Accidents Happen A Novel

CHAPTER SEVEN



Kate was trying. She really was, as she stomped across the back-streets of east Oxford towards Cowley Road. But the numbers wouldn’t leave her alone. They buzzed inside her ears, their collective high pitch almost as unbearable as the house alarm this morning, as they screamed one of her most commonly used statistics at her: the one she reminded Jack of all the time when they crossed roads together:

• You have a 45% chance of dying if you are hit by a car at 30 miles per hour.

At every kerb. At every road crossing.

Listen to the figures, a voice said in Kate’s head. It’ll make you feel better. Let them in, and everything will be OK. You’ll be back in control. Safe. Calm.

Clenching her fists, Kate double-checked at each junction, till she emerged from a side street into the bustle of Cowley Road.

At least there were people here, sights to distract her.

She lifted her eyes to the shimmering minarets of the mosque and the inert mothers in front of it in the playpark, grabbing a few seconds’ rest on benches as their toddlers ran around. She stared hard at the O2 Academy announcing a gig by a band she vaguely recognized from long ago. She dodged the crowds with their carrier bags from Tesco and stared in the windows of a guddle of restaurants offering everything from South American to Indian to Thai.

Concentrate, she thought. Concentrate on the menus. Chicken masala, pimientos piquillo, steamed mussels with chilli. Don’t think about numbers. Be normal. Be normal like those two girls walking along in vest tops, hands flying as they exchange stories of the night before. Like the man in the jester’s hat cycling down the pavement, whistling, hands not touching the handlebars. Like the elderly lady remonstrating with her Jack Russell for peeing on a bin.

Kate blinked hard, her eyes feeling the strain of all this staring and glaring in their vain attempt to distract her brain from the numbers. The sun was raw on her face, burning her pale skin, blinding her.

A terrible desert-thirst grabbed her throat.

Kate coughed. She felt a flutter in her chest.

And then, without warning, she simply came to a stop.

She just stopped.

Right on the pavement, with no warning.

Her feet were stuck. Rooted. Refusing to move.

Kate put out a hand, frightened, and grabbed a doorframe. She leaned into the wood.

Her eyes settled on a small patch of dirt by the doorway.

She looked around and saw that it was alone on the swept pavement. The patch looked like road dust mixed with mud from shoes and old chewing gum. It was ground-in year-old grime, jammed into a corner, where doorframe met window frame. Too hidden to be cleaned by the owner or swept away by the street cleaner.

Nasty and stuck and horrible.

The perfect place for her.

As Kate stared at the patch of dirt, a nagging thought entered her mind. Just a whisper.

What if she could never get a grip on the anxiety? What if she could never shake off this sense of impending danger for her and Jack? Of being cursed? What if Richard and Helen really took Jack from her?

Kate shook her head in despair. They would give him everything; there was no doubt of that. Love, reassurance and fun. But Jack would never be able to stand up to Richard like Hugo did. He would never escape. He would become like Saskia, trapped forever in the gravitational force of Richard Parker’s world.

The thought of losing Jack filled Kate with such grief that she clutched her stomach and bent over further.

What if she couldn’t stop it, though? Was it just inevitable that she would lose him now: Hugo, her parents, Jack . . .

Kate stood there, head hanging, exhausted with trying to ward off a monster she could never see.

‘Are you all right there?’

Kate jerked her head up.

A girl looked at her, concerned.

Kate realized the girl’s head was peering out from behind the doorframe on which Kate was leaning. She saw a sign. It was a cafe she didn’t recognize.

‘Can I get you some water?’

Kate shook her head. ‘No, I’m fine, thanks.’ Beyond the glass door was a simple, white-walled room, with wooden tables.

‘Do you do coffee?’

‘It’s a juice bar, I’m afraid.’

The girl’s skin was make-up free and flawless, apart from a few freckles. She had long legs under a black mini-skirt and a white blouse. Her shiny auburn hair was twisted into a thick ponytail that hung down one side of her chest. Her smile was so friendly that Kate wanted to follow the girl inside. She wanted to leave behind the patch of dirt and the thoughts of losing Jack.

The cafe smelt fresh and sharp inside, like citrus fruit. Only one table was occupied, by a man with a pierced nose holding hands with a girl with pink hair. Pop music played over the speakers. A blackboard menu announced a variety of juices with names such as Superfruiter and Detox-alula.

