Southend U3A

May 2023

Friend Or Foe - Anne Wilson

Despite her best efforts to stop the bus from moving away on its onward journey, it pulled tantalisingly out of her reach until it gradually picked up speed and disappeared into the night, leaving her behind at the stop. The narrow country lane was deserted. Why did the venue have to be so far out of the town and, more to the point, why did her friends just leave her there and go on somewhere else three quarters of the way through the evening? It was humiliating. She had been forced to sit at a table on her own, nursing a drink – as usual, an observer of life rather than a participant. The walk from the Club to the bus stop was of several minutes’ duration and she hadn’t felt comfortable undertaking it on her own in such a remote environment.

She looked at her watch. It was eleven o’clock; hardly a scandalously late hour but she knew it was the last bus until the next morning. There was no other option; she would have to come clean and phone her father to come and pick her up. The indignity of it was almost too much to bear for a girl of her teenage years trying to establish some ‘street cred’ with her peers. He would, of course, know that she was clubbing and drinking alcohol and not where she said she was going to be, which would then result in a possible grounding, or at the very least a curfew for the foreseeable future.

She opened her bag and searched for her purse. Was there enough cash in there for a taxi? She breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of a twenty-pound note nestling invitingly at the top of a pile of loose change. There was a God after all. She could ask the driver to stop outside the nearest bus stop from her home and walk back from there. Her parents would be none the wiser. She then rummaged around the bag for her mobile phone but couldn’t feel the familiar shape of it. Her heart sank. It wasn’t there. Had she left it at home again?

She stood rooted to the spot, running her hand distractedly through her hair and gulping shallow breaths; tears trickling down her face.

In a situation like that, every minute can seem like an hour, so she could not gauge how much length of time had elapsed before she saw a car coming towards her and slowing down.

Its arrival evoked a mixed reaction in her – both relief and anxiety. The former because a solution of sorts may have presented itself and the latter because it always been dinned into her that young girls shouldn’t accept lifts from strangers.

The driver wound the passenger down and leaned over.

‘Can I help? You seem upset.’

Visibility was poor in the unlit country lane and she wondered briefly how he had seen she was in difficulties from a distance away, but reasoned that standing on her own in a deserted spot late at night was suff

icient to prompt the enquiry. It was a man’s voice – a middle aged man’s by the sound of it. ‘I’ve missed the last bus home and I’ve mislaid my mobile so I can’t ring for a taxi,’ she said, her voice breaking.

‘Where do you live?’ he asked and she told him.

‘Consider me your taxi,’ said the voice reassuringly. ‘Hop in.’

Despite her distraught state an inner voice was telling her to be wary,

‘Couldn’t you just let me use your phone?’ she asked tentatively.

‘I wouldn’t feel happy leaving you to wait here on your own until a taxi arrives,’ he reasoned with her. ‘It’s no problem; I’m going your way anyway.’

He leaned further over and opened the passenger door.

She faced the decision of her life so far. She could take the stranger at face value and save herself a taxi fare, plus a potentially lengthy wait in a remote, uninviting setting until it came, or trudge back to the Club along lonely country lanes and re-live a miserable evening by going inside and asking to borrow someone’s phone – still incurring the fare. It was, as she had heard people say, ‘a no brainer.’

She wiped her eyes.

‘O.K. Thanks.’

Her parents had forewarned her never to sit in the front seat with a taxi driver if she was on her own, but had not prepared her for this particular circumstance. The man was doing her a favour and had pointedly thrown open the front passenger door. It would be churlish, if not downright rude to then ask if he could unlock the back door. She settled in beside him.

Did she imagine it, but did he glance at her skirt as she sat down? It was difficult to tell.

He started the engine and they drove off.

‘What’s your address?’ he asked her.

She was flustered.

‘Oh, I don’t want you to drop me off outside my home.’

‘Why not?’

‘I want my father to think I’ve come home by bus. If you could drop me off at the nearest bus stop . . .’ her voice trailed off.

He nodded sympathetically.

They chatted and she started to relax.

‘Where on earth had you been tonight?’ he asked her. ‘You were miles off the beaten track.’

She named the Club. ‘I went there with some friends but they met some boys and went off with them. That’s why I was on my own.’

Was it imagination or did she feel him recoil slightly.

‘You’re a bit young for a Club aren’t you? Are your parents happy with you going there?’

Feeling emboldened by her own artfulness, she confided in him.

‘Actually, my parents think we’re all seeing a film in the Precinct and then going on for a pizza.’

He was silent.

Did she detect a note of criticism in his next question.

‘And you didn’t even think to make sure you’d taken your mobile phone with you, knowing you weren’t even going to be where you told them?’

‘I suppose not’ she shrugged. ‘I sometimes leave it lying around in my bedroom.’

‘Thoughtless little bitch, aren’t you?’

At first, she thought she had misheard him, but his tone was so scathing it was not possible.

‘I’m sorry,’ she trembled, panic mounting within. ‘Could you stop the car, please.’

‘I don’t think so,’ he snapped.

They were nearing the town now and the lights made the roads easier to define. To her horror she didn’t recognise any of them.

‘This isn’t the right way.’

He ignored her.

‘That’s a very short skirt you’re wearing,’ he observed. ‘You ought to be more careful.’

Instinct made her reach out her hand and smooth it, as if that somehow would lengthen it and make it more respectable.

‘Please,’ she pleaded. ‘Please let me out.’

They drove through the town, and she rammed her body against the door several times in an effort to push the car door open. It was a hopeless quest and she knew it in her heart of hearts. Eventually they stopped in a little lane.

Bile rose in her throat.

‘Let me out, you sick bastard,’ she hissed.

He turned round to face her head on.

‘I’m no sick bastard,’ he protested. ‘It’s you young girls who are sick, lying to your parents about where you’re going and letting them worry themselves into the ground when they’re trying to protect you in a wicked world. You can’t even be bothered to always remember to go out with the lifeline of your mobile phone so they can help you if they need to. You’re a waste of space. I should know. I lost my daughter to someone you would call ‘a sick bastard’ because she was just the same as you – lying to her parents and thinking only of herself. Her mother never got over it. You got into my car tonight with alcohol on your breath and dressed in your provocative short skirt with scarcely a second thought.’

‘I had no choice,’ she said, her voice breaking. ‘My friends had just dumped me. Please just let me go.’

He settled back behind the wheel.

‘I’m going to drive you back to where you asked to go,’ he told her. ‘And no-one is going to know about this: not if you ever want to be trusted again. Not the police, not your parents, not those friends who don’t give a damn about you . . . not any of them. You’re going to go home and you’re going to think about all this very seriously and mend your ways.’

He was as good as his word. Relief swept over her like a tidal wave when they reached her destination and he unlocked the passenger door, driving off into the night air. She stumbled out in the street and leaned against a brick wall, sobbing. The man clearly needed help: that much was obvious and, had she not been so distracted, she would have remembered to take his registration number, but she was too overcome with emotion. In any case, a point he had made resonated with her. The man was right, however, much grief had made him lose his reason. She would not be trusted at home for a very long time and her social isolation would be compounded if she had no chance to interact with her peer group. She gave herself a few minutes and pulled herself together.

Turning the key in her front door she was greeted by two anxious faces in the hallway.

‘You’re late, dear!’ exclaimed her mother. ‘We were worried about you, but I said to your father, if there’s one thing you can always be sure of, you know that Diane will be doing what she says she’ll be doing and won’t be up to any mischief.’

‘I missed the bus,’ her daughter explained tersely and stumbled up to bed.