Chapter 30 #2
But she had to stop talking to herself because it was driving Siri crazy.
‘Sorry, I do not know that song,’ his calm and unruffled tones assured her.
Hour six was a low hour, she sank down into her chair, felt the dark gloom of hills and darkness all around her and knew that her blinks were getting dangerously long.
She had to stay awake. If she even hit the rumble strip once, she knew she would have to stop and have a nap, because dying after crashing off the motorway in an exhausted heap was not an option.
No, not an option! She told herself out loud again.
She pressed the button for the window to open and got a gust of cold, damp air in her face.
She opened the window some more until it was fairly blasting at her.
Scottish air! How had she missed the sign.
She was in Scotland! Surely there couldn’t be too much further to go.
Just the faintest glimmer of paler blue seemed to be breaking over in the east and could that be dawn?
Then she must be getting near… at so many points in this long, exhausting, possibly ridiculous journey, she’d been so close to giving up, so close to turning back home, or pulling up for a sleep that seeing the approach of dawn, seeing the sign that said:
Glasgow 55 miles
was just such a little overwhelming. She felt her dry, tired, blurring eyes sending out a dribble of tears. ‘I’m nearly there, Siri. We’ve made it—’
‘Playing “We Made It” by Circa Waves.’
‘No, Siri, nooo.’ She glanced at the dashboard where the digital clock told her it was 6.45 a.m. Back at home in Highgate, her alarm would be going off.
* * *
Soothing angelic harp tones began to fill the bedroom and Ed, usually a sprightly, spring-out-of-bed kind of morning person felt tired enough to hiss, ‘Turn it off, Annie… turn it off,’ because the clock was on her side.
He put out his hand to give her a little nudge and was very surprised to find empty space.
She wasn’t in bed. What! This never happened.
She hated to get up, insisted it was the worst fifteen minutes of her day.
‘Ermmm… thirty minutes more like,’ he always corrected her.
‘Annie… are you all right?’ he asked out loud, as if she might be over by the wardrobe, or somewhere within shouting distance.
‘Annie?’ He sat up and clicked on his bedside light.
No sign of her. And her side of the bed was cold, as if she’d been up for ages.
And that pile of stuff on her chair was gone.
And her phone wasn’t lying on top of her bedside table…
And happy anniversary to us, he thought a little bitterly.
Has she already headed off to the scene of the show, this early?
He swung out of bed and groped about with his feet for his battered old sheepskin slippers.
Then he went to the bedroom door, opened it and listened.
There was no sound at all. It didn’t sound as if she was in the bathroom, the kitchen or anywhere else in the house.
It was very quiet, as if he was the first one up.
He padded downstairs to the kitchen, where his phone was out on the island countertop, as if Annie had put it there especially for him to see, because he wasn’t as glued to his device as she was.
Beside the phone was a Post-it note which had an arrow drawn in thick felt tip.
The arrow pointed to the phone and under the arrow were the words:
I can explain
He picked up the phone and saw a notification for one of her dreaded voice notes. Now what, he wondered, as he pressed play. Whatever he’d expected, nothing had prepared him for the words: ‘Babes, I know you’re going to think this is mad, but I’m driving to Glasgow…’
WHAT?!!!!!
* * *
Annie’s phone began to ring. As it was 6.
52 a.m., she knew exactly who that was going to be and quite frankly having to listen to a stream of what did she think she was doing/was she out of her mind/of course Owen was going to be perfectly fine/did she realise today was the day of the show etc.
, etc., was too much. She was driving to Glasgow, so surely it would be OK to just let the call ring out and pretend she was out of signal?
She would phone Ed back just as soon as she had some real news about Owen.
And just thinking about what the real news would be sent a fresh blast of nerves round her system and she pushed her foot down on the pedal a little further.
Half an hour later, she was approaching the edge of the city.
The orange glow of the streetlights mixed with the first signs of pale blue light from the heavy brooding sky.
She sat up in her seat, knowing she would have to pay close attention to Siri’s directions.
There were motorway changes, underpasses, slip roads and roundabouts to negotiate before she could get to the place where she and Ed had dropped Owen and all his most important possessions just two weeks ago.
Of course, more than anything, she hoped she was wrong and Owen was completely fine and had just forgotten about her in the busy whirl of his new life.
If that was the case, she was going to be furious with the trouble he’d caused her.
Absolutely furious! And right now, as she negotiated a turnoff from one motorway, so she could join another, she tried to keep thoughts of everything being fine and her being furious right at the front of her mind.
Because the alternative was too frightening and soon enough she would know, so for now, she had to keep her ears on Siri’s instructions and her eyes and her thoughts firmly on the road.
The constant little tings coming from her phone told her that the world was waking up, and everyone involved in tonight’s big event was coming to life with questions, instructions and last-minute panics.
She would deal with it. There was time. It would be sorted. But right now, Owen had to come first.
She was on a town dual-carriageway now, with a 30 mph speed limit and she knew she didn’t have far to go.
Another turn-off, three more roundabouts…
past the Lidl, where she’d bought Owen that last farewell bag of groceries, putting all the things in the basket that she knew he liked.
Along with plenty of other things that were probably turning into mush in the bottom of the shared fridge.
She wasn’t surprised to feel tears slipping from her eyes at the thought of this.
Oh God, Owen, please be OK, please, please, let everything be OK with you.
I won’t be annoyed if everything is OK. Honestly, I’ll be bloody freaking delighted.
And she knew it was crazy to be here, but it was also the right thing.
How could she possibly have her whole mind on the show tonight if she didn’t know what was going on with her precious son?
She turned right as Siri instructed and now nudged the car slowly along the street where Owen’s accommodation building was.
‘You have reached your destination,’ Siri chirped cheerfully as Annie drew up, her eyes scanned the front of the building for the window on the second floor that she remembered was Owen’s room.
The windows were wide open and it was immediately obvious, to her horror, that the black scorch marks on the brickwork at the top of the frame meant there had very recently been a fire. Her heart stood still.