Cath Staincliffe - Blink of an Eye

Naomi

Everything hurts. An awful dragging pain in my belly and deep in my bowels. Tearing me apart.

If my pain was musical, that would be the bass, and the percussion is all the things beating in my head, but there are these tight, sharp, cutting pains too, like glass daggers in my side. They’d be the strings maybe, high and off key. Like when I learnt violin for a term in Year 5.

There’s a sound like traffic, shushing on and on, and lots of computer beeps and clicks. And something like the wind, a moaning noise.

That’s me! I get it, me moaning. I’m the vocalist. I don’t know where I am or what’s going on. I could open my eyes; I consider it, but it would be very hard to do. And it might hurt, too. Then something tears inside me. Savage. Hot molten metal floods through me, and a pool of black, black oil rises, taking me down.

Carmel

The phone rang. The hospital. Naomi had deteriorated; she was in theatre again. Internal haemorrhaging. They were doing all they could.

We hurