I was reading an article the other day that listed the most British things. It contained the usual items, like black cabs and red phone boxes. There was the Royal Family, Big Ben, roast dinners, rain, sarcasm, the BBC, Churchill, cricket, fish and chips, flat beer, country pubs, and a whole bunch of other things. What articles like that always miss, however, is something with which almost any Brit can identify. The thing that every single living person born on these Isles knows only too well. It’s ingrained into our souls from birth. As much a part of our day-to-day lives as pounds and pence, or wondering how Piers Morgan has a career.
What that article missed was the sheer, unrelenting hell we go through when using public transport to travel a relatively short distance.
Today, for instance, my first train was late. According to the shifty-sounding station announcer, heat had made the rails buckle. From there, I missed my connection onto a second train and had to get the later one. By that point, the bus I was supposed to be catching at the other end had already gone. The next bus was cancelled for an unspecified reason, so I had to take two more buses to finally finish on another bus, operated by a different company, with separate pricing, and which only takes cash and, naturally, offers no change. After almost losing the will to live on at least three occasions, here I am, a little over one hundred miles from where I started, eight-and-a-bit hours later.
Home.
Well, sort of home.
As the final bus pulls away with a guff of noxious exhaust fumes, I glance up to where the clock atop the building reads 4.05 p.m. The sandblasted building was a library when I was a kid – but now there are wooden boards across the windows and a large sign that says something about a planning application.
There are stars in my eyes as I blink away from the blue sky and take a moment to figure out where I am. This whole area is familiar and yet… not. It’s all that little bit tattier than when I was last here. Everything from the pavement to the road to the surrounding houses seems to be covered in a grainy dusting of sand or dirt. The hedge a little up the road is so overgrown that it’s enveloped more than half the path. The pub on the other side of the street was once teeming with people, a hub for old men, with spiralling smoke pouring from the door each time it opened. As with the library, the windows are now boarded up, each of them tagged with spray-painted, joined-up scrawl.
The wheels on my suitcase catch in the cracked pavement tile. As I wrestle it free, I narrowly avoid bumbling into a patch of nettles that have swarmed over and around a nearby wall.
It’s home but it’s not. It’s like I’m in an alternate universe; this one grimmer and grimier.
It’s only now I’m finally off the succession of buses that I realise how hot it is out of the shade. In my mind, when I was growing up, Elwood had long summers of endless sun. My friends and I were rarely inside during the holidays and I’m back there again now, with the heat prickling my arms and legs.
I pluck the bottle from my bag and have a sip as I take in the poster stuck to a lamp post that’s advertising the Elwood Summer Fete on Saturday. It’s all standard stuff – I guess bouncy castles and face-painting never go out of fashion – and yet there’s a sense that these sorts of thing were once so personal to me. An inflated moment of ego in which I’m surprised this could continue while I was away.
After the drink, I continue along the street, avoiding the bloated hedge, and then cross the road before I find myself close to George Park. It was long after I’d left Elwood that I realised the park had been named after the King, and not some random local named George. I’m almost past that when the back of my hand starts to itch. I’m already scratching when I realise it’s because I’m so close to the house in which I grew up. This route was on my walk home from school and the corner at the edge of the park was where my friends would go one way and I’d go another.
There are children playing on the far side of the park, dots in the distance, though their excited shouts carry on the breeze.
I shouldn’t have come.
I thought I would be fine, but this place is too much.
A glance back to the stop only reveals what I already knew – that the bus has gone. It’s almost two hours until the next one, if it even arrives, so what am I to do? I could stay. Maybe I should stay. I have things to do.
I’m brought back to the present as there’s a squeal of tyres from beyond the hedge that rings this edge of the park. It’s only a few steps to the corner and I turn to see cars parked along both sides of the road. That’s another thing that’s changed. Not everyone had a car back then, let alone two or three to a house. I could cross this road at any point, but now the only gap appears to be here on the corner.
I almost look away.
Almost.
In between the parked vehicles, stopped in the centre of the road at the turn into Beverly Close, is a car. It’s frozen in time and then, in the moment it takes me to blink, there’s another squeal and it surges away, disappearing around the corner and out of sight.
The thought that ‘everyone’s always in a rush nowadays’ has already gone through me when I realise how old it makes me feel. Nowadays. As if there was a time when people were happily late and nobody ever hurried.
