The Accident

by Dawn Goodwin

  ‘V, how are you? Sorry, that’s a stupid question, especially today – Grace’s birthday, isn’t it? It came up on my phone…’ Then she added tentatively, ‘But you look better.’

  I was grateful that she had acknowledged today.

  ‘Er, thanks.’ I was at a loss as to what to say next. ‘Um, how’ve you been?’ I looked down into the pushchair, then noticed the unsightly grey fracture boot on Zara’s foot. ‘Oh! What happened?’

  She shuffled a little and a strange look flitted across her face. ‘Oh, this? Um, well, a silly accident really. I was coming out of the coffee shop on the high street with Felicity. Silly really, but my shoelace was loose and I wasn’t paying attention… Anyway, I tripped into the road as a car was coming – it could’ve been a lot worse. As it is, it’s just a fracture.’ She laughed nervously.

  ‘Wow, I’m glad you’re okay.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll look a right sight next weekend at Penny’s fortieth – if I go…’ She grabbed my arm then and I could see tears glistening in her eyes as she leaned towards me. ‘Listen, I just want you to be careful. I know things are going to be tough what with today and the trial, but just try and keep your wits about you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ She was frightening me a little, the look on her face one of distress.

  ‘I just mean that you should keep your friends close and your enemies closer, if you know what I mean?’

  I didn’t. ‘Zara? Are you ok? Did someone-’

  She dropped her arm and looked over her shoulder, her face still a mask of panic. ‘Don’t mind me. The painkillers I’m on are very strong.’ She chuckled hollowly. ‘We will miss you at Penny’s party though. Well, I will anyway.’

  ‘Right, well… I hope your ankle is on the mend soon.’ I backed up to the counter, scrabbling in my bag for my purse as I did. ‘I’m just heading home to make a birthday cake for Grace, so I must dash, but it’s nice to see you again.’ I turned to the shopkeeper with questioning eyes, choosing to ignore the yearning look on Zara’s face.

  ‘Three pounds twenty please, Mrs Pullman.’

  I rummaged in my purse, found a few pound coins that clattered onto the counter as they fell from my fingers. I accepted the change from his outstretched palm and let it fall into one of the children’s charity collection boxes next to the till, then edged around the pushchair and started to back up towards the door.

  ‘Lovely to see you, Mrs Pullman,’ he called after me at the same time as I said, ‘See you soon, Zara.’

  ‘Call me. We should talk.’

  I raised a hand that looked more like a salute than a wave and rushed out of the door before I made the situation any more awkward.

  *

  I walked home quickly, my mind churning the whole way after seeing Zara. She seemed to be trying to warn me about something, but I couldn’t fathom what. Could she have seen me with Scarlet? Was that who she was worried about? No, Felicity had probably just told them all about our run-in and exaggerated my outburst in her typical melodramatic style. Probably made me out to be some kind of pantomime villain. But then why was Zara warning me to be careful rather than trying to get away from me? Her fear hadn’t seemed to be directed at me. I couldn’t fathom any of it, but I had more important things to attend to.

  Reaching into my bag, I pulled out my keys, then noticed a bouquet of flowers leaning up against the front door. White lilies – the funereal flower. I looked around, but couldn’t see anyone. Approaching slowly, I reached down and pulled a small white card from the flowers.

  It read simply, ‘Happy birthday Grace’.

  Who would send something like this? Surely not Tom? I couldn’t stop a moan of despair escaping from my tight throat as I grabbed the flowers and darted around the side of the house to throw them straight into the dustbin. I bolted into the house, not looking back, a thin sheen of cold sweat on my forehead.

  *

  That’s better. Some actual visible emotion for a change. I almost laughed out loud when she gasped in shock. I had to duck out of sight when she turned to look around, but the euphoria as she hurled the beautiful, scented lilies into the bin! Worth every penny. It shouldn’t be long before the gifts are delivered, the body blows to her sanity coming thick and fast. She’ll be perched on the precipice before the end of the day. Now I just need her to take the jump.

