Travelling in a Strange Land

by David Park

  And he’s talking about Luke and how we’re always killing the fatted calf for him and how is that fair and why are the scales always tipped out of balance.

  He’s not the prodigal son, I rush at him. He’s not the prodigal son and you are the one who went away from us and we always wanted you to come back and every night we left the chain off the front door and your mother put warmth in your bed on winter nights so don’t try to make us feel guilty about your brother because we don’t love him more or less than you. And we’ve always felt that, even when it was hard and our love wasn’t wanted, so don’t try to lay that guilt on us because we can’t take it and won’t take it and we tried to come to you, tried more than you will ever know or understand, and yes we’d have laid on a banquet to welcome you so don’t tell yourself that only Luke matters because it isn’t true it isn’t true and you shouldn’t say it is because it’s easy to say things that are meant to hurt but we can’t have any more hurt than we have right now and just after when I thought Luke was going to go under because maybe he wanted to be with his big brother it filled us with the worst fear that we’ve ever known so that was the very last thing you gave us after everything we gave you and sometimes I think the fear is permanent like it’s stamped indelibly somewhere deep in our DNA and no matter what we do or will do in the future we’ll never be free of it can you understand that can you understand?

  But there is no answer and the scud of the wipers telling me that the snow has stopped falling replaces the whispering. As always after, I feel a cold emptiness I want to shake off. Perhaps it’s when I try to free myself from the chill of my thoughts, the memories that don’t help, that makes me drive on past until in some mental double take what I’ve just seen registers in my consciousness – the car tracks off the road, the broken fence, the red lights blinking – and I bring the car to a stop, stare vainly in my side mirror for what together these things mean. Then I switch on my hazard lights, get out and walk back towards the tracks to find a car has gone off the road, ploughed through a wooden fence and slid down face forward into the gully that borders the wood. There is a woman in the car, maybe my age, maybe a few years older, and her driver’s airbag has inflated so it looks for a moment as if her head is resting on a drift of snow. I start to clamber down the ditch but lose my footing and slide to the bottom.

  She turns her unmarked face very slowly towards me and smiles, almost as if she recognises me and has been expecting me. There is a smell from the car – of its exhaust, overheated brakes or something else that’s stressed or spilt – and it’s mixed with the sharp tang of the pine trees.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I ask, coming close and resting my hand on the car’s roof after glancing at the crumpled bonnet.

  ‘I think so but my left leg doesn’t feel right and my neck’s a bit sore. Can you help me out of here?’

  ‘You mustn’t move. I’ll phone for help. You need to stay still in case you’ve damaged something. I’ll call an ambulance and the emergency services. We’ll get you out soon.’

  But I’ve left my phone in the car and, telling her again not to move, scramble back up the bank, the snow cold against my palms.

  ‘You’ll not leave me,’ she calls and as I reach the top of the bank I tell her no, that I’ll make the call and be straight back.

  As I run to the car my feet scrunch the frozen snow and sometimes sink below the surface so I try to move more quickly, somehow make myself lighter, but as I get closer the snow seems less willing to bear my weight and I end up running on the road, every step slushed with water. I grab the phone and check I’ve still got a signal and make the call. But I’m unsure about exactly where I am. The woman on the other end is patient, asking me the last place I remember, and I have to check on the satnav before I’m able to give an answer. They’ll be there as soon as they can and then I grab my coat and a bottle of water, lift the sleeping bag out of the boot and run back the way I’ve come. And, although it’s selfish, an awareness that I’m going to be delayed in getting to Luke edges into my concern for the woman.

  There isn’t any effective or dignified way of going back down the slope so I simply sit down and slide to the bottom.

  ‘Thank you,’ she says, as if she thought I might just have driven away.

  ‘How are you feeling now?’ I ask.

  ‘Not so bad. My knee hurts a bit but I think I’m pretty much OK.’

  ‘I’ve phoned the emergency services and they’ll be here as soon as they can. What’s your name?’

  ‘Rosemary.’

  ‘Mine’s Tom.’

  ‘Hi, Tom.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I think I took the bend too quickly and then hit the brakes too hard. When I did that the car took on a life of its own and the next thing I’m going for a walk in the woods. Very, very stupid of me.’

  ‘It could have happened to anyone – you’ve just been unlucky. The conditions aren’t great.’

  ‘I should have been more careful, less in a rush. And it’s almost Christmas – what a stupid time to have an accident.’

  ‘We aren’t given a choice when our accidents happen,’ I tell her and she looks at me as if she’s seeing me for the first time.

  ‘Your accent isn’t local. Are you from Scotland?’

  ‘Northern Ireland. I’m on my way to bring my son home – he’s at uni in Sunderland. I came across in the boat this morning, getting it back later tonight. We were scared of him not being able to get a flight home.’

  ‘I’m sorry I’m holding you back. You’ve a long journey ahead of you.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ I tell her and I look at her for the first time.

