A Mind of her Own

by Rosie Harris

  Betty and Sally exchanged looks.

  ‘Oh, very well if that’s what you think we should do then we will do it,’ Sally said, winking at Betty as she spoke.

  ‘Right, I’ll give you half an hour to get yourselves ready; put on your best hats and I’ll drop you right in the centre of Peascod Street, and you can shop to your hearts’ content.’

  ‘You mean you’ll drop us outside Daniels?’

  ‘Yes, if that’s what you want.’

  ‘I don’t think you can drive down Peascod Street,’ Betty said.

  ‘Well, I’ll drop you somewhere near there, even if it is the top of Peascod Street, then you can make your own way down and when I come back I’ll wait for you outside the castle.’

  Half an hour later Peter was outside Betty’s front door. Betty slid in beside him and Sally took a seat in the back of the car.

  ‘My word, you are both looking smart,’ Peter commented, his blue eyes twinkling, as he surveyed his two passengers.

  Betty was wearing a dark-red fitted coat with a stylish matching red hat, black gloves and carrying a black handbag. Sally was in a dark-green coat which had a wide shawl collar, but she was not wearing a hat, only a flowing black and green scarf at the neck of her coat.

  ‘Are you belted up?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, we are ready to go so stop fussing,’ Betty told him.

  She always enjoyed the drive to Windsor, once they were on the relief road and could see Windsor Castle in the distance. She always looked to see if it was the Union flag flying from the turret, or the Queen’s Standard which meant that she was in residence. Today, she was elsewhere.

  They reached the town centre around eleven and Peter told them he’d be back for them at three o’clock that afternoon.

  ‘Whatever are we going to do for four hours?’ Betty grumbled.

  ‘Shop, of course,’ Peter told her. ‘In Peascod Street you have Daniels, Marks and Spencer, Hotter shoes and a dozen other shops too. Then you can have something to eat, and after that shop again in King Edward Shopping Mall where there’s another thirty or more shops like Next, Zara, H&M, Clarks and countless others. Or, you can go for a walk,’ he told them.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll find something to do. A leisurely lunch will take up at least an hour.’

  ‘Anyway, I’ll be outside the castle at three p.m. to bring you home.’

  ‘Thank you, Peter,’ Sally said with a smile. ‘We’ll enjoy ourselves, never fear.’

  They found the time passed extremely swiftly. There were so many shops to browse in, so much to see. It was almost two o’clock when Sally pointed out that they hadn’t even eaten yet.

  ‘We’ve left it rather late for a full blown restaurant meal,’ Betty said. ‘What about a snack of some kind? Perhaps from one of the food stalls here in the arcade? There are any number of them in the place where the platform for the trains used to be.’

  There were so many of them, and such a wide choice of food, that it took them some time make up their minds what they would have. Sally wanted to go for a burger, but Betty was more adventurous.

  ‘Did you see that stand Soup and Sushi?’ she asked.

  ‘I did, but it’s not something I fancy,’ Sally protested. ‘I wouldn’t mind the soup, but you do know sushi is raw fish?!’

  ‘Have you ever tried it?’

  ‘No, and I don’t want to,’ Sally said with a shudder.

  ‘Well, I do. Let’s make this trip memorable and try something new!’

  Sally shook her head. ‘Not for me,’ she protested again. ‘You try it if you want to.’

  ‘What about the soup?’ Betty pressed.

  ‘Yes, well I’d have a bowl of soup, but not the fish.’

  ‘I’m going to try the sushi,’ Betty told her, ‘come on, let’s give it a go.’

  The chicken soup smelled good and looked appetizing. Sally ordered a bowl, but Betty insisted on the sushi. Sally could tell from the look on Betty’s face that she wasn’t enjoying it.

  ‘You don’t have to eat it,’ she laughed. ‘Why not have a bowl of soup; it really is delicious.’

  Her suggestion only served to increase Betty’s determination to finish her sushi.

  ‘I think we had better start making our way back to the castle,’ Sally said when they left the arcade. ‘Peter might have trouble parking, but if we are there waiting for him then I am sure he can find a space to pull in and let us get into the car.’

