Accidents Happen A Novel

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE



Saskia was already at the door when Kate arrived.

They stood face to face, glowering at each other.

‘What the hell are you playing at?’ Saskia exclaimed, leaning forward to pick a holly leaf off Kate’s jumper.

‘What am I playing at?’ Kate said, walking past Saskia. To her annoyance, she realized she was lowering her head in case Saskia could tell from the glow in her eyes what she’d been doing in the car. It was her house! She was thirty-five bloody years old. This was ridiculous!

‘What are you doing here?’ she barked. ‘Where’s Jack?’

‘At Mum’s, he’s fine. Come in. Before that bloody weirdo comes back,’ Saskia said, shutting the door.

Kate dumped her bag in front of the hall mirror. ‘Who?’ She checked her reflection. Jago was right. Her face was smeared with streaks of mud.

‘That weirdo next door. The student. With the weird eyes and glasses. What’s that smell?’ Kate saw Saskia look suspiciously at her shoes. Kate ignored her, taking them off. ‘Which one?’

‘The tall one. Student. With glasses.’

‘They’ve all got glasses. I mean it, Sass,’ she said, spinning round. ‘What are you doing here? Why are you in my house?’

Saskia glared back at her. Kate tried to remember. When had Saskia turned from her sweet, shy little sister-in-law into this morally superior woman who seemed to think she had some ownership over Kate’s life? Saskia pursed her lips and lifted up a note.

Kate cringed as she saw her own words upside down. ‘I have gone out with visiting professor Jago Martin . . .’

‘Sass!’ She exclaimed, grabbing it. She felt like a teenager, her secret stash of cigarettes discovered by Mum under the bed. ‘For God’s sake. That’s private.’

‘Well, I can’t believe you did THAT!’ Sass said, pointing at the back door.

‘What?’

‘Ran out of the back door. If you had a man here, you should have just answered the front door, told me it wasn’t convenient and I’d have come back tomorrow. Not sneaked out and hidden in the bushes. Look at you!’ She pointed at Kate’s muddy face. ‘Where is he? Still out there?’ Saskia waved her hand.

‘What are you talking about? I’ve just got home.’

Saskia did an exaggerated expression of disbelief. ‘I saw you, Kate! Or him,’ she said, pointing at the note. ‘Upstairs in Jack’s room.

What was she talking about? ‘Sass! No. You didn’t.’

‘I f*cking did, Kate. Walking across the curtain. I can’t believe you. And the reason, by the way, that I let myself in is that I thought you’d fallen and hurt yourself.’

Kate felt a shiver pass through her. ‘Sass. Seriously. I’m not lying. I’ve been out. Since eight. I’ve just got back.’ She looked up the stairs. ‘Have you been up there?’

‘Yes, I’ve been right round the bloody house. There’s no one here, Kate. And the alarm was on too.’

Damn Saskia! The unnerving sense of unease Kate kept having in the house crept over her again. Kate felt it eating away at the new sense of empowerment Jago had given her this evening, like paint stripper. Throwing up her hands in frustration, she stomped off into the kitchen.

‘Sass! One minute you’re all telling me off for being overly anxious, the next you’re winding me up!’

Saskia’s cheeks turned as pink as her mother’s. For a second, Kate prayed poor Jack had not inherited the same skin.

‘Kate. I saw someone at the window. And then the light went out in Jack’s room.’

Kate tried not to let her nerves seep back in. ‘Maybe you were looking at the bedroom next door.’

Sass hesitated.

‘What?’ Kate growled. ‘You look like you’re dying to say something.’

‘Well, I was just thinking . . . that it sounds like we’re both imagining things at the moment. Doesn’t it, Kate? You know, like Jack falling off his skateboard, for instance.’

Kate tried to meet the challenge in Saskia’s eyes, but was floored by a wave of shame.

‘He told Mum he fell off his skateboard. And then he told ME that you told him to say that.’

‘Jesus, Sass, are you spying on me?’ Kate tried to exclaim, but her voice was already weakened by Sass’s revelation. ‘For your parents? Is that what it’s come to? You record every mistake I make with Jack, and what? Helen writes it in her report.’ She spun round. ‘You and I used to be friends. What’s happened to you?’

