Cath Staincliffe - Blink of an Eye

‘Stop fussing,’ she said. ‘Tea?’

We accepted, and Phil went and lifted the kettle.

‘Let me, Dad,’ she said. ‘You sit down.’

The house was quiet, the patio doors open and the sun streaming in.

‘Is Ollie asleep?’ I’d hoped to have another cuddle, to soothe myself with the simple innocence of holding a newborn. She told us he’d just gone down.

‘What did the police say?’ I asked her.

‘They wanted to know everything about Naomi and Alex. When they arrived, when they left, what they said, what they did. Who they spoke to. They want to talk to Jonty, too. I’m to give a statement. I might be called as a witness.’

Oh no!

‘Why was she going so fast?’ I said suddenly. One moment’s thoughtlessness and the railings plastered with toys.

‘Because she was drunk.’

‘She wasn’t!’

Suzanne glared at me.

‘We’ve spoken to Alex. She was the designated driver. She had some champagne, yes, but she was fine by the time they left.’

‘She wasn’t,’ Suzanne said, shaking her head. ‘She might have promised to drive, but that didn’t stop her drinking. She’s a selfish idiot.’

‘Suzanne!’

‘It’s true, Mum. The only person she cares about is herself.’

‘No,’ I protested. I turned to Phil, seeking his support.

‘What about the fire?’ Suzanne pressed on. ‘What about the time the police brought her home. And what happened to Georgia?’

THE FIRE. I thought of it in capitals still: a headline moment in our lives. ‘Suzanne, that was seven, eight years ago.’

‘She hasn’t changed.’

‘She has. She was impulsive then, she didn’t always think.’

‘Exactly,’ Suzanne said.

‘She needs us more than ever. We have to support her, we nearly lost…’ I was going to cry.

‘Mum.’ Suzanne came and sat beside me, her hand on my shoulder. ‘Of course we have to help her, I know that. We all love her, but that’s not the same as condoning what she’s done.’

‘I’m not condoning it! I can’t believe she did what you are accusing her of.’ I put my head in my hands. Fought back the tears. ‘Accidents happen…’ I tried to speak, but Suzanne talked over me.

‘Yes, but if she was drink-driving, that changes everything. It wasn’t just an accident.’

‘But we’ve only your word for that, and Alex says differently. And I believe him.’

In the strained silence that followed, I looked outside to the garden, where the bamboo and the grasses were still and the only movements were the insects busy flying hither and thither and seeds drifting through the air. And tried to still my thoughts.

THE FIRE, just like this was THE ACCIDENT.

We had left strict instructions before going away that the girls were not to have a party. Later Naomi claimed it wasn’t a party, just a few friends who’d come round.

They had reached an age, at eighteen and sixteen, when they didn’t want to holiday with us and so we hadn’t been away for over a year. I was exhausted by all the work involved in moving my mother into a nursing home and sorting her house out, and Phil had talked me into a week staying in a cottage in the west of Ireland. I’d have loved some sunshine but we didn’t dare venture any further afield in case Mum took a turn for the worse. She had had a small stroke a couple of months earlier and there was a chance she’d have another.

There was a music festival on in a town near to where we were staying, and Phil was looking forward to that and to some nights jamming in the local pub. We were taking cheap flights to Cork, and if he’d brought his guitar he’d have had to pay through the nose, so he made do with his harmonica instead.

Suzanne was in charge and we knew she would take the responsibility seriously. But she was going away herself on the Friday night; she had an interview for a university course at Bournemouth that afternoon and was staying over in a B &B near the station. When we realized this, I panicked and talked to Phil about changing our dates. But Naomi came up with a solution: she would stay at Georgia’s that night. Perfect.

Except she was lying to us. Maybe not from the outset, but somewhere along the line the plan shifted to Georgia and a dozen other friends coming to our house. Unsupervised.

There wasn’t a good signal for mobile phones in the area we were visiting, but we were able to ring home each evening from the landline at the pub. The cottage was tiny and cosy; we used peat on the open fire and banged our heads on the sloping ceiling above the stairs each time we went down without thinking about it. Saturday we walked along the rocky shoreline, spotting seals off the rocks and trying to identify birds, breathing in the ripe smell of the great hanks of seaweed that clotted the sands. We had lunch at a little café in the bay and bought an outrageously expensive bottle of wine to share with our evening meal of freshly caught mackerel.

We were relaxed and windswept and glowing with contentment by the time we went out to the pub. It was a five-minute walk from the cottage, no street lights and the stars glittering cold and fierce in the dark blue sky. The air smelling of brine and burning peat.

We could hear the musicians tuning up in the main room as we arrived. We tucked ourselves into the phone booth by the door and closed its wooden folding door. Suzanne answered the phone and began to cry. I went cold all over. ‘What is it? What’s the matter?’ Images of my mum dead, or a burglary at the house. ‘Suzanne?’

‘Oh Mum,’ she cried, ‘the house, there’s been a fire.’

Oh God. ‘Are you all right? And Naomi?’

‘Fine.’

What on earth had happened? An electrical fault? We’d never bothered rewiring, we just loaded the sockets with extension cables and adaptors so we could plug everything in. Was it that? Or had one of the girls accidentally set a tea towel alight or let a pan boil dry? ‘Is anyone hurt?’

‘Georgia’s in hospital.’

‘In hospital?’ I said. Phil was pressing his ear to the other side of the receiver so he could hear too. ‘From the fire? But they were at Georgia’s.’

‘No, they were here. I got back this afternoon. It’s such a mess.’

‘How is Georgia? Was she burnt?’

‘No. She’s okay, I think, but Naomi won’t tell me any details.’

‘Put her on.’

‘She’s not here, she’s at the hospital.’

‘Where was the fire?’

‘The lounge mainly, and your bedroom. The fire brigade came.’

My stomach turned over. ‘Look, we’ll be home by lunchtime.’ We had an early-morning flight back the next day. ‘Are you okay staying there? Do you want to go to one of your friends?’

‘I’ll stay. Mr Harrison got the windows boarded up.’ I felt sick; that image brought it home. The fact that it had been savage enough to damage the windows. And that our neighbour was involved in helping secure the place.

We talked a bit more, trying to calm Suzanne down rather than finding out any more information. Mr Harrison had told her not to clean up until we’d taken photographs for the insurance claim. An eminently sensible suggestion, but I knew how impotent she’d feel. I did try again to persuade her to sleep elsewhere, or at least get someone round. ‘Naomi will be back,’ she said.

‘Tell her to stay there,’ I said. ‘She’s got some explaining to do.’ Even if the fire was an electrical fault, she should not have been there.

‘I’ll kill her,’ I said to Phil, as we sat with our pints of Guinness going over what we’d just heard. ‘And Georgia, I can’t work out if she’s been hurt in the fire or what. It’s more likely to be smoke inhalation, isn’t it?’