The Last Minute

by Eleanor Updale

  ‘Good for you!’ says the cyclist, praising (and slightly disappointing) Kate, who is psyched up for a challenge, not encouragement.

  Bernie’s pantomime continues, as does Matey’s joke. ‘“ . . . that’s awful but . . .”’

  Sharon spots Anthony Dougall’s car, and – amazed that he’s still in Heathwick – starts walking towards it.

  A mourner is coming through the church gate, striding towards the vicar with his hand out for a greeting. The vicar stuffs the confetti into the pocket of his cassock.

  Now that he’s on his feet again, Paul wants to get on his way to meet Deanna at the café, but Lotte, having thanked him for picking up her money, is talking about his scarf. ‘Beautiful, but dangerous,’ she says, fingering the rainbow knitting that Deanna produced as an early present, in honour of Paul’s love of a long-gone Doctor Who.

  The taxi mounts the pavement to its right.

  TOCK

  32 seconds to go . . .

  A GUST OF wind blows a grain of grit from the roadworks into Gillie’s eye. With both hands on the cake box, she can’t rub at it, and she blinks furiously to try to get it out. In an instant her mind is running ahead. She’ll have to face Anthony’s guests with a bloodshot eye. And a photographer’s coming. She’ll spoil the picture that might be the key to him winning or losing the election. If he loses, it will be All Her Fault.

  Lorraine can feel a rivulet of sweat running down her back. The phone in her tracksuit pocket is vibrating again. What if it’s something important? What if something has happened to one of the children? For an instant, her rhythm is broken, but now it’s back again: . . . ner. She’s nearly at the top of the hill, and surely it won’t hurt to wait a few seconds to see who wants to talk to her. But no. She’s made herself a promise. She must go on.

  ‘“ . . . don’t be down . . .”’ Matey is sounding like someone from EastEnders.

  ‘ . . . and eight.’ The more reluctant exercisers relax, hoping their first burst of activity is over. But Maggie is determined to keep up the pace. As she speaks she drops gracefully to the ground, ready for the next sequence of stretches.

  Having handed over the wreath, Janine is on the way back to her shop. She can see a group of people on the pavement outside. It’s Kate Daintree, the cyclist and the charity fundraiser, but at this distance they all look like possible customers to Janine, and she presses on, regretting leaving the shop unattended. Half her mind is on her mother, too. Janine has locked her in the sitting room above the shop. For her own good. To stop her wandering.

  As four more (specially shaken) drinks cans spurt open and bathe the coach’s upholstery in sticky liquid, Miss Hunter goes to stand by the driver to watch the children in his mirror, just in case any harm comes to Kayleigh. Dominic is taking a bow. Janine’s son, Calum, has surfaced from behind his seat to find out why everyone else is laughing. His half of the earphones drops out as he catches sight of his mother alongside the coach. It’s clear she hasn’t registered that it’s come from his school, or that he’s on board.

  ‘Miss!’ shouts Kayleigh, who is tempted to undo her seat belt so she can stand up and get the teacher’s attention, but is afraid of getting into trouble if she’s not strapped in.

  With two wheels on the pavement and two in the gutter, the taxi will have to be quick if it’s going to get past the digger before it swings round and blocks the way again.

  Lotte and Paul see the cab coming, and squeeze themselves against the bakery window to avoid being hit.

  Brow-beaten by the traffic behind her, Barbara Lapsom is too embarrassed to stay still any longer.

  TICK

  31 seconds to go . . .

  WATCHING HIS MOTHER from a distance, Calum realizes, for the first time, how anxious and tired she looks. He’s suddenly sorry that he left the house in a strop about the pathetic packed lunch she’d assembled at the last minute. He decides to use his pocket money to buy her a present if there’s a shop at the theatre.

  ‘On the floor,’ shouts Maggie, effortlessly completing the transition herself as most of the class, with creaking knees, stumble and totter down for the leg-lift exercises.

  Following Barbara’s lead, traffic starts to trickle from beyond the church down towards the shops. They’re glad to be moving at last, but her first instinct was right: filling the space is only going to make the logjam worse, and more difficult to untangle. What’s more, she gets a shock when the taxi unexpectedly comes the other way. She’s surprised they don’t scrape each other as she inches forwards and he darts by.

