Cath Staincliffe - Blink of an Eye

Phil pinched the bridge of his nose and turned away for a minute. Then he brought a chair from the corner of the room and set it beside the bed for me. ‘I’ll find another,’ he said.

I sat down. Naomi’s hand was cool and limp. I held it for a while.

It was like being underwater, in a submarine, submerged in the murky light, enveloped by the cacophony of noises, the beeps and soughs and gasps of the machines, the clicks and whirrs. An echo chamber. For a moment I was six again, on the carpet in front of the television, heart racing as the admiral in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea gave the command to dive, dive, dive and the hooter sounded. There was always a happy ending for the Seaview and her crew after their adventures fighting aliens and monsters and thwarting spies. But for Naomi?

‘Hello, darling,’ I said in a whisper.

Phil called her name, told her she was in hospital.

We waited some more, quiet, each lost in our own thoughts. Finally Phil suggested we come back later on.

A nurse checked our details so they could contact us if needed. In case she gets worse, I thought, in case she dies. What was Naomi’s status? Poorly, serious, critical, stable, seriously ill, gravely ill? All the code words you heard on news reports. I asked the nurse. ‘She’s doing very well, a long time in theatre,’ she said.

‘Please?’ I wasn’t looking for reassurance; I needed to know where we stood. ‘How would you describe her status?’

‘Critical,’ she said, ‘but half of them are – we have an excellent record.’

I didn’t dare ask for percentages or success rates; it was enough to know she was on the danger list.

‘What about Alex?’ I said to Phil. ‘We should see him.’

‘I need to lie down,’ Phil said, ‘before I fall.’

‘We can just ask how he is, then,’ I suggested. ‘Visit later.’

He nodded.

The staff were obviously used to this sort of situation, and one of them spoke to her counterpart on one of the acute medical wards. Alex was comfortable and visiting was between two and five, and six and eight. We could visit Naomi any time. Another pointer to how ill she was.

Naomi

The sun is in my eyes. Dazzling. Too close. And a humming noise. The noise is in my head. A great ball of it, pulsing like a phone stuck on vibrate. I try to wake up, to drag myself away from the glare and the drone, but there is too much weight. Like someone has altered the strength of gravity, or like I’m underwater where the pressure is heavy on all sides. Snorkelling? Scuba-diving? I did it once, a trip to Tenerife, all four of us in flippers and wetsuits. Suzanne being anal about how long we’d be down there and the straps on her tank.

I can feel the ripples around me like the ocean, but the light is white, not blue or green. So I’m not sure.

When I try to move, to kick, or wake or float up, nothing happens.

I picture my hands and knees and feet away in the distance, like one of those rubber toy animals that stretch and stretch and stretch. Like looking into the wrong end of a telescope. I try to connect with them. If I can just twist my ankle or close my hand, it should do the trick.

But everything is sleeping, lazy.

The pressure is growing and the hum in my skull is getting louder. Am I drowning? If I were, wouldn’t I be coughing and spluttering, like when I learnt to swim? Dad standing in the water with his arms wide open, calling to me. Or did I already do that, the choking? And this is the next stage, my lungs full of seawater. I can’t find my breath. When I search for it, for my lungs in my chest, I can’t find them. They’re hidden in the blaze of light and the din in my head. The ripples tilt me again, to and fro. I like that. There is someone singing, a simple tune, a children’s nursery rhyme, but I can’t put a name to it.

Spinning round and round makes me dizzy. I love that feeling, like being full of bubbles. Out of it. Am I tripping? Are we living it large at some club or a party? But it must be pretty heavy-duty stuff, because I can’t see anyone or hear the music, not even the singing any more. I think there was a party. Now the sun’s gone and there is just a hissing sound. A waterfall of noise. I like the dark. Floating in slow circles, round and round and far, far away.

Carmel

We got lost on our way out, had to ask directions twice. Then Phil couldn’t remember where he had parked. We wandered up and down the bays like zombies until we found the car. It was almost funny.

Before we set off, I called Suzanne.

‘How is she?’

‘She’s in intensive care,’ I said, and repeated the list of procedures the surgeon had relayed to us, glancing at Phil in case I had missed anything, but he just nodded. ‘They say she’s critical.’

‘Oh, Mum.’

‘I know, darling. They’ve got her sedated, so she’s sleeping. We’re going home for a bit now, but you can visit her any time. I’ll ring you later.’

‘Right.’ There was a catch in her voice. ‘Do they know what happened?’

I didn’t want to say it out loud. I wanted to keep it smothered, safe, secret.

‘Mum?’

‘All they’ve told us is that Naomi hit a little girl, on a bicycle… She was killed.’

‘Bloody hell!’

‘I know, it’s so awful.’

‘What the hell was she thinking?’ She sounded angry.

‘Suzanne?’

‘She shouldn’t have been driving.’ Tears in her voice, and a tight rage. ‘She was drinking all afternoon!’

The shock of what she said hit me like a thump in the guts. Oh God! I could barely speak. I finished the call and told Phil what Suzanne said, and saw him blanch.

‘She’s never driven when she’s been drinking,’ I said.

‘Not that we know of,’ said Phil.

‘No, she doesn’t. When they go out, she and Alex, her mates, they always decide who’s going to drive. You’ve heard them.’

‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘I don’t know, maybe she lost count, meant to have one or two and then stop like I did.’

‘And why did Alex get in the car if she was drunk? He’s not an idiot.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Perhaps Suzanne was wrong,’ I said. ‘You know how giddy Naomi can get if she’s having fun.’

‘We saw her with the champagne,’ Phil said.

‘Just a glass, and that was hours beforehand.’

I heard him sigh. ‘Suzanne wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true,’ he said eventually.

‘She exaggerates when she wants to make a point. They must have checked, the police or the hospital. They couldn’t breathalyse her, but they’d take blood, and that would show how much was in her system.’

‘So until we know that,’ Phil said, ‘we don’t know if she was drink-driving.’

‘Anyone can take a bend too fast, anyone can swerve.’ I could hear the desperation in what I was saying, a plea for things to be not as bad as I feared. ‘Alex will be able to tell us, won’t he? He’ll know.’

Phil gave a nod, then stretched and rubbed at the back of his neck. He started the engine.

They’d been so happy, I thought: the new job, the way Naomi’s eyes danced as she raised the bottle of bubbly. Alex would have heard his news when he picked up the post from his mum’s. Came round to ours to tell Naomi and collect her for the barbecue. A red-letter day. Why had she had taken such a risk? Had she, or was Suzanne mistaken?

‘I want to see where it was,’ I said.

‘Now?’

‘Now. Please.’

‘There might not be anything there.’

But there was. We approached it from our end, as though we were heading for Suzanne’s. The road was cordoned off, Road Ahead Closed , and diversion signs were the first indication before we reached the stretch leading to the S-bend. Blue and white police tape was strung between barriers, shivering though there was no breeze to speak of.