No Longer Safe

by A J Waines

  ‘She’s right. It’s too rowdy,’ cried Jodie, her hands over her ears. ‘Put on the Justin Timberlake, then we can dance.’

  He huffed and tutted, but changed the CD.

  ‘How about a dance, Alice?’ he goaded as the music started. ‘Going to show us what you’re made of?’

  ‘Yeah – okay, if you ask nicely.’

  Jodie and Mark looked at each other as if I’d just beamed down from Mars. I led them into the sitting room, pushed the ‘comfy’ chairs aside and began by letting my body move with the rhythm. Fortunately, I knew some of the tracks. Mark joined me, finding it all very entertaining and Jodie twirled beside us, not quite sure what to make of the situation. I knew they’d expected me to bottle out, to make an excuse and run for cover. It was gratifying to be a different person from the one they remembered.

  The CD ended and we all piled onto the sofa. It was made for two, so I ended up on Mark’s lap. He dug his fingers into my ribs and I giggled helplessly and rolled onto the floor. The tickling match turned into a cushion fight until suddenly there was a flurry of white feathers everywhere.

  ‘Oh, bugger!’ shouted Mark.

  ‘There’s a snowstorm inside!’ shrieked Jodie, batting the feathers with the palm of her hand as they fell.

  I grabbed the cushion that had exploded and held it to my chest. ‘Okay, guys – party’s over. We’ve got to get this cleared up before Karen comes back.’

  No one kicked up a fuss. Mark brought up the vacuum cleaner from the cellar, Jodie picked up what she could by hand from ledges and alcoves and I began stuffing handfuls back inside the cushion. Jodie had brought a sewing kit, so I threaded a needle and started mending the tear.

  ‘No one will ever know,’ I declared, pressing the sealed cushion back into the corner of the sofa.

  ‘Why don’t I go out and get fairy lights?’ Mark suggested. ‘We passed a shop that sells everything in the village.’

  ‘What – in this weather?’ said Jodie.

  ‘I don’t mind the walk – it’s only three miles and I can probably thumb a lift.’

  ‘Okay – I’ll come with you,’ said Jodie, getting up.

  ‘No – there’s no need for both of us to get frozen. You stay cosy by the fire.’

  ‘He’s been like this lately,’ she said, addressing me as if he wasn’t there. ‘He can’t settle. He’s got so much energy, he can’t sit still.’

  She spoke about him like he was a toddler. Energy perhaps, I thought, but it looked to me more like nervous agitation. I’d seen it the previous night at supper. As if something was pursuing him and he was trying to escape.

  He left and Jodie joined me in the kitchen while I washed up the breakfast dishes. She didn’t offer, so I put a tea towel in her hand and told her where the crockery was stacked.

  One of her false nails had split and I noticed her own underneath were bitten down to the quick. I didn’t remember her biting her nails. Maybe she didn’t think it mattered now she wore false ones all the time.

  ‘You’ve changed, you know?’ she said.

  ‘I had a lot of growing up to do after University,’ I replied. ‘Still have.’

  She took hold of my soapy hand and turned it over. ‘No more eczema?’

  ‘Good isn’t it?’ I said. ‘I finally got rid of it after I started meditation, two years ago.’ I’d had a severe case of it on my face and hands since the age of about three. I was one of those over-sensitive children; upset by loud noises and arguments, allergic to soaps and creams, nervous and delicate, made of matchsticks. Mum put it down to being a premature baby and Dad said I’d been born with a ‘fragile disposition’. For me, it meant I was the one people stared at. As if I wasn’t hampered enough at Uni, the crimson blotches made me feel like a leper.

  I saw her glance at the clock and, with her back to me, she delved into her handbag on the table, snatching at a blister-pack of capsules. In the process, a pencil fell to the floor and rolled towards my slipper. As I handed it to her, I spotted the name on the foil. They were the same anti-depressants my GP had given me, together with the sleeping tablets, after I was mugged. I’d hated taking them – they made me feel spaced out and numb all the time. I’d stopped a few weeks ago and had refused to bring them with me.

  I turned away like I hadn’t seen.

  Karen still hadn’t returned when Mark came back, at lunchtime.

