Accidents Happen (26 page)

Sass walked to her car, wanting to cry. In the old days, they had never parted without a hug or a kiss.

In her heart, she knew now that there had been too much damage. It was never coming back.

The child sat frozen, looking at the new huge grey snake, knowing instinctively now that there was nothing Father could do.

The snakes were coming too quickly. Wrapping around their house.

They could not hide them any more from Mother.

A noise came from under the floorboards.

‘Get out!’ Father was yelling. Shrieking, almost.

The child looked through the floorboards to see Father running away from the basement wall, pointing outside.

The child turned, knowing there were only seconds to take something special.

The cuckoo clock that Aunt Nelly had brought back from Austria?

The rocking horse?

A book?

‘GET OUT NOW!’ Dad yelled.

And then the child knew.

The little snowdome sat on a shelf, the glitter snow inside settled calmly at the foot of the plastic mountain.

The child grabbed it and ran as fast as possible from the snakes, the motion sending up a cloud of glitter above the plastic snow.

By the time it settled on the ground, the child knew that something bad was going to happen.

Something that would change everything for ever.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

It was Tuesday, 6 p.m. Cricket practice was over, and Jack arrived back at Hubert Street with a lot on his mind.

Gabe wasn’t helping.

‘Go
on
, J,’ Gabe hissed, sitting on his bike. ‘Ask her now! I’ll wait.’

Jack typed in the combination to the sidegate lock and opened it.

‘No. Later,’ he scowled, pushing his bike through to the side of the house. Gabe didn’t understand. He didn’t know what it was like to have a mum like his. Gabe’s mum let him do anything he wanted.

‘Aw,’ Gabe said, frustrated. ‘But before we go to the park tonight, yeah?’

Jack nodded, even though he knew that might be a lie.

‘Bring the ball, J, yeah?’

‘OK. Come and get me after tea.’

Jack shut the gate behind him and checked it was locked again, as Mum had taught him, and leaned his bike on the wall. He looked through the kitchen window.

She was walking around, licking a spoon.

His stomach cramped at the thought of asking her.

She turned and saw him.

She waved – and
smiled
.

Jack stared, bewildered at the sight. His mum was
smiling
. Not a fake version of Gabe’s mum’s, but her own. A smile that he recognized from long ago in a way he didn’t understand. It lit up her eyes and made them shiny, and changed her face. It made her look pretty, and younger. A lot younger than Gabe’s mum.

Jack waved back hesitantly. Why was she doing that?

Curious, he walked to fetch his ball from the trampoline, and stopped. It wasn’t there.

He turned, and surveyed the garden. There weren’t many places it could be. There wasn’t much here. Just a lawn that looked as if it had been laid like a carpet, its edges meeting the fence on three sides. Granddad cut it sometimes, and was going to teach Jack to do it soon. There was a patio without any seats, a shed, the magnolia tree and a giant trampoline. Mum had bought one that was too big, as if she were trying to fill up the garden rather than look at it.

Jack crawled under the trampoline, thinking. Maybe if Mum was in a good mood, now would be the time to ask her.

He tried it out in his head: ‘Mum? You know Gabe’s sleepover for his birthday on Saturday? It’s outside in the garden on the trampoline. Can I go?’

He imagined that cheerful expression he’d just seen disappearing, and the worry wrinkles coming back across Mum’s face. Jack sighed. The thing was, he wasn’t completely sure he even wanted to go to Gabe’s sleepover.

His mind flew to the three Year Eight boys who’d befriended him, Gabe and Damon on Facebook. At first it had been exciting. Damon said the boys were cool. His brother Robbie knew them at secondary school, and one lived on Gabe’s road. But then the Year Eight boys read about Gabe’s sleepover, and said they’d come after Gabe’s mum was asleep, and bring cider and cigarettes and it would be a laugh.

Jack’s stomach spasmed again.

He wanted to tell Mum. Get her to talk to Gabe’s mum and make sure the sleepover was all safe, so he could not worry about it. How could he, though?

He stood back up again. The ball wasn’t here. His eye wandered to the shed.

‘Hi,’ he said, wandering in the back door.

