Accidents Happen Read online

  Jack nodded, laughing, dropping crumbs out of his mouth.

  ‘Aw – well done!’ Helen clapped, cheeks as pink as fairycakes.

  ‘Good lad!’ Richard exclaimed. ‘Was he good, Mum?’

  Kate grabbed her helmet from the back of the cupboard and went to stand up. ‘He was. He made a good save, didn’t you?’

  As she turned round, the sight of Helen and Jack together took her by surprise.

  A pit of disappointment opened up in her stomach.

  Jack was a clone of her. You couldn’t deny it.

  Kate buckled up her helmet, watching them. It simply wasn’t happening. However desperately she willed her son’s hair to darken and coarsen like Hugo’s, or his green eyes to turn brown, it was Helen and Saskia whom Jack took after. As he sat, arms touching with his grandmother, the similarities were painfully obvious. The same pale hair that was slightly too fine for the long skater-boy cut he desperately wanted; delicate features that would remain immune to the nasal bumps and widening jaws that would wipe out his friends’ childhood beauty; the flawless skin that tanned so easily and would remain unmarked by Kate’s dark moles or Richard and Hugo’s unruly eyebrows.

  No, he was nearly eleven. Nothing was going to change now. Jack would be a physically uncomplicated adult, like his grandmother and aunt, with none of the familiar landmarks of his father.

  Kate stood up straight and tried to think about something else. She walked to the fridge and opened it.

  ‘Oh, by the way, Helen, I’ve made this for tonight,’ she said, pulling out a casserole dish and lifting the lid. ‘It’s just vegetables and lentils. And some potatoes . . .’

  Kate stopped.

  She stared at the dark brown glutinous sludge of the stew. It was an inch or two shallower in the dish than she’d left it this morning.

  ‘Jack, did you eat some of this?’ Kate asked, turning around alarmed. He shook his head.

  Kate’s eyes flew to the kitchen window locks and the back door. All intact. She then spun round to check the window at the side return – and came face to face with Helen, who had come up behind her.

  Watching her.

  Helen gave Kate a smile and took the casserole gently from her, replacing it in the fridge.

  ‘Now, don’t worry about us, Kate. We stopped at Marks on the way over. I got some salmon and new potatoes, and a bit of salad.’

  Kate noted the salmon sitting in her fridge on the shelf above the casserole and felt the waves of Helen’s firm resolve radiate towards her. ‘Oh. But I made it for tonight. Really. There’s plenty for the three of you. I’m just confused at how so much of it has disappeared. It’s as if . . .’

  ‘Oh, it’ll have just sunk down in the dish when it was cooling,’ Helen interrupted, shooting a reassuring smile at Jack. ‘No, Kate. You keep it for tomorrow.’

  Kate peered into the fridge. Was Helen right? She lifted the lid again to check if she could see a faint line of dried casserole that would prove its original height.

  There was nothing there.

  ‘Absolutely,’ Richard boomed. ‘Take the weight off.’

  Richard and Helen together. Two against one, as always.

  ‘OK,’ she heard herself say lamely. She replaced the lid and shut the fridge. They could eat their bloody salmon. Jack didn’t even like it. He only ate it to be polite.

  ‘Now, you’re probably starving, darling, aren’t you?’ Helen said to Jack, taking Kate’s apron off a hook and putting it on. There was a fragment of tinned tomato on it left over from making the stew this morning. It was about to press against Helen’s white summer cardigan.

  Kate went to speak, and then didn’t.

  ‘OK, then . . .’ She hesitated. ‘By the way . . .’

  They both glanced up.

  Jack looked down at the table.

  ‘I’ve . . . have you been up . . .?’ She pointed at the ceiling.

  They shook their heads.

  ‘No, dear,’ Helen replied. ‘Why?’

  Jack kept his eyes on the table, slowly finishing his muffin.

  ‘Well, I haven’t got time to explain, but anyway, don’t worry about it. It’s just . . .’

  They waited, expectantly. Jack’s jaws stopped moving.

  ‘I needed to do it. And it’s done now. So – see you later.’