  ‘Where are the lights?’ Jodie called out from our cosy spot by the fire. He stood in the doorway, looking confused for a moment. ‘Out of stock,’ he said. He disappeared and returned waving a packet of fruit bannock at her. ‘I got this instead.’ He dropped it in her lap. ‘We can toast it over the fire.’

  Jodie didn’t know what to do with it, so I took it into the kitchen and cut it into sections with the carving knife. We put pieces on forks and held them over the blaze. After about five seconds, Jodie dropped hers and the bannock went up in flames.

  ‘I’ve burnt my bloody fingers!’ she cried, blowing on them.

  ‘We need longer prongs,’ I said, but I knew there weren’t any.

  ‘You’re both namby-pambies,’ said Mark, easing his evenly toasted slice away from the heat. He looked pleased with himself, but something about his body language told me it was nothing to do with his fireside success. When I happened to go to the larder to check how many eggs were left, I knew for certain. The packet of bannock that had been there the day before had gone. Wherever Mark had been, it wasn’t to the village shop.

  Before long, Jodie and Mark were bickering about something. They went upstairs and, following a prolonged shouting match, it went quiet. Shortly after, the sounds carrying all the way down from the top of the house indicated they were getting along nicely, again, thank you very much.

  I couldn’t work the pair of them out. At Uni I hadn’t questioned their relationship – they were just ‘a couple’ – but now, I wondered what was going on. It was clear Jodie wasn’t happy and Mark was on edge all the time. Best to stay out of it.

  Karen still wasn’t back, so I saw my chance and left the cottage with my camera.

  I was glad I did. It was incredibly fresh outside; a much needed escape from the cramped cottage with its low beams and musty atmosphere. I was wearing the wellington boots that belonged to the cottage, as they were easy to slip on at the door and I wasn’t intending to go far.

  The front garden was buried under the snow – a sheer coating like someone had tipped out skip-loads of sugar granules. The sun gave it a sheen of glitter. I watched the flakes as they speckled the grey sky, weaving in and out of each other, gliding and floating, before getting trapped in the elbows of trees. I tipped up my face and felt the sting as they fell on my skin. It was like a scene stolen from an old silent movie. It was invigorating and made me feel alive.

  I gazed along the tyre marks that led from Karen’s parking space, into the distance. She must have been out early as clusters of brown grit were scattered as far as the main gate. I tried not to think about Melanie; I didn’t want to imagine how devastating it would be if Karen came back alone.

  Instead, I thought about Karen and how life-changing meeting her had been for me. I’d had a handful of superficial friends growing up, but mostly they were underdogs and misfits, like me.

  Every day at primary, then secondary school, I’d had to put up with kids sniggering that my skirt was too long, my socks never stayed up, my face was too sunken. There was always something to poke fun at. They crept up behind me and stuck chewing gum in my hair, dropped apples cores, used toilet paper and, once, a dead mouse in my satchel. They regularly stole my lunch box. Mum didn’t understand. ‘Just ignore them,’ she said. ‘You need to learn to stand up for yourself.’ She was more upset about the missing lunch boxes than my welfare.

  It was amazing, at Uni, to discover someone who was not only decent to me for a change, but who actually showed an interest in me. I’d never experienced it before. To everyone else – kids at school, teachers, my parents, aunts
and uncles – I was ‘simple, plain old Alice’. I was to be ignored, a good for nothing. Karen was the first person to give me something, instead of taking it away.

  I followed the parallel lines past the byre, until they curved at the end of the track towards the lane. Here, I took a path towards the woods with a view of the mountains to my right. It led to a small brook that gurgled beneath broken patches of ice and snow under a humpback bridge. I took a string of photos; it felt magical, like I was in Narnia.

  I was too intrepid for my own good. Before long, I’d lost the trail as it disappeared under low branches and holly bushes. I stepped around thickets and over tussocks of coarse grass, regularly stumbling and losing my footing. It was heavy going and flakes began to drift down from the sky again.

