by Ann Purser
Tears came to Blanche’s eyes, and she brushed them away before going in to use all her tact in telling Horace to keep well away from Darren.
“He seemed quite his old self,” she said to her husband reassuringly. “But we’d better handle him with care. That nice Mrs. Meade is taking him out for a drive this afternoon.”
“What time?” Horace asked idly.
“Around three o’clock. Why do you want to know?”
“No reason,” he replied casually. “Just wondered.”
THIRTY-FOUR
LOIS SAT IN THE VET’S WAITING ROOM, HOLDING JEEMS ON her knee. The little dog was always well behaved, unless there was a cat in a basket, when the red mist came down and she was frantic to get at it. No cats today, so far, but just as the nurse called her in for treatment, the door opened and a snarling cat came in. It was in an old box, carried by a boy who was not more than seven years old. The lid of the box was flapping open, and in one bound the cat leapt clear. Jeems pulled away from Lois, and was on it in seconds. Two girls behind the desk rushed out, and the noise was terrifying. One of the vets—the young, keen one—came out into the waiting room, grabbed Jeems and squeezed the end of her nose hard. A terrier will instinctively lock its jaws and its victim cannot get away, but Jeems was forced to let go in order to breathe.
Lois turned to the small boy, thinking he would be in a panic. She was wrong. He obviously thought the whole thing was great entertainment. Order was restored and she helped the boy put the cat back in the box. It was unhurt, fortunately, but Jeems had a deep scratch on her nose. Lois was forced to admit that it served her right.
When she arrived to pick up Darren, she told him and his mother the story. “That boy,” she said, “was laughing fit to bust.” Mrs. Smith laughed too, but Darren looked anxious.
“Jeems OK now?” he said, glancing out at the van.
“Oh, she’s fine,” Lois said cheerfully. “Wouldn’t hurt a fly now. It’s only cats that get her going. Are you ready then, Darren?”
Lois had decided to take him to Long Farnden, park the van and go for a walk in the water meadows. The river was always interesting, and Jeems could run around off the lead. Mrs. Smith had told Lois that Darren did not like enclosed spaces. He panicked and tried to escape, so the open meadows should be fine. Then they could go back to Gran’s chocolate cake and a cup of tea.
Walking with Darren was oddly peaceful, Lois thought, as they strolled along the river path. He did not speak unless spoken to, and the conversation was brief. She allowed her thoughts to wander, and was pleased when she felt Darren slip his arm into hers. He must trust me, she thought. She began to see what a huge responsibility it was for parents and siblings to care for the Darrens of this world. Such innocence and vulnerability would be hard to protect.
When they reached the road and turned for Lois’s house, she put Jeems on her lead. Darren released her arm, and took hold of the lead. “Hold Jeems?” he said. They walked back in silence, Darren beaming with pleasure. “Better than horses,” he said, as they turned into the gate.
Lois stood still. “What do horses do?” she asked.
“Run away,” he said, his hands twisting on the lead. “Run away fast, and Darren can’t get off.” He began to back away, and Lois caught his arm.
“No horses here,” she said. “Only Jeems. And Gran, with nice chocolate cake.”
Darren stopped his desperate struggle to get away. “See Gran?” he said, so quietly that Lois could hardly hear him.
She nodded. “Gran’s waiting for us,” she said, and gently persuaded him to walk with her and Jeems into the house.
* * *
FLOSS HAD FINISHED AT THE BATTERSBYS AND GONE home for a quick sandwich and a lecture from her mother about not doing too much. “I’m young and strong, Mum,” she said. “Worst possible thing for me is to lie in bed, bored to tears. I’m off now to Mrs. T-J’s, and shall be back about five. She’ll make a fuss of me. Don’t know why, but I reckon I’m the only person she likes.”
“It’s the way you were brought up,” her mother said smugly.
“After tea,” Floss continued, “I’ll be going for a ride, and a cleaning and grooming session with Maisie. Ben might join me there if he gets off early enough.”
“I suppose it’s useless for me to suggest an early night?”
“Quite useless,” Floss laughed, and was gone.
As she had prophesied, Floss was immediately made to sit down and have a cup of coffee and a chat with Mrs. T-J before she started work.
