Safe at Home

by Lauren North

  I take a breath and remind myself that this is what I signed up for. We’ve been doing this dance of three months away, two weeks at home, for nearly four years. It’s not Rob who has changed things recently, it’s me. Fifty-six days until he is home. Eight weeks to find the words for my confession.

  Thoughts of Monday leap into my head again and with them comes Dean. My skin feels clammy beneath my cardigan. The what-the-hell-have-I-done? question fizzes in my stomach like the white powdery sherbet the girls love so much.

  I itch to check my phone again. Why hasn’t Dean replied to my text? I wonder if his silence is about the line we crossed on Monday, or something else. Dean’s mood has been plummeting for weeks. He’s been edgy, distracted, but never tells me why. I know he sees me as an escape. Precious moments of forgetting the world. And so I’ve never pressed him, never forced him to talk. He leaves his problems by the door, dumping them next to my own as he kicks off his shoes.

  I pull on to the A12 with its two lanes of traffic running each side of a thick metal barrier and a no man’s land of weeds and grass. I check my mirror. Molly’s head is slumped forward, Bunny’s too – his floppy body strangled in her tight grasp. I’ll have to carry her up to bed and she hasn’t done her teeth or gone to the bathroom.

  What if she has an accident in the night? What if she tells a friend and the whole class finds out and she’s bullied?

  I force myself to focus on the road and a container lorry trundling slowly up the hill on the inside lane ahead of us. There’s a row of ten or so cars behind it and I join the queue. Vehicles pull out and we creep closer to the lorry.

  The signpost for Barton St Martin comes into view and from my wing mirror I catch sight of a car speeding in the outside lane, racing towards us doing at least a hundred miles an hour. A second later and it whooshes by. ‘Idiot,’ I say to myself.

  Then it happens. There’s a noise – a bang like a gun. The speeding car skids, weaving across the road towards the lorry, and suddenly I’m slamming on the brakes, jolting us forwards, eyes scrunching shut, waiting for the smack of impact.

  CHAPTER 3

  Anna

  As my twelve-year-old Nissan judders to a halt, I open my eyes, my gaze flying to the rear-view mirror, bracing myself for the car behind to hit us, but it stops in time.

  I look to the front again just in time to see the skidding estate car suddenly launch into the air. The lorry up ahead tries to veer away, crashing into the barriers. The screech of metal on metal fills the night. A split second later the car hits the tarmac, landing upside down, the roof collapsing like it’s made of tin foil, and still it skids towards the central reservation and the line of traffic heading the other way.

  The lorry is still moving too and a moment after the car stops, it seems to sway – a branch jostling in the wind – before it topples, landing on its side, the sound jackhammer loud. It misses the upturned car by a metre.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Elise says. Her mouth is hanging open and I realize mine is too, as though neither of us can believe our eyes. There’s an eerie stillness to the crash and for a moment it seems like time has paused, but then people leap out of their cars and jog towards the wreck. Others hang back and I spot three people with phones pressed to their ears. Hazard lights go on, adding an orange strobe-like feel to the scene.

  I’m relieved when the lorry driver pulls himself out of the cab. I think about getting out too and offering to help, but already I can see people milling around. What good would I be? My first aid doesn’t stretch beyond cleaning grazes, applying plasters and kissing away tears.

  ‘It’s OK,’ I say to myself as much as to Elise.

  I turn to check on Molly. She’s still fast asleep.

  I squeeze Elise’s arm. ‘We’re OK.’

  ‘Is the driver of the car dead?’ she asks in a loud whisper.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  The panic returns – a fireball in my chest. We witnessed a crash. We’re fine, but the road ahead is blocked. I check the time. It feels like hours have passed since I last looked.

  It’s 8.11 p.m.

  Harrie has been on her own for twenty-three minutes. She’ll be expecting us home any second. My heart starts to race so fast it feels like it’s going to explode.

  What if we’re stuck here for hours?

  What if something happens to Harrie while she’s alone?

  No, no, no, no, no. I can’t let that happen!

  I grab my bag from the footwell by Elise’s feet. My hands shake as I dig through the pockets and for a horrifying second I think I’ve left my mobile on the worktop in the kitchen, but then my fingers knock against the hard plastic and I pull it free.

