by Kate Bradley
I didn’t feel angry, just duped. When you’re a teacher, you get used to the duping – kids trying not to hand in their homework, trying to do as little as they can in class. It’s a game: they try and get their way and we try to get ours.
It’s like that on a tour too. Although it can change and change fast when your friend is injured or killed, it doesn’t feel personal. It’s more like a game of us trying to get our way, while the insurgents try to get theirs. A battle of wills. Just business; not personal.
I thought again about the gang. Perhaps it was fair that she did what she could to get away from them – even if it meant tricking me. After all, it was her life on the line. Who wouldn’t twist the truth in that situation?
It will be all right, driving to Hull, I decided. I told Destiny that I wasn’t angry. She didn’t say anything, but I added that while I didn’t mind driving to Hull, because I didn’t have to work the following day, no one should try to trick other people into helping them. She didn’t say anything, but she was still and I figured that at least she wasn’t crying. She was just a kid after all and a hurting one at that.
I listened to the road for a bit, and found the sound of the engine soothing. I usually relax when driving and although my gaze flicked to the rear-view mirror more often than it normally would, I realised I was enjoying the drive, enjoying the mission of taking on danger to make the world a little safer for those who need my help.
Destiny’s face was still hidden so I wasn’t sure about how she was feeling. I’d never cared when they told me in hospital that I had alexithymia; I only cared about Billy being gone and everything else was just noise. The doctors’ voices and the nurses’ smiles were aimed at being reassuring – but I didn’t notice. They told me that one in ten have it, this inability to read other people’s emotions and to understand my own, but why did I care when it had never harmed me? There had only been my dad and me and he never needed a fancy name to help me, and then there had been the army and it never seemed to matter. I took people on their word: if they told me they were tired, I believed them. If they told me they were pissed off, I believed them. There was no need to second guess.
But now, looking at Destiny’s face, I realised what a disadvantage it was not to be able to tell what someone else was thinking. I knew I was doing the right thing in supporting her getting to safety, but I felt the weight of the responsibility of having her in my care. Despite having a classroom full of kids every day, I’d never, ever, had sole responsibility for a child before. I wanted to be sure she was still certain of her choice to run away, but she said so little, I couldn’t be sure.
And the truth of it was, I hadn’t been terribly good at understanding teenagers. I thought teaching would be a good second career choice for me: I am good at maths and good at telling people what to do. I am resilient and hard-working. But I’d learnt that there’s more to teaching than that, and it was becoming clear just how little I understood the skills that my new job required of me.
Given how badly my last review had gone, I wasn’t even entirely sure that I would have a job next year. I thought of George shutting his office door.
I glanced again at Destiny. ‘Destiny . . . can I ask you something?’
She turned her face a little, and I returned my eyes to the road.
‘Am I . . . a good teacher?’
She didn’t say anything.
‘Honestly, tell me, because I need to know.’
‘Are you sure you’re not asking me to blow smoke up your arse?’
I gripped the wheel. It wasn’t right for Destiny to talk like that – it didn’t suit her. But I wanted the truth: it suddenly seemed to matter. ‘I want to know what you think.’
‘OK, but remember, you asked. You know your subject, but . . .’
‘But?’
‘But the best teachers are the ones who care about their kids.’
I blinked. ‘You think I don’t care?’ I felt like yelling: what is this then?
But she didn’t answer, instead she turned herself further away from me. And I was left thinking questions that I didn’t have an answer to.
Friday
15:59
Jenni
We had returned to silence. Destiny possibly sleeping – or pretending to – and me putting all my mental energy in making sure that the distance between us and the van grew bigger every minute.
It was only when I saw a police car pull into my lane that I realised it wasn’t just the van I had to watch out for. Startled, I pulled into the inside lane and held my breath as I saw the police car copy my move.
It occurred to me for the first time that if the police caught me with Destiny in my car, I could be breaking a law.
Friday
16:13
Jenni
‘Destiny,’ I said in a low voice, ‘you’re safe, but we need to take action.’
I couldn’t see her reaction because I didn’t dare take my eyes away from anywhere but the road and my rear-view mirror. The police car was still there, with only one car between us.
‘It is possibly nothing, but I realised I’ve failed to do a proper recce with you.’ I took a deep breath, checked my speed – a steady and unremarkable sixty-five miles per hour – and told her about the police car.
When I swallowed, I realised my mouth was dry. Come on, Jenni, I told myself, you’ve handled worse than this. But this was different. In the army I was used to being on the right side of the argument. I was used to being in a section. I was used to giving orders to my section, following the orders of my sergeant. Look how it ended for me – how it ended for Billy – when there were no orders for me to follow. I felt an ache develop in my temples; I didn’t want to think about the past again. Looking after Destiny had given me a few hours’ precious peace. Destiny needed me now.
The police car was still behind us. On the long motorway, it could stay like that for a while. I was talking to myself when I said, ‘We can’t risk getting caught.’
Destiny squidged further down into the seat. ‘Are the police going to catch us?’
