After twenty minutes the first shadow of doubt crosses my mind. Clearly Leo has gone out and, quite possibly, he’s staying out. Leo doesn’t indulge in any unnecessary movement, so he won’t have gone jogging and he doesn’t have a dog, so a brisk walk is pretty much out of the question. If he’d simply gone to the local shop, then he would have hurried back as quickly as possible to make acquaintance with his sofa once more. Perhaps Grant was wrong. What if Leo isn’t at home at all?
I wish that I’d thought to put my mobile phone in the box with me. What was I thinking of? No self-respecting contemporary woman can operate without her phone. I could have at least called Grant again or Lard, or tried to track down Leo – although that was a mission impossible even Tom Cruise might shrink away from. Leo never usually manages to hold onto a phone for more than a few days at a time and, on the rare occasion that he does, he invariably forgets to turn it on. There’s nothing else for me to do other than sit it out.
After an hour and still no sign of Leo – or anyone else for that matter – I’m now starting to panic. It’s Tom’s anxious words about oxygen consumption that have started to play on my mind. And, to be honest, there’s nothing else to do whilst passing time in a cardboard box, other than to panic. And worry. And chew your own fingernails down to the quick. I can barely move now and I wonder if my muscles have started to waste away already. No wonder Hollywood features it so often in films – put people in a sweatbox for any length of time and they come out like gibbering idiots, too helpless to walk and weak with hunger. My stomach rumbles. It’s been a long time since lunch. Is it just my imagination that I’m starting to feel faint? Perhaps my oxygen really is starting to run out. I wish that I hadn’t sealed the seams with Superglue quite so lavishly now. If I hadn’t, there might be more air gaps. Anxiety is prickling over my skin. This is ridiculous. I can’t sit here all night on Leo’s doorstep. Wherever Grant had got his information from, it was wrong and I’ll have words with him at some future juncture. Assuming that I live to tell the tale.
That’s it. I can’t contain my fear any longer. I have to get out of here. I don’t want to die in a box on Leo’s doorstep in my undies – I still have so much living to do!
Outside the box there’s the sound of a cat meowing at the front door. Surely someone will come down and let it in. The nice couple in the flat next to Leo have a cat – a white fluffy thing with a bad attitude – I hope it’s theirs. I can hear it rubbing against the side of the box. ‘Here, kitty, kitty,’ I murmur sweetly. I’ve never been a cat-lover, but talking to anything is preferable to letting my mind race wildly over my predicament.
Dutifully, the cat meows back.
‘Here, kitty, kitty.’
I can hear the cat scratching at my box now. Where’s the wretched owner? Don’t they know that their cat is out here begging to be let in? I should report them to the RSPCA. The cat meows again, rather pitifully. It’s a very endearing sound. But the next sound isn’t. It’s the sound of the cat weeing on my box. The acrid stench of cat urine fills my airspace. ‘Bloody hell!’ I shout at it. ‘Clear off, you mangy animal!’
The cat meows again. That’s it. Now I’m being used as a toilet for the wildlife of the area. I’ve had enough. Scratching frantically at my box, I bang on the lid. There’s no way I can even get a fingernail under a corner to lift it, let alone rip my way out. I’m so squashed in that there’s no room to try to kick my way out. This cardboard is tougher than it looks. I should have thought to bring a knife or some scissors or some way of getting out of here. In fact, I should have thought the whole mad idea through a lot more carefully. There’s only one thing for it.
‘Help!’ I shout feebly. ‘Somebody help me!’
Chapter Sixty-Two
‘I can’t believe you drive like this even when you’re not drunk,’ Grant complained loudly from the back seat.
‘Sorry,’ Leo offered.
‘There are creatures in the Australian outback that kangaroo less than this.’
Leo had his own particular lurching style of motoring. He blamed it on the fact that it was a very long time ago since he’d learned to drive and he didn’t do it very often and he wasn’t very good at it when he did. However, this was an emergency.
