Coming Home. Melanie Rose

Chapter One

      The lay-by was small and muddy, with only one other car parked at the far end. Spray and grit from the road had all but obscured the car’s numberplate and left the paintwork a nondescript khaki grey. Even the bushes lining the lay-by’s boundary were a dull brackish brown.

      Unscrewing the lid from the Thermos I poured myself a cupful of sludge-coloured coffee. It had the sickly aroma that only flask coffee has, but I closed my eyes and savoured the comforting warmth. It had been a long drive north towards Oxfordshire and the break was very welcome. When I opened my eyes again I stared wearily out at the lay-by through the rain-speckled windscreen, rolling my shoulders back to ease the tension several hours of driving had left in my arms and neck. I sipped at the insipid drink, realising that same lack of colour reflected my life of late. It had been far too easy to languish in a rut of my own making. This journey hadn’t come a moment too soon.

      But as I peered out at the leaden sky I felt a pang of jittery nerves, uncertain whether I had made the right decision. The bubbly excitement I’d felt when I set out had gradually evaporated with the passing of the miles, leaving me feeling like a condemned woman awaiting the executioner’s block. I gave myself a mental shake, pushing aside the shivery premonition that I should simply turn the car around and head back the way I’d come. I swallowed the last of the coffee. It was probably the chill that had begun to steal up from the foot well and whisper across my shoulders since turning off the ignition that was causing my poor mood, or maybe it was simply the bleakness of the weather.

      I started the engine again and left it running so that heat crept gradually back through my veins. A lorry sped past, throwing up sheets of filthy spray. The car rocked with a whoomp that made me tighten my grip on the plastic cup as I fixed it back onto the Thermos and glanced round to check that all was well. The car was loaded to the ceiling with everything I had ever owned that hadn’t been donated to charity or condemned to a skip. Boxes, suitcases, pot plants, bedding, bags and everything that had survived my ruthless cull from twenty-five years of accumulation lay behind me.

      A plaintive mewing came from the seat beside me where the pet carrier containing my travelling companion, Mitsy the tabby cat, was sitting. I poked my fingers through the wire mesh and stroked what I could reach of her face, and she rubbed her furry cheek against my fingers with a purr. The touch of her warm body brought new confidence flooding into me. I could hardly believe I’d ever considered leaving her behind. Several times in the last few hours I think I might have turned back if not for her constant and uncomplaining company. Mitsy watched with huge soulful eyes as I withdrew my fingers and fumbled the road atlas open on the dashboard with renewed resolve.

      ‘Looks like we’ve got a fair way to go yet.’ I surveyed the map, following the route with my finger; tutting with irritation when I realised the A road I wanted went off over the page. I searched for the continuation of the route. ‘I knew I should have got a sat nav,’ I told Mitsy with a rueful grin.

      When I looked up again, I realised that the rain had turned thin and sleety-looking, almost like snow and was driving hard against the windscreen at an angle. ‘Time to go.’ I slipped the atlas down beside my seat and turned the windscreen wipers on.

      Nosing my car back onto the main road, heater humming, side lights on and wipers swishing back and forth, I found that the traffic had thinned out considerably. It was just as well, I thought, as the sleet was thickening into small flakes of snow and increasing in ferocity. Already the grubby grass verge was becoming blanketed in ice crystals, and the fields and woods that flashed by were speckled with white.

      Half an hour later, the world outside the car had become a white blur. Thinking I might find a country pub in which to find shelter, I left the main road and took a smaller B road that wound between high hedges, which gave partial protection from the billowing snow. With headlights and wipers full on now, I inched forwards, hoping nothing would come careering from the opposite direction, but it seemed that all other traffic had already found refuge; I had the road worryingly to myself.

      Minutes stretched into what seemed like hours. My doubts returned with a vengeance and I realised I was perspiring with anxiety, despite the cold outside. I came at last to a crossroads, but the open space exposed me completely to the elements and my car shuddered beneath the onslaught of heavily falling snow. The tyres slipped and slid as they fought to gain traction on the snow-covered road. The flakes that fell against the windscreen were huge, obscuring the signposts, disguising the countryside and distorting my sense of direction.

      Trying not to panic, I leaned forwards, hands tightly gripping the steering wheel, I looked at all the different directions on offer. Nothing seemed to have any bearing on the map I had studied back in the lay-by. Eventually I guided the protesting car left, down what looked like the wider of the turnings. I hadn’t got very far before I began to doubt my choice. The drifting snow was collecting in ditches on either side of the road, making it almost impassable; certainly too narrow to risk a three-point turn. For better or for worse it seemed I was stuck with my decision.

      I came eventually to a stone bridge, which, if I hadn’t been lost in a snowstorm, might have been quite pretty. Directly after passing over the bridge the road began to climb quite steeply and the car’s wheels spun and whirred as I inched forwards.

      ‘This isn’t good,’ I told Mitsy through gritted teeth. ‘Not good at all.’

      Despite the muffled slowness of my progress up the hill, it seemed to me that everything inside the claustrophobic confines of my car was gradually gathering momentum. By degrees everything intensified. The white noise that had started in my head spread into the car itself. I had the headlights full on, windscreen wipers battling away, the heater blasting a clear patch on the inside of the windscreen. The engine whined and protested as it laboured up the steep incline.

      Desperation grew within me; if I could have thrust the car forward by sheer willpower alone, then we might have won through, but just below the summit the car faltered and began to slide backwards down the hill. I floored the accelerator in a desperate attempt to regain control but the wheels spun, the engine shrieked indignantly, the car lurched sideways as it continued its downhill slide, and after a few terrifying moments of gathering speed we slewed to an abrupt halt with one back wheel jammed against a sapling at the side of the snow-covered lane.

      For a moment I sat there, frozen with shock. The car was at such an angle that I felt I was hanging backwards and to one side in my seat. Reaching forward, I killed the ignition and a sudden deathly silence ensued. Giant snowflakes fell softly against the windscreen, and then I heard a sharp crack followed by the tearing, grating sound of metal ripping wood.

      Looking over my shoulder, I realised with horror that the spindly snow-covered tree that had stopped my car’s descent was splintering under the weight of the loaded vehicle. At any second it could give way completely and the car would continue its backward slide towards the bridge I’d crossed at the bottom of the hill, or worse, plunge towards the swollen river itself.

      Mitsy broke the silence by howling piteously beside me. The couple of long heartfelt yowls from deep in her stomach jolted me back into action. I shifted carefully in the precariously wedged car, unclipped my seat belt and reached round for my coat, which was on top of the pile of possessions on the back seat, but the car groaned and trembled with the movement and I turned quickly back and sat very still, my hands clasped in my lap. The car stopped moving.

      After a moment I resolved to try again, and inched my fingers towards my mobile phone, which was on the seat beside the cat box, but my shaking hands only succeeded in nudging it onto the floor, where it fell with a clunk and slid under the seat out of reach. Holding my breath, and very carefully so as not to upset the balance of the car, I reached sideways with my left hand and lifted the handle of the pet carrier, easing it over onto my lap. The change in weight caused the car to tremble and creak, but it didn’t move. With my other hand I tried slowly pushing open the driver’s door. It seemed incredibly heavy, as the angle of the car meant I had to push upwards and out at the same time.

      With the carrier lodged between the steering wheel and my chest,