To Keep You Safe

by Kate Bradley

  Instead, I said nothing and watched the black dot on the map.

  Friday

  19:47

  Jenni

  Destiny was beside me, bent over and shaking. She was making a grating sound, a bit like she was clearing her throat; I might’ve thought she was crying but I wasn’t sure. It was strange and I wasn’t sure what I should do. At some point I was sure I heard her calling for her mum, but it couldn’t be, because she had told me that she didn’t miss her mum. And if she did, did she mean Kay or Simone? I was puzzled. When it had gone on a bit, I decided to pull over.

  Her hair was loose and she was rocking, making noise still. I stared at her, unsure. Finally, I decided that I’d do what I’d seen people do in films or TV dramas – there was nothing from my life that I could draw on – and I touched her shoulder, lightly, professionally, and said, ‘Destiny, I will never, ever let anyone hurt you.’ I’d hoped my words would soothe her, even calm or bolster her, but it didn’t and in the end, I decided that the best thing to do was to get as far away from that man as possible. Perhaps she simply needed to feel the distance between him and her.

  The sat-nav said we were only a little over thirty minutes from our destination. I couldn’t make up my mind whether to pull off the motorway and find some quieter back roads or stay where I was. This was the most direct route and it had the added advantage of lots of people and CCTV around in case he found us. Not that I wanted to be found, but I recognised that there might now be a point where being caught by the police would no longer be a concern – perhaps it would even be desirable. But the back roads might increase our safety – surely he’d be looking for us right now.

  Destiny’s crying was making it hard to think. I thought of the woman in the service station toilets – how did people with babies cope?

  I wanted someone to tell me what to do. My entire career – except for the last two years – had been about being told what to do. In fact, success often depended on not thinking for oneself. Even teaching was highly structured. But this? I cut a glance at her. She was now rocking and crying and saying she wanted to get out. I imagined her running and running and ending up a homeless teenager; my imagination took me to ugly scenarios.

  It wasn’t supposed to be like this. This had all gone badly wrong. I considered calling the police. Maybe I had stuffed up. Yes, they were going to take her but perhaps the police should get involved. Perhaps, I should’ve trusted them; perhaps if I hadn’t got involved, she would’ve been safer. I had imagined that this would be a simple drop-off. But then she had lied to me to get me to start this journey and starting this on a lie, had perhaps meant this was never going to work. I looked at her rocking and crying, begging to leave and run, to take her chances on foot, and didn’t blame her for any of it. Not for asking me in the first place; not for lying to me about where she wanted to go; not for wanting to change her plan again and now run. It wasn’t her fault that this man was after her, prepared to snatch her in broad daylight.

  But not blaming her didn’t mean I knew what to do now. Some people would, but that wasn’t me.

  I shouldn’t have allowed myself to get involved with other people. I should’ve learnt my lesson. I let people down when it mattered. I didn’t save them. I thought of Billy. Of the distance between us. Of his outstretched hand, reaching, reaching . . .

  I thought of that same hand earlier twisting on my sleeve.

  *

  ‘You just check in, like this is a normal airport?’ Billy asks me, holding his bags, flush rising again under his freckled cheeks.

  Sure, I tell him. But this isn’t a normal airport; this is Air Force Brize Norton.

  But I know what he means: everyone sits around waiting to be called, and yes, we do have to check our bags, and then we’ll leave, but at this airport there are only troops in fatigues. There’s a couple more in front of us at the airport, then it will be us.

  The queue shortens, then is gone. We step forward to the check-in desk. It seems to trigger Billy’s nerves again and beyond the usual nail-biting and feet tapping, there’s a nervous twitch he does with his mouth. He pulls it sometimes when he’s under pressure and he’s doing it again. He pulls his mouth down at the side, in a stroke-type grimace. It doesn’t look good – it makes him look like he can’t cope.

