Cath Staincliffe - Blink of an Eye

I raise my glass and wink at Alex, and he smiles back. ‘To everything,’ I say, and he echoes me and we toast the future.

Carmel

Before.

When the sun burnished everything and bubbles floated over the laughter and the future brimmed bright, ripe with adventure.

Before.

Were we smug? I don’t believe so. But I dared to be happy, thinking that the girls were grown and building lives of their own, that Phil’s business was ticking over in the teeth of the downturn, and a new generation had joined the family.

There wasn’t any sense of entitlement, but relief rather. Like any family we’ve had our share of bad luck and misfortune. From the terror of Suzanne’s bout of meningitis and the shocks of my dad’s sudden death, Naomi’s teenage high-jinks and my father-in-law’s cancer, to the more mundane upsets of burglaries and credit-card debts. And I didn’t for one minute think this phase of contentment would last – life’s not like that.

It wasn’t perfect. Naomi had been finding it increasingly hard to motivate herself after so many rejections. And Phil, one of the most laid-back people I know, was on medication for high blood pressure. His latest tests had been disappointing, and the GP was keen to try and get it down to an acceptable level. Then there was my mother in a nursing home, lost to dementia. But that hazy afternoon it seemed like things were pretty damn good – and I was thankful. I was counting my blessings.

We left Suzanne’s at about five. Phil set off for his gig at seven. It’s nearby, a place they play two or three times a year, and they don’t need long to set up. I could have gone along, but it wasn’t like I hadn’t seen them a million times, and I was more interested in catching up on some television.

I watered the garden first. We have a small square patch at the back of the house laid with flagstones, so everything is grown in containers. It’s handy: no grass to mow, little weeding to do. Our home is one of four flat-roofed, split-level modern houses, three bedrooms, picture windows, open stairs. When I say modern, they were built in the sixties to replace the end of a terrace that had been demolished. They still look like a glaring anomaly in an area of identical terraced rows. The flagstoned garden is the back yard of the original property. I’d never imagined Phil and me living in what he describes as a little box, without the features and character of the older houses all around. But when we bought it, it was a bargain we couldn’t ignore, on the market at a knock-down price due to problems with the flat roof. It was handy for schools and shops and a great place to raise the kids (apart from the windows, which were smeared with finger marks and kisses, traces of jam and Marmite for months on end).

As I filled the watering can from the butt and drenched the pots, the day was ending, the sky a lavender blue draped with shreds of coral-pink clouds over in the west.

It was five to nine when I sat down and began flicking through the channels, a glass of wine at my side.

It was five past nine when the phone rang. And everything changed.

Naomi

Run! Run! Freaking out, fear squirting inside. Run! Can’t move. Something squats on my chest, heavy, cold. Choking. Shout, warn them! Shout for help. Mouth stuck, tongue too. Can’t even open my lips. Scream trapped in my throat, loud and red raw. Got to get away. Get away!

No light. Pitch dark and cold. Buried alive. Suffocating. Can’t smell. Dark, still, silent. No – thumping, hammering. Something, someone, hammering. Thud, thud, thud, thud. Digging to reach me? Nailing me in? Each thud rocks me. Am I the nail? Salt in my mouth, brine.

Help! The scream echoes round inside my head. Alex! Mum! Dad!

There! Going up the escalator. I’m running. Legs like rubber bands, heart exploding, yelling and yelling. They never turn. They don’t see me. No one sees, no one hears.

The ground trembles, hammering louder. Everything shudders and cracks. The pillars shatter and collapse, great clouds of dust billow, huge discs of stone fall and tumble, rocking the ground.

Running, dodging, everything thick with gritty dust. The ground splits, like cloth tearing, a massive wrenching noise and the world erupts. Tongues of fire and a blizzard of ash. I can’t stop.

Falling.

Falling.

Like a puppet bumping off the walls of the canyon. Thump, smack, thump. To the bottom.

Crouching in a ball, arms over my head, coughing. I hear the beast coming, a river of molten lava, stone and gravel and debris. Thundering.

Battering me.

Burying me. Deep in pain.

No one will ever find me here.

Carmel

It was Alex’s mum, Monica, on the phone. We had met briefly a couple of times. I was a little taken aback, then I assumed she was calling about Alex’s new job and began to talk. ‘Alex told us this afternoon, it’s wonderful for them-’

She cut me short. ‘Carmel, listen, I’m sorry, I’ve got some bad news.’

I laughed, I think I laughed, awkward, wrong-footed, trying to deny the danger in her voice. It seemed preposterous that there could be bad news. Was she ill, perhaps? Why was she sorry? My mother? Did she know her? Had Mum had another stroke, or an aneurism? That might be a blessing – something that allowed her to escape from the bizarre and frightening world she now inhabited.

‘What is it?’ I said. ‘What?’

I heard her sniff or swallow, felt my skin chill and my stomach tighten.

‘I’m sorry, there’s been an accident. Alex and Naomi… in the car, there was a collision.’

My heart imploded; that was how it felt, a collapse in my chest, pain and my vision blurring. All that was left was the voice on the phone, the words that I was trying to decipher, the gaps between the words where the truth hung.

‘Are they all right?’ I could still speak, though I sounded odd, fractured, jerky. ‘Monica?’

‘I’ve talked to Alex,’ she said. ‘I’m waiting to see him. He’s got broken bones, bruising.’

‘Naomi?’ I was trembling and shuddering. I thought about hanging up. I didn’t want to know. It must be bad; she was breaking it slowly, gently. Couldn’t come straight out with Oh, she’s great, not a scratch or Just a bump or two, miraculous escape.

‘I don’t know,’ she said quietly. ‘Alex said they were working on her.’

Working on her. I swallowed. ‘Which hospital?’

‘Wythenshawe.’

In the taxi, I texted Phil, my fingers slipping, missing the keys, then I realized he would have his phone off while they played. Directory enquiries put me through to the pub. I could hear the band in the background, ‘Stagger Lee’. We once learnt to jive to that, rockabilly style. Broken chicken walk, they called the step, almost like a limp, and the moves included lots of spinning round and away from each other, then back together. Me getting the giggles and losing the rhythm and setting Phil off. I repeated to the barman that he must interrupt the set at the end of this number and tell the lead guitarist, Phil, to ring his wife urgently. A family emergency. He promised.

Phil would be tapping his foot as he played, exchanging banter with Hugh on bass and lead vocals, supplying the odd backing harmony when the fancy took him, jamming with his mates at the end of a perfect day, no idea what was about to hit him.

A collision, Monica had said. So what about the other vehicle? Another car? A bus? A lorry? Where had they crashed? It was about a twenty-minute drive from Suzanne’s to ours. Were they coming back to ours? I couldn’t remember. It’s not like there were any fixed arrangements; they had their own keys, made their own meals. Or were they going to Monica’s? Her house was even closer.