  As they climbed the hill, from King Edward’s Court to the castle, Betty was so quiet that Sally looked at her sideways several times to see if she was all right, and was worried by how colourless her face was.

  ‘Are you all right,’ she asked but she got no answer. ‘Shall we slow down?’ she asked again, concerned she was out of breath. Betty seemed to be concentrating all her effort into getting up the hill.

  They had just reached the appointed meeting place when Peter drew up. As Sally had predicted, he had difficulty in stopping long enough for them to get into the car as there was so much traffic in the area.

  ‘Well ladies, have you had a good time?’ Peter asked as they headed for home.

  ‘Splendid,’ Sally told him. ‘Enjoyed every minute of it. Haven’t we, Betty?’

  Betty nodded, but didn’t answer.

  Sally then told him about the Soup and Sushi bar where they’d had lunch, and Peter roared with laughter when Sally told him that Betty had insisted on having sushi.

  ‘Did you enjoy it?’ he asked, his eyes twinkling as he gave her a quick sideways glance.

  Before she could reply, she gave a deep gurgling sound and looked wildly round, then dragged her hat off her head in time to bury her face in it as she vomited.

  ‘Oh heavens!’ Peter exclaimed, as he looked frantically for a lay-by so that he could pull in.

  Before he stopped the car, Betty had wretched again and this time much of it went down the front of her coat.

  As soon as the car stopped, she pushed open the door and stumbled out, drinking in the fresh air.

  Peter whipped out his handkerchief, handed it to her, then reached into the side pocket of his car and brought out a roll of kitchen towel.

  ‘Here, I keep this handy to clean the windscreen,’ he said, as he tore off a length and handed it to Betty. ‘Clean up your coat as well as you can,’ he continued, taking her hat from her, before walking over to the ditch, tipping out the contents, and then wiping it out with a length of towel.

  ‘Do you carry any water?’ Sally called out to him.

  ‘Yes, in that pocket behind the passenger seat. There isn’t a cup, though, she’ll have to drink it from the bottle.’

  Betty gratefully accepted the water, took a mouthful, swilled it round her teeth and then spit it out. Shakily, she returned to the car and climbed back into the passenger seat. Then, she wiped her forehead with Peter’s handkerchief and lay back in her seat, with her head against the headrest and with her eyes closed.

  ‘Are you all right now?’ Peter asked anxiously.

  ‘I don’t think I’m going to vomit anymore if that’s what you mean, but I feel far from all right!’

  ‘I think the best thing is to get us home as quickly as you can and let Betty have a lie down,’ Sally advised.

  ‘If you’re sure the motion of the car won’t make you sick again,’ Peter said hesitantly.

  ‘I’ll use my hat again if I need to,’ Betty said with a wan smile.

  ‘It’s caused by the sushi, I expect,’ Peter said thoughtfully. ‘Do you think I should take you straight to the hospital in case it’s food poisoning?’

  ‘No, certainly not,’ Betty stated weakly. ‘I don’t want them using a stomach pump on me. Get me home and let me rest. I’ll be better in an hour or so.’

  Nine

  It was almost a week before Betty felt completely well again. She refused to let them call the doctor, and both Sally and Peter were very worried about her.

  Peter suggested that she looked so washed
out that he would stay in her cottage overnight in case she needed help, but Betty stoutly refused to let him do this.

  ‘What on earth would people think if they ever got to hear that I had let you stay all night,’ she exclaimed.

  ‘I planned to sleep downstairs in an armchair or on the settee,’ he told her.

  ‘Who would believe that! It would be a choice bit of scandal that would have everyone gossiping about us.’

  Two days later, when Betty’s face was still very puffy and her eyes sore and watery, Sally told Peter that she was going to let Tim know.

  ‘I think you should,’ he agreed. ‘I’ve been expecting him to pop in and see if she had recovered from the ordeal of the intruder, but he hasn’t been near,’ Peter grumbled.

  ‘Don’t say a word to Betty,’ Sally warned him, ‘I’ll pop into his estate agency as I pass and tell him what has happened.’

