One wrong turn, p.7
One Wrong Turn, page 7
And it’s none of your damn business.
So much had changed for me in the past six months. My whole world had been upended. At first, I’d tried to keep working, but each time I’d cradled or changed someone else’s baby, or laid them down for a nap, it had killed me a little more.
My throat started to close up. Tears filled my eyes.
I understood that I couldn’t go on like this. I knew that Ben’s patience was nearly exhausted. There’d been times lately when he’d asked me what I was going to do with my day before he left for work. From the sad and hesitant way in which he asked – he always tried to be preoccupied or looking away from me – I could tell he was worried about me lounging around the apartment in my tracksuit bottoms and baggy sweaters, watching endless crap on Netflix, avoiding going outside in case I bumped into someone I recognized who might ask me what I was up to, why I wasn’t working, why I looked so tired.
‘That can be hard,’ Samantha said. ‘Not knowing what tomorrow will bring. The next hour.’
She sounded wistful, almost, and I got the impression she was speaking from experience. With Paul, I wondered?
‘Do you have any other flatmates?’ she asked.
‘No,’ Ben told her. ‘It’s just the two of us.’
‘What about family? You don’t sound like you’re from Bristol.’
Was she changing the subject to be polite, or was she asking for other reasons? For a weird moment, I started to wonder if Samantha had another agenda, although I couldn’t think what it might be. Unless she was trying to work out who might be expecting us home.
No. You’re being ridiculous.
‘My family are based around Norwich,’ Ben said. ‘I met Abi when I was at law school in Bristol. Then I stayed on when I got a training contract with my firm.’
What Ben didn’t say – and I was glad of it – was that I’d lost my mum to motor neurone disease a year or so before we’d begun dating. Dad had walked out on us when I was thirteen, and I hadn’t seen him since. I’d been Mum’s full-time carer until she’d died. After that, I’d got my childcare qualifications, a few years later than most people did. It didn’t take a psychologist to understand that my own broken family was one reason I craved kids with Ben so much.
Paul coughed and sat up in his seat, and a new and even more awkward silence settled over us as I returned my attention to the world outside. The fog weaved and morphed into unexpected shapes and pockets of darkness. Off to my right, I glimpsed the dim and blurred lights of an approaching vehicle wobbling in the murk like an alien spaceship.
When I looked up in my mirror, I still couldn’t see anything behind us.
Except Paul’s head.
Most of him was in darkness, but I had the unsettling feeling he was staring at me closely. I was suddenly aware that he hadn’t said anything for quite some time, and I wondered what he was thinking and whether I’d be able to get Samantha away from him when we stopped.
Looking forwards, my heart thudded as the satnav announced that there was a roundabout coming up. Before we got there, we passed a sign for fuel and then a neon smudge emerged from the gloom away to our left; a gaudy streak of orange and green that appeared marooned in the heavy fog. Seconds later, the broken white lines of a slip road materialized and I hit the indicator and peeled off.
Saturday Evening
6.26 p.m.
‘Control yourself, Samantha,’ her father said.
Control yourself.
It was insulting, upsetting. Samantha wasn’t a teenager any more. He shouldn’t talk to her that way.
With her eyes, she silently appealed to her mother for help, but her mother shook her head quickly, as if signalling that it was the wrong move to make. They both knew her father. They were both aware of his volcanic temper, how if he made his mind up about something it could take days to talk him around.
Days they didn’t have.
‘I’d like Paul to explain himself first,’ he said.
‘I really don’t think that’s a good idea.’
‘I’d like to hear where the money went.’
‘Like I said, Dad, that’s not the point—’
‘The point, Samantha,’ her father said, spearing a finger down into the tabletop, ‘is that we’d like to know these were not gambling debts, this time.’
Silence.
Samantha felt her legs go as she folded into a chair.
Down by the Aga, Pippa the dog raised her head just as
the washing machine clicked and sloshed and shuddered into an urgent spin cycle.