She saw Saskia blinking hard, trying her best to hold her ground. ‘But is it true?’ Saskia demanded.

Kate threw up her hands. ‘What do you expect me to say, with your mum ranting about calling Social Services. It was an accident, Sass, and if Helen wasn’t causing all this upset in the first place, it wouldn’t have happened.’

Kate walked across the kitchen and switched on the kettle. In the reflection of the window, she saw Sass put her note on the table, and berated herself for ever writing it.

‘And who is he, this Jago Martin? This visiting professor? Where’s he visiting from – London? Is he the reason you’re moving back there?’

‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Kate said. ‘What do you do to my son! Sit him down in a bright room and interrogate him the minute he gets to Helen’s? Honestly, keep this up, Sass, and I’ll be ringing Social Services!’

She and Saskia scowled at each other again.

They held each other’s furious stare for five long seconds.

Sass looked down. Kate heard her sister-in-law’s voice crack a little.

‘What if Hugs could see us now, Kate? He wouldn’t believe it.’

Kate pulled down two cups from a shelf, tasting her betrayal of Hugo on her lips as she did it.

A twinge of sadness passed through her.

For all their problems, she and Saskia had trudged together, side by side, for five years, struggling together through their grief for Hugo. Yet this week Jago had given her a glimpse of the future, and if she knew anything, it was that she needed to keep going now, even if that meant leaving Saskia behind.

Jago had reminded her tonight what it felt like to feel alive. And she wasn’t going back.

‘Sass,’ Kate said. ‘Hugo can’t see us. He’s gone.’

Exhaustion coursed through her. Her shoulders slumped.

‘God. I need a cup of tea. Sit down.’

Kate looked distracted, Saskia thought, putting coasters out on the kitchen table. There was a dangerous light in her eye, and three more holly leaves on her jumper. What the hell had she been doing? Saskia bit her lip. She needed to calm down. She’d already said more than she meant to. Any more and Kate might tell her to leave.

Already, she wished she had broached the subject differently. Made peace with Kate, not poured more petrol on the fire, as she had the other night when Mum had threatened to take Jack away. She hated getting angry. She’d always been so rubbish at it, Hugo had laughed out loud on the rare occasions she lost her temper.

Saskia leaned over and picked off another leaf as Kate put down two mugs of tea and a plate of flapjacks. ‘So, is it true? About London?’ she tried, in what she hoped was a more reasonable voice.

Kate was avoiding her eye, as if she didn’t want Saskia to look too deeply inside them and see something. ‘No. I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about it. Oxford’s not home for me, Sass. It never has been.’

Saskia blinked, three times. Kate coming to Oxford was supposed to keep the family together after Hugo. How had it ripped it further apart?

‘And him?’ she said, trying to keep the hurt for Hugo out of her voice. ‘Does he live in London?’

She stopped, astonished.

Kate was eating a flapjack.

It was so long since Saskia had seen her sister-in-law eat casually, and not push her food to the side of her plate as if it were contaminated, she couldn’t tear her eyes away. Tonight she looked like the old Kate, stirring those giant dinner-party pots in Highgate, beating eggs and flour, adding stock and saffron and spices with deep concentration, dancing around the kitchen as she tasted recipes, the look of the deeply contented cook on her face.

And now, just for a second, with fascination, Saskia glimpsed her again. She was just nibbling a flapjack, but it was the way she ate it. With pleasure, picking up stray crumbs with her fingertips, checking what was coming next after each bite.

Kate shook her head. ‘No.’

Saskia couldn’t help herself. ‘So, who is he?’

Kate rolled her eyes, and Saskia immediately told herself to take a step back. If Kate had really met someone, the last thing Saskia needed was to alienate him with her disapproval, perhaps creating a new ally for Kate; someone who might later encourage her to take Jack away from her and her parents altogether. ‘No one. Just someone I met.’

‘Nice name,’ Saskia tried, fumbling about. ‘Like a cross between Jack and Hugo.’

Kate glanced up.

‘Like it’s meant to be, or something.’ Saskia heard a bitterness enter her voice.

Kate sighed. ‘Sass, nothing has happened.’