  I’ve seen it before: lads who find it difficult to cope become weaker instead of stronger. Then the others pick up on it, smell the weakness, then they fear the weak. In another job, weaknesses in a team is not a problem. In the army it can kill you or those around you. Is it better that those who can’t hack it, go?

  Maybe.

  ‘Stop pulling that face,’ I tell him in a whisper. ‘It’s not going to help.’ I was half-expecting him to ask what face? But he doesn’t, so he knows he does it.

  The woman behind the counter checks us in; her name badge says Corporal Louise Kingshott. She asks us each if we have packed our bags. Billy needs another prompt.

  She raises an eyebrow. ‘Please confirm that you have packed your bags.’

  ‘Yes. Yes I have.’ Face pull.

  For the briefest of moments, Kingshott catches my eye. But she continues to type information into her computer. She asks Billy the usual questions about his bags, but when she asks if he has his body armour and helmet, he pauses again. ‘Yes, Billy?’ I prompt him. ‘Yes,’ he tells her. We are dismissed and the queue moves on.

  We have to wait in departures. This is the thirteenth time I’ve been through Brize Norton. I’ve only flown out of Gatwick once. I’d never been on holiday with my dad and I guess he didn’t fancy going to France or anywhere else he called fancy-pants, but then he didn’t even take me to Butlin’s. Not feeling like I’d missed out on anything, but wondering if I should do, I booked myself a trip to the Med when I was twenty-two. I never went again.

  Now I’m going to Iraq. I look out of the window and see our plane on the runway. Freedom.

  I glance over at Billy. He too is watching the plane.

  Eventually we are called. We file out. We walk across the runway and then take the steps up to the plane. This is my favourite bit, when it’s all still ahead of us.

  Our feet are heavy on the metal. The tang of metal against boot reminds me: we are the best in the world.

  We take our seats. I like who I become when I’m on tour: ordered, controlled, part of a unit. I miss it when I’m not with the lads; now I can’t wait to be back with my section. They are the only people I need.

  Everyone else is sitting in groups. Some chatting, some reading, some sitting. Phones are gone.

  We sit in silence for a while, which works for me. That’s the thing about growing up as an only child with a single taciturn parent: you get used to your own company. It’s a good thing. You become more self-reliant and you’re less needy of other people’s approval. Billy’s one of five. He’s told me this like the details he’s always sharing with me. He’s the second oldest and he had to take care of his younger siblings. He’s desperate to get married and have kids as soon as he can — he didn’t tell me this bit, I’ve worked it out for myself. But it’s understandable if you live in a noisy house, perhaps you can’t wait to get out. When I was a kid, there were times when I sat in the silence of my house and knew even then that it was the only way I wanted to live. I’ve never met that someone special and I wonder if part of it is because the idea of living with someone else’s noise and mess is the reason. Possibly. Although I’ve had no offers so it’s difficult to say.

  ‘Maddie begged me not to go.’

  Billy has been sitting with his head in his hands, not saying anything. I’ve been happy with that because I like to look out of the huge windows at the airfield. I like to watch them fuel the planes; I find it relaxing to watch the ordered activity. But now he’s looking at me and I can tell by his fixed look that he’s panicked.

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Last week. She told me that she’d had a dream that I was going to die.’ A beat, then,
‘Do you think I’m going to die? Yes but,’ he adds, as if I’ve argued with him when really I haven’t had a chance to say a word, ‘the casualty rate is high, really high, isn’t it? I mean, it’s not good, is it?’

  I’m not going to answer that. Instead, I steer him back to more positive thoughts. ‘Tell me about Maddie’s family.’

  His eyes flash with happiness. He’s easy to distract. ‘She’s got two sisters and they’ve both got babies. I’m already Uncle Billy. You should see my nieces – both girls. Maddie says we are going to break the run of girls in her family – she says she’s counting on me for boys!’

  ‘So, remind me again, when’s the big day?’

  He mouth pulls with nerves again and I know I’ve said the wrong thing. ‘She said last week she can’t marry a dead man.’ He stares at the stretcher beds on one side of the airplane. ‘She says it’s her or the army.’