  The baker dives towards the door of his shop to see what’s going on. Old Lotte is one of his favourite customers, and he’s worried that she’s been startled by the sudden appearance of the taxi on the pavement. Joe Harman is the third generation of his family in the trade, and he’s run the business single-handed since his father retired with arthritis ten years ago. His parents are upstairs now. It’s a big day for them. Sheila Harman has finally decided to give up her work helping at a special needs school five miles away. She loves the children, and they love her sense of fun (and the titbits she brings in every day from the bakery), but David isn’t getting any younger, and she feels the time has come for them to spend more time together before it’s too late. Today the school is having a special assembly to say goodbye, with Mrs Harman and her husband as their special guests. They’d meant to leave by 9.15, but David can’t find his car keys. They’re looking in all the usual places. It’s a scene they’ve played out many times in their long married life. ‘Ask Joe?’ says Sheila, sensing that, as so often these days, they are going to end up borrowing their son’s car.

  The story of Jack and Pete limps on. ‘“I’ll take you . . .”’ Matey has now latched onto Anthony Dougall, who is furious that the policeman has deserted him to look after the hearse. Anthony’s got the general drift (it’s something about two old friends, one of whom has a terminal disease; the other is trying to cheer him up) but he’s not really interested. He looks up and down the street, hoping to see the van driver returning. He doesn’t see Sharon making her way towards his own car behind him.

  On the plane, Daniel Donovan looks round again – back and across the aisle. The woman in seat 42C doesn’t speak, but the two vertical creases between her neatly plucked eyebrows deepen, and her eyes seem to send out a mystified plea for help.

  TOCK

  30 seconds to go . . .

  ‘PLENTY OF TIME,’ says David Harman, with his hand down the back of the sofa, looking for his car keys. He doesn’t want to admit defeat and borrow Joe’s car yet.

  As she expects, Barbara can’t get past the digger, and she stops, sharply, bringing a new chorus of car horns from behind.

  Leading the cars coming in the opposite direction, Kelly Viner, driving alone for only the second time since she passed her test, is panicking. She thinks everyone is blasting their horns at her, but she can’t see what she should do. It’s too late to copy the taxi – his illegal route through the petrol station is now blocked by all the cars that have come the other way. She edges forward, as close to the digger as she can get. It feels good to be moving, but now she’s really trapped.

  The taxi driver pulls up at the petrol station, glad that he made his move before the oncoming traffic blocked the road. The forecourt is empty, except for the tanker truck, making its delivery of petrol. It’s giving off quite a smell. The driver, transfixed by the sight of old Matthew painting the sign over the road, has left everything switched to automatic, knowing that his pump will cut out when the underground stores are full. He still hasn’t spotted the leak, and it is tiny, but a puddle of fuel is forming beneath the pipe.

  At this short distance from the noise of the roadworks, it’s easier to hear the funeral bell tolling its solemn message that a life has come to an end.

  ‘Keep going!’ Maggie nags, exercising to the rhythm of the music. Her movements are just as regular as the bell, but she’s going at twice the speed, and her pulse speaks of
life, not death.

  Kayleigh’s mother smirks through the glass at the shambolic performances of some of her fellow parents. She can’t take her eyes off them, and has forgotten all about the school coach behind her. If she’d looked up, she might have been able to see the boy behind Kayleigh slipping his hand between the seat and the window, ready to grab and yank her long frizzy yellow hair. Kayleigh’s still shouting, ‘Miss, miss.’ She wants to tell Miss Hunter about the cigarettes.

  In the launderette there’s a toxic, gassy smell, even worse than the fumes in the petrol station, because the door is shut and there are no windows to let in fresh air.

  Outside, at the mouth of the alley between the launderette and the dance studio, Dime and Dollar have come to a standstill. Their warm breath is turning to plumes of white vapour as they wait, obediently, for the signal to walk on. The children towards the back of the coach can see them, and shout to their friends who are sitting further forward to come and have a look. But the departure of the taxi has made a space in front, and the coach rolls along to fill it, so only the boys in the very back seat can see the horses now.

