Heat and Light by Ellen van Neerven Page B

by his job, suppressing the need for anything else, things they’d felt when they were younger but no longer believed in.
    As Janet drove onward, the road treacherously steep, she had no knowledge of what was ahead of her. She felt a tightness in her chest; she must get to him, clamp her lips down on his. If he died she would be alone.
    She pushed down the accelerator and, coming unexpectedly upon the road again, the vehicle lifted off the ground, airborne for a moment, before pummelling back towards the ground and landing on the white car. The back tyres of the four wheel-drive smacked onto the bonnet. The piled cars wobbled. The white car swerved and braked underneath.
    Inside, Lena, swearing and screaming in Greek, felt glass fly in her face. Instead of bringing the car to a complete stop then, somehow she accelerated and rushed them forward, closer to the edge, so the other vehicle was rammed at the clifftop. Lena saw the four wheel-drive tilt forward. Down below she saw the lights of the town, and the lit-up bay. Perfect, dark. Lena watched it happen from the outside. She found herself in another scene, back then. Watching on while Charlie loved Janet. The first time she saw Janet she was on the television. Charlie had known to switch it on. There she was, immediate in her beauty and intelligence. When Lena had seen her after that she was always impeccably dressed, a fancy, sophisticated woman who used big words in normal conversation. She couldn’t compete with that. And now this woman, not just content with fucking her husband, was here, claiming him again.
    Lena felt the gravity in her own car. ‘Oh, shit,’ she said. She reversed, and the tyres circled the dirt, the engine heaved, then she felt the car roll slowly backwards.
    When the car was clear off the cliff’s line, Lena tumbled out, falling into the overgrowth. As soon as she got to her feet, she started running. It was only a moment before she heard Janet reach the ground and chase her down the road. Janet reached the shorter woman, grabbed her hands, pulled her around and swung at her. She missed Lena’s face and cried out. She put her hands down. They were bleeding.
    Lena left her, and continued jogging further up the mountain road. She called her husband’s name into the trees. She picked out a shard of glass from her neck.
    The red and blue sirens flashed up ahead. There was an exclusion zone around a pair of trees. A motorbike was wedged between them.
    The paramedics, standing in a pool of light on the road, stared at the two women approaching. One of the paramedics on duty that night, a Murri one, would say he had never been more frightened at the sight of them appearing like spirits.
    ‘My husband,’ Lena tried to say, but her voice got caught in her throat when she saw the stretcher.
    ‘My love!’ Janet’s voice overpowered Lena’s.
    Charlie lay on the stretcher with a neck brace. A paramedic talked to both women. ‘Your husband – he is fine. We’re just taking precautions.’
    When Lena reached his side, grabbing his fingers and squeezing them, he gripped them back. A smile formed on his half-parted lips. There wasn’t a mark or scratch on him.
    His voice was thick with a chuckle. ‘I’m fine, honey. Just a bump to the head.’
    Lena checked twice, pulling his hair to the side. His forehead was clean.
    Charlie saw Janet in the distance. He called her closer. His eyes fluttered closed. She was a depth in his ocean, swallowing him. She had three boys, and he always had the feeling one of them was his, but as to which one, he changed his mind each time he saw them.
    Also, his wife, still holding his hand. He remembered his delight at the first glance of his daughter’s head wrapped up in a green blanket. He knew that Amy had mended any gaps in their marriage that had emerged over the years. She was seven years old now, and most days they managed to exchange a smile, a humorous, tender or wry one, over her. In the days he wasn’t