  ‘You’ll get home to her for the wedding – I promise.’ I say as we click our seat belts into place.

  Billy falls silent. He’s still looking at the stretchers.

  He stays quiet all the way to Iraq. The journey is uneventful but when the plane goes into blackout so we can land without being mortared, Billy’s hand twists against my sleeve like he’s a nervous child too afraid to voice his fears.

  *

  I blinked, surprised to be in the car. How much time had I lost? My stomach felt cold that I have been driving and yet so absent.

  I don’t know why, then, I reached out to Destiny. I think I thought I should try and be like most people. Or perhaps I needed to feel someone real, someone still alive. I tried to touch Destiny and she actually screamed.

  I gave up. She went back to rocking and her strange grating sound saying: they nearly got me, they nearly got me, they nearly got me.

  What had they done to her?

  And then, I thought, checking the sat-nav and seeing we would be at our destination in twenty minutes, would she even be safe with her aunt?

  But of course, it was too late to try and save her any other way.

  Friday

  20:20

  Jenni

  ‘You have reached your destination.’

  I stopped the car. We had arrived in a long, wide street, lined with scruffy terraced houses. Cars were jammed nose to bumper on both sides of the road. Number 16 had a dirty green door and nets the colour of cigarette smoke covered the window. An old fridge had been dumped on the pavement.

  I turned off the engine and looked at Destiny.

  She had calmed down a little while ago, becoming silent. Since we’d driven into the neighbourhood Destiny had sat up, looking around. She’d pulled her bag on her lap and put her coat back on.

  ‘I’m going to come in with you.’

  ‘No.’ She darted a look at me and I saw tears had tracked mascara trails down her cheeks.

  ‘Destiny, I can’t just leave you on a street corner, miles from your home.’

  ‘That place was not my home.’

  ‘OK, OK.’ I unclicked my seat belt. ‘I’m still coming with you. Let’s go and meet your aunt.’

  Destiny paused. ‘You don’t have to, Miss. You’ve done enough. Thank you for being kind.’

  She blinked at me under her fine eyelashes and I realised that I’d been important to her in my own small way. She’d asked me for help and I’d given it to her. Perhaps that wasn’t something that had happened enough for her in her life. I felt better. That gave me confidence: ‘You’re still a minor, Destiny, it wouldn’t be right to leave you on a doorstep.’

  I waited on the pavement for Destiny to get out. She looked pale; this was a big moment for her. Was it because she was simply exhausted or was it more than that? I hoped she hadn’t overstated her aunt’s enthusiasm for taking in a teenager. Perhaps as someone who’d been bounced around the care system, she understandably feared last-minute rejection. And if she was rejected? I’d have to call the local social services. I could hardly play mum myself.

  She seemed reluctant to climb out of my car. I wondered if she was sorry to be leaving me; after all, she’d trusted me enough to tell me about her problems and had come to me instead of anyone else for help. I’d saved her twice from that man, a man she was so scared of that she’d been reduced to a shaking, hysterical mess.

  As she slammed the car door, her shoulders were slumped and her hair hung over her face. If it went well, we’d never see each other again. I felt an unfamiliar sensation tug inside my chest – I wasn’t sure what it was. I spoke quickly to cover up my confusion. ‘Hey, Destiny, I’ll give you my number and email – you’ll let me know how you’re going, won’t you?’

  She nodded slowly and came and stood next to me on the doorstep. We stood in front of the door, dirty with exhaust and cobwebs. The road was silent now; perhaps it was a cut-through during rush hour or perhaps it had never been cleaned in twenty years.

  We looked at each other. ‘This one, definitely?’

  Destiny nodded.

  ‘Want to knock?’

  She shook her head. ‘You do it, Miss.’

  ‘Jenni,’ I reminded her, then I knocked on the door.

  Friday

  20:23

  Jenni

  We stood on the pavement waiting for Destiny’s aunt to come to the front door.

