TODAY WE HAVE A SHORT STORY, 'SCARLETT ROAD', WRITTEN BY OUR AWESOME TEAM MEMBER, AUTHOR DAWN TREACHER

Picture credit: veronickasbitneva (Pixabay)

SCARLETT ROAD

On fumes, the hatchback coasted to the verge, running over a coke can, already squashed beyond recognition. Cranking open the door, Scarlett let in a squally wind, pin pricks of rain landing on her face. A glance in the wing mirror confirmed what she already knew, that she had stopped on a road that cut across a hill, the trees curved against the wind, fields of frosted grass stiff and tall. The only other occupant she could see, a crow digging deep into the carcass of a rabbit.

Grabbing a bag from the seat next to her, Scarlett got out, searching behind her the horizon smudged by a mist that coated her hair with fine droplets. Slamming shut the door she pulled the bag over her shoulder and headed north, keeping to the tarmac, her slip on shoes rubbing at the heels of her bare feet.

Her mother would have told her it was stupid to have bare feet until well gone April but Scarlett had long given up listening to her mother's advice. Her mother had stopped bothering to say anything at all since Scarlett had abandoned going to lectures and no longer returned her mother's calls. The wind found its way through the thin cardigan that Scarlett held tightly around her body, lifting the dark roots of her hair, playing across the bruise that shaded her cheek and made her left eye hard to open.

She left the car behind her, pushing on over the crest of the hill, past a crop of trees that bent away from the wind, a flock of crows buffeted in their branches. Scarlett wasn't cut out for university anyway. She's only gone to escape the suffocating terrace that she shared with her mother, regrets and what ifs clinging to the walls alongside the graduation certificate of her sister, Clarence, who had had the indecency to set up home in Australia with a city lawyer, raising a child her mother could only hope one day to meet. University life for Scarlett had offered colour beyond the beige and cream, excitement out of reach of the cul-de-sac where everyone knew what everyone else was doing and how often they went to the shops. A bunch of curtain twitchers who tutted when Scarlett walked home late, a little unsteady on her feet, her dyed hair as loud as the music that throbbed in her ears.

The road fell away, curving into a valley. A rabbit poked its head out of the grass verge. A wood pigeon perched on a fence post, its feathers fluffed up to the size of a large ball, its eyes closed, swaying slightly in the wind. The trees to her left grew thickly now, their branches intertwined, the wind whistling through them. Scarlett shivered. The cold penetrated the striped t-shirt beneath her cardigan, its neck scooped low. Her hand pulled the edges of her cardigan together, a spray of dried blood across her knuckles, the cuff of her right arm stiff, the blood now a brownish crust.

The sound of a car made her stop. In the distance she could see it emerging out of the mist, heading inevitably towards her. She pushed her way over the grass verge, the wetness of the grass soaking her feet. She threaded through the hedgerow and crouched down in a ditch behind, her breath like smoke, a ripple of goosebumps spreading up her legs, her jeans tight around her thighs as she squatted. Through the twigs of Hawthorne, Scarlett watched a blue estate car drive past, an elderly couple in the front, a dog barking on the back seat, its face squashed up against the window. Then they were gone. Scarlett waited. Nothing. The road was empty again and she sat alone, her only company an insect that crawled through the grass by her left foot and the call of the wood pigeon overhead.