  *

  I leant against the door. The house was quiet. The clock in the lounge ticked, the morning slowly draining away. An eerie calm settled over me. Awareness of the cold butter blocks in my hand forced me to push off from the door and wander listlessly into the kitchen. I caught a glimpse of myself in the hallway mirror and I didn’t like the reflection: like a rabbit in the headlights, manic and jittery, my face white and slick with fevered perspiration.

  The kitchen countertops were still littered with bags of flour and sugar, and tins of caramel; the KitchenAid was ready and waiting, but suddenly I felt completely wrung out. I put the butter next to the mixer and sat heavily on the stool. Through the window, the sun was valiantly breaking through the clouds and illuminating a cobweb that reached up to the ceiling from the corner of the window frame. I stood up and retrieved a perversely jaunty, rainbow-coloured feather duster from the top of the fridge and zeroed in on the cobweb.

  As I drew closer, my eye fell on a small, opaque handprint further down the windowpane, waving ghostly at me in the weak sunlight. I stopped in my tracks, then approached slowly, as though scared I would frighten it away. The handprint was smaller than mine, but perfectly formed. In the quiet, Grace’s laughter filled my ears. I couldn’t stop the memory hitting me like a ghost train.

  *

  The lounge floor was covered with a kaleidoscope of wrapping paper and ribbon. I perched on the couch, a cup of tea in hand, waiting for the birthday girl, all mussed-up hair and sleepy eyes. Tom appeared in the doorway with his prized possession in his arms. She let out a squeal of delight and he released her. She lunged at me, but I held her in check.

  ‘Careful, hot tea here.’

  She immediately corrected herself and leaned in for a gentle hug instead, before directing her energy back to her dad and giving him a big squeeze.

  ‘Daddy, so many presents! Thank you, thank you, thank you!’

  Tom laughed. ‘Well, you better get unwrapping then. You have to go to school soon and you don’t want to be late on your birthday.’

  ‘I think you should just pick one or two and leave the rest for later, Grace,’ I said.

  Her face crumpled in disappointment. ‘I can be quick, promise.’

  ‘Let’s see how far you get,’ Tom stepped in. ‘If you’re still opening in fifteen minutes, then we’ll have to leave it until later.’

  A compromise reached, she made her way to the parcels in front of her and took a moment to plan her route in.

  She was not a ripper; instead, she meticulously lifted the tape so that the paper wouldn’t tear, before setting it aside. She studied each gift carefully and dished out kisses of glee complete with exuberant squeezes of delight. We didn’t get to the bottom of the pile before she had to leave for school, even with Tom suggesting that she tear open the last few. No, she wanted to savour each and every one.

  *

  I closed my eyes as vertigo overpowered me, then opened them and reached out a quivering hand towards the window. I let it hover without touching for fear of smearing the perfect imprint. How had I not noticed it before? The cobweb forgotten, I returned the feather duster to its resting place and smoothed my hair with my palms.

  Reaching across the counter for my apron, I rolled up my sleeves and returned to the task at hand, my mind focused again, like the ghostly handprint had wiped the residue from my eyes.

  As I picked up the flour, the doorbell rang. I immediately assumed it was Scarlet turning up earlier than expected.

  I pulled open the door and found a delivery man standing, laden down with boxes.

  ‘Here you go, love. There’s a couple more in
the van.’

  He stacked the boxes on my front step and returned to the courier van parked across my driveway. More boxes emerged and were added to the pile.

  ‘Sign here please.’

  My brain wasn’t computing what was going on. Had Tom been on a spending spree?

  I scribbled something that looked vaguely like my initials on the electronic handset he was holding out to me, then shuffled the boxes into the hallway, before closing the door.

  The boxes were all addressed to Grace.

  With what felt like one hundred little butterflies with wings dripping ice taking flight inside my stomach, I opened each and every box, pulling out clothes, books, music CDs – all the kinds of things a ten-year-old would want to receive for her birthday. The air filled with the sweet, artificial smell of adolescent lip gloss and fruity body lotions. Rainbows of light danced on the walls from the sparkles on a new dress. A sharp sting on my finger from a paper cut inflicted by the cover of a book she would love.

