by Andie Fessey
Driving the hundreds of miles to be there, he arrived too late. The news being broken to him by a broken-hearted Nate, who received the call first.
It hit Jake hard, harder than he could ever imagined, even in his darkest moments.
He returned to work a few days after his mother’s funeral, hoping to lose himself in the banal everyday life there.
He returned to his office for only half a day, when his mobile rang.
He glanced at the display.
“Hi Jake, its Katie at the yard. No easy way to say this. Abigail has been thrown from Storm. The paramedic has just left to take her to City hospital. They think it may be a punctured lung.”
“Oh, for fucks sake,” he exclaimed.
“Something up Mister?” His friend and colleague TJ asked.
He sighed aloud, tapping a reply on the screen.
“It’s Abi,” he replied, “she’s had an accident.”
“Oh, Mister,” TJ said, “nothing serious I hope?”
“She’s came off one of the horses,” he replied, tapping away with his fingers on his telephone screen, “could be a punctured lung.”
“They will be the death of her Jake, I don’t know why you were talked into getting those two things.”
“She likes them TJ and I’d hoped it would be something I could have learnt a lot more quickly.”
“Instead of just being at her beck and call to muck out and do the running around after them,” TJ stated, rather than asking.
“What do you mean TJ?”
“I noticed things Jake,” she replied, “believe me, I notice things.”
He called Katie to get an update on the situation, before turning to TJ, sighing.
“My sister Lisa is picking Nate up from school,” he said, “I need to get back up North to the hospital. Can you hold the fort whilst I am gone TJ?”
“Of course,” she replied, smiling at him softly, her eyes containing their usual sparkle.
“Drive safely my Mister,” TJ said, “make sure that you get back up there to the wilds of the North in one piece.”
“I will do TJ.”
“I mean it Mister,” she said, her voice now grave, “I’ve don’t like this feeling I have.”
“I’ll be fine,” he said, smiling at her.
He gave her one their shared, knowing winks, before turning around to make his way from the building, to head to his car.
The long drive northward was horrendous, traffic reports on the radio informing him the M1 suffered huge tail backs, so he drove along the A5 to connect with the M6 Northbound.
As he approached the junction for the Toll Road, he could see the traffic already queuing on the slip to Birmingham.
Toll Road it is then.
It was only moments later, when he realised, an accident occurred further up the approach to the toll road.
This, in addition to the roadworks going on, added to his frustration.
His frustration building by the second, all he could see ahead were the rear brake lights of stationary traffic.
Resting his head on the steering wheel, he breathed deeply.
I can’t afford to lose it. I must get back to Abi in one piece.
Slowly, the traffic edged forwards. Eventually he reached the toll booth. Once through he put his foot down hard on the accelerator. His car reached well over 95mph and his Sat Nav beeped like crazy, indicating he was well over the national speed limit.
He slowed down.
In one piece.
Upon reaching the junction to Staffordshire, he looked at his Sat Nav, indicating there were severe delays ahead.
Fuck.
He recalibrated the machine, so his journey North would avoid motorways for now. As he took the next slip road off the motorway, he could see the rear lights of the traffic in the distance, all three lanes stationary.
Just in time.
The light now fading, he found himself driving through villages and towns he had never driven through before.
He relied on the navigation system and more than once another driver would sound their horn in anger at him, if he overshot a junction in the darkness or not going fast enough for their liking, down the winding country lanes.
His mobile phone sounded, indicating he received a text message.
Pulling up into a layby, he read the text.
“Jake, it’s Lisa. Have picked up Nate. He’s worried about Abigail obviously but apart from that he’s fine. I’ve called City Hospital and they have said it’s not a punctured lung but she has a couple of broken ribs. AGAIN! Apart from that, she’s fine so don’t go breaking your neck getting back up here. On another note Nate, you really should think about getting rid of those animals.”
Families.
Sighing, he accelerated the car from the layby, staring at the mobile as the ringtone played.
It took him a split second to realise his fatal error.
The airhorn of a massive articulated lorry moving at speed penetrated the evening air, seconds before it struck his car.
Fuck!
The next twelve months of his life flew by in a blur.
The major operation on his back due to the spinal injuries he sustained when the cab of the Lorry ploughed into his car.
The constant calls from the vehicle insurance company.
The points on his licence he incurred for driving with undue care and attention.
The court case he endured due to the driver of the lorry placing in a personal claim against him. Fortunately, his Insurance company brought it to a swift conclusion.
His Company placed on a few month’s unpaid sabbatical leave, but during this time he fell into a deep, dark depression.
It placed a huge strain on their marriage. Abigail possessed her own demons to deal with and at times appeared to resent caring for him, when he was bedbound for a couple of months.
It seemed as if life decided to hit him all at once.
It finally took its toll on him and now he retreated away from the world. Quitting his job entirely, he began attending counselling sessions.
It felt a seesaw ride of hell.
