Cath Staincliffe - Blink of an Eye

‘Can you stop?’

‘Hang on.’ She drives a little further until we are on the straight stretch and parks at the side of the road.

‘I’m going to get out,’ I say.

She nods.

‘I won’t be long.’

A couple of cars drive past as I walk along the pavement back to where it joins the grass verge on the bend. I’m still using a stick to take the stress off my ankle. I walk across the grass to where the railings are broken. Alex said they smashed through the rear windscreen. The trees are blackened, fire-damaged. On the ground, new shoots of green have grown up through the scorched grass. This is where we ended up, hanging upside down, rammed against the railings. I look over towards the school. Lily’s body landed somewhere in the middle of the road. I try to picture her in different poses, on her back or curled in a ball. Here Alex pulled me out. Here he called the ambulance. Here Lily died and my heart stopped too. But I was lucky. Tears sting the back of my eyes. Why, why can’t I fucking remember?

I see Mum coming.

‘Anything?’

Shake my head.

‘Lie down,’ she says, ‘if you can manage it.’

Oh God.

‘Try it. You never know.’

And I do, with her help. Because I’ll try anything that might work. I lie on the grass after checking it for dog dirt and shut my eyes. I can hear birds somewhere, chirping, and traffic, and an ice cream van’s chimes suddenly cut out. I hold the red in my mind for a few moments. Then I think about the thumps and the screech.

Another car goes past fast, rap music pulsing out for a couple of seconds.

I open my eyes and see the shattered branches of the burnt trees reaching towards the vast sky. The sky is grey, blank like my memory.

I lift my arm and she helps me up. I brush the bits of twigs and cinders off me. My throat aches, a tight ring of frustration.

I don’t want to cry, and try not to, but tears run down my face anyway.

I’m so sorry , I think; I wish I could just go and tell them. Over and over and over again. Find a way to show them how dreadfully, dreadfully sorry I am.

Mum hugs me and we walk back to the car.

I’m not going to give up, I’m not going to stop trying. I’ll try hypnosis -anything else I can find that might help.

I owe it to them, to Lily’s family. The loss of memory makes me feel like I’m hiding from what happened. I don’t want to do that. I want to take responsibility and remember every fucking second and every detail. I want to remember it every second of every day for the rest of my life. I want to be unable to forget it.

That’s what I deserve. I have to find a way to make it happen.

We’re finishing lunch the next day and Mum is asking me if there’s anything I want to do in the afternoon when the doorbell rings. It’s the police. Come to arrest me.

I freeze, outwardly numb but my mind shrieking with fear. I don’t want to go to the police station. Of course, I have no choice.

Mum’s saying how they’ll get Don, telling them I have a solicitor. And then we’re going. My legs tremble as we walk to their car and there’s a roaring sound in my head.

At the police station I’m taken to the custody suite and have to answer questions about who I am and my health; they take my fingerprints and a mouth swab. They ask me to hand over my phone and keys and everything in my pockets. They want my belt, and my necklace too.

They lock me up. A cell with a hard bench and nothing else. Graffiti scratched into the walls. With what? Fingernails? It smells like disinfectant and something else, something cheesy. I’m cold but I’m sweating too, I can smell it. I want to wee but I don’t know if I’m allowed to or how to ask someone. If I’m supposed to call out or what.

It’s hard to judge how much later a police officer unlocks the door and says, ‘Your solicitor’s here. Come this way.’ I do as I’m told.

I nearly cry when I see Don. He’s got me a drink of tea in a paper cup. He arranges for me to go to the ladies’ – a police officer waits for me in the corridor outside.

‘I’ve spoken with the police,’ Don says, ‘and they want to interview you on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving. You understand?’

I nod. My heart contracts.

‘They’ve got the blood alcohol results from when you were admitted to hospital.’

I can hear a rushing sound in my head, and from his expression I can see it’s bad news. Please, no!

‘You were almost one and a half times the legal limit for driving.’

It’s like the ground’s opened up beneath me and I’m plunging straight down. Oh God, no! How could I have done that? I can’t believe it. What the hell was I playing at?

I can’t talk; I’ll just blub if I try.

‘Still no recall?’ he checks.

I shake my head, my mouth all wobbly.

‘Right.’ He picks up his iPad. ‘There’s nothing to be gained by sticking you in an interview where all you can say is “I can’t remember”, so I’d advise you to offer a prepared statement. Yes?’

When I agree, he goes on, ‘All we need is to explain to them that you’ve no memory of the accident and the hours preceding it.’

He helps me word the statement, keeping it short and to the point.

Then I have to go back in the cell again.

Eventually they come for me, and they read the charge. I try not to cry. I will be released on bail, to appear at the magistrates’ court in a few days’ time. At the custody desk I get my things back and have to sign some forms, and then Don takes me home.

It’s official. It’s not going to go away or get forgotten about. I’m not going to wake up and laugh about it. I feel so dirty. So rotten. To the core.

Carmel

Naomi had been petrified, monosyllabic before they took her away. Her face, already pale from being inside so much, was now white as chalk. Don met us at the police station. We weren’t allowed beyond the front desk. They took her down to the custody suite. My work had brought me to police stations on several occasions. I knew the drill. But the fact that this was my daughter being booked in put a completely different slant on it. Phil had closed the shop and come to be with me. We were grateful to see Don, to have someone take charge.

‘I’ll have a pre-interview meeting with the police first,’ he said. ‘They are aiming to talk to her on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving and they have the blood alcohol results.’

I swallowed, watching Don’s lips, trying to second-guess what he’d say. Wanting the result to be negligible, below the limit, to exonerate Naomi, lift the cloud. To demonstrate that it was an accident, nothing more. Her greatest sin taking the corner too fast. An accident, pure and simple. If she had been drinking, the purity vanished, didn’t it?

‘She was over the limit.’

My heart swooped. Please no. No. The hope melted away. I felt everything get darker.

‘They’ll tell me what they’ve got – the bare bones. Then I’ll see Naomi, advise her and take it from there. We could be a couple of hours. I can ring you?’

We hesitated, but he encouraged us to go. ‘There’s nothing you can do here,’ he said.

Phil was too strung out to go back to work, and my shift didn’t start until four. I rang Suzanne and we went over there.

‘Alex told us she was fine,’ I said to Phil when we were on our way. ‘Oh, Phil. Perhaps she’s got a drink problem? With all that stuff in college and now this. She could have been hiding it from us. From all of us.’

‘She hasn’t the money to drink all that much. We’d have noticed. We’d have seen the evidence, smelled it on her. It’s more likely she just made a serious misjudgement, thinking she could drive having had more than she intended.’