The Telling Error (2 page)

It can’t be him. All policemen wear high-visibility jackets these days. Lots must have sand-coloured hair that’s a little bit wavy. In a minute he’ll turn round and I’ll see his face and laugh at myself for panicking.

Don’t turn round, unless you’re someone else. Be someone else. Please.

I sit perfectly still, try not to notice the far-reaching reverberations of every heartbeat. There is too much distance trapped in me. Miles. I can’t reach myself. A weird illusion grips me: that I am my heart and my car is my chest, and I’m shaking inside it.

Seconds must be passing. Not quickly enough. Time is stuck. I stare at the clock on my dashboard and wait for the minute to change. At last, 10:52 becomes 10:53 and I’m relieved, as if it could have gone either way.

Crazy
.

He’s still standing with his back to me. So many details are the same: his hair, his height, his build, the yellow jacket with ‘POLICE’ printed on it …

If it’s him, that means I must be doing something wrong, and I’m not. I’m definitely not. There’s no reason for him to reappear in my life; it wouldn’t be fair, when I’m trying so hard. Out of everyone sitting in their cars in this queue of traffic, I must be among the most blameless, if I’m being judged on today’s behaviour alone: a mother driving to school to deliver her son’s forgotten sports kit. I could have said, ‘Oh well, he’ll just have to miss games, or wear his school uniform,’ but I didn’t. I knew Ethan would hate those two options equally, so I cancelled my hair appointment and set off back to school, less than an hour after I’d got home from dropping the children off there. Willingly, because I care about my son’s happiness.

Which means this has to be a different policeman up ahead. It can’t be him. It was my guilt that drew him to me last time. Today, I’m innocent. I’ve been innocent for more than three weeks.

Drew him to you?

All right, I’m guilty of superstitious idiocy, but nothing else. If it’s him, he’s here on Elmhirst Road by chance – pure co-incidence, just as it was last time we met. He’s a police officer who works in Spilling; Elmhirst Road is in Spilling: his presence here, for reasons that have nothing to do with me, is entirely plausible.

Rationally, the argument stands up, but I’m not convinced.

Because you’re a superstitious fool
.

If it’s him, that means I’m still guilty, deep down. If he sees me …

I can’t let that happen. His eyes on me, even for a second, would act as a magnet, dragging the badness inside me up to the surface of my skin, making it spill out into the open; it would propel me back to where I was when he first found me: the land of the endangered.

I don’t deserve that. I have been good for three weeks and four days. Even in the privacy of my mind, where any transgressions would be unprovable, I haven’t slipped up. Once or twice my thoughts have almost broken free of my control, but I’ve been disciplined about slamming down the barriers.

Turn round, quick, before he does.

Can I risk it?

A minute ago, there were at least fifteen cars between mine and where he’s standing on the pavement, a few hundred metres ahead. There are still about ten, at a rough guess. If one of the drivers in front of me would do a U-turn and go back the way they came, I’d do the same, but he’s more likely to notice me if I’m the first to do it. He might recognise my car, remember the make and model – maybe even the number plate. Not that he’s turned round yet, but he could be about to.
Any second now
…

He’d wonder why I was doubling back on myself. The traffic isn’t at a standstill. True, we’re crawling along, but it’s unlikely to take me more than ten minutes to get past whatever’s causing the delay. All I can see from my car is a female police officer in the road, standing up straight, then bobbing down out of sight; standing up again, bobbing down again. I think she must be saying something to the driver of each car that passes. There’s another male officer too, on the pavement, talking to …

Not him. Talking to a man who, please God, isn’t him.

Inhale. Long and deep.

I can’t do it. The presence of the right words in my mind is not enough to drive away the panic, not when I’m breathing jagged and fast like this.

I wish I could work out what’s going on up there. It’s probably something dull and bureaucratic. Once before, I was stopped by fluorescent-jacketed police – three of them, like today – who were holding up traffic on the Rawndesley Road as part of a survey about driver behaviour. I’ve forgotten what questions they asked me. They were boring, and felt pointless at the time. I remember thinking, My answers will be of no benefit to anyone, and answering politely anyway.

