Swinging his legs off the bed, he rubbed his face, took a swig of water and swallowed a handful of tablets to ease the lightning in his head. His throat was raw. He hauled himself up on shaky legs and looked out of the window.
He was nearly there now. He didn’t want to eat, he just needed to get there, and so he splashed some water on his face and got ready to check out. Weary, so very weary. It was time to stop running.
As the bus brought him closer to his old life, anxiety pierced him like an arrow through his heart. He told himself no one lived there any more, that it was just a memory of what had been, but he struggled to contain it quickly enough. His stomach wrenched, threatening to humiliate him, but he gritted his teeth and, breathing slowly, he managed to suppress his nerves and loosely regain some semblance of control.
At his stop, Pete alighted and stood there, rigid and still. Others got off the bus and circled around him, their expressions enquiring, wondering what he was doing. A tabby cat purred at his feet and curled around him and as he became aware, he was distracted from his dream world. He reached down to smooth its fur, tickling the creature behind the ear. A dog barked in the distance and the cat startled and scuttled away.
Pete took a deep breath and looked up. If there was any other way to do this he would not be within a million miles of this house, but he need to get to his sanctuary and the only way he knew was from his home.
He began to walk up the road, his breathing controlled, but his mind was drifting further and further away from him. He turned the last corner and there it was. A shiver coursed through him, even though the day was warm, and flashbacks of rows and fights flickered through his mind. His mother crying. His father leading with his fists. He closed his eyes, trying to block out the pain. He was a grown man now; his dad couldn’t hurt him any more. His mother was safe and far away from here. He had protected Jim and fought for them all. But there had been nobody left to fight for him. Nobody, except Ali.
The door of his old house opened and his heart forgot to beat. A chill slithered around him and then a woman with a little toddler walked out into the garden. Blinking, he realised he had to move on. He didn’t want to alarm them. But the woman spotted him and walked over.
“Can I help you?” she asked, with concern in her eyes.
“No. I’m sorry. I was just looking. I… I used to live here.”
“Would you like to have a look around?” she offered, but her voice shook at the end, as if she was suddenly afraid of his reply. She let her hand reach up, protectively cradling the child in her arms and her body weight shifted.
He had frightened her. Pete shook his head. “No, thank you.” He smiled wearily and walked away. He was as much of a curse as his father had been. He would remove himself from her happy home. At least it was a happy home now, he thought. Or was it? Who knows? Most people had thought his home had been a happy one.
Two doors along there was a path that lead back between the houses to a street on the other side. And there, right in front of him, was Ali’s house. He wondered if her family still lived there. Sadly she never would again, but she was close by.
At the end of the road was a gateway and through this was his release. He could almost taste it. With more energy than he had known in days, he climbed over the gate marked ‘PRIVATE, NO ENTRY’ and headed up the lane into the woods. Familiar trees and bracken showed him the way, as his memory led him home.
It was the place where they had hidden when life became too frightening, when his mum had begged them to run and hide. Torn in two, he had desperately wanted to stay and help her, but he had run and protected Jimmy instead.
Brambles snagged at his calves as he tramped further and further into the wilderness. Unseeing eyes caused him to trip and he fell, face down in the mud, winded and confused. With no power to move, he lay there for a long while, until the cold of the ground came calling and he heaved at his bones to stand up. His face was sore and he noticed a trickle of blood collecting beside a stone on the ground. He wiped at it and tried to move, stumbling again with the pain. His ankle. It was pounding with a fury usually reserved for his head.
Pete looked around, searching for where he thought it should be. Although familiar, nothing was quite the same any more and, spotting a fallen branch, he lifted it, broke the rotten twigs away and used it as a crutch. He limped on and finally he found it: the den.
It was a little fort they’d made when he was about eight or nine, stealing a hammer and nails from his father’s shed to build themselves an escape. It had been their secret - their second home - something they had needed to block out the threat and the fear. Some days he had left Jimmy there alone for hours, as he crept back home to check on his mother. But it only seemed to make matters worse. If it was bad, the images would torment him and plague him with guilt and if he was caught, as he occasionally was, he would pay the price and Jimmy would be left by himself even longer. So, as the years went by, he learned to spend more and more time out in the woods, blocking out what might be happening in the house.
The den was worn down by time now, but still it was standing there. Tattered remains of bin liners peeped out, nailed around the inside to protect from the wind and the rain. It had been added to as they’d grown bigger and more able. They did their homework inside it and made plans and alibis, excuses for bruises on school days and a code to let each other know when to run. They would never have survived without it, or… perhaps… perhaps if they had faced the music, if he had faced the music, his mother would have left the man earlier? He thought about this. Had she, in trying to protect them, only prolonged the agony? Who could say?
He ducked his head and stepped inside, crouching to look around him and see what remained. Nobody had touched it. It was on private land. Whoever it belonged to either didn’t know or didn’t care. Gingerly he rested on an old wooden box they had dragged inside many years before. It held his weight. Scratches from their knives, writing words in the wood, still remained to be seen and he ran his fingers across them and remembered.
Shivering in the dank shelter of the moss-covered hideaway, thrown back in time to a place he had tried to forget, Pete rested his head back and tried hard to picture the happier times: him and his brother playing make-believe in their fort… with Ali. His body ached. He was so tired. Life was tiring, and it was cold.
Jenny walked around the streets of Upper Conworth, stopping anyone who would talk to her, to ask them if they had seen this man. She showed them the picture of Pete and willed each one of them to recognise him. She left her number on the back of the ones she’d placed in the pubs around town, but it was useless. She had been at it for hours and nobody had seen a thing. He could be anywhere by now. Hell, for all she knew he might even have his passport on him.
With a sigh she sat down on a wall, knowing time was fast running out for both of them. She had to be back in work the following day and Pete might have already lost his job. Jenny had to get back that night and they still hadn’t found him. People were looking out for him at home and she was sure someone would have rung her if he had turned up. She had to think. If she was upset and she wanted to get away, where would she go? Home? Not likely. A friend? She had tried all the contacts she knew. So it was back to first principles. He had left his phone behind, but he would still need a place to stay. He probably had his wallet and since he wasn’t at home and he wasn’t with James… Maybe she should have been checking hotels? Jenny jumped up and looked around her. Hotels and B&Bs. Where should she start?
She walked around, calling in on any establishments renting rooms. Door after door was opened and shut, with nothing new to report. She grabbed a pasty from a baker's she passed on her way, as the day was slipping past her and her body needed fuel. She had almost given up when she finally hit on some luck. In a small B&B on the edge of the town centre, at last, a lady remembered him.
“Quiet guy. Yes,