She looked up. ‘Hi! How was cricket practice?’

He shrugged. ‘Good, thanks.’

A smell took him by surprise. Rich and meaty with spices; his taste buds popped. It smelled like the cooking at Nana’s house, but spicy.

‘What are you making?’ he asked, wandering to the cooker. A large red pot he recognized from a high-up cupboard sat inside the oven.

‘I am making lamb tagine,’ his mum said. ‘Well, trying to. I used to make it for Dad. It’s an experiment, though. I’m a bit out of practice. It might be rubbish.’

Jack gawped. The kitchen table was set, too. For the two of them. With knives and forks and glasses, and she’d lit a candle in the middle, even though it wasn’t dark outside.

He leaned against the worktop, intrigued. The trays they used to eat in front of the telly remained stacked in their normal place.

He saw his mum pick up her mobile, look at the screen, then put it back down by the cooker.

‘Who was that?’ he said. Not many people rang his mum.

‘No one. I thought I might have a message. Do you want to help?’ she said. ‘Dad always used to do the couscous for me. It was all he could do, mind you.’

Jack ears pricked up. Not only had she smiled in a new way, she was talking about Dad in a brand-new way that he hadn’t heard before, either. Not in the sad way that made him feel she was dragging him under a murky river.

She pulled out a packet and handed it to him. Her face was more of a normal colour today, too. Like pale cake dough that was starting to cook. Jack watched her, fascinated. What was happening to her?

It was almost as if she was . . . He stopped himself, knowing it was too much to hope.

‘You need to put that in a bowl, then pour on the boiling water. Then, when it’s soaked in, rub some olive oil in – then fluff it up.’ She winked. ‘I’m sure you’ll do it better than your dad. You’ve got my hands.’ Kate reached out a hand, and picked up his fingers, which were slim like hers. ‘Dad had great big fingers, like Granddad. You know, I used to call him Mr Sausage Fingers.’

Jack regarded her, astonished. ‘Mr Sausage Fingers!’

She nodded. ‘And you could put in those almonds in the packet over there, and chop that mint for it, too.’

‘What did he call you?’

Kate stopped, searching her thoughts. Then she smiled. ‘You know what? He called me Mrs Mad.’

Jack opened his mouth and howled with laughter. ‘Mr Sausage Fingers and Mrs Mad?’

Kate threw back her head and joined in.

The kitchen was filled with the explosion of his and Mum’s laughter. It flew into the spaces round the vacant chairs at the too-big table and the half-empty cupboards on either side of the fireplace and the shelves of dusty rows of Mum and Dad’s CDs that no one ever played. It flew past the photo on the wall that Dad took of him waving at an aeroplane when he was five. Dad had lain on the ground to take it, so that Jack’s arms looked as long as a giant’s, flung up into a china-blue sky where a tiny yellow plane sailed by.

Then the laughter finished its circuit and came to an abrupt stop.

Nothing was left in the room but the echo of it.

Mum picked up her phone again and looked at it. Then she dropped her head and carried on washing a bowl in the sink.

A new much more painful cramp came out of nowhere and stabbed Jack hard in the stomach. He dropped a hand to cover it. ‘OK. I’ll do it in a minute. Can I have the key to the shed first, please? I can’t find my ball.’

‘Wasn’t it on the trampoline?’ Kate asked more quietly than before, reaching up and taking the key.

‘Thanks,’ he said, walking out. He unlocked the shed, and went inside. It smelt of cut grass and chemicals. Things from their old house in London were stacked on the shelves, things that were never used. Gardening equipment. His old inflatable paddling pool that he couldn’t remember using but had a photo of with him in when he was two. A giant suitcase he’d never seen Mum use. Dad’s skis.

Jack pushed a spade away and sat on a box, running one hand over the metal catches of the skis, the other on his stomach, thinking about what had just happened in the kitchen. Those men in London had been put in prison for stealing Dad and stealing Dad’s car, but they’d stolen lots of other things from Mum, and from him, too. Things that were difficult to put in boxes and measure.

A half smile broke onto his face at Mum’s joke about Dad. Mr Sausage Fingers and Mrs Mad. That was funny.

