Shooting in the Dark

don’t suppose we’ll ever meet. We wouldn’t know each other.’
    ‘I couldn’t bear that,’ said Janet. ‘It sounds so sad.’
    Angeles smiled warmly. ‘It doesn’t feel sad to me. My father wasn’t close to his family. His brother was in the army and happy with the political situation, but Daddy was a rebel when he was young, caused a lot of trouble for the generals. If he hadn’t got out when he did, he’d have rotted in one of their prisons. If he hadn’t been proscribed, he’d never have come to England, never have met my mother, and Isabel and I wouldn’t have been born.’
    Echo turned in her pram and called out in her sleep. Both women tensed, expecting her to wake, but she slumbered on.
    ‘False alarm?’ said Angeles.
    ‘Mnm,’ Janet replied. ‘She’ll wake soon. When she does that Geordie says she knows it’s time to get up but the world’s too big and unpredictable, so she takes a big breath and dives down into sleep for another half an hour.’
    ‘He was in an orphanage, wasn’t he?’ asked Angeles. ‘And living on the street? Geordie has seen a lot of things in his life.’
    ‘Yeah,’ Janet agreed. ‘But everyone connected with Sam has seen more life than they bargained for. It’s one of the qualifications for the job.’
    ‘Living on the edge?’
    ‘Going right over the edge to the other side, clinging on with your fingertips, then, somehow, coming back.’
    ‘I can’t imagine that,’ said Angeles.
    Janet came with a tiny laugh. ‘Living with the damage, you mean? You’re going through it now. Your sister has been killed, and someone is out there looking to destroy you. You don’t have to imagine it, Angeles, you’re never going to be the same again.’
    ‘It’s true,’ she said. ‘I feel as though I’m under observation all the time. But I don’t want this maniac to dumb me down. It’s important for me to carry on living my life like everyone else. I agreed to come here for a few days, until I feel stronger. But I want to go back to my own house, live my own life.’ For a few moments Angeles gazed into the future with her blind eyes. ‘I get flashbacks of my parents’ deaths.’
    ‘A road accident?’
    ‘Yes. The M6.’
    ‘Could that have been connected with your father’s politics?’
    ‘No, there were too many people involved. They were in a pile-up with ninety other vehicles.’
    ‘D’you know what happened?’
    ‘A lorry travelling in the opposite direction jack-knifed and crossed the central reservation. They said my parents wouldn’t have known what happened. They hit the car in front and then they were hit by a baker’s delivery van. They sat tight and were overcome by smoke fumes.’
    ‘Couldn’t they get out?’
    ‘They were probably stunned by the impact. Their doors were jammed, but the passenger door - that was my mother’s side - could have been opened with a little force.’ She shook her head from side to side. It looked to Janet as though she was in the car with them, that she was reliving a constant nightmare. ‘The petrol tank exploded,’ Angeles continued. ‘They were burned to death.’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ said Janet. ‘I shouldn’t have revived the memory for you. I only thought there might be a connection with your father’s exile.’
    ‘They were travelling back from Bristol. They’d been away for a break. Four days together.’ Angeles held out her hands, palm upwards. Janet moved around the table and sat next to her on the couch. She put her arms around Angeles and felt the other woman’s response. They held each other in a silent hug for the best part of a minute.
    Finally Janet drew away, and Angeles sighed and said, ‘Thanks, I needed that. People tend not to touch blind people very often, we don’t get as many hugs as sighted folk.’
    ‘We think we’ll frighten you,’ Janet said. ‘If we suddenly touch you. Make you jump.’
    Angeles smiled. ‘I think there’s something deeper at work,’ she said.
    Echo yelled from her pram and Janet walked quickly through the house to collect her. Echo’s face opened like a flower when her mother appeared.
    ‘I need to change her,’ she said to Angeles in the kitchen. ‘Then we should be getting back.’
    ‘I’m glad you came,’ Angeles said. ‘I feel we’ve got to know each other a little. I think we have more to talk about.’
    Janet rolled up the used paper nappy and tucked it inside her bag. She cleaned Echo’s bottom quickly and easily, as if