Day of the Accident

by Nuala Ellwood

  My funny, eccentric girl. God, I miss her. I put the notebook back in the box then turn to one of the boxes marked Elspeth.

  I run my finger round the letters of her name, remembering the day I chose it. Sean and I were sitting having brunch at a little place on Battersea Rise. I was two weeks shy of the due date, the morning sickness that had dogged me in the early days had dissipated and I felt wonderful, like a newly ripened peach. ‘She’s kicking,’ I said, grabbing Sean’s hand and placing it to my tummy. ‘Can you feel it?’ Sean’s eyes were gleaming with happiness. He drew closer and whispered to the bump: ‘Hey there, missy. What are you up to in there? You ready to come out yet?’ Then he’d looked up at me and said, ‘We should think of a name, now that we know it’s a girl.’ And without thinking, I said, ‘What about Elspeth?’ Sean had repeated the name under his breath then nodded and said, ‘I like it, where did it come from?’ I told him it was the first name that came to mind. And it was true. It was like the name had been buried in my subconscious all these years, waiting for my baby to come along and claim it.

  Taking a long sip of wine, I slowly peel the masking tape from the seal. The box falls open and I see the unmistakable floppy shape of Momo, Elspeth’s favourite toy rabbit. I take it out carefully and hold it to my face. It still smells of Elspeth, a mix of talcum powder and sugared almonds. ‘Oh, Momo,’ I whisper.

  But as I place the toy on to the sofa, a sick feeling courses through me. This means Momo hadn’t been in the car with us that night. Elspeth always had to have him with her whenever we went out in the car. It all stemmed from the fright she’d got when Sean locked her in the car outside the dry-cleaner’s. For months afterwards she would scream and cry whenever we tried to get her into the car. Then Sean had an idea. He remembered Momo. The little toy had been Elspeth’s comforter when she was a baby. As she got older she had consigned Momo to the toy cupboard with the rest of her baby things but now he was needed again. I’ll never forget the look on her face when Sean came out of the house holding Momo. She was reticent at first but then Sean told her that Momo was her lucky mascot and that if she held on to him the fear would go away. After that we took Momo on every car journey. Elspeth insisted on it. So how the hell did I get her in that car without him?

  I flop down on to the sofa and take the toy in my hands. Closing my eyes, I see that image, the one that has flashed in front of me so many times since I woke up. I’m strapping Elspeth into the back of the car. She looks up at me with indignant eyes. ‘I’m not going, Mummy, and you can’t make me.’

  Momo wasn’t with us. If that was the case then we must have left in a dreadful rush. Why was I in such a hurry to go out at that time of night? Any other evening Elspeth would be in bed by then and I would be happily ensconced at my desk, plunging into the next chapter of my novel. The thought of driving off into the night just doesn’t make any sort of sense.

  I place Momo back on to the cushion beside me. I sit for a moment trying to summon the courage to empty the rest of the boxes but I feel prickly with nerves. I take another sip of wine and close my eyes. ‘Think, Maggie, think,’ I mutter to myself. ‘Where the hell were you going?’

  Then I glance across at my laptop. It must be charged by now. I get up from the sofa, taking my wine with me. I sit down on the floor and take the computer on to my lap. Opening the lid, I hold my breath and wait for the dark screen to come to life. After a couple of moments it does and my heart does a little somersault in my chest as the screensaver appears. It’s a photo of me, Sean and Elspeth, taken on holiday in Whitstable a couple of years ago. We’re sitting on the shingle beach, all huddled together. Elspeth is in the middle and Sean and I have our arms wrapped round her, like a precious gift. Her hair is in bunches and she is wearing a purple T-shirt with ‘Whitstable Oyster Festival 2014’ emblazoned across the front.

  Oh, how she loved that holiday. The best thing about Whitstable for Elspeth was that the beach was made of shingle instead of sand. She’d spend the day counting stones and putting them into piles of even numbers while Sean and I sat back on our deckchairs and read our books. The other children would be running around, splashing in the sea and playing Frisbee, but Elspeth was perfectly content to just sit amongst her stones.

  I put my hand towards the screen and touch her face. My beautiful girl. Then I think back to that last trip to Whitstable, the one cut short because of Sean’s work commitments, and a cold sensation ripples through me. There will be no more holidays now, no more smiles.

  The computer starts to load and Elspeth’s face is soon obscured with tiny blue folders. Wiping away a tear, I read the names of the folders and remember the life I once had, the person I once was.

  – Household

  – Elspeth School

  – Photos

  – Afternoons with Virginia Notes

  – Rodmell History

  – Lewes Loves Libraries Blog

  – Short stories

  – Ideas

  – Motivational Quotes

  – Reading List: Drowned Words

  – Novel: Draft 1

  – Novel: Draft 2

  – Novel: Draft 3

  Then Word starts to load up. All the documents I had left open that day appear on the screen, one after the other. The first is the chapter breakdown of my novel. I always kept that open as I worked so I could refer to it. The next is the latest draft of the manuscript. I scroll through to see where I ended up that day. The word count sits at 67,529. The very last sentence I had written was: ‘She mulled the idea over and over in her head. The temptation to jump was a momentary one, a flutter of wings across her consciousness but …’

  And there I had stopped, left the sentence hanging, the cursor flashing on and off like a siren. I think back to the flashback I’d had in the job centre, my phone buzzing on the desk. Was that why I’d left the sentence unfinished?