  Nobody came.

  I knocked again. ‘Did you say her name was Kath?’

  Destiny nodded.

  We stood, neither of us saying anything until I knocked a third time. ‘She’s out, I think. Does she work?’

  ‘I think so, in Tesco.’

  I checked my watch; it might not be closed until late – maybe really late.

  ‘Do you have her work number?’

  Destiny shook her head.

  Hull was a big place; it would have a lot of Tescos. ‘Do you know where it is?’

  She shrugged. ‘No.’

  Some people would judge me for not already considering the possibility of a missing aunt and thinking this through. But this was me: a doer not a planner.

  As I tried to peer into the front room, failing to see anything because of the dirty glass and the nicotine nets, I regretted my lack of foresight. It was impossible to see into the front room, but I stayed peering under my cupped hand for longer than I should, hoping for any movement, because if there was, it would save me from floundering as to what I was going to do with Destiny. Because now I was stuck in a city I didn’t know, with a child who was clearly vulnerable, one I shouldn’t be with, with every possibility that at least one nasty thug, if not a gang of them, were after us. The options felt slight.

  ‘Don’t feel you have to stay, Miss. I used to live round here. There’s loads of people I can bunk with until she comes back.’ She paused. ‘We’ve not really talked about it, but it’d be better for you if you weren’t seen with me. So maybe . . .’

  I sighed. ‘Don’t you understand that I couldn’t possibly leave you? I’d never forgive myself.’

  ‘Come on, Miss, you worry too much. Let me go and find some old mates.’ She gave me a weak smile. ‘I’m not a baby – next month I can legally live where I want.’

  I smiled back. ‘I’m not leaving you, Destiny. Now, come on, you must have a number for your aunt.’

  Wordlessly, Destiny found her mobile. She turned away from me to make the call. After a moment, she dialled again. Again she turned away from me, and when she spoke into the answer machine, I could hear the held-back tears strain her voice. ‘Hi, auntie Kath it’s me, Destiny. Please call me back as soon as you get this. It’s important – really important. Please. Thank you.’

  When she turned back, I could see the threatened tears were now in her eyes. She looked at me, blinking. ‘What are we going to do now, Miss?’

  Friday

  20:27

  Jenni

  After another peer through the dirty, netted window, I suggested booking two rooms in a Travelodge. I’m sure I sounded confident. Being in the army had taught me to be
confident in action and being a teacher had taught me to be confident in voice. That confidence could and should be faked when necessary. Now was necessary.

  As soon as I made my suggestion, I realised how someone like Destiny might hear it. She looked at me with big eyes. I felt a brush of apprehension: was she thinking I was a paedophile looking for the opportunity to prey upon her? Was she scared of being alone in a hotel with me because I was her teacher and neither of us thought it would come to this?

  I checked my watch and knew that at this moment, in an alternative life where I never agreed to help Destiny, I should be jogging down either John Street or, if I was making good time, have made it even as far as Edgeware Avenue. I shut my eyes against the overwhelming desire to be alone, to feel my feet pounding against the pavement, my Fitbit measuring my performance, listening to nothing but the sound of my ordered breathing.

  But instead I was here. Stuck in a situation that constantly threatened to lurch further out of control. For me, in a world that was only about routine, discipline and control, it felt ungovernable.

  But I made sure I sounded confident, for her sake.

  I told her that I would book two bedrooms, and that ‘we will get up early to have breakfast and we will try to find your aunt’s Tesco, but I bet your aunt will have rung you back before then’. I had tried contacting the main Tesco, but had only got an answer-machine. I’d nearly left a message, but hesitated about whether I wanted to be so traceably involved. Of course I already was, and if the police went looking to make a case against me, there was plenty for them to find. I’d also found the numbers for two small convenience Tescos, but neither had heard of Kath.

  I glanced at Destiny, whose face was, yet again, turned away from me, an island herself again. We watched more streets slide by on our way towards yet another destination.