A heady percussion.
A gathering beat.
15
The slip road was long and curved, spearing down into a blanket of even denser fog and then winding around behind a dimly visible mound of earth and stone that concealed the road we’d been travelling along from view. The tarmac appeared recently laid and lushly black in the glow of my dipped beams. I slowed right down and crept forwards. The petrol station that gradually materialized from the murk had a sleek, modern design, lit by bright sodium lights.
Paul cleared his throat several times as we approached, sitting straighter in his seat. I cut my speed and shifted down through the gears. From the corner of my eye, I glimpsed a pulse of bluish light down by Samantha’s lap, followed by the clipped percussion of her nails as she tapped at the screen of her mobile phone.
Ahead of us, a dozen petrol pumps were arranged beneath a vast overhead canopy, all currently vacant, all smudged by the fog. None of the electric charging points I could see were occupied. There was only one vehicle parked in the slanted spaces outside the petrol station shop. It was a tiny blue Hyundai, its exterior so misted by damp that it looked as if it had been parked there for hours.
‘Looks like we’re lucky this place is open,’ Ben said. ‘It’s a ghost town.’
The shop was fronted by plate glass panels, lit brightly from within, and I could see a big man with long frizzy hair standing behind the counter. He was dressed in a zipped green fleece that matched the branding of the petrol station forecourt.
I coughed to clear a dry tickle in my throat as I aimed for the pump furthest away from the shop. When I got there, I stopped my car and cut the engine just as Samantha’s mobile emitted a simulated whoosh.
The fog crept towards us, rolling in over the tarmac, curling and pluming downwards from the edge of the overhead canopy like a slow-moving waterfall. A moist drizzle pressed against the windows of my car, bright beads of moisture shining in the glow of the vapour lights.
I unclipped my seat belt just as Paul’s phone made a jaunty ding.
Wait.
Had Samantha texted him? Had she wanted to tell him something she didn’t want us to hear?
‘Um?’ Focus, Abi. ‘Did you want to come to the bathroom with me, Samantha?’
Because that was a reasonable question, wasn’t it? Especially out here in the night-time mist. It would be understandable for us to go together.
‘Oh.’ I glanced around as Samantha shot Paul an uncertain look. It was easier to see them both now that we were under the forecourt lights. ‘I think I’m OK, thank you.’
I delayed for a second, glancing at Paul myself. He’d been frowning severely as he read the text message he’d received, as if he didn’t like what it had said, and he still appeared perturbed as he slipped his phone into an inside pocket of his mackintosh.
‘What about your hand?’ I asked, returning my attention to Samantha. ‘We could take a look at it in the bathroom together. They probably sell first aid stuff in the shop.’
Something flickered in her eyes. Was she tempted? Scared?
Before she answered me, Paul ducked low in his seat and gazed up out of his side window, the chassis of the car wobbling with his movements.
‘I think it’s probably better if I leave my hand alone for now,’ Samantha said. ‘It’s not hurting as much as it was, and I don’t want to start it bleeding again. And anyway, I’m not sure a petrol station toilet is the most hygienic place to try to clean it.’
‘What about Lila? Is she due a change?’
‘Not for a while, hopefully. And I’d rather not disturb her while she’s sleeping. She can be a bit tetchy when she wakes up.’
This was trickier than I’d anticipated. I was a bit surprised by how uncooperative Samantha was being. Perhaps she was afraid it would be too obvious if she did come with me. Or perhaps she feared the repercussions she might face if she did.
‘Do you need anything for Lila?’ I tried.
‘Formula,’ Paul answered, his voice sounding clipped and constricted. ‘And wipes. But I’ll come with you.’
Great.
He opened his door, then hesitated and looked back at Samantha for a hanging moment before patting his phone in his pocket. ‘Oh,’ he said flatly, ‘and I’d like to pay for your fuel. It’s the least we can do.’
So that was why she’d texted.
