Day of the Accident

by Nuala Ellwood

  My heart sank as I looked up at her. I was useless at crafting, always had been. Unlike the other mums at the school who could knock up a knitted jumper or a batch of muffins effortlessly, I was seriously lacking on the domestic skills front.

  ‘You can’t put two feathers next to each other, Mummy, or it won’t look right. Sophie’s mum showed us how to do it.’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ I snapped, slamming the feathers on to the table. ‘Well why don’t you ask Sophie’s bloody mum to do it.’

  And then, right on cue, Sean had walked in. Home from work early for once. I remember the look he gave me, as if to say, Honestly, Maggie, arguing with a ten-year-old?

  ‘Do you want me to help, Elspeth?’ he said, putting his briefcase down and loosening his tie. ‘I’m sure I’ll be able to work it out. Even after a full day at the office and a six a.m. start.’

  He’d addressed this last point to me.

  I decided not to retaliate. We’d done nothing but argue for months and I couldn’t face another row.

  ‘Right, what have we got here then?’ he said, settling in next to Elspeth.

  ‘It’s a dream catcher,’ she replied, not looking up from the piece of twisted willow that she was busy threading feathers round. ‘And it has to be exactly like the one in this book.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Sean, picking up the book that Elspeth had propped up in front of her. ‘Native American Crafting. Sounds great.’

  I busied myself preparing dinner, listening as Elspeth explained the intricacies of weaving to Sean who, despite his frostiness with me, was at least spending time with Elspeth. He’d been doing a lot of late nights at the office recently, sometimes going days without seeing her. But I couldn’t really complain.

  He never said it but I knew it irked him that I still hadn’t gone back to work. Though he knew that what I’d been through when I was younger had damaged me and he knew that I just wanted to be there for Elspeth, to give her the childhood I hadn’t had. He also knew how clingy Elspeth was. We used to call her the little shadow because that’s what she was like, particularly with me. Wherever I went, she would go too. When she was very small she wouldn’t let me out of her sight. It wasn’t until she was about seven that I was finally able to go to the loo on my own. We thought school would make her more independent but the moment she arrived home she would come and sit by my side and cuddle into me. When I dropped her off at the school gates she would ask what I was going to be doing that day. ‘You won’t be late to collect me, will you, Mummy? Promise me you’ll be there?’ So the thought of returning to work, particularly to the soulless reception jobs, which were all I was qualified for, just seemed out of the question. But there was another reason now, one I never told anyone, one I barely even admitted to myself, and that was if I did go back there would be no time to work on the novel. Writing that book had become my lifeline, my sanity, though I made sure I worked on it in secret when Sean was out. Whenever he was home I would busy myself with Elspeth, take her on nature walks, sit with her while she did her crafting, made it look like she was a full-time occupation. And Sean believed the lie.

  I think back to that evening. I had stood chopping carrots at the kitchen counter while Elspeth and Sean chatted about feathers and wire. But after that there’s nothing, just a deep sense that I was waiting for something – or was it someone? I don’t know because the next thing I remember is waking up in hospital with Dr Elms repeating my name.

  14

  Tuesday 1 August

  I am in bed in a strange room. As my eyes begin to focus I see a dark wooden wardrobe, a kitchen counter, a white kettle, and I start to panic. This is real. My little girl is gone and I am trapped here.

  Instinctively I put my hand out to reach for my phone to call Sean, forgetting that I don’t have one any more. I need to find him. Only he can help me make sense of all this. Then I remember Claire saying how she had tried to call him and his number had been disconnected. So even if I had a phone I still wouldn’t be able to contact him.

  ‘Sean,’ I cry, slamming my fists down on the stiff bedcovers. ‘Where are you?’

  I see a piece of paper on the other side of the bed. It’s the list that I made last night. I reach over and hold it in my hands. I turn the paper over and see the names I’d written down, the friends and acquaintances who may know where Sean is. But as I read through my jumbled handwriting I realize that the chances of Sean being with any of these people are remarkably slim. The truth is, Sean and I were quite private people. Like me, he was an only child. He never knew his dad and his mum had died from breast cancer just before we met. We used to say we were two lost orphans who had found each other. We had friends, people from the village, parents from the school, but we kept them at a distance. We only needed each other.