  Tim was aghast when Sally told him about the sushi incident. ‘For heaven’s sake, why didn’t you take her straight to the hospital?’

  ‘Your mother refused to go,’ Sally told him, tight-lipped.

  She felt annoyed by his tone of voice. Here she was doing what she thought was the right thing and he was berating her as if it was her fault. Then, as she looked at the worried expression on his face, she forgave him immediately. Poor lad, he’s worried stiff and really, he is blaming himself, she thought.

  ‘She’s more or less her old self again now,’ Sally said reassuringly.

  ‘That’s as maybe, but anything could have happened to her in the meantime, all alone there at night.’

  ‘No, she wasn’t alone. Peter Brown was here with her.’

  ‘What all night?’

  ‘He slept down here on the settee or in the armchair, but he was there if she needed anything,’ Sally confirmed.

  Tim shrugged and said no more. Sally wondered just what was going on in his head. Did it help relieve his worry to know that or not, she wondered.

  ‘Thank you both for looking after her so well, but next time anything like this happens send for me,’ he said.

  ‘As I understand it there’s a button on her mobile for her to contact you,’ Sally defended.

  ‘She was probably feeling too ill to do so,’ he murmured.

  Sally looked at him quizzically, but said nothing. They both knew that she had deliberately not done so because she didn’t want to see a doctor or go into hospital.

  As soon as Betty was feeling well enough, Peter took her and Sally on little jaunts out into neighbouring villages where they would enjoy a cup of coffee or pot of tea at the village café.

  Every time this happened Betty wished she was able to make little trips of this kind on her own, whenever the mood took her to do so. Her own wheels were the answer, but after the sushi incident she didn’t think it would be wise to ask Tim to indulge her in what he would term a ‘mere whim’.

  Yet, the more she tried to forget it the more she yearned for her own car. A small manageable one like Peter’s, she thought longingly.

  She didn’t say a word to either Peter or Sally because she was afraid they might mention it to Tim, but she spent more and more time thinking about it and wondering that if she could prove to all of them how efficiently she could drive Peter’s car, then maybe Tim would give in.

  She thought several times about asking Peter to let her trial his car, but a second sense warned her that he wouldn’t agree.

  A couple of weeks later, when she asked him to take her to Maidenhead the next day, he said he would as soon as he came back from the barbers. He had booked a haircut and he didn’t want to lose his place.

  She nodded in agreement, but the moment he told her, a plan had started to take shape in her head. Would he mind if she took his car, she wondered. She wouldn’t go to Maidenhead because the roads would be busy, but just a little tootle around the village and up one or two of the quiet roads would be enough to prove her prowess and wipe out the memory of what had happened on the motorway.

  Everything depended on whether or not he took his car keys when he went for his haircut, she thought.

  Next morning, as soon as she saw him leave, she went into his house and held her breath in anticipation as she entered the hall and looked on the rack where he put all his keys. There was a car key hanging there. Whether it was the spare or not she wasn’t sure. Anyway, it didn’t matter.

  Taking the key, she went to the driveway, her heart thumping with a mixture of hope and nervousness.

  It was the right key. Gingerly, she started the engine and then cautiously backed the car out of the drive and headed north, away from the village. It was a glorious early autumn morning and she decided to drive to Burnham Beeches. That was no more than three miles but, by the time she reached there and came home again, she would have proved her point that she could handle a small car efficiently.

  The run up to the Beeches was uneventful and she parked in one of the open spaces and spent a few minutes simply sitting there, admiring the lovely view of the beech trees changing colour, and catching her breath back.

  She felt immense pleasure at her achievement, but decided she had better get back and return Peter’s car before he came home.

  She decided to go back the same way as she had come. About a mile out of Ashmore, a fox ran across her path. It was quite a young fox, with a lovely shining coat and bushy tail. It was such a lovely creature that, even though she knew many people considered them to be vermin, she swerved wildly to avoid hitting it.

  She was so intent on avoiding the animal, and making sure that he reached the other side of the road safely, that she didn’t see the approaching lorry until the loud blast of a horn signalled that it was almost on top of her.

