‘Is she local, Angela? I can drop you off.’ Richard checked his watch. Nick knew he was thinking of the function he needed to go to; the icy disapproval of his father if he missed it.
‘It’s about an hour’s drive,’ Mum said.
Nick exchanged a glance with Richard. It would cost a fortune by taxi. Cash they didn’t have.
‘Richard? Could you lend me some money, please?’ Nick hated asking.
Richard swallowed hard and tapped his keys against his thigh; the way he always did when he was thinking.
‘Take these.’ He pressed the car keys into Nick’s hands. ‘I don’t have much cash on me and I must go. I’m nearly late as it is. I’ll grab my jacket and catch the bus on the corner. You get your mum out of here. Away from…’ Richard’s gaze swept over the blood on the floor, the knife.
‘But I haven’t passed my test,’ Nick said, though he curled his fingers against the key fob anyway.
‘No, but you’re good enough. You had a great instructor.’ Richard offered a faint smile and there was so much Nick wanted to say but his head was full of things they needed to pack, the thought his dad might come back, and instead he patted Richard on the shoulder. Sometimes there was no need for words.
‘Why haven’t I ever heard of this aunt?’ Nick said. The rain was torrential. Nick knew he should focus all of his attention on the road but he’d grown up watching Casualty, and knew from the egg-sized bump on Mum’s forehead he should keep her talking. He was terrified she would fall asleep before he got there. It wasn’t like he knew where he was going anyway.
‘We were close, as sisters, growing up.’ Mum started to speak, her words unclear as they spilled from her split lip, and Nick turned down the radio so he could properly hear her. He didn’t want to listen to songs about being a believer. As he looked at his mum’s battered face he thought he would never believe in anything again. ‘After I married your dad he insisted we moved away, and every time she came to visit he’d be rude and he’d always twist it around to make it look like she was the one who didn’t like him. It was awkward, I suppose, having her in the house. I’d still visit her though, at first, but each time I arranged to go, something always came up. Your dad wasn’t feeling well, or there wasn’t enough money for the train fare. I don’t know.’ Mum pressed her hands against her ribs, wincing as she shifted on her seat. Nick tried to smile reassuringly as he glanced over at her but his teeth were gritted, his hands clenched hard around the steering wheel. He almost wished they were round his dad’s neck.
‘It was an impossible situation for me caught in the middle. She thought he was a bully, and he thought she was trying to turn me against him. We were so close once.’ Mum sniffed hard and Nick thought she might be talking about Dad until she spoke again. ‘Lots of my friends had siblings they fought with but it wasn’t like that with us. Our birthdays were close together and we always had a joint party; Mum couldn’t afford to splash out for two, but we never minded. One year our mum tried to make it two different themes, mermaids and princesses, but we wanted to be the same and ended up mixing up the costumes so we could look identical. I had a fishtail and a tiara. I’ll never forget that party…’ Mum’s voice grew fainter before her words were indistinguishable, and Nick felt a tight knot of tension in his neck as he twisted his head to look at her. Even in the darkness of the car he could see how deathly pale she was. How her eyelids fluttered as she tried to keep them open.
‘Tell me about the last time you spoke to her?’ Nick felt terrible firing questions at her, but he didn’t want her drifting off. Not yet.
‘She’d bought a house and asked us to move in with her. You and me.’ She reached out a hand and touched Nick’s arms. ‘Dad was furious and then someone anonymously rang her boss and told him she had been bragging about stealing things from work. A complete lie but she lost her job, lost the house. Dad never admitted it but I knew it was him. He’s always been too scared to confront people directly.’
Nick indicated left. He wasn’t too sure this was the right turning. ‘What a bastard.’
‘Yes. But at the time I made excuses for him. I thought about how hard it must be for him, losing a career, money, being dependent on me. No wonder he lost his pride.’
‘You can dress it up how you want, but the bottom line is he’s a coward.’ Nick leaned forward. Visibility was poor and he didn’t know the roads.
‘Why didn’t you leave dad? If you had somewhere to go?’
‘I don’t know.’ The distress in Mum’s voice sliced Nick to the core. ‘She was furious, telling me I had to choose between them. He was sweet, saying she was jealous; I had a husband when she didn’t. He can be very persuasive when he wants to be. Divorce would have seemed almost shameful, I suppose. My parents wouldn’t have been around to see it but they believed marriage vows were for life. And so did I.’
In his peripheral vision Nick noticed his mum twist her wedding ring around her finger, he hoped she’d tug it off and lob it out of the window into the blackness and the sheets of rain.
‘It’s not too late for you, Mum.’ Nick believed this to be true. ‘You can be happy again. Away from him.’
‘I’m not going back. Not this time.’ And under her exhaustion, her fear, her words were coated in steel. ‘I’m going to spend some quality time with my sister and then I’m going to travel. See all the places I’ve never been. Try new foods. Experience new cultures. I want to live.’ She exhaled sharply as though blowing her desire to travel out into the world she so wanted to see.
On the radio, Elvis began to croon ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight?’ Mum leaned forward to turn up the volume.
‘This is my favourite song,’ she said.
‘Do you know where we are?’ It felt as though they had been on the road forever and, with the lack of street lights, the open countryside, Nick hadn’t seen a street sign for what seemed like miles. ‘There’s a sign for Shillacre – do you know it?’
But his mum didn’t answer; her eyes were closed and she swayed slightly in her seat, lost to the music. Lost to a happier time past, or dreaming of the ones yet to come.
Nick twisted around and picked up the map he’d looked at earlier. He shook it out on his lap, glanced down as he looked for Farncaster, the town his Aunt Natasha lived in, but it was too dark to properly see. He popped on the interior light – for a second – and he eased his foot off the accelerator. He’d marked Farncaster on the map before they’d left. He ran his finger along the tangle of lines and saw he’d missed the turning. He’d have to find a gateway or something to spin the car around.
Everything seemed to happen at once: his mum’s voice rose in pitch, singing out clear and strong; his foot squeezed the accelerator, energised now he knew they were almost there; the glare of the approaching headlights; the awful sinking feeling in his stomach as his head jerked upright. The realisation that he had – for a split second – drifted onto the wrong side of the road. Everything seemed to slow, and by the time his reactions kicked in, it was too late. There was the squealing of brakes, the look of horror on the face of the passenger in the other car before she raised her arms in front of her face. Her eyes screwed shut, mouth open in a scream, was something Nick had never been able to forget. There was the crunching sound of metal. He and his mum were thrust forward before being yanked back. Nick’s reflexes roared back to life.
‘Mum.’ He was almost too scared to look. Too scared not to look. But as he turned, tears of relief fought their way free as his mum’s eyes locked on to his. Despite the shock on her face, the sliver of blood trickling down her cheek, she looked okay.