  ‘Mum, what’s wrong?’ Elise asks.

  ‘I need to phone home and tell Harrie we’re stuck.’

  ‘Are we going to be here all night?’ Elise asks, looking from me to the wreckage and back again.

  I give what I hope is a reassuring smile as I press the phone to my ear. ‘I’m sure they’ll clear the road quite quickly.’ Please please please let that be true.

  The answering machine clicks on. An electronic voice tells me no one is available to take my call. But Harrie is there. My daughter is home.

  The desire to scream grabs hold of my throat. I’m not this person. I’m not a mother who leaves her child alone in the house. I’m the mother who always makes sure they look both ways before crossing the road. Every road. Even in Barton St Martin where the cars stop to let us pass. I’m the mother who won’t let my children knock for their friends and go to the village playground without me. I’m the kind of mother who plans everything. General Mummy, Rob likes to call me with a twinkle in his eye and a cheeky grin. Sir, yes, sir, General Mummy. Organized. It’s another thing I never used to be.

  ‘Harrie?’ I say into the silence as my message begins to record. ‘Harrie, it’s Mum. Pick up the phone, please.’ I pause, expecting a click and to hear her voice, too breathy where she holds the mouthpiece so close. The silence stretches out. ‘Harrie, I know you’re there. There’s been a car accident ahead of us on the road. We’re fine. We’ve not crashed, but we’re stuck and I don’t know how long it’s going to be before we get home. Can you pick up, please? Or call me back? My number is written on the Post-it by the phone.’

  I stare at my screen and try to calculate how long it will take her to dial my number. Minutes pass and nothing. I call again and leave another message. And then I call June, our neighbour. She’s always offering to help and has been a godsend on the occasions when one of the girls has been ill and I’ve not wanted to drag them with me, but I don’t like to ask too often. June is in her eighties and the girls run rings around her.

  The phone is a constant hum in my ear, but no one answers. I hear June’s voice in my head. Why do I want the hassle of an answering machine? If they can’t get hold of me, they can try again later.

  ‘Harrie’s probably gone to bed,’ Elise says from beside me when I eventually give up.

  ‘I hope so.’ Could Harrie already be in bed, none the wiser as to the events unravelling before us? Harrie has always been a deep sleeper, out like a light the moment her head hits the pillow.

  There was a spell after London, when we were living on top of each other in a one-bedroom flat on the edge of Ipswich, when Harrie had night terrors. Harrie and Elise were five – Molly just one – and all three had been ripped from everything they’d ever known. Night after night Harrie would sit up in bed, eyes open but unseeing, breathing fast, screaming, trapped in a place where I couldn’t reach her. It was unbearable to see her like that and a huge relief when they passed and she started to sleep normally again.

  ‘What do we do now?’ Elise asks.

  I shrug. ‘Sit and wait.’

  Elise pulls a face.

  ‘Tell me about gymnastics, what did you do tonight?’

  ‘It was conditioning,’ she says with a sigh. ‘I’m so hungry. Have you got anything to eat?’

  I dig throu
gh my bag and find a squashed granola bar, floppy and more crumbs than bar by the feel of it. I hand it to Elise and unwind the deep-purple scarf June knitted me for Christmas last year before looping it around her neck.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Have you done all of your homework this week?’ I ask Elise.

  ‘Yeah, I did it all on Sunday,’ she says through a mouthful of food and I try not to look surprised. From day one, Harrie was the worker and Elise the one who coasted through primary school, putting just enough effort into her schoolwork to get a ‘meets expectations’ mark on every report. But over the summer she sat me down, looking nervous and excited all in one go, and told me that she didn’t want to go to the high school in the next village where Harrie and the rest of her class will go the following year. She wanted to go to a private school forty minutes away by bus. ‘It’s got one of the best gymnastics programmes in the country, and I’ll get a fantastic education,’ she said, sounding so confident. ‘And there are scholarships and bursaries,’ she added quickly, seeing the look of horror dawning on my face. ‘If I work hard and do well in their entrance exam then I can get all my fees paid.’