  I turn over in the bed and as a sliver of golden light trickles through the gap in the curtains I think back to the day I met him.

  I was thirty-one years old and working as a receptionist for an asset management company in London, just by Waterloo Station. My days were spent sitting behind a giant glass desk, doling out visitor passes to grey-faced suits, booking meeting rooms and making coffee. It was soul-destroying but it paid reasonably well and for someone like me, who had thrown any chance of a decent career away over a decade earlier, it was a solid job.

  It was mid-afternoon and I was sitting behind the reception desk ignoring the rolling news on the TV screen that the boss insisted should be on at all times and reading Night and Day by Virginia Woolf. Growing up in Rodmell, Woolf had been a constant presence, a relic whose death had cast a shadow over the village, and because of that I’d avoided reading any of her work. I imagined the novels would be rather snobbish, full of dull descriptions of high tea and London society, but after I was sent away I found a big pile of them in the library. There wasn’t much choice. It was either Woolf or a stack of romance novels, so I picked up Mrs Dalloway and when I started to read I realized how wrong my assumptions about Woolf had been. There was something in her voice that made it feel like she was speaking directly to me. The writer who I’d thought of as dusty and as irrelevant as a museum relic slowly became my confidante. After that, whenever I was feeling tense or anxious I would pick up one of her books and the darkness would recede. The day I met Sean was one of those days.

  I heard someone clear their throat. I quickly hid the book under a file then looked up and saw a man smiling at me.

  ‘Sorry to disturb,’ he said, a faint trace of Irish in his accent. ‘My name’s Sean Allan. I’m here for an interview with Stewart Jacob.’

  He smiled warmly and I felt myself begin to blush. He had the most captivating blue eyes with thick, dark lashes. The navy-blue pin-stripe suit he was wearing was beautifully tailored and his light-brown hair was cut in an Edwardian style, long on the top and short at the sides. I found myself getting flustered as I arranged a visitor badge for him and put in the call to Stewart Jacob’s office to let them know he’d arrived. I hadn’t had this reaction to a man for a long time, not since Ben. In fact, I hadn’t even looked at a man properly. Never let myself.

  ‘If you’d like to take a seat, Stewart will be with you in a moment,’ I said, my face reddening under his gaze.

  ‘If it’s all right with you I’ll just stand here,’ he said, adjusting his tie. ‘I’ve been sitting on the tube for an age. Need to stretch my back.’

  He laughed and I smiled at him awkwardly.

  ‘What are you reading?’ he said after a moment of silence.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘When I came in you were reading a book,’ he said. ‘Just wondered what it was. I’m always after a good recommendation.’

  ‘Oh, that,’ I said, taking the book from under the file. ‘It’s er … just a Virginia Woolf novel.’

  I held the book up so he could see. He nodded his head.

  ‘Virginia Woolf? Don’t think I’ve read any of hers. Is it any good?’

  ‘I’m not sure yet,’ I said, flicking t
hrough the pages nervously. ‘I’ve only just started it.’

  ‘What’s it about?’

  ‘Erm, well, it’s –’

  But before I could tell him, Stewart Jacob strode into the reception area. He was a broad, imposing man, with steel-grey eyes and a hawkish expression. He dressed impeccably in expensive suits and silk ties. I always became tongue-tied in his presence. There was something about the way he looked at me, as though he was waiting for me to trip up. But thankfully, that day, he completely ignored me and went towards Sean, his hand outstretched.

  ‘You must be Sean Allan,’ he said, a rare smile appearing on his face. ‘Stewart Jacob. Good to meet you. Do come through.’

  He turned on his heels. Sean followed. And as he passed my desk he turned to me with a smile that looked halfway excited, halfway terrified, and crossed his fingers.

  ‘Good luck,’ I mouthed.

  ‘Thank you,’ he mouthed back.