  I minimize the manuscript and see that another document has opened up. It’s a consent form sent by the school secretary. Elspeth was due to go on a class trip to the Jurassic coast in Dorset. As usual, I was to go along as a helper. Elspeth insisted I did. She wouldn’t settle otherwise. I imagine how much fun her classmates had on that trip, the midnight feasts, the fossil hunting. And my Elspeth … I quickly close the document, unable to read any further.

  I scroll down to the bar at the bottom of the page and click to open my emails. I have to try my very best to keep a cool, calm head. The fact that I left my sentence unfinished like that means that either there was an emergency with Elspeth or I got an urgent text – possibly from Sean? With no phone to check, my inbox may provide an answer.

  The page opens up and I gasp as I see I have 3,064 unopened emails. I feel dizzy as I scroll. Most of them are junk. I skim through them, working my way from the first email, advertising 2 for 1 on skin care at Boots, sent yesterday, all the way back through August, July, June and May. There are tons of condolence messages from the parents of Elspeth’s school friends. I can’t read those. Not now.

  When I get to 12th May I slow down. Surely the answer will be here, there will be an email to explain it all. But there is nothing. Three emails. One sent in the morning from the school with the consent form attached, one from Amazon suggesting books I might like and one notification that I have a new follower on the Twitter page I set up years ago but have rarely used. I click on the name of the follower. It’s a man called Tony Martinez, a fantasy writer from Idaho who has 1.3m followers. A spam bot.

  I shake my head, take a sip of wine and then click on ‘sent messages’. The only message I sent that day was a reply to the school secretary saying that I would sign the consent form and get it back to her ASAP and also confirming that I would be coming along as a parent helper. Nothing in my emails points towards some urgent situation where I had to leave my desk, bundle Elspeth into the car and go speeding off into the night.

  I click back on to my inbox and scroll through again. And then I see a name, clustered amongst the emails f
rom sympathetic parents, that makes me go cold. On 26th June I received an email from B. Cosgrove.

  Ben.

  I sit for a moment, my shaking hands hovering over the mouse pad. Then I close my eyes and click it open. But the name at the bottom of the email is not Ben’s; it’s his mother, Barbara. I enlarge the message and start to read.

  Maggie,

  Well Larkfields now has a new occupant and I hope that it heralds the end of you and your family’s link to this area for good. Now Harry has died I no longer have to keep up the pretence. You don’t fool me Maggie, unlike the rest of them, Harry included, who were sucked in by your lies. I know exactly what you were planning on doing that night by the river and though I am glad that your plan was thwarted I am sickened that your little girl had to lose her life because of her mother’s idiocy. I have spoken to the hospital and they don’t seem too hopeful that you will come through this. Maybe that is a blessing. Maybe then we can all get on with our lives, your husband will be able to grieve his child and I will be able to protect my son.

  It’s taken me almost thirty years to say how I really feel, Maggie. Perhaps now I can sleep soundly at night.

  Barbara

  I slam the lid of the laptop shut, and take my cup into the kitchen. Barbara’s words twist through my head. I’m sad to hear that Harry, Ben’s father, who was so kind to me when the bad thing happened, is dead, but I can’t really think about that now. More pressing is working out what Barbara was trying to imply in that email. I stand for a moment, my hands resting on the kitchen counter, and then a horrible realization creeps up my spine. I may still have no idea why I put Elspeth into the back of the car and drove her to her death on the 12th May but someone does and that someone is Barbara Cosgrove.

  41

  Dear Mummy,

  Zoe has been really ill for the last few weeks though at first I didn’t know quite what was wrong with her. She refused to go to school and just lay on her bed staring at the ceiling. She stopped listening to her music, stopped smoking; she wouldn’t even come down to dinner. I got really worried about her because she was getting so skinny and pale. Weasel Face said she needed to snap out of it but she didn’t do anything to help, she just left her there. After dinner I would come up to see if she was okay but when I tried to talk she’d just turn on her side and make this horrible noise, like a really long sigh. I smuggled food out of the dining room and left it by the bed but in the morning it would still be there.

  Then last night she asked me if I would find a CD for her. I asked which one and she said it was in her top drawer. I was going to ask why it wasn’t on the shelf like her other CDs but when I opened the drawer and saw it I realized why. Most of the music she plays is by American rappers, especially Tupac, who I’d never heard of before I came here. Now I know every word of that album because Zoe has played it so much. Anyway, the CD in the drawer was Elton John’s Greatest Hits. I took it out and showed it to Zoe, asked if this was the one she wanted. She nodded her head then lay back on the bed and told me to play it. ‘Put track five on,’ she said.

