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Ferrand squinted through the coach’s wall of windshield, as the wipers struggled to shift the rain obscuring his view of the narrow forest road ahead. Many of the circular mirrors on the bends had been smashed, so he spent much of the route blowing his horn to warn any oncoming motorists of his presence.
Mercifully, the handful of American exchange students were quieter than they’d been on the outward journey to Le Mans. Another ten or so minutes and he’d be at the drop-off point and they were again the responsibility of the families foolish enough to give them lodgings.
They were all about eighteen but seemed very immature to Ferrand. Their two chaperones, Kelcie and Ramiro, seemed to be only a few years older. Now that they were all spread out in the seats and wired up to their handhelds, however, the only noise was the engine and the rain battering the roof.
He ran his hand through his thinning hair, blew his horn at the next bend and peered through the waterfall of the windshield. He needed an eye test but knew his worsening myopia was likely to soon rob him of his licence. He’d been putting it off month after month. But his grown children and grandchildren had just moved back in with him and he was the only person bringing money into the house.
Ferrand was just rehearsing the conversation he might have with his wife if the tour company took his keys off him, when the crash site swung into view. Two vehicles lay smashed on his left, a junked camper and a silver car farther away at the edge of the trees, on its roof. It was difficult to see through the rain, but he could ascertain there were no police present. The wreckage definitely hadn’t been there on the journey out. He immediately pulled the coach onto the right-hand verge and switched off the engine. He could hear the students asking Kelcie why they’d stopped and then their awed reactions to the spectacle.
Ferrand pulled the door handle on the dash and the doors hissed open. He got out of his seat and walked down the steps. As he dropped down onto the grass, the rain soaked into his white shirt. He checked there was no oncoming traffic and walked across to the buckled brown camper.
When he reached the other side, he heard voices from behind him. He turned to find the students climbing off the bus and was about to tell them to get back on, when dumpy Kelcie and hungover Ramiro came down the steps.
“Everyone stay away from the road,” Kelcie said without much effect.
Ferrand left her corralling them and took a few more paces so he could survey the damage and look tentatively through the window of the buckled camper. If the bodywork was anything to go by, it was likely the occupants would be just as bashed out of shape. His stomach shrank at the thought of what might be slumped and bleeding in the seats.
He was relieved to find only a scattering of broken glass there. Perhaps the emergency services had already been. Why were the vehicles still in the road, though? He walked towards the upside-down car that was about ten yards away at the edge of the trees. He’d only gone one pace, however, when he saw the woman lying on her back outside the silver Nissan.
He scrabbled his phone out of his shirt pocket and quickly dialled 112.
*
Beth opened her eyelids against moisture and blinked it away. She was looking up at stars in a night sky through bare branches and watched rain droplets dilate at the end of them and then plummet towards her. Wind blew them sideways before they could land on her face, but a finer spray blurred her vision again.
Beth observed this for a while, mesmerised and waiting for her conscious fragments to gradually cluster and tell her why she was lying there. A vanilla hint of the Shalimar she’d sprayed on for the evening was still in her nostrils. She rarely wore scent. There were mumbling voices nearby, including a male’s on a radio. She could only hear them through her right ear. The severity of her situation lurked at the periphery of her memory. She was injured and instinct told her not to move. But she needed to take in her immediate environment, and as soon as she turned, Beth was looking at Luc.
He was lying on a trolley next to her, red and blue lights skimming over him. His eyes were open and his soundless words punched a hole through the black patch of congealed blood coating his mouth and chin. His blue eyes were faded to grey, as if the exertion of trying to speak to her was gradually sapping him.
A warm hand was rested on Beth’s forehead, repositioning and restraining her skull so she was looking at Luc through the corner of her eye. She tried to twist her neck, but the fingers holding her increased their pressure and squealed against the movement. They were clad in surgical gloves and she could feel their adhesion as they readjusted their grip.
“Let me up.” But the plea emerged as shapeless babble and something scraped at her eardrum. The interior of Beth’s mouth felt as if it were fused around her tongue, a useless and swollen bung of flesh. She rolled her eyes upwards and saw an Afro above the features of the black female paramedic holding her in place. She was looking from side to side, seeking assistance. She mumbled under her breath and Beth could smell the spearmint and cigarettes on her warm breath as it fell on her face.
