Strangers

1-1

1

The sun sneaked through between gaps in the clouds, dappling the ground with racing patches of vast shadow and light. The sky overhead was more grey than blue now, summer’s last gasp disappearing fast. The end of August was in sight. Michelle didn’t know where the last twelve months had gone and she didn’t much care. As long as they’d gone, that was all that mattered.

The air smelled good out here, so very different. All around them were empty fields, nothing but space. The number of buildings had steadily reduced the longer they’d been driving, and now there were almost none. There were more trees than anything, huge pines which had been here forever, standing impervious and resolute, untroubled by the kind of trivialities and complications which had recently combined to make her life such an impenetrable cluster-f**k of hurt. The contrast with where they’d set out from this morning was stark. Back home in the Midlands, nature made way for man, but here the opposite held true. The road twisted and wound endlessly; the hills, rocks, rivers and forests dictating the way. You’ve got to get used to this , she told herself , this place is home now . But it was so very different to the sprawling suburban maze they’d left behind. Just a single road left to follow, no other traffic, no noise other than the car, just them .

She looked across at Scott. He’d been watching her soaking it all up. ‘Told you you’d like it,’ he said, slowing around a sudden sharp bend, then accelerating again as the road straightened and stretched out ahead of them. ‘Look at all this space, Chelle. This is what it’s all about, don’t you think? We’ll be happy here.’

Michelle smiled. ‘I hope you’re right.’

‘You know I’m right. When have I ever not been?’

The souped-up Vauxhall Zafira’s well-worn engine struggled to make it to the top of a short climb. Scott had been wanting to change the old heap, to trade-up to something better, maybe a Land Rover or an Audi, but that was out of the question right now and would be for a while longer yet. Their car was a necessary workhorse: boring but relatively reliable. Scott had grown to hate it. He’d paid extra for the fancy blue paint job and trim which had looked good back in the day, but it was dated now. That colour hadn’t been available for years.

They’d already driven over three hundred miles today, overloaded with the five of them and a boot full of belongings, barely room to move. The removal van would bring the bulk of their things on Monday, but this was the stuff Michelle wasn’t about to trust anyone else with, the important and irreplaceable. Photographs. Heirlooms. Documents and paperwork. Memories.

Scott changed down a gear to get over the crest of the deceptively steep hill, then put his foot down as the road sloped away again. It snaked for a couple more turns, then crossed a stone bridge over a river. Michelle thought it looked like something out of a fairy story. And in the distance now, beyond all the trees and fields, appearing to be at the very edge of everything, a snow-capped mountain range. Snow at this time of year! The sheer scale of the apparently never-ending landscape was hard to absorb. She couldn’t remember ever being able to see so far ahead. ‘Look at that. It’s beautiful.’

Scott glanced into the rear view mirror. ‘You don’t get views like that in Redditch, eh girls?’

No response. He checked his step-daughters’ faces for any flicker of reaction but there was nothing there. Tammy, headphones in, stared out of her window. Phoebe, two and a half years younger, had her face buried in a magazine. Eighteen month-old George sat between the two of them, strapped into his seat, fast asleep with his head lolled over to one side, bobbing with the movement of the drive, dribbling.

A signpost. The first for a long time.

THUSSOCK 18

‘Nearly there,’ Scott said. ‘Excited?’

‘I guess,’ Michelle answered.

‘Try showing some enthusiasm then.’

‘I am. This is a big thing though, Scott. I’m nervous.’

‘Nothing to be nervous about. The kids are gonna love it here.’

‘I hope you’re right.’

‘You’ve really got to sort out this negative attitude, love. You’re doing my head in.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Focus on the positives... all this space and fresh air.’

‘I know.’

‘This is just what this family needs. Get us all on the right track again.’

‘It’s a big deal for everyone though, Scott, that’s all. You too. You’ve only ever lived in Redditch.’

‘Not true. I had a flat in Bromsgrove for a couple of years.’

‘What, five miles down the road?’

‘You’re hardly a seasoned traveller yourself.’

‘It’s difficult with kids.’

‘Tell me about it.’

‘I travelled with Jeremy. We spent six months travelling around Europe with his job before Tammy was born.’

‘Six months of sitting in hotel rooms, you said.’

‘We did some sightseeing...’

‘You said you saw more plastics factories than anything.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Anyway, what you did or didn’t do with your ex isn’t important. It’s where we are now that matters. This move is going to be good for all of us. The kids will be more secure.’

‘Hope so.’

Michelle rested her head against the window and watched the world whip by. Another forest. Fields full of sheep. A herd of stampeding deer... she couldn’t remember ever having seen deer before, not out in the wild like this.

This was a beautiful part of the world. Scott was right, she needed to lose the negativity and focus on the positives. A fresh start. A clean slate. A new beginning.

#

Half of the letters on the WELCOME TO THUSSOCK sign had been worn away. Please Drive Carefully had been truncated to Please Drive . Michelle was tempted to make a joke out of it, but she thought she’d better not.

‘Is this it?’ Tammy asked from the back. It was the first time she’d spoken in an age.

‘This is it,’ Scott replied. ‘What do you think?’

‘You’re frigging kidding me.’

‘Language, Tam,’ Michelle warned. ‘You know how we feel about swearing.’

Tammy stretched across George and shook her sister’s arm. Phoebe had nodded off. ‘S’matter?’ she asked, sitting up quick, still half asleep.