  I did as I was told then went and sat on my bunk. The song started. It was ‘Goodbye Yellowbrick Road’. I’d heard it on the radio back at home. I sat there and listened to the first few lines and then Zoe started singing, really quietly. It was nice. She had a really lovely voice. I closed my eyes for a bit and listened to her singing. Then the song ended and she asked me to turn it on again. When I sat back down I asked her why she liked the song so much and she said that her mum used to play it all the time when she was little. They used to dance around the kitchen singing into cardboard tubes and pretending they were on Top of the Pops. I asked her where her mum was now and she said that she’d died of an overdose when Zoe was five. I tried to ask her some more questions then, about how she ended up here, but she just started singing again. After a while I joined in too, though I can’t sing as well as Zoe. When it finished she said, ‘That was really nice. Thanks.’ And we went to sleep.

  When I woke up this morning her bed was empty. She wasn’t in the dining room at breakfast and she wasn’t in the entrance waiting for me as I left the house. I guessed she must have gone to school early but then at hometime this afternoon she wasn’t waiting for me at the gate. I felt something weird in the pit of my stomach as I walked back; like freezing cold air was blowing right through me. And then I saw two police cars parked outside the house. When I got inside Weasel Face was standing with a policeman. She told me to go to my room but I sat on the landing and listened to what they were saying. I heard the policeman say that a body had been found on the railway track. And then he said her full name: Zoe Maria Mathers. I wanted to scream but I knew I’d get in trouble for snooping if I made a sound. So I went back to my room, lay on Zoe’s bed and played that song over and over until I fell asleep.

  I’ve just woken up and the first thing I thought about was you and how much I need you.

  Please answer this letter Mummy.

  Please come and get me.

  I love you.

  Your lovely daughter xxx

  42

  Wednesday 9 August

  As I make my way across the farmyard towards the house I’m struck by how neglected it looks. The tarmac is covered in potholes and weeds; the door of the barn is broken and hanging off its hinges. It’s like I’m walking through a ghost estate. How could Barbara have let Ketton House Farm fall into such disrepair.

  My stomach twists as I approach the farmhouse. The thought of confronting Barbara terrifies me but I know I have to do it.

  Unlike the yard, the house appears to be in good order. The windows are gleaming and the doorstep looks like it’s been freshly painted. There’s a basket of geraniums hanging above the door. The ground is damp beneath as though someone has just watered them. I imagine Barbara behind the door, watering can in hand, ready to pounce.

  Come on, Maggie, I think to myself as I stand on the step, you have to do this. I take a deep breath, then knock three times on the door. I’m not even sure what I’m going to say. My head has turned to fudge. I wait a few moments then knock again. There’s still no answer, though I’m sure I can hear the muffled sound of voices behind the door. Maybe she left the radio on before she went out. I knock one more time just in case before turning and walking back across the farmyard.

  I head for the gate, but as I do, something on the far left of the yard catches my eye. I turn and see a dilapidated round building with moss and ivy trailing over it.

  The playhouse. Where most kids would have been content with a plastic Wendy house, Ben got his very own outbuilding, a roundhouse built in the late 1800s. We used to play for hours in here when I was a kid. I remember thinking it was like the turret of a castle that had fallen to the ground. But then it had become something else; something darker.

  I stand looking at it, willing myself not to go there, to just turn round and get the hell out of here. But curiosity gradually gets the better of me and I slowly make my way towards it.

  The windows are filthy and cracked; the tiles on the roof are broken, the stone exterior crumbling. I think back to the last time I was here. It was the night of Barbara’s party. When we arrived Barbara had swept my parents into the house, thrusting glasses of champagne into their hands. ‘Oh, Margaret,’ she called over her shoulder as I stood awkwardly on the step. ‘You don’t want to be in here with the old fogeys. Why don’t you go and see Ben and his friends? They’re in the playhouse.’

  Though Ben and I had been friends as kids we’d drifted apart as we got older. After all, there was a four-year age gap between us and though we had loved playing games of hide and seek and swimming in the river when we were five and nine, the older Ben had decided it was rather uncool to be hanging around with an awkward child. That night, despite my glamorous dress, I still felt like a little kid, and as I walked towards the playhouse my hands were sweating with nerves.

  Loud music was coming from inside: ‘How Soon is Now?’ by the Smiths. To t
his day I can’t listen to that song. I’d stood on the step, practising what I would say. I had to seem cool, like I didn’t really care. After all, this party was full of Ben’s friends from Oxford, clever people with money and the right clothes, and I was just some kid Ben used to play hide and seek with. When I’d finally plucked up the courage to knock on the door it had been opened by a beautiful girl with black bobbed hair, flawless olive skin and pouty scarlet lips.

  ‘Yeah?’ she’d said, looking me up and down.

  I’d tried to speak but I was so nervous I just started stuttering. Then Ben appeared in the door with a weird smirk on his face. I discovered later that this was because he was stoned out of his head.

  ‘Zoshi, are you scaring little Maggie?’ he laughed.

  Every part of me wanted to run away but I didn’t. Instead I followed him inside and sealed my fate.

  Enough, I tell myself, this isn’t what you came here for. Just leave it alone. But then, before I know what I’m doing, I’m pushing the door open.