Straight on Till Morning

by Lynne Barrett-Lee

  God, I hoped not. I drew a little nearer. Near enough to see, with some relief, that the struggle taking place was not so much medical or sexual as one of a basically technical kind: the unmistakeable jerking and pulling and grunting of someone who couldn’t get their seat-belt undone. I drew nearer still, Merlin whining beside me, and heard ‘bloody thing! Wretched – bah! Will you – Jeez!’ Then an elbow shot out, then a leg, then another and, with a clunk and a scuffle, the driver got out.

  A male driver. Oh, cripes. I was very, very frightened. What now, then? I wondered. Set the dog on him? Run for it? Stand in the middle of the carriageway and scream? Running seemed foolhardy ( I had not laced my trainers) and screaming was pointless. Who the hell was going to hear? So I opted for releasing my hand from Merlin’s collar and adopting a baseball-style stance with the bat .

  The man (who was man-like – that is, substantially taller and stronger than I was, which was all I really needed to know) came loping towards me, saying ‘Please! It’s OK! Don’t panic!’ while Merlin bounded in energetic circles around him, in the hope, I suspected, that he might have a stick.

  ‘Don’t panic?’ I yelled, swishing the willow around and trying to sound fierce on Merlin’s behalf. ‘What the hell d’you think you were doing? You could have killed me!’

  He stopped a prudent few feet from me, bathed in shadow. ‘I know. I’m so sorry. Are you all right?’

  What do you do? What do you do when you’re standing in the middle of the road in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere with no one around and a man, who just drove down your side of the road and nearly killed you and who looks big and strong and who might be a lunatic, is standing there and saying ‘are you all right?’ and all you’re in is a pair of ridiculous pyjamas and an undertaker’s cardigan and your dog thinks he’s got a bit-part in The Waltons? What do you do? I could hear Merlin’s tail thumping enthusiastically against the leg of the man’s jeans. The man himself stood and waited – brow slightly furrowed, arms hanging – for whatever he had coming. Be it sensible answer or thwack on the head.

  I clutched the bat tighter. ‘Of course I’m all right!’ I snapped. ‘I’d hardly be standing here if I wasn’t, would I?’

  ‘Well, that’s a relief, at least. But your car,’ he glanced past my shoulder. ‘Is your car all right? It seems to have run off the road.’

  ‘Of course it’s run off the road! You were driving straight at me! MERLIN! HEEL! What on earth did you think you were doing?’

  The man, who looked even bigger and stronger at this range, came a step closer. I could see him better now.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, pocketing his car keys and spreading his palms in apology. ‘I got lost. I am lost. I took a wrong turn half an hour back and I’ve been driving round and round ever since. Jeez, it’s like a maze round here. No signs. No lights –’He drew the back of his hand across his forehead ‘– and, well, I ‘m just plain tired, I guess. I think I must have forgotten where I was. I don’t know. I really don’t. I’m so sorry. Thank God you’re OK, is all. Look, shall I come and take a look or something?’ He eyed the bat nervously. ‘You sure you’re OK?’ His accent was strange. I couldn’t quite place it. Not local. Merlin licked his hand.

  ‘I’m OK,’ I said, lowering my weapon a fraction. My terror was beginning to quieten a little. He didn’t look like he wanted to kill me. And, anyway, what choice did I have? ‘Actually, no,’ I said. ‘I’m not OK. I’m stuck. I mean the car is stuck. In the mud, I think. So, yes. Would you do that, please?’

  ‘Absolutely. Right away,’ he said. He nodded and started off back up the road, giving the bat a wide berth.

  OK. So he wasn’t going to kill me, but things still didn’t look promising. The verge was one of those ones thoughtfully flagged up by signs saying ‘soft’ to dissuade drivers from using them to picnic and frolic and so on. Those lucky enough not to have been barged into one, that is. It was wide and deep, curving down away from the road towards what looked like a brook or a stream and, at this time of year, a profusion of meadowgrass, cow parsley and prehistoric bindweed. All very pretty, all very pastoral, all somewhat unsuited to two tons of car.

  ‘Hmm,’ he said, frowning, as I joined him among the dewy stalks. The air was thick with midges and heavy with scent. It had rained heavily in the last few days, and the ground beneath my feet felt swampy and squelchy. I bent to tuck in my trainer laces, in case a slug or spider tried to hitch a lift. His mouth twitched in amusement.