  She has blue eyes that seem to have some of their colour drained away by time or what her life has brought her. Her hair is cut short in a kind of bob and it’s dyed blonde but there are fine grey hairs sieving through it and her face looks like it’s struggling a little against the years’ encroachment. But it’s a face with kindness in it and a vividness of life that makes it easy to help her. Her raised hands make it look as if she’s surrendering or inviting the trees to come to her.

  ‘Do you think the car’s a write-off?’ she asks.

  ‘Pretty much, I’m afraid,’ I say, looking at the crumpled bonnet that from time to time emits a creak or a kind of mechanical moan as if it’s trying to painfully stretch itself back into its original shape.

  ‘Then that’s the only good thing will come out of this because I always hated it,’ she says but her smile turns suddenly to a grimace and her eyes close briefly. I know she’s in pain.

  ‘They’ll be here soon,’ I tell her and turn my head towards the road in the hope of hearing the for-once welcome sound of a siren.

  ‘I feel a bit sleepy, and that’s not good, so it isn’t.’

  ‘No, so just keep talking to me, Rosemary.’

  I place the unzipped sleeping bag carefully around her shoulders and, seeing her eyes close again, crouch beside her at the open door and ask her where she was going when she had the crash. I can’t remember all the first-aid things you’re supposed to do in a situation like this and although I search frantically in my memory it comes back empty so I don’t know if I should get her to drink something but decide better not to.

  ‘I was going to the church hall to help get it ready for tonight. It’s the carol service and our school choir are performing. I’m a teacher. Chairs and photocopied carol sheets to put out. You can’t be a teacher without putting out chairs. There’s a box of winter holly and decorations in the boot that need putting up. Would it be all right if a teacher swears?’

  When I tell her yes she hisses the word ‘shit’ several times, which sounds as if it’s carried on a stream of frustration and anger, then apologises but I’m glad the emotion has galvanised her into alertness. Then we lapse into a moment’s silence and stare at the trees and the spindrift that falls from their branches when the wind stirs them.

  There is a sudden cold sweep of stillness amon
gst the trees that feels absolute and which seems to reach right to the very edge of us.

  ‘Can you ring some people for me?’ she asks and then when I take out my phone tells me that she doesn’t know the numbers so I must use hers. ‘It’s in my pocket nearest to you if you could find it.’

  I carefully slip my hand into her pocket and root around until I find the phone. When the screen opens there’s a photograph of her and two young women who look like her daughters. Their heads are close, their affection and happiness pressing them close together, and for the first time I think a selfie can be a good thing. She gives me the access code and I go into her contacts, find the first name she wants me to dial then hold the phone close to her so she can speak into it. She’s calling a colleague and explaining that she’s had an accident, playing down its seriousness but saying that she’ll probably be taken to hospital as a precaution, telling her that she’ll try to get someone to deliver the carol sheets. Apologising several times. And then she asks me to click into her favourites and call her daughter Emily but it goes to voicemail and she doesn’t leave a message.

  ‘Emily’s a nurse and she’s probably on the ward. I don’t want to get wheeled into hospital and for her to see me without any warning. What should I do?’

  ‘I’ll phone the hospital,’ I tell her. ‘Let them know that it’s important to speak to her.’

  I look up the number and as I’m dialling it a stronger wind brushes through the trees and releases more of their scent. I’m listening to an automated system trying to direct me to the right number and I’m confused because none of the options seems to offer the possibility of telling one of their nurses that her mother’s had an accident and Rosemary anticipates what’s happening and tells me to go into her pocket once more and this time find her purse. In it she’s got a card with a direct line to the ward where Emily should be working. Before I ring it she says my name and when I look at her she’s trying not to cry and she asks if I’ll explain to her daughter and try to do it without frightening her. That if she speaks to her she thinks she’ll probably cry and then they’ll both get upset. I tell her I understand and make the call. There is a couple of minutes’ delay and then Emily comes on the line.

  ‘Hello, Emily,’ I say, ‘I’m ringing on behalf of your mother. First of all she’s OK, she’s OK and probably just needs a bit of a check-up. She’s had a bit of an accident in the car – no, she’s OK, she’s going to be all right. Her leg hurts a bit but she doesn’t think it’s anything serious. We’re just waiting for some help to arrive. Yes, I’m with her.’

  When I look at Rosemary she’s nodding as if to tell me that I’m doing it right and then she gestures to bring the phone close.

  ‘Hi, Emily,’ she says, her voice suddenly inflated with cheerfulness. ‘I’ve been a bit of a dozy-head and put the car off the road. No, I’m OK. Just tweaked my knee a bit so I wanted to let you know before they wheeled me in as your next patient. I suppose if they take me to A&E I’ll be sitting for hours and hours with all those poor old people who’ve ventured out and slipped. At least there shouldn’t be late-night drunks to contend with. No, there’s no need to phone Julia and get her all worried. I’ll ring her when I’ve seen someone at the hospital and there’s something to tell her. Yes, all right, and maybe you’ll be able to nip down and see me in one of your breaks. OK, Emily, and don’t be worrying – I’ll be home to cook that turkey.’

