Page 44 of One Day and Forever
They came to a halt with a thud, and Zac was the first one to find his voice. ‘Alice? Val? Are you okay? ARE YOU OKAY?’
He wasn’t sure if the crushing feeling in his chest was down to panic, or the seatbelt, or a bit of both. What had he done? These two women wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for him, so if anything happened to them… Fuck, why couldn’t he get this seatbelt off so he could get out or get up front to check on them?
‘Alice?’ he blurted again, still scrabbling with the seatbelt clip.
‘It’s okay. I’m fine, I’m fine,’ she repeated, then he heard her say, ‘Val?’
‘Just give me a wee minute until my heart stops racing,’ Val answered, and the blood coursing round Zac’s veins flooded with relief and gratitude. They were both okay. He’d never have been able to live with himself if they weren’t.
Val shook out her arms and shoulders. ‘Everything’s still attached and working. I think we’re fine.’
‘What happened?’ That came from Alice, who was now opening her door. ‘Did we hit something?’
Zac finally managed to get the seatbelt unclipped, and followed her out, leaving the door open.
‘You don’t have to tell me what it was, I already know,’ Val said, in a tight, furious voice that shocked him because he’d only heard her being funny, calm, supportive.
Thankfully, there were street lights on this part of the road so they could see in the darkness, but Val came right in with the correct answer at the same time as he and Alice spotted the problem. Even with the white coating on the ground, it was impossible to miss.
‘It’s a pothole the size of a fecking duck pond. I’ve reported it to the council twice in the last month and they haven’t done a bloody thing about it. My pal, Jessie McLean from the hairdressers, lives in that house just there and she lost her whole front end on Christmas Eve. And usually I’d have a joke about that last sentence, but I’m too bloody mad to think of one. I knew the damn thing was there, but I was too engrossed in our conversation and lost concentration for a second.’
He could see she was right. The bang had obviously been a result of the wheel hitting the pothole, and it had blown the tyre, causing them to spin on the snow-covered road. They’d been so lucky there wasn’t another car anywhere near them or they could be dealing with so much more than just a flat tyre right now.
‘Val, can you drive the car slowly into the side here, just to get it to a safer space?’
Still in the driver’s seat, Val switched the engine back on and slowly edged the Jeep around so that it was facing the right way, then switched it off again and climbed out.
He had a closer look at the wheel, but other than the shredded tyre it didn’t seem to be damaged. ‘Have you got a spare tyre?’
‘Aye, son – in the boot.’
‘Okay, let me have a go at changing it.’
‘I did a car mechanic course back in 2012 – I’m perfectly capable of doing that too,’ Val countered, and Zac didn’t doubt it for a second.
‘I’m sure you could, but, Val, it’s freezing and it’s snowing and I’ve got this huge jacket…’
‘True. And I did just get my hair done yesterday,’ she added. ‘It’ll get wrecked with this snow and I’m trying to make it last past our bingo night tomorrow.’
Zac never thought he’d see that day that he was grateful for high-maintenance hair.
Alice and Val were now sheltering under a very sparse tree a few feet away. ‘We could just go knock on Jessie’s door,’ Val suggested, nodding at the house, which had lights on in a couple of windows. ‘It looks like she’s in, so we could have a cuppa so we’re not in your way.’
‘That’s a really good idea,’ Zac agreed, already round at the boot, checking that he had everything he’d need. Spare. Jack. Locknuts. Yep, all there.
‘Are you sure, Zac?’ Alice asked and he immediately responded with a nod.
‘Absolutely. You can’t sit in the car while I’m doing this and that tree isn’t much of a shelter. It’ll only take me fifteen minutes or so, but at least you’ll be out of the snow.’
He could see Alice’s reluctance in her face, but she agreed after Val gave her a tug on the sleeve. ‘Come on, love, we’ll only be in the way. And I can get Jessie’s statement about this bloody pothole while we’re in there. I’ll be at that council office first thing tomorrow morning.’ Zac felt a pang of sympathy for the council official who was about to meet the wrath of Val, but he had no doubt the pothole would be repaired before the week was out.
‘We’ll watch out of the window, and when you’re done, we’ll be right back out,’ Alice assured him, before they both went off down the thirty yards or so to the house.
Zac got busy, jacking the car up, then removing the wheel. Practical stuff always gave him time to think. Whenever he had something on his mind, he’d go to the gym and work out, or go out into the back garden and chop wood for the log burner in his lounge.
Or change a tyre on a bright yellow Jeep on a dark, slushy road in the West of Scotland. What was he doing here? And why? He’d lived perfectly happily for almost three decades without the knowledge of any of the puzzles that had been raised about his origins today, so why did he have to stir this up when he could just walk away, go to the airport, meet up with the man he called Dad and get on with his life? That would be the most sensible solution.
But then… He’d never been good at ignoring questions. What happened if he needed medical treatment that only a blood relative could provide? A long shot, for sure. And given what he knew of Larry McLenn, he was fairly positive that a liver transplant was off the cards. But what about when he had kids? He wanted to know the genetic history he was passing on too. And… His legal brain ran dry on justification, and his heart took over. The truth was he wanted to know exactly what, if anything, had happened between this guy and his mum. He needed to understand if and how she’d been manipulated into acting so out of character. He wanted to know his origin story, because not knowing the truth would haunt him.