“Are you absolutely certain, my dear, that you’re fit enough to be back at work? These flu bugs are very debilitating, you know.”
“I’m fine. Really, Mrs. T-J. It wasn’t that bad.” She decided to change the subject, in order to avoid an account of the various flu viruses Mrs. T-J had suffered in a long and active life.
“Have you heard how kind the Battersbys have been?” Floss continued. “They’ve given me a lovely horse for my own, and said I can keep it in their stables. No room in our garden! I shall be going over after tea. She’s a very gentle mare, and I love her already.”
This was Mrs. T-J’s world, and they had a gratifying conversation about horses, horse shows, point-to-points, good and bad farriers, and the price of hay.
Finally Floss looked at her watch and jumped up. “I must get on! Mrs. Meade will be on my track. She has no time for idlers!”
Mrs. T-J smiled. “Runs a good business, your Mrs. Meade. I believe my friend Blanche Battersby is very pleased, even with the cleaner who filled in whilst you were ill.”
“But didn’t you know?” Floss began, about to tell her about Dot’s accident. Something stopped her, and she dropped a tin of polish as a distraction. “Shall I start upstairs, as usual?” she said.
The phone rang, and Mrs. T-J went off to answer it. Floss ran lightly upstairs and began to clean the bathroom. The telephone was in the big hall, and the sound echoed up to the first floor clearly. Floss did not deliberately eavesdrop, but heard Mrs. T-J say in her strong, fluting voice, “Don’t be ridiculous! I’m sure he’s doing nothing of the sort. Buck up, do, and I’ll be with you shortly.”
Floss raised her eyebrows. Who had rattled the old duck’s cage this time? She worked on with a will, thinking of the time when she could greet Maisie with a fond pat and a kiss on the nose. And much the same for Ben, should he show up.
* * *
TEA WITH GRAN HAD GONE OFF VERY WELL. DARREN had eaten two pieces of sticky chocolate cake, and had not objected when Gran presented him with a damp flannel. Lois noticed that she seemed to have established an instant connection, pleasant but not sentimental, and Darren blossomed.
“Jeems ran fast,” he said.
“Dogs love to run fast,” Gran replied.
“And horses?” Lois said. Darren darted a frightened look at her.
Gran said quickly, “Now then, lad, if you’ve finished your tea, I want to show you our piano. Do you like music?” His expression cleared, and he nodded at her gratefully.
“Play the piano,” he said, and got up from his chair. Gran led him into the sitting room and opened the piano lid. Lois followed, and to her amazement she saw Darren go straight up to it and strike with both hands an arbitrary and very discordant chord.
“Wow!” said Gran. “How about a nice quiet note?”
Darren turned and looked at her. He smiled, and struck a high note very gently, holding the key down until all the reverberations had ceased. Then he turned to Lois and said, “Go home now, Mrs. Meade. Back to Mum.”
Gran came down to the gate to see them off, and Darren said, “Thank you very much. It was very nice cake. Goodbye.”
As they drove off, Gran went back into the house, her expression sober and thoughtful. “If I was his mother,” she said to herself, “I would kill anybody who laid a finger on him.”
THIRTY-FIVE
LOIS DECIDED TO GO A DIFFERENT WAY TO WALTONBY, AND turned off up a little track with high ban
ks and overhanging trees. Before they had gone a hundred yards, Darren began to bounce in his seat. “Not right,” he said. “Not the right way, Mrs. Meade!” He was shouting now, and Lois pulled into an open gateway and stopped.
“It’s not the wrong way,” she said. “This is another way of going back to Mum. It goes to Waltonby, just the same. More interesting for Darren.”
But Darren continued to protest, and Lois did not want to deliver him back to his mother in an agitated state, so she turned in the gateway and went back to take the usual road. She was about to cross at the junction, and Darren was already settling down, when a large black car came slowly from the direction of Waltonby. Lois braked hard, and reversed to allow the car to pass. It was Mrs. T-J, and she waved magisterially. She was smiling, too, and Lois reckoned Floss had as usual achieved the impossible with the old tartar.
