Accidents Happen (39 page)

The thought of Jago sent a thrill through her.

She crossed the street, swinging her bag of ankle boots, recalling each word of their phonecall last night from London.

‘Kate, I had to tell you,’ Jago enthused down the phone. ‘That psychologist guy in the States rang to see how you were. I told him what we’d been up to and he was fascinated. He mentioned us doing an interdisciplinary paper together on this anxiety disorder theory of his – I’m going to stop off and see him in New York when I go to Utah in the summer.’

‘That’s brilliant,’ she’d said, pleased.

‘But he thinks we should stop after this weekend, so we don’t go too far. And he said that you’re welcome to ring him to discuss the kind of cognitive behaviour therapy he would recommend if you want to try a different kind of counselling in Oxford.’

‘Thanks, Jago,’ she said, touched by his effort. ‘Thanks for doing this for me.’

‘You’re very welcome.’ He paused. ‘Although, of course, I have dodgy ulterior motives, which would be seriously unethical if I was actually a psychologist. But we statisticians are allowed to be as dodgy as fuck as long as we can count . . . so I was thinking, that if you fancied it, maybe we could sneak you into my room at Balliol on Saturday after we get back to Oxford.’

She had hesitated, feeling a spark between them along the telephone line.

‘I mean, if you can steal a boat and terrorize young girls in a wood, that’ll be old hat for you by then, missus.’

She smiled. ‘No, I’d like that.’

‘Good,’ he said.

They had arranged to meet at 8 a.m. tomorrow at an M25 service station.

And it was after that phonecall, which had made her feel so positive about the future, that she had, terrified, decided to book the tickets to Mallorca.

Kate arrived at the heel bar a minute later, squeezing past an umbrella stand. The old man was working behind the bar again, as irritable looking as last time.

‘Hi,’ Kate said, taking out the boots.

He lifted his head slowly again and peered at her.

‘Sorry, but I picked these up from you last week and when I got home, I realized that the heel had been shortened by about this much.’ She held up her fingers. ‘I can wear them, but I really preferred them the height they were. Could I ask you to redo them, please?’

The old man turned with effort, took the boots from Kate, and peered through his glasses. He put them down on the counter.

‘He asked me to do it. The bloke.’

‘Who?’ What was he talking about?

‘The bloke that brought them in.’

‘Who?’ she said, confused. ‘A Scottish bloke?’

The old man shrugged. ‘Can’t remember.’

She frowned. ‘I’m sorry, but no, I mean, why would he?’

‘Seen it before,’ the old man said, tucking in his tortoise neck.

‘Sorry?’

‘Some blokes don’t like it. When their wife is tall. Ask me to shorten their heels.’

Kate shook her head not believing what she was hearing. ‘I’m sorry.’ She smiled. ‘First of all, I’m not his wife. And secondly he’s about six foot, and I’m five foot seven. Even with heels on, I’m shorter than him.’

The old man scratched a veined cheek. ‘Some do it to keep their women in their place.’

Kate had to stop herself laughing out loud. ‘Excuse me, I’m sorry, but I find that quite offensive. How could you . . .’

He turned away from her, putting his hand up between her face and his. ‘I’ll redo them if you want. But he did ask me.’

‘OK. If you say so,’ she muttered, peering in the back of the heel bar, to see if there was anyone more rational here. The old guy was even madder than she’d first thought. She gave him her name again, put the boots on the counter and walked out, cross, as the uneasy feeling she had so often at Hubert Street crept over her again. How bizarre.

She walked back up the street to her bike, distracting herself by concentrating on what Jago might have planned for this weekend.

Kate arrived home an hour later, holding a bag with some new holiday clothes for Jack and her, to hear a commotion on the pavement.

She looked up to see the tall student with the glasses and spiky hair leaving the house next door, with two large holdalls. A small mousey woman in her twenties was standing in the doorway, talking to him with a harassed expression in her face.

‘But we need it before you go, Magnus,’ she was calling out. ‘None of us can cover your share, and there’s the electricity bill too. That’s due soon.’

‘I send it to you!’ he yelled, placing the keys in her hand and waving in the air.

