaps in preparation for what I’ll have to tell my ma. The distance to Florida is now so much further than a mere 4,200 miles away. So much fucking further.

  And, where the hell am I going to find two hundred quid? Or more! Not to mention the cost to get the bloody thing insured and fixed up? Winning this car has become a financial catastrophe on a scale that me and my humble life can’t handle. Bloody hell, I’m sobbing. I am. I’m sobbing! It feels weirdly good for a split second, a quick release. What had my ma said about winning?

  ‘… And all those lottery winners in the paper, they go on about how winning was the worst thing that ever happened to them.’

  How right she was, and how quickly I’d dismissed her.

  My jeans are soaked with rain, the pavement rough beneath my knees. Fucking hell, I’m in the gutter, quite literally. I can’t blame Jenny. The young girl’s only doing her job, which is more than I can say for that bloody taxi driver. I like people who work hard, live an honest life, like my dad did. So I can only blame one person for this, and she’s there, on the opposite side of the road, sheltering from the rain, sitting on one of her enormous suitcases and shivering like some abandoned orphan. She drove her banger into my gem of a car and then blamed me for being drunk. And, afraid of the consequences, not wanting to seem like the big beast next to the little beauty, I’ve let her get away with it.

  Well, not anymore. Zara’s going to pay. Yep. She’s going to pay the two hundred quid plus to get my car from the pound, pay for insurance, the lot. Every fucking penny.

  Of course, there’s going to have to be something in it for her. That’s how deals work, isn’t it? And I’m going to have to somehow stop her from hitchhiking a ride to London, hopping on a coach, finding a way to Crewe to get a train, or simply saying no. So, I’m left with one option. The hen party are still contemplating when to ‘run for it’. I can hear a few of them saying, ‘Not yet’, one being the bride, so she trumps the lot. I approach them.

  ‘Ladies,’ I say, smiling. Dying inside.

  They whoop. One of them starts singing ‘It’s Raining Men’.

  ‘Can I borrow someone’s phone?’ I ask. ‘Please.’

  One woman takes her pink sash off and hooks it around my neck, yanking me towards her. Her eyebrows are severe, her lips plumped up, huge. She smells of gin in a can.

  ‘Alright. If … you take your top off,’ she howls, to which the others all, of course, howl
back.

  I’m too tired to protest. And wise enough to know I don’t have a choice.

  ‘Hold out the phone,’ I say. ‘So I know you’re not having me on.’

  The sashless woman takes her phone from her little gold handbag, holding it up high.

  ‘Go ’ed lad,’ she says. ‘Off, OFF, OFF …’ And so the chanting goes.

  I unzip my fleece, a little slowly, (maybe) giving the girls a thrill. They squeal. Maybe I could become a stripper. I lasso my fleece over my head, gasping with cold, and throw it at the bride who catches it with a giddy amount of enthusiasm. Then, I lift the edge of my local brewery t-shirt, give a stupid wiggle, and with more self-loathing than I imagined was ever possible, I strip it off. The phone is tossed to me amidst wolf whistles.

  Thank God I catch it, clean, and I open the browser, type Griffin Enterprises and find the only number ever used to get hold of Griffo’s dad. Nobody – not that I know anyway – has Griffo’s dad’s mobile number. Not even Griffo. Apparently. Griffo’s dad’s secretary answers. She puts me through to Griffo’s dad, who sounds as though he’s on a building site somewhere.

  ‘James?’

  ‘I can’t begin to apologise for not showing up today.’

  ‘You in trouble?’

  ‘Not trouble. Not exactly.’

  ‘Well, are you or aren’t you?’

  ‘No. I’m not in trouble. But I need a favour.’

  ‘Fifty grand for a car not a big enough favour, our James?’

  ‘The car … it’s gone.’

  ‘What? Stolen?’

  I hate lying to Griffo’s dad. When we were teenagers we lied to him about taking his best whiskey from the cabinet. Later, he topped up the bottle with soy sauce without us knowing. The next time we went for a sneaky sip, all four of us puked.

  ‘Yeah, it got stolen.’

  ‘So how can I help?’

  ‘I just need to borrow a car. For a day. You’ll get it back tomorrow.’

  Griffo’s dad pauses. In the background I hear clanging, metal on metal.

  ‘Fine,’ he says. ‘Get to my house. There’ll be a vehicle for you there.’

  ‘Oh, God. Thanks …’ I hesitate, never knowing what to call him. ‘Will it be insured?’

  ‘Do you think I’m a fucking idiot, James?’