Page 36 of After the Accident
It was muscle memory as I eased off the lot onto the road. I drove slowly out of the village, but, as soon as you’re past the cliffs and the hotel, the complications disappear. The ocean is on one side and the fields are on the other. The only turn-offs are narrow unmarked lanes that lead to isolated houses. Anyone could drive on that stretch of road.
There were no speed limit signs, but I wasn’t driving quickly anyway. Aside from bends, the only time I moved the steering wheel was to go around the craters that count for potholes. I’d probably been driving for about half an hour when the road narrowed to a single lane.
When the engine sputtered the first time, I thought it was because of the terrible road surface. Thirty seconds later, it sputtered again. It was like those last few spins of a lawnmower blade after the power has already been turned off. I felt my stomach sink, knowing what was coming.
A few more seconds and the engine cut out completely. The steering suddenly got heavy, not that it mattered too much because the road was straight. The car rolled to a stop, with the front wheels wedged in a pothole the size of a paddling pool.
It was like a cloud had drifted across me, even though the sky was clear. I was filled with this overwhelming sense of dread that comes from being powerless.
I wished there was a real cloud because the sun was searing as I got out of the car. My top stuck to my back immediately and there was sweat on my arms.
On one side of the road, the cliffs dropped down dramatically to the rocks below. On the other, an enormous field of overgrown wild flowers stretched all the way towards the volcano in the distance. It felt as if I was at the edge of the world.
I checked my phone, but there was no signal. I tried to start the car, but it didn’t even click. It felt dead. It felt… hopeless.
I looked both ways up and down the empty road, wondering what the hell I was going to do next.
Chapter Twenty
MAYBE A CALIPPO
Emma:I can’t believe I’m admitting this – but I opened the bonnet and looked at the engine. I have no qualifications, no training, and I had no clue what I was looking for. I sort of stared at the engine as if that would do any good.
I couldn’t see anything, because of course I couldn’t – so I walked around the car and had a second look, then I tried turning the key again. Nothing happened, obviously. There was no steam, no fire, nothing obvious… it just didn’t work.
The sun was high by this point and it would have been at least thirty degrees. I’d not brought any water. I’d been doing between thirty and forty miles per hour for half an hour, so I was anywhere from fifteen to twenty miles from the village. I was trying to remember the map from the hotel lobby. I’d followed the road up the coast, towards the north, and I had a feeling it was around thirty miles to Agios Georgios. At best, I had ten miles to walk – and that was to a place where there was seemingly nothing. At worst, it was twenty miles the other way to get back to the hotel. Either way, it definitely wasn’t a distance that was walkable in that heat.
I sat back in the car, but nothing was working, including the air conditioning, so I left the doors open and then walked across to the cliffs. I kept away from the edge – but I didn’t need to be close to see the tide smashing into the rocks below. It was impossible not to think of Dad. How, if the tide had been in, it wouldn’t have been a beach where Dad landed. That he wouldn’t be in hospital at that moment, that it would have been much worse.
Alan didn’t have that luxury. He hit rocks and I guess nobody could survive that.
I was thinking of that when I heard the engine. When I turned, there was a car shooting along the road from the direction of the village. There was a spray of dust and the driver was definitely going a lot faster than I had been.
I dashed back to the road, waving my arms and shouting like a madwoman. It sounds stupid now. It was a single-lane road and there’s no way the driver could miss me – the rental car was blocking half the road and he’d have had to swerve onto the verge to go around. That didn’t mean the driver would stop – but itdidmean there was no need to jump around as if I was trying to flag down an airliner.
As the car got closer, the small, chipped stones were spraying off to the side as it bumped up and down across the potholes. I didn’t think the driver was going to stop. It certainly didn’t seem like they were slowing… and then, as I was about to shield my eyes to escape the dust, the driver slammed on the brakes and bumped to a stop.
I wish I could tell you the guy’s name. He didn’t tell me and I didn’t ask – but he was definitely a local. He was in a vest and trousers, which was one of the easiest ways to know who lived on the island and who didn’t. Only people from Galanikos can cope with the heat in anything other than shorts.
He blocked the other half of the road with his car and then got out and looked towards the rental before shrugging at me. He goes: ‘Not working?’ as if I’d deliberately abandoned the car with the doors open.
I held up my phone and said that the car wouldn’t start and that I had no reception.
He was wearing sunglasses and I couldn’t see his eyes, but there was this moment where it felt like I could.
I can’t explain it, but there was something in the way he looked to me and I felt…
…
I was scared.
Suddenly it didn’t feel hot any longer. I was in the middle of nowhere and there was this stranger standing a couple of metres from me.
He asked where I was staying and I must have hesitated because he started listing the hotels in Galanikos. There aren’t many and I remember saying ‘yes’ to the one Paul was in, hoping he would stop.
We stood there for a second and I was in these thin sandals, knowing I couldn’t run, even if I wanted to. The cliffs were behind me and, in front, the wild flowers were up to my hip. He was looking at me through those glasses and it felt like anything could happen.
And then he turned to the car and muttered something I didn’t understand. He ducked under the bonnet and knocked something with his fist before heading back to his own car. He got a toolbox from the back and then used a spanner to twist something, before whacking another part of the engine with a hammer. He had a bottle of water and poured about half of it into a different part of the engine. When he’d done all that, he stepped away and nodded for me to get back into the car.