“Ne bougez pas!”
Her forehead was released and the paramedic disappeared from her field of vision. The rain fell harder on her face and she had to briefly close her eyelids again and exhale from her nostrils and swollen lips.
She turned slowly back to Luc. His eyes were screwed tight against the pain, teeth gritting and fresh blood flowing from his nostrils. Luc had a nosebleed every other month but nothing like this. He opened his mouth to try to speak to her again, but a movement beyond him caught her eye. She squinted hard at the blue blobs on the opposite side of the road.
Beth could see a crowd gathered there, their faces illuminated by the emergency vehicle lights. There were about fifteen or so people. A length of luminous yellow tape segregated them from the crash site. They were all craning to look at Beth and Luc.
Luc moved and came back into focus. He was still muttering deliriously and said her name but it sounded like an exclamation of agony. His lips parted and his voice cracked in his throat. “Sorry...”
Beth frowned a response. “Lie still,” she tried to say. But the words came out mangled, and it felt as if she had gravel in her mouth.
“Sorry...” he repeated, and then his head fell back on the stretcher, and its impact seem to release the tears from his eyes. He clenched them tightly shut and a red bubble formed at his nostril.
Beyond him, Beth could see some of the crowd had their arms in the air. A handful of them had their phones raised. Surely they weren’t recording her and Luc as they lay injured in the road?
Beth hinged her body so she was sitting up on the trolley. Her whole spine throbbed once and she felt her heart pulse irregularly in her jaw. She could see all the way across the road. Paramedics and police weaved around each other, but Beth saw no other casualties. She felt hot and cold adrenaline course through her. The phones were aimed directly at them.
Beth swung her feet off the trolley and back onto the road. It felt as if she had been lying there for days. She reached over to Luc and clasped the icy hands that lay balled at the centre of his chest. He responded, but she knew it wasn’t to her touch. He was convulsing. Was he bleeding internally as well?
“We need help!” She forced the words out through the tiny gap around her tongue, but they didn’t emerge with the volume of urgency she wanted. It felt as if she had shards of broken glass piercing her gums. She tried to rise from the trolley, but her legs failed and her knees smashed into the gravel. Luc didn’t turn to her when she touched his cold, wet face. Another spasm extinguished his recognition of her. He didn’t know she was there.
“Couchez-vous!”
Beth turned to the paramedic whose hands were on her and forced out two mashed words. “Help him!”
“I will. Lie down first.” The woman’s English was crystal clear.
Beth felt the paramedic’s hands hook under her arms, helping her up. When she was shakily standing, Beth found herself looking straight at the crowd. They were filming. They were capturing every second of the worst moment of her life. Luc could be dying, and they were casually recording it to show to their friends.
She shook off the paramedic and marched unsteadily forward, a concentrated rage she’d never experienced overwhelming her.
Beth didn’t feel as if she were walking across the road. Sound ceased with the pain, and it seemed as if she were gliding to the row of faces on a conveyor belt.
She could hear the screaming in her head and discerned some of it as hers. The crowd was suddenly dispersing, scattering before her waving fists. But even though they retreated, one young guy wearing a blue camouflage bandana impassively stood his ground and held out his phone as if it were a talisman to ward her off.
She lunged forward to strike him, her shoulders tensing painfully as she heaved her fists. The yellow tape was gone but they were all recording her from further back.
Her hair undulated as if animated by her fury. A potent gust of wind was at her back and blasting her scalp. It was accompanied by a frenetic buzz overhead. She looked skywards and saw the helicopter shakily descending, the branches of the trees violently billowing as its blades whipped up the loose leaves from the road.
Beth could feel them scratching her face as she returned her attention to the crowd. They’d retreated, seeking safety from her attack and the barrage of energised air. They now had their phones pointed upwards to capture the air ambulance’s entrance.
Hands were about her and she turned to see another paramedic being joined by two male gendarmes as she was gently restrained. The aircraft’s engines whined in her head, and under its high-pitched whistling, she could hear her own unheard scream grinding in her throat. As the helicopter touched down, Beth’s overwrought emotions short-circuited her and she blacked out.