  Before I put the phone back in her pocket she makes me enter my number in her contacts so that she can thank me even though I assure her it isn’t necessary. And when I ask her again how she’s feeling she tells me her knee hurts but that things could have been so much worse so maybe after all she’s been lucky. I think how close I was to driving on by, focused on the world inside my head, but say nothing. She asks me about Luke and what course he’s doing and I keep it simple by letting her think he is our only child and then I get her to tell me about her daughters, conscious that I didn’t make a phone call to a partner.

  ‘Emily’s in her second year on the wards. She likes it but it’s tiring and she doesn’t know how long she’ll stay with it. She hates her A&E shifts – not enough doctors on duty, not enough beds and too many drunks clogging up the system. Once she had to take a blood sample and this guy made a complaint that she had got some blood on his designer shirt. Sometimes she talks about working abroad though it looks like Brexit might have damaged that possibility as far as Europe is concerned.’

  ‘Damaged all our children’s prospects, if you ask me,’ I say.

  ‘Almost all the North-east voted to leave – sixty-one per cent in Sunderland. Newcastle by a small margin to remain. Broke my heart.’

  ‘Because we live in Northern Ireland we can get Irish passports. So at least we can get free access to travel. And your other daughter?’

  ‘Julia is doing an internship – paid, thankfully, even if not very well – with a fashion magazine in London. She’s due home tomorrow. I want to be there for her, don’t want her coming home to an empty house. Are you not going to ring Luke and let him know you’ve been delayed a bit and tell him I’m sorry?’

  I say I’ll do it soon but don’t want to risk his exasperation within earshot of her so put it off for the moment. We both don’t want our children to be in empty houses and for one crazy second I feel the impulse to tell this stranger everything, to make this ditch that leads into a silent wood my confessional, because without knowing her I think she might understand and whatever penance she chose to offer would come with the possibility of forgiveness, and rightly or wrongly I feel that, in this frozen suspended moment where we both wait for the future to arrive, there’s nothing separating us. We’ll never be here again and whatever words are spoken will be subsumed into the silent snow-filled spaces that lace the trees. I remember the old black-and-white silent film about the Mallory expedition and one of the final captions that said if we had lived and died in the heart of nature would we wish for any better grave than a pure white grave of snow. If only I could put this thing in that pure white grave of snow. It makes me shiver. I look at her and she looks at me.

  ‘Are you all right, Tom? You look cold.’

  ‘Perhaps I should go and wait on the road so they know where we are,’ I say, because I’m frightened of the words spooling on my lips.

  ‘Don’t leave me,’ she says, ‘please don’t leave me.’

  She reaches out her hand and I don’t know if it’s what she means but I take it and at first the touch is cold but slowly seeps into warmth. Then we both let go and for a second I think I hear the approach of an ambulance but I’m mistaken and suddenly I see her smile.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ I ask.

  ‘It’s stupid, really stupid, but the choir were to sing this new piece tonight. We’ve been practising it for weeks because it’s quite tricky and it’s not even a carol really. It’s an arrangement of the Robert Frost poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” – you know the one:

  ‘Whose woods these are I think I know.

  His house is in the village though;

  He will not see me stopping here

  To watch his woods fill up with snow.

  ‘And ends:

  ‘The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

  But I have promises to keep,

  And miles to go before I sleep,

  And miles to go before I sleep.’

  I nod because, although I couldn’t recite it as she has done, it’s lodged somewhere in my memory from schooldays.

  ‘When I chose it I never thought I’d end up acting it out,’ she says and she gives a little laugh which is edged with something harder. ‘Life has a way of pulling the rug out from under you. At least I’ll be able to make a joke about it.’

  Then she winces again as if the laughter has stirred some new release of pain. I hear a siren – still in the distance but I’ve definitely heard it – and I tell her they’re coming.

  ‘I feel such a fool. I’m going to be really
embarrassed when they get here.’

  And as she blows another stream of air I tell her not to be, that it could have happened to anyone, and I describe my first attempt to set out on this journey. The siren gets louder and I persuade her I should go up to the road to guide them and she nods her agreement. So I clamber up the slope once more and step in the messed-up snow that marks my path until I reach the road in time to flag down the ambulance. Not far behind is a fire engine and suddenly there is a team of men and women swarming down the bank towards the car. The paramedics go in first and ascertain her injuries, ask me some questions, then put her in a neck brace and I overhear two firemen saying that it doesn’t look as if they’ll have to use cutting equipment but they can’t winch the car while she’s still in it. There are constant messages coming through their radios and the vehicle lights spin blue shadows across the snow. A stretcher appears and after about ten minutes when the paramedics have finished their initial assessment they start to ease her out of the car and on to it and the firefighters shoulder it delicately and carefully, easing her up the slope step by slow step, and when she passes me she calls a thanks and I raise my hand in farewell, then they have her in the back of the ambulance and she’s gone. I answer some more questions from the police who have arrived, give them my name and address, and at first they think I have been a witness to the accident until I explain. And yes, I tell them, I’m on my way to Sunderland to bring my son home from uni. They thank me for my help, wish me luck and I’m free to go.