As she continued, Lois reflected that you could never take it for granted that these narrow roads were empty. She was concentrating hard, but even so, did not notice a darkish green car in the entrance to a stretch of woodland. The first she saw of it was when she was nearly level, and then it was moving fast towards her.
The impact was sudden and explosive. Lois felt her van tipping. She heard Darren scream, and after that nothing but overwhelming pain and blessed darkness.
THIRTY-SIX
“MUST GET OUT,” DARREN MUTTERED. HE HAD A PAIN IN his leg, and his head hurt where he had banged it against Lois as they tipped over. “Mrs. Meade?” he said, and then again, louder. There was no answer, and he twisted round until he could undo his seat belt. The van was on its side, in a shallow ditch. Lois was lying underneath Darren, cushioning him. He was very frightened, and tried to open the door, which was now above him. It would not move.
“Little button,” he said to himself, and managed to pull up the lock. Then he pushed with all his might and scrambled out into the road. He started to run in the direction of Waltonby, and then stopped. He could smell smoke, and looked back at the van. “Fire!” he said in a panic, and ran back again. “Mrs. Meade!” he shouted. “Mrs. Meade, wake up!”
Lois did not stir, and with the supreme strength of panic, Darren managed to free her from her seat belt and drag her, painfully slowly, across the seats to the door. He was propping it open with his body, and realized he would never get her out unless he could keep it open another way. He looked round and saw a pile of sticks which had been cut from the woods. Grabbing one, he pushed it under the open door. It wedged into a groove on the floor of the van, and he tested it. It held, and he smiled. “Darren did it,” he said, and began to heave Lois out and away from the van, which was now enveloped in smoke.
He managed to get her and himself well away just in time. With a deafening roar, the van exploded, and bits of metal and plastic flew all around.
Darren sat with Lois’s inert body in the edge of the wood, and watched the van burn out to a shell. “No good now, Mrs. Meade,” he said conversationally. “Sit here for a bit, and wait for Mum to come and fetch Darren.”
* * *
MRS. SMITH LOOKED AGAIN AT THE CLOCK IN THE kitchen. They should have been back by now, surely? She went through to the sitting room and looked out of the window. No sign of them. She tried to ring Lois’s mobile, but it was dead. Perhaps Mrs. Weedon would know where they were. This time she got a reply. Gran’s voice was full of alarm. “They left here ages ago,” she said. “Where on earth have they got to?”
“I’m going to find out,” said Mrs. Smith. “I’ll be in touch.”
She ran round to her neighbour, who immediately set out in her car with Mrs. Smith beside her. “Take the Farnden road,” Mrs. Smith instructed. “I know that’s the way Mrs. Meade usually comes.”
It was not far to the woods, and as they approached they saw the burnt-out van, still smoking. Mrs. Smith’s heart lurched. “Oh my God!” she said, and swayed in her seat. Her neighbour caught her and held her up until she gained some strength. “Quick!” she said. “Let’s run.”
In seconds they were by the smouldering wreck, and Mrs. Smith’s face was ashen. “They couldn’t have survived that,” she said, turning her face away. It was totally silent. Even the birds seemed to have stopped singing.
“Mum! Mum!”
Mrs. Smith shot across the road and disappeared into the trees. Her neighbour followed, hoping that she was not imagining things. She caught up and saw an extraordinary sight. Darren was sitting on the ground, his legs outstretched, with Lois’s head resting on his lap. Her head was turned to one side, and she showed no signs of life. Mrs. Smith stared at them, tears streaming down her face.
“Wait there! Don’t move until I come back,” the neighbour said firmly, and ran back to her car. There she phoned for ambulance and police, telling them it was very urgent indeed. Then she took a rug from the back of the car and returned to the wood. She told Mrs. Smith what she had done, and they wrapped the rug as best as they could around the still form of Lois, without moving her. The neighbour silently wondered how much damage had been done in Darren’s desperate tugging to get her into the wood. Still, if he hadn’t done so, she would have died anyway.
“Tell Mrs. Weedon,” said Darren’s mother suddenly. “Could you ring her? I remember the number. I promised to let her know.”
“Let her know what? Who is she?”
“Mrs. Meade’s mother. I phoned her earlier. Better not tell her . . . well . . . you know . . .”
