Gone

25

At three fifty Janice Costello sat at traffic lights and stared grimly at the rain trickling down the windscreen. Everything was dark and dismal. She hated this time of year, and she hated sitting in traffic. Emily’s school was only a short distance from the house, and although Cory usually drove if he picked her up from school – any mention of the greenhouse effect generally sparked off in him a diatribe about the blatant erosion of his civil liberties – on Janice’s days they walked, carefully adding up the minutes and diligently reporting back to Emily’s teacher as part of the Walk to School Challenge.

But today they were driving and Emily was thrilled. She didn’t know it was because Janice had a plan. She’d cooked it up overnight, lying in the darkened bedroom, her heart pounding, while Cory slept dreamlessly next to her. She was going to drop Emily at a friend’s house, then visit Cory at the office. On the front seat of the Audi, a bag contained a flask of hot coffee and half a carrot cake sandwiched between two paper plates. One of the things that had come up in the therapy sessions was that sometimes Cory felt his wife wasn’t exactly a traditional wife. That although there was always dinner on the table and a cup of tea in bed in the mornings, although she worked and took care of Emily, he still missed the little touches. A cake cooling on a wire tray when he came in. A packed lunch for work with maybe a little billet doux tucked inside to surprise him at lunchtime.

‘Well, we’ll change that, won’t we, Emily?’ she said aloud.

‘Change what?’ Emily blinked at her. ‘Change what, Mummy?’

‘Mummy’s going to take some nice things for Daddy. Just to show she cares.’

The lights changed and Janice shot the Audi forward. The streets were wet and treacherous. She had to brake suddenly for a gang of children who trailed over a zebra crossing without looking left or right. As she came to a halt the bag on the seat flew off and landed on the floor.

‘Shit.’

‘That’s rude, Mummy.’

‘I know, sweetheart. I’m sorry.’ She groped on the floor, trying to grab the bag before the children crossed and the driver behind her leaned on the horn. Cory had chosen ‘champagne’ for the interior even though it was her car and she’d bought it with money she’d saved. Somehow he’d managed to have the last word on most things about it. She’d fancied a VW camper now she was working from home, but Cory said it was a shabby thing to have sitting on the driveway, so she gave in and got the Audi. And he was a killer when it came to keeping it clean. If Emily so much as crawled across the back seat in her school shoes he’d launch into a tirade about how the family had no respect for anything, and how Emily would grow up not understanding the value of money and become a leech on society. As Janice hooked up the bag and put it on the front seat a trickle of coffee dripped out of the bottom and made a long brown trail over the pale cream upholstery.

‘Shit shit shit.’

‘Mummy! I’ve told you. Don’t say that.’

‘I’ve got bloody coffee everywhere.’

‘Don’t swear.’

‘Daddy’ll be furious.’

‘No!’ Emily squealed. ‘Don’t tell him. I don’t want Daddy to get cross.’

Janice yanked the bag off the seat and put it the first place she could think of. Her lap. Hot coffee oozed out all over her white sweater and beige jeans. ‘Jesus.’ She tugged at her scalding trousers, trying to unstick them from her legs. The car behind sounded its horn as she’d known it would. Someone was yelling.

‘Shit, shit.’

‘You’re not supposed to say that word, Mummy!’

There was half a parking space at the end of a bay just past the crossing. She let the car go forward, pulled into the space and opened the window, hung the bag outside and let the coffee drain away. It was a big flask and it seemed to take for ever to drain. It was as if someone had turned on a tap. Another horn sounded. This time it was the car in the parking space ahead. It had its reversing lights on and apparently couldn’t go back far enough to pull out, although there was at least a metre behind it.

‘I don’t like that noise, Mummy.’ Emily put her hands on her ears. ‘I don’t like it.’

‘It’s all right, baby. Sssh.’

Janice slammed the Audi into reverse, and eased back a fraction to let the car in front come out. As she did someone banged hard on the back window, making her jump. Rap rap rap. Rap rap rap.