  PC Lewis is gesturing to the traffic behind the coach to continue, backwards, down the hill, but no one seems to understand what he means. Frank, the funeral director, has got interested in the beggar’s story and, seeing that there’s nothing he can add to the constable’s efforts to make way for the hearse, he reckons a few seconds spent waiting for the punch line won’t hurt. Clutching the wreath in one hand, and waving his cane with the other (in sympathy with the policeman), he stays close enough to hear how ‘Jack’ intends to raise the spirits of his dying friend:

  ‘“ . . . out for the . . .”’

  Lucy can’t hear Matey any more. In her quest for the second missing glove, she’s managed to get herself and the pushchair to the other side of the van, and is now trying to open the newsagent’s door with her bottom.

  The vicar shakes hands with the mourner who just came through the lych gate. After the distraction of failing to get Matthew Larkin off his ladder and avoiding a fusillade from Ben Whatmore, he has forgotten the name of the deceased. He tries to start a conversation where it will become obvious. The day hasn’t got off to a very good start. Surely things can only get better.

  Other mourners are still puffing along up the High Street, glad that they abandoned the bus, but concerned that they won’t make it to the church in time. The sight of the hearse blocked in by the traffic is both appalling and consoling for them.

  One of them recognizes an old friend coming out of the coffee shop. He waves, and shouts a cheery greeting across the street.

  Her eye watering now, Gillie Dougall’s panic level is rising with every step. The prospective catastrophes are mounting. You’d be amazed how short a time it takes to imagine a hundred things that might go wrong with a chocolate fountain, or to make a mental list of the insuperable consequences of being seen to fail in a social gathering composed entirely of friends.

  On the plane, Daniel Donovan undoes his seat belt. The passengers around him recognize the metallic click, and turn towards him with reproving glances.

  TICK

  29 seconds to go . . .

  THE FEW CHILDREN on the coach who have strapped themselves in undo their seat belts, so they can run back to see the horses. Only Kayleigh stays buckled up.

  Daniel Donovan rises from his seat. The flight attendant has her back to him as she makes her way to the intercom. Daniel’s a little unsteady, having failed to resist the free drinks trolley every time it passed. Something in his old police bones tells him that the difficult passenger is a terrorist, planning to bring the plane down. He’s determined to do something to stop him, though he’s thinking on his feet—Oops! Not quite on his feet.

  ‘“ . . . time of your life.”’ Matey draws breath, ready to shift back into his own voice.

  Still using the driver’s mirror to watch the children, Miss Hunter missed Kayleigh’s hair being pulled, but she has heard the summons to see the horses, and she wants to forestall a stampede to the back of the coach. She makes her gargling noise again: ‘Guuuurrrrrr 8C!’

  Lying on her side in the dance studio, Maggie is trying to impose some discipline, too: ‘Lift those legs!’

  Kayleigh’s mother notices that Maggie’s got a ladder in her tights, smirks, and sniffs again.

  The wife of the cheery mourner nudges him in the ribs and hisses her disapproval at his unseemly behaviour in the street.

  The digger starts to move to one side, but it’s no help, because the road is now completely blocked with traffic coming from both directions.

  Having learned the Highway Code so recently for her test, Kelly Viner knows very well that it’s illegal to use a mobile phone when driving. Nevertheless, sweating, and breathing so hard in her panic that she’s steaming up the windscreen, she reaches across to the passenger seat for her bag, so she can ring her dad to ask him what to do.

  Sheila Harman decides to warn her son that she and David might need to borrow his car. She leans over the banisters leading down to the bakery, and calls out, ‘Joe!’ But Joe is out on the pavement now, making sure that Lotte is all right.

  Halfway down the hill, the driver of the public bus has understood the policeman’s semaphore, and starts to inch backwards.

  Stuart Penton, panic-stricken about the split in his trousers, is still walking away from the traffic jam, up the hill, and out of Heathwick. He’s beyond the petrol station now. He looks down at his feet. His other shoelace is undone.