Prescribed anti-depressants, he stopped taking them as he was placed on heavy duty painkillers.
Retreating to their bedroom, he shut himself away from the world outside.
Through patience, Abigail helped him through, but nor did she admit to him, her moments of indiscretion whilst he lay there.
He slowly returned into the ‘real’ world.
For him, for her, for Nate.
Now, he found himself sat at the rear of the 4x4 alongside her.
“Can I go grab a bag of chips?” Nate asked.
“Of course, you can son,” Jake replied, passing him a handful of coins.
Nate made his way to the ‘Butty Van’ parked in the nearby carpark, overlooking the beach.
“Your coffee is almost cold love,” Abigail pointed out to him, “do you want me to grab another one?”
Shaking his head, he drained the lukewarm coffee in one go.
Placing his arm over her shoulder, he pulled her close to him, as they looked at their son, stood in the queue awaiting to be served.
“You proposed here,” she said.
“I know,” he replied, “I was there, remember?”
“Are you up to coming to muck out the stables later?” She asked, gently dug him in his ribs.
“Of course, love.”
They owned two horses, kept at stables in a small village, on the outskirts of Liverpool.
Involved in the equestrian world since she was seven years old, she spent her whole life around horses, her passion never dwindling.
Being driven and competitive, she made her presence felt in the Equine community.
Entering Show Jumping competitions at an early age, she quickly progressed through the Regionals, Nationals and finally, to the European finals.
She finished runner up at the show held at Olympia in London. Most would be ecstatic at her re
sult, but she felt second place nowhere near good enough and did not feel satisfied, until she took first place three years later.
Eventually she retired competitively and began working for the National Horse Federation, rising through the ranks as an instructor and coach, before eventually finding herself in charge of the whole of the Northern region.
She literally lived and breathed horses.
Jake, entered her life through a chance meeting.
She led a party of riders on a hack down to the beach. As she rode ahead of the other riders, leading their party, she saw this lone man, sat there on the sand staring wistfully out to sea.
He glanced at her and smiled.
For a reason unknown, she returned the smile.
After hacking for a while, she turned the party around and returned along the beach.
He was gone.
For an obscure reason she felt disappointed, with no idea why.
They hacked along the roads leading to the stables. About half a mile up the road, they came across a car in a layby, jacked up, due to having a flat tyre.
The man changing the tyre, the same man she saw on the beach.
“Try four legs instead of four wheels!” she called to him. “They are much more reliable.”
Looking up, he smiled broadly at her. She felt taken with the way the ‘laughter lines’ around his eyes caused them to smile.
“Each to their own,” he gently teased in a voice with low, dulcet tones.
Returning to the stables, after the horses were bedded down for the night in their stalls, she jumped in her car and began the drive home.
Passing the layby, she noticed the car still parked there.
He sat inside, seated in the driver’s seat. Turning her car around, she pulled up in front of his. Getting out from her own, throwing caution against the wind, she approached the little blue sports car.
She knocked on the driver’s door window.
Jumping, busy leaning down looking through numbers on his mobile phone, he wound the window down.
“Fancy seeing you again,” he said.
“Yes, it’s a funny old world.”
She glanced at the wheel he changed earlier. It seemed to be okay.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yup,” he replied.
She looked deeply into his eyes. They looked hazel, but she noticed they were also speckled with green, glinting as the fading sunlight caught them.
Realising stared at him for a moment more than comfortable, she turned her gaze away.
For the first time since she fell from a horse she was breaking in, spooking and throwing her into a muddy ditch in front of others, she found herself starting to blush.
“So,” she continued, struggling to find something to say to this stranger. “Do you often sit around in your car for ages after changing a tyre?”
Smiling broadly at him caused dimples in her cheeks. He would later tell her, as he proposed to her upon the beach on a moonlit evening, it was the moment he fell in love with her.
“Err, I do when I have run out of petrol,” he replied smiling and stepping from his car.
She looked at him quizzically, uncertain of whether he joked.
Looking like he, himself blushed, she burst out laughing and he joined her.
“Have you got a petrol canister?” She asked.
“I have, but it’s empty otherwise I wouldn’t be sat here,” he replied, smiling.
“C’mon then Mister four wheels are better than four legs,” she said, “I’ll give you a lift to the Petrol Station up the road.”
He stared at her, smiling.
“I could be an axe-wielding maniac for all you know,” he said, laughing softly.
She stared once more into his eyes.
“I’ll the chance,” she said, “I think I’ll be safe.”
Chapter Ten
After dropping Mike and Brad off at their respective homes, Dave steered his car into the driveway of the semi-detached house he shared with his wife Karen and their daughter Rose.
Switching off the ignition, he sat in the car for a few moments, staring at the house in front of him.
God, I wish I was not here.
His house lovely, his daughter his world, but his Karen
Karen.
He was on a friend’s ‘Stag Night’ pub crawl around Bootle, when he first met Karen.