  And with that, she marched out of the door of her house – her house – cross that she had to explain at all.

  CHAPTER TWO

  It was a warm May evening and Oxford was bathed in a pale lemon tint. Kate pushed her bike across Donnington Bridge, then freewheeled down the steep path on the other side to cycle along the river.

  It was busy. She set off, cycling around a woman with two big wet dogs, and a student on a bike who had clearly not learned to drive yet and wasn’t sticking to the left side. Kate pumped her legs hard, averting her eyes from the water on her right, trying to clear her mind of what she was about to do. She pushed against the resistance of each pedal stroke, changing gear when the journey along the flat path became too easy, until she could hear her own breath whistling gently on the summer breeze.

  A swarm settled around her head like tiny flies.

  One out of five. About 20 per cent, she thought, trying to ignore it.

  She hit a steady pace around Christchurch Meadow. The grand old college looked especially beautiful tonight across the river, its stone facade soft and pretty in the low light. The grass in front of it glowed that rich, saturated Oxford green that suggested high teas and country estates. It was scattered with groups of the cheery, hard-working students who imbued the air in Oxford with their optimism and best efforts, who sprinkled its streets and parks and alleyways with goodwill, like bubbles of sweetness in a fizzy drink. Who made Oxford feel safe.

  No, on nights like these, she hardly missed London at all.

  After Folly Bridge Kate cleared the crowds and stepped up her speed again. She sailed past the waterside flats at Botley and the circus-coloured canal boats moored around Osney Lock. Behind Jericho, she ducked under a graffitied bridge and carried on along the canal path till she could cross into north Oxford.

  There. She had done it. Dismounting to cross the bridge, she checked her watch. Twenty-five minutes flat. She could still make it for six.

  As she set off, pushing her bike along the pavement to Summertown, the enormity of what lay ahead hit her.

  She was here finally. She was actually going to do it this time.

  Before she could change her mind for the tenth time, Kate made herself walk on, pushing the bike along the pavements of quiet side streets before emerging into the rush-hour traffic of Woodstock Road and Banbury Road, which she crossed to arrive in a leafy Summertown avenue.

  Peace descended as she entered the exclusive Oxford enclave. The houses were spectacular. Imposing Victorian detacheds, with grand pianos in grand bay windows and walled gardens. Inspector Morse streets, as Helen would call them. As far from the clattering noise and cheerful chaos of east Oxford as you could be. The kind of leafy avenue Helen and Richard had assumed Kate would buy in when she and Jack moved from London – the first thing she had done to annoy them.

  To avoid thinking about her destination, Kate observed each house as she passed, searching for a feature Hugo would appreciate. The houses were Victorian Gothic revival. Not his period, but she bet he would have known the correct name for every architectural detail on their splendid frontages.

  Before she knew it, the sign was in front of her. Hemingway Avenue.

  Kate stopped. Her cheeks were covered in a gentle sheen of perspiration, her lips still slightly numb from riding fast into the breeze.

  Her watch said five to six. She had made it.

  She was nearly there.

  This was nearly it.

  The urge to run overwhelmed her so abruptly, she put a hand out and touched a wall.

  She was outside No. 1. If she carried on to No. 15 Hemingway Avenue there would be no going back.

  Shu
tting her eyes, she forced herself to summon the memory of Jack’s face in her rear-view mirror an hour ago. His cheeks rigid like a mask, his lips thrust forward as he bit the inside of his mouth.

  ‘You are going to do this,’ she whispered, pushing herself off the wall.

  And on she went, with smaller and smaller steps.

  The house was even more impressive than its neighbours. One gable jutted in front of the other. Ivy grew around medieval-style stone window frames. The glass revealed nothing inside but the red silk fringe of standard lamp, then darkness beyond.

  Kate pushed her bike into the driveway and locked it to a railing. She removed her helmet and ran her fingers through her hair. It fell forwards, thick with the Celtic blackness Mum told her she had inherited from an Irish aunt, blocking out the early evening sun for a second. She threw her head back and straightened her hair down to her shoulders, then forced herself up the stone steps to a white, carved portico. The front door was magnificent. Hugo would have loved it. An eight-foot-high Gothic revival arch, wooden, with roughly hewn baronial black metal hinges and a thick knocker.

