by M J Johnson
"Fucking idiot! Fucking idiot! Fucking idiot!" he raged.
Spike had hit the deck again when they had gone sliding across the carriageway and this time he stayed there; he'd stopped barking too and lay trembling before the passenger seat giving short heartfelt whines. Gil identified with the dog's anxiety; he too was shaking like a leaf, his breathing shallow and rapid.
Gil was determined not to engage in any more of these lethal games. He would not be goaded into increasing his speed again and would stick to 40 mph whatever. The other driver certainly wanted to play some more and did everything he could to engage him. The first ploy was to plant himself directly before Gil and cause him to brake unexpectedly. The next tactic was to come out of the lane, drop behind, flashing his lights, travelling so close that if Gil's speed had wavered they would have collided. Out of desperation, Gil considered braking hard as a drastic means of disabling the other car. "But I might put myself out of action too, or get off worse. Christ, a maniac like that might be carrying a weapon!" His thoughts betrayed the point close to despair that he had now reached.
A motorway sign brought with it new hope of breaking free. The Clacket Lane Services were three miles ahead. An idea formed: it required the other car to be in front when they reached the exit. There was only one thing to do, speed up as if to get away, and hope his adversary would take the bait.
It worked. Gil shot off as though he planned to make another escape bid and the other car immediately gave chase. Gil had no intention of reaching the dangerous speeds he previously had; this time he would stay in control of the situation. Sensing Gil had reached his top speed, the other car careered out into the middle lane before overtaking and cutting in recklessly close. It was stupidly dangerous but it worked, and although Gil was forced to brake, the speed was far lower than before, only around seventy. And this time Gil was expecting it.
As the services approached, they sailed past the first countdown point with the other car just ahead. At the second marker Gil was praying that whoever was at the wheel of the other car wouldn't anticipate his intention.
"Just keep going you arsehole!"
The final countdown; Gil showed no sign of wavering, shadowing the lead car and playing perfectly the role assigned to him of being the taunted prey. Then, at the very last moment, when it was already too late for his adversary, he took the exit. He couldn't resist flashing his lights in what he knew was an impotent show of defiance as the enemy car sailed off into the dark, wet night.
"I hope you go blind you mad bastard!" he exclaimed with much feeling.
As might have been expected there were only five cars in the parking area. He let Spike out onto a grass verge and scrambled out himself to take deep gulps of air. He was unconcerned by the rain that soon drenched through his sweatshirt, and feeling that his legs might give way, he leaned against the car for support. It actually came as a relief when he began to throw up.
2
Thursday 25 December
I did laugh when I saw you vomit over your car.
You just didn't have the stomach for our brief encounter, did you? Or perhaps a bit too much stomach? (Tee hee!)
I'm content to let you wallow under the delusion that you somehow bettered me by escaping into the services.
It's what I wanted you to think!
I suspect there aren't too many people who'd have the guts to back up along the motorway like I did? Even over Christmas with nothing else around.
After you came out of the toilets you sat in your car for ages, head in hands poor, poor, thing, until you plucked up enough courage to get back on the road. A white van started up and went out directly after you - accommodating I thought. I followed on behind. And you, deluded fool, didn't suspect a thing!
Perhaps you were half expecting me to have parked up on the hard shoulder, waiting to pounce on you like the wicked wolf?
Bet you'd need a change of trousers if you knew I'd followed you - wee wee wee - all the way home.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
3
Gil arrived home, quite exhausted, just after 11 pm; a journey he generally managed in less than three hours had taken over five.
He had never experienced anything even remotely like the encounter on the motorway and couldn't prevent himself from going over the events in the order they happened.
Had he provoked the other driver in some way?
No. Nothing he'd done could have warranted such aggression.
He brought the car to a standstill on the pea shingle drive before his garage doors.
'Christ, it was like being ten years old again,' he thought. At this age, Gil had suffered some pretty nasty bullying. His family had uprooted from the West Midlands and moved south when he was eight to resettle in a village in Berkshire. For a small boy, with an accent, a different cultural identity and who was appallingly bad at sport, it was alienating to say the least. At primary school, a group of children had conspired to make his every day a living nightmare. The kids who might have gravitated towards the school newcomer were frightened off by the ruling schoolyard junta and Gil became a loner. He learned to fake illnesses to avoid school. His parents despaired; his mother took to worrying about him; his father preferred to believe the boy was congenitally lazy, a trait undoubtedly inherited from his wife's side. Gil never breathed a word to anyone about the bullying.
Subsequently, it had always struck him as odd how nature appears to balance up her weakest points. All those hours alone, looking at comics, drawing grotesque caricatures of his enemies in embarrassing situations, had honed and developed skills that as an adult had provided him with lucrative employment.
Although he knew it was irrational, the motorway experience had awakened some of these bad memories, and had left him feeling impotent and ashamed. This may explain, at least in part, why he hadn't called the police as soon as he stopped at the motorway services. However, he knew he'd been in the wrong too: the law was unlikely to accept that he'd been simply goaded into driving fifty miles beyond the speed limit; it would probably result in an automatic ban.
