Chapter 43
Ethan
‘What? Fuck.’ She looks as stunned as I feel.
‘It’s just—gone.’ I stand rooted to the spot, looking stupidly around the garage as if it’ll materialise.
‘D’you think he—how would he…’ Her voice trails off. ‘Can he even drive? He’s fourteen!’
‘He knows how to turn it on and get it in gear.’ Realisation hits me. ‘Oh my god.’
‘You really think he could drive it, though?’ Her voice is quavery with panic.
‘It’s like driving a fucking golf buggy.’ My throat is constricting with terror. I can barely get the words out. ‘He could probably work it out. Fuck, he must have taken the keycard.’
The keycard tends to collect dust in a drawer in the hallway console, because I operate the car exclusively from my phone.
My phone.
‘Wait.’
I minimise the video to one corner and pull up the Tesla app, staring at it in horror.
It shows a journey underway to Markham Street, SW3. Elena’s house in Chelsea. ETA: eighteen minutes from now. He’s already heading down Kensington Church Street. My heart begins to beat so hard in my throat that I might throw up.
‘Oh my fucking god. He’s en route to Elena’s.’
‘Jesus Christ.’ Soph’s eyes are wide with shock. ‘Can you call the police?’
I think frantically, willing myself to calm down and adopt logic, but I can’t. My body is screaming at me too loudly.
‘If I call them, they’ll arrest him, surely.’
‘Yeah.’ She falters. ‘But at least he’d be safe.’
I’m already running back up to the ground floor for the keys to my Aston, which is far more analogue than the Tesla. She’s right, of course, but I cannot have Jamie’s already disastrous Christmas ending in flashing blue lights and a squad car.
I just can’t.
‘I’ll follow him.’ I wrench open the relevant drawer and grab the keys. Sure enough, the black Tesla keycard is notably absent. ‘The roads will be dead tonight. I can catch him up.’
As I head back down to the garage, my brain is a whirling dervish of catastrophic thoughts. Jamie, crashing dead-on into a lamppost. Into another car. There will be god knows how many drunk drivers out there tonight. Him losing control and totalling a pedestrian. Ending up festering away in juvie.
‘Oh my god.’ My breath catches.
‘Listen. This is central London. He won’t be speeding. Can you see how fast he’s going?’
I look back down at the app. He’s doing twelve miles an hour down Ken Church Street. I choke back a sob-slash-laugh of relief. As long as he continues to drive like a granny, I can catch him up. But it’s so easy to speed in the Tesla without realising. The acceleration on that thing is insane.
‘Twelve miles an hour,’ I manage, unlocking the Aston.
‘Good. Good boy, Jamie. He’ll be fine, babe.’
I’m fastening my seatbelt and pulling the door shut, turning the key in the ignition.
The Aston purrs nicely to life, but right now I could really use the efficiency of an electric car.
‘I don’t know. He’s not very street-smart.
My fault.’ It’s an understatement. He gets himself to school on the Tube with a plain-clothed security detail trailing him, but he’s far from a streetwise kid.
The thought of him in this state, white-knuckling a powerful machine that he’s years too young to drive out on the streets of central London is almost too painful to bear.
‘Where the fuck did he learn to drive that thing?’
I tap my fingers impatiently on the wheel as I wait for the garage door to rise.
Come on come on come on. ‘We did a few rounds out in Wentworth when I first got it. He thought it was great fun.’ Who knew our rare father-son bonding time over our new toy at the golf club would enable the worst moment of my life? ‘Listen, I’ve got to call him.’
I go to end the video. Jamie, I can see, is turning onto High Street Ken.
‘Wait.’
It’s only the urgency in her voice that has me pausing. I glance down at her stricken face. ‘What? I need to go.’ I squeeze the wheel like I’m trying to strangle it. ‘What a stupid little fucker.’
‘Just—this is a cry for help, yeah? He’s acting out because he’s feeling devastated.
Okay? He feels gutted and ashamed and unloved and utterly wretched right now, and he’s probably scared shitless.
I know you are, too, but please don’t lay into him, babe.
I’m begging you. He needs his dad right now now.
His dad who loves him. Please try to come alongside him rather than coming down on him like a ton of bricks, yeah? ’
I nod curtly. ‘Yeah. Later.’ I end the call and pull out onto Elgin Crescent. Thank fuck for deserted Christmas Day roads. If I floor it, I can catch him.
‘Siri, call Jamie,’ I order. As Siri puts the call through, I floor it down an eerily clear Ladbroke Grove. The dialling tone kicks in.
Pick up pick up pick up.
It goes through to voicemail—an automated one, because teenagers don’t know voicemail exists.
Fuck. I slap the wheel with all my might, and the car jerks.
I’m crawling out of my body. I’m so terrified, so overcome by this maelstrom of terror and fury, that it’s likely I’ll be the one who ends up wrapped around a lamppost. I force myself to pull up onto the pavement with a noisy swerve so I can pick up my phone.
My best bet right now is a text. Of course he doesn’t want to pick up the phone to me.
I’m the monster he’s taken such desperate measures to evade.
Soph’s words are ringing in my ear, and honestly, I’m grateful for them, because I could cheerfully wring his neck.