Leo hated driving in London and the route had, so far, been torturous – out towards the motorway and their ultimate destination. They were heading away from the smoke of the city to the gateway to the Land of Light which, according to the internet, was slap-bang in the middle of the ancient circle of stones that formed Stonehenge. Leo hoped that their source was reliable. Quite frankly, he didn’t trust the internet at all. He’d bought three CDs on eBay once; two of them never appeared even though his credit card was debited and the final one, which did turn up, was supposed to be The Best of Motörhead but instead he received a copy of The Nolan Sisters’ Greatest Hits. To be fair, it was in very good condition. Hardly played. It was slightly unsettling though, that they were relying on this rather erratic tool to help repatriate Isobel to her own home, time, land, whatever.
‘Jeez, Leo,’ Grant moaned again. ‘I can’t sit here while you take for ever to jump us all the way there. Pull over. Go on.’
Leo pulled Ethel into the nearest lay-by. Well, hopped, skipped and jumped into it really.
‘Get out and let me drive,’ Grant snapped.
‘You’re not insured to drive my car,’ Leo objected.
‘Does it matter at this point?’ his friend wanted to know.
‘No,’ Leo said, too tired and anxious to argue.
‘Not unless we’re stopped by the police,’ Lard pointed out from the back seat.
They both glared at him. Cars whizzed by.
‘When was the last time you saw a policeman?’ Grant asked.
Lard quietly conceded that police patrols were somewhat scarce on the ground in this, the age of the speed camera.
‘Leo, you can get in the back with Isobel,’ Grant said. ‘Lard, come in the front and navigate.’
Leo bounded out of the car and went round to the passenger side, lifting the listless frame of Isobel into his arms. Grant squeezed out of the back and slipped into the driver’s seat. Lard also climbed out, relinquishing the back seat. He helped Leo to settle Isobel across his lap, so that he could cradle her. If Grant employed his usual driving style they’d be going at warp speed to Stonehenge.
‘Quick, Lard,’ Grant said impatiently. ‘Don’t dolly about. Get in.’
Lard made the most sprightly move Leo had ever seen and positively sprang into the passenger seat.
‘Are we quite ready?’ the driver asked.
‘Yes,’ Leo said.
Isobel stirred. ‘We’re running out of time,’ she whispered.
Leo stroked her face. ‘Not long now,’ he murmured. ‘Not long now.’
Grant swung out into the traffic once more. Leo was happier now that he’d relinquished control to someone that he trusted with his life – with Isobel’s life. He sagged back into the seat. ‘Step on it, Grant,’ he instructed. ‘And don’t spare the horses.’
Grant was driving as if he had a starring role in The Italian Job. He was hunched over the steering wheel, concentration etched between his eyebrows. The party had inched their way through the rush hour, but now the flow of traffic had picked up again and they were making good progress. Leo was sure that if Isobel had been stronger she could have magicked them all to Stonehenge in a trice – but then if she’d been stronger, they wouldn’t have been going there at all.
Leo’s heart was heavy and his head ached from his fitful night. Conversation in the car had died and they all sat in an uncomfortable silence. How different from their usual boys’ road-trips, where the banter flowed as easily as the beer. They were weaving in and out of the traffic on the motorway, eating up the miles as they headed nearer towards Stonehenge. Grant normally drove a TVR Tuscan and Leo thought that he’d probably forgotten that most people had cars that don’t go that fast. He hadn’t thought that
Ethel was capable of going over forty, but now under Grant’s tutelage she was doing a ton and smoking. And Leo didn’t mean ‘smoking’ in a trendy, street way – he meant that there was smoke coming out from under her engine and it was pouring out of the exhaust pipe in a great black plume. He now wished that he’d had her serviced more often – or at all.
Isobel was asleep in his arms. Sleep had slackened the lines of pain on her face and she seemed comfortable at least. Dusk was gathering, the cobwebs of clouds thickening in the sky. The sun was falling out of view and Leo hoped that there wasn’t some sort of unseen, unknown deadline on this escapade and that their best really would be good enough.
Then, in the rear window, he caught a glimpse of a flashing blue light at the same time as the siren on the police car started.
‘Oh bugger,’ Grant, Lard and Leo said together.
The police car came alongside of them, so that they were in no doubt that they’d been clocked. Leo thought that ‘it’s a fair cop’ would be an appropriate phrase at the moment.
Without further ado, Grant pulled over onto the hard shoulder. It would be futile trying to outrun a souped-up police Volvo in a decrepit Beetle, but it crossed Leo’s mind to urge Grant to do so.
