Cath Staincliffe - Blink of an Eye

I never told Naomi or Phil that I’d sent it, but I did tell Evie, who said she’d probably have done the same.

Naomi

As Mum talks, I imagine it as a movie. Me in my blue dress and spotted shoes in the garden. Some of the background I can fill in from the photos she’s printed out – like where they’d put the buffet in the shade under the canopy and where the chairs were, the faces of the people I talked to.

‘Straight after you arrived, Alex opened the champagne,’ she says. ‘You made a toast. After that you cuddled Ollie.’ She hands me the picture of us together. ‘Then you had something to eat. Francine, this woman with Suzanne,’ another photo, ‘had just bought a flat in town, so you discussed the pros and cons of being in the middle of things. There was a girl there called Stella, she had a poncho on, one of those floaty ones, and she asked you about clubs in Manchester…’

As she talks, I wait for a prick of familiarity, for some word or phrase or image to puncture a way through to my memories. To tear through the screen and let them all come spilling out.

‘… You had a tuna kebab. That was just after we left, and you talked to Gordy about Newcastle,’ she says. ‘His daughter’s thinking of applying to uni there. There was a little boy, a toddler in dungarees called Adam; you read him a book on the swing seat. And you helped get the Chinese lanterns ready; that was just before seven. Pip, she’s the one from London who works with Jonty, discussed phone apps, and when you put the music on, she danced with you.’

I wait and listen, but the words have no resonance; there’s no echo in my head, no spark or tingle.

‘Pip said you drank some wine around then.’

I swallow. Mum’s told me that Suzanne reckons I was drinking a lot, but Alex says different. It’s something else I can’t recall. But I can’t imagine getting drunk and driving the Honda. I never drive when I’ve been on the booze.

‘I’ve not been able to find anyone who saw you leaving,’ Mum says, ‘but you waved goodbye to Suzanne at about eight. She was inside then; only a handful of people were left.’

Mum stops and looks at me. When I shake my head, I see her shoulders dip in disappointment. But she rallies and touches my arm. ‘Give it time, darling. After all, you’ve had a little bit come back; maybe it’ll be a gradual thing. You can always try listening to the playlist.’

‘Yes.’ I try to sound positive.

When she’s gone, I go through the photographs again, try and knit the pictures to the stories Mum has brought. Perhaps if I keep looking, keep trying, something will happen.

The brain can repair itself, I’ve read that; pathways are made in other areas when there is damage. I just have to keep trying. Find something more than that kiss and the buffet and Lily’s red dress and the sound of the collision.

Carmel

Six weeks after the accident, Naomi was discharged from hospital. She was still convalescing, with a range of outpatient appointments to attend in the future. She was not supposed to lift anything heavy, no manual labour, no driving. She slid her eyes sideways and gave a sad little snort when the nurse said that.

I was on tenterhooks as I drove her home, anticipating that the experience of being in a car again, the motion, the noise, the smell of the interior might be the key that would unlock her memory. But she sat passive and silent all the way home. She looked washed out, her hair greasy, the layers grown out, her dark blue eyes ringed with deep shadows, the scar on her cheekbone a patch of puckered, shiny red skin.

I had cleaned her room up, asking her what she wanted to do with the photographs on her wall – mostly of herself and Alex. She asked me to take them down. Any attempt I made to talk about him, she stopped me dead.

Naomi

‘I want you to take me to Suzanne’s, drive me home, past where we crashed.’

Mum looks alarmed. ‘Are you sure?’

I feel a bit wobbly about it, to be honest, but I won’t let that put me off. ‘Yes.’

‘I’ve got the dentist now…’ she begins.

‘Not now,’ I say, ‘later. After tea.’ A similar time of day to when it happened – part of me thinks that might increase the chances of it working. The weather’s different today, though, dull and overcast and warm. No sunshine.

I have to remember! Mum’s been bringing me morsels of information like a cat bringing dead birds into the house. I know she’s been trying her best, doing what she can, but it’s not enough.

Dad offers to come too, but I tell him it’s okay. The prospect of me freaking out is at the back of my mind, and they don’t both need to see that.

‘Don’t tell Suzanne,’ I say to Mum.

‘Okay, but if she sees us…?’

‘Only then.’ I can imagine her mocking me, and I don’t want to be distracted by that. Her default setting is finding fault; she always looks for the negative. It drives me mad. I don’t know how Jonty stands it.

When we set off, I think Mum’s as nervous as I am. She talks too much when she’s anxious. She’s going on about the dentist, how much the treatment costs, but eventually she shuts up.

Of course we have to drive past where it happened to reach Suzanne’s, so I try to recall Alex and me in the Honda on the way to the barbecue. I know we took champagne. Alex told me we bought it from Safeway. I know from what Mum’s said that we arrived at four. But nothing emerges. The only memories I have from immediately before we got there are Alex breaking the news when we were at home and me jumping at him, and then the kiss at the side of Suzanne’s house.

My stomach swoops when we get to Mottram Lane and drive past the school, but the images in my head are the second-hand ones I’ve been given. I try not to get too disappointed and tell myself it might be different coming in the other direction.

The sky is still clouded over and there’s a sewagey smell in the air. Lots of the houses have Union Jack flags flying high for the Queen’s Jubilee. Becky and Steve went to a street party; his mum’s a keen royalist, apparently. My folks are the opposite. When they were still at school, it was the Silver Jubilee, and the Sex Pistols were at number one with ‘God Save the Queen’ and it was banned from the airwaves.

At Suzanne’s street, Mum does a three-point turn and stops. ‘This is where you were parked,’ she says. ‘We saw your car when we were leaving.’

I nod. I close my eyes to see if that helps and run through the sequence Mum has discovered: handing out champagne, cuddling Ollie on the swing seat, eating, talking to Julia about festivals, taking photographs on Jonty’s camera, the conversation with Gordy, reading to Adam, the Chinese lanterns, dancing with Pip.

‘Okay.’ I clear my throat, nod to Mum that we should set off.

She drives to the dual carriageway and along to the junction with Mottram Lane. The lights are red. My knees are pressed tightly together, my hands between them. There’s a sickly taste in my mouth. A magpie pecks at something at the side of the road. I look away.

The lights change and Mum turns right. I try to relax, to let my body settle and my mind loosen so I’m more open to the chance of remembering. It’s not easy, though; my back is stiff and my guts are knotted up still.

Mum drives slowly to the bend; there are no cars behind us. ‘This is where you went too fast,’ she says, ‘and here,’ as we round the first curve of the bend, ‘is where you swerved back in.’

I imagine it. That’s all I do.

I see the railings by the river on the left and the bushes and trees there, the school over to the right. The glimpse of red, Lily’s dress, the thump and screech; they fit here but that is still all I have. Free-floating elements, isolated and incomplete.