Not in the mood to get soaked again, instead of putting the car away in the garage, he and Spike made a dash for the front door. Gil opened up, went inside and immediately punched in the code to disarm the security alarm. He made straight for a bottle of scotch in the dining room, and poured himself a large one. The alcohol brought a soothing warmth which seemed to root its way to just the right spot. Gil was not a heavy drinker but on this occasion he didn't mean to stop at one. He took the bottle with him when he went through to sit with a fairly blank expression at the long oak table at the heart of the kitchen.
"What a bastard of a night!" he exclaimed with heartfelt conviction.
Spike appeared with a well-mauled pink toy rabbit in his jaws.
"Glad to get home hey, Spikey? Me too," he said, patting the dog's head. Spike growled playfully, dropped the pink rabbit at Gil's feet and scarpered away expectantly. Gil made a dummy throw, which only fooled Spike for a fraction of a second, then bowled it underarm into the conservatory. Spike recaptured his favourite toy then settled into an armchair in the conservatory for an affectionate chew.
Gil returned his attention to the glass of scotch and took another sip. He let out a deep sigh, there was still sadness attached to coming home. Then, recognising that if he got stuck into the bottle without eating he would end up maudlin and morbid, he found smoked salmon and an assortment of cheeses in the fridge, which together with oatcakes made supper in minutes.
Gil Harper had lived for fourteen years in the same detached Edwardian house on a broad, tree-lined road near the Vine cricket ground in Sevenoaks. The house was sizeable, with five bedrooms and a quarter acre of garden. He and Jules had stretched themselves financially in order to buy it, although its value now made the original sum look paltry. He'd considered selling after Jules' death, so much of her personality was stamped everywhere on it. But so far he had stuck it out.
Gil was in the proce
ss of making coffee when Spike dashed past him into the hallway. He assumed the dog's sense of purpose was an entirely canine matter, but paid more attention once he heard him bark. It was the sound he made when someone unrecognised came to the door. Gil felt a twinge in the pit of his stomach as the doorbell rang; it was almost midnight.
"Shush Spike," he said as he strode into the hallway. For the second time that day Spike ignored a command.
A figure was partly delineated through the glass panes of the door, but it was too dark to identify it. Gil remedied this by putting on the porch light before he rushed to open the door.
"Sally!"
"I'm sorry Gil, I hope you don't mind. I saw your light was on. You said you'd be back sometime this evening and ..." Her speech was rapid, almost garbled.
"That's okay. Come in. Be quiet Spike!"
Spike, slightly behind Gil's leg, had adopted a warning-off pose, but on this command he stopped barking and sat down, albeit suspiciously.
"Thanks. I'm really sorry about this." There was an anxious note in her voice. The light jacket she was wearing had been soaked through.
Once she'd entered the well-lit hall, Gil could see the tell-tale signs that she'd been crying.
"Something's upset you?" he asked with genuine concern.
"Oh God Gil, I was really scared," she replied. The tears began to flood from her eyes. "I've been driving around for ages. I thought I was being followed!"
Gil closed the front door, took Sally's jacket and hung it over a radiator. He poured her a glass of scotch and fetched a towel.
As he watched her dry her short dark hair, he realised what a long time it was since any female had performed this simple action in his home. There was something oddly sensual about it.
Sally Curtis was thirty-one, five foot seven inches tall, with a lean and rangy frame. Gil had gleaned, after their two dinner-dates less than a week ago, that her background, like Jules', had been more conventionally middle-class than his own. Sally had been educated at a series of girls' boarding-schools. On their second date, she had talked briefly of her parents' divorce and how her late mother had struggled to make ends meet. She'd studied textiles at St Martin's, but had not found the world of fashion much to her liking. Later on, she had somehow fallen into making costumes for several theatre and opera companies on a freelance basis. She liked the variety of the work and being on the periphery of the theatrical world, enjoyed its bonhomie without needing to be totally immersed in it.
"I must look terrible," she said, attempting to smooth her tousled hair with trembling fingers.
"You look fine," he replied, and meant it.
She smiled and their eyes momentarily engaged; hers he'd noticed at the time of their very first meeting, were brown, doe-like and warm.
She took a sip of scotch, gripping the glass in both hands, shivering slightly. "You're very kind," she said.
"So what happened?" he asked.
She sighed heavily. "Old boyfriend trouble … story of my life. No matter what I do I always seem to end up with dickheads."
Gil felt suddenly crestfallen; although she was not referring to him, the statement still seemed damning.
She looked up apologetically, "I'm sorry, you don't need this."
"If you'd care to tell me, I'd like to understand why you looked so troubled when you rang my doorbell?"
"It's after midnight ... I have to set off for Birmingham in the morning, very early."
"Visiting friends?" he asked.
"Work," she replied, "Costume emergency on a pantomime."
"Then stay the night," he said, and immediately regretted making the suggestion, fearing it might have sounded predatory. He quickly amended, "I mean, there's plenty of room … four empty bedrooms to choose from." He added as a joke, "Spike and I share."
She laughed, "I don't think Spike has taken to me. To be honest, I don't feel very secure with dogs."
