by Barker, Ashe
I turn the last bend sedately—the same one that Nathan came careering round just before he crashed into Miranda that rainy night almost a year ago. The gate is open, just sliding obediently into its housing at the side of the lane in response to my remote command. I drive straight through along the gravel drive towards the house. My heart twists inside me at my first glimpse of Black Combe as I turn into the forecourt.
I love this place so much, miss it so much. I so wish it was still mine. Could still be mine.
My gaze is blurred again, the emotion of this parody of a homecoming causing me to gulp and swallow. I can hardly see for tears as I drive around the side of the house with the utmost care, finally rolling to a stop a few feet from the kitchen door. I half expect it to be flung open, and someone—Mrs Richardson, I daresay—to come bustling out to meet me. But no. All’s still and quiet. For an awful moment I wonder if I’ve chosen a day when no one’s home. Maybe I should have phoned ahead to check after all?
Then I spot Barney, still as big and woolly and stupidly friendly as ever, ambling towards me, his tail wagging in welcome. If everyone was out, he’d be left safe inside the house, not wandering round out here on his own. Someone must be at home. I get out of the car and wait for him. His welcome is muted but sincere, and I find enormous comfort in tickling his ears and having him nudge my hand for more. At least someone’s pleased to see me.
Barney plonks himself down beside me, watching placidly as I pull the driver’s seat forward, tipping it over the steering wheel. I reach across, into the back to release the seatbelt holding Isabella’s baby seat in place. With some awkward tugging I manage to heave the seat, Isabella still in situ, over the top of the driver’s seat and out of the car. Barney is fascinated by this new little animal I’ve brought to show him, and stands, towering over the baby carrier, his huge head lowered to sniff her from every angle as I place the baby carrier on the ground. I leave them to get acquainted as I close the car doors, locking everything up out of force of habit born and bred in cities. Isabella doesn’t seem to mind Barney’s close inspection in the least, just regards him steadily with those huge, solemn, dark eyes of hers.
It’s time to make my presence known so I pick up the baby carrier by its handle and trudge over to the kitchen door, Barney trotting along amiably beside me.
I knock. And I wait.
I don’t have to wait long. After a few moments I hear stirring inside, the distant tread of feet deep within the bowels of the house, coming closer. And closer. The rattle of the door handle before it swings inward.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Before I can get a word out Mrs Richardson’s curt question and steely expression let me know in no uncertain terms the warmth of my welcome. Frigid. Absolutely bloody arctic. Clearly, I’m as popular as a rat sandwich around here, and I guess with good reason. At least as far as Grace is concerned. I have no illusion that Nathan might have had the decency to acknowledge the part he may have played in our break-up. He probably doesn’t even think he did anything especially reprehensible.
I take a deep breath, square my shoulders. Whatever my sense of injustice, I need to get past the formidable Grace if I’m to implement my plan. I plaster on a watery smile and summon up my best impression of confident courtesy.
“Hello, Mrs Richardson. May I come in, please?”
“I said, what the hell are you doing here? After all this time? I thought we’d seen the back of you. If you think you can just waltz back in here like nothing’s happened, upsetting everyone again…” She starts to close the door on me.
I can’t let her shut me out, I’ve come too far. I try to hide my desperation, but I know it’s there in my voice. I put my palm against the door, trying to stop it swinging shut in my face. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to upset anyone and I won’t stay long. Please, can we come in?”
At the mention of ‘we’ the tirade stops and the door opens again. Mrs Richardson looks around me curiously, noticing at last the baby carrier by my feet. Her face, that mask of implacable outrage, melts instantly. Result!
“Oh my goodness, what’s this? Who have we here?”
The Isabella magic works and the door swings wide open again. I know an opportunity when I see one and I take my chance. I grab the baby carrier and hurry inside before she thinks better of it. Once in, I lift Isabella up onto the table, and, my part in this endeavour done for now, I stand back to let her continue to work her charm. Which she does, with effortless aplomb.