‘Welcome to paradise,’ Tammy told her, no attempt made to mute her sarcasm.

Scott ignored her. ‘I thought you might like to see the town first,’ he said. ‘We’ll do a full loop, then end up at the house.’

Tammy stared out of the window, her heart sinking. She’d been holding out some hope that Thussock might not be as bad as she’d expected, but it was all that and more. This place was... dull. Grey, scruffy and bleak. She’d taken a brief virtual tour on Google Earth last week, but the online images had failed to do the place justice. They’d looked pretty grim, but the reality was something else.

Sprawling council estate, maze-like lines of ugly, identical buildings? Check . Dilapidated playground and community centre? Check . Packs of feral kids hanging around on street corners? Check . Boarded-up windows, walls spray-painted with graffiti? Check and check .

Beyond the housing estate the road became slightly more congested. This, Tammy presumed, was the high street: the beating heart of Thussock. Except that today it looked in need of defibrillation. Every other shop was shut, most of their frontages an unloved mess of plywood and torn and faded posters, livened up by the occasional coloured flash of illegible vandal’s scrawl. And the businesses still trading didn’t look much better.

Michelle had seen something on the news last week about parts of South Wales which had been overlooked after the coal mines had closed. Once-thriving communities had slowly crumbled, left to decay like the useless machinery abandoned to rust around the mouths of the pits, all but forgotten. Now unemployment was high and morale was low. Public transport was minimal, public services non-existent. There were kids, she remembered hearing, who’d never travelled more than a couple of miles away from home. Christ, she hoped things weren’t that bad here, but she harboured a sneaking suspicion that if she’d done findeplace on the newsreader’s script and substituted Thussock for South Wales , few people would have noticed. Stop it, Chelle, she told herself, this isn’t helping . ‘I think it looks quite nice,’ she said, knowing exactly how vague and non-committal she probably sounded.

‘It is nice,’ Scott told her.

‘What the hell’s that?’ Phoebe asked, pointing at an ugly mass of metal rising up behind the nearest buildings, completely at odds with everything else: steel tanks and pipes, belching off-white exhaust fumes.

‘Brewery,’ Scott answered quickly. ‘Quite a big one by all accounts. Thussock’s on the up and up, I’m hearing.’

Jeez , Tammy thought but didn’t dare say , it’s so tough living here they have to make their own booze to keep themselves permanently pissed . The air around the site was filled with a noxious stink. Tammy and Phoebe just looked at each other, faces screwed up.

This place was like a town preserved in aspic: a relic of a thankfully long-forgotten time. Tammy felt a glimmer of hope for the briefest of moments when she saw a sign for a new retail development up ahead, but it was short lived. A number of redbrick units had been built in a horseshoe shape around a small car park and block-paved pedestrian area, but only two had so far been occupied. One was a Co-op supermarket (and she thought it sad that recognising the store’s familiar green and white signage made her feel fleetingly positive), the other a cut-price clothing store. It was a chain she hadn’t heard of before, one local to Scotland, perhaps? She couldn’t imagine herself shopping there regularly. She’d already resigned herself to probably having to do all her shopping online. She hoped it wouldn’t be long before they had broadband installed. Scott had told her they’d get it sorted straightaway, but she’d given up counting on anything he told her.

‘That it?’ Phoebe asked when they reached the end of the high street. Tammy thought the flat tone of her sister’s voice perfectly described how she herself was feeling; a mix of disbelief and resignation. Disappointed and underwhelmed, but not entirely surprised.

‘That’s it,’ Scott said. ‘Perfect, eh?’

‘If you say so.’

‘Feels like we’ve dropped off the edge of the planet,’ Tammy said unhelpfully as they drove up and over an unnecessarily ornate stone bridge. She looked through the gaps between grubby balustrades and saw a quiet stream where she’d expected a river. Big bridge, little trickle. It seemed to sum this place up perfectly.

‘Come on you two,’ Michelle said, doing what she could to keep their spirits up. ‘It’s not that bad. Anyway, it might be quiet around here, but Edinburgh and Glasgow are only about an hour away, probably quicker if we take the train.’

‘So there’s a station?’

‘Of course there’s a station,’ Scott said.

‘There it is,’ Michelle added quickly, spying the distinctive Network Rail sign at the side of the road just ahead. She saw a largely empty gravel car park and a single platform, a tin shed wedged neatly between the two. So where exactly was the station? Wait, unless that shack was the station...?

‘I think we missed your school,’ Scott said. ‘I’ll double-back and try find it.’

‘Don’t bother,’ Tammy grumbled. ‘Let’s pace ourselves. Can’t take too much excitement in one day.’

‘There’s no need to be like that, Tam,’ Michelle warned.

‘You reckon?’

‘Ignore her,’ she told Scott. ‘How about we just head for the house? I think we all want to see it.’

‘Look, I know what you’re thinking...’ Scott said.

‘If you knew what I was thinking you’d have kicked me out of the car,’ Tammy said quickly.

‘I know what you’re thinking, but you need to give this place a chance, you all do. It’s important. It’s a fresh start for all of us.’

‘But I didn’t want a fresh start, remember? I was happy in Redditch.’

‘Tammy, leave it,’ Michelle said, feeling herself tensing, anticipating conflict.

‘It was out of my hands, you know it was.’

‘No it wasn’t. You just decided you couldn’t handle—’