‘We’ve just opened so there’s a special of 50 per cent off a juice of the day’ the girl said brightly.

The urge to sit down was overwhelming.

‘Thank you.’ Kate nodded.

‘It’s strawberries, peach . . .’

‘That sounds fine,’ Kate said, holding up a hand.

As the girl piled fruit into a giant liquidizer, Kate sat at the long counter along the front window and tried to gather her thoughts. A half-remembered number came at her.

• 40% of catering staff don't wash their hands after going to the toilet.

Exhausted, she grabbed the printouts of her funding proposal for David from her bag, hoping it would help. Working often calmed the numbers. God knew why, but it did. She stared hard at the property details of the house David wanted to buy at a sealed bid auction and the estimates from each member of the renovation team, noting which ones she still had to chase up.

The house was a dilapidated Georgian terrace in Islington that was being sold by a housing association to fund a brand new block of fourteen flats elsewhere. She looked at the exterior, knowing Hugo would have loved it. Three original fireplaces remained, as did the original wooden floors beneath stained brown carpets and cheap laminate. There was a major damp problem coming from the basement, a fairly serious crack in the back bedroom and a suspicion of woodworm in the floors, but nothing David and the team hadn’t seen before.

She stared at the house, realizing what it reminded her of.

‘You’ve what?’ Kate had exclaimed, spinning round to look at Hugo. Hugo was leaning on his car bonnet on the pavement in front of the four-storey Georgian house in a tiny square in Highgate, opposite a pretty little garden with a bench in it. He’d told her they were going for a walk on Hampstead Heath to talk about their travel plans for the summer, then unexpectedly pulled off the road.

‘I’ve bought it.’ He laughed, with the mischievous smile he used when he knew he was pushing her to the limit of her patience. ‘Or I’ve put an offer in, anyway.’

‘But how . . .?’

He leaned over, grabbed her arm, then pulled her to lean against him, facing the house. She looked up. The house was in serious need of renovation. Grey paint peeled from its facade. Its front door had been replaced with a cheap wooden one with DIY-store stained glass. Terrible double glazing had been put in, presumably without planning permission. She could tell from here, that the roof was in serious need of attention.

‘Dad came through with the start-up loan.’

Kate’s eyes opened wide. ‘No way? He gave in?’

Hugo nodded at the house, pleased. ‘Yup.’

‘Seriously? He’s accepted you’re not going to join his business?’ She stroked his arm. ‘Oh God, Hugo. Well done!’

Hugo squeezed her tightly. ‘Anyway, it’s enough to get it with an interest-only mortgage. Then the plan is, if me and David do a good job on it, we’ll use it as a show-house for new clients. You and I could live in it after the wedding. The idea is to remortgage it and use the equity to get the business up and running. You can get stuck in when you get back.’

Kate had spun round. ‘You’re not coming?’

‘No. I want you to go and have some fun without me. This is my fun. Trust me, if this takes off, me and David will need you flat-out when you get back to set up the next project.’

Hugo was beaming. He looked exactly like he did, Kate noted with a flush of love, when he’d announced to all their parents last month at Richard’s favourite London restaurant – a choice Hugo didn’t win, but as he’d now explained to Kate, the trick with Richard was choosing your battles – that he and Kate were getting engaged. He sighed. ‘So, do you like it? Can we do it?’

She wrapped her arms round his arms, which were across her chest, forming a tight, double embrace. ‘It’s amazing. I love it. You’re an arse for not telling me but you’re very clever, too.’

He’d squeezed her tight. ‘God. It’s happening, Kate. Finally . . .’ He kissed her ear, and she dipped her head to the side to let him nuzzle her neck. ‘I tell you what, I feel lucky. Too bloody lucky, sometimes.’

Kate shut the property details and took a sip of her juice. Hugo and David had increased the value of the Highgate house so rapidly that the business had been racing ahead of them within two years, Richard’s loan repaid. Their passion for, and expert knowledge of, the Georgian period, and their decision to use only the most skilled craftspeople to restore original detail had quickly gained them a reputation with discerning – and wealthy – buyers.

‘I feel lucky.’

