by Kate Bradley
Friday
20:45
Jenni
My heart sank when I saw how full the car park was at the Travelodge. It didn’t bode well, but I didn’t say that to Destiny. As difficult as two hotel bedrooms might have felt, the prospect of driving around looking for somewhere else to stay – or even worse, sleeping in the car – plunged this difficult situation into darker depths.
Once we found a space and parked, I realised the lack of suitcases might look suspicious. I grabbed the carrier bags containing Destiny’s uniform and spare new clothes. ‘You’re my daughter, remember,’ I said, feeling strange when she smiled back at me.
The Travelodge was a long red-brick building with a low hanging roof. Inside, I waited in line behind an elderly couple checking in, while Destiny sat on a chair in the far corner of reception. The couple asked endless questions and the receptionist, a woman in her late twenties with an oversized but very neat bun balanced improbably on top of her head, answered each one with a big smile.
Becoming increasing irritated, I toyed with the idea of coughing or tapping my watch, but abandoned it, knowing that it was better that I remained as unmemorable as possible.
Eventually, the couple left and I stepped up to the reception. ‘Good evening,’ said the receptionist. ‘Are you checking in?’
‘I haven’t got a room booked, but I’m hoping you have two free.’
Her frown creased her smooth skin and I felt my anxiety deepen. ‘Oh, I’ll double check but I don’t think we have, I’m sorry.’ The pause as she checked her computer felt long and anxious. ‘Oh, wait, what do you know? We’ve had a cancellation, so we do have one room available for tonight, a double, but with single beds. Would you like that?’
I glanced over at Destiny, sitting hunched over her phone yet again. I might’ve taken it personally if I wasn’t so used to teenagers.
‘You’ve got nothing else? One room isn’t enough.’
‘I’m sorry.’ She glanced over at Destiny. ‘Perhaps your daughter will understand?’
I gave her my card to distract her. The less she saw of Destiny, the better. ‘My daughter,’ I said trying the words again in my mouth, ‘won’t mind.’
The receptionist smiled, clicking on her computer. The fact I’ve been forced to use my bank card, feels like stepping over a line that I’ve been so careful to keep. But what choice do I have? She then handed me a form to complete and I filled it out, continuing the lie.
*
Destiny and I walked down the long corridor together. I still hadn’t told her that I’d failed to get her a room of her own. I thought of newspaper headlines, screaming innuendo that wasn’t true.
In one hand I held our pitiful carrier bags, in the other, the key cards. I’d had to ask for two, at first the receptionist tried to decline my request, saying they preferred minors not to have them as they should be with a parent at all times in the hotel. But I leant across the desk, and said: ‘Please. She’ll be sixteen in two weeks.’ We both looked at her, slumped in the chair, headphones in. We could see that she didn’t want to be there, ‘She needs a bit of . . . space, sometimes. But she’s very responsible.’
The receptionist had given me a sympathetic smile and a second card.
I found room 29. I swiped a card through the receiver and a small green light appeared. I stepped in, not even daring to glance at Destiny.
Inside, wardrobes were to the right and on the left, was the bathroom. The space then opened up into what was a large room, with two neat single beds, a TV and two reading chairs.
Destiny squealed and rushed passed me and jumped onto the bed. ‘This is great! I’ve never stayed in a hotel before.’ She stretched out, knocking scatter cushions to the floor. ‘It’s lovely! So posh! Is this my room or your room?’
I turned to face her, feeling like a fraud. ‘I’m sleeping in the car,’ I said without thinking about it, instantly pleased with the resolution. ‘They only had this room, but you’ll be safe in here and I’ll be comfortable in the car.’
She had re-plaited her hair into a long single braid that fell over one shoulder and now she twirled the end round her finger, her eyes narrowed, ‘Really?’ She watched me for a moment. ‘You’d do that?’
