7 Sorrow on Sunday (22 page)

*   *   *

T
EA WITH
G
RAN HAD GONE OFF VERY WELL.
D
ARREN
had eaten two pieces of sticky chocolate cake, and had not objected when Gran presented him with a damp flannel. Lois noticed that she seemed to have established an instant connection, pleasant but not sentimental, and Darren blossomed.

“Jeems ran fast,” he said.

“Dogs love to run fast,” Gran replied.

“And horses?” Lois said. Darren darted a frightened look at her.

Gran said quickly, “Now then, lad, if you’ve finished your tea, I want to show you our piano. Do you like music?” His expression cleared, and he nodded at her gratefully.

“Play the piano,” he said, and got up from his chair. Gran led him into the sitting room and opened the piano lid. Lois followed, and to her amazement she saw Darren go straight up to it and strike with both hands an arbitrary and very discordant chord.

“Wow!” said Gran. “How about a nice quiet note?”

Darren turned and looked at her. He smiled, and struck a high note very gently, holding the key down until all the reverberations had ceased. Then he turned to Lois and said, “Go home now, Mrs. Meade. Back to Mum.”

Gran came down to the gate to see them off, and Darren
said, “Thank you very much. It was very nice cake. Goodbye.”

As they drove off, Gran went back into the house, her expression sober and thoughtful. “If I was his mother,” she said to herself, “I would kill anybody who laid a finger on him.”

L
OIS DECIDED TO GO A DIFFERENT WAY TO
W
ALTONBY, AND
turned off up a little track with high banks and overhanging trees. Before they had gone a hundred yards, Darren began to bounce in his seat. “Not right,” he said. “Not the right way, Mrs. Meade!” He was shouting now, and Lois pulled into an open gateway and stopped.

“It’s not the
wrong
way,” she said. “This is another way of going back to Mum. It goes to Waltonby, just the same. More interesting for Darren.”

But Darren continued to protest, and Lois did not want to deliver him back to his mother in an agitated state, so she turned in the gateway and went back to take the usual road. She was about to cross at the junction, and Darren was already settling down, when a large black car came slowly from the direction of Waltonby. Lois braked hard, and reversed to allow the car to pass. It was Mrs. T-J, and she waved magisterially. She was smiling, too, and Lois reckoned Floss had as usual achieved the impossible with the old tartar.

As she continued, Lois reflected that you could never take it for granted that these narrow roads were empty. She was concentrating hard, but even so, did not notice a darkish green car in the entrance to a stretch of woodland. The first she saw of it was when she was nearly level, and then it was moving fast towards her.

The impact was sudden and explosive. Lois felt her van tipping. She heard Darren scream, and after that nothing but overwhelming pain and blessed darkness.

“M
UST GET OUT,”
D
ARREN MUTTERED.
H
E HAD A PAIN IN
his leg, and his head hurt where he had banged it against Lois as they tipped over. “Mrs. Meade?” he said, and then again, louder. There was no answer, and he twisted round until he could undo his seat belt. The van was on its side, in a shallow ditch. Lois was lying underneath Darren, cushioning him. He was very frightened, and tried to open the door, which was now above him. It would not move.

“Little button,” he said to himself, and managed to pull up the lock. Then he pushed with all his might and scrambled out into the road. He started to run in the direction of Waltonby, and then stopped. He could smell smoke, and looked back at the van. “Fire!” he said in a panic, and ran back again. “Mrs. Meade!” he shouted. “Mrs. Meade, wake up!”

Lois did not stir, and with the supreme strength of panic, Darren managed to free her from her seat belt and drag her, painfully slowly, across the seats to the door. He was propping it open with his body, and realized he would never get her out unless he could keep it open another way. He looked round and saw a pile of sticks which had been cut from the woods. Grabbing one, he pushed it under the open door. It wedged into a groove on the floor of the van, and he tested it. It held, and he smiled. “Darren did it,” he said, and began to heave Lois out and away from the van, which was now enveloped in smoke.

He managed to get her and himself well away just in
time. With a deafening roar, the van exploded, and bits of metal and plastic flew all around.

Darren sat with Lois’s inert body in the edge of the wood, and watched the van burn out to a shell. “No good now, Mrs. Meade,” he said conversationally. “Sit here for a bit, and wait for Mum to come and fetch Darren.”

*   *   *

M
RS.
S
MITH LOOKED AGAIN AT THE CLOCK IN THE
kitchen. They should have been back by now, surely? She went through to the sitting room and looked out of the window. No sign of them. She tried to ring Lois’s mobile, but it was dead. Perhaps Mrs. Weedon would know where they were. This time she got a reply. Gran’s voice was full of alarm. “They left here ages ago,” she said. “Where on earth have they got to?”

“I’m going to find out,” said Mrs. Smith. “I’ll be in touch.”

She ran round to her neighbour, who immediately set out in her car with Mrs. Smith beside her. “Take the Farnden road,” Mrs. Smith instructed. “I know that’s the way Mrs. Meade usually comes.”