  I left the empty boxes piled high in the hallway, their contents strewn across the carpet, and returned to the kitchen on autopilot, trying not to give my brain the room to voice the thoughts pinging around.

  Instead, I concentrated on the process of creaming the butter and sugar, sifting the flour, measuring the exact amount of cake batter into each tin. While the cakes rose in the warmth of the oven, I sat on the floor and watched them change shape and colour until my behind was numb from the cold floor tiles and my legs prickled with pins and needles.

  I refused to look at the boxes, but they were there in the other room, taunting me.

  Once the cakes were out of the oven, I took off my wedding and engagement rings, laid them on the windowsill where they glinted in isolation, and turned my attention to the decorations. Every intricate icing petal settled my mind a little more. Soon, the counter was covered in brightly coloured daisies, handcrafted fondant roses and delicate butterflies. Far more than I could use, but I couldn’t still my fingers once I had started.

  I didn’t hear the front door open and wasn’t sure how long Tom stood in the kitchen doorway watching me before his presence filtered through to my subconscious. He had loosened his tie, dropped his briefcase by the door and was wearing a look of bewilderment. He hadn’t made a sound, but the air shifted to accommodate him. I looked up once I had finished the last rose petal. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but he didn’t say anything at all, merely turned and left the room.

  I found him sitting in the lounge, staring ahead vacantly. When I followed his eyes, I realised he was looking at the holiday photograph of the three of us taken three years ago in Greece, which I had framed and displayed proudly on the mantelpiece. I didn’t look at it much anymore; it was just a dust-catcher. I noticed my face was now obscured by a smudged fingerprint. Three happy, carefree, suntanned faces set against the paradise of swaying Mediterranean palm trees and golden sand. Just a normal family enjoying some R&R before the world as we knew it ground to a halt. Grace, with her still childishly chubby cheeks rosy against the white of her dress, was squeezed in between the relaxed, smiling faces of two adults I hardly recognised. Tom looked younger, less strained, looser; I didn’t want to draw comparisons between the holiday me and what I now saw every morning in the mirror.

  ‘Her tenth birthday,’ he finally said as I was about to return to the kitchen. His voice was low and raw. I stopped, but didn’t turn around.

  The silence dragged on and I knew I had to break it, but knowing and doing don’t always see eye to eye.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asked then, his voice cracking.

  ‘I’m making a cake,’ I replied simply. ‘She always has a birthday cake.’

  ‘Did you buy all that stuff?’

  I turned then and glared at him. ‘No, did you?’

  ‘Of course I didn’t,’ he spat.

  Doubt flooded over me. Had I ordered them? The thoughts that had been lingering all morning began to fuse together. The lilies; the handprint; now presents for a party that would not be held. Was I losing it? Had it all finally become too much? Part of me was strangely relieved at the idea of resigning myself to madness as I was exhausted from constantly battling unseen demons.

  He sighed in exasperation, then stood and took hold of my arms firmly. ‘Tell me the truth, V. What’s going on? Is it the pills? Are you taking too many?’

  My floury hands hung limply at my sides. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘I found the empty packets, V.’

  ‘I’m not taking pills… I…’ I faltered, not sure of anything anymore. ‘I don’t remember ordering anything. I’m making her a cake just to keep my mind and my hands busy, but the presents… I don’t know where they came from. There’s been some other stuff too… the flowers on the doorstep… ’

  In the back of my mind, a little voice cried out in defiance: Someone is trying to torture you.

  ‘Well, someone is playing a very sick joke on you if it’s not you doing this and it’s not me,’ he echoed. ‘What about this new friend of yours?’

  ‘Scarlet? She wouldn’t. Why would she?’ That angered me. How dare he accuse her when he hadn’t even met her. I ignored the fact that I had accommodated similar thoughts recently. I shook my head, then retreated to finish my labour of love in the kitchen, still refusing to acknowledge the abandoned gifts.