  I’m proud of her for applying herself, for the homework she does on time, and the extra tuition she’s having with Mr Pritchett, the head teacher. And I want it for her desperately, as much as she wants it for herself.

  When I first found out I was pregnant with Harrie and Elise, I promised myself that I’d be the kind of mother who always listened, always made time for my children. I promised I’d be there for them in a way my own mother never had been for me. I promised myself I’d give them everything they wanted and it kills me that we can’t give this to Elise.

  It’s on the tip of my tongue to say something. A little speech that straddles the line between encouraging Elise to strive for what she wants and managing her expectations, softening the blow if it should come. She needs a perfect school record and top grades. She needs to do well in the entrance exam and wow a panel of three staff members during a thirty-minute interview in January. And even if she does all those things, they still might choose to give the scholarship to someone else. She’s only eleven. There is no manual for this stuff.

  ‘You know—’ The lights around us change and I fall silent. Blinking orange becomes strobing blue. A siren whoops then squeals, making me jump. I pull the car over to the barrier at the side of the road, making space for the emergency vehicles to reach the crash, and then I turn off the engine.

  Within what feels like seconds three police cars, two ambulances and one fire engine have parked just ahead of us and there are more lights flashing behind us where I guess they’re closing the road. Molly sleeps on. Elise and I watch the scene and on my lap my phone sits silent.

  My eyes draw to the clock on the dashboard. 8.35 p.m. My stomach lurches. Harrie has been home alone for forty-seven minutes. Why hasn’t she called back?

  CHAPTER 4

  Anna

  ‘You do realize,’ Elise says, twisting the empty granola-bar wrapper into a tight ball, ‘that if you’d let us have phones like everyone else our age, you could text Harrie right now.’

  ‘Not everyone else your age has a mobile. Besides, you have an iPod.’ A second-hand reconditioned one which we still couldn’t really afford.

  ‘They do. And you won’t let me use the message app on it, so it’s just games and music.’

  ‘Well, you can wait until next year when you go to high school for a proper phone, which by the way is still a lot younger than I was. I didn’t get a mobile until I was in my late teens.’

  ‘Only because they weren’t invented before then.’ Elise flashes me a smile, letting me know she’s teasing me, and I laugh. I wonder what she’d make of the brick-like Nokia I had when I was a teenager, long before apps and Wi-Fi and predictive text, when the only game was a slow-moving snake chasing itself around the screen.

  The laughter dies in my throat and ends with an exhaled ‘ha’. The driver of the car could be dead. Someone’s family could be missing a loved one. Harrie is all by herself and I can’t get to her. There is nothing funny about this situation.

  We watch in silence as the police officers talk to the driver of the lorry. Someone has wrapped a silver blanket around his shoulders. Even from this distance I can see he’s shouting, hands gesticulating in the air. The paramedics and firemen are kneeling by the car, talking to whoever is inside.

  ‘Are you going to get out and talk to the police?’ Elise asks me, her voice suddenly grumpy. Tired. ‘How long are we going to be here for?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I sound so patient. Calm and collected. Nothing like how I feel – trapped. I stare at the police officers and fight the urge to leap out and race over to them, to shake them, beg them to find a way to let me through. ‘They’ve got more important things to do right now than talking to me.’

  I look at Molly. Her head has dropped back against her car seat and her mouth is slack. Bunny has fallen to the floor and I scoop him up, brushing his worn fur with my fingers before placing him gently on her lap for when she wakes. Then I call the home phone two more times and June once. The calls go unanswered and I feel the worry claw at every piece of me from the inside out. A hundred what-ifs race through my mind.

  The minutes tick by.

  Five minutes.

  Ten minutes.

  Just when I don’t think I can stand it any more, two police officers break away from the others and begin walking towards the cars.

  ‘It’s going to be fine. I’ll just be a minute,’ I tell Elise as one of the officers approaches us. I open the door and step out into the cold October night.

  ‘Hi,’ I say, wrapping my cardigan tight around my body. The officer is young. A twenty-something wearing a yellow fluorescent jacket over his black uniform. He has a prominent nose and a sharp goatee.