He saw her around a few times, her and her friends frequenting the same bars and clubs Dave and his friends did.
Not much to look at, but he supposed she looked pretty in a way, but quite overweight.
He would not usually look twice at anybody like her. He did not deem himself a superficial man, but he was previously in a long relationship with a girl who became the most important part of his life.
Slim, toned, tall, educated, cultured, funny and, as he later found out, sleeping with the boss of where she worked.
The memories of her firm, athletic body still resided in his mind.
The party of revellers he accompanied grew more and more intoxicated, as the evening wore on.
They came across Karen and her friends, in one of the pubs on the last leg of their crawl. He felt legless at this point and started to chat away to her, as the alcohol flowed through him, clouding his thoughts and reason.
She lived in a council flat not too far away, in a suburb of North Liverpool. They returned there, spending the rest of the night fumbling around.
The drink ensured he remained flaccid for the best half of the night, but when Karen suggested they performed things his ex would have balked at, he grew hard.
Hard enough to ensure he received a telephone call from Karen a couple of months later.
The call ensured everybody would now know they were an ‘item’.
On the plus side, several months later, the person who would give his life new meaning, came into the world.
His beautiful daughter Rose. From the moment she entered the world, his life changed entirely and he completely worshipped her.
Once Karen gave birth, Dave proposed to her, the ceremony a quiet affair in the Registrar’s Office in Waterloo, followed by a small party afterwards in a Social Club, not far away.
A couple of his closest friends advised him against the marriage, but he confided in them, “it is not for me or for Karen, it is for Rose and for her alone.”
His daughter would not be mocked, because her parents were not married.
Not that it seems to matter anymore these days.
Karen continually claimed to be suffering from depression, already prescribed medication such as Mirtazapine, Amitriptyline and Prozac.
Most of her days were spent sat on the sofa, watching daytime television and raiding the cupboards for multi packets of crisps, biscuits and litre bottles of coke.
Except for her social-media site addiction, her trips to the doctors and hospital seemed to be her only excursions to the outside world.
He did the weekly shopping runs for their family ‘unit’ amidst the other running around. In between his stints as a driver for a private minicab firm, he would drop off and pick up Rose from school, take her to the local children’s club and to her beloved ballet lessons.
Letting himself into the house, he walked straight to their downstairs toilet. As he stood there relieving himself into the bowl, he could feel a headache coming on.
He did not usually suffer from headaches, but the throbbing in his head told him there he could not get away from this one.
After finishing, he walked upstairs.
Walking across the landing he passed their open bedroom door. Karen still lay there asleep, her vast bulk rising and falling under the quilt. He could hear her loud, rhythmic snoring.
He made his way to the door at the end of the narrow landing. There hung a picture of a cartoon pony on it, next to a rectangular name plate, with a little floral display surrounding the name ‘Rose’. He quietly pushed the door open.
The wallpaper
covering the walls of her bedroom possessed pictures of ballerinas in various dance poses. The floor completely covered with toys and dolls.
She lay on her side, her head almost swallowed up by the pillow, her long, blonde hair splayed out across it. He quietly made his way over to her, placing his hand on her bed-quilt, adorned with cartoon characters amid a winter landscape, when she turned suddenly with wide open eyes.
“Boo!” she said to him, followed by her soft giggles.
“Oh you, Princess,” he said, leaning to ruffle her hair.
“Did I scare you Daddy?”
He laughed, picked her up from the bed and holding her in his arms.
“You did Princess, you really did.”
As per their normal weekday routine, Rose made her way to the upstairs bathroom to get a wash and brush her teeth, whilst her Father made his way to the kitchen, to prepare her breakfast and packed lunch.
Standing in front of the large refrigerator, he opened it to get the milk for her cereal, stopping as his head throbbed and pounded.
Jesus, it hurts.
Opening a cupboard located high from his daughters reach, he rummaged through the various medications held within there.
It looks like a bloody chemist shop in there.
Karen possessed medication for nearly any illness you may fall victim to, or in Karen’s case, nine times out of ten, imagine you have fallen victim to.
After managing to locate a packet of painkillers amidst the cornucopia of other medicines, he took a glass from another cupboard, pouring a small amount water into it, swallowing it in one gulp, along with the tablets he placed in his mouth.
“Daddy,” Rose said, entering the kitchen and skipping across to the kitchen table, “I’m sorry, I can’t find my shoes.”
Climbing onto her chair at the end of the table, she started to drink her juice from the big beaker, also festooned with the same cartoon characters as her quilt.
She picked up her spoon, and stared into the bowl containing dry cereal.
“I will find them for you Princess, and sorry my love, Daddy is just getting the milk.”
“Silly Daddy forgot,” she said, laughing.
He joined her laughter, though his head still pounded. Taking a bottle of milk from the refrigerator, he made his way to the kitchen table.
His daughter looked up at him, curiously.