“Oooh, aren’t you pretty, then? And what’s your name?” Mrs Richardson glances up at me expectantly, even as she starts to loosen Isabella’s restraining straps to pick her up. Something I would never do unless I absolutely have to. And this unconsidered, instinctive action on the part of a total stranger towards my daughter just proves to me, again, why I need to do this. Why I need to stick to my plan, however hard it is to let go.
“She’s called Isabella. She’s six weeks old. And she’s Nathan’s.”
Mrs Richardson pulls a clearly delighted Isabella from the confines of the baby carrier and cuddles her, beaming down at the little infant face, her own features softening as Isabella wisely returns her smile. Wind, no doubt, but still a good move.
She turns to face me, and her expression is hard again, her anger and outrage undiminished. “I can see who her daddy is. She’s the spit of him. What I want to know is how come this is the first any of us know about this little mite?” Then turning back to my baby she’s transformed again, now all motherly smiles and dimples. “Isabella. What a pretty name, for a pretty, pretty little girl, yes it is…”
I stand, awkwardly, already an outsider. This is going much, much more easily than I expected. And it’s a million times harder.
“No, I mean she’s Nathan’s to keep. I want to leave her here. With him. He’s her father, he’ll have to look after her now.”
“What do you mean? Of course he’ll look after her. But he’s not here right now. Where do you think you’re going and when will you be back?”
“I won’t be back. Isabella’s his, Nathan can have her. He can keep her.” Taking advantage of Mrs Richardson’s astonished stare I decide that now’s the time to get matters settled and be away. Before I can change my mind. “I’ll just get her stuff from the car.”
I dive out of the door again, followed once more by the loyal and sympathetic Barney. I fling open the car boot and start piling the contents onto the gravel. Mrs Richardson watches me from the doorway, clutching Isabella tightly, her face frozen in amazement. Grace’s mouth is working but nothing much is coming out.
I bundle Isabella’s bits and pieces into the kitchen, politely skirting around my incredulous audience stationed in the doorway. Within a couple of trips all her stuff is in a pile on the table, and my precious violin is laid neatly alongside.
“The violin is for Rosie. I hope she loves playing it as much as I always have.” And I turn to go.
Mrs Richardson reaches out as I make to pass her, grabs my arm. “Why? How can you just leave her? What sort of a mother are you?”
“I’m a rubbish mother. Isn’t it obvious? She needs to be with people who care about her, who’ll love her. I… I just can’t. I’ve tried, but I just can’t…” Swiping the tears from my eyes I drag my arm free and rush for the door, this time making it outside without further hindrance. I can hear Mrs Richardson’s voice behind me, pleading, calling me back.
“Wait. Eva, wait. Wait for Mr Darke—he’ll know what to do. You can’t just go off like this…” Her tone is worried, frightened now rather than angry, and I feel the weight of yet more guilt. Yet another person worried about me, upset by me.
I drag the car door open and scuttle inside, then slam it behind me. I glance up through my streaming tears to see Mrs Richardson starting towards the car, one arm outstretched, the other still clutching Isabella. I see Grace’s mouth moving, shouting something at me. I turn the key in the ignition and hit the accelerator hard, gr
avel flying up from under Miranda’s squealing tyres as I swerve around the house and back towards the gate. It’s only halfway opened as Miranda hurtles towards it, and it’s lucky she’s so small as the narrow gap we shoot through only leaves a hair’s width on either side. I burst out and into the lane, heading downhill fast, away from Black Combe as fast as Miranda can manage.
It seems only moments before we reach the bottom of the lane, and I haul the steering wheel hard to make the bend into the main road. I turn right rather than left, intending to avoid any possibility of seeing anyone I might know if I was to pass through Haworth or any of the other familiar little villages and hamlets.
The road runs straight for a couple of hundred metres, then there’s a slight bend to the right. I know I’m going fast, too fast, but I don’t slow down as I approach the bend. The familiar gleaming black Porsche coming towards me, materialising from around the bend, has no option but to brake and swerve sharply. In that split second of recognition two inane thoughts flash through my mind. The first that Nathan and his penis substitute had this coming. And the second that if I’d turned left I’d have escaped him entirely.