‘Don’t worry. If you stay low, they won’t see you.’ You’re too small.
Just then, we heard the sirens. I swear the sound stopped my heart for a beat. I glanced in my rear-view mirror and could see blue flashing lights.
Friday
16:15
Jenni
The police car pulled out into the outside lane.
I was aware as it moved from being behind me at six o’clock, then to five o’clock, four o’clock and then right next to me. I wanted to keep looking dead ahead but, like unruly children, my eyes ignored my determined direction and looked at the car.
As I did, the uniformed policeman in the passenger side turned and stared straight at me. For the briefest of seconds, our gazes locked.
I held my breath. Someone had seen us. Someone at the school or a neighbour had called it in and the police were looking for us. I remembered the roof dragging under the gates and wondered how I could’ve been so stupid. The taxi drivers had seemed so concerned and then so angry and, of course, it would’ve all been caught on CCTV.
The blue lights flashed and I looked at Destiny, her face cast in blue showing an expression I couldn’t read.
Friday
16:17
Jenni
The police car slid past.
I got ready to apply the brakes as I knew they would apply theirs, forcing me to slow down.
But they sped up. For a moment I was confused.
Then they were gone.
They weren’t after us.
We were in the clear.
For a long moment, neither of us said anything.
I tried to be reassuring. ‘It’s fine, Destiny, they’ve gone.’
She didn’t say anything, but from the corner of my eyes, I could see her shoulders were shaking. ‘Are you laughing? Did you—’
A strangled, sudden sound from Destiny cut me off. I wanted to be able to see her, but I co
uldn’t take my eyes off the road. ‘Are you . . . all right?’
‘I thought they were going to arrest us, Miss.’
I’ve never been given to great affection – perhaps that’s why I’ve been single for so long. My mother died when I was three
– she’s left a crease –
and I was an only child growing up with a kind but physically distant father. Now it felt awkward to do anything to reassure her. I thought about pulling over, but there was nowhere other than the hard shoulder. I reached out and patted her arm, hoping that was appropriate. Without the framework of school, nothing felt very sure. I couldn’t offer anything else – I didn’t have anything else.
I stuck with what was comfortable – to evaluate the practical. ‘Destiny, what time do you normally go home? Is it straight after school?’
‘I don’t have a home.’
I heard something in her voice I hadn’t heard before, an adult quality, hard. Destiny, I realised, was no child. But then this should not be a surprise. What was clear was that I barely knew her. Doing the register and a quick hello at the start of the day was the extent of our relationship.
‘Where do you live?’
‘I have to go straight back to the children’s home as soon as I finish school.’
‘You have to? You have no choice?’
‘No choice.’
‘What time is that? Be precise.’
‘It doesn’t matter because I was supposed to be at the dentist today.’
‘Were you?’
‘I was supposed to meet one of the care team at the dentist’s in town at ten to three. It was the only appointment they could get.’
I thought this through. She hadn’t turned up so it was a question of how long they’d wait. I decided they would have to wait about fifteen minutes to be sure there was a problem, but by then school would be finished anyway. Even if they rang the school office to see if she left, because the school would’ve been closed by then, the concern would lie with the children’s home. At this point, perhaps people would think she’d simply bunked off the dentist’s.
Unless a neighbour had seen Destiny being bundled into my car and had felt concerned enough to call the police, it was likely that her absence from the dentist’s was the point where Destiny would be missed.
I considered how bad it might’ve looked when Destiny got in my car. I remembered my crazy backwards driving, and how Destiny had simply stood frozen to the spot so I had had to steer her into the car. I glanced at my reflection in the rear-view – I looked like a mum. The white van, in comparison to my car, wouldn’t look like the place Destiny should be. So even if someone had seen and was concerned by my initial driving, the fact I’m a forty-year-old woman driving a compact city car who then sedately drove away, wouldn’t cause too much concern. Probably no one had been worried about Destiny until now.
Once it was clear that Destiny was missing from the school and her children’s home, I wondered what would happen next.
‘Destiny, what happens when someone from your home goes missing?’
Her voice was small but sharp. ‘I told you: it’s not my home.’
I ignored her. The next logical step was that both social services and the police would be alerted as soon as they realised that a vulnerable minor was missing. Then what next? I guessed an alert to all patrol cars would be made to look out for her. They would be given a description. I glanced at Destiny, still in her school uniform.
They were probably not thinking about me but would be looking for Destiny. Maybe that was a good thing. After all, what was I fighting here? The police weren’t the bad guys, perhaps they would even take her to her aunt’s. Surely no one would think going back to the care home when she was being so vigorously pursued would be the right thing for her? Clearly her situation needed revaluating. ‘Destiny – just a thought. Why don’t we get the police to take you to your aunt’s. I’m sure if you—’
‘No!’
‘Why not? Think about it – it’s different now. I can give a statement about the van chasing us and I’m sure they can corroborate it with CCTV evidence. It’ll be quite clear to them that they’ll need to take proper—’
‘I don’t want you to do that!’
