Precious Thing Read Free Page A

fill each other’s spaces, end each other’s sentences and sometimes we just sit in silence because we don’t have to hide behind words and gestures. We can just be ourselves. What I’m trying to say is when he’s not at home I feel like I’ve lost part of myself and I’d rather be anywhere than face the flat without him. So here I am on the M23 with the Arctic Monkeys playing on my CD, a Diet Coke and a bag of Haribo, heading towards you and the high-school bitch girls.
    I’m a few miles past Gatwick when I get that familiar sinking feeling. The traffic is slowing, the red brake lights are all bunched up on the road ahead. The Haribos are gone, my teeth are aching from the sugar and my bladder is full of Coke. I start flicking between radio stations to get the traffic update and catch snippets of news. The woman on Radio Four says that eleven people died in yesterday’s storms in the Midlands and the North. On Radio One there’s a breathless girl reading too fast and stressing words in all kinds of weird places. She says the Prime Minister Gordon Brown is in India talking about a racism row on
Big Brother
. Is this what the world has come to?
    Ahead, I see flashing lights, strobing in the rain. We are funnelled into a single lane, slowly, slowly. Further up the road there are two police cars, a fire engine and an ambulance. I can see high-vis jackets moving in the gloom. I wonder what they have found but I don’t have to wonder for too long because soon I see it myself. To the left of me there is a red Ford, a Fiesta I think, with its roof half off and the firemen are cutting someone out. Either that or they are trying to get into the car to see what is left of the driver. I picture severed limbs and death. There’s another car, a silver Mercedes, at a right angle, near the Ford. Its rear and side door have been bashed but it has fared better than the Fiesta.
The beauty of German engineering
. A man who looks like the driver is sitting on the roadside. He has a blanket draped over his shoulders and his head is in his hands. Underneath the blanket he is wearing a suit and black shoes. I shudder. I wish I hadn’t seen him, but the image is burnt into my brain now. And I am reminded that we are not in control, even when we think we are. Life is random; anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool.
    Slowly the traffic starts moving again. As I pull away my phone beeps. A text message. I’ll wait until I stop to read it, I think. I’m not ready for my life to change suddenly on the M23 on a dark Friday night in January.
    I open it when I arrive in Brighton. It’s from you.
    Rach, so sorry, feeling terrible, think I might have flu, still in bed but will heave myself out to make it. Will call later Clara x
    When I try to call you back, it goes straight to your answerphone. I don’t leave a message. I text you back instead.
    Don’t leave me on my own with them!! Take some Lemsips. And turn your phone on. X
    But you never do.
    It is a five-minute walk from the car park on Black Lion Street to Cantina Latina. The wind, sharp from the sea, shaves my skin. I cross the road and walk past the pier, illuminated in the dark. A few arcades are open, defying the January freeze to lure the hardcore gamblers. In front of me a group of girls teeter on high heels, no coats. Don’t they feel the cold? Occasionally one of them laughs. The night is full of expectation. Smudged make-up and disappointment will come later.
    My work clothes look out of place among the short skirts and shiny shirts. And I realise I’m not part of this now. Jonny and I go to pubs. We talk. You tease me about it, Clara. You say I act like I’m middle-aged and I can’t have fun any more but that’s not true. Jonny and I are happy in each other’s company, we don’t need anything else. It’s the way
we
used to be, Clara.
    I see Cantina Latina across the road from the Sea Life Centre, next to a fish and chip shop. As I approach I notice two bouncers, like