  After ten minutes of trudging, I brushed away a patch of snow on a wall and sat down. I listened. There were two layers of sound; the small birds skipping around nearby in the branches, sending short chirpy messages to each other and, in the distance, the caws and heartfelt cries from larger birds of prey. I closed my eyes and let the sounds wash over me.

  When I opened them, I immediately spotted movement in the gorse bushes ahead. There was a rustling sound and then all was still. All the birds had gone – something had disturbed them. My heart fluttered – it was probably best to go back. I stood and took a look around. Movement again. Definitely. A solid figure in the trees to my left? The flash of binoculars?

  Probably just a local birdwatcher or farmer. That’s all, I persuaded myself. Why was I so jumpy? I began to retrace the trail of my footsteps back to the cottage, feeling the whole time as if I was being watched. I kept stopping and looking around, but saw nothing.

  I plunged into the virgin snow again. From where I stood, I knew the cottage was within around half a mile, but in which direction? Nothing was marked out because of the snow. I came to a cluster of gorse bushes on one side and a spiky pyracantha on the other and took a route through the middle, instantly regretting it. I sank into a deep bed of snow and realised my foot was caught. I reached down and felt around to find out what was gripping me. It wasn’t part of a tree trunk or tangled thorns – it was something sturdy and made of metal.

  I followed through with my right foot, hoping that by stepping forward I would create enough momentum to break free, but I lost my balance and toppled over. My left ankle was still trapped against what felt like a metal blade in the ground and my right knee had crunched down into something hard under the snow. I heard my jeans rip as I sank down and waited for a surge of pain. I was twisted and wet, but didn’t feel injured beyond a few bruises, unless the wound had been numbed by the snow.

  I twisted around towards the leg that was jammed and tried to wriggle out of the boot, but everything below my knee felt like one solid block and I couldn’t shift it. I called out, hoping I was near enough to civilisation for someone to hear me, but my voice tailed off hopelessly into the wind.

  All of a sudden, the relief that I had no pain in my leg evaporated. It was snowing more heavily now and I was stuck out here – not a soul knew where I was.

  I put the gloves back on and remained on all fours, propping myself up. The stabbing pain in my forehead kick-started itself into a regular throbbing again – like a stubborn child refusing to be ignored.

  It could be ages before Karen returned to the cottage and even then, she’d be so preoccupied with the baby, she might not think to come looking for me. No one would be concerned until after dark – and by then I’d be frozen.

  Chapter 11

  My phone. Of course, why hadn’t I thought of that?

  I hadn’t been using it at the cottage because there was no signal, but out here there should be, shouldn’t there? For one horrible moment, I couldn’t remember dropping it into my pocket before I left, but when I felt the back of my jeans, I found it.

  I punched in Karen’s number and waited. My teeth were chattering by now and the cold seemed to have crept inside every fold of my clothing. I couldn’t feel my ankle at all – I didn’t know if it was damaged or not – it was buried in snow which had pitched over the top of my boot and fallen inside.

  There was no sound from my phone. I looked at the screen: no signal. I held it out as far as I could on all fours and waved it around. Nothing. It was dead.

  Something heavy inside my stomach fell hard and fast, and my throat was burning. Visibility was quickly diminishing as the flakes of snow fell fatter and closer together. I was having trouble seeing – so how was anyone going to find me?

  My wrists began to ache. I tried lowering myself down on to my elbows, but I couldn’t endure it for more than a few seconds and had to force myself back onto my hands again. I was tempted to lower myself completely into the snow – give in to the soft pillow – but that put too much pressure on my leg. It occurred to me too that staying still probably wasn’t a good idea. The bone-aching cold was eating deeply into my flesh by now. It coated my tongue with a bitter tang and made my lungs feel hollow. I was going to have to keep moving just to maintain my body heat.

  I’d done two feeble press-ups when I heard a sound. A twig snapping not far to my right. ‘Hello?’ I called out.

  I heard the swish of a waterproof jacket before I saw him. ‘I’m stuck!’ I cried out. ‘I’m near some bushes caught in some kind of trap.’

  There was a rustle and heavy breathing above me. ‘What on earth’s happened here?’ came the voice.

  ‘My ankle is jammed in some machinery, I think.’

  ‘Okay – let’s take a look.’