It was not far to the woods, and as they approached they saw the burnt-out van, still smoking. Mrs. Smith’s heart lurched. “Oh my God!” she said, and swayed in her seat. Her neighbour caught her and held her up until she gained some strength. “Quick!” she said. “Let’s run.”

In seconds they were by the smouldering wreck, and Mrs. Smith’s face was ashen. “They couldn’t have survived that,” she said, turning her face away. It was totally silent. Even the birds seemed to have stopped singing.

“Mum! Mum!”

Mrs. Smith shot across the road and disappeared into the trees. Her neighbour followed, hoping that she was not imagining things. She caught up and saw an extraordinary sight. Darren was sitting on the ground, his legs outstretched, with Lois’s head resting on his lap. Her head was turned to one side, and she showed no signs of life.
Mrs. Smith stared at them, tears streaming down her face.

“Wait there! Don’t move until I come back,” the neighbour said firmly, and ran back to her car. There she phoned for ambulance and police, telling them it was very urgent indeed. Then she took a rug from the back of the car and returned to the wood. She told Mrs. Smith what she had done, and they wrapped the rug as best as they could around the still form of Lois, without moving her. The neighbour silently wondered how much damage had been done in Darren’s desperate tugging to get her into the wood. Still, if he hadn’t done so, she would have died anyway.

“Tell Mrs. Weedon,” said Darren’s mother suddenly. “Could you ring her? I remember the number. I promised to let her know.”

“Let her know what? Who is she?”

“Mrs. Meade’s mother. I phoned her earlier. Better not tell her . . . well . . . you know . . .”

*   *   *

T
HE DRIVER OF THE POLICE CAR HAD THE SIREN GOING
full blast as they sped through the villages. He was already going as fast as was safe in the twisting lanes, but Inspector Cowgill shouted at him, “Can’t you go any faster, for God’s sake!” The driver had never seen him like this before, tense and more or less out of control.

“We’re nearly there, sir,” the driver said calmly.

“I know we’re bloody well nearly there,” exploded Cowgill. “Don’t you realize a couple of minutes might make all the difference?”

When they pulled up by the neighbour’s car, Cowgill rushed out and into the wood. “I think it’s this side, sir,” the driver said politely. Cowgill ran back and finally found the little group sitting quietly in a huddle. He was pale, and his hands trembled as he drew back the rug from Lois and felt for her pulse. He sank back on his heels and covered his face with his hands.

At this point the ambulance came screeching up, and the paramedic ran to where they were. “Stand back, sir,” he
said, and Cowgill stood aside. This time the paramedic held Lois’s pulse point for longer, and finally looked up at Cowgill.

“She’s not dead, sir,” he said quietly. “Pulse very faint, but it’s there.”

C
OWGILL INSISTED ON TRAVELLING IN THE AMBULANCE
with Lois, and Mrs. Smith and her neigbour set off to the hospital with Darren. He had cuts and bruises, and was clearly shocked, but his mother decided that he would feel more secure with her in the car. When she realized what he had done, she was tearfully proud.

It seemed to Cowgill that the ambulance was travelling at the speed of treacle. His eyes never left Lois’s face. At one point, he thought he saw her eyelids flutter. He looked enquiringly at the medic, who nodded his head, but said nothing. “Are we nearly there?” whispered Cowgill.

“We are going fast enough,” said the medic, in an effort to reassure him. “Another accident wouldn’t be much help, would it?”

Cowgill’s eyes returned to Lois. Suddenly, her eyes opened.

“What’s going on?” she said faintly. “What are you doing . . . ?”

Cowgill bit his lip. “You’ve been in an accident,” he said.

Her eyes closed again, and he could see a faint colour coming into her cheeks.
Thank God
, he said to himself, and reached out to take her hand. “Probably the only chance I’ll ever get,” he muttered, and the medic smiled.

*   *   *

A
S THEY DREW UP OUTSIDE THE HOSPITAL,
C
OWGILL
could see Derek standing outside the big doors. He rushed
forward, and was held back by one of the medics as they gently unloaded Lois. Tears streamed down his face, and Cowgill was glad he had released Lois’s hand. Poor sod, he thought.

“Is she . . . ?” Derek could hardly speak, and Cowgill put his hand on his shoulder.

“No, she’s not,” he said. “She has regained conciousness and asked what had happened. She was perfectly sensible, and is now sleeping.” He wasn’t sure about this last bit, but it sounded optimistic. If it wasn’t sleep, but repeated loss of conciousness, he knew it could be more serious. He didn’t see any point in telling Derek that.

After tests had been done, it was established that Lois had no major physical injuries. Her arms and legs were grazed where Darren had dragged her across the road, but miraculously there was no bleeding. No blood from her ears or nose, and, so far, no bruising around her eyes. She had awoken again and seen Derek, who was holding on to her as if he would never let go. “Not running away,” she had said, with the ghost of a smile, and he reluctantly stood back.

“You’ve laid an egg on your head,” he said, from a distance.

Lois put up a hand and felt the swelling. She winced, and the nurse said that an ice pack would fix that.