Back on the road, Scarlett walked briskly, her shoulder bag bumping against her thigh as she made her way down the hill. The letter in her back pocket crinkled as she walked. She had read it so many times she knew it by heart. It had arrived, forwarded by her mother, or at least it must have been her mother, as no one else knew where she was staying. Those friends she had met at university had all drifted away, moving into detached houses with neatly tended gardens, well planned pension schemes and three piece suites. All that is except Suzie, who still texted occasionally, shared a drink in a pub that wasn't too loud but even she had not answered Scarlett's messages in the last couple of months. It suited Malcolm, an exclusivity that meant their evenings were undisturbed, the flat above the take away free from gossip and the hassle of hospitality. The one time Suzie had called round, Malcolm had stood in the kitchen, cigarette in his hand, his arm guarding the kettle, daring Scarlett to move it. Suzie's invitation to the pub went unanswered by Scarlett as Malcolm's nicotine stained fingers drummed the Formica work top, his eyes never leaving Scarlett's. He told Suzie that Scarlett needed an early night, that she had a headache. Though Scarlett found herself nodding in agreement she doubted Suzie believed her. Suzie never called again, not after Malcolm escorted her out, whispering something in her ear as he opened the door. The whisky fumes on his breath walked outside with her. Scarlett had watched her out of the window as Suzie walked down the road, dodging a group of youngsters laughing over their kebabs. When Suzie looked back, Scarlett pulled the curtains closed so she couldn't see her face. She knew what Suzie was thinking but Malcolm loved her, like no one had loved her before. It was just that sometimes she made stupid mistakes. She tried, she really did, only Malcolm didn't accept mistakes, unless of course they were his own.

Reaching the bottom of the hill the road levelled out. The mist had lifted letting the pigeon grey sky lighten to a cold blue before her. A couple of miles ahead a village snuggled together to keep warm, a cluster of roofs visible on the horizon. Scarlett kept walking. She touched her back pocket, felt the letter inside. It had arrived a few days ago, when Malcolm had nipped to the shop. When he returned with a loaf of white sliced, two cans of beans, a newspaper and a packet of cigarettes, Scarlett had already hidden it in a pair of shoes shut in a box stuffed at the back of the wardrobe. She wondered if her mother realised who the letter was from and why he had written it. She must have recognised the handwriting, they had after all been married for over fifteen years before he walked out, leaving behind just an old pair of trainers and a stain on the armchair where he usually sat. Her mother never said why he left, though Scarlett hadn't failed to notice the arguments late at night, the times he never came home at all. The day her father left he hadn't said goodbye, just left an emptiness that her mother had been trying to fill ever since. He had sent a card for her eighteenth birthday and fifty quid but nothing since, until this letter. The letter which tried to explain the silence. Scarlett wanted to believe him, wanted to believe in someone. Her mother's disappointment had made her shrivel inside and Scarlett could only shrink away from it. Malcolm, she had believed in Malcolm. He had made her laugh, driven fast, offered the sort of adventure that her mother had tried to protect her from.

The bruises on her arms still hurt, where Malcolm’s fingers had squeezed too tightly, when he shook her. All she had done was share a coffee at lunchtime with the others from work. She hadn't answered his call, why should she, his calls were intrusive, always breaking into her thoughts at lunchtime when she tried to eat her packed lunch, having declined yet again to join the others for a sandwich at the pub.

A truck headed towards her, leaving the village, changing down a gear in readiness for the hill. Scarlett kept walking. She pulled a mobile from her bag, the screen a craze of cracks. No signal. She put it away. Her father had given her a number to call, not a mobile but it wasn't local either. As soon as she had a signal again she would call it, leave a message. He hadn't forgotten her, just needed time to realise what was important. Scarlett wished she had realised earlier herself but it was too late for that now. She saw the village sign up ahead, round a bend in the road. A ditch ran alongside her, beyond it a huddle of cows stood in a field, their hooves churning the mud. She reached into her bag again and pulled out a vegetable knife, the blade still wet with blood. A few spots spattered the road, glistening scarlet. She threw it into the ditch where it sank into three inches of water, out of sight. Malcolm hadn't been expecting that but that's where he had underestimated her. She remembered that disbelief in his eyes as she pushed the knife into his chest, as he sank to the floor and didn't get back up again.

Scarlett took a red scarf out of her bag, tied it around her blond hair and pulled her cardigan up to her chin. She headed into the village, leaving the road behind her.

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COMING SOON: On Monday, 12th May, author and team member, Eva Bielby, takes on the Flash Fiction challenge.