Cath Staincliffe - Blink of an Eye

I ring the bell and fight the urge to run away. I have to see him. I need to know.

He opens the door and my chest hurts. He startles like I’ve slapped him or something and his face goes white, really white, like he’s seen a ghost. I am the ghost. The girlfriend that was.

‘Hey,’ he says. He is so tense I can feel it coming off him like a smell.

‘Can I come in?’ I say, like a vampire asking permission.

‘Er… yes.’ He lets me in and we go in the living room, all open-plan. No sign of his mum. His plaster casts have gone; he looks fine. Pale but fine.

‘You want a drink?’ he says, his voice sounding creaky, uneven.

‘No thanks.’ My nails are hurting my hands. I open my fingers, look at the new-moon marks.

‘You okay?’ he asks.

‘You were driving,’ I say, sounding more uncertain than I meant to.

He looks at me, gives a little fake laugh like I’ve said something not very funny. Then his eyes start to change, darken. ‘No,’ he smiles, putting me straight, ‘I don’t know what you’re-’

‘Someone saw you.’

‘I wasn’t driving, you were driving. What the fuck are you-’

‘You were driving and you said it was me.’

‘You’re off your head.’ He glares at me.

‘Why did you lie, Alex? About me?’ Stupid tears stop me going on.

‘I wasn’t driving!’ Outraged, like I am ridiculous.

‘They saw you!’ I yell.

A spasm tightens his face. ‘No!’ he says. ‘No,’ he repeats vehemently, shaking his head. ‘No fucking way!’

‘They saw you get in the car. You ran her over.’

He doesn’t speak. His breath is noisy and harsh. I gulp and swallow and try to work out what to say.

‘I loved you.’ I stand up. ‘I loved you so much and you, you bastard, you fucking bastard…’ I’m shaking so much it breaks the words up like a machine gun. Rat-a-tat-tat.

‘You’ve got it all wrong.’ He says it in a pleading way, as if he’s begging me to believe him. But I don’t. Oh God, I don’t.

He’s on his feet too, his hands on his head, clutching at his temples.

‘You knocked her down,’ I shout. ‘You did it. How could you lie?’ I can’t breathe, all the snot in my nose, and I’m blubbing and snorting.

‘Naomi,’ he says, and he’s twisting and turning his body like I’m wringing it out of him. Except that’s all he says, just my name.

‘I could have been locked up for that.’

He’s frowning hard, his mouth shut tight. He flinches, rubs his nose with his hand, starts to talk, but I carry on. ‘I thought I had done it. I believed you, you and Monica. I tried to kill myself.’

His head jerks up and back, withdrawing. His expression changes, mouth open, derisive. He thinks I’m making it up.

‘Overdose,’ I say. ‘My mum found me. Been in a psychiatric unit too, after that. You prick.’ It comes out as a squeak between my teeth. My chin itches from the tears.

‘I thought you were dead!’ he explodes. ‘I thought you were dead. You weren’t breathing, you… I hadn’t any idea that… I never meant to…’

I wait for him to go on. The air electric, my wrists tingling, my spine on fire.

‘If you were dead, there didn’t seem any sense… My job!’ he cries.

I don’t know how long I stare at him. My mind numbly processing what he has just said.

‘You talk her into it?’ I finally say.

His mouth works, he blinks, then half a shrug. I get it. ‘The other way around. Because she’d do anything for you. For your fucking career. You selfish, shitting bastard! And that little girl…’

I haven’t heard the car, but suddenly Monica’s in the room, eyes blazing. ‘Get out!’ she says.

‘Mum…’ Alex says.

‘You don’t say a word.’ She points at him, then looks back to me. ‘Get out or I’ll ring the police.’

‘And say what?’ I’m trembling. ‘That you lied for him so I’d pay the price. That I didn’t count?’

‘Get out!’

‘We know,’ I say. ‘There’s a witness, so your little plan isn’t going to work. You’re not going to get away with it.’

The tiniest flicker of her eyelids, a moment’s doubt.

‘You bitch,’ I say, amazing myself. I can barely breathe.

She moves as though she’d strike me, and he calls to her again. ‘Mum!’

‘Intimidating a witness,’ she shouts, ‘that’s what you’re doing. Once the police-’

‘He’s not a witness, he’s a liar – and so are you. I thought I’d killed her…’

I can’t go on. I run out. And out of the front door. I’m halfway to the gate, and all the disgust and the guilt that has been smothering me seems to catch light, making me burn with anger, a tide that overwhelms me, pouring over my shoulders, through my belly, filling me with a strength I didn’t know I still had.

I grab the smallest pot with its pansies and ivy and God knows what, ignoring the stabbing pain as I lift it, and hurl it at the house. It shatters one of the sheets of glass in the bay window.

That’s good.

I don’t bother with the bus. I walk all the way home, sometimes crying. A little old lady asks me if I need help. Bless her. I thank her and tell her I’m fine.

I’m not fine. I don’t know if I’ll ever be fine.

But I’m alive.

Suzanne comes crawling out of the woodwork. I haven’t seen her for weeks. Not since I was charged. After I came out of the mental health unit, I told Mum I didn’t want to see her if she did come round. Suzanne isn’t healthy for me – like the news on television or lack of sleep. So I don’t exactly greet her with open arms.

‘Hi.’ A big bright smile. She’s let herself in, so I’m trapped in the living room with her. She’s dropped her Disgusted of Didsbury act and is talking all bright and quick. ‘Mum told me. It’s unbelievable! Alex lying like that – and Monica!’

I’m tensing up as she goes on about it, a knot in my stomach. I wonder if she feels awkward for disowning me. She never once says anything about that. I watch her mouth; she’s got bright red lipstick on and her teeth look white and even. She keeps talking but I see she’s avoiding my eyes. She glances in my general direction now and again, but never long enough to communicate. She doesn’t see my resentment building.

I interrupt her, hot and angry and unnerved. ‘You didn’t give a toss,’ I say. ‘You sacked me, wrote me off as a lost cause, and now I’m supposed to pretend it’s all okay? That it never happened?’

‘There’s no need to be childish.’

‘I’m not being childish. I’m sick of being criticized and slagged off and looked down on by you. I know I make mistakes. I’m not perfect. But you think you are. Well – newsflash, you’re not. Sometimes you’re just a right cow. You can be really toxic, you know. You’re only nice to people if they do things your way, if they agree with you.’

She gives a little snort and shakes her head, prancing a bit like a horse. ‘You might not have been driving, but you still got in that car. You were there.’

‘You think I don’t know that? I might not remember, but I go to sleep thinking about that, I wake up thinking about that. I dream about it. I can’t make it right, but I don’t need you or anyone else telling me how bad I should feel. Go on, fuck off home to your perfect house and your perfect man and your perfect Barbie and Ken fucking life. Just don’t pretend you give a shit,’ I say.

Her eyes flash and she swallows, and I wait for her to come back at me, my breath tight in my chest.

‘Obviously I was wrong,’ she says.

‘And if Mum hadn’t kept asking questions, hadn’t found Larry? Would you have written to me in prison? Or carried on acting like I didn’t exist?’ I’m shuddering and my voice is all over the place.