Accidents Happen A Novel Page 0,1

half of her bottom lip was permanently tucked under the top one, kept firmly in place by her teeth; her face set in a grimace that suggested she was concentrating hard on something private.

‘It was nice to see Gabe today,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you ask him round soon?’

Jack kept his eyes on his game. After what she’d done to their house this week, he’d never be able to ask anyone around again.

‘Maybe.’

‘Oh . . . there it is . . . Can you see?’

He leaned over and looked out of the passenger side of the car. There was a flashing blue light around the bend to the left.

‘Police,’ he said, straining forward. ‘And . . . a fire engine.’

‘Really?’

Her voice sounded like splintering glass. He sighed quietly and put down his game.

‘Oh, Mum . . . I’ve got something really good to tell you.’

‘Uhuh?’

‘Next term, Mr Dixon wants me to play reserve for this junior team he runs after school.’

‘Does he?’ She glanced at him. ‘That’s brilliant, Jack . . .’

‘But I’ll have to train on Wednesdays after school, as well, so perhaps I can go to . . .’

In the mirror, he saw her eyes dart wildly back and forward between the blue light and the lorry now crossing lanes to sit behind them again.

His stomach was starting to feel as if it were strung tightly across the middle, like when he tuned the electric guitar Aunt Sass had bought him for Christmas too high to see what would happen.

‘MUM?’

Her eyes darted to him, bewildered.

‘WHAT?’

‘Why don’t you move into the fast lane? Lorries aren’t allowed in there.’

And she’d be further away from the burned-out car that was currently coming into view around the bend on the hard shoulder.

His mother stared at him for a second. Finally, she focused back. Then the clothes-peg smile returned.

‘Good idea, Captain,’ she said brightly. ‘But we’re fine here. Don’t worry about it, Jack.’

He saw her force her eyes to crinkle at the sides, just like Gabe’s mum’s did. Except Gabe’s mum’s eyes were warm and blue, set in furrows of laughter lines and friendly freckles. Jack’s mum’s eyes were still, like amber-coloured glass; they sat in skin as white and smooth as Nana’s china, smudged underneath by dark shadows.

He knew his mum’s extra-crinkly smile was supposed to reassure him that there was nothing to worry about. He was only ten and three-quarter years old, it said. She was the grown-up. She was in charge, and everything was fine.

Jack rubbed his stomach, and watched the lorry in the side mirror.

Oh God. She was so late. She couldn’t miss this appointment. The motorway traffic had concertinaed onto the A40 and now into the city and jammed that up too.

Kate turned off the packed main road and sped through the back streets of east Oxford, taking routes the tourists wouldn’t know. Bouncing over speed bumps, she dodged around shoals of cyclists and badly parked rental vans evacuating ramshackle student houses for the summer. Where there was only room for one vehicle down streets so narrow that cars had parked on the pavement, she forced her way through, waving with a smile at on-coming queues of drivers, ignoring their mouthed insults.

‘They’re here!’ Jack shouted, as she made the last turn into the welcoming width of Hubert Street.

Damn. He was right.

Richard’s black 4x4 was parked in its usual gentlemanly way outside her house, leaving the gravelled driveway free for her. A box of pink tissues on the dashboard announced Helen’s presence. Of course they were here. They would have been here on the dot of five. Desperate to get their hands on him.

‘So they are,’ she said, turning into the drive and braking abruptly in front of the side gate. She pulled on the handbrake harder than she meant to. ‘Right – run. I’m late.’

They spilled out of the car, hands full of plastic bags of Jack’s school clothes, the empty wrappers of post-football snacks and his homework folder for the weekend.

‘Hi!’ Jack called out, waving. Helen was mouthing ‘Hello’ from between Kate’s sitting room curtains, her indented two front teeth giving her a strangely girlish smile for a woman in her sixties.

Kate growled inwardly. Why hadn’t they waited in their car? That house key was for when they were looking after Jack. Not for letting themselves in when she was late. Mentally, she tried to visualize what the house had looked like when she left this morning. What state was the bathroom in? Had she tidied away