‘Of course. It wouldn’t be . . . appropriate if I stayed in here with you. We’d both feel a bit uncomfortable. But you can stay in here and I’ll nip out in a bit, and no one will know. All I ask is, if a staff member realises you’re on your own, tell them we had a big row and that I am sleeping in the car. It would make it seem believable.’
‘I could say that you’d gone crazy.’
Something about the way she looked at me with those big blue eyes and the silly tone of her voice, confused me. I had risked my job, my reputation and now I had suggested sleeping in my car while she had the hotel room that I’d paid for – without thanks.
Then the strange look was gone. Even if I hadn’t imagined it, Destiny was still a child and one who had lived in challenging circumstances her whole life. If she wasn’t straightforward or well mannered, well, it should surprise no one.
‘I’m going to clean my teeth.’ I remembered that I had no toothbrush but I went to the bathroom anyway, taking care to lock the door. I sat on the loo before I washed my hands and my face. I never wore make-up so there was none to remove, but the cold water made me feel better, so I scrubbed at my face with a round cotton pad that was in the basket of toiletries beside the sink. I stared at myself in the mirror. I had dark shadows under my eyes – I looked tired. I was tired.
The last few years had been terrible. Leaving the army, then nothing for a long, long time, then a year of teacher training, then the first year into my job. You had to do it to understand how hard it was. Trying to get into teaching, because I needed the routine, the stability and because I liked the idea of working with kids more than adults. Then trying hard to like it. And not just coping with the present, but trying to accept my past.
Trying to accept what I didn’t do.
As I stared at myself, I remembered Destiny’s words: remembering felt like pressing on a splinter.
Was I crazy? Many would say I was after my behaviour today.
But I wasn’t – and I knew I wasn’t.
I saw Billy’s eyes again, wide and beseeching: Help me. Save me, Jenni. I stood there, staring at the need I saw there, in the eyes of my friend. Eighteen, but sometimes seeming younger. Rubbish at poker but the best singer I’d ever met. Sweet Billy. So kind. He provoked something in me, something almost like a real feeling. It wasn’t romantic, I knew that, but something else, something important. I liked it as well – I liked what it was.
Protective. The word came to me. I felt the need to keep him safe. Me, who never felt anything really, but I had felt something for him.
*
There are two Land Rovers; four men in each, out on a simple detail.
One minute we’re moving across the desert, the next we hear the crack crack of a sniper. Billy’s vehicle is leading mine and it suddenly swerves. The land around us is near flat, but the Land Rover finds the only hillock, small really, but it hits it at such a speed and angle that it loses control, and rolls. I can see the driver, who is called Karl, but is nicknamed Frank for some reason long forgotten, lying clear of the vehicle, his neck angled like a baby bird’s dropped from a nest, and I know Frank is dead.
‘Get down! Get down! Ambush!’ I shout. The bullets whistle past him. Some find the side of the Land Rover, making dull metallic thuds. We stop moving. ‘Go! Go!’
No one answers.
Crack . . . thump. Crack . . . thump. There is not much time between the sounds; this means the sniper is close.
‘Riddle?’
Crack, crack . . . thump, thump.
‘Riddle!’ He is sitting in the driver’s seat next to me. I angle my head, careful to keep it low. Riddle is gone. It would’ve been instant.
‘Josh? Tom?’
No answer. I push
my body forward so I’m hanging in the footwell, but it means that I can look back over my shoulder. They’ve both gone the same way as Riddle.
I reach for the radio and radio command. The signal’s dodgy, but I request urgent back-up and I know they’ll be here in ten minutes.
Billy. I need to get to him. I can’t wait for back-up. I might not be able to save Riddle, Frank, Josh and Tom, but Billy and Dan and Alfie might still be alive.
I have to try.
The sniper is on my right, somewhere between my one and six o’clock, which works for me, as I’m on the left, up front next to poor old Riddle. I slowly open my door and drop down onto the dusty ground, the Land Rover giving me cover. I know this is a risk as they may see me in the gap under the vehicle, but I roll and land in the ditch to the side of the road.
I commando-crawl along the ditch, my breath short and sharp, like my movements.