  ‘I’m PC Jeremy Ross. Have you or anyone in your vehicle sustained any injuries?’ He bends down and peers into the car, looking at Molly and waving a gloved hand at Elise.

  ‘No. We’re fine,’ I reply. ‘Are the people in the car OK?’

  PC Ross glances back to the crash and I follow his gaze and watch as a fireman yanks open the car door with a giant pair of metal pliers. A shiver runs down my spine. ‘It’s only one person, thankfully. The paramedics are doing everything they can to treat his injuries. Can I take your name and address?’ the police officer asks, already opening a notebook and jotting down my licence plate.

  ‘Anna James. Four Middle Road, Barton St Martin.’

  ‘Thank you. And would you mind talking me through what you saw?’

  I replay the crash in my mind and explain as best I can – the speeding car, the gunshot-like pop.

  ‘It’s looking like a rear tyre blew,’ PC Ross says when I’m finished. ‘One of the cars ahead of you has a dash cam so we have the footage.’

  ‘How long will it take to clear? I’ve got two children in the car,’ I say, stating the obvious. And one at home.

  The panic rises up. Tears form in my eyes.

  ‘It’s going to take some time. We’re waiting on the arrival of a recovery vehicle to remove the car, and then we’ll clear the road of debris and get a lane open. The lorry is going to take longer to move. Try to be patient and make sure you stay warm. Have you got any water?’

  ‘I think there’s some in the boot. So how long?’ I press. My tone has ebbed from polite to pushy.

  ‘I can’t give you an exact time. Ball park – three hours or so.’ He makes a move, a step towards the car behind me.

  Three hours? I can’t leave Harrie for that long.

  A frenzied terror grips so tight it’s a fight to draw breath. ‘I’ve left my daughter home alone,’ I sob. ‘We were only supposed to be twenty minutes. I don’t know what to do.’

  The officer moves back. I’ve caught his attention.

  ‘How old is your daughter?’ PC Ross asks.

  ‘Eleven. I know she’s young, but she’s really sen
sible. I’ve tried calling a neighbour but she didn’t answer. I don’t know what to do,’ I say, my voice cracking. ‘I can’t be here. I can’t be stuck here with my daughter at home.’

  Another sob escapes and then another. Fear is whipping up a tornado inside me. I have to get to Harrie.

  ‘Calm down,’ PC Ross says, voice firm, and suddenly he doesn’t seem so young any more. ‘Getting upset isn’t going to help your children in the car or your daughter at home. Is there a friend you could call? Anyone with a spare key?’ he asks.

  I instantly think of Kat and want to kick myself for not remembering her before. Kat has a spare key to the house. She only lives a few minutes’ walk away. And I know she’ll check on Harrie if I ask her to. We’d do anything for each other.

  ‘Yes, I’ll try.’

  ‘We’ll get you out of here as soon as we can.’

  The officer moves on to the next car and I slide into the driver’s seat and close the door. I’m breathing too fast. It’s OK, I tell myself. I can’t get to Harrie, but Kat can.

  ‘What did he say?’ Elise asks.

  ‘It’s going to be a few hours.’

  She groans and flops her head against the window. ‘Can I play on your phone?’

  ‘I need it in case Harrie tries to call. I’m going to ring Kat now and ask her to pop round.’

  ‘Harrie’s asleep,’ Elise says with a long yawn and the same conviction, as though she’s in their bedroom standing over her bed.

  What if she’s not?

  What if she’s had an accident?

  What if she’s fighting for her life this very second and I’m not there to save her?

  Suddenly, Harrie being scared and alone doesn’t feel like the worst thing any more. I close my eyes and a single tear rolls on to my cheek. I’m losing control again.

  ‘Mum?’ Elise’s one word jolts me and I turn to see her wide eyes and the confusion creasing her forehead. I don’t blame her. I rarely cry. I’m a doer not a crier. Except there’s nothing I can do right now but wait for the crash to be cleared and hope Harrie is OK. Hope Kat answers her phone, something she rarely does. Whereas my phone feels permanently glued to my hand, Kat is always leaving hers in her coat pocket or in the car, the bottom of a handbag, finding it a day or two later and laughing at her carelessness.