  Kate paused.

  She lifted her hand before she could run away – and banged it.

  The sound made her jump. It resonated around the front garden, like a shotgun. The huge door swung open to reveal a blonde woman in her sixties. She was as tall as Richard, and broad, with a matronly bosom. Her hair was drawn up into an elaborate bun which looked as if it had first been created in the sixties. The woman wore a green print dress and had a strong piece of turquoise jewellery around her neck.

  ‘Kate?’

  Her voice was pleasant and soft, like ripe fruit.

  Kate nodded, feeling like a child.

  ‘I’m Sylvia. Come in.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Kate walked into an elegant hall, tiled with gold and blue geometric Victorian tiles. ‘Do you want to leave your helmet there?’ Sylvia said, pointing to a mahogany table adorned by a giant vase of lilies.

  Kate nodded again, praying the plastic buckles wouldn’t scratch it.

  ‘I’m so glad you finally managed to come,’ Sylvia said.

  Kate looked at the floor.

  ‘I know. Sorry. Things just kept coming up.’

  ‘You managed to find someone to look after your son?’ Sylvia said, opening a door off the hall, and guiding Kate through. There was a fragrance of roses.

  ‘Yes, I did, thanks. His grandparents. My in-laws.’

  The sitting room was even more impressive than the hall, furnished with antique tables, bookshelves and over-stuffed chairs and sofas. It smelled of polish. The wallpaper looked original Victorian, too, or at least one of those expensive reproductions Hugo used to buy through specialists. Sage green with an intricate spray of curling dark stems and ruby-red roses.

  Sylvia pointed to an armchair.

  ‘Please, have a seat, Kate.’

  But Kate couldn’t.

  She stood in front of the chair. She was here now. It was time to start.

  Looking Sylvia in the eye, she made herself speak the words. Maybe it was the numbness in her lips from cycling, but the voice didn’t sound like hers. The words came out half-formed and uncertain, as if she had missed off the hard edges and spoken only the soft bits in the middle.

  ‘I told them I was seeing a woman who wanted to discuss renovating her house.’

  Sylvia nodded, as she moved to the sofa.

  ‘I see. Well, that’s something we can talk about, Kate.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  There he was. That weirdo again.

  Saskia stood second in line at a cash till in Tesco on Cowley Road, watching the student in front put through two microwaveable beefburgers in buns, three tins of hotdogs and a bumper pack of Curly Wurlys.

  Yum, she thought, touching a French-polished fingertip on the chilled glass of the sparkling rosé she had placed on the belt. Some lucky girl was going to be wined and dined tonight.

  Cautiously, she lifted her eyes, to check he didn’t know she was looking. It was the first time she had seen him up close. It was his height that had originally caught her attention on the pavement a few weeks ago. Not that he was particularly taller than any other tall man she knew. Dad, for instance. His legs just seemed overly long, perhaps due to the shapeless black trousers he wore. His T-shirt was black too, and slightly too short, revealing a white slab of belly each time he moved. Inside Tesco, the student looked even odder. His out-dated spiky, dark blond hair and bad glasses marked him out from the cool indie kids from the poly – or Oxford Brookes University, as it was these days. Not that Hugo had ever let Saskia forget the former identity of her college. Oxford Puniversity, he called it, to wind her up.

  Five minutes later she left Tesco with her wine, and found herself behind the student again as they both wound through the back streets of east Oxford. He was doing that strange walk again. Bouncing along on his oddly extended legs, his upper torso bobbing with the motion. It gave him the impression of being both physically awkward and arrogant. His strides were so much longer than Saskia’s that by the time she reached the corner of Walter Street he had disappeared from sight.

  Saskia stopped at an estate agent’s window, perusing her reflection for a second. With the early evening sun behind her head, it appeared as if she was wearing a halo, the white-blonde tips of her hair melding into its rays. She flattened down the front of her pale blue summer dress, wondering if Jonathan was missing her at all.