I felt a rush of relief that made me wonder what else I might have misunderstood.
The chassis rocked and then raised up as Paul stepped out onto the forecourt, looking around him almost as if he was searching for someone else. Seconds later, Ben got out, too.
‘I’ll fill up while you’re over there,’ he called over the roof of the car to Paul.
‘Right.’ Paul seemed weirdly distracted, but then he stepped forward and opened my door before motioning stiffly for me to get out and walk around the front of my car. ‘Abi, are you ready?’
Saturday Evening
6.30 p.m.
‘Dad!’
Samantha could feel it slipping away. All of it. Everything.
She was so very tired. So frightened. Her nerves were terribly frayed.
Control yourself, Samantha.
Somehow, she managed not to lose herself completely, propping both elbows on the table, pressing her hands to her temples, understanding too clearly what was at stake.
‘That isn’t fair, Dad. You know that’s all in the past. You know Paul’s had counselling. Successful counselling.’
That her parents had paid for, was the thought she left unsaid.
The washing machine shook and thundered, thrashing hard, and she could see her father gathering himself, could sense what he was going to say. Because wasn’t the property investment company just another form of gambling? Hadn’t Paul simply replaced one reckless thrill for another?
‘Oh, absolutely, darling,’ her mother said. ‘We do understand. Don’t we, Julian?’
16
I got out of the car with my handbag, keeping my distance from Paul. His attention had strayed to the petrol station shop, his eyes narrowed behind his spectacle lenses with the same intense, appraising gaze he’d first used to assess Ben and me.
A tremor of unease.
I turned from him and hurried across the silent forecourt, and a few seconds later I heard him hustle to catch up. He didn’t talk and neither did I. I could have told myself it was the strangeness of the night, the late hour, the cold and the fog, but I knew it was something more than that. I didn’t trust Paul and he didn’t trust me.
He was striding alongside me at speed, giving off a restless energy, clenching and unclenching his hands, his mackintosh rustling like damp newspaper.
I adjusted the strap of my handbag and looked back over my shoulder at Samantha. She was staring after us, blank-eyed, stony-faced.
I shuddered.
Things weren’t normal between her and Paul.
Had Ben noticed, I wondered? Would he take the opportunity to talk with Samantha while Paul was out of earshot?
Maybe, but I couldn’t rely on it.
By now, Ben had moved around to the far side of my car and he was standing at the rear with one hand in his pocket and the other squeezing the trigger of the petrol pump, watching the dial click upwards.
I loved Ben but he wasn’t exactly the most intuitive type. It was possible he hadn’t noticed anything at all.
Unless I was misreading things?
But no, not when I thought back to the way Samantha had held my gaze in the mirror. Her slow, deliberate blinks.
She’d been signalling to me about something. I just didn’t know what that something was.
‘You go first,’ Paul said, jerking out an arm towards the sliding glass door at the entrance to the shop.
A tiny muscle twitched next to his eye. He seemed to be breathing very fast. I hesitated, scared I was making a mistake, but the pressing weight in my bladder reminded me that I really did need to pee.
The door whisked open as I stepped forward and a blast of hot air pummelled me from a ceiling vent fitted overhead.
‘Hey, just in time.’
The giant bear of a man behind the counter to my right flashed a big, friendly grin. He was young and vastly overweight, his skin pimpled and greasy, his long black hair hanging in loose curls around his shoulders. Next to him on the counter, a small tablet computer was screening what appeared to be a sci-fi movie. As I recovered from the cold, he reached absently for a bright yellow e-cigarette.
‘Saw you talking in your car.’
A badge pinned to the man’s fleece carried the name ‘Gary’. He gestured with the e-cigarette to a security monitor by his side. The screen was split into four camera views showing various angles of the forecourt. The visuals were rendered in a washed-out colour scheme that looked overdeveloped in the glare of the forecourt lights. The bottom left window featured a view of Ben pumping fuel into my car. I noticed Paul staring at it quite intently.
