behind them in our van, just finished a job. I said to Pete here, they ain’t going to make that corner.’ He indicated Helaina. ‘This one here nearly turned it into a plane, flying over that ditch. Been there myself. Don’t want the police getting involved. Stuck them in the van and brought them here.’
The other lad pointed to Phoebe and said, ‘She was lucky to get out alive. All caved in down her side. And him,’ he said, pointing at Victor, ‘if he’d been sitting any further over to the driver’s side, he’d have been a goner.’
Patrick had joined us by now and was asking all the sensible questions about whether the other parents were on their way and whether the car presented a danger to anyone else on the road.
‘Nah,’ Josh said. ‘Well and truly buried in the ditch. You can’t even see it from the road.’
‘Is anything hurting, Victor?’ I asked, as Georgia peeled herself away from him and sank down into a chair.
He looked like he might cry but shook his head, silent. Even in my panic, I couldn’t help thinking how much he must miss Ginny. My knees went all weak at the thought that it could have been so much worse, that I could have been attending more funerals, this time even closer to home.
I thanked the boys who’d rescued them, gave them twenty quid to buy themselves a pint – ‘Next time, when you’re not driving.’ A look passed between them as though I’d said something old-fashioned and stupid. I wanted to get out of there, away from these lads who were slightly too enthusiastic about being part of yet another crisis involving Phoebe. I breathed a sigh of relief as they left and turned to Helaina. ‘Are you sure you’re not hurt?’
‘No. Just banged my elbow. I’m sorry. Really sorry.’
She looked so upset that I said, ‘You’ve all been very lucky. Everyone has a few near misses when they first learn to drive. Hopefully you’ll learn from this and take it a bit more slowly. Are your parents coming?’
As those words left my mouth, Andrea and her husband, Rod, came steaming through the door, followed by Faye and Lee.
‘Helly!’ Andrea shouted before bursting into noisy sobs and causing the whole pub to swing round for a better look. Rod kept clearing his throat as though he would like to have tapped Andrea on the shoulder and asked her to tone it down, but knew from experience that wouldn’t end well.
Faye rushed over to Georgia, who fell into her arms. I talked over Georgia’s weeping, filling her in on what I’d gleaned so far. Faye kept shaking her head, saying, ‘Honestly, this has got to stop. It’s just one drama after another.’
I tried not to take her comments personally and said, ‘I couldn’t agree more,’ but she didn’t make eye contact or give me the complicit nod of recognition I was angling for, just pulled her lips into a tight, angry line.
Patrick was doing that whole matey, ‘Teenagers, eh? Well, no harm done’ before getting into a debate with Rod and Lee about whether or not leaving the scene of the accident was illegal when no one else was involved. There was a discussion about getting a farmer Rod knew to haul the car out of the ditch. ‘Shan’t be troubling the insurance with that one. Only an old banger anyway. Not worth screwing up her chance of getting insured.’
Patrick frowned as though a thought had suddenly occurred to him. ‘Why did the lads that brought you here keep saying “the state you were in”? Had you all been drinking?’ Given that it only mattered whether Helaina had been drinking, I left it to Andrea and Rod to get an answer to that one.
Rod suddenly seemed to raise himself up a few inches, as though Patrick had cast aspersions on their daughter. ‘Helaina knows better than to drink and drive, don’t you, darling?’
‘I hadn’t had anything to drink.’ She was making all the right noises, but her eyes were trying to tell Phoebe something. She just lacked that certitude, that total conviction that the accident was purely down to inexperience at the wheel. And there was something slightly off about her speech, as though she was explaining a complex idea to an audience of limited intelligence, slowly and deliberately. I wasn’t the only one to pick up on it.
Andrea paused in her histrionics. ‘So why didn’t you wait for us by the car?’