Run, Mummy, Run (19 page)

‘I’m sure you are,’ Joe said patiently. ‘But an X-ray is a sensible precaution after any severe blow to the head.’ Aisha thought of the many severe blows she’d had to her head, none of which had resulted in her going to the hospital for an X-ray, whether it was sensible or not.

‘No,’ she said again, firmly but politely. ‘I’ll see my doctor in the morning if there’s a problem.’ Joe had to accept this and told her that if she felt unduly tired, or suffered any visual disturbance she must go straight to casualty.

‘Yes, I will. Thank you.’

As she and the children left the ambulance, two police officers appeared from the shadows, and Aisha was momentarily startled. They had their notepads already open and the WPC addressed her. ‘We’re taking everyone’s contact details,’ she said. ‘Do you feel up to answering a few questions?’

Aisha nodded. She wasn’t sure how much of a choice she had, and she knew she’d have to be careful, but then surely she’d had enough practice at thinking before she spoke? She also knew the police would have spoken to enough witnesses by now to have gleaned some of her role in the accident, the motorway had been packed, someone must have seen something.

‘We are conducting the interviews in the police cars as it’s so wet,’ the WPC said. ‘I’ll look after the children in one car, if you’d like to go with my colleague in the other.’

Aisha looked over to the hard shoulder and to the two police cars, their lights still slowly flashing. Sarah stayed where she was and looked to her mother for confirmation.

‘Go on. I’m fine, darling, really. You take good care of James.’ She held Sarah’s gaze and Sarah gave a slight nod. Aisha hoped neither of them would say anything untoward, for children can be so honest.

Sarah walked beside the WPC while James, eager to explore the police car, went on ahead. Aisha glanced at the officer at her side as they began towards the second car. What was it they said? It was a sign of your age when the policemen started to look younger? He couldn’t have been more than twenty, she thought. The orange light flashed on her face as the PC opened the passenger door and waited for her to get in. Closing it, he went round to the driver’s side. It was warm inside and surprisingly comfortable, and quite different from a conventional car. Aisha’s eyes travelled over the dashboard with its maze of coloured dials and switches, and something that looked liked a small computer mounted in place of the glove compartment. The PC shut his door against the seeping rain and then turned to a clean page in his notebook. She looked ahead at the police car parked a few yards in front where the children were. She could see the outlines of their heads: James’s was just visible in the driver’s seat, with the WPC in the front passenger seat, and Sarah was in the back. The lights on the roofs of the two cars continued to revolve slowly like synchronized beams from a lighthouse.

‘Can I start with your name, please,’ the PC said. She told him, spelling out ‘Aisha’, which always caused a problem.

‘Thank you. What can you tell me about the accident?’

Aisha could see his reflection in his side window, highlighted every so often by the flashing light, his pen poised above his notepad ready to take down her answer.

‘I think it might have been my fault,’ she blurted. ‘You see, it was dark and wet, and he came up so fast … I just didn’t see him until it was too late. If it was my fault I’ll never forgive myself.’ She sniffed and blinked back the tears, genuinely regretting she was causing so much upset to so many people; it wasn’t in her nature to hurt others.

‘Please, don’t upset yourself,’ the PC said. ‘I probably shouldn’t say this, but from what I’ve heard it was the fault of the bike rider. By all accounts, he was driving like an idiot. An accident waiting to happen, if you ask me.’

So young and innocent, Aisha thought, he obviously felt sorry for her. Laying his pen on his pad he reached into the door pocket and took out a wad of tissues. He passed them to her and waited while she wiped her eyes and blew her nose.

‘When you’re ready,’ he said gently. ‘I’ve only a few questions, it won’t take long.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, moved by his kindness.

‘Your car is the silver BMW, registration MAR K12?’

‘Yes, it was my husband’s.’

‘And when, and from where did you start your journey?’ he said, writing as he spoke.

‘From home. At roughly 5 o’clock.’

‘And where is home?’ he asked, and she gave him her address. ‘Where were you going to? Is there someone expecting you? Someone you should contact?’