  He had remained behind me, so I couldn’t see his face, but he sounded neither youthful, nor elderly – somewhere in between. I heard him brush the snow aside with his gloves.

  ‘Oh, yeah – it looks like a rusty old plough,’ he said. ‘Dangerous relic, left out here in the open.’ He started jiggling the rods underneath me. His voice was posh and English, not Scottish. Most importantly, he sounded like he knew what he was doing.

  ‘Ouch!’ I cried.

  ‘Sorry. Do you think it’s broken?’

  ‘No – it’s just stuck,’ I replied.

  He came round to the front to inspect my other leg. ‘How about this one?’

  ‘Just a scratch, I think.’

  ‘Part of the frame is twisted,’ he said. ‘I reckon the best thing is if I press on the blade here, and you try to twist your foot out. Try to get it ninety degrees this way. How does that sound?’

  I blew out a nervous breath, my face close to his. ‘Okay – let’s try it,’ I said. He was wearing a green wax jacket and a tweed cap, looking like a typical upper-crust landowner. In spite of the state I was in, I couldn’t help noticing how distinguished he was; with sweeping curves beneath his cheekbones and a narrow nose.

  ‘Okay, let your weight rest against me and let’s get you into an upright position.’ I did as I was told, leaning into him. He smelt of bracken with warm peppery undertones. ‘Now, keep hanging on to me while I push.’ He looked earnest and determined. ‘Trust me?’

  ‘Yes…’ I said. I didn’t have much choice.

  My heart was battering away inside my chest. Screwing up my eyes and fists, I waited for the agonising jolt as I tried to pull away. The space opened out – and I didn’t feel a thing.

  ‘It’s free,’ he said. ‘Your foot’s out.’ I had to look down to be certain. Sure enough my boot was resting on the edge of the tangle of metal, not buried beneath it. I pressed my face into his jacket for a second, overwhelmed with gratitude. I wasn’t going to be trapped here all night and die of hypothermia after all.

  I thanked him, my lip trembling.

  He helped me climb out of the contraption onto solid ground. The snow was tumbling down like breadcrumbs now. ‘I’m staying in a cottage near here,’ I told him. ‘But to be honest, I got a bit lost.’

  ‘What’s the name of the cottage?’ He was still very close to me; his body heat continuing to envelop me.

  ‘The name? Sorry, my mind’s g
one blank. It’s owned by…Mrs Elling…ford…or something.’

  ‘Ellington. It must be McBride’s Cottage. I’m renting the next one along.’

  ‘There are others? I didn’t know.’

  ‘You could be forgiven for not realising you had neighbours,’ he admitted. ‘Mine’s a good ten minutes further west.’ He held me up under my arms and I looked straight into his sequin-grey eyes. ‘Can you make it back, do you think?’

  ‘Yes, it doesn’t hurt.’ I said it too soon. My ankle was stiff and cold, but I could have made more of the situation; affected a little pain so I could hang on to him for longer.

  ‘Husband staying with you?’ he enquired.

  ‘I’m with friends.’

  We made our way back to the cottage. It was hardly any distance at all. I didn’t know how I could possibly have lost my way. I felt stupid by the time he guided me into a chair by the fireplace.

  ‘I’m fine, honestly,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll light this for you,’ he said, scooping up Karen’s lighter from the hearth and getting the fire going. ‘Where are your friends?’

  It was nearly three o’clock. ‘Karen’s stuck at the hospital – her daughter’s unwell. The other two – are upstairs, I think. Or maybe they’ve gone out,’ I said, hoping they weren’t still in bed.

  He propped my leg on a stool and took a look at my ankle.

  ‘It doesn’t look swollen.’ He stripped off the sock and put his palm against the sole of my foot. ‘Can you push against my hand?’

  No problem. He moved it gently side to side. ‘And this?’

  ‘Honestly – it doesn’t hurt.’

  ‘How long are you staying?’ he asked.

  ‘Until a week on Friday or Saturday, I think,’ I said. ‘Are you a doctor?’

  ‘No – but my father is.’ He smiled warmly.

  I rolled down the leg of my jeans. ‘Listen, I don’t even know your name.’