But I force myself to take a second, just one second, before I unleash my horror and fury onto a text message.
She’s right, as always. He’s terrified. He hates me. This isn’t Jamie. He doesn’t act out. If anything, he shoves it all down. Makes himself small. Disengages.
I’ve already fucked up to an unbearable level this evening. This is my only chance to redeem myself as a father.
With shaking hands, I type. Thank fuck for autocorrect.
I love you. You’re not in trouble. Promise. On my way x
I pull the Tesla app back up, throw the phone down, and swerve back onto the road, cutting a red light to bomb down Kensington Church Street with indecent haste. I’m doing almost forty. Jamie’s crawling along Queen’s Gate.
I can do this.
I tell Siri to call him again.
Nothing.
I’m so close. Thank fuck, the lights at the bottom of Queen’s Gate are green. I tear across the crossroads, and there he is, making his way down Onslow Gardens, a quiet residential street.
Oh Jesus Christ. Thank god. Thank god.
I beep my horn, and he speeds up a little. Shit. I lower my window. ‘Jamie! Jamie, stop!’
We’re approaching the Fulham Road. It’s now or never.
I grit my teeth, put my foot down, and switch to the other side of the road, which is deserted.
With a pull on the wheel that I hope I’ve calculated correctly, I swing left and brake hard so that I’m facing horizontally across the junction with the Fulham Road, cutting Jamie off.
Through my passenger window, the Tesla comes to a emergency stop inches from my vehicle, which I suspect is thanks to the car’s auto-braking function and not to my son’s ability to anticipate my maverick stunt.
I did it.
Jesus fucking Christ.
I grab my phone so I can unlock the Tesla and exit the Aston on shaky legs. Jamie’s face is white as a sheet, his eyes huge and terrified. I wrench open the driver’s door and squat down so I’m level with him.
‘Oh, thank god,’ I say before he has a chance to say anything.
‘Thank god.’ I wrap my hand around his neck and kiss the side of his head before I start gabbling.
‘You’re safe. You’re not in trouble, okay?
You’re not in trouble. Every single thing that’s happened today has been my fault. All of it. And I’m so fucking sorry.’
He starts to cry: the big, noisy sobs of a child. Because that’s what he is. He may be a gangly six feet, but he’s still just a kid. A little boy who needs his dad and doesn’t understand why his dad can’t fucking be there for him. He shudders something out that I don’t understand.
‘What, sweetheart?’ I reach across and unfasten his seatbelt. ‘What did you say?’
‘I scraped the hubcap. I got too close to the kerb. I’m really sorry.’
I sob out a laugh as I help him out of the car. ‘I don’t care. I don’t give a flying fuck about anything except for you. Not hubcaps, not PCs. You hear me?’ I haul him against me, hugging him so tightly the poor kid probably can’t breathe. But I’ll take my chances.
With my arms wrapped around him like a vice, I rock us side to side.
‘I love you so much. I’m so sorry about earlier.
You were right. I was a psycho, and I’m so deeply ashamed of myself.
You’re absolutely bloody perfect, and I love you, and I’m so sorry I don’t tell you enough.
You’re the most important person in my life. ’
‘I love you too.’ He lays his head on my shoulder, his skinny little body still wracked with sobs. ‘I was really scared.’
‘I know, mate. I know. I’m not surprised. But I’m here now.’ I release my grip a little so I can pull back and look him in the eye. ‘What do you say we get out of here?’
He glances over at the Aston, still blocking the junction. A bloke trying to turn into Onslow Gardens has got out of his car and is yelling wanker at me. I couldn’t give a flying fuck.
‘Will I need to drive the Tesla back?’
I honk out a real laugh, relief coursing over me in waves.
‘No way. Not on your life. I’ll park it here for the night.
I’ll jog down and grab it tomorrow. Right now, we should go home and heat up some sausage rolls.
And then whenever you’re feeling up to it, maybe tomorrow, we can do some triage on the PC and work out what replacement parts I need to order for you, okay? We’ll get it sorted, I promise.’
His face crumples at that, his chin wobbling. ‘Okay. Thanks, Dad.’
As I gently steer him onto the pavement so I can move the cars, he says with another look at the Aston, ‘You drove like you were on The Rookie. That was fire.’
I think that’s a compliment.
After a quick text to Soph to tell her all is well, I make us a midnight feast of hot chocolate and reheated sausage rolls.
We eat them tucked up under a blanket on the sofa in the main living room so we can enjoy the tree while we watch Arthur Christmas.
We may both be shattered, but I’m aware we need some serious decompression time.
He chuckles his way through the movie, some of the colour returning to his cheeks, but I mainly sit there and watch him.
I’m still a mess. That could have gone so badly wrong.
A kid driving a car, for fuck’s sake. Seeing his journey pop up on the app was the most terrifying moment of my life.
I can’t believe we’re here, that we got through this, that he’s emerged from his harebrained adventure unscathed—physically at least.
I suspect we’ll both bear the emotional scars for quite some time.
One thing’s for sure: I need to text Philip first thing tomorrow and plead for an emergency session. It’s weird how fast it’s become my instinct to turn to him for help, but, god knows, I can’t process a shitshow of this scale by myself.