In places there’s very little between me and the road, but I am focused and I take my chances. I guess I’m right because all this time the sniper isn’t shooting, so he can’t see me. He’s waiting for someone to break cover . . . and I don’t intend on doing that.
I make it to the rolled Land Rover. There’s a couple of metres of open ground between me and it. I’m able to raise my head a little above the rut I’m lying in, trying to get a sense of where the sniper might be holed up. There are scrub bushes on the other side of the road and behind them, there’s what looks like a building for animals. It’s about a hundred feet away and little more than a single-storey whitewashed mud shack, but it’s got an arrow slit window. That’s the mark.
Using the large wheels as cover, I enter the rolled vehicle at an angle, so the arrow slit window can’t see me.
I find Dan first. He’s moaning in pain but when he sees me, he calls out in a hushed voice. His face is blanched with agony. ‘My legs are broken,’ he whispers. ‘I can’t push myself out.’ I grab him and pull. At first he doesn’t give, but then he moves something around him and he almost – not quite because he’s so heavy – pops out like a cork.
With a final yank, he’s free and next to me in the ditch.
His legs aren’t just broken but he’s also got a flesh wound in the right thigh – it’s bad, deep and has been bleeding out, but I grab the first-aid kit from under the seat and tourniquet the wound.
Next, I reach for Alfie who has been watching me silently – mute either from shock because of the bullet wound in his forearm or from fear of giving our position away to the sniper. He allows me to cut him free as his seat-belt release can’t be reached. I guide him out and leave him to stem his bleeding. Our eyes lock for a moment: that’s all the communication we need.
Next I try to get Billy. Billy’s in the back, still belted in. Because the vehicle is on its left side and he’s back right, he’s suspended above me, the belt holding him in. He’s got his hand clamped over his neck. Blood is seeping through his fingers: his hand is tight shut, but the blood is still leaking out.
At first I think it’s an injury from the crash, but as I move up a little to get a better look, I see what I don’t want to: his blood is all down his neck and shoulder. A bullet has nipped his neck.
I give him a grin and a wink. I want the back-up now, but I don’t show him how bad I want it.
I quickly assess his situation. The animal hut is at five o’clock and Billy’s hanging in front of the Land Rover window, giving the sniper a direct line of sight to his position. And the sniper’s close. I can see from my crouched position that Billy’s exposed. If he moves, he’ll give away he’s alive and then he’s a sitting duck.
I rack my brains trying to figure it out. He’s staring down at me, wide blue eyes locked on me. He needs me to rescue him and the way he’s bleeding out, he’s not got much time. I promised him he was getting home for his wedding.
Promised.
I stretch out my crouch, trying to get closer. My knife is out: if only I can get near enough to cut him free, he might fall before the sniper can get him. It means exposing my position while I cut him down, but I don’t care, I’m already up and next to him, his face so close to mine I can feel his panting breath.
‘Billy – look at me.’ But he is, his eyes are nowhere but on me. ‘I’m going to get you out.’
‘Maddie said I would die.’
I start to cut. ‘You’ll make your wedding. And I want a place at the top table.’
‘She told me. She dreamt it.’
Crack . . .
And the thump is into me. I feel it in my shoulder. It punches me down, and I struggle to breathe for a moment. Then I look up at Billy. He’s staring at me with blue, blue eyes. ‘She dreamt it.’
I need to stand to cut him down, but if I do I’ll be shot again, for sure. I stare at the seat belt holding him. It’s got a crease in it, where I started to cut . . .
. . . the crease . . .
I can’t take it, I can’t breathe, he’s bleeding out, but all I can do is stare at that mark. I smell Lily of the Valley and I think of my mother and remember her – stay put, flower, don’t move – and feel like it’s already over, that I’ve already lost . . .
I’m pausing and I mustn’t pause, I must stand up and cut . . .
. . . the crease . . . stay put, flower . . .
. . . cut Billy free.