The car in front of mine moves forward at the exact same moment that the policeman with his back to me turns his head. I see him in profile, only for a second, but it’s enough. I make a choking noise that no one hears but me. I’m embarrassed anyway.

It’s him
.

No choice, then. Driving past him is unthinkable – no way of avoiding being seen by him if his colleague stops my car to speak to me – so I’ll have to turn round. I edge forward and swerve to the right, waiting for a gap in the oncoming traffic on the other side of the road so that I can escape.
Please.
I’ll feel OK as soon as I’m travelling away from him and not towards him.

I edge out further. Too far, over the white line, where there’s no room for me. A blue Toyota beeps its horn as it flies past, the driver’s open mouth an angry blur. The noise is long and drawn out: the sound of a long grudge, not a fleeting annoyance, though I’m not sure if I’m still hearing its echo or only remembering it. Shock drums a rhythmic beat through my body, rising up from my chest into my throat and neck, pulsing down to my stomach. It pounds in my ears, in the skin of my face; I can even feel it in my hair.

There’s no way a noise like that car horn isn’t going to make a policeman – any policeman – turn round and see what’s going on.

It’s OK. It’s fine. Nothing to worry about. How likely is it that he’d remember my car registration? He’ll see a silver Audi and think nothing of it. He must see them all the time.

I keep my head facing away from him, my eyes fixed on the other side of the road, willing a gap to appear. One second, two seconds, three …

Don’t look. He’ll be looking by now. No eye contact, that’s what matters. As long as you don’t see him seeing you
…

At last, there’s space for me to move out. I spin the car round and drive back along Elmhirst Road towards Spilling town centre, seeing all the same things that I saw a few minutes ago, except in reverse order: the garden centre, the Arts Barn, the house with the mint-green camper van parked outside it that looks like a Smeg fridge turned on its side, with wheels attached. These familiar objects and buildings seemed ordinary and unthreatening when I drove past them a few minutes ago. Now there’s something unreal about them. They look staged. Complicit, as if they’re playing a sinister game with me, one they know I’ll lose.

Feeling hot and dizzy, I turn left into the library car park and take the first space I see: what Adam and I have always called ‘a golfer’s space’ because the symbol painted in white on the concrete looks more like a set of golf clubs than the pram it’s supposed to be.

I open the car door with numb fingers that feel as if they’re only partly attached to my body and find myself gasping for air. I’m burning hot, dripping with sweat, and it has nothing to do with the weather.

Why do I still feel like this? I should have been able to leave the panic behind, on Elmhirst Road. With him.

Get a grip. Nothing bad has actually happened. Nothing at all has happened.

‘You’re not parking there, are you? I hope you’re going to move.’

I look up. A young woman with auburn hair and the shortest fringe I’ve ever seen is staring at me. I assume the question came from her, since there’s no one else around. Explaining my situation to her is more than I can manage at the moment. I can form the words in my mind, but not in my mouth.
I’m not exactly parking. I just need to sit here for a while, until I’m safe to drive again. Then I’ll go.

I’m so caught up in the traumatic nothing that happened to me on Elmhirst Road that I only realise she’s still there when she says, ‘That space is for mums and babies. You’ve not got a baby with you. Park somewhere else!’

‘Sorry. I … I will. I’ll move in a minute. Thanks.’

I smile at her, grateful for the distraction, for a reminder that this is my world and I’m still in it: the world of real, niggly problems that have to be dealt with in the present.

‘What’s wrong with right now?’ she says.

‘I just … I’m not feeling …’

‘You’re in a space for mothers with babies! Are you too stupid to read signs?’ Her aggression is excessive – mysteriously so. ‘Move! There’s at least fifty other free spaces.’

‘And at least twenty-five of those are mother-and-child spaces,’ I say, looking at all the straight yellow lines on the concrete running parallel to my car, with nothing between them. ‘I’m not going to deprive anyone of a space if I sit here for another three minutes. I’m sorry, but I’m not feeling great.’

