SPELLBOUND
I always loved the drives home.
Dark outside--a magical, amber dark--when the motorway would roll endlessly, daring me to stay awake while at the same time lulling me with its hypnotic glare. There were five of us in the car: me, my brother and sister, and my parents. Apart from my dad, who drove, I was the only one awake.
Wide awake.
I used to associate insomnia with the legend of the Sandman, who, according to my mother, would sprinkle sand in the eyes of all children who wouldn't go to sleep. I'm pretty sure he visited me once or twice when I was very young. But that night, he never showed.
I wish he had.
Cars and lorries zapped by in the opposite direction on the dual carriageway. You can always tell the size of a vehicle by the pitch of its zap. A car, for instance, throws a quick, mellow hello, while a juggernaut sounds and feels like it's tunnelling underground. As the music played on the tape deck, I tried to ignore it, concentrating instead on the rhythm of zapping traffic. If I hadn't, I would have cried.
Spellbound.
The car was a red Mini Cooper, possibly the smallest car on the market. Quite how three of us stayed so comfortable for so long on the backseat is hard to believe looking back, but we did. The previous year I'd even rested on the back shelf over the boot, but I was eight now and too mature for that. Torquay, hours behind us, seemed no more than a puddle of playful memories. We'd spent a week there on holiday--jam-packed, every place and experience new, though it had become an endurance toward the end--and now we were heading home. To 162. To my blissfully comfy upper-bunk bed, where Teddy and Golly were already waiting. Mature indeed!
But I wasn't really thinking of them. Nor of my brother and sister, nor even of the vehicles zapping by. You see, the music, the melancholy theme to Hitchcock's Spellbound, wouldn't end. The only things I knew about the film were it was black-and-white, and Mallory from The Guns of Navarone was in it. I don't know what forged the link in my mind. Something in that mournful, mysterious melody opened a wound ... a deep one. I perceived death. For the very first time. An absolute, irrevocable certainty that things would change. That my parents--whom I was closer to than anyone, and who were closer to old age than me--would one day not be here. They would no longer occupy the two front seats, stick plasters on my cuts, lift me on their shoulders, or let me stand on their feet as they walked. Like the glary-eyed green motorway signs measuring everywhere in miles, trips like these were numbered. The safe, snug magic on the backseat would not last.
They're going to die.
I did sob. Hid it, of course. Let saliva pool in my mouth until swallowing was absolutely indispensable, and even then tried to muffle the gulp. When there was no saliva, I thought everyone in the car would hear my jaw click in my ears as I swallowed. And that haunting music wouldn't stop. As well as loss, I heard yearning behind the notes, as if someone was trying to break free. For an eight-year-old, these unformed ideas rose up with raw, sensitive ends in my stomach. A haywire new world of shocks. I hadn't really experienced Bambi or The Lion King beyond the happy/unhappy story turns and had therefore never touched an emotion like it. Finding myself, for the first time, alone in the woods.
They're going to die.
I shut my eyes and pictured Mum and Dad smiling, laughing--signature profiles. Those snapshot images never left me. Then I blinked to see my mother's black hair pressed untidily against her seatback and my father's unfettered, stoic concentration at the wheel. He'd been at it for hours.
I breathed a sigh of relief.
At least they're not going anywhere for a long, long time.
The music track ended, and a forgettable tune began. Ten minutes later, we came off the motorway on a slip road for the all-night services. Phantom white lights glowered through the dark. Neon advertisements for McDonald's and Little Chef lent a surreal, woken vibe to the midnight hour. Services are the oases of long-haul travel. They're also ghostly and, rather than being restful at night to a junior passenger, tend to grind the system--like switching gears without the clutch.
Dad parked and crept out quietly, trying his best not to wake us. Nicely done. The others didn't flinch. I don't know why he didn't lock his door, but as soon as he entered the building, I sneaked out. It was an escape. The car seat now held an air of unpleasant mystery, not to mention my brother's drool.
I pressed the door shut behind me.
I'll just have a quick look around.
Outside. On my own, in the middle of the night, in the middle of a massive car park. It's amazing what you're oblivious to under your parents' wing and how frightening it is when that protection is removed. It's like staring at a radar screen one minute, and then suddenly you're the blip. In the headlights' glare and everyone's stare. Nowhere to hide. Ford Sierras, Vauxhall Cavaliers, monstrous rigs straight out of Duel--all belonged to strangers ... in my car park.
I ran-walked across an exquisite grass verge to a well-lit, hedged pavement adjacent to the petrol station. The quiet seemed to pulse. Other than irregular zaps coming from the motorway, and the odd engine spitting, grumbling as it started on the car park, the night was without sound. Artificial light only penetrated the darkness so far. By the end of the pavement, imperious evergreen trees stood like temple columns, barring my sojourn with shadowy, bough-to-bough insistence. The edge of night. The deep unknown!
I should have headed back.
I should have.
"But what for?" I asked myself. "So they can play that music again? Make me think of things I don't want to think about? What if I just go on a bit further?"
An eight-year-old's mind is an Etch A Sketch for the world around him. Every little sound, smell, fresh colour, or strange, new person makes an impression, a scrawled line on the screen. But there's always an in-built eraser. When I saw the name of the old-fashioned shop behind the petrol station, something drew me in. I forgot everything except the music. Spellbound. Parked cars, the giant forest, the intoxicating smell of petrol, emptiness, a faint whiff of honeysuckle. I erased it all.
"Esther May Morrow's Buy or Borrow."
What the heck kind of shop is that? I thought.
I felt in my pocket. Fifty pence. I smirked. It hadn't fallen out on the car seat this time. The shop resembled Kent Road Tavern near Sherwood Forest from Errol Flynn's The Adventures of Robin Hood. Same ridged windows, same door with a sliding shutter, same painted wooden sign. Just a different name.
"Esther May Morrow's Buy or Borrow."
What could that mean? Buy or borrow? A strange excitement lifted my shoulders and sprung a skip in my walk. This was my escape. My big moment out of the poisoned family fold. I had to know what it had led me to.
The only light came from inside the shop--orange lamplight. Probably oil or candle, I told myself. I knew the place wasn't a real medieval building, just an imitation one. But it was better to pretend. Through the window I saw varnished wooden shelves holding odd-looking trinkets.
Ah, a gift shop.
Another sign hanging from a nail by the window read Open. The door was slightly ajar--a big, hulking door that would have, at one time, held Saxon prisoners. I took a breath and put on my best aloof, adult face as I entered.
Bizarre.
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