The Way We Were_ A Novel - Marcia Willett [74]
It comes in torrents, sizzling and bouncing off the hard-baked earth so that soon the bare moorland looks as if it is covered in a low cloud of steam. It hammers on the roof and clatters on the leaves of the rhododendron bushes; it dislodges stones and washes the loose, dry topsoil away in rivulets of muddy water that pour down into the lanes.
Aunt Em drives in looking faintly alarmed and they hurry to greet her, drawing her into the house.
‘Bad timing,’ she says. ‘This downpour is making driving very difficult. There's lots of bank holiday traffic about.’
Tiggy picks up her case and kisses the Turk on the nose.
‘Look after her,’ she says privately to Andy, and he nods, looking important and pleased at having such a responsibility entrusted to him. She kisses the children, hugs Aunt Em and goes out with Julia to the car. Panic is beginning to sweep over her in shuddering waves; she has the presentiment that something terrible is going to happen, something that has happened before is about to repeat itself, although she can't clearly remember what it was. Trembling, she climbs into the car, trying to control her formless terror but wanting to cry out that this is wrong; that they shouldn't be leaving the house.
Julia is talking, starting up the engine, edging round Aunt Em's car, trying to sound confident and reassuring. Out of the shelter of the rhododendrons, however, the car receives the full force of the storm and Julia is momentarily silenced by its violence. Tiggy can sense her anxiety as she grips the wheel and peers out through the streaming windscreen.
‘Stop!’ she wants to say. ‘Stop, Julia,’ but her mouth is dry her muscles disabled with fear, and she crouches silently in her seat, her arms wrapped protectively around her body.
The narrow moorland road is greasy with rain, covered with liquid mud, and, as the car approaches the T-junction, Tiggy is struck by the remembrance of her arrival: her mounting terror of some disaster and the van sliding out of control. She cries out, a groan combined of anguish and pain, and Julia glances at her fearfully. It is a quick glance, lasting only a few seconds, but it is enough to distract her, so that, as the car begins unexpectedly to aquaplane, she turns back in a panic, braking a little too hard and sending it skidding across the lane at the junction and crashing into a huge lump of granite.
Tiggy is flung against the windscreen; both girls scream. Tiggy covers her eyes with her hands, unable to move, rendered powerless by fear; but Julia is out of the car in a moment, hurrying round to the nearside to see the damage. She comes back and leans into the car, half kneeling on the driver's seat, and Tiggy raises her head, biting her lips, to look at her. Julia's face is white and her hair, dark with rain, is plastered to her cheeks.
‘It's no good,’ she says, distressed. ‘The wing's smashed in and the tyre's flat. We must go back to the house.’ She hesitates for a moment, as if debating with herself the wisdom of this decision. ‘I think we must. I can't just leave you here on your own. Aunt Em will have to take you to the hospital in her car, or we'll call an ambulance. Are you OK? God, I'm so sorry. Look, you'll have to get out this side.’
Tiggy manoeuvres her bulk into the driving seat and swings her legs out: shaking violently she stands up and immediately gives a cry of pain. Her head throbs and her left shoulder and arm feels badly bruised.
‘Oh my God.’ Julia puts her arm