I could figure out. And if anyone had witnessed the accident they would be down here trying to see what they could do for us. And there was no one out there, no voices, no footfalls. Outside the car there was only silence. Dead silence.
So, all in all, not good.
But I was awake, I was coherent, I'd assessed the situation. Now to do something about it.
'Abortion?'
'Uhh.'
Better to use his proper name. 'Carl. Carl Hill. It's Gideon. Speak to me.'
'Gid?'
'Can you understand what I'm saying?'
'Uh-huh. Yeah. Jesus, what happened?'
'You tell me. What's the last thing you remember?'
'Umm, driving. Then… skidding.'
'Anything immediately before the skid?'
'No.' In tone that said
It didn't matter. Wasn't relevant right this moment. 'Okay, Carl,' I said, 'first things first. We're upside down in a crashed vehicle. I don't think there's a danger of explosion. I can't smell fuel or smoke. Still, we need to get out. I'm kind of stuck. My seatbelt's locked and I'm squashed in on all sides and can't reach the buckle. Can you?'
'Dunno.'
'Well, will you try?' Striving to keep my voice under control and not bark at him. Because this was his fault. I'd no idea what he'd done, but he'd done something. Something stupid. Something that validated his nickname.
'All right. Here goes.'
I heard him fumbling. Grunting with effort. Then there was a click, and a thump, and an 'owww!'
'You okay?'
'Yeah,' came the sore reply. 'Just undid my belt, not yours.'
Some kind of genius. 'Have a go at mine, then.'
More fumbling, another click, and I felt myself coming loose, legs sliding around and down, and suddenly the places where I was hurting all expanded at once, merging, joining forces so that my body became a single solid mass of pain.
'Gid? Gid?'
Abortion's voice came distantly to me, as though through fog, getting louder as the pain slowly lessened.
'Gid, you're injured.'
'No kidding,' I gasped. 'What gave it away?'
'Uh, the way you were yelling?'
I had, admittedly, been screaming like a girl.
'I think I've got a couple of broken ribs,' I said. 'Maybe a broken ankle too. Done something to my shoulder. And I've banged and gashed my head — don't think it's any worse than a cut, don't think there's skull fracture, but even so, it throbs like a bitch.' Quite an inventory. 'Apart from that, just super-duper.'
'Look, I'm going to get out of here. My side window's gone. There's snow filling the gap but it can't be too thick. I reckon I can dig through and crawl out. Then I'll phone for help.'
'Good plan.'
'Stay put.'
'Not going anywhere.'
It took him several minutes to claw a hole through the snow. As he burrowed his way out, a dim gleam of light crept in, revealing just how badly trashed the Astra was. My side had taken the worst of it. That was why I was all banged up and Abortion was unscathed, and why I had so little room to manoeuvre. The roof was dented down at an angle, to the extent that the passenger-side windows were crushed flat, almost nonexistent. The glove compartment door stuck out like a tongue from a shut mouth. The dashboard was cracked wide open, instruments popping out like eyeballs. The steering column was twisted almost to vertical, the airbag which had saved Abortion from serious harm dangling off it like a used condom.
I didn't think we'd be getting our insurance deposit back.
It was agony to laugh, so I stopped.
Abortion's ugly face appeared at the end of the snow tunnel.
'Can't pick up a signal,' he said. ''No network coverage,' display says. Fucking Orange. Future's bright? Future's shite, more like. I'll head off and find help. There must be someone living nearby, and they'll have a landline.'
'No,' I said.
'No?'
'No, you can't leave me. In these temperatures, I won't last long. Pull me out and I'll come with you.'
'Think you can walk?'
'No, but I'll have to. As long as I'm moving, I stand a chance. If I just lie here, by the time the emergency services reach me I'll be a freezer pop.'
'Won't pulling you out be painful?'
'Almost certainly.'
It wasn't painful.
It was ten times worse than the worst pain I'd ever known.
And I'd known pain.
At the end of it I was mewling like a distressed kitten. I felt like a human-shaped bag of toxic waste. I just wanted to curl up in the snow and die.
But of course, with my reputation for pigheadedness, that wasn't about to happen.
While sat up gathering my strength, getting ready to rise, I dug out my phone to see if I could obtain a signal even if Abortion couldn't. But my poor little Nokia wasn't going to be calling anyone ever again. It had snapped along the hinge, and the screen was split in two by a zigzagging fissure. Nothing more pathetic than a piece of dead technology. I sent the phone, both bits of it, cartwheeling off into the snow.
Abortion then helped me to my feet. Or rather, foot. My left ankle was like splintered celery. It could barely take any weight on it. If he supported me, though, I was able to limp along.
And we set off. We laboured upslope, following the trail of huge gouges and scrapes the Astra had left in the snow during its bouncing somersault descent. There was debris: a wing mirror here, a taillight there, sprinkles of glass. The contents of our overnight bags had been tossed out of the boot of the car and burst open, all our clothes and toiletries strewn down the hillside, soaked by the snow and beyond salvaging. Finally we reached the top, and the road. Tyre tracks showed where we and the public highway had parted company, the Astra punching through the flimsy wire fence that ran along the verge.
I blinked snowflakes off my eyelashes.
'Not having a go at you or anything, Abortion,' I said, 'but those don't look like skidmarks to me. They don't swerve suddenly. They're almost straight. They look more to me like someone either didn't read the road properly, or someone's mind was on something other than driving.'
Abortion's expression resembled a guilty dog's. 'I'm sorry, Gid.'
'What was it? You were skinning up, weren't you?'
'Only a small one. I've done it a million times before. Mostly I use just the one hand, but for crumbling the grass into the paper you need both, and I waited for a straight stretch to do it, and what you do is you hold the wheel steady with your knees… and… and then you…'
My look told him not to continue.
'I'm sorry,' he said again, feebly.
'Abortion,' I said, 'when this is over I am going to smack you so hard, your balls will still be jangling like bell clappers a week later. But until that glorious moment comes you're the person I need most in all the world. Without you, I'm dead. Do you understand?'