  The lorry stopped, but Betty was unable to do so in time. There was a clash of metal, a mad jarring and shuddering of the car, and she found herself thrown forward so hard that her forehead impacted with the windscreen.

  As she looked up all she could see was a huge lorry looming over her. She felt paralyzed by fright as she realized that she was on the wrong side of the road and that the metalwork of Peter’s car was inextricably entwined with the lower part of the lorry.

  After what seemed an eternity, the lorry driver jumped down from his cab and came to speak to her.

  He was a burly, sandy-haired man in his early forties, and he looked extremely angry.

  ‘What the hell were you playing at? You drove straight over to my side of the road and slammed into me! If I hadn’t got good brakes you’d be dead!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Betty said, her mouth so dry that she could hardly enunciate the words.

  ‘Sorry?! I should damn well think so! What the hell did you think you were doing?’

  Betty swallowed hard. ‘I was trying to avoid hitting a young fox,’ she told him.

  His bellow of sarcastic laughter scared her far more than any verbal abuse would have done.

  ‘Tell that to the court when my firm prosecute you for dangerous driving,’ he guffawed. ‘Vermin!’

  The sound of a police siren sent a fresh wave of despair through Betty.

  She didn’t recognize the young police officer who came to interrogate them, but he recognized her immediately.

  ‘You again!’ he exclaimed, as he took his notebook out of his breast pocket.

  ‘I do have a current driving licence but it’s in my handbag, and I haven’t brought that with me,’ Betty said quickly.

  He ignored her and looked at the lorry driver. ‘What happened?’

  ‘This woman cut right across the road to my side. I braked and stopped instantly and sounded my horn. She ignored it, and seemed to be unable to brake, and crashed right into the front of my lorry. She’s done a fair bit of damage to it, as well as to her own car.’

  The policeman turned to Betty and raised his eyebrows questioningly. ‘Is that right, madam?’ he asked with studied politeness.

  ‘Well, yes, but you see I was trying to avoid an animal that ran out acro
ss my path,’ Betty said lamely.

  ‘An animal?’ he questioned.

  ‘A young fox,’

  ‘I see,’ he murmured, making an entry into his notebook.

  ‘I told her they’re only vermin,’ the lorry driver said. ‘One of the blighters killed off a half dozen of my hens only a matter of weeks ago. I’d like to see the whole damn lot of them exterminated. Now if it had been a dog then I could understand her swerving to avoid it, but a fox … well, I ask you.’

  The policeman said nothing. Then, when he had finished writing in his notebook, he said, ‘Insurance details?’

  The lorry driver gave him all the information he required, together with one of his firm’s business cards which the policeman put away safely in the back of his notebook.

  ‘And yours, madam?’ he said looking at Betty.

  ‘I’m sorry I have no idea,’ she said lamely. ‘I can get them for you though.’

  ‘I seem to have heard that excuse from you before,’ he said, his mouth tightening grimly. ‘You don’t even know the name of the company; would it be the same as last time?’

  ‘No, no, not at all. This isn’t my car, you see, but I am sure that the owner will have all the details you require back home as he is very conscientious about those sort of things.’

  ‘Not so concerned though about who drives his car.’

  ‘Well, actually he doesn’t know I’m driving it.’

  ‘You mean you took it without his consent,’ the policeman said with a frown. ‘You do know that is a serious offence?’

  ‘It’s not really because, you see, he’s a very close friend,’ Betty said quickly.

  ‘In that case then why didn’t you ask his permission?’

  ‘I wasn’t sure he would let me have it, because I have never driven it before,’ Betty confessed, the colour rushing to her face as she realized how guilty this made her appear. ‘Look, officer,’ she said giving him a warm smile, ‘let me explain. After my mishap on the motorway I got rid of my Mercedes and I have decided to replace it with a smaller car, one I will find easier to handle. A car like this Citroen,’ she added, waving a hand towards the damaged car. ‘I had never driven one of these but thought I would try it out. I knew my friend wouldn’t mind,’ she added hastily.