I almost reach for my bottle again, but then I start to walk towards the junction instead. The wheels of my case click-clack across the pavement tiles and it feels like I’m being drawn there. As if a secret part of my brain knows something, even though the rest of me hasn’t caught up.
When I get to the junction, I realise the cars aren’t parked as tightly as it appeared. Faded double-yellow lines are painted at the intersection and there’s a large gap in between the park itself and the Beverly Close sign. There’s a verge separating the two, clumped with overgrown grass and mangled plants and bushes that have grown into one another. The area is littered with crisp packets and chocolate wrappers, as well as something that’s definitely out of place.
I see the wheel first.
It’s almost swallowed by the crown of swaying grass, but light catches one of the bent spokes and, as I take a few steps closer, I realise the wheel is attached to an upturned bicycle. The rear wheel is crumpled in on itself, almost folded in half. The entire back half of the bike has creased in two and the front wheel is detached, embedded in the encompassing branches of a bush.
It’s past the bike, at the bottom of the gully, where the horror lies. I want to look away but can’t stop staring at the contorted shape of the boy. One of his shoes has somehow flown off and is upside down in a nettle patch. I find myself focusing on that because everything else is too awful to comprehend.
It’s hard not to gag at the unnatural kink in the boy’s shattered arm – and then, underneath, the grass is no longer the same shade as the surrounding green. Instead, it’s drenched a crimson red as, from somewhere in the distance, the drifting sound of playing children continues to hang in the air.
I don’t actually remember calling 999. There’s a blank, as if I’m working on some sort of autopilot. The next thing I know, there are sirens in the distance. I’m at the bottom of the ditch, standing over the boy, phone in my hand, though there’s a gap in me getting here.
‘Is he…?’
There’s a woman at the top of the verge, with an apron tied around her waist. I turn between her and the boy, unsure what to do. I did a first-aid course for my job years ago, but my head is empty. I don’t want to make things worse by moving him, or doing something else damaging.
‘He’s breathing,’ I reply, though that’s more or less all I can say. I look back to the boy where his chest is rising ever so slowly. There are smudges of dirt and blood across his face and his T-shirt is ripped across the middle.
More people appear at the crest of the gully, presumably coming out of the local houses. They all stare down to the boy and then me, as if I either know what to do, or had something to do with this. The sirens are deafening now and it’s only a moment until I’m drenched with a strobing blue. Minutes must have passed.
It feels like I’m watching everything happen instead of being a part of it. A woman in a uniform guides me back up to the street and then leads me off towards a police car. A pair of paramedics pass us, heading towards the boy. An ambulance has blocked off the street on one side, with a couple of police vehicles on the other. Their sirens have silenced, but more wail in the distance.
‘I’m Tina,’ the officer says.
‘Hi,’ I reply, blankly.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Abigail.’ A pause and then: ‘Abi, really. Abi Coyle.’
‘Did you see what happened?’
I take in the officer for the first time. I turn forty next year and she’s perhaps a decade younger than me, with a smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks.
‘I don’t, um…’ I’m trying to speak, but the words aren’t there.
In the meantime, Tina half turns to one of her colleagues and nods towards the road behind us. I’d not noticed before, but there’s a wide skid mark that intersects the junction with Beverly Close. The black of the rubber arcs like a crescent across the grey tarmac.
‘There was a squeal,’ I say. ‘Like a car skidding.’
The second officer has taken the hint and is shooing people away from the street, back towards their houses. As he does that, another ambulance pulls in and two paramedics clamber down and hurry across to the ditch.
Tina asks something else, but I don’t catch it. I stare past her instead, watching as the new set of paramedics disappear over the bank to join the original pair.
‘We can do this later,’ Tina adds.
‘There was a car,’ I say.
‘Do you know what colour it was?’
‘Dark… I think. Maybe black, or…’ I find myself stumbling and then tailing off before I add: ‘I don’t know.’
I try to remember – but the clarity is not there. There’s the shape of a car in the road, but it’s like the memory is monochrome. There’s no colour; no depth. It’s like I saw a photo, rather than actually experienced it.
People are still outside their houses, but everyone has been moved away from the road itself. I open my mouth, but, before I can say anything, a figure darts across the intersection. She weaves around an officer whose arm is outstretched in a weak attempt to stop her. He catches her as she reaches the ditch, holding her back as she stares at the scene below.
They are too far away for me to hear what the officer says to her but, as he tries to move her away, the woman turns back to him and shouts: ‘He’s my son.’