‘No. We were going for a short drive and then home again. There’s no one expecting us.’

‘A rough night for joyriding,’ he said, trying to lighten her mood.

‘I know. But my husband insisted on it, to make sure we were safe. You see, I hadn’t driven for some time, and he wanted me to get used to the car, so I could use it for shopping and collecting the children from school. That was why he was travelling so close on his bike – to help me if I got into difficulty. Do you know anything more about him? How he is?’

She looked at the PC and waited.

His pen froze in mid-sentence and his face visibly paled. He couldn’t have been in the job very long, and she wished she hadn’t had to do this to him.

‘It was your husband on the bike?’ he said at last.

She nodded. ‘It couldn’t have been anyone else.’

‘Wait there and I’ll get someone to talk to you. I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize. No one did.’ He scrambled out of the car, leaving her alone.

Aisha looked to the front – at the outlines of her children in the police car and kept her mind steady. The PC returned almost immediately with a more senior officer who said they were telephoning the hospital now to see if there was any news. He too asked if there was someone he could contact for her, and Aisha said there wasn’t. The senior officer hovered outside the car with the PC, both waiting, she assumed, for news from the hospital. When he answered his phone Aisha knew straight away from his expression what he was going to tell her. But he broke the news so gently and professionally that she hardly felt a thing – her husband, as he was now referred to rather than
the idiot on the bike
, was, he was sorry to say, pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. He reassured her that everything that could have been done to save him was done, and that he had been unconscious and therefore hadn’t suffered. Aisha wasn’t surprised that Mark was dead, for she doubted anyone could be knocked off a bike at 70 mph and survive. Not even Mark, with all his power and omnipotence, could do that. Her thoughts went to the crash helmet, the cost of which would have kept them in food for months, and was supposed to have saved him in an accident but clearly hadn’t.

The police put her composure down to shock – the reason why she hadn’t said anything earlier about it being her husband on the bike, and why she wasn’t hysterical now. The senior officer then explained that they would need to take a statement from her, but offered to leave it until the following morning. Aisha said that she’d rather get it over and done with now, so Sarah and James were fetched from the other car and the three of them were driven to the police station.

Once inside the station, the children were taken to the office to be looked after while she went to an interview room with the PC to make her statement. When it was finished the PC fetched a detective inspector who introduced himself as Stan Calder, and said how sorry he was. He brought her tea in polystyrene cup, which Aisha thought was very kind, but when she took the first sip she retched – it had sugar in it. It wasn’t his fault, the inspector wasn’t to know that Mark had banned all sweet things from the house. It wasn’t so much the cloying sweetness after so long without which had made her sick, but the recollection of the punishment that she knew would follow if she drank tea with sugar in and got found out. Like many things, it produced a reflex action.

The inspector read her statement back to her – it was short, there wasn’t much to say really. It was dark and wet, and Aisha hadn’t driven for a long time, and it was the first outing for Mark on his bike. She said he had been following very close and must have suddenly decided to overtake. Aisha cried openly as the inspector read the statement, and the words fell between them into a void of regrets and what might have been. He waited patiently until she composed herself and then took a gold pen from his inside jacket pocket, and passing it to her, pointed to where she had to sign. Aisha hesitated before she signed, not because of the contents of the statement, but because it had been so long since she’d had to sign anything that she’d forgotten her signature, and had nearly written Hussein instead of Williams.

As Aisha signed her statement, and then handed back the gold pen to the inspector, she wondered if Mark had known. Had he seen it coming? Did he know? Had he suffered the expectation of pain and torture as she had done all those years? She sincerely hoped not, for no one should suffer like that, not even Mark.

I
t was after eleven o’clock by the time Aisha and the children were finally heading for home, driven by Steve, with Lisa in the passenger seat, the same two police officers who had looked after Sarah and James at the police station, and with whom they had built up a rapport. And while Steve and Lisa’s conversation in the car was subdued, tempered by the knowledge that the children’s father was dead, and they had yet to be told, James in particular had become quite lively, and rather a chatterbox. Now in his second police car of the evening, he considered himself something of an expert, and was explaining to Aisha and Sarah the workings of the various instruments on the dashboard, and when and how they should be used. Lisa had indulged him while on the station forecourt by giving the police car’s siren a whirr, but now explained it was illegal to use it on the road, unless they were going to an emergency.