‘You don’t know who’s going to turn up in a minute,’ says my persecutor. ‘The spaces might all fill up.’ She pushes at her toothbrush-bristle fringe with her fingers. She seems to want to flick it to one side and hasn’t worked out that it’s too short to go anywhere; all it can do is lie flat on her head.

‘Do you work at the library?’ I ask her. I’ve never seen a Spilling librarian wearing stiletto-heeled crocodile-skin ankle boots before, but I suppose it’s possible.

‘No, but I’ll go and get someone who does if you don’t move.’

What is she, then? A recreational protester whose chosen cause is the safeguarding of mother-and-child parking spaces for those who deserve them? She has no children with her, or any books, or a bag big enough to contain books. What’s she doing here in the library car park?

Get the bitch
, says the voice in my head that I mustn’t listen to.
Bring her down.

‘Two questions for you,’ I say coolly. ‘Who the hell do you think you are, and who the hell are you?’

‘It doesn’t matter! What matters is, you’re in the wrong space!’

‘Read the sign,’ I tell her. To save her the trouble of turning round, I read it aloud to her, ‘“These spaces are reserved for people with children.” That includes me. I have two children. I can show you photos. Or my C-section scar, if you’d prefer?’

‘It
means
for people who’ve got children with them
in the car
, as you well know! Shall I go and get the library manager?’

‘Fine by me.’ I’m starting to feel better, thanks to this woman. I’m enjoying myself. ‘She can tell us what she thinks the sign means, and I’ll tell her what it says, and explain the difference. “People with children” means “parents”. Those with offspring, progeny, descendants: the non-childless. There’s nothing in the wording of that sign that specifies where the children need to be, geographically, at this precise moment. If it said, “This space is reserved for people who have their kids with them
right here and now in this library car park
”, I could see a justification for moving. Since it doesn’t …’ I shrug.

‘Right,’ Short Fringe snaps at me. ‘You wait there!’

‘What, in the parking space you’re so keen for me to vacate?’ I call after her as she stomps towards the library. ‘You want me to stay in it now?’

She makes an obscene finger gesture over her shoulder.

I’d like to wait and argue with the librarian – all the librarians, if possible – but the return of my normal everyday self has brought with it the memory of why I left the house: to deliver Ethan’s sports bag to school. I should get on with it; I know he’ll worry until he has it in his hands.

Reluctantly, I slam my car door shut, pull out of the library car park and head for the Silsford Road. I can get to the school via Upper Heckencott, I think. It’s a ridiculously long-winded way of getting there, involving skinny, winding lanes that you have to reverse back along for about a mile if you meet a car coming in the opposite direction, but you generally don’t. And it’s the only route I can think of that doesn’t involve driving down Elmhirst Road.

I check my watch: 11.10 a.m. I pull my phone out of my bag, ring school, ask them to tell Ethan not to worry and that I’m on my way. All of this I do while driving, knowing I shouldn’t, hoping I’ll get away with it. I wonder if it’s possible, simultaneously, to be a good mother and a bad person: someone who enjoys picking fights with strangers in car parks, who lies, who gets into trouble with the police and nearly ruins her life and the life of her family, who thinks, Fuck you, every time anyone points out what the rules are and that she’s breaking them.

I blow a long sigh out of the open window, as if I’m blowing out smoke. Ethan deserves a mother with no secrets, a mother who can drive to school without needing to hide from anyone. Instead, he has me. Soon he’ll have his sports kit too.

It could be worse for him. I’m determined to make it better, to make myself better.

Three weeks and four days.
A verbal scrap with a self-righteous idiot doesn’t count as a lapse, I decide, at the same time as telling myself that I mustn’t let it happen again – that I must be more humble in future, even if provoked. Less combative, more … ordinary. Like the other school mums. Though less dull than them, I hope. Never the sort of person who would say, ‘A home isn’t a home without a dog,’ or, ‘I don’t know why I bother going to the gym – forty minutes on the treadmill and what do I do as soon as I get home? Raid the biscuit tin!’

As safe and honourable as those women, but more exciting. Is that possible?

I like to have it both ways; that’s my whole problem, in a nutshell.