  ‘Look, why don’t you get back in?’ he suggested. ‘You must be frozen in those.’

  I pulled the edges of my cardigan together with a huff and got back into the car.

  He moved away, round to the far wing, folding his cuffs back as he went. Tan jacket. I thought. Suede. Pale jeans. Tall. About six two. Six three. A stone coloured shirt. He crouched down. Dark hair. A definite wave. Fairly short. Square jaw. Should I write this all down or something? He stood up again. Absently ruffled Merlin’s head. A thick metal watch strap gleamed at his wrist. Then he was back at the window. Late thirties. Early forties. Not drunk. Not disorderly. Insane? I didn’t think so. Except in the matter of steering, perhaps.

  I pressed the button and lowered the window.

  ‘Yup,’ he said. ‘It’s your nearside wheel that’s the problem. Pretty boggy down there.’ No gust of alcohol. A faint trace of some sort of aftershave, perhaps. ‘It looks well bedded in. I’ve rammed a bunch of grass and stuff under the wheel. D’you want to hop over and let me to have a try for you, maybe?’

  Did I? Should I? Was it safe? Wasn’t there even now the tiniest chance he might speed me away and rape me? Kill me? And then slay Merlin too? Surely not. Surely not. His shirt was from Gap.

  But even so…‘No, no,’ I said. ‘I’ll do it.’

  ‘OK, hang on,’ he said, stepping back and hopping around to the front again as I fired the ignition. I put the car into gear and eased off on the clutch. The wheels did a lurch and the tyre went zzzzwweeeee. Mud flew in quantity. The car didn’t move.

  Seconds later he was back at the window, the look on his face grim, the scene on his jeans grimmer still. They looked like a post-modern art installation. ‘No go,’ he said, appearing not to notice. ‘It’s really swampy down there. That’s just made it worse. We need better traction. I’ll go and see what I can find.’

  Traction? Of course. I wasn’t thinking straight. For the tyre to grip. Without another word, he straddled the stream and plunged off into the undergrowth. I could make out his tall form disappearing into a gap in the hedgerow. I was growing anxious now about the time. I checked the clock on the dashboard. Twenty past one. A good forty minutes since Kate had called me. She’d be fretting by now. And if she fretted too much, she’d call home. And Jonathan, assuming he bothered to wake up at all, of course, would start fretting and flapping as well. There was no sign of the man and no sign of Merlin. Where had they gone to? Brazil?

  He emerged moments later with two big armfuls of twigs and stems and God knew what. He looked a little like a trapper on a trap-setting jaunt. Merlin, who was a pointer and had jaws built for no-nonsense pheasant retrieval, was trotting alongside, log in mouth. What a fine old time he was having. I could see the tip of his tail – I’d refused to have it docked – flip-flapping, wiper style, while the man crouched down to tuck the foliage under the wheel. I continued to sit, in my pyjamas and cardigan, and ponder the hopeful possibility that I was dreaming.

  ‘OK,’ he said at last. ‘That ought to do it. You want to give it another try? While I get round the back and push?’

  He looked so much the good – if somewhat grubby – Samaritan, that I almost found myself apologising for inconveniencing him. He braced his hands against the boot. I gave it another try. The wheels spun some more.

  ‘Whoah!’ he called. I took my foot off the accelerator.

  ‘No good,’ he said, back at the window once more. ‘We need better grip. This stuff is
all soaking. It’s just turning to mush. And I don’t have enough strength on my own to give it any momentum. Hmm…’

  ‘Could I come round the back and help push, maybe?’

  He looked at me sideways and grinned. ‘Er, not unless Merlin here has his driver’s licence, I don’t think.’

  ‘No, no,’ I said. ‘I meant couldn’t we take the handbrake off and just, well, push it a little way with the engine off?’ I didn’t mean this at all. A car this size? In a hole? Up a hill? Him and puny little me? It was a ridiculous suggestion. But not quite as ridiculous as my actual one so it would have to do.

  ‘We-ell, maybe’ he said politely. Then, ‘Got it! Car mats. Rubber. That’ll do it.’

  ‘Car mats?’

