The Life and Trials of Benjamin Tate by Alan Feldberg

Author:Alan Feldberg [Feldberg, Alan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloodhound Books

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The car was not moving. Ben could hear nothing apart from a tap, tap, tap which was coming from inside the car. He looked up and saw the plastic trainer swinging back and forth against the windscreen. He wondered how the windscreen had been cracked. Directly in front of the car was a wire mesh fence held up by cement pillars and on the other side of that was a brick building which he knew was the electric substation. He saw that the front of his car had wrapped around one of the cement pillars and smoke was drifting up through the bent metal. He reached up and stilled the plastic trainer. As he did so he saw in the rear-view mirror a man running across the road. Behind him people had stopped walking. Some were looking in his direction. Most were looking at something else. A dog strained against a leash. A woman put down her shopping and put her hands over the eyes of a young boy. A second person ran past. Ben opened the car door to get out but a weight against his legs pinned him in place. He glanced down and saw that the steering-wheel column was pressing against him. He reached down and slid his seat back on the rollers and as he did so the key in the ignition was dislodged from the hole it had made in his right knee. As he moved backwards a torn thread mixed with something else stretched between the two points until he broke it with his hand. He realised a man was leaning down saying something to him. His mouth was moving very fast. He seemed agitated. His tie was tucked into his belt. After a minute the man disappeared again and Ben got out of the car to follow him. His legs wouldn’t hold his weight and he collapsed to the ground. Through the silence he heard a sharp snapping sound but he felt nothing. Using the open door to support his weight he climbed to his feet again. People were still standing on the opposite side of the road, only there were more of them now. The woman who held her hands over the boy’s eyes was crying. No one was looking at him anymore. He followed their eyes and saw a mangled pushchair lying on its side, half in the gutter and half on the pavement. A thick bundle of blankets had been thrown from it. Two men were standing nearby. They were on their phones but both were looking down at a woman who was crouched over the bundle. She was bent so low that her brown hair hung on the ground. One of the men put his phone away and touched her on the shoulder. The other man said something to him and he stepped back again. Eventually the woman sat back on the kerb and looked up at the sky. Ben had never seen such an expression on a person’s face before.

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