I still hated being dependent on other people, even my mum, but I wasn’t going to think about that now.
‘OK,’ Mum said, and then, as if she’d read my thoughts, she added: ‘You’ll soon be able to drive yourself again. And your dad’s car is an automatic. You’d better start wheedling your way into his good books.’
My spirits lifted another notch. She was right. I probably could manage an automatic. And though Dad could be crusty, and he’d always been fiercely possessive about his car, I could usually twist him round my finger.
‘Not this morning, though,’ Mum said with a smile. ‘He’s never in the best of tempers when he’s got to do the accounts, and he wouldn’t thank you for interrupting him.’
She found a pencil and one of the envelopes discarded from the morning’s mail and began opening cupboards.
‘Go and get ready, Sally. This won’t take me long.’
The rain had stopped overnight, but the sky was still grey and leaden, and the air felt cold and clammy. As Mum drove slowly up the track that led to the lane beyond, the wheels sunk into patches of thick mud and splashed through puddles. The lane was not much better; a delivery van came up behind us, tailgating in his impatience to overtake, and splattering grime all over the rear windscreen of Mum’s little hatchback.
‘White-van man,’ I said, through gritted teeth. ‘I didn’t know they’d infested the country too.’
‘Oh yes.’ Mum shook her head as the van finally took his chance and roared past. ‘I just hope we don’t round the corner and find him crashed into a tractor or a hedge cutter.’
‘Or some innocent motorist coming the other way.’
‘He’s headed for trouble in these winding lanes, that’s for sure,’ Mum said.
But this time, it seemed, white-van man had got away with it. We didn’t see hide or hair of him again, and soon we were approaching the outskirts of Stoke Compton.
‘Where do you want me to drop you?’ Mum asked.
‘The High Street would be good.’
As we turned into it, Mum nodded her head to the left.
‘That’s where the fire was; like I said, it’s a café now.’
I looked in the direction she was indicating and saw a large plate-glass window bearing a bright, arched logo – Muffins.
‘They put tables and chairs outside on the pavement in the summer,’ Mum said, but I was looking up at the windows above the café frontage, small casements, and the dark, funnel-shaped stain still evident on the grey stone of the wall.
For all that I’m a seasoned reporter, used to remaining uninvolved no matter how traumatic the scenario I’m faced with, a small chill prickled over my skin. Perhaps because this was my hometown, the place where I’d grown up and always felt safe; perhaps because I was going soft. It was a year now since I’d had to deal with the harsher side of life – apart from my own problems. I hadn’t had to attend road accidents where people were trapped in cars, I hadn’t been standing on the bank when bodies were pulled out of the river, I hadn’t had to try to interview grieving relatives or horribly mutilated soldiers wounded in Afghanistan. This was nothing compared to some of the stories I’d covered in the past. Just a fire – nobody had died. And yet it was getting to me.
Fire has always frightened me, I must admit. There is something about the relentless roar of flames and clouds of thick black smoke, the crash of falling masonry and roofs caving in, the awesome power of a blaze that has really taken hold, that gets to me on a very primitive level. And afterwards, the charred devastation, dripping water, the smell . . . it frightens me and also fascinates me. But even so . . . it was weird that I was reacting so strongly to the scene of a fire that happened five years ago. I really needed to toughen myself up again!
Mum pulled into a space by the kerb.
‘Will this do?’
‘Fine.’
‘I’ll see you here then – or as close to here as I can get.’ She checked the dashboard clock. ‘Midday – OK?’
‘OK.’ I opened the car door and got out, holding on to it while I retrieved my crutches from the rear seat. Managing without crutches was something else I was going to have to get used to, but this morning, not being sure how long I was going to be on my leg, or how far I would have to walk, I’d brought them with me.
Mum waited until I set off down the High Street in the direction of the newspaper office, then pulled out and drove off with a toot and a wave.
The newspaper office had once been a shop. Through the plate-glass window I could see a girl sitting behind a reception desk. I juggled my crutches, pushed open the door and went inside.