Page 32 of A Merry Little Christmas
*****
Maddy and I were half way back to my flat, walking along the high street, when Jack’s car pulled up beside us. He leaned over and opened the passenger door.
‘Ooh, it’s my lift. See you soon, Katja.’ Maddy slipped into the passenger seat and they kissed briefly.
I waved them off, standing watching until the car disappeared. They’d been through some tough times, Maddy and Jack, but somehow, they’d made it through, and now they seemed stronger than ever.
On impulse, I drew out my phone and called Caleb but it went straight to answerphone. Feeling deflated, I started walking home, turning off the high street into Maldon Avenue, my road.
My flat was in a converted Georgian townhouse towards the far end of the street, and as I walked towards it in the dark, I could hear the hum of an engine. A black car was parked further along, facing me, and for a brief moment, I hoped it might be Caleb. But then I saw it had a roof rack, so it definitely wasn’t him. It seemed to be idling there on a double yellow line.
I was still some distance away, but when the headlights flicked on, they caught me in the glare, dazzling me, although the driver quickly dimmed them.
The roar of an accelerator split the silence and the car was moving out into the road, travelling in my direction. I watched it as it gathered speed quickly, at the same time altering course slightly. The roof rack wasn’t quite straight, I noticed. It almost looked as if it might fall off.
With a shock, I realised the car was heading straight towards me as I walked along the pavement. It was veering too close to the kerb for comfort. Had the driver lost control? Instinctively, I stepped away from the edge of the pavement, squashing myself against the hedge at the side.
But then suddenly, as I froze in the glare of headlights that were now switched to full beam, the car mounted the pavement at speed right in front of me. Its tyres clipped the kerb and bumped over the paving flags with a sickening crunch, heading straight towards me...
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A high-pitched scream filled the air. And a split second later, the car swerved back onto the road and zoomed away into the night, leaving me standing there, shocked and trembling.
Had I not squashed myself into the hedge, I would have been knocked to the ground for certain and maybe even ended up under the wheels of that car.
The scream, I realised only much later, had come from my own lips...
*****
Back at the flat, I flaked out shakily on the sofa, wanting desperately to call Caleb but not having the emotional strength to do it. If my call went to answerphone again, as it had done several times that day, I’d only feel worse. And some nagging intuition was telling me that’s what would happen.
I couldn’t even reach him when I was feeling at my very worst, and right now my stomach was so uneasy, I thought I might actually be sick.
The driver of that car had been a hair’s breadth away from mowing me down and goodness knows what sort of injuries I’d have ended up with. And yet they hadn’t even bothered to stop and make sure I was all right. They’d just driven off at speed into the night.
If it had been an accident, surely any half-decent person would have felt bad and would have wanted to apologise for nearly scaring me out of my wits? Why drive off as if they reallyhadmown me down and were worried they might get caught for reckless driving?
Unless it was just some young yobos having a laugh at some random pedestrian’s expense?
But just thinking about it was making my head hurt. So I made a nest of cushions on the sofa and curled up to watch some TV, trying not to wonder what Caleb might be doing tonight, and who he might be doing it with. But that was impossible, of course. It was like tryingnotto think about a pink elephant!
I gave my head a little shake, as if to dislodge the negativity.
You always thought dark thoughts when you weren’t feeling great. It was silly being suspicious of Caleb just because he’d been busy lately. And just to prove that I was fine about it, I tried calling him after all.
It went straight to answerphone. Of course. But this time, I left him a light-hearted message saying I really hoped he was having a better day than I was and that I’d see him on Wednesday, mobile cake van day, if not before, and I’d bring him a chocolate doughnut which I knew was his current favourite.
The effort of sounding jolly had quite exhausted me and I threw the phone down on the sofa and grasped my stomach uneasily. The sick feeling was getting worse, but I was determined I wasn’t going to give in and go to bed.
I’d been finding it hard to fall asleep lately, worried about having another nightmare. So tonight, my plan was to stay up watching TV until I was dropping with tiredness and could no longer keep my eyes open – then hopefully, I’d sink into a dead sleep as soon as my head touched the pillow.
Knowing I should really eat something, I trailed through to the kitchen and looked in the fridge but there was nothing that took my fancy. Maybe some scrambled eggs? They were good for a tricky stomach, weren’t they?
But once made, I took one bite and knew I couldn’t face eating the rest. Maybe I was coming down with some sort of stomach flu?
My phoned buzzed and it was a text from Caleb:I’ll phone you tomorrow x
Great. So he couldn’t even be bothered to call me back. I’d have to be happy with that single, solitary kiss on the end of his horribly brief message!