‘But we don’t have an address for you and . . .’

‘I send it!’

He turned, then stopped when he saw Kate. She noticed he had a bruise on his face that ran from under his eye down the side of his face.

Some connection began to register in her mind, then slipped, like a foot off a pedal.

‘Hey. I’m leaving!’ he shouted.

Kate looked sympathetically at the girl, to show her support if she needed it, but the girl just turned away.

‘Too many crazy fucking people round here,’ the spiky-haired student called out.

He stomped off down the street, leaving Kate standing on the doorstep.

Oh, well, perhaps Saskia had been right. At least, that was one thing less to worry about, having him next door.

Inside the house, Kate walked up to Jack’s bedroom, and put away his new summer clothes.

Then she sat on her son’s bed quietly, and looked around.

Jack’s world, where he had lived on his own for so long while she had been lost in her head, worrying about how to keep them both safe.

With one hand, she reached up and took down the little snowdome. Jack had loved this when he was a baby. Asked for it again and again. She shook it and a glittering snowstorm rained over the little plastic mountain inside, swirling glittering rain, feeling like her life for the past five years.

She lay back and thought of Jago.

With him, there could be a real possibility of something. She sensed he felt it too.

Just one more step in this experiment. The glitter settled. And then life would really restart.

But first she had to be honest with Jago about who she really was.

‘No!’ the child screamed.

Mother went flying at Father’s head, brandishing the clump of bricks that had fallen off the side of the house.

Father turned round and looked up to see Mother coming at him, her face contorted with fury.

‘ You stupid, bloody bastard!’ she shrieked, holding the bricks aloft. She waved a hand at the hole in the side of the house. ‘Everything my father worked for just thrown away in this pile of shit. He said I should never have married you.’

The child ran at her, trying to claw the bricks away from her. ‘No!

A creaking noise stopped the three of them in mid-movement.

They turned to see the end of the roof starting to sway. With a groan, the main beam began to slide to the left, bringing tiles down with it.

The roof collapsed into itself. More crumbled away.

The child’s bedroom fell apart, taking with it the rocking horse and the cuckoo clock from Aunt Nelly.

The child jumped back, dropping the snowdome on the rubble.

Mother dropped the clump of bricks down beside Father’s foot and stood, shaking.

The child watched in shock as she turned away feebly, starting to sob.

‘ You stupid little man.’

Father’s face was going purple. The veins in his neck stood out.

The child gasped.

‘Enough!’ Father screamed, turning round, his big arms swinging. With one punch he knocked Mother across the jaw, sending her flying onto the grass. Before the child could open his mouth, Father picked up the block of wall with a huge roar, and threw it down on Mother’s head.

The was a crack like an axe on wood.

Blood seeped into the hillside and ran down it like a stream.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

It was 8 a.m. on the Saturday morning as Kate pulled in to the service station on the M25, nervous about the last step of Jago’s experiment. In fact, she had been so preoccupied, she’d hardly noticed the lorries behind her on the M40. Instead, she’d found an old Johnny Cash CD in the front compartment and played that, his comforting mellow voice drifting out of the window she had opened to let in the already-warm June air. To her surprise, she had noticed a small sense of joy descending upon her.

She spotted Jago immediately as she circled, looking for a parking space.

He was standing at the main door of the cafe area, a coffee in hand, sipping it carefully as steam drifted up into a blue sky that, if all the bike carriers and boat trailers were anything to go by, was already summoning a weekend crowd to the outdoors.

Kate found a cramped space beside a 4x4 topped with mountain bikes, and turned off the engine. She sat back and observed Jago furtively in her side mirror.

He looked even more tanned, as if he’d been out cycling in the sun. He wore a slim-fit grey T-shirt that showed off the taut muscles of his arms and torso, and a black top tied around his waist. He was wearing tracksuit trousers and trainers, as she was. He had been specific about that on the phone. ‘Something comfortable,’ he’d said. ‘Something you’d go running in on a cold day.’

So. This was it. After today, when they saw each other again, it would be a normal date. How would that feel? Would she be able to do things with him that were planned ahead, without trying to control things again?

At least now Kate knew she had a chance.