Her breathing was harsh and I was worried she was crying again. I gave her a minute to calm down. ‘I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to. Just hear me out.’ I paused and she didn’t say anything to interrupt me, so I pushed on. ‘I think that—’
‘Miss!’ Destiny said. ‘You don’t understand! They’ll make everything worse. Please take me to Hull. Please.’
I breathed out. The truth was, as much as I believed in what I was doing, the police would complicate it. Perhaps it would be simpler for me to take Destiny myself. Although I hadn’t done anything wrong – in fact it could only be right to keep a vulnerable child safe – I realised my employment contract might say differently and perhaps I could kiss my teaching career goodbye. I’d have risked it if it was what Destiny wanted, but since it wasn’t, it seemed easier for us to go on. After all, we’d be there in a couple of hours – it could take longer than that to give a statement.
Although it seemed better to keep things simple, I realised that if I definitely wasn’t handing her over to the police, then I couldn’t be spotted with her either. If I was keeping it simple, then simple it needed to stay.
They would be making assumptions that she’d be on foot, either locally around the town or on public transport. That would keep us safe on the roads for now.
Then I realised I had a potential problem: I’d forgotten my earlier police report. Perhaps when it was reported to the police that she was missing, my earlier report would be flagged. They had suggested that they wanted to speak with me again – but I would be missing too. I gripped the wheel.
Did I have time to drop her off and get back before anyone noticed I had gone? Realistically, it was a round trip of eight hours or so – so very probably I wouldn’t be back home until early in the morning. If anyone tried me before tomorrow, I’d say I’d been in bed unwell. The question was, would the police wait until tomorrow before wanting to speak with me? This I couldn’t know. Maybe there would be a million variables for this, even coming down to how busy they were. But some of those variables might have to do with Destiny. ‘Have you gone missing before?’
Pause. Then, ‘Yes.’
‘OK.’ This could change it. If she’d run away before they might assume that’s what this was. No, this is what this was, I corrected myself. I haven’t taken Destiny: this was what she asked me to do. She asked me to help her. She told me she was leaving anyway – I was making it safer. I was only a proxy.
I cut a glance at her. She was looking out of the window: I couldn’t see her face.
I lifted my chin. I wasn’t sure about happy – I couldn’t feel it and know that was ‘happy’, but this felt like something. My stomach felt warm and I knew Destiny was depending on me. Just because I couldn’t work people out didn’t mean I couldn’t work the right thing out for people – perhaps doing this was proving that I was changing. Perhaps I was getting better. I nodded: this felt logical.
A thought occurred and some sort of feeling with it. As usual, I wasn’t sure what it meant, but I drove, thinking about it. I decided it might be a good one, because I was being helpful to Destiny. The thought was that perhaps I wasn’t just rescuing Destiny; perhaps I was also rescuing myself.
Perhaps I could imagine a future where I wasn’t stuck watching other people from the outside – perhaps, one day soon, I too could be on the inside.
Friday
16:32
Jenni
I did not want to think any more about what might be in the future. I can’t make the ideas come like some people, and trying makes me feel more empty. It was only what was happening now that mattered. Instead, I decided to take action; I was good at taking action.
Thinking about the alert that would very likely be making its wa
y to the police now, I started looking for road services.
There I would be able to change Destiny’s appearance. I looked at her; she’d held herself like a foetus, knees up, head down. It was her uniform that would need to change and her hair. I had already noted where the next services were when I realised Destiny would be looked for there. The police might assume that the van had taken her, in which case they would be searching the roads, as well as public transport. We were only minutes from Tunbridge Wells. We would stop there. ‘Destiny, we are going to pull off at the nearest town.’
‘Why?’
‘How would you feel about changing your appearance? Like your uniform?’
She looked down, her hands smoothing down her skirt. ‘You think that the police are looking for me, don’t you?’
‘We need to buy you a complete change of clothes. Maybe . . . and only if you’re comfortable, we could buy some hair dye and—’
Destiny made a strange sound.
I couldn’t quite see her face. ‘Is that a good thing?’
She shook her head vigorously.
‘Hey, don’t worry, it was only an idea. I thought you might like the change. Forget that, but we’ll get you some jeans and a hat so we’re a bit safer when we’re out and about.’
‘I could wear a baseball cap.’
‘Great.’ I adjusted the sat-nav. ‘What’s your favourite clothes shop?’
She told me and I asked her to check to see that the town had one. Like every teenager, she spent a lot of time flicking around on her phone. It was good for her to be distracted – I needed to think. Practical matters dealt with, I wondered if I should get to know her. The idea that I didn’t care kept niggling at me, like a fly trapped in a car. I did care and I wanted her to know it.
My dad always told me that most people are born with a radar in them but mine is broken. Some people might not like that said about them, but the thing about having a broken radar meant that I didn’t mind. It made me neither happy nor sad. I don’t really know what those things are, not like other people know. I rubbed my short thumbnail back and forth against the flesh of my finger: maybe she could tell my radar was broken. Maybe everyone could.