‘Couldn’t we pretend it’s an emergency? Please?’ James begged. ‘No one will ever know.’

‘No, love, not even the police can break the law.’ Lisa turned to look at James in the back with compassion in her eyes; very soon this little boy’s excitement was going to be quashed by the worst news any child could ever hear – the death of his father.

‘I’m going to be a policeman when I grow up,’ James said, his voice rising with passion. ‘I’m going to put naughty men in prison and lock them up, then they won’t hit women!’

‘That’s enough.’ Aisha said gently, worried that James might say more than he should. ‘Steve needs to concentrate on driving, and it’s difficult if someone is talking all the time.’

‘Well, if you’re good, James, and work hard at school,’ Lisa said, ‘I’m sure you will be a policeman one day.’

James grinned, satisfied.

When they drew up outside the house and Steve cut the engine, a heavy silence fell in the car as all five of them looked out towards the house. It was exactly as Aisha and the children had left it when they had fled in terror only six hours before. The downstairs lights were still on, and the garage door was open. Mark, presumably hadn’t shut it before he’d given chase in fury. He had closed the front door though – or had they? Aisha couldn’t remember. The house seemed to stare out at her as evidence of what had happened, and why.

‘Did you leave the garage door up?’ Steve asked, glancing at her.

‘My husband must have,’ Aisha said quietly. ‘He came out last.’

‘I’ll close it,’ Steve said. ‘It’s easy pickings for the opportunist.’

Then suddenly she realized that she wouldn’t be able to get into the house – her front door keys were in her coat pocket in the hall, and Mark’s were still in the ignition of the car.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I’m locked out. My house keys are in the car.’

‘Is there a back door?’ Steve asked.

‘Yes, but that’s always kept locked. There’s a door at the rear of the garage which goes to the kitchen, but I think that will be locked too. I’m sorry. I should have realized. I didn’t think. I’m sorry to be so much trouble.’ Apologizing for her failings came easily to Aisha; she was a liability, Mark had been right.

‘Don’t worry,’ Lisa said, turning and smiling at the children. ‘We’ll get you in somehow.’

They climbed out of the car and stood on the pavement; Aisha held back and waited for Lisa and Steve to go up the path first before following with the children. She felt a moment’s panic as she went up the path, as though in returning to the house they were returning to their old lives. She could almost believe that Mark was inside waiting for her, furious at what she’d done and ready to punish her.

Steve checked the front door and then went into the garage. Aisha followed, with Sarah and James either side of her, and stopped just inside the up-and-over door. The garage was still brilliantly lit by the overhead florescent strip light which seemed to highlight what had happened and her guilt. The heavy-duty polythene cover from the bike lay in the centre of the garage, the open boxes that had contained his boots and helmet were on the shelf. Mark’s discarded nylon overalls, which he’d taken off to try on his leather biker’s suit, were beneath the workbench. Further over to the right, she saw the exact spot where she had fallen, where he’d pounced on her and brought her down. Aisha looked at the grey concrete for any telltale sign of blood, but couldn’t see any. The children nestled into her side, and she draped an arm round each of their shoulders and held them close.

‘I don’t suppose there’s a window open?’ Steve asked.

‘No, my husband was very security conscious.’

Apart from the garage
, Steve’s expression said. He went to the door that led to the kitchen and tried the handle.

‘The key is in the lock on the other side,’ Aisha said, and gave the children a reassuring squeeze.

Steve bent down and peered through the keyhole, then straightened. ‘Wait there,’ he said. ‘It shouldn’t be too difficult to pick the lock.’ He winked at James as he went out of the garage and to the police car.

‘We’re not allowed in here,’ James said quietly to Aisha, his face serious.