  With a sigh, she checked the property values. Hubert Street was holding its own. That was good. Something, at least, for Jack’s sake.

  Oh no. Jack.

  He would be waiting for her, desperate to know her decision.

  On impulse, Saskia dived into the newsagent next door and searched through the boys’ magazines to find one she hadn’t bought him yet. That would distract him till she decided what to do. Because if she did it, Kate would kill her. If she didn’t – well, things were bad enough as it was for her nephew.

  At the last minute she grabbed some cough sweets for her presentation at work on Monday morning and headed back outside.

  As she set off, popping a cough sweet in her mouth, there was a flash of movement to her right.

  Saskia jumped.

  What the hell was that?

  A large black shape shifted between two cars.

  Walking fast, she waited until she was at a safe distance before turning round.

  A black-clad backside peeked out from between the cars. She recognized the slice of white flabby skin that lay above it.

  The weirdo. He was crouched down between two cars, facing a row of houses across the road.

  Why was he behaving so furtively?

  Saskia surveyed the house opposite. It looked like a normal residential house. No piles of bikes or posters in the window to suggest students. A well-painted red door. Cream curtains half-closed. Faint classical music drifting out of an open sash window.

  A figure crossed the window. A woman in her thirties with a brunette bob.

  Saskia heard a little click, and then another.

  A camera?

  Was he watching someone? A woman?

  Oh, that was gross.

  Then, before she could help herself, Saskia felt a tickle of cold air at the back of her throat behind the sweet – and coughed.

  The student moved. A flag of spiky hair began to rise above the car’s bonnet.

  ‘No, I’ll get some pizza,’ she exclaimed, walking off and talking into her hand as if it were a phone, realizing too late that a woman with a buggy was coming straight at her, staring at her curiously.

  Saskia dropped her hand and continued quickly towards Hubert Street. She had better tell Kate. Although who knew where that would lead – as if they needed any more problems.

  Saskia turned into Hubert Street, trying to shake off the sense of unease at what she’d just witnessed. Kate’s semi-detached Edwardian house looked pretty in the evening sunshine, the freshly
whitewashed windowsills sparkling, the burnt-orange passionflower that Helen had planted trailing around the front door. Saskia glanced at the house next door, to which Kate’s was attached. It looked like the un-identical twin. Whereas Kate’s frontage was tidy, her bins behind a wooden fence Richard had erected and stained a pale lilac chosen by Helen, the one next door was undoubtedly a student house. It was worn and tired; its windowsills also painted white, but this time, the paint sloshed cheaply over the joins and onto the windowpanes. Bikes lay in heaps, chained together. A wheelie bin was half open, binbags bursting out, the faint smell of rubbish detectable from here.

  That was the best thing about living in a Cotswold village. No students. Not for the first time, Saskia wished Mum and Dad had worked harder to persuade Kate not to rush into buying when she moved from London; that they hadn’t been so wary of her bloody moods, that they had made her check who lived next door.

  Steeling herself, as she always did on arrival at Hubert Street, Saskia walked up to the door and pressed the bell.

  ‘Hello,’ a deep voice said behind her. The ‘oh’ was pronounced as ‘aw’, with a long, Scandinavian vowel.

  The weirdo was walking in through the gate next door. He regarded her impassively from behind his glasses.

  ‘Hi,’ she said, as chilly as she could.

  Creep.

  He’d probably followed her up the road, taking photos of her backside.

  To her relief, Jack flung open the door, grinning.

  ‘Hey, Jackasnory!’ she exclaimed in relief, walking inside and shutting the front door behind her. She held her hands slightly forward, in case he wanted to hug. She was never sure these days. Did boys of nearly eleven hug?

  Luckily, her nephew was in the mood. He came straight to her, wrapping himself tightly around her waist. She put her arms round him and moved his body gently from left to right. He stayed there happily. Or was it desperately? She wasn’t sure any more.

  ‘God, you give the best cuddles. Did you win?’

  ‘Two–nil,’ Richard shouted from the sitting room. ‘And he’s in the reserves for a junior league team next term.’