Nano-seconds later we realised: those pretty lights were headlights from a car somersaulting over us from the other side of the dual carriageway.
Clare
1.The Phone
New Years Eve, just married, a dark stormy afternoon and our first big row.. We made it up - as lovers can - just in time to set off to a party - and by then I knew I was pregnant. Call it intuition.
The weather was wild, the journey was long, but we were in love and I was pregnant. We drove hard through sleet and wind on the dark country road - and then, from nowhere, a magical cartwheel of light flickered in an arc high over our car. Nano-seconds later we realised: those pretty lights were headlights from a car somersaulting over us from the other side of the dual carriageway. We slewed to a halt, pulled onto the verge. My husband ran back and flung himself down into the dark ditch where we knew the car must have landed, while I ran along the roadside trying to flag down drivers for help. The spray from their tyres soaked me; nobody stopped. When I got back there was my husband and there too was the driver, drunk, wet, grateful and shocked. He’d found him, the driver, hanging upside-down in his upside-down car in the ditch and had managed to undo his door and unleash him and hold him as he fell, head-first, and pull him out. We drove him to a garage and found a phone.
A storm, a baby conceived and a man’s life saved. We arrived late at the party; New Year, time to celebrate.