‘It’s all right,’ she reassured him. ‘You’re not touching his tools.’

‘My son isn’t allowed in his father’s garage either,’ Lisa said, and threw Aisha a muted smile.

Aisha nodded. She looked around at the shelves of neatly labelled jars of nails and screws, the tools hanging in a fastidious line over the cupboards which lined the walls. The garage had always been Mark’s domain, his presence now was almost tangible. Once they were in the house, she thought, she would lock the door from the kitchen to the garage, and never set foot in here again. They had no reason to come in here, there was nothing they would need, and the house would feel safer with the interconnecting door secured against what had been Mark’s room.

Steve returned holding what looked like a small screwdriver. Lisa joined him at the internal door. He knelt down and Lisa watched as he began prodding and poking the keyhole. A minute later, there was a small click; Steve lowered the handle and the door opened. He stepped into the kitchen, picked up the fallen key and reinserted it in the lock on the inside.

‘That’s cool,’ James said, impressed. Steve smiled.

‘Thank you so much,’ Aisha said.

‘Would you like us to come in and stay for a while?’ Lisa asked.

‘No, we’ll be all right now. Thank you both so much.’

‘Have you got someone coming to help you?’ Lisa persisted. ‘Yes,’ Aisha lied.

‘Well, if you’re sure then. Take care, all of you.’ She smiled at the children.

‘You’ll make it in the force one day,’ Steve said to James, ruffling his hair as he passed. James grinned, and the three of them stood together while Steve and Lisa went out through the garage. ‘I’ll close it,’ Steve said, reaching for the up-and-over door.

‘Thank you.’

Aisha and the children watched as the garage door slowly lowered, gradually cutting off the dark outside before shuddering the last few inches into position. In silence, the three of them then turned as one and entered the kitchen. Sarah and James stood very close to Aisha as she switched off the light in the garage and then locked the door. She took the key from the lock and, opening a kitchen drawer, slid the key under a pile of tea towels, then closed the drawer.

‘Is that for us?’ James asked, spying the pans of prepared vegetables and cooked brisket Aisha had left ready on the hob that morning.

Aisha looked at the pans and could hardly believe it was her who had put them there that morning. It was as though a different person had prepared the meal and cleaned the house before going to see the monk, and in a way, it was.

‘Yes, but I need to talk to you both first, then I’ll make you something to eat.’

Taking a hand in each of hers, she led Sarah and James through to the lounge and sat them down either side of her on the sofa, an arm around each of them. She felt their little bodies warm and yielding, trusting, leaning against her.

‘You are big children now,’ she began, the words poignantly familiar – the ones she’d used when she’d met them from school and had told them about the monk, ‘so I need to tell you something, and I know it will hurt. It will cause you lots of strange feelings, conflicts. We will need to talk a lot.’

‘Mum?’ Sarah said, her little mouth trembling. ‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’

Aisha looked down into her daughter’s eyes, which held a mixture of childhood innocence and adult maturity. ‘Yes, darling, he is,’ she said softly, and braced herself for the blame that she knew could destroy her relationship with the children forever. For whatever Mark had done, he was their father, and he was dead.

‘I’m sorry,’ Sarah said slowly. ‘But not as sorry as I should be. He won’t be able to hurt you anymore will he, Mummy? And I’m not sorry for that. Is that wrong?’

Aisha squeezed her daughter’s hand and felt her eyes fill. ‘No, love. I’m sure we all feel the same. It’s very difficult – very confusing.’ She looked down at James, and he rubbed his eyes.

‘I’m the same,’ he said simply. ‘And I’m tired and hungry. Can I have something to eat and go to bed?’

She kissed the top of his head and swallowed hard. ‘Shall we talk more in the morning?’

The children nodded solemnly, and James rubbed his eyes again.

Aisha hugged them hard, and as she did, her gaze fell across the room. Everything seemed so alien and distant now Mark was gone. It was as though she was sitting on someone else’s sofa, in someone else’s lounge: the three of them in a stranger’s house, which in many ways, she supposed, they’d always been. She gave the children another hug and then released them.