  ‘Car mats! I’ll go off and get them. Stay right there.’

  Yeah, right. As if I was going anywhere. I got back into the car and glanced at the clock again. Almost one thirty now. And getting colder as well. The dew had seeped into my trainers and the bottoms of my pyjama legs felt like soggy wallpaper against my shins. I saw him returning in the wing mirror, the mats from his car flopping heavily at his side. He went straight around to the side of mine and crouched down to arrange them. His profile, sharp against the light from the headlamps, was angular, masculine. The sort of profile that would work well at the helm of a ship. The sort of profile that gets labelled ‘heroic’. I shivered. This was really not pyjama weather. I hoped the rest of the package was too.

  ‘That’s it,’ he called at last, opening the passenger door. He braced his shoulder against the door frame. ‘Right. D’you want to give it another try? Nice and slowly this time, OK? Slow as you can.’ I started the engine again and pressed down gingerly on the accelerator. The wheel spun briefly and I slammed on the brake.

  ‘’S OK,’ he said, leaning out to make an inspection. ‘That’s just the mud on the wheel there.’ His hand was clamped around the top of the door and I could see a fat gold band on his little finger. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Go again. You’re almost there.’

  I pressed down the accelerator, millimetre by agonising millimetre, and was rewarded by forward motion at last. Conscious of his shoulder still braced against the door frame, I eased all four wheels slowly back up on to the road. The passenger door clunked shut and I waited, engine idling, while he moved to my side of the car. He opened the rear door to let Merlin scramble in.

  ‘There you go,’ he said, leaning in and adopting the sort of expression men just can’t help adopting when they’ve prevailed, in their manly way, over disaster. His hands, I noticed, were wet and streaked with mud too, and there were grass flecks and burrs all over his jacket and shirt. He looked about as menacing as Worzel Gummidge. The only danger he’d be, I decided, was to a washing machine filter.

  ‘Oh, dear. You’re filthy,’ I said. ‘Do you want a Wet One?’

  His brows lifted. ‘A what?’

  ‘A wipe,’ I said, reaching into the glove compartment. ‘To clean your hands up a bit.’

  He smiled at me, then, revealing perfect white teeth. I always notice teeth, Jonathan being a dentist. Along with eyes, naturally, and his were very striking, even in the darkness. Forget-me-not blue. Thick, heavy lashes. ‘No, no. No problem,’ he said, rubbing his palms vigorously against his already filthy jeans. ‘I’m just fine. Really. Look, d’you want to take a note of my number or something? I don’t think there’s any damage, but you might have a scratch or two underneath all the mud. Difficult to tell in the dark.’ He shook his head and then looked straight at me. ‘Jesus, I am so sorry.’ He looked it too. Looked appalled, all of a sudden. As if the enormity of what might have been had suddenly slapped him around the face. He looked, I decided, like an OK kind of person. I wondered, for all his no-nonsense can-do efficiency, if he wasn’t a little in shock.

  ‘Well,’ I said, allowing a small smile to reassure him. ‘No harm done. But yes. You’re right. I should take your number.’

  He nodded. ‘I’ll go fetch my insurance details, shall I? Be right back.’

  I watched him stride off to his car again. Merlin yawned extravagantly from the back seat. The crescent moon looked on benignly. I could see Betelgeuse peeking at me through a gap in the distant trees. I wondered where he had come from. I wondered where he was going. I think ( though I suspect this is hindsight in action) that I wondered, even then, about life’s chance encounters, and how strange it was to think that I’d probably never see him again.

  ‘There you go,’ he said, handing me the torn away top half of a copy of a car-rental agreement. His writing was upright and spiky. A hired car. He obviously wasn’t local, just as I’d thought. ‘There’s my name,’ he said, pointing. ‘And that’s my mobile number there, and that number on the top is the rental-firm agreement number, I think. Anyhow, if you need the insurance, I’m sure they’ll sort it out. Shall I take yours?’

  Jonathan was paranoid about giving out our home phone number, so I gave him my mobile number instead. He wrote it down carefully on the copy in his hand. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Any problems, just call me, OK?’ He proffered his hand through the window. I shook it. It was strong and cool.

  ‘Nick,’ he said. ‘Well, like I say, I’m really sorry.’ He grinned wryly. ‘But it’s certainly been a pleasure to meet you.’

