The Second Life of Sally Mottram. David Nobbs
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this time it was completely dark. She was alone in a field on a dark night in the middle of nowhere, and she was very, very cold. A mist was forming in the fields, and through the mist she saw them. Cows. She was terrified of cows. Most people were terrified of bulls, but with her it was cows too.
For a moment, in the mist, they looked unreal. She had a brief hope that they were virtual cows. In her state of mind they could well have been. But they weren’t, they were solid, huge, and emitting clouds of hot, foggy breath to thicken the mist.
She knew that she should be calm, must be calm, but she couldn’t be. She ran for it, ran as fast as she could, on bruised legs with no strength in them.
The cows ran too. At the time she thought they wanted to kill her to protect their calves; it was spring, she imagined it was the calving time. Later she thought that they had probably been thinking, ‘Hey up, this is the best night we’ve had in our unbelievably tedious lives since our mummies licked the placenta off us when we were born.’
She hurtled across the field towards the corner, some obscure instinct telling her there was more likely to be a gate at the corner. The moon shone briefly through the mist, giving a white ethereal light. There was no gate, but there was a stile. She clambered over it, feeling the warm breath of the cows. She fell into a mess of mud and water left over from the wet winter. Behind her the cows snuffled in disappointment. She had more bruises, and there was mud all over her face.
There didn’t seem to be a house anywhere. Or a farm. Britain was an overcrowded, overpopulated island. There were new housing estates everywhere. Everywhere there were milling crowds of lost Hungarians, disillusioned Poles and Muslim women who couldn’t see where they were going. How could there be nobody here at all?
And what a disgusting place the countryside was.
On the other side of the stile, beyond the mud and filth, there was a lane. Which way to go? She chose the right. It seemed right. That way, it felt, was civilization. That way, it felt, was Totnes. That way, it felt, was Judith. She almost turned round. She didn’t want to face Judith. Judith would be livid.
She didn’t know how long she walked. Maybe an hour, maybe two. She was weary, she was stumbling, she leant for a minute or two against a telegraph pole. She was shivering helplessly now. Her hands and feet were blocks of ice. She would die of hypothermia.
The lane ended in a T-junction, not with a main road, but with a slightly larger lane. She felt the sea to the right, so she turned left. She had no idea whether that was right, but if she turned left and right alternately she felt that she would run less risk of going wrong, if that made sense. Something must lie somewhere, if she went reasonably straight.
She heard it first. A growl. The growl of an angry, neglected lorry. Then she saw the headlight. One. Not promising.
She didn’t know whether to wave or hide. She felt that the latter might be the wiser, but there wasn’t time.
The lorry pulled up with a prolonged squeal of brakes. It was filthy. Sally, suddenly alert, noticed that the number plates were covered in the mud of a whole winter. That wasn’t good, in fact it was very bad, but what alternative had she? If she refused to get in, he could rape her here, in perfect safety.
The driver switched off the engine. The sudden silence was unexpected and seemed laden with menace.
He clambered out of the cab, came round to her where she shivered. He was tall. He was muscular. In the headlight, just for a moment, she saw that his long, thick hair was matted with sweat, his broad, unshaven face streaked with mud. As he got closer, she smelt farmyard smells, smells she was unfamiliar with – slurry and pig shit. She was very frightened.
He put out his great hands as if to pick her up, saw her flinch, thought better of it. He had to help her up into the seat though, and inevitably, in the process of doing that, he had his hands round her buttocks, her much admired buttocks, her generous buttocks, though they weren’t feeling generous now. He clambered into the driver’s seat, glanced at her, smiled, but said nothing.
As she settled herself she reached in behind her anxious buttocks to remove a pamphlet that she was now sitting on. It might come in handy as evidence later. God, she tingled with terror at the thought of evidence. It was an advert for Storth Pumps and Stirrers. That didn’t help much. She had no idea what they were.
He started up, and they roared off, the noise of the badly maintained diesel engine shattering the silence of the night and giving tawny owls paroxysms.
‘Where to?’ he asked.
‘Totnes, please.’
‘Right.’
‘My sister’s.’
She got that in quick, hoping the knowledge of a sister’s existence might frighten him.
‘Right.’
He was silent for a moment as he planned his route. Then he spoke softly, in a kindly tone. Even in her weary condition this made her suspicious. Oh dear, she thought, he’s trying to put me at my ease before the attack.
‘So what were you doing wandering around in this terrible state?’
His voice didn’t match the lorry. It was not a voice covered in mud. It was not a voice on its last legs. He didn’t growl. In fact he sounded, in the word she used later to describe him … couth.
She told him her story, very briefly, and not without tears.
He made no comment, no comment at all, no criticism, no sympathy, nothing. She realized, much later, that he knew that she was too tired for anything more.
She felt a strange compulsion to steal a quick look at him. His face was set firmly on the road. His profile was almost classical, apart from the mud. He looked tense. The mist was getting even thicker now, and he clearly had no confidence in the lorry.
Headlines from the tabloids filled the night sky, swirled in the gathering mist: Police Hunt for the One-Headlight Rapist. Murder in the Mud. Dirty Secrets of ‘The Good Samaritan’. Even Our Lanes Aren’t Safe Any More. Where Is the Storth Pump Killer?
It was quite a long journey. She slept for a while, her head repeatedly lolling towards him. Then she woke and their eyes met. He tried to smile. It went horribly wrong. She almost cried out.
‘Totnes soon,’ he said, and then he pulled up.
She was terrified now.
He reached into his pocket. She almost stopped breathing. Was he going to shoot her first? Was he a necrophiliac?
He got out a hairbrush and began to brush his hair.
‘Don’t want to frighten that sister of yours,’ he said with a grin.
He had a surprisingly boyish grin.
Sally woke to find the sun streaming in through elegant curtains that Judith had bought because they were beautiful not because they kept the light out. The tulips on the elegant dressing table were as fresh as the day they’d been picked. The elegant glass of water at her bedside was untouched. She couldn’t remember when she had slept so well. She glanced at the elegant little bedside clock and was shocked to find that it was twenty-five past eleven. They were due at house number four at eleven. Judith would be livid.
She didn’t mind! She could face Judith’s lividity. She had survived yesterday’s ordeal. She felt stronger for it.
She practically leapt out of bed. Her legs buckled, her head swam. A moment ago she had felt strong. Now she felt weaker than she had ever been.
She sat on the bed.
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