Cath Staincliffe - Blink of an Eye

It wasn’t the end of the world, but it was a pretty dreary place to be. The next few months were not happy times. Phil and I tried to keep positive; we didn’t want to put her under any more pressure and add to her sense of failure. She claimed jobseeker’s allowance for several months. Georgia’s brush with alcohol-related illness and their combined lack of funds didn’t seem to have had much impact on their socializing (though Georgia had never set foot in our house again after the fire), and they continued to party with the best of them and sleep the day away. Any attempts to discuss Naomi’s behaviour met with a wall of indifference punctuated by outbursts of anger. She was demonstrably unhappy, but we were the last people on earth she wanted any support from. Or so it seemed.

I remember comparing it to my own adolescence. It had helped that I knew what I wanted to do with my life, starting with becoming independent. University was the route to that and so it made sense to work for it. As for under-age drinking and the like, that all went on but I never got caught and I spared my mum and dad any confrontations. In my last two years at home, I’d often wait until they were in bed and then sneak out to meet up with people, or I’d pretend to be going to bed and actually leave the house. What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.

Early summer things seemed to change. Naomi began seeing more of her other friends, and Georgia was in a heavy relationship with some lad and apparently besotted. Then Naomi got a part-time job in a restaurant, washing up and running errands. Like someone emerging from sleep she seemed brighter and had more energy, she regained her equilibrium and her confidence grew. She no longer had to pout and bluster to disguise her faltering self-esteem. And she raised the prospect of going back to college.

She altered the mix of courses to avoid the dreaded Miss Gaffney, who she really did dislike, and she had to have a meeting with the staff, who did not want a repeat performance and needed convincing of her commitment.

We never looked back – well, only with a grateful laugh and a shudder when Phil and I recalled that time and related it to friends having traumas with their own teenagers. Naomi got an A and two Bs in her exams. Surprised us all. Miffed Suzanne, who always considered herself to be the brightest child.

Naomi had tested us significantly as a teenager, but in the intervening years, in the recent months, I’d seen no sign of her reverting to that risky, out-of-control behaviour, though she knew how to have fun still. She got tipsy sometimes when she and Alex went partying, but she’d not given us any cause for concern.

Don heard me out. He believed it had very little bearing on the case or any potential prosecution. What was more significant was that Naomi had a clean licence and no record of any drink-related offences, antisocial behaviour and so on. And as yet we had no way of knowing whether alcohol was even a factor in the accident.

Naomi

Today they got me out of bed and made me stand on my good leg, holding on to a frame, for a few seconds. My leg was shaking, weak as a kitten. Like in dreams where you can only run in slow motion, or when you can’t run at all even though there’s some bear or wolf or a psycho serial killer hurtling after you.

The physio will come back and in between I have to do these stretching exercises. It’ll be another couple of weeks before I can put weight on my broken ankle. The other women in the ward are so cheery and chatty and they’re always sharing their symptoms, but I feel awkward joining in. I don’t want them to know what I’ve done. When the rest of them talk, I pretend to read, or to sleep. They know I was in a road accident, but that’s all, I think.

They’ve moved me to a bed near the window because I don’t need any attention in the night. I can look out on to a service road with double yellow lines all along it. I see the vehicles going up and down and sometimes a smoker will walk by, puffing away. There is a building on the other side, a vast brick wall without any windows. It is impossible to count the bricks but I try, hoping it’ll lull me to sleep. There is a corner of sky at the far side of that roof. A little patch, just enough to see whether it’s cloudy or blue or night.

Mum paid for a TV for a few days but I told her I wasn’t fussed. It’s hard to explain: stuff that used to be a laugh even because it was so dire, like Come Dine With Me or Jeremy Kyle , well, I know it’s trivia, always did; I could poke fun at it, chat about it later. But now I glaze over. I can’t connect any more.

Not just with telly. With anything.

They try and jolly me along, Mum and Dad. They take turns coming now. Today it’s Dad. I always feel this pang when I see him. That I’ve let him down. He never asks about it, the accident, doesn’t go on about remembering like Mum does.

‘Hello.’ He kisses my head and puts a bag on the tray table. ‘Chocolate flapjack.’

‘Thanks.’

He takes off his coat and hangs it on the back of the chair, then shifts the chair about till he’s facing me. ‘Tickets will be out soon for Leeds Festival,’ he says, ‘if you and Alex would like to go? Or Sziget in Budapest if you fancy going further afield. Go with Becky and Steve, maybe? I can get some tickets. I could treat you.’

I can’t look at him, and he says, ‘You’ll be up and running by then,’ to chivvy me along. But that’s not why I’m skirting round it; it’s that I don’t want him to waste his money on something that I don’t think I could face. I can’t see myself in a field with a load of people, jumping about pretending things are okay. Can’t imagine ever doing anything like that again.

‘The police,’ I say. ‘Who knows what’ll happen?’ Because it’s easier to make an excuse about that than to tell him I couldn’t cope with his treat.

He sticks his lip out and sighs. His whiskers are grey now, eyebrows too. He looks old. I never noticed that before.

He’s downloaded me some more tracks, for my MP3 player. I let him load it up. All these lovely things; he’s trying so hard to make things better and I just feel like crying.

He’s got the paper with him, the crossword, and he reads out a clue. I never, ever get them, they’re way too hard for me, but it’s not a bad way for the two of us to spend visiting time, because the silences aren’t awkward while he’s working out an anagram and I can get away with the odd question like ‘What does it mean?’

Alex texts me: Hey u good babe? x There are signs on the wall about not using mobile phones, but everyone ignores them. I text back: K, dad’s here, sleepy l8trs x

Dad folds his paper up and gets his jacket on. The leather is so cracked now, the whole thing is dropping to bits. I can’t imagine him ever getting a new one; he’d look so weird in something neat and shiny.

He kisses me again. ‘Need anything bringing?’

‘No, ta,’ I say.

I lie down and close my eyes, but before long they insist on doing my checks. Then the expedition to the toilet. Then comes the night.

I dream of her a lot – Lily. I dream all sorts about her. Sometimes she’s fine. I dream, but what I need to do is remember.

Carmel

I was returning books to the library, unread and overdue, abandoned in the upheaval, just paying the fine, when someone called my name. Julia, Suzanne’s neighbour, the ones who came to the barbecue. I couldn’t remember exactly what she did, something with disabled children; she had a young woman with her, a girl with Down’s syndrome.

‘How are you?’ Julia said. Then pulled a face. ‘Sorry, stupid question. I’m so sorry, what a nightmare.’