  Then he was gone and I spent the rest of the afternoon sitting at my desk, casting furtive glances towards the door that led to Stewart Jacob’s office. At 5 p.m. I took the huge sack of post down to the mailroom to be franked. When I came back I saw Sean’s visitor badge on the desk. I’d missed him. I felt a strange, empty feeling in the pit of my stomach as I closed down the computer and put my coat on. I couldn’t stop thinking about Sean; I’d liked the way he’d asked about my book, the way he’d smiled nervously and crossed his fingers. I’d liked the fact that, for just a few moments, I’d stopped being invisible.

  As I made my way out I was mentally preparing myself for another night sitting on the sofa with a mug of tea and a book when I saw him standing by the lifts.

  ‘Hi,’ I said as I approached him, trying to appear nonchalant although inside my stomach was doing somersaults.

  ‘Hello again,’ he said, smiling. ‘Sorry, I didn’t catch your name before.’

  ‘It’s Maggie.’

  ‘Maggie,’ he said, looking at me so intently I felt exposed.

  ‘So how did the interview go?’ I said, trying to draw the attention away from me.

  ‘Really well,’ he said. ‘I am, as of ten minutes ago, the new Marketing Manager for Jacob & Stanley.’

  ‘That’s wonderful news,’ I said. ‘Congratulations.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Though to be honest it was a tough interview. Old man Jacob doesn’t take any prisoners.’

  The lift doors opened then and as we stepped inside he turned to me.

  ‘Where are you headed?’

  ‘Now? Just home I guess. Why?’

  ‘Well,’ he said, his eyes twinkling, ‘I’ve just landed the job of my dreams and met this intriguing woman all in the space of an afternoon and I was wondering if she’d fancy joining me for a celebratory drink.’

  I could feel myself blushing. Nobody had ever called me intriguing before. I didn’t know what to say.

  ‘So, are you up for it?’ he said as the lift doors opened and we stepped outside. ‘I know this great pub just behind Waterloo.’

  ‘That would be lovely,’ I said, and as we made our way towards the pub I knew deep down inside me that this beautiful man with eyes the colour of the night sky was going to become a big part of my life.

  How could it have gone so wrong? How could Sean have changed so much? I think back over the last few years, the late nights at the office, the constant checking of his phone, the almost involuntary turn of his cheek if I tried to kiss him. Our marriage had been in trouble for years but as usual I ignored it. I became absorbed in writing the novel, tried to pretend that the growing chasm between us would somehow rectify itself, but it just got worse.

  As I lie here I try to remember the good times, try to focus on that image of us walking out of the offices of Jacob & Stanley towards our future, but it’s replaced with a flash of memory. I’m pulling into the car park outside the Plough Inn. As I slow the car down, Elspeth asks why we’re there. I turn round in my seat to answer and then everything goes blank.

  I take the heel of my hand and hit the side of my head once, twice, three times, as though I can somehow dislodge the memory and the answers will come down like the winnings from a slot machine. But there is nothing, just a black void. What were we doing that night? Where were we going?

  As I try to order my thoughts I’m startled by a loud knock at the door.

  I lie there not daring to move, my body cold with fear. I don’t feel safe in this place. I think back to the ICU, the security, the nurses there for me twenty-four-seven. What if it’s Hutchinson? I pull the covers up to my face. If I stay quiet, maybe whoever it is will go away.

  But there’s another knock, harder this time.

  ‘Maggie,’ a voice calls through the door. ‘Are you there, love?’

  Relief floods through me as I recognize Amanda’s raspy voice.

  I get out of the bed and make my way across the bedroom. My back has seized up after a night on a sagging mattress and I wince as I undo the latch and open the door.

  ‘Morning,’ says Amanda. ‘Sorry to wake you.’

  She has a young woman with her who stands looking at me quizzically. She has short, spiky hair, dark at the roots, bleached blonde at the tips, and elaborate piercings in her nose and lower lip. In her oversized baseball sweater and long shorts she looks like a punky American high-school student.

  ‘Maggie, this is Sonia, your designated carer,’ she says, squeezing the young girl’s arm. ‘May we come in?’