‘We lock the doors at midnight.’
I checked the time on my watch. It was 12.03 a.m.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘Don’t worry about it. I’m not going to lock you in. I’m on shift until six anyway.’
‘Is it OK if I use the toilets quickly?’
‘Absolutely, go ahead.’
‘I need to pay for the petrol.’ Paul whipped back the tail of his mackintosh, snatching some grubby cash from his pocket and nearly dropping it in his haste.
‘Old school, I like it.’ Gary nodded outside to where a silver BMW had pulled up to the nearest pump. A man in a baseball cap leapt out of his car and held a credit card up to the machine, bouncing on his toes as if he was in a hurry to get away again. ‘Night like this, most people don’t even come in here.’
‘Didn’t you want some baby things?’ I asked Paul.
But he was still staring at the silver BMW, his mouth hanging open, transfixed.
‘Paul? Baby things?’
‘Er, right. Yes.’ His voice sounded parched, and when he turned back, blinking, there was a sheen of sweat on his brow and across the bridge of his nose. ‘Almost forgot. Do you have nappies?’
‘Middle aisle towards the back. Down at the bottom there.’ Gary smiled at me. ‘Entrance to the toilets is just behind.’
I peered at Paul, a ripple of uneasiness passing through me. The colour seemed to have drained from his face and he looked dazed for a moment. I was starting to wonder if he was sick. Perhaps he’d caught a chill when he’d been trying to flag someone down in the fog.
Moving ahead of him past a display of sweets and confectionery, I concentrated on not rushing, trying (and mostly failing) not to freak myself out.
It wasn’t just Paul’s manner that was alarming me. In the car, he’d said they needed formula and wipes for Lila, not nappies. It was only a small detail, but it was another small detail, and they were all beginning to add up to something that was really beginning to worry me.
I glanced outside at Ben. His back was to me as he returned the pump to the machine. In a moment, he’d get back in the car and he’d have to talk to Samantha about something, I thought. Ben was easy to talk to. Maybe she’d open up to him.
‘I’ll see you outside,’ I told Paul, and hurried towards an opening in the wall to my right.
A fridge unit stocked with drinks shuddered as I passed, and I shuddered a little in turn. Ahead of me was a short corridor and at the end of it was the door to the ladies’ toilets. I could feel my pulse throbbing in my ears. Before going inside, I steadied myself and glanced back.
Shit.
Paul was watching me from above the display of baby supplies.
He dropped his gaze immediately, but it was too late.
For a funny second, I had the crazy thought that he was planning to wait until I was out of sight, then rush back to my car without paying, shove Ben aside, get in and attempt to drive off with Samantha and Lila.
Not that he could do that. I’d been careful to take my keys out of the ignition and slip them into my handbag when I’d got out of the car.
Something else, then? What if he followed me into the ladies? What if he confronted me, attacked me?
But no, that would be crazy.
And Ben is just outside. He knows where you are.
I steadied myself and went inside. Fluorescent lights stuttered on as I entered. An antiseptic smell brought tears to my eyes.
The facilities were modern and well appointed. The cubicles were formed of full-height slabs of darkly finished timber. I hurried to the nearest one, locking the door behind me, closing my eyes and releasing a shaky breath.
After hanging my handbag on a hook, I reached into it for something before sitting down on the toilet to pee and unfurling my hand.
My breath hitched.
My hand trembled. I raised it to cover my mouth.
In my other hand, I was holding a short length of white plastic. It barely weighed a thing, but it changed absolutely everything.
I’d picked up the test in a pharmacy at the beginning of the previous week. It had taken me until this morning in our hotel bathroom to finally work up the courage to use it. After only a few minutes, I’d got the result. The two lines that told me I was pregnant.
It didn’t seem real.
I should have been happy – a part of me was – but I was also petrified. I was worried things would go wrong again. I was afraid to believe it could be OK this time.