She had
really laughed
.

Jack measured his feet against the bindings. Granddad had said Dad had been planning to take him skiing when he was six, and that he could have Dad’s skis when he was older, so it would be like he was skiing with Dad after all. As usual, his foot sat in the middle, with space at both ends. Dad had had big feet. He knew that because he tried on his shoes sometimes, wondering if his toes would ever reach the end.

It was while he was sitting there that Jack’s eye was drawn to a book sitting underneath the table.

‘
Beat the Odds and Change your Life
by Jago Martin’

Jack picked it up. What was this?

The cover fell open. ‘To Kate. What are the chances? Jago Martin,’ it said inside.

His eyes flicked back to the name. Who was Jago Martin? How did she know the man who wrote this book?

He started to flick through. This was the mad stuff that Mum talked about. Numbers. Things that might happen to you. He glanced through the aeroplane figures, then the traffic figures. Did she hide this in the shed and come and read it in private?

Jack looked at the book. He didn’t want Mum to talk about these weird numbers any more. He wanted her to laugh more, just like she had in the kitchen.

Carefully, he hid the book under his jumper and stood up. Maybe she’d just think it had got lost. Locking the shed behind him, he walked through the kitchen, realizing to his surprise that there was music playing. A CD cover lay beside the dusty old CD player in the corner, and Mum was swaying a little as she stirred a pot.

Jack did a double take to check he was right. He was. Mum was
dancing
.

‘Five minutes till tea, Jack,’ she said.

‘OK,’ he replied, astonished, running off upstairs to get rid of the book under his mattress.

She was playing music. Smiling and dancing.

He
couldn’t
ask her about Gabe’s sleepover. Not today. He didn’t want to spoil it.

He had seen a peek of his old mum through the glass amber eyes and he didn’t want to scare her away.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

An hour later, Kate walked around the kitchen, clearing plates and checking the clock.

Seven o’clock, and still no text from Jago.

Where was he?

She had actually enjoyed today, and wanted it to continue. Sitting at the table with Jack to eat had been a revelation. For the first time that she could remember, they’d both had second helpings. They talked about his cricket practice, and Jack had mentioned a film he wanted to see, which had given her an idea.

She blew out the candle.

And now, if only Jago would text, this might be the closest she’d had to a normal day in a very long time. This idea of having something to look forward to again was becoming addictive.

She put her and Jack’s dirty dinner plates into the dishwasher. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Jago all week, and the crazy night in Chumsley Norton. The episode came back to her in waves. Disbelief at what he had done, how she had reacted, and then a guilty thrill at what had happened afterwards. Yet now it looked as if he wasn’t going to text her after all. She wiped her hands. She had a bloody good mind to go to the shed and read his book.

That was funny, she considered, hesitating by the recycling bin. Jago hadn’t mentioned his lost bag, and she’d completely forgotten to tell him the waitress had found it.

Wrapped in thought, Kate threw the cardboard packet from the couscous into the kitchen recycling box, on top of an empty tin of tomatoes, and porridge and nut packets they’d used for the flapjacks and brownies, noting with surprise that the box was already full. She lifted it and felt its weight. That was unusual. They normally only half filled one box a week. She carried it out of the kitchen, vaguely aware of a new strength in her muscles, as if someone had changed her batteries.

Her stomach gurgled at the presence of paprika and turmeric. The food had been so much richer than they usually ate. In fact, Kate thought, opening the front door, she really should have kept Jack at home longer to digest his food before . . .

Pow!

The number came out of nowhere. The one she had every time Jack went to the park with Gabe and Damon.

• A third of sexual crimes are committed against children under 16.

‘Shit,’ Kate murmured, slamming the door and dropping the recycling box in the hall. Where the hell had that come from? She stood against the wall. There had been so few numbers today. Only three major ones instead of the usual ten or twelve.

‘Don’t think about it,’ Kate said to herself. She sat down on the stairs. ‘It’s nonsense. An average of what has happened doesn’t guarantee it
will
or
won’t
happen to me or Jack. And if you don’t give him some independence, he’ll never grow up.’

She forced herself to her feet, opened the door and . . .