The whole thing happened so quickly that although Maggie was aware of being thrown around inside the car like a rag doll, she was unable to stop herself. Terrified and disorientated, she screamed as she tumbled around. She heard the crunching of metal on stones, the hissing of hot water escaping, and screaming, a lot of screaming, but it all came from far away.
And then came an excruciating pain in her head and neck followed by the silence of blackness.
As she regained consciousness Maggie blinked hard in her confusion and then opened her eyes wide to see a fuzzy image of someone sitting at her bedside; she could also feel them holding her hand tightly.
‘Maggie …’
Maggie rolled her eyes around in her head trying to focus on the source of the voice.
‘Oh, thank God, you’re awake. We were so worried about you! We thought we might lose you. Maggie, Maggie … Johnnie, call the nurse, tell her she’s awake.’
Still confused, Maggie blinked again so that she could see properly and tried to look around to get her bearings. She realized that Ruby was at her bedside; then, as she rolled her eyes again, she saw that Johnnie was on the other side. She couldn’t actually turn her head, which she realized was constrained within a neck brace, and she felt as if her arms and legs were weighted down; it was a strange sensation, and she felt as if none of her body parts were connected.
‘What happened?’ she asked. ‘Where am I?’ As she spoke, she realized that her tongue felt as if it was far too big for her mouth, and as she moved it around she could feel a strange gap and realized that she was missing some teeth on one side of her mouth.
‘My teeth! What happened to my teeth? I’ve lost my teeth,’ she said quietly as tears formed large in the corners of her eyes before rolling slowly down the side of her face. As she blinked them away, her eyes flicked around the room in disorientated panic, and she saw a nurse standing on the foot of the bed holding a clipboard. She started to recollect what had happened, and a sense of impending doom washed over her; she knew something bad was going on. She was lying immobile in a hospital bed, Ruby and Johnnie were at her bedside and there was a nurse in the room, but her parents weren’t anywhere to be seen. She scanned round the room as best she could to make sure, but neither of them was there with her. He heart started to pound in her chest, and she knew she was going to be sick.
‘You’re in hospital, my dear. There was an accident, and you’ve been hurt. You have to lie still. You have a head and neck injury – we don’t think it’s serious – but that’s why you mustn’t move your head at the moment,’ the nurse said gently. ‘Can you remember what happened?’
Maggie closed her eyes, and as soon as she did so the accident was there, being replayed in front of her, first in snippets and then the scene in slow motion. She remembered it all too well. There had been a terrible car crash on the way to Cambridge. The car had gone off the road, and it was her fault because she had been throwing a tantrum and had distracted her mother and made her lose control of the new, more powerful car.
As she closed her eyes she could again hear the squealing of brakes, the terrible crunching of metal and the screaming from both her parents and herself.
‘I’m going to be sick,’ she cried.
Ruby pushed a small metal bowl under the side of her face, allowing Maggie to vomit fiercely without sitting up.
‘I don’t know what’s going on,’ she sobbed as Ruby wiped her mouth. ‘Where are they? Where’re Mum and Dad?’
As her voice changed and her speech quickened in panic, she caught the look that the couple exchanged and tried to work out what was happening; she wondered how much trouble she was in and whether either of her parents had told them the accident was her fault.
‘How much do you remember, Maggie?’ Ruby asked. ‘You’ve been unconscious since yesterday! We were so worried about you. You’ve got concussion and a broken arm and lots of cuts and bruises, but you’re alive, thank God.’
‘My teeth? How many teeth have I lost?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Ruby said shaking her head. ‘Maybe three, but that can be easily fixed as soon a dentist sees you. But Uncle George and Aunty Babs … your mum and dad …’ The tears started to fall down Ruby’s face.
‘Where are they?’ Maggie interrupted. ‘Why aren’t they here? Are they OK? They were both in the car; we were going to Cambridge for the day. I was going to spend my birthday money. We were going out to lunch.’