"You'll be alright with Spikey then, because he isn't one. He's actually a reincarnated lama from the farthest reaches of the Himalayas taking a bit of time off from too much karmic harmony and enlightenment. Aren't you boy?" Spike wagged his tail and came forward hesitantly.
"I don't suppose there were many girls up at the monastery," Sally said, joining in the fantasy and tentatively offering her hand for Spike to check it out.
"About once a year some nuns from a nearby convent might go past and wave."
"It must be a pretty good thing being your dog," she said. Spike had begun to mellow; Sally had discovered his Achilles heel - a spot just under his chin.
"Mostly it is. But we didn't have a very good time on our way home tonight."
"I bet! That awful rain!"
"That didn't help. There was an idiot on the motorway playing dangerous silly buggers."
"Did you get his number?"
"No," Gil scowled. "To be honest it didn't cross my mind until I pulled into the services. The visibility was dreadful. I probably wouldn't have been able to make it out anyway."
"Oh well, you got back safe and sound, that's the main thing."
"And what about you, you said you thought someone was following you?"
"I think my imagination got the better of me."
"It gave me quite a fright when you landed on my doorstep."
"Poor Gil, I'm really sorry if I frightened you," she laughed.
Gil found the effect laughter had on her features totally absorbing. "So, are you going to tell me about it?"
"The smell of that coffee is intoxicating, may I have some?"
He poured the coffee and filled a jug with cold milk from the fridge. As he put the hot drinks down on the table he noticed that both their whisky glasses were empty, "Would you like some more?"
"You're sure I wouldn't be putting you to too much trouble if I stayed?"
"Course not."
She held out both glasses for him to top them up.
They sipped their drinks for a few moments in silence.
"You probably won't be interested in seeing me again if I tell you about myself … when you find out just how stupid and neurotic I really am."
She had said these words half jokingly, but Gil could see that underlying this she was quite troubled.
"You don't have to tell me anything unless you want to," he reassured her. "I'd like us to get to know each other better no matter what."
Sally was clearly touched by this declaration, and she replied, "I'd like to at least try and explain, if that's okay?"
"Fine by me," he answered.
"About four years ago I met someone. To begin with it was fun, he was successful, urbane. I felt I deserved a break on the relationship front. To begin with it had all seemed very different, so romantic. He'd send me bouquets every day for a week, take me to lavish hotels for romantic weekends, one time he even booked a weekend in Vienna just to surprise me. I suppose I found all the attention flattering, but as the months went by he became more and more possessive; he didn't want me to work away from home, didn't like me doing anything much unless he was there to hold my hand." As she spoke she made two fists with her hands and brought them up to her temples in a gesture of frustration. "I felt like I was being suffocated. His personality was so dominating," a look of despair came over her face, "and I'm so bloody weak and vacillating."
"Don't talk about yourself like that, we've all found ourselves vulnerable at times," remonstrated Gil.
She grew calmer again. "I allowed him to take over my life. He insisted I move in with him. He took over my finances. He put my house up for sale, bought me a new car, though I loved my old one. He even started buying clothes for me, like I was his property or something. He went so far as arranging the time and place for our wedding without consulting me. Can you imagine that?"
"But you didn't marry him?" Gil asked uncertainly.
"No. In fact it was the wedding that brought me to my senses. When I had the temerity to protest that I should have been asked, he went berserk. He became so aggres
sive, I was ready to cave in just to appease him, which usually worked; but this time he just got madder." Sally paused; Gil could see the tension on her face. "He started using me as a punch-bag." She was shaking now. "Then ... he raped me."
"Christ, what a bastard!" Beyond this Gil found himself speechless.
"I took off next morning after he'd left for work. I left the car, clothes, jewellery he'd bought. A friend collected me and took me to her home for a few weeks. He'd found a buyer for my cottage, but fortunately the contracts hadn't been exchanged and I managed to hang on to it."
"Was he charged?"
"I took out a non-molestation order against him. He wasn't allowed to come within three miles of my house for a year. All my friends wanted me to take him to court. I wasn't sure. Michael has a habit of getting out of scrapes."
"That's his name then, Michael?"
"Yes. He's quite a big-shot in the city. He could easily have afforded a good lawyer. I took legal advice from a friend who reckoned Michael would get a suspended sentence at most."
"That's appalling."
"Apparently it's still true that judges aren't keen to sully the reputation of a formerly upstanding citizen, especially someone with all the right credentials."
"That's awful!" exclaimed Gil.
"I can't say I was too eager to go through the legal process, suffering all the humiliation it might entail, only to come off the loser. I've already told you what a coward I am."
"I don't think it was cowardly, you sought advice and after consideration chose the best course available."
She smiled, leaned forward and kissed Gil's cheek.
"What was that for?" he asked.
"For listening, and being considerate."
"Not all of us men are arseholes, you know."
She nodded, "I admit that for a time I wondered."
Gil changed tack, "So he's been troubling you again? I mean, since all that happened?"
"Yes, for about a month now. I left him just under two years ago. He kept well clear of me after the order was put in place. I thought it was all over. Then one evening in late November, I saw him across the road; he was watching me getting off the train from London. I thought it might have been coincidence. Then a week later the same thing happened again, only this time he followed me home. I was scared stiff."