Accidents Happen A Novel

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR



Saskia switched Kate’s dishwasher on, turned out the light and shut the kitchen door into the hallway, checking the clock as she went.

Kate was late tonight.

Had she gone out with this Jago character after her therapy?

Pausing in the hall to check there was no sound coming from Jack’s bedroom upstairs, she walked into the sitting room and put her cup down. Turning on a late-night arts panel programme for company, she sat on the sofa and pulled Kate’s laptop onto her lap.

Her face was burning with embarrassment.

Images of what had happened after work in town tonight kept coming back to her, turning her cheeks as pink as Mum’s.

If she’d walked out of the office five seconds later it wouldn’t have happened.

But she hadn’t. And there, in front of her, on the High Street, was her old flatmate from Oxford Brookes, Marianne, carrying a dry-cleaning bag, her brunette bob gleaming in the sunlight. Probably, Saskia thought bitterly, containing her dress from the thirtieth birthday party that Saskia had not been invited to on Saturday night in Charlbury.

‘Oh,’ they both uttered awkwardly. ‘Hi.’

Marianne glanced about nervously, as if seeking an escape route. ‘How are you, Sass?’ There was a chill to her voice.

‘Good, thanks. How was your, um, birthday?’ Saskia asked, before she could help it. Back at college, it would’ve been unthinkable that they would not have been present at each other’s thirtieth.

‘Good,’ Marianne replied quietly. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t . . . it’s just, with Jonathan and Christian being friends, and . . .’

Saskia couldn’t help herself. ‘It’s OK, Marianne. How is he?’

Marianne pulled a face. ‘Um, OK, considering.’

Saskia felt a flush of hope. ‘Considering? You mean, considering the divorce?’ she asked. Was it possible Jonathan was having second thoughts?

Marianne shook her head sharply. A shadow of anger passed across her face. ‘No, Sass – considering what you did to him.’

Their eyes met for a second. Then Marianne glanced up the road. ‘Listen, I’m sorry, but I’ve got to get the six o’clock train back.’ She lifted an arm awkwardly. ‘I’d better go.’

‘Bye.’

Saskia nodded, stunned. Jonathan had told Marianne? He’d sworn he’d never tell anyone! What, now the divorce papers were signed and the money was amicably divided – including the deposit Richard had given them for their house – he was breaking his side of the promise?

Saskia watched Marianne marching down the road, terror creeping over her. Marianne and her husband Christian used the same contractors as Dad. If they knew what she’d done, it wouldn’t be long before Dad did, too.

Saskia took a sip of tea, and sat back on Kate’s sofa, blinking even harder than normal. Her eyes felt dry and sore. She imagined Richard’s face when he received the news. Jonathan had been a coup for him. Bright, well-connected and successful on his own terms, yet never a threat to Dad. Everything Richard had wanted in a son-in-law. A perfect marriage to boast about at the golf club. Divorce had most certainly not been in Dad’s plans.

Saskia glanced at the laptop. If ever she needed to get away from Richard, it was now. Pulling up an application form, she read through what would be required of her.

Hugo had escaped. Now it was her turn.

It took Saskia half an hour to complete the first part of the application. As she stood up to fetch more tea, she heard a movement above her.

‘Where’s my mum?’ a voice said.

She looked up. Jack was leaning over the banister in his pyjamas.

‘Snores – you’ve got to get to sleep! It’s half ten on a school night. Your mum will be cross with me if she finds you up.’

‘Why’s she so late, though?’

Saskia sighed. Why did Kate always have to lie to him? ‘She’s just out with some friends.’

He gave her a look that said they both knew that wasn’t true.

‘Or one friend. I’m not sure, really. Maybe someone she works with.’

‘Mum works at home. By herself.’

Saskia exhaled and sat on the bottom step. Bloody Kate. Leaving this to her again. She tried to keep her voice reassuring.

‘Listen, Snores. Don’t worry too much about it. If you want to know where she is, just ask her. Going out is a normal thing for an adult to do. You’re just not used to her doing it, that’s all.’

He shrugged.

‘What’s that you’re reading?’ she said, trying to distract him.

‘Found it in the shed. It’s about maths and stuff.’

‘Is it, now, smartybum? Your dad was good at maths too. You get it from him. Well, it’s time for lights out, so see you later.’

But he stood there stubbornly.

‘Jack, what’s the matter? Are you hearing noises again? Want me to check in your wardrobe’

He shook his head. ‘But who’s she gone out with?’

Saskia stood up, tired of being the go-between. Kate needed to sort this out. ‘Listen, your mum will be back soon. Ask her tomorrow, OK? Now, listen, I have work to do. I’ll come and check you in a minute.’

She waited till he disappeared, then went to switch the kettle back on. She checked the oven clock, irritated with Kate. Nearly 10.45 p.m.

Where was her sister-in-law?

Magnus sat on the other side of the wall, upstairs, reading through Saskia’s application on his link to Kate’s laptop.

Interesting.

With luck, she’d come back soon. He liked this blonde one. Liked watching her close up on the screen. Those big green eyes and that little worried face that you just wanted to squeeze into a smile.

He stopped and picked up Jack’s football from the floor of his bedroom and twirled it on his finger.

‘Brr, brr, brr,’ he sang.

Next, he flicked on to Jack’s Facebook page, and then onto Jack’s friends’ pages.

His pale eyes widened behind his glasses as he looked at one belonging to ‘Gabe’. What was this? Sleeping on a trampoline on Saturday night. Out in the garden?

Magnus whooped loudly. The whoop of a man driving huskies across ice.

A bedroom door slammed down the hallway from his.

He made a face at the wall. These students weren’t being very friendly to him. One of them kept asking him suspiciously which course he was doing at Oxford Brookes because they never saw him there. He’d made up something that sounded real: integrated visual computer studies. ‘The smell comes right into my room,’ he heard the bony one whine in the kitchen last night.

Never mind. This would all be over soon.





The child burst out of the bedroom, ran down to the front door and exited, racing to the side of the house.

Father was emerging from the basement door. His face was the colour of dried clay. Dust had turned his hair grey.

‘Go there!’ he yelled, pointing far from the house.

But the child froze on the spot, looking up.

There were more snakes on the wall. They were everywhere. They were writhing and spitting and squeezing the house to death. Large chunks of brick were starting to crumble off the wall as their tails smashed into it. They were not even chunks, like pieces of cake, but like what was left when you pulled a Lego tower apart, no discernible shape, just oblongs sticking out of squares, rectangles with sloped ends, where they’d taken the trim of the next brick with them.

Father ran back, and picked up and spun the child away onto the grass. He stood there, his hands by his sides, making strange sobbing noises.

The child watched, transfixed. The chunks, coated with white plaster, were smashing into the path below. Mortar dust puffed into the air like smoke signals.

Then, as the child realized that life would never be the same again, a whole block of wall cracked, then slipped downwards, before picking up speed and landing with an enormous crash.

Eyes wide, the child watched the rocking horse come into view through the hole.

A scream came from behind them, so piercing that both father and child put their hands to their ears, and spun round.

Mother was standing there, a half-empty basket of laundry held in a semicircle from her stomach.

The basket dropped to the floor as her hands flew to her own face.

The child saw a tiny vein burst in Mother’s left eye, like red paint hitting water.