Feeling disorientated and nauseous, she blinked her eyes rapidly as she threw the words out, and she tried unsuccessfully to sit up. The nurse put her hand on her shoulder and stayed her on the hospital bed.
‘Maggie, I’m so sorry, it was a terrible, terrible accident and they didn’t survive the crash. They both died in the car,’ Ruby sobbed, taking her hand. ‘It was instant for them. You were lucky because you were in the back away from the windscreen. The police are going to need to talk to you about it, but we thought it was better if you heard it from us rather than them.’
Maggie said nothing as she closed her eyes and tried to wish herself somewhere else, anywhere else but in the middle of the nightmare that was unfolding.
Her parents were dead, and it was her fault. She remembered exactly what had happened, she remembered every second of it, up until the final spin of the car against the wall when she was knocked out.
‘Maggie? Speak to me. I know this is a terrible shock, but you’re very lucky that you came out of it without any serious injury.’
But still she said nothing.
‘How did it happen?’ Johnnie asked. ‘Was it a fox or something? Did something run out and your mum try to avoid it?’
‘I don’t know. I was asleep in the back …’ she lied.
Ruby stood up and let go of Maggie’s hand. ‘We’ll be back in a minute.’ She pulled a handful of tissues from the box on the bedside cabinet and wiped her eyes. ‘We’re just going to talk to the doctor.’
Maggie kept her eyes squeezed shut. She didn’t want to open them and face what had happened.
‘Oh God, it was all my fault, my fault,’ she murmured as they left the room, but neither Ruby nor Johnnie heard her.
Once the door to the single room clicked shut, Maggie tried hard to get her thoughts into order; she wanted to think the situation through before they came back. A huge wave of guilt and self-hatred enveloped her as she realized the enormity of what she had done. She couldn’t blame anyone but herself for the situation she was in because the accident was all her fault.
Her stupid childish behaviour had killed her parents.
She tried to turn over, but it was impossible with the neck brace, so she settled for lying motionless and silent. She didn’t want to be awake when Ruby and Johnnie came back into the room. Knowing what she knew, she didn’t want to have to face them, and neither did she want to face her own uncertain future.
Maggie Wheaton just wanted to go to sleep and never wake up again.
‘She’s not cried yet, you know, and she’s not said anything about Babs and George. She’s just fretting about her teeth,’ Ruby said, pacing back and forth in the hospital corridor while Johnnie sat perfectly still on one of the chairs outside the doors to the ward where Maggie was being treated. ‘I don’t understand …’
‘Yes, you do; it’s just shock and denial. It’s easier to focus on the small things than it is to face up to the bloody horror of what’s happened. Can you imagine how the poor kid must be feeling? She’s lost both parents in a split second, and she’s having to mentally adjust to that, as well as having her own injuries to contend with.’ Johnnie got up from the chair and stood in front of his wife. He put his hands on her shoulder. ‘Bloody hell, Rube, think about it. Of course she’s going to concentrate on something small; the whole thing is too much for her. For all her bravado she’s still only sixteen, and it all happened on her bloody birthday. She’s never going to be able to have a happy birthday again, poor kid.’
‘Well, of course I understan
d all that; do you really think I’m that stupid that I don’t know what’s going on with her?’ Ruby snapped back sharply as she roughly pushed him away. ‘I just don’t understand why she’s not saying anything at all, not asking anything about the accident. It’s been nearly a week; if she can’t remember then surely she’d want to know what happened? She didn’t even react when we told her about the young man in the other car. Poor bugger nearly lost his leg, and she doesn’t seem to understand.’
‘Of course she doesn’t; she’s in shock. Give her time to get it together in her own head, and then she’ll be able to talk about it. But it may take a long time, and in the meantime …’ His voice trailed off as she stared again at the doors to the ward.
‘Oh, Johnnie, Johnnie, what are we going to do? We have to take her home with us, but then what do we tell her? I just don’t know what to do for the best, for her sake, for everyone’s sake; there are the boys to think about.’