Some semblance of reason penetrates my thinking an instant before the head-on collision, which Nathan, grappling with the wheel of the Porsche, is trying so desperately to avoid. Somewhat belatedly I lend my efforts to his and swing on my steering wheel again, this time swerving to my left. I hit the brakes, too hard and much, much too late.
Miranda, bless her, was never built for this sort of nonsense and relinquishes any attempt to hold the tarmac. We slide, out of control, off the road and shoot sideways across the narrow grassy bank before we clip the low dry stone wall running innocently alongside, separating the road from the rippling waters of the tarn. The impact sends Miranda cartwheeling up into the air and I am briefly gripped by the centrifugal force as the little car spins in mid-air before landing on its roof, to sink slowly into the dark, chilly depths of the moorland lake. My last conscious thought before the dark water swallows both Miranda and me is that I’m so glad I didn’t do this in the winter—it would have been so very, very cold.
Chapter Twelve
Voices. Somewhere. A long, long way away. Then silence.
Again. That voice, calling my name. And something about an ambulance. Anxious, scared. Angry. Then silence once more. I’m tired, need to sleep.
Gulping, gasping, desperate. More voices, louder now. Shouting. Screaming at me. Punching me. Shaking me. My watery cradle gone—in its place the cold, hard, unwelcoming ground. Cold, so cold.
“She’s coming round. Breathe, Eva. For Christ’s sake breathe…”
No, no. Not coming back…
“Eva, for God’s sake!” A mouth covering mine, soft and warm. Familiar. Forcing air into my lungs. The grey clouds in my head shift and part, and sunlight pierces through, cruel and strident. I squeeze my eyes shut, try to burrow down, away. It’s no use. I cough, instinctively roll to my side as the cool, bitter tarn water dribbles from my lungs, out of my mouth and onto the ground beside me.
“Thank God.” The voice is soft, low. And so well known to me. He brushes the tangle of dirty, wet curls from my face, lifting my head to cradle it on his lap. Nathan. My nemesis. And now, it seems, my saviour.
“How are you doing with that bloody ambulance?”
“I’m trying. The signal down here’s shite.” A different voice, not Nathan. I mumble something, anything to stop them handing me over to the authorities. They’ll lock me up for sure.
“No, no ambulance…” I mutter the words, barely coherent, but Nathan hears.
“You need checking over, Eva.”
“No! No ambulance!” I’m fighting now to get up, to get away.
“Okay, okay, calm down.”
“I can’t find a bloody signal anyway… Let me try with your phone?” The other voice again, so familiar. Tom. It’s Tom.
“It’s in my pocket. Reckon I drowned it. Let’s get her up to the house and phone from there.”
Nathan continues to hold me, soothe me, as the clouds in my brain clear and I slowly return to consciousness. I am dimly aware of the crunch of boots on asphalt, moving away. A car door slams. Then Tom is back, shrugging his jacket on and tossing a car blanket at Nathan which he carefully wraps around me.
Tom is crouching now, inspecting the damage to the dry stone wall. He turns to us, tilting his head at the abandoned Porsche. “You take Eva, get yourselves dried out before you both catch pneumonia. I’ll do some quick repairs to this wall so no one else goes through it, then I’ll follow you on foot. Do you need a hand getting her in the car?”
“No, I’ve got her.” Nathan stands and helps me to my feet, keeping his arm clamped firmly around me as I make my shaky way across the road to the Porsche. It occurs to me to resist as he opens the passenger door and I crouch down to slide inside. I ought to be saying that I don’t want to go anywhere with him, but I’m just too cold and too scared and too bloody shocked to come up with anything in the way of protest. Exhausted, I’ve stopped resisting now. Semi-conscious possibly, I find myself drifting back to that other time, almost a year ago, when he offered me warm, dry comfort in his house. Moments later he’s beside me, in the driver’s seat.
My vision comes back into focus and I can see that Tom’s still standing beside the road and waving his phone in the air, frantically searching for some sort of signal. Nathan calls across to him as he starts the engine.