I’m not sure when I start moving but before I know what I’m doing I’m most of the way across to her. I feel Tina trailing, though she’s made no effort to stop me. When I lock eyes with the woman, there’s a moment in which it feels as if I’ve tumbled through time. She doesn’t see it – but it’s no surprise, she has other things on her mind.
‘His name’s Ethan,’ she tells me. There’s a tremble to her voice, though there’s a firm undercurrent, as if she knows she has to hold it together. It was always her way.
‘There was a car,’ I tell her.
The male officer and Tina hover, though neither of them say anything. Down below, three paramedics are crowded over the top of the boy, as a fourth stands a little further back. His arms are behind his back, his face stony and giving nothing away.
‘You found him?’ she asks, turning between me and her son.
A nod.
She turns back to the boy, though we can see little other than the hunched paramedics. There’s probably noise; the chatter of voices, cars on surrounding roads, or those kids on the far side of the park. It feels silent, though. As if the world has stopped spinning. Then she twists back to me and squints slightly. The face of a woman who can’t quite believe what she’s seeing.
‘Abi…?’ she asks, doubting herself.
Another nod.
She gulps and turns back to her son. ‘It’s Jo,’ she says.
I have no idea what to say. There’s only one thing that matters in the moment and it isn’t me. I reply in the only way I can, offering a solemn, and unreturned, ‘I know.’
It’s a blur as the paramedics eventually bring Ethan up the bank on a stretcher and put him into the back of an ambulance. Jo follows and then, as they head off to hospital, it’s left to Tina and the rest of the police to figure out what’s next.
A police officer is already taking photographs of the skid mark, while more uniformed officers have appeared to talk to residents. Tina asks me a few more questions, though I’m not sure how much help I am. I stumble over answers until she takes my phone number and closes her notebook.
I figure we’re done but, out of nowhere, she places a comforting hand on my arm. It feels motherly, though I’m older than she is.
‘You look like you need a good sleep, love,’ she says.
I stare at her, but the freckles are now fuzzy and unclear, like she’s behind misted glass.
‘It’s been a long day,’ I reply, fighting a yawn.
‘You’ve done great,’ Tina adds, although it takes me a second or two to realise she’s talking about calling 999.
She moves towards one of her colleagues, who is heading in the direction of one of the patrol cars. The street is now largely empty of onlookers, with only a couple of residents standing at their doors chatting to officers. It’s now I realise that I abandoned my suitcase on the corner. It’s still there, the handle high and extended, untouched by anyone who was here. In London, it would have been nicked the moment I’d left it – but not Elwood. At least, not the Elwood in which I grew up.
The horror of everything that just happened is impossible to blink away, but I don’t know what else to do. I was unsure from the moment I got off the bus, so I retrieve my case and drink from my bottle. The liquid is warm and anything but refreshing, so, after one more glance towards the skid mark on the road, I head off along Beverly Close.
It’s only a minute until I reach the junction, barely two minutes’ walk from where Ethan was hit.
I stop and stare up at the corner house that was once so familiar. It’s on the end of a terrace, the type of two-storey place that sprang up everywhere in the 1950s. There’s a small garden at the front and a far larger yard at the back. The house feels recognisable and yet not. The curtains are drawn, which is unsurprising, seeing as there will be nobody inside. There was always a strip of soil dedicated to flowers along the side of the garden but, as I step onto the path, I can see that it’s now overgrown with flourishing green weeds. It doesn’t look as if anyone’s been near it in a fair while.
I reach into the pocket at the front of my case and take out the envelope emblazoned with the purple and orange FedEx logo. The solicitor’s return details are printed on the back. I received it four days ago, though it feels longer.
My former boss said I couldn’t have the time off to return here, and that was the last time I spoke to him. I’ve ignored the missed calls and don’t know what happens next. Everything I own is in the case.
The tab across the top of the cardboard envelope has already been pulled and I empty the key into my other hand. The letter drops out, too, though I already know what it says, so put it back in the envelope before heading along the path.
It takes little effort for the key to fit the lock, but I have no satisfaction from the fact that, after all the years of unsuccessfully saving for a deposit, I am finally now a homeowner. It just so happens to be the home in which I grew up.
It is unspectacularly ordinary as the door creaks inwards. I haven’t been inside since the day I left twenty years ago.