Hugo’s words repeated in her head. Lucky, yes. Richard had helped at the start, but it was Hugo’s and David’s passion and hard work that made their business work. Kate looked at the Islington house again. As a silent partner, she would benefit financially from this project, too, as she had from all the others, because of Hugo’s hard work. Yet Hugo would never be there to enjoy it with her and Jack. Flinging down the details with frustration at the unfairness of it all, Kate picked up her juice again and glanced around.

Her eyes scanned the counter beside her and carried on around the almost empty juice bar.

Then they came back.

That was odd.

Where had that come from?

A paperback lay three seats away from her on the counter, beside the cafe door. Upside down and half read, it sat beside a half-empty juice glass.

Kate looked again. It was still just her and the New Age couple, and the cheerful waitress, who was wiping down the liquidizer, humming along to Dusty Springfield.

Kate was about to return to her proposal, when a word jumped out from the book’s upside-down cover.

‘. . . Odds.’

Odds?

Intrigued, Kate lowered her head at an angle until she could read the rest of the title: . . . Odds . . . Change . . . Beat the Odds and Change your Life.

Kate blinked. Was this a joke? Or had she actually started to hallucinate?

Intrigued, she leaned over and lifted up the paperback where it was open. ‘How to Choose Which Airline To Fly With’, the chapter heading said.

Oh my God. What was this?

Kate moved closer and flicked quickly through the book, checking no one was watching. It appeared to have odds grouped together about the safety of flying, and how to work out which airline was safest.

As she looked through, she felt her mind hungrily trying to digest all the statistics. This was incredible. There were so many. And that wasn’t all. She thumbed through more chapters. ‘How to Improve your Chances of Avoiding a Road Accident’, ‘How to Improve your Chances of Avoiding Dying Prematurely’.

It was all here.

Kate gripped the cover.

She wanted rip this book open, like a lion on antelope flesh.

‘You OK there?’

Kate jerked upright, and in the window saw the reflection of a man. She spun round. He was walking towards her from the back of the cafe. The toilet door by the counter swung shut behind him.

Kate shoved the book away.

‘Oh. Sorry, I was just . . .’ she said, trailing off.

The man smiled. He was tall, with light brown hair cut short into a crewcut, and wearing a T-shirt with jeans. There was a faint stubble around his jaw and his eyes were such an intense blue she had to stop herself staring.

‘No. Go ahead,’ he said, gesturing towards the book, picking up the half-empty juice glass without sitting down, to finish it. His accent was Scottish.

‘Um . . .’

‘It’s fine. Here,’ he said, passing it to her.

‘Oh. Thanks,’ Kate said shyly. ‘I’ll just copy down the title, if that’s OK?’

‘Absolutely.’

She grabbed her pen and began to write. In her peripheral vision, she saw the man finish his juice and take a mobile from a leather bag he had slung over his body. He stared at the screen of his mobile, reading something.

‘Beat the Odds and Change your Life by Jago Martin . . .’ she wrote, forcing herself not to start flicking through this compulsive book in front of its owner.

She saw the Scottish man tap a number into his phone.

‘Hi, Liam,’ she heard him say. ‘It’s Jago. Did you just text me?’

Kate’s eyes flew to the book cover. Jago Martin. While the Scottish man talked on the phone, on impulse, Kate opened the back flap. Staring back at her was a photograph of the man in the juice bar. ‘Professor Jago Martin of the University of Edinburgh’, the caption read.

Kate looked up, astonished.

The Scottish man was ending his call. He looked back with slightly surprised eyes.

‘You OK there?’

She nodded, embarrassed. ‘Yes. Thanks.’

‘Done?’ He pointed to the book.

‘Yes. Thanks,’ Kate repeated, wishing she could think of something else to say. The man took the book from her, smiled and turned to walk out.

As she watched him go, an irrational, overwhelming need overcame her to stop him. Why, she wasn’t really sure. She just knew she had to.

‘Sorry . . . can I just ask . . . um, you wrote the book?’ she called out in what she realized too late was a slightly hysterical-sounding voice above the husky tones of Dusty Springfield.

The man turned back amused. ‘Uh. Yes. I did.’

Kate shrank back. ‘Sorry. It’s just . . . I saw your photo . . .’

‘That’s fine,’ he smiled.

She waved vaguely at the book. ‘It’s just, do you mind if I ask you something? If you’re an expert in this kind of thing?’