‘Mummy!’

‘Hey!’ a voice said. ‘You’re on the zebra crossing. There are kids out here.’

The car in front pulled into the traffic and Janice drove into the space. She cut the engine and dropped her head on to the steering-wheel. The woman who’d shouted at her was at the passenger window now, rapping hard on the glass. It was one of the mothers from school. She was furious. ‘Hey. You’ve got a big car so you’ve got the right to park it on a zebra crossing, have you?’

Janice’s hands were shaking. This was bloody awful. It was eight minutes to four, when Cory would either leave to meet Clare or she’d arrive to meet him. Janice couldn’t appear at the office covered with coffee – and how would she justify turning up without it? And Emily – poor little Emily – was crying her eyes out and not understanding any of this.

‘Look at me, you bitch. You can’t get away from this.’

Janice raised her face. The woman was very big and red-faced. She was bundled in a huge tweed coat and wore one of the Nepalese knitted hats that they sold in every street market, these days. She was surrounded by children in similar hats. ‘Bitch.’ She slammed the flat of her hand on the window. ‘Petrol-guzzling bitch.’

Janice took a few deep breaths and got out of the car. ‘I’m sorry.’ She came round to the side of the road. She set the dripping bag down on the pavement and stood in front of the woman. ‘I didn’t mean to go on the zebra crossing.’

‘You get a car like that I don’t suppose you can afford lessons to learn to drive it too.’

‘I said I’m sorry.’

‘It’s amazing. Whatever effort the school puts into getting us to walk home you just can’t legislate for the selfish pigs of the world.’

‘Look – I’ve said I’m sorry. What more do you want? Blood?’

‘It will be blood. It will be my kids’ blood with people like you around. If you don’t run them over in your Chelsea tractors you’ll suffocate them or drown them with all the shit you’re pumping into the atmosphere.’

Janice sighed. ‘Right. I give up. What do you want? A fist fight?’

The woman gave an incredulous smile. ‘Oh, that just about sums up your type. You’d do that in front of kids, wouldn’t you?’

‘Actually . . . yes, I would.’ She wrenched her jacket off, slammed it down on the Audi’s boot and headed for the pavement. The children scattered, banging into each other, half giggling, half panicking.

The woman backed into the doorway of the nearest shop. ‘Are you crazy?’

‘Yes. I’m crazy. I am crazy enough to kill you.’

‘I’ll call the police.’ She held her hands in front of her face and cowered in the doorway. ‘I will – I’ll call the police.’

Janice grabbed her by the coat lapel and put her face close to the woman’s. ‘Now, listen.’ Janice gave her a shake. ‘I know what it looks like. I know what you think I am, but I’m not. I didn’t choose that car. It was my fucking husband who chose it—’

‘Don’t swear in front of my—’

‘It was my fucking husband who wanted a fucking status symbol, even though I was stupid enough to pay for the damned thing. And for your information I walk my daughter to and from school every single day. I walk her home and that stupid beast of a car has got only two thousand miles on the sodding clock after a year and for your information I am having a very, very bad day. Now.’ She pushed the woman back against the wall. ‘I’ve apologized to you. Are you going to apologize to me?’

The woman stared at her.

‘Well?’

She glanced from left to right to see if her children were near enough to overhear. Her whole face was covered with tiny broken blood vessels as if she’d spent a lifetime in the chilly weather. Probably no central heating in her house. ‘For God’s sake,’ she muttered. ‘If it’s that important to you, I apologize. But you’ve got to let go of me now and let me get my children home.’

Janice held her eyes for a moment more. Then, with a dismissive shake of her head, she let her go. As she turned away, wiping her hands on her sweater, she glanced across the street. A man wearing, incongruously, a full-face Santa Claus mask and a zipped-up ski jacket was running across the road towards her. That’s early for Christmas, she had time to think, before the man leaped into the Audi, slammed the door and pulled away on to the open street.