‘Now, if you go and get changed and ready for bed, I’ll make you something to eat and bring it up to you,’ she said.

‘What, in bed?’ James asked, astonished.

‘Yes, would you like that?’

‘But we aren’t …’ he began and stopped. Aisha knew he was about to say, ‘We aren’t allowed to eat upstairs.’ It had been one of Mark’s many rules – no eating away from the table, not even an apple – and, like most of Mark’s rules, Aisha had enforced it, believing it was for everyone’s good.

‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘You can have supper in bed tonight, nothing will happen to you. I’m in charge now and I say it’s all right.’

Sarah and James looked at her, and she could see that they almost believed it – that their mother was in charge. So much had happened since she’d met them from school that she appeared a different person now.

Sarah and James didn’t want to go upstairs alone, and if Aisha was honest she wasn’t too keen on the first trip up either. The whole house was like a mausoleum, a monument to Mark; reminders of him and his regime were everywhere. It made her realize just how little about the house had changed since she’d moved in nearly eight years before. He hadn’t made any compromises, no alterations to accommodate her – the house and everything in it was, and always had been, his. Such poignant and overwhelming reminders of a husband, so soon after his death, would have reduced another woman to hysterical tears, but the only emotion Aisha felt was utter relief mingled with a residue of fear. For while she was at last safe from another beating, she couldn’t throw off the unsettling feeling that Mark wasn’t so very far away, and given the right circumstances could appear at any moment and continue where he’d left off.

She went with the children to the foot of the stairs and switched on the landing light from the hall. Then, putting on a brave face for the sake of the children, she led the way up the stairs. First she went into Sarah’s bedroom and switched on the light, then James’s room, and finally the bathroom. She didn’t go into the main bedroom – it was Mark’s bedroom and she hadn’t slept in it for years and certainly couldn’t face it now – she firmly closed the door. In the morning, after she’d slept and felt stronger, she might venture in, but she doubted she could sleep there ever again.

With the upstairs lit, Sarah and James were happy to be left to wash and change, while Aisha returned downstairs to the kitchen. She lifted the lids on the pans of vegetables; she wouldn’t cook them now, it was too late, and she doubted any of them could eat a full meal, they were past it. Instead, she strained the brisket, sliced it and laid thick slices between the last of the bread. There was no butter or margarine because Mark never ate sandwiches or toast. But the thick slices of meat would make this feel like a feast for the children. She opened the fridge and found a carton of juice, which was still half-full. Mark liked his freshly squeezed orange juice; it always had first call on her meagre budget. She poured the juice equally between the two glasses for the children, then filled the kettle and set it to boil for a mug of tea for her. There was no milk, but it didn’t matter because she was used to drinking black tea – Mark had never taken milk in his tea or coffee so there was never any in the house. Arranging the plates of sandwiches on a tray with the glasses of juice, she carried it upstairs.

Sarah and James were washed and changed and both propped on the pillows in Sarah’s bed, waiting for their supper.

‘Here we are,’ Aisha said, proud that at least she could give them something decent to eat. She placed the tray between them on the bed. ‘Try not to spill it on the duvet.’

Their eyes lit up. ‘Are you having some?’ Sarah asked.

Aisha nodded. ‘Later. When you’ve eaten,’ she said from habit; she always made sure the children were fed before she ate.

She kissed the tops of their heads and then sat on the end of the bed as they ravenously ate the sandwiches. The last twenty-four hours were now catching up and Aisha suddenly felt absolutely exhausted. She waited until the children had finished eating and had emptied their glasses of juice, then she lifted the tray off the bed.

‘Can I sleep here?’ James said snuggling down.

She didn’t see why not. ‘If Sarah doesn’t mind.’

Sarah shook her head, and yawning put her arm around her brother. Tucking them in Aisha kissed them both goodnight. ‘Sleep tight,’ she said. ‘Call me if you need me.’ She kissed them again and, leaving the bedroom door open so she would hear them if they called for her, she came out and went downstairs.