Pool of Hartles

Chapter 1

You know how it goes. You’ve seen it before. Something small. Not recognised at first, but a harbinger of sorts. And that flick of something against the windscreen was what made Harry pay attention at first. The moment that probably saved his life, while alongside him in the other car on the inside lane of the dual carriageway, a tiny mistake, a momentary lapse of concentration, similarly, was that driver’s undoing.

And you’d be confused at first, in the fading evening light, not sure what to do next, but knowing that something was happening, in train, as you felt another strike against the screen, which quickly became a scattering, enough for Harry to take his foot off the accelerator in the fast lane. But if, instead, you were in the slow lane, leaning across the car’s interior to adjust the radio, reaching for the volume control, eyes distracted by the task, the fact that the frequency reading read 99.9 MHz when you wanted it to be 95.8, then you had a problem. You wouldn’t notice, wouldn’t react in time. You see what I mean now? From such details do stories of great moment unfold.

For that scattering on the windscreen was the birdstrike of rubber from a high-speed blow-out on the articulated lorry thundering ahead of both cars on the A19 deep into the north-east, the mock Corinthian columns of the Penshaw Monument on the hills to the left silhouetted against the setting sun. When the next bit of tyre hit Harry’s windscreen, a large flapping wing-like and undulating section of rubber, making him jump in the driver’s seat, he saw where it had come from: one of the outer tyres about a third of the way down the lorry rapidly shredding and disintegrating under the lorry’s momentum. He sees too the neighbouring tyre begin to give under the increased pressure while the vehicle snakes across the dual carriageway as the driver tries to control the shifting weight of his vehicle. Harry brakes hard, pulling his car as far over to the right as he can without careering into the central reservation, dust flying up around him as he comes off the edge of the road.

The driver in the other car was alive to the danger now, but without Harry’s line of sight, all she can see is the erratic driving of the lorry immediately ahead of her, now slowing quickly while her car continued to travel at speed, too fast. She too hits the brake, but has nowhere to go, as the second tyre gives way and the lorry lurches. In the lorry cab, the driver steers strongly to compensate for the imbalance of the blown-out tyres and before he knows it, the jack-knife is on him, quickly followed by the trailer and container starting to topple, their centre of gravity the only thing holding them up.

You watch devastation come from the still nothingness of the evening, expanding into the air like a flock of frightened birds. You hear screeching metal, roaring engines, tearing road. You smell burning rubber, engines, oil, fuel, fear. Behind the jack-knifing lorry, one car, Harry’s, veers further to its right, desperately trying to avoid the lorry carcass now bearing down on it. His car connects with the crash barrier in the central reservation, which crumples under the force, slowing it, absorbing its impact and saving it from the lorry.

For the other car, you know it’s too late as it collides with the back of the upended lorry, its greater speed forcing it under the wheels and the underside, and then crunching, compacting and turning it, as it becomes connected and meshed with the greater mass of metal, pipes and drive shafts that is the lorry. Panels bend and pop out of shape, get torn from the car’s body, components are crushed, glass cracks, splits and shatters, a door is ripped from the body and spat onto the road. The car is both being crumpled like an old newspaper, you think, while being opened up like a tin can, its contents, those of a young student on her way home at the end of term from training college, thrown out and strewn across the road. An open suitcase here, a coat there, shattered pot plants, books fallen open on the road. The lorry completes its topple, crashing to the road, crushing the car beneath it, and eventually ending its slide, becoming a still, steaming, smoking mass, the cab of the lorry now flipped upright like a broken bone.

You look over to Harry’s car, a bit further back now, merged into the crash barrier, but safe. The driver’s side door bent out of shape, Harry pushes open the passenger door and climbs out. He staggers slightly, his eyes and face straining to focus and comprehend what has happened, what he has been through. He looks along the road towards the crashed lorry, lying there like a felled beast in some mythic fable, as the cars further down the road arrive at the scene and slow down, hazard lights flashing.

A voice calls out, but he can’t hear the words. He moves towards the lorry, sees the tangle of the student’s small red car smeared against the undercarriage like chewing gum on the sole of a shoe. He doesn’t take it in, but you know: it’s too late, no-one's climbing out of that. He follows the trail of wreckage and possessions back from the lorry across the two lanes towards him, spots the discarded door near him and sits down on the tarmac next to it. Sticking out from the torn lining of the door’s frame is a thin notebook, inviting attention. He reaches over and gently pulls it out. A faded, tattered school exercise book with the words “Keep safe” written on the front. He winces and clutches it tight, with his hands resting in his lap. Tears of relief roll down his face. He’s aware of more people arriving, hands on his shoulders, indistinct voices.

Later in hospital, waiting to be seen by a doctor, he looks down to see a notebook in his hand, the impression from his fingers’ grip still visible.

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