But I haven’t moved before the bullets come again; it is only seconds but our luck has timed out. We are looking at each other and it’s instant. I see the light from his eyes go. It’s as clear as if he is here—
—and then he is gone.
Switch flicked.
A bullet glances off my helmet cuffing me with you took too many chances, dumb fuck. Dazed, I fall further back, but still stare back up at him. His hand drops from his neck as instantly as if a puppet master has cut his strings and his fingers stretch down towards me, swinging slightly, as if trying to reach me. You promised.
I never take my eyes off his, even when the blood from his neck falls on my face.
Not even when the back-up comes and mortars the sniper, not even when they pull me free, because Billy’s eyes are burnt in deep in my mind and his hand still reaches for me, still wanting me to keep my promise . . . but I didn’t.
*
This was why I was mad with grief – but not crazy.
Not crazy.
‘I am fine,’ I told my image in the bathroom face. But when I didn’t sound clear enough, I said it again: ‘I am fine.’
*
I washed my face again before leaving the bathroom. Destiny was sitting on the bed fiddling with her phone. ‘What are you doing?’ I asked, attempting conversation.
‘Candy Crush,’ she said, without looking up.
‘Night, then,’ I said.
Then she looked up. ‘Thanks, Miss. I know you wanted to save me. No one’s ever tried to save me before.’
I smiled back. ‘I promised, didn’t I?’ I said, before I pulled the door behind me and stepped out into the hallway.
I walked down the corridor and felt better. Saving Destiny had helped to fill the hole within me. No matter how difficult it had been or how difficult it would be, it had been the right decision.
I had saved her.
I had.
Friday
21:22
Destiny
As soon as the room door shut and the crazy cow had gone, I messaged Aleksander – Save me now.
A message back: Can you talk?
Yes.
The phone rang. It was him. I cried with relief at the sound of his voice. He let me cry it out. I was surprised at how long it took.
‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ he asked, finally.
When I still couldn’t speak for the tears, he told me how he’s going to rip her tongue out before making her suffocate on his shit.
‘Don’t hurt her!’ He was as surprised as me that I said this. I had been plotting with him on Messenger, how I would help him hurt
her. Towards the end of the journey, I felt like I was going crazy, not her.
But I changed my mind. She only wanted to help me, I knew that. I could see how much I meant to her in her face, when I cheeked her about being crazy.
But, I also realised, as nuts as she was, she really cared about me. I had thought that only Gary and Aleksander cared for me, so it surprised me and I found I wasn’t as pissed off as I had been. Besides, she had driven me home to Hull. She had tried hard – she was a nice teacher. Crazy but nice.
‘I’ll come and get you,’ he told me.
‘I’ll leave the hotel and come and stand by the front door. She’s in her car but the car park is at the back.’
He paused. ‘You’ve got a room?’
I heard the change in his voice; I knew that change. ‘I want to get out of here, Aleksander.’
‘But you have a room?’
I sighed. I knew he would continue until I said yes. I looked around the room. It had bold Rothko rip-offs on the walls, the blues matching the cushions and the piece of material on the bed that I didn’t know the name of, but looked nice. Aleksander would like this room. ‘Meet me out the front.’
‘But you have a room!’
I said nothing. I was thinking about Miss who paid for it. She got it for me because she thought I needed protecting from Aleksander. She was wrong – he’s the best thing that has ever happened to me. I knew he loved me. Together, we’re getting rich. But although I loved him, I didn’t want him in here. Besides, she might come back.
‘What room number are you?’
‘You won’t get in. You need a card.’
‘Tell me what you can see from your window.’
I went to the window. ‘I can see a road and in the distance there is a roundabout and a B&Q sign and a sofa shop.’
‘Are you on the ground floor or the one above?’
‘Second floor.’
‘Then I will stand beneath your window and you will drop your door card down to me.’
‘I will be Juliet.’
‘You what?’
‘Like in Romeo and Juliet. You’ll be Romeo under my window. What light through yonder window breaks?’