  ‘Er, yes,’ I say, gesturing to the room. ‘Please do. Sorry I’m not dressed. I didn’t realize the time. I must have overslept.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ says Amanda as they come inside. ‘I’m just glad to hear you got a good night’s sleep. Sometimes it can be difficult when you transition from hospital to –’

  She’s about to say ‘home’ but stops herself.

  Sonia gives a half-smile as Amanda sets about opening the curtains and making the bed.

  ‘Nice to meet you, Maggie,’ she says. ‘Shall I make us a cup of tea? I don’t know about you but I’m parched.’

  Her accent is Scottish and it hurtles me back to childhood. My parents were from Edinburgh but they moved down south before I was born when my dad got a job at an insurance firm in the City. From then on my mother set about transforming herself from working-class Scottish girl to Home Counties clone. By the time I came along the transformation was complete but her accent would creep in from time to time, if she was excited or upset, and she would blush with the shame. I could never understand why she wanted to hide her true self. As far as I was concerned her Scottish accent was what made her special, it was genuine and warm. Yet my mother spent her entire adult life trying to be the exact opposite.

  ‘Maggie, do sit down,’ says Amanda, pulling out a wooden stool from beneath the kitchen counter. ‘You look a bit unsteady there.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ I say. ‘I was just …’

  ‘Do you need your inhaler?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Right, well, let’s get your medication sorted first and then we can chat. Sonia, you’ve got Maggie’s pills, haven’t you? Why don’t you deal with that and I’ll fix the tea.’

  I sit on the stool while Sonia goes to her rucksack and takes out a box of pills and a bottle of mineral water.

  ‘Here you are, Maggie,’ she says, popping two oblong tablets out of the foil wrapper and handing them to me.

  I swallow them down with a long sip of water.

  ‘That’s great,’ says Sonia, smiling, as she takes the bottle from me and puts it on the counter.

  ‘Here,’ says Amanda, handing me a mug of tea.

  I take the warm mug and hold it in my hands. The tea smells sour.

  ‘Okay,’ says Amanda, sitting on the stool opposite me. ‘Now, Maggie, I realize you’ve got loads to deal with right now, and I don’t want to add to the pressure, but we need to discuss where you stand in terms of benefits.’

  Behind me I hear Sonia sip he
r tea.

  ‘The reason being,’ continues Amanda, ‘that the damned things take such a long time to come through so we need to act fast.’

  I watch as she brings out a handful of leaflets from her bag. The letters DWP are stamped in red at the top of them: Department for Work and Pensions.

  ‘So, we’ve been addressing your situation,’ says Amanda, handing me one of the leaflets. ‘And, because of your health issues, you are entitled to what is known as Universal Credit.’

  I look down at the leaflet. There’s a line drawing of a man in a wheelchair with a grimace on his face.

  ‘You will also qualify for Housing Benefit and, subject to a health assessment in six weeks’ time, Job Seeker’s Allowance.’

  I look up at Amanda. Doesn’t she understand? None of this matters.

  ‘Now if we break it all down,’ she says, her voice a drawl, ‘you’ll be entitled to Housing Benefit …’

  I can’t focus on what she is saying. My head is full of Elspeth. I see her terrified little face, her fists pounding on the car window. I hear her screaming for me to help, begging me to get her out.

  ‘Enough,’ I cry, my hands shaking so much I almost drop the tea.

  Amanda stops speaking and looks up at me, startled.

  ‘I don’t care about the money,’ I say. ‘What I need is to find out how this happened, why my little girl was locked in that car, where my husband is. Can you please help me find him?’

  Sonia grabs my cup of tea before it falls to the floor.

  ‘Maggie, please,’ says Amanda, putting her arms out towards me. ‘You mustn’t upset yourself. As I said, we are here to help.’

  ‘Here to help?’ I yell. ‘Can you help me bring my daughter back? You know she drowned, trapped in a car seat.’ I start sobbing again, unable to help myself. ‘I never had a chance to say goodbye to her. My husband, he buried her, and now they can’t find him. I can’t …’