  ‘Sally,’ I said back, feeling strangely discomfited by the way he was looking at me. ‘Yes,’ I said, returning his gaze for half a second longer than my brain had been expecting. ‘You too. Nice to meet you as well.’

  ‘So,’ he said. ‘Like I say, any problem, just call.’

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘I’ll do that. Thank you.’

  And then he was gone. And it was only when I was almost at Amanda’s house that I realised I hadn’t given him any directions. That he still didn’t know how to get where he was going. That he was still lost.

  It played on my mind. Not a lot. Just a little. Just enough that perhaps I should have read something into it. But I wouldn’t have, would I? Not at that point I wouldn’t. Because at that point I didn’t have the benefit of hindsight. If I had, I might have realised what now seems so obvious. That, as of that starry night, I was lost too.

  Chapter 2

  ‘What the hell have you been doing with my car?’

  So. Here we were again. Saturday morning. Saturday morning in the jolly Matthews household.

  Ah. And Jonathan was up.

  By the time I had collected Kate and driven us home, it was getting on for half past two in the morning. I had told her what had happened, I had ranted at her selfishness, I had blathered on about responsibility, I had wittered about consideration and I had droned about inches and miles and all the other dreary parenting staples I’d always promised I wouldn’t utter but which spewed unbidden from my lips with ever more depressing frequency these days. Mainly I had pointed out that her father would be furious, and serve her right if he grounded her for what was left of the weekend. But by the time we swung into the driveway, the house was in darkness and Jonathan was in bed. No surprise there, then, I remember thinking fleetingly. Did he never worry about us? Me? Ever? At all?

  But a good night’s sleep, at least; just the one hour awake. Clearly an adrenaline-filled off-road experience with a handsome stranger was just the ticket, insomnia-wise. I flipped the duvet from over my face and squinted away the sunshine. He was standing at the foot of the bed, holding two mugs of tea and scowling at me. ‘Well?’

  I shuffled reluctantly up to a sitting position. Not quite eight thirty yet. Saturday morning. Some cricket match or other seemed to ring a distant bell. Along with Morgan’s wedding – an ever present tinkling. I had, I recalled dimly, a cake woman to see.

  ‘I had an accident,’ I said. I wanted to add ‘not that you much cared, obviously.’ But I didn’t. Because to do so would simply etch a cluster of new lines to join the ones already drawn over his shaggy iron brows. He was bear-like. Grizzly. Although he spent much of his life wielding a drill, his y
oung female patients fell in love with him, always. As had I once. It seemed a long time ago.

  A grizzly bear with a chronically sore head. ‘An accident?’ he said, switching from scowl to incredulous stare. The lines re-convened into train tracks on his forehead. ‘Accident?’ he said again. ‘Christ! What sort of accident?’

  ‘An accidental sort of accident. A minor accident. Not even an accident at all, in fact. I was just run off the road and the car got stuck in the verge.’

  ‘Run off the road?’

  I told him what happened.

  He shook his head and puffed out his cheeks. I hadn’t heard him shower but he obviously had, for he was already dressed. He had the good grace to look concerned, even if largely, I suspect, for the welfare of the car.

  ‘Well,’ he said, putting his mug on the ottoman and showering the floor with the athlete’s foot powder he sprinkled all over the place every morning for the fairy dust-queen to deal with. ‘I just hope you realise that’s exactly why you shouldn’t have gone out to fetch her in the first place. Ridiculous to put yourself in such a vulnerable position. You could have been killed. Why on earth didn’t you phone me?’

  In every event, a lesson. I laid supplicant’s hands on the duvet in front of me. ‘What good would that have done? You couldn’t drive. You said so. Anyway, I didn’t have my phone.’

  Stupid admission. I never seemed to learn. ‘Didn’t have your phone?’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Sally, how could you even think of charging off in the middle of the night without your phone? God! That’s exactly why you should have listened to me in the first place! You could have been out there all night! God only knows what might have happened to you! I mean the man might have been some sort of lunatic! IS some sort of lunatic, by the sound of it.’

  ‘I don’t think so. He was very helpful, as it happens.’

  ‘Very helpful? I’ll give him helpful! I hope you got his number –’

  ‘I got his number.’