“Don’t worry about the emergency services, I’ll phone them when we get home. If you do manage to find a signal though, maybe you could get in touch with Jack and ask him to sort out a winch. For tomorrow if possible. I don’t doubt Eva’s going to want her car back, she seems pretty fond of it. You never know, we might be able to dry it out.” He glances back at me, his eyes narrowing. “I think we might prefer to not get the authorities involved if we can help it so I’ll do the scuba work.” He waves to Tom as he pulls away. “See you up there.”
* * * *
Moments later the car is purring back up the lane towards Black Combe. Nathan drives right around the house to the back door before he pulls up. Grace is hovering nervously on the kitchen doorstep, Isabella clutched to her chest. Nathan glances up at the pair as he gets out of the car, but if he’s surprised—and I suppose he must be—he manages to keep a lid on that as he comes around to open my door without making any comment. He holds out his hand to help me out and I take it dumbly. Still clutching the soggy car blanket around me I let Nathan usher me through the kitchen door as Grace obligingly steps aside to let us pass.
Nathan takes a long look at Isabella before turning back to me, now shivering inside the kitchen. He can’t fail to recognise her, the similarity is nothing short of uncanny. He’s no fool, he’ll be doing the sums, working out the dates. I’m waiting for the storm, the torrent of angry recrimination as he realises how cruelly and completely he’s been deceived, his baby kept from him.
But there’s no storm, just Nathan’s calm, capable voice. Taking charge and making things right.
He turns to Grace. “Eva had an accident—her car ran off the road and into the tarn. I think she’s all right, but we’re both piss-wet through and bloody cold. We need a hot bath, and ambulance. Could you phone for one—we couldn’t get any signal down by the tarn?”
I’m staring at my feet, water pooling on the stone flags beside them. Nathan gently frames my face in his hands, forcing me to meet his gaze, his expression a mix of sadness, anger and sheer bloody exhaustion. He glances back at Grace and Isabella, shakes his head in disbelief. Then he turns back to me. “You need to be checked over, Eva. But we’ll start by getting you dried, warmed up. Then you’ve got a hell of a lot of explaining to do, love.”
I feel my knees start to buckle, but Nathan’s arm is around me again. He continues to hold me. Without his support I have no doubt I’d have been down on the Yorkshire stone flags with Barney. Mrs Richardson’s face is lined with anxiety, a sweetly gurgling
Isabella still wriggling in her arms as she reaches for the wall mounted kitchen phone.
“Oh my goodness, oh Lord. What happened?”
Nathan’s answer is succinct. “Eva’s car went off the road into the tarn. I managed to get her out, but she’s frozen. We both are.”
Grace is starting to punch in the three nines as she looks up sharply at Nathan. “Did she do it on purpose?”
What!
Nathan’s incredulous reaction to the question is obvious and genuine. Like mine. He stiffens, and turns to Mrs Richardson in amazement. “I beg your pardon?”
“Did she drive into the tarn on purpose? Was she trying to kill herself?” Mrs Richardson is adamant. Her question hangs in the air, circling us like a buzzard. I notice, gratefully, that she’s stopped dialling.
“Why the fuck would she have been doing that? It was an accident. She swerved to miss me.” In the surreality of the moment all thoughts of ambulances seem to have fled as Mrs Richardson stares both of us down, ready to make her case.
“Eva turned up here, out of the blue, with this little mite.” She jiggles the mite in question, just in case there could be some doubt of who she’s referring to. “Said she’s yours, and that she was leaving her here for you to care for. She said she wasn’t coming back and just ran out of here. Next news is she’s driven straight into the tarn. What does that sound like to you?”
“It sounds like bloody bad luck. And some seriously crap driving. We were probably both going too fast and like I said, she swerved to miss me.”
Nathan’s tone is brooking no argument. His belief in me is evident and unshakeable, and I’m genuinely pleased. Relieved. Pathetically grateful. And I might have been more vehement in my own defence if there wasn’t some faint ring of truth in Mrs Richardson’s version of events. I definitely never made a conscious decision to die, and no way did I plan the accident. But I do know, in that water, that I gave up without a struggle. I just expected to die there and I accepted my death, maybe even welcomed it as a way out of my hopeless despairing excuse for an existence.