They sat anxiously awaiting their fate. Grant rubbed at his eyes, which must have been tired. The policemen got out of their patrol car, put on their peaked caps and ambled up to the side of Ethel – who they viewed with more disdain than was necessary in Leo’s opinion.
Grant wound down the window. One policeman leaned on the roof. He was considerably younger than Leo. He gave them all a supercilious smile. ‘In a rush, sir?’
‘Yes,’ Grant said, and took a deep breath. ‘We have a sick fairy in the back of the car and we’re trying to get her to Stonehenge.’
‘A sick fairy?’
‘Yes,’ Grant confirmed. ‘I believe in this situation that honesty might be the best policy.’
The policeman didn’t look as if he agreed. He peered into the car and ran his frosty gaze over Leo and Isobel.
‘Isobel,’ Leo urged her. ‘Get your wand out. Zap him. Zap him now.’
She managed to rouse herself, but said weakly, ‘I can’t, Leo.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘I can’t.’
Then, he felt, they were doomed.
The policeman sighed. The word ‘clowns’ was written all over his face. He turned to Grant. ‘Would you mind stepping out of the car, sir?’
Chapter Sixty-Three
‘Hello?’ the man says. ‘Hello? Is there anybody in there?’
I sag with relief at the sound of a human voice outside my box.
‘Yes there is. Help,’ I say urgently. ‘Help me. Please.’
‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine,’ I say. Panic-stricken, stiff, hungry and getting cold, but other than that, fine. ‘Can you just get me out, please?’
There’s some tugging and pulling at my box and I brace myself against the sides. Then all goes still again.
‘I need to go back up to the flat and get some scissors,’ the man tells me with a disgruntled puff. ‘I’ll be back in a minute. I’m Dominic, by the way.’
‘Hi, Dominic,’ I say. ‘I’m Emma. We’ve met on the stairs a couple of times before. I’m Leo’s girlfriend. I was Leo’s girlfriend.’
‘Oh,’ Dominic responds as if that explains everything. ‘Won’t be long.’
I know exactly who Dominic is. He’s the dreamboat who lives next door to Leo with his equally gorgeous girlfriend, Lydia. Leo and I always used to row about Dominic and Lydia. Dominic cuddles his other half to death even when they’re just going down the stairs. Leo isn’t even that keen on holding hands in public. Dominic and Lydia were always very friendly when they passed in the hallway and, as couples, we always said that we’d get together and have a drink or dinner some time, but never did. Now I wish we had. It isn’t a good idea to be formally introduced in this way. Maybe if we’d made time to have a quick pizza with Dominic and his girlfriend, I wouldn’t be so mortified now. Why can’t the person who witnesses my shame be one of the other folks from the apartments – the forty-two-year-old divorcée or one of the gay blokes or, preferably, a visiting relative who is less attractive than Dominic and also blind. I sigh and try to cheer myself up. Not long now and it will all be over.
I hear Dominic go back up the steps to the flats. ‘Come on, Chloe,’ he says pleasantly to the cat. ‘Get down from the top of the box. There’s a good girl.’
Wait till I get my hands on bloody Chloe – although to be fair the cat did come to my rescue in a roundabout way. I lean back in my box, looking forward to escaping my self-inflicted prison, but not relishing the next part. Exposing my folly to the world. That will teach me to try to be spontaneous and fun.
‘I’m back,’ Dominic says a few minutes later. ‘Had to search for the scissors. Hold still. Have you out in a jiffy.’
Leo’s neighbour gets to work with the scissors. I duck out of the way as the sharp points slice through the box. ‘I knocked at Leo’s door to let him know that you were here,’ Dominic says. ‘But he’s out.’
I’d managed to work out that much.
‘Good job that I came home early from the office,’ he says cheerfully as he works away.
He’s nearly got the lid off. I cover myself as best I can. This is going to take some explaining away. After a few more snips, Dominic flips open the top.
‘Aargh!’ I shout.
Oh no. My hair is stuck to the Superglue on the lid. ‘My hair. My hair.’
Dominic quickly lowers the lid again and peers under it, before recoiling. ‘Oh!’
So he’s noticed the underwear then.