  Lucy can hardly get the newsagent’s door open. The backpack man and Stefano from the launderette are at the counter, and the two fat ladies have stopped just inside the entrance, at the lottery ticket stand. ‘Hello again,’ says the shopkeeper, as the back of Lucy’s head comes round the door.

  As Deanna waves from the other end of the street, trying to let him know she’s on her way, Paul is deep in conversation. Lotte, the old actress who dropped her change, is on about a famous dancer called Isadora Duncan, who was strangled in the 1920s when her fashionably long scarf got entangled in the wheel of her car. ‘You were lucky,’ she says, wagging her finger at Paul, who sheepishly wraps his own scarf round his neck a couple more times, to stop the ends dangling down to his feet.

  TOCK

  28 seconds to go . . .

  THE REMAINING PASSENGERS on the public bus are furious now, as they feel it moving the wrong way.

  At the exercise class, a few of the mothers are still getting themselves down onto the floor. Maggie is already lifting her left leg towards the ceiling. ‘And one . . .’

  Lucy smiles. ‘Forgotten something?’ says the newsagent.

  Outside, the beggar is using his own voice again, describing the grand night out enjoyed by Jack and Pete: ‘They saw a show . . .’

  Sharon is closing in on Anthony’s car. She’s noticed, now, that the driver’s door is open. Odd. Is he inside?

  At the front of the eastbound traffic, Kelly Viner presses 4: her dad’s number on speed-dial.

  Terry Potts tries again to end his call so he can get off to work. ‘Sure,’ he says, interrupting his friend’s flow. ‘I must . . .’

  Downstairs, having been ignored by Kate and the cyclist, Nick, the charity worker, has swooped on Janine, the florist. It’s a double disappointment for her: the people outside her shop are not customers after all, and now one of them is trying to persuade her to give money away. ‘A moment for the poor?’ he shouts over the noise of the drills.

  Stuart is debating whether to risk bending down again.

  At the back of the plane, as she lifts the handset of the intercom to speak to the flight deck, the attendant turns and spots Daniel Donovan on his feet. Her terse cry – ‘Sit down, sir’ – carries a note of concern that spreads throughout the cabin.

  There’s a little bit of panic upstairs at the bakery, too. Sheila Harman calls again: ‘Joe!’

  But Joe is still outside on the pavement, listening in
to Lotte’s story of Isadora Duncan’s scarf calamity long ago.

  Miss Hunter’s cry has temporarily stopped the rush to the back of the coach, but it was just a moment’s freeze. One girl braves it, and now almost everyone is out of their seats.

  The postman stops his cart at the door between the shoe shop and the dance studio, right by the coach. He can see that things are getting pretty lively on board.

  TICK

  27 seconds to go . . .

  AT THE PETROL station there’s now a steady trickle of fuel onto the forecourt, but the delivery driver is still watching Matthew, and the taxi man is tracking his passenger’s progress at the cash machine.

  ‘ . . . and two . . .’ Legs go up in the dance studio (almost in time to the music).

  Bernie, still trying to signal his needs to the old lady, tunes back in to what Pete and Jack got up to on their great night out: ‘ . . . went to a . . .’

  ‘Dropped a mitten,’ says Lucy, looking down on the floor for the stripy pink glove, knitted by her mother-in-law only a week before. Lucy could do without this delay. She’s already going to arrive at Mrs Noble’s house later than promised, and she knows from experience that she’s in for some martyred sulking and snide remarks. She should be well away from here by now, but she knows she’s got to find the mitten. Being late will be bad enough, but it will be even worse if young Chloe arrives with one cold hand.

  Staggering across the aisle of the plane, Daniel Donovan is not sure what he’s hoping to achieve. He rests his arm on the back of seat 42C and asks Dorothy Long, ‘Are you all right?’

  Terry Potts’ friend keeps on talking, so Terry stays at the window. He sees Gillie Dougall with her cake box trying to find a pathway between the cars. She looks upset. He consoles himself with the thought that perhaps money doesn’t buy happiness. All the same, he’s not looking forward to finding out what lack of money can do.