She couldn’t help it. She had to know if this was the end. ‘But it will?’

Kate pushed her hair behind her ears. ‘I don’t know. I’ve just met him. It’s been five years. I have to start again somewhere.’

Tears welled in Saskia’s eyes. Before she could help it, a big fat one ran down her face. ‘Sorry.’ She sniffed. Tonight’s unexpected glimpse of old Kate – Hugo’s Kate, not this moody, strange, Oxford Kate – had exposed old wounds.

Old Kate would have reached out and rubbed her arm, with a kind look on her face. This one held her tea tightly in both hands. ‘Oh, Sass, don’t,’ she said.

But Saskia couldn’t stop the tear. ‘It just feels scary, Kate,’ Saskia continued. ‘That if you meet someone, you’ll stop being our family. That you’ll join someone else’s. You’ll won’t be my sister-in-law any more, you’ll be theirs.’

There. She had said it.

There was a silence at the table.

Kate rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t be a pillock, Sass.’

A gulp of air caught in Saskia’s throat. They both burst out laughing. Sass sniffed and sat back, feeling better. ‘Well, I’ve got to admit, he’s doing something right. You look happier. And you’re going out again. I wish I was.’

Kate chewed her flapjack. ‘What’s happening with Jonathan?’

Saskia reached out and took one, too. They never talked like this any more. What would she give to tell Kate everything right now?

‘He just sent the divorce papers,’ she said carefully.

Kate looked genuinely surprised. ‘Yes,’ Saskia would love to have said, ‘things go on in other people’s lives too, Kate. You’re not the only one with problems.’

‘Wow. Sorry, I didn’t realize.’

Saskia shrugged and bit her flapjack.

‘Sass. I still don’t really understand – what happened there? It all seemed so sudden.’

Saskia heard the old kind sympathy in Kate’s voice. Wanted it back so desperately. Could she trust Kate with the truth, these days, though, or would she just blurt it out in front of Richard and Helen next time there was a big argument?

Saskia thought about the way Kate had blatantly lied to her about not being home this evening, when she so clearly had been with this new man – and decided not.

The old Kate never lied.

‘Um, I don’t know. He just got bored with me. He got bored of me moaning about working for Dad all the time, and not doing anything about it.’ She shrugged. ‘He said that when he met me at college, I seemed like someone who was going places and it turned out that I wasn’t. He was fed up of me not standing up to Dad. So now he is going places on his own.’ She sighed. ‘He’s right, though, Kate. I know it. I’m a bit of a failure who makes coffee for Dad for a living.’

Kate frowned. ‘That seems a bit unfair, Sass. Not exactly grounds for divorce. And what about the Charlbury lot? You don’t seem to see them much at the moment.’

‘They’ve all sided with Jonathan. Actually, Marianne’s having a party for her thirtieth tonight. A sixties thing. And I’m not even invited. Jonathan is, of course. And I’ve got a fabulous beehive wig I look great in.’

It was a feeble attempt at a joke, and she knew it.

Kate sipped her tea. ‘Well, you know, Sass. I remember at your wedding Jonathan told me that he’d had an Italian girlfriend for three years and never bothered to learn Italian. I always thought you deserved someone who would learn Italian for you.’

‘Why didn’t you say?’

‘It was after Hugo. You needed Jonathan to look after you, and, to be honest, I didn’t have the strength.’

Saskia remembered. Old Kate would have sat her down with a bottle of wine, and told her the truth, because she wanted only the best for her.

Saskia sat forward, wondering. There was one thing she could tell Kate. ‘Well, if I tell you something, will you not tell anyone?’

‘What?’

‘I’m thinking of finishing my degree.’

Saskia did a double take as Kate picked up a second flapjack. ‘Have you spoken to your dad about it?’

Saskia laughed bitterly. ‘No.’

‘You should.’

‘You know, I was just looking at that amazing photo Hugo took of Jack this evening –’ she pointed at the same photo, blown-up and framed on Kate’s kitchen wall – ‘that one, at Mum and Dad’s today. Do you know that I took up photography before Hugs?’

‘No.’