She felt a tremor in her stomach, remembering something else.

Tonight she would sleep with him. She looked at him again, something niggling her mind.

But first it was only fair, before she took that step, to tell him what she had done.

She climbed out of her car, and crossed towards him. He spotted her and picked up a coffee he’d clearly bought for her, as she crossed the line of arriving cars to reach him.

‘Hello!’ He put out his arms, coffee in each hand, and kissed her. There was no awkwardness on his part or hers now. She fell into him, his body still familiar from last week in her kitchen.

‘You smell nice,’ he said. ‘How are you?’

‘Hmm . . .’ she growled, prodding his chest gently. ‘You’d better have a good reason for getting me up at 6.30 a.m., mate.’

‘Ahah!’ He kissed her again. ‘Let’s go and find out, shall we?’ He pointed at her car. ‘Can you drive?’

‘Uh, yes, but how did you get here?’ she asked, as they crossed back over the road.

Jago opened the passenger door. ‘Someone gave me a lift on their way to London this morning.’

‘But I thought you just
came
from London,’ Kate said, climbing in her side and starting the engine.

Jago grinned.

‘What?’ she said, putting on her seatbelt and reversing out. She followed the exit sign back onto the M25, waiting for his reply.

‘Kate. I haven’t been in London.’

She did a double take. ‘I thought that was where you’ve been – working?’

Jago sipped his coffee. ‘No. My classes finished at Balliol the week we went to Highgate Woods – the Oxford summer school doesn’t start till next Monday.’

Kate accelerated onto the motorway. ‘Oh, sorry. So, where have you been?’

Jago lifted her coffee up for her to have a sip. She took it, realizing she was getting used again to these small intimate gestures of affection that people in relationships shared.

‘Now, that’s what we’re about to find out.’ She threw him a worried look.

‘Come on. One more step, then you can relax.
We
can relax. Actually, I was just looking at those mountain bikes back there, wondering if you fancied coming cycling with me in the Cotswolds next week – someone at Balliol told me about a good trail.’

She tensed, waiting for the numbers to fly at her about bike accidents, but nothing came. ‘Um, yeah.’ It was easy to say yes. ‘I suppose so. That sounds nice.’

And it did sound nice. Cycling outdoors in the sunshine in a beautiful part of the world. She took the cup from him and had another sip, their fingers touching for a second.

‘Thanks.’

‘Great. And we’ll find a proper country pub this time.’

That sounded nice too. As Jago looked for a radio station, a thought occurred to her. How much of life had she missed in the last five years, tiptoeing between safe corners, frightened of shadows?

They turned off the motorway at the next signpost, then Jago directed her onto a two-lane country road surrounded by high hedges. He found an alternative music station and sat back, tapping his fingers on his leg. They carried on for ten miles, chatting about Kate’s new plans for the foundation, then turned into a much narrower country road that soon disappeared behind high hedges.

‘Why is this making me uneasy?’ said Kate.

‘Oi. Stop trying to predict.’

‘Sorry.’

As she took her time, it dawned on her that Jack would be home next weekend. How would she explain the Cotswold trip? She glanced at Jago, wondering. Would it be too weird?

‘Jago. Could I ask you something? Would you mind meeting Jack?’

He dropped his head to the side, as if listening to a strange noise.

‘I’d just introduce you as a friend.’

‘Yeah, absolutely. When?’

‘Really?’ He hadn’t even hesitated. ‘Maybe next week?’

‘Absolutely,’ Jago repeated, tapping his fingers to the music as the car re-emerged from behind the hedges. ‘Take him to the Cotswolds, if you like. Does he like cycling? I take my niece, Clara, sometimes in Scotland. She’s about the same age.’

‘Do you?’ She loved the way he talked about his family. Like Hugo. ‘He’d love that, actually. I never take him cycling.’

‘Great. He and I can talk science.’

The joy in her heart expanded a little. ‘Thanks. That would be amazing. I’m sorry, it’s just . . .’

He shook his head. ‘Kate. My sister – Clara’s mum – is divorced. I know a bit about what it’s like.’ He started singing along to the radio. He was so relaxed. So relaxing to be around and . . .