Pressure

By the time Martin Treloar turned into Lamorna View, the light had thinned to a dull rinse, as if the day had been used up. The gulls were already arguing on the rooftops. Somewhere below the street, unseen, the sea was moving.

He passed Number 12 - his house - and looked, as he always did, for the space.

It wasn’t marked. No sign. No dropped kerb. Just a stretch of worn tarmac between a sycamore and a stone wall where the road widened enough for one car to sit without blocking the rest. Martin had parked there for fourteen years. His father had taught him where to stop, how to angle the wheels just so.

Today it held a white SUV.

It sat too high, too clean, with no mud on the tyres. A child’s plastic spade was visible in the back seat. On the rear window, a sticker curved cheerfully: Adventure Begins.

Martin slowed, then drove on, as if the car might disappear if he didn’t acknowledge it.

At the end of the lane he turned, the granite walls closing tight on either side, and came back.

Still there.

He stopped outside his house and sat with his hands on the wheel. The engine ticked as it cooled. His phone buzzed in his pocket. He didn’t answer it. He knew it would be Ellie.

How’s Grandad?

Are you coming back tonight?

He’d spent the afternoon at the hospital, watching his father’s chest rise and fall beneath the thin blanket, the oxygen tube turning his face unfamiliar. The nurse had said there wasn’t much else to do now except “keep him comfortable.”

Comfortable, as if that were a destination.

Martin drove on, down toward the harbour. The official car park was full. It was July. It was always full. He circled once, then again, and gave up.

He left the car half a mile away, awkwardly wedged near the recycling centre, and walked back uphill. The air felt close, heavy with salt and sunscreen and food.

Outside his house, the streetlight had come on. The white SUV glowed faintly beneath it, content, settled.

He went inside and shut the door quietly.

The kitchen was narrow and smelled faintly of damp and cold tea. He stood at the counter without turning the light on, listening to the house settle. His phone buzzed again. This time he answered.

“Dad?” Ellie said. “They’ve adjusted the oxygen again.”

“I know,” Martin said. His voice sounded thin to him. “I’ll be there early.”

There was a pause. He heard her breathing.

“Mum’s been crying,” she said.

“I know,” he said again, though he didn’t. Not exactly.

He pictured his wife’s face, turned away from him in the too-bright kitchen, and felt failure settle in his chest.

After he hung up, voices drifted in through the open window. Laughter. A suitcase wheel scraping the pavement. A woman saying, “Oh look - this street’s gorgeous.”

Martin went to the front window and lifted the curtain an inch.

A family stood beside the white SUV. The man unloaded bags. The boy kicked the tyre gently. The woman took a photo of the houses, angling her phone to catch the slope of the road, the light, the charm.

“They’ll love this,” she said.

They went into Number 16 - the Jenkins’ old place, sold last year - and warm light spilled out.

The SUV remained.

Martin sat at the table and stared at the grain of the wood until it began to look like water.

He took out a pen and tore an envelope. He wrote:

Please don’t park here. Locals rely on this space.

He stared at the note. It looked small. It looked like something that would be mocked, photographed, shared.

He tore it up.

Outside, the music from Number 16 started - something bright, played too loudly. Martin stood and went back to the window. The SUV looked unchanged, immune.

He went outside instead.

The street was quieter now. Curtains drawn. A television murmured somewhere. He stood beside the SUV and smelled coconut sunscreen, plastic, newness.

He crouched and looked at the wheel without knowing why. He wasn’t planning anything. He told himself that repeatedly.

When he stood again, his heart was beating too fast.

Inside, he slept badly. Each time he woke, he saw the white shape of the car in his mind, occupying the space as if it had always been there.

At four, he gave up and made tea. He drank it standing by the sink. His hands shook slightly.

If it wasn’t there, I could park.

The thought arrived fully formed, practical. A fact, not a wish: If it wasn't there, I could park. If it wasn't working, they'd have to move it.

It frightened him. He recognised the cold, clear logic of it - the same logic his father had used to mend a wall, to price a job, to survive. It was an inherited thought, and it felt like a curse.

He went back to bed and lay staring at the ceiling until morning light seeped in.

At six, he dressed and went out. The street was empty now, rinsed clean of holiday noise. A fox slipped along the wall and vanished.

Martin walked past the SUV without looking and went down toward the harbour. The tide was turning. A fisherman untied a rope and pushed off in silence.

His phone showed no new messages. He should have been on the road already.

When he walked back up Lamorna View, the woman from Number 16 was standing barefoot in the doorway with a mug of coffee, looking at the sky.

“Morning!” she said, her voice a bright blade in the quiet.

Martin nodded once and kept walking.

He stopped by the SUV.

In his jacket pocket, his fingers closed around the small multitool he carried for work. He’d forgotten it was there until now.

He crouched, as if tying his shoe.

The valve cap came away easily. A small, harmless thing. He held it in his hand.

He pressed the pliers to the valve and squeezed.

There was a hiss - quiet, intimate. Air escaping.

Martin froze, listening. The sound didn’t carry. He squeezed once more, then stopped.

The car looked the same. The tyre looked exactly the same.

He went inside, made another tea he didn’t want, and left.

On the drive to the hospital, he kept his eyes on the road. The sea opened beside him, grey and flat. He tried to think of his father’s face, of Ellie waiting.

As he parked, his phone rang. Lorraine.

“He’s asking for you,” she said.

“I’m here,” Martin said. “I’m coming.”

He was halfway to the entrance when his phone buzzed again - a local alert.

Incident on B3315 near Lamorna View. Emergency services attending. Delays expected.

For a moment, the words meant nothing.

Then his stomach dropped.

He told himself it was nothing. A flat tyre. A delay. An inconvenience.

He walked into the hospital.

Lorraine was standing in the corridor outside his father’s room, her arms folded as if holding herself together. She didn’t look at him when he stopped beside her.

“They think it was an accident,” she said.

Martin nodded. He could hear the monitors from inside the room, slow and metronomic.

He didn’t trust his voice at first. Then he said it - not to her exactly, but to the space between them.

“This is all my fault.”

Lorraine turned toward him, her face briefly blank, as if she hadn’t heard him properly.

“What?” she said.

Martin said nothing.

His father’s room was bright, the light unforgiving. Lorraine sat rigid in the chair. Ellie stood at the window.

“You’re late,” Ellie said.

“I’m here,” Martin said.

His father turned his head slowly and found him.

“Boy,” he whispered.

Martin took his hand. It felt light, brittle like a bundle of dry twigs.

“Don’t let them take it all,” his father said, the words barely there.

Martin nodded, though he didn’t know what they meant anymore.

Later - after the quieting, after the nurses had come and gone, after his father’s hand had grown cold in his - Martin stood alone in the corridor with his hands in his pockets.

His fingers closed around the small plastic valve cap.

He held it until it hurt, a tiny, sharp star of guilt pressed into his palm.

Outside, somewhere on a narrow road, blue lights turned the hedges into colour. People stood with their hands over their mouths, asking how something like that could happen.

Martin didn’t ask.

He already knew.

He walked out into the evening. The air was still thick with salt and holiday. Up on Lamorna View, a space was empty again.

He got into his car.

He did not drive home.

He drove toward the blue lights, the gathered crowd, the answer he already carried in his pocket.