‘I’m sorry about my appearance,’ I say quickly. ‘This is a prank that’s gone very wrong.’
‘I think you’re right there,’ he agrees and then peers in again.
I shrink away from him. This is supposed to be for Leo’s eyes only. Perhaps Dominic will lend me some clothes to go home in. All I want to do is get away from here with some shred of dignity intact, climb into a steaming hot bath and consume some very strong drink.
‘You’ve stuck your hair to the lid,’ he says, tsking loudly. ‘I think I’m going to have to snip some off.’
‘Cut my hair?’
‘There’s quite a lot of it plastered to the box.’
I want to cry. This has been a hare-brained scheme from start to finish. Exactly the sort of thing that Leo would do. And I’m beginning to have some empathy with his more idiotic pranks. I was so well-intentioned and this has gone so horribly wrong. There’s no way though, that I deserve this humiliation. ‘Cut it,’ I instruct. ‘Just be careful.’
Dominic gingerly slips his scissors inside and slices at great hunks of my hair. It feels like a re-run of Edward Scissorhands. Erratic snip, snip, snipping echoes in my ears. I just hope that Leo doesn’t turn up now in the middle of all this. The only thing I want to do now is hide myself and run for the hills.
My rescuer flips the lid again and I gulp in the fresh air, glad that the overpowering smell of cat wee is out of my nostrils.
‘There you are.’ Dominic smiles at his handiwork.
‘Thank you,’ I say gratefully. ‘Thank you.’ I go to stand up but can’t move.
‘Easy there,’ Dominic advises. ‘I expect you’re a bit numb. Been here long?’
‘Yes,’ I admit. ‘Hours.’ Hours and hours and hours and hours. For most of my adult life. At least, it feels like that.
‘Do you mind me asking,’ he says. I know the question before he asks it. ‘Why exactly are you in a box on our doorstep?’
‘It was a prank,’ I explain. ‘A silly joke. Leo and I have split up. I thought this would be a fun way to get his attention again.’
Dominic looks as if he doubts my sanity.
‘I realise now,’ I say, before he decides I’m a complete headcase, ‘that I have made a terrible mistake.’
‘Here.’ Dominic offers me his hand. ‘Let
me help you out. I’ll avert my eyes,’ he continues, doing anything but. He has a good ogle at my MISS FUNNY FANNY thong.
Reluctantly, I let go of the gift bow covering my breasts and reach out my hand. The skin on the back of my arm rips painfully. ‘Arghh!’ I cry out and withdraw my hand. What the hell is that?
I try to move it again. But it’s stuck fast. ‘Oh no,’ I say, panic returning. ‘Please no.’
I try to move my legs, but the bottom of my feet are firmly attached to the seam of the box where I so fervently applied a liberal coating of Superglue. I try moving my bottom, but I can’t budge an inch. I thought it was merely the confines of my cardboard box that were restricting my movements. Once again, I’m wrong. The glue must still have been wet when I settled myself in. How could I be so stupid? ‘I can’t move,’ I say tearfully. ‘I can’t move at all.’
‘Oh dear,’ Dominic comments, frowning worriedly.
‘I Superglued the seams of the box before I got in it,’ I admit. ‘I think it was a bad idea.’ One in a long line of bad ideas.
‘It does look like you’re rather stuck.’
I feel that’s something of an understatement. ‘What am I going to do? How am I going to get out, Dominic?’ I turn my eyes to plead with him.
‘Er . . .’ He nibbles his lip. ‘It’s dastardly stuff, this Superglue,’ he informs me.
‘I know. I know.’
‘This isn’t going to come off with a bit of Fairy Liquid and a nailbrush. If I try to prise this off, it could seriously damage your skin.’
‘Seriously damage?’
‘I reckon it needs specialist treatment.’
A cold shiver runs over me. ‘What sort of specialist treatment?’
‘I think there’s only one thing for it,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘I need to call the Fire Brigade.’
Chapter Sixty-Four
Ten minutes later, two bright red fire engines arrive, sirens blaring, and block Leo’s street. As no cars are able to pass, the drivers waiting in the resulting traffic jam simply get an eyeful. To add even more discomfort to my predicament, a small and very curious crowd of neighbours start to gather. Even the guys from the greasy kebab takeaway wander up the road to take a peek.