I close the door behind me and then turn to where the light is shining from the landing upstairs, cascading down the stairs and drenching the hallway in searing sun. There’s a shelf off to the side that’s plastered with the same old trophies that were here decades ago. Dad won them for everything from athletics to football to darts to chess – though they’re all older than me. At one time, he’d sit on the stairs and polish them, while telling stories of heroic victories and unfortunate defeats.
That was a long time ago.
Dust now sticks to my finger as I run it around the rim of a trophy that’s in the shape of a dartboard. I return the award to the shelf, but it isn’t only that which smells of dust. The entire hallway is like the inside of a vacuum cleaner.
I continue into the kitchen, where there is a sinkful of dishes. The big plate at the front is plastered with sticky ketchup and there’s a dripped trail of gloopy, dried coffee across the nearby counter. A wire scourer has been abandoned on the windowsill, where there’s a plant pot with a dead twig sticking sadly out the top.
There’s a moment in which I think about washing up, but it’s barely a sprout of an idea before I turn away. I’ve cleared up too many messes in this house and it’s not the time for one more.
I decide not to bother with the living room and am about to head back towards the hall when I spot the note that’s stuck to the fridge. It’s held in place by a magnet in the shape of the UK. My father once had beautiful, calligrapher’s handwriting, something he said was beaten into him at school. This note is in shaky blue scrawl. The curl to the capitalised letter ‘A’ tells me it’s still his writing, though the rest is an interwoven mess, even though I can still make out my name. My phone number is written underneath, something that hasn’t changed in a good decade.
I unclip the note from the fridge and run my fingers against the crumpled page, before glancing instinctively to the landline phone that’s still pinned to the wall next to the fridge. It’s as grubby and dust-coated as everything else, though that doesn’t stop those memories of the phone calls my parents would make while leaning on the fridge. I could hear either of them shouting into the receiver, no matter where I was in the house. My mum would be bellowing at her friends as she made plans for whatever they’d be getting up to that night. Dad would be on to the bookie or one of his mates. Neither seemed to realise that phone calls could be made without having to shout.
As for mobiles in more recent times, they are something for the twenty-first century, and I’m not sure Dad was ever fully comfortable with the twentieth.
He certainly didn’t much care for phones of any sort. It’s hard to remember the last time we spoke. The best I can come up with is new year, which was seven months ago. It wasn’t New Year’s Day itself, but maybe the second or third of January. He’d have been leaning on the fridge right here while he said something about having to get off because he was on his way to a football game. I think that was his way of ending the call early, even though he was the one who contacted me. His gnarled, hoarse voice was enough to let me know how he’d spent the morning.
It’s longer still since we actually saw one another. Perhaps seven or eight Christmases ago, when we were at a grim service station halfway between here and where I lived in London. I had a car then and was probably over the limit. I have no doubt that he was.
I return the note to the fridge and then head back to the hall. It’s like opening the door of a hot oven as I carry my case up the stairs. The sunlight burns through the windows above, dousing everything below in ferocious heat. My bare arms tingle as I reach the landing and then stop on a shaded patch of carpet.
I shiver and spin, feeling a whispering breath on my neck, although there’s nobody there.
The unsettling feeling cloys at me. I’m not sure what it is at first, but then I realise it’s the silence. The soundtrack of this house was never quiet. It wasn’t only the shouted phone calls: the living room TV was rarely off, even overnight, and the sport or news would always boom upwards to where I am now. The opposite is true now. There are no phone conversations and no television. I can’t even hear anything from the street. The only thing that echoes is the unrelenting, all-consuming silence. It makes my arms itch.
I blink away the unease, or try. There are too many ghosts in this house and I’m not sure the anxiety I feel here will ever leave.
I stand undecided at the top of the stairs. There are four doors from which to choose – the bathroom, Dad’s bedroom, my room, and the spare bedroom. I ignore the others and head into the door on the left. The door sticks in the frame, as it always did, but I press it hard until I find myself in my childhood room. My feet are planted in the doorway, not quite able to move any further. It’s like there are two versions of me. The one who lived in this room – and the one who disappeared off to London just before the turn of the century. I was in search of something I never found. That’s a whole chapter of my life now written off, because here I am, back at the start, with so little to show for the time away.
Aside from the same coating of dust that permeates everything else in the house, my room is eerily close to how I remember it. There is a hi-fi stereo in the corner, complete with double tape deck, with which I would copy music from the Sunday afternoon chart show. I cross the room and run my fingers across the stack of grubby cassettes. It’s mainly Britpop. Everything was back then and I was always more of a Blur girl, than Oasi. . .
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