‘Let’s play it by ear for the moment. It’s early days, and when they say she can go home, when she’s recuperated, then we can decide what to do next. We mustn’t rush into anything.’ Johnnie Riordan took his wife’s hand. ‘Come on, let’s go back in and see if she’s awake. We’re all she’s got now.’
‘I still haven’t told Gracie,’ Ruby said as they walked back to the main doors to the ward. ‘I didn’t want to spoil her holiday, but I have to let her know before the funeral …’ She paused, and the tears welled up again. ‘How are we going to arrange that? When Leonora died, George and Babs did it all. I don’t know what to do.’
‘We’ll go back to Melton after we leave here and talk to the vicar,’ Johnnie said, his tone gentle and reassuring. ‘George and Babs were a part of that village and went to the church; we’ll ask all about it then. There’s plenty of time. Maggie has to be our main concern now.’
Ruby suddenly dissolved into floods of tears. ‘I can’t believe this has happened. I’m going to miss them so much! They were just like parents to me, they did everything for me, and now they’re gone …’
Johnnie Riordan put his arms around his wife and hugged her close. ‘I know, and you have to mourn them as well as look after Maggie, but we’ll manage. We always have.’ He pulled his wife close and kissed the top of her head.
‘But there’s so much to do, both up here and in Southend,’ Ruby continued. ‘I don’t know where to start.’
‘We’ll start by getting through today … Now, let’s get back to Maggie. For all her pretence she’s a child who’s lost her parents. The change in her life is going to be bloody awful.’ He paused and looked at his wife. ‘It’s going to be bloody awful for everyone.’
One of the benefits of living in a small village was that everyone knew everyone else and in times of need they all rallied round. The downside for young Maggie Wheaton was there were people around all the time who meant well but who were always asking questions she didn’t want to hear let alone answer. All she wanted was be alone with her sorrow and her guilt.
But it wasn’t happening.
When Ruby and Johnnie had brought her home from hospital after ten days, Maggie was still wearing a small neck brace and her arm was immobile in a plaster of Paris cast, but the stitches in her head wound had been removed just before her discharge. Apart from her missing teeth she was physically in one piece and was recovering well, which was a miracle in itself, considering the crash had taken the lives of Babs and George.
However, she was not recovering mentally. She was confused and angry and completely enveloped in guilt. The sights and the sounds of the crash were with her every time she closed her eyes; she had no respite from the nightmares and no respite from her guilt.
The police had formally declared the accident to have been just that, an accident; no one had seen exactly what happened, George and Babs had both perished and Maggie had reiterated that she couldn’t remember a thing about it. When the car was found to have no faults and it was proven the road had been clear and dry, the conclusion was that it had been caused by Babs swerving to avoid an animal running out in front of the car and losing control.
It was the obvious conclusion to everyone, as it had happened at a stretch of the road where foxes often darted from one side to the other, oblivious to traffic on the road.
It was a terrible accident, and case closed.
But it wasn’t closed for young Maggie Wheaton. It never would be because she knew what had happened and that it was all her fault.
Ruby had moved into the Wheaton home in Melton tempor-arily to look after her, and to try and deal with the injured and grieving youngster as well as the family affairs, but it was hard because at the same time Johnnie had to go back and forth between Melton and Southend as often as he could.
It was a fine line for Ruby and Johnnie Riordan to tread because, despite their concerns and fears for Maggie, they owned two busy seafront hotels in Southend and the month of May was the start of the busiest season for them. However, Ruby’s best friend Gracie Woodfield, who’d been on holiday in Cornwall, was due to arrive back that evening and had promised to help out with the business and the children, freeing them to concentrate on Maggie.
But Maggie didn’t want their attention; she didn’t want attention from anyone. All she wanted was to be left alone with her misery. Everyone who visited, from close family friends to the milkman, told Maggie how grateful she should be to Ruby and Johnnie, that there was so much to do and arrange that she could never have coped on her own, but it didn’t make her feel any differently; Maggie resented what she saw as outsiders taking over everything, including Maggie herself.
