Accidents Happen A Novel

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN



Saskia glanced up from her laptop to the clock on the other side of her mother’s vast country kitchen – 9.40 p.m.

‘Snores!’ she shouted.

She shut down the webpage she’d been reading while no one else was in the kitchen.

‘What’re you doing?’ said Jack, wandering in from the sitting room in the dressing gown he kept at his grandparents’ house.

‘Nothing,’ she lied. He walked over the flagstone kitchen floor towards the oak table where she sat. Rosie ran in behind him and dropped her head into Saskia’s lap, looking up with soft brown eyes. ‘Just catching up on work. Right. Time for bed.’ She smiled, stroking Rosie’s head. ‘Want some juice or something?’

He nodded. His face had relaxed again, she noticed, like it always did when he stayed with his grandparents. The little lines that prematurely etched his forehead dropped away, and his cheeks looked softer.

Saskia stood up. Jack pulled Rosie towards him. She licked his face and lay down on the floor.

Saskia returned with the drink.

‘Thanks.’

She looked at him sideways as she sat back down. She dropped her voice.

‘Snores, what’s wrong? You’ve been quiet all day.’

He shook his head. Too quickly, Saskia thought.

‘Is something wrong?’

‘No.’

‘So what really happened to your head?’

He hesitated. ‘My skateboard, I told you,’ he said, gulping juice.

‘Well,’ she said, lowering her voice. ‘I don’t think it was your skateboard. I know when you’re lying. You’re rubbish at it.’

He dropped his eyes.

She reached out and rubbed his arm. ‘Come on. This is me.’

He shrugged. ‘She didn’t mean it.’

Saskia blinked, realizing he was telling her something important. ‘What, someone at school? A girl?’

‘No.’

Saskia frowned. ‘So who . . .’ She looked at him, startled. ‘You mean your mum?’

He glanced behind him.

‘Hang on,’ Saskia said, getting up. She closed the kitchen door and came back. ‘Right – come on. What happened.’

‘Don’t tell Nana.’ She could see the worry in his eyes.

‘I won’t.’

Jack put down his juice half-finished. ‘She was trying to stop me going out of the front door when the alarm was on, and we were arguing.’

‘You and Mum?’

‘And I was shouting.’

Saskia’s mouth dropped open. ‘That’s not like you. What about?’

‘Lots of things. She locked the gate again.’

‘But Nana has the key.’

‘Mum got a new one. With a padlock.’

Bloody, bloody Kate, Saskia fumed. Not that she was surprised. She rubbed his arm gently. ‘Oh, Snores.’

He pushed the glass away, and dropped one hand to his stomach. The lines appeared back on his forehead like skin on hot milk.

‘What’s wrong with your stomach? Did you fall there too?’

‘Nothing. No.’

She tried to think, knowing he was trying to tell her something. ‘Is that why you said it was your skateboard?’

He shrugged again.

‘Snores? And Mum told you to say that?’

‘It was an accident. She didn’t mean to do it.’

Saskia blinked. Oh God. This was all they needed. If Mum found out what Kate had done, all hell would break loose. She tried to sound reassuring. ‘Oh, OK. Listen, mate, you mustn’t worry. This is adult stuff. It’s between Nana and your mum. And it’ll all get sorted, I promise.’

‘But Nana says I’ve got to come and live here, and it’s making Mum cry.’

Saskia wanted to hug him but he looked so angry she suspected he’d shove her away. ‘Do you want to live with Nana?’

‘Sometimes.’ There was a tiny fissure in his voice. ‘But I don’t want to leave Mum on her own.’ The fissure widened, and his voice cracked. ‘And anyway, she says we’re moving back to London.’

Saskia regarded him with disbelief. ‘She said what?’

‘That’s why I shouted.’

Saskia glanced up at the door again, double-checking her parents couldn’t hear.

‘Oh God. OK.’ Right. That was going to send Helen completely off the scale. Saskia thought for a second, then took Jack’s hand. ‘Snores, listen. Right now, I want you to go to bed and not to worry about this. Me and Mum, and Nana and Granddad, all love you more than anything. And the rest of it, we adults will all sort out together, OK?’

Jack nodded. ‘But don’t tell Nana.’

‘I won’t. But don’t you tell her either – or about London. Not till I’ve spoken to your mum about it.’

The door opened and they both glanced up nervously. Richard walked in, holding an empty crystal tumbler. Rosie jumped up and ran to him.

‘What on earth are you two up to!’ He beamed. ‘Do you want a drink, darling?’ he said, without waiting for an answer, walking to an array of spirits on the worktop.

‘No, thanks, Dad. I’m going to head home. Snores is off, too, aren’t you, mate?’ She caught her nephew’s eye and winked. He nodded.

Jack stood up and gave his granddad an awkward hug, and then Saskia.

‘Good night, young man. Sleep well. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.’

‘Not everyone gets bedbug bites, Granddad,’ Jack replied. ‘Some people are immune. It was the news last night when they were talking about all the bedbugs in New York.’

‘Smartybum,’ Saskia said, as Richard chortled.

‘Seems OK?’ Richard said, turning to Saskia as Jack left the kitchen to say goodnight to Helen. ‘Darling? You think?’

‘Um.’ She hesitated, lifting the laptop lid to shut it down, hating Kate for putting her in this position. ‘Yes. I think so.’

‘Sure you don’t want to stay, darling?’ Her dad was pouring himself another Saturday-night gin and tonic, and a brandy for her mother.

Yes, she wanted to say. Anything not to spend another night in an empty bed opposite the space where Jonathan slept for four years, but she knew she couldn’t. ‘No. I should get home.’

As her finger hovered over the ‘off’ button, she looked at the page she’d been researching earlier, and at her father’s back. Then she looked up at the photo on the wall. The photo Hugo had taken of Jack. For a second, Saskia nearly opened her mouth. Nearly started to tell Richard about her dreams, to leave the agency and sort out the mess she had made of her life.

But she didn’t.

No, she thought, closing the laptop and standing up. Right now, Jack needed her more. That would have to happen another time.

Right now she had a battle to fight with Kate.