  As I carefully placed the bottom chocolate tier on a jaunty, butterfly-vibrant cake stand, then applied a layer of caramel across the moist sponge, I could hear him collecting up the boxes, scrunching up paper, and carrying everything upstairs and out of sight. What I didn’t want to acknowledge was the muffled keening noises he was making as he moved around, his feelings sounding too raw and naked for me to be able to empathise with today.

  So I focused my energy on layering the final two tiers with the sweet, smooth caramel. My mind remained resolutely empty as I opened a tub of vanilla buttercream frosting and slowly covered the outside of the cake with precision. My hands were now steady as I smoothed and spread. Then I artfully arranged the flowers on the top, so that the cake resembled an English country garden fit for a princess.

  I stood back to admire my handiwork, then noticed Tom watching in the doorway again. We stood there like acquaintances in a flat-share, not sure what to say to each other. His eyes dropped to the cake, then back to me.

  ‘How can you do that?’ he said.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘How can you pretend it never happened?’ His reddened eyes reached out to me.

  Is that really what he thought I was doing?

  ‘You’re baking cakes. You leave that stuff in the hallway. You refuse to talk about it. You refuse to talk to me at all.’ He looked at me nakedly. ‘Do you blame me? Is that what this is about?’

  I could feel a fog descending over my mind and I had a sudden urge to escape, perhaps not to come back.

  My phone started ringing from somewhere in the hallway. ‘My phone is ringing.’

  ‘Don’t, V. Stay and talk to me, please.’ He stepped towards me, but I stepped back until I was pressed up against the counter, the space between us like a chasm.

  The phone rang away to itself.

  ‘I love you,’ he said. It used to be so easy to say those words back to him, but now the words choked me. ‘We need to talk – I have to talk to you.’

  ‘Not today, please.’

  ‘Don’t you think this is hard for me too?’

  He turned from me and left the room, and I heard the front door close softly behind him. I didn’t begin to wonder where he had gone. I just felt relieved that he had left.

  *

  I sat on the couch, facing the window. The sunlight streamed in, stronger in this room, illuminating the dancing dust. My hands were clasped in my lap, but my fingers twitched and twisted, their palms now permanently reddened where my nails always came to rest. I felt like I was falling headfirst into a crevasse without a safety net and I knew that I needed to put my han
ds out to break my fall, but a corner of my mind found relief in the thought that if I didn’t, it could all be over finally. Perhaps I should just let myself keep falling.

  Scarlet arrived soon after Tom left. After admiring my baking handiwork, she came to sit next to me in the lounge, the couch cushions shifting under her weight. She looked as though she was dressed for a party in her girly turquoise frock.

  Against my better judgement, I told her about the presents, more to gauge her response than anything else.

  ‘So you didn’t order any of it?’

  ‘If I did, I don’t remember.’

  ‘You’re not loopy, so I don’t believe that.’

  I looked at my hands. ‘Tom suggested you had done it.’

  I waited for the bomb to explode, but it never came. She merely said, ‘Well, that’s because he doesn’t know me. Besides, it’s more likely to be someone who has a sick vendetta against you. I think you should consider someone closer to home.’

  I followed her eyes towards Felicity’s house.

  ‘No.’

  ‘You sure about that?’ She was always so quick to blame Felicity. Why? Was she trying to shift my suspicions away from her? All of the strange coincidences had started after I met Scarlet. But what could her agenda be? No, I was just letting Tom’s words cloud my judgement. Scarlet had been nothing but a friend to me.

  ‘Yes, I’m sure. Felicity and I may have drifted apart, but she’s never been malicious like that. No, there must be a reasonable explanation. Tom’s family is all in Australia. Maybe a family member sent the stuff, the flowers, someone who doesn’t know.’ It sounded ludicrous even to me.

  ‘The flowers could be a misconstrued gesture, sure, but the gifts? It’s a lot of stuff for a distant relative to send.’

  I sat forward with my head in my hands. ‘I don’t want to talk about it anymore.’