Ruby was around every minute of the day, fussing and caring for her, talking to her, preparing her meals, and acting as gatekeeper to the many visitors who wanted to pay their respects. As a priority she had arranged for a dentist to make a temporary denture to fill the gaps where Maggie’s teeth had been knocked out, and she had taken control of the everyday things that Maggie, as a sixteen year old, had no idea about. The nurse from the surgery attached to the house kept popping in to check on her wounds and well-being, and the doctor had given her a mild sedative to help her sleep at night. Everything was being done for her by so many people, but there was no one she could confide in about her part in the accident.
She couldn’t tell anyone about the guilt that was consuming her.
‘Maggie?’ Ruby called. ‘Where are you? I have to go into town to talk to the solicitor about some odds and ends; there’s paperwork to deal with. Do you want to come?’ She paused, but there was only silence. ‘Maggie?’
When there was still no answer, Ruby went looking and found Maggie curled up in a ball on the bed in her mother’s bedroom with a long pale-pink winceyette nightdress hugged close to her. Because it had all been so sudden, everything in the house was the same as when the family had climbed into the Mercedes on Maggie’s birthday and headed off to Cambridge.
The nightie was the one Babs had been wearing the night before the accident, and Maggie had found it neatly folded under her pillow. She could still smell the lingering scent of her favourite perfume, Tweed, the newest bottle of which stood central on her dressing table, a gift from George the previous Christmas.
Ruby walked across the room and sat on the bed alongside Maggie. She sat there a few moments before lying down next to her and putting her arms around her. The young girl fought against her and tried her best to pull away, but Ruby held on to her regardless and soothed her until she felt her relax.
‘I’m so sorry, Maggie,’ Ruby said as she loosened her hold but still kept her arms around her. ‘If there was any way I could change all this, I would. I can’t believe it either. Aunty Babs and Uncle George were like parents to me; they treated me as their own and helped me at the worst time in my life. I’m devastated, and I know it’s ten times worse for you.’
‘You don’t know how it is for me! You’ve no idea how I feel. It was all my fault …’ As soon as the words were out, Maggie regretted them.
‘Of course it wasn’t your fault. It was an accident, something that could have happened to anyone. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. Maybe a squirrel or a fox ran across the road? That’s what the police think, and even the poor man in the other car said it could have been something like that.’
‘I was being rude to her. I distracted her …’
‘And not for the first time, I doubt,’ Ruby said, smiling sadly. ‘You mustn’t blame yourself darling, you mustn’t.’
‘But—’
‘No buts. It was an accident, and sadly accidents happen all the time to lots of innocent people.’
Maggie lay there quietly. Her instinct was to push Ruby away, but there was something comforting about being wrapped in her arms. After a few minutes Ruby sat up.
‘I’m sorry, Maggie, but I have to go and see the damned solicitor. There’s so much to arrange, and I don’t know where to start. Are you coming with me?’
‘No. I’ll stay here. Alison said she’d come round, so I’ll be fine,’ Maggie lied easily.
‘I’ll be as quick as I can,’ Ruby said. ‘There’s still some final funeral details we need to go over together before tomorrow. We’ll talk about it when I get back.’
‘OK.’
Maggie waited until she heard Ruby’s car pull away, and then she ran to her room. She pulled on a clean skirt and jumper, ran a brush through her hair and headed on foot out of the village towards the Manor House.
She was determined to see Andy Blythe, and if he wasn’t going to visit her – which he patently wasn’t – then she was going to try and find him.
Four
Ruby was puffing and panting as she threw open the door to the solicitor’s office and went straight up to the vast old desk that dominated the small reception area. She caught her breath as she waited patiently for several seconds before the fierce-looking woman perched on a typing chair behind it looked up from her machine and frowned. Her upright demeanour and formal two-piece tweed suit reminded Ruby of Leonora Wheaton, George’s late sister.
Maggie Page 4