* * *
THE DRIVER OF THE POLICE CAR HAD THE SIREN GOING full blast as they sped through the villages. He was already going as fast as was safe in the twisting lanes, but Inspector Cowgill shouted at him, “Can’t you go any faster, for God’s sake!” The driver had never seen him like this before, tense and more or less out of control.
“We’re nearly there, sir,” the driver said calmly.
“I know we’re bloody well nearly there,” exploded Cowgill. “Don’t you realize a couple of minutes might make all the difference?”
When they pulled up by the neighbour’s car, Cowgill rushed out and into the wood. “I think it’s this side, sir,” the driver said politely. Cowgill ran back and finally found the little group sitting quietly in a huddle. He was pale, and his hands trembled as he drew back the rug from Lois and felt for her pulse. He sank back on his heels and covered his face with his hands.
At this point the ambulance came screeching up, and the paramedic ran to where they were. “Stand back, sir,” he said, and Cowgill stood aside. This time the paramedic held Lois’s pulse point for longer, and finally looked up at Cowgill.
“She’s not dead, sir,” he said quietly. “Pulse very faint, but it’s there.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
COWGILL INSISTED ON TRAVELLING IN THE AMBULANCE with Lois, and Mrs. Smith and her neigbour set off to the hospital with Darren. He had cuts and bruises, and was clearly shocked, but his mother decided that he would feel more secure with her in the car. When she realized what he had done, she was tearfully proud.
It seemed to Cowgill that the ambulance was travelling at the speed of treacle. His eyes never left Lois’s face. At one point, he thought he saw her eyelids flutter. He looked enquiringly at the medic, who nodded his head, but said nothing. “Are we nearly there?” whispered Cowgill.
“We are going fast enough,” said the medic, in an effort to reassure him. “Another accident wouldn’t be much help, would it?”
Cowgill’s eyes returned to Lois. Suddenly, her eyes opened.
“What’s going on?” she said faintly. “What are you doing . . . ?”
Cowgill bit his lip. “You’ve been in an accident,” he said.
Her eyes closed again, and he could see a faint colour coming into her cheeks. Thank God, he said to himself, and reached out to take her hand. “Probably the only chance I’ll ever get,” he muttered, and the medic smiled.
* * *
AS THEY DREW UP OUTSIDE THE HOSPITAL, COWGILL could see Derek standing outside the big doors. He rushed forwa
rd, and was held back by one of the medics as they gently unloaded Lois. Tears streamed down his face, and Cowgill was glad he had released Lois’s hand. Poor sod, he thought.
“Is she . . . ?” Derek could hardly speak, and Cowgill put his hand on his shoulder.
“No, she’s not,” he said. “She has regained conciousness and asked what had happened. She was perfectly sensible, and is now sleeping.” He wasn’t sure about this last bit, but it sounded optimistic. If it wasn’t sleep, but repeated loss of conciousness, he knew it could be more serious. He didn’t see any point in telling Derek that.
After tests had been done, it was established that Lois had no major physical injuries. Her arms and legs were grazed where Darren had dragged her across the road, but miraculously there was no bleeding. No blood from her ears or nose, and, so far, no bruising around her eyes. She had awoken again and seen Derek, who was holding on to her as if he would never let go. “Not running away,” she had said, with the ghost of a smile, and he reluctantly stood back.
“You’ve laid an egg on your head,” he said, from a distance.
Lois put up a hand and felt the swelling. She winced, and the nurse said that an ice pack would fix that.
Finally, the doctor turned to Derek and said, “We’ll keep her in for forty-eight hours, Mr. Meade,” he said. “Just to be sure that there’s nothing we might have missed. I think she’s been very lucky—I know it doesn’t look like that! But whoever dragged her out of that van saved her life.”
“It was Darren Smith,” Cowgill said, and Derek scowled at him. What was he still doing here? Then he realized that of course the police would be involved. Some vehicle had tipped the van into the ditch and then scarpered.
“He’s a lad with learning difficulties, but with incredible courage. He’s in Accident and Emergency right now, Derek,” Cowgill continued. “You’d probably want to have a word with him.”
“But Lois . . . ?”