‘Well, I did. And my art teacher said I had potential so Dad bought me a really nice Nikon. Anyway, Hugo got interested and borrowed it and, well, you know how brilliant his eye was. And then Dad came to my coursework exhibition at school, and was saying how great my photos were . . .’ Saskia sighed. ‘And I said – as I always did, doing my self-deprecating thing – “Thanks, Dad, but you know, Hugo’s already way ahead of me.” And Dad said, “Well, he’s just more imaginative, darling.”’

‘So what, Sass? He’s your dad. He’s not the bloody king of the world.’

‘Easy for you to say, Kate. You stand up to him.’

Kate shook her head. ‘No, Sass, that’s not true. Standing up to Richard is exhausting. I step around him, just like Hugo taught me. I wish he’d taught you too.’

‘Hmm.’ Saskia tapped her fingers. ‘I’ve missed this. Talking to you.’

‘I’m always here, Sass.’

Sass felt the tears coming again, but rubbed them away, as she always did in front of Kate. It had never felt right to cry in her presence. As Hugo’s widow, Kate’s grief had taken priority over hers and everyone else’s. ‘But that’s not true. You’re not.’

Kate sighed. ‘Don’t start on me, Sass.’

Saskia pushed her hair away from her face. It was time to stop, while the going was good. ‘So, can I meet him? This Jago?’ she said.

Kate looked away. ‘Sass. I’ve just met him.’ She pushed back her chair. ‘Anyway, listen, I’m exhausted. I need to go to bed. Are you staying over?’

‘No, I’ll go.’

Saskia stood up as Kate did, and picked up her coat. They walked into the hall. As she put her coat on, she looked up and remembered.

‘Kate, I’ve got to tell you: Jack was upset tonight. He says you’re still locking the gate upstairs. He’s terrified that Mum’s going to ask him about it.’

Kate threw her hands up. ‘God. Not this as well, Sass! Look. I’ve thrown away the padlock. They’re coming to take the bloody thing out next week. And that’s the last thing I’m saying about it.’

‘I didn’t tell Mum, Kate,’ Saskia said, allowing the hurt to come into her voice. ‘It’s not easy, you know. Being in the middle of you all like this.’

She saw Kate soften a little. ‘I know.’

Saskia opened the front door, and jerked her head back up to the cage. ‘Although, to be honest, after talking to that weirdo next door, maybe you’ve got a point. He’s odd, Kate. He smells of drink and I saw him watching this woman in her house in Walter Street the other week.’

Kate walked behind her, locking the inner doors in the hall. ‘Sass. Please,’ she sighed. ‘Don’t do this to me. There’s no one in the house. He’s just a piss-head student – just like we were once. Really. Anyway, as you said yourself, there’s no point having the gate if I’ve got the alarm on the windows and doors. What’s he going to do? Climb through the attic skylight?’

Saskia picked up her bag. ‘I know. I just want you to be OK.’ She looked at Kate tearfully. ‘I always have done.’

She saw a glimmer of sadness cross Kate’s face, and she hoped it was regret for their old friendship. ‘OK, but let’s worry about things that are real, OK?’ She gave Saskia a half-smile and shut the door behind her.

Sass walked to her car, wanting to cry. In the old days, they had never parted without a hug or a kiss.

In her heart, she knew now that there had been too much damage. It was never coming back.





The child sat frozen, looking at the new huge grey snake, knowing instinctively now that there was nothing Father could do.

The snakes were coming too quickly. Wrapping around their house.

They could not hide them any more from Mother.

A noise came from under the floorboards.

‘Get out!’ Father was yelling. Shrieking, almost.

The child looked through the floorboards to see Father running away from the basement wall, pointing outside.

The child turned, knowing there were only seconds to take something special.

The cuckoo clock that Aunt Nelly had brought back from Austria?

The rocking horse?

A book?

‘GET OUT NOW!’ Dad yelled.

And then the child knew.

The little snowdome sat on a shelf, the glitter snow inside settled calmly at the foot of the plastic mountain.

The child grabbed it and ran as fast as possible from the snakes, the motion sending up a cloud of glitter above the plastic snow.

By the time it settled on the ground, the child knew that something bad was going to happen.

Something that would change everything for ever.