‘Sure.’ He turned back.

‘I just wondered, that section on how to improve your chances of not being in an aircrash?’

‘Uhuh.’

‘How do you work that out?’

‘The chances?’ The Scottish man wrinkled his brow. He appraised her with his blue eyes, as if he hadn’t really seen her properly the first time, then leaned back against a stool. Inwardly, she cringed. She must sound mad.

‘Well,’ he started, ‘we’d check airline safety records. Maintenance levels. Pilot training. Weather conditions where the airline flies. That kind of thing. Actuaries do it all the time in the City as part of their research to calculate insurance premiums for airlines.’

She found herself fixated by his eyes. They were unusually bright blue, maybe because of his tan, she thought. The skin around them crinkled easily when he smiled, making her wonder if he’d lived somewhere hot.

‘But doesn’t that make you scared. Of flying? If you’ve seen all those records?’

‘Me?’

Immediately she regretted her question. The crewcut and easy way he held his body gave him the look of a lean boxer, a man who wouldn’t be scared by much.

‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to . . .’

‘No, don’t worry.’ He waved his hand. ‘I’m just wondering. Is this a professional interest?’

Kate shook her head. ‘No. It’s just, I just never know who to fly with. The one who’s crashed recently because then you think the chances are they won’t again. Or the one who’s never crashed, in case a crash is due.’

The man frowned, as if thinking. ‘You know what? I’m maybe not the best person to ask.’

She spotted a thin leather band just below the collar of his T-shirt. It sat on a tanned neck, reinforcing the impression that he travelled. She looked up and saw him watching her, and flicked her eyes away, embarrassed. ‘But you wrote the book . . .’ Her voice sounded more abrupt that she meant it to.

He hesitated. ‘Ah, but you see, with my work, I travel all over the world for conferences. The kind of airlines I fly with are sometimes the ones with the less favourable safety records.’

Kate stared. ‘Even though you know they have a high chance of crashing?’

‘Well, higher, yes. Not high.’

She blinked. ‘How do you do that?’

Just as she said it, the Dusty Springfield song that was playing finished. Kate’s question blasted into the silence left in its wake. Her tone was so pleading that the man, the New Age couple and the waitress all glanced at her, warily.

‘Sorry,’ she said, lowering her voice, ‘I just meant that . . .’

The man held up his hand. There was a glimmer of concern on his face. ‘No, it’s fine.’ He opened his palms in a gesture of explanation. ‘I just don’t think about it.’

Kate stared.

The man’s words reached out and wrapped themselves around her.

She couldn’t explain it.

They reached out and pulled her in like safe, warm arms.

A stranger had opened his mouth and said something so profound, she knew, irrationally, that for a reason she couldn’t explain, that it might hold the key to her survival.

‘So, does that help? Have you got what you need?’ the man said, standing up.

‘Uh. Yes. Thanks.’ Damn. Where was he going? Her mind darted around trying to find an excuse to stall him.

‘Actually, can I just . . .’ she started desperately, not even knowing what she was going to say.

But just as the man looked back, his eyebrows raised in question, his phone rang. He smiled apologetically at Kate and started a conversation with someone called Mike about a seminar he was teaching at the university that afternoon. Kate waved him on, even though she didn’t want to. He waved back. ‘Nice to meet you,’ he called, walking out of the door. Kate craned her neck to see him unlocking a bike with one hand, as he spoke on his phone.

‘Cor . . .’ The waitress giggled, coming up, and lifting the man’s glass.

‘Sorry?’ said Kate, jerking back. The waitress watched Jago, twisting her long auburn plait in her fingers. Kate looked at her, surprised. The man must be fifteen years older than the waitress.

Kate hesitated, then realized she had no choice. ‘You didn’t hear him say what college he taught at, did you?’ she said, as casually as she could.

She saw the waitress’s expression.

‘It’s a work thing.’

The girl grinned. ‘No, but let me know if you find out! Mmm, that accent . . .’ She fanned herself dramatically.

Kate watched the waitress uncertainly. She looked back out of the window and saw the man speeding off down Cowley Road precariously, still with a phone at his ear. For a second, she wished she had brought her bike so she could have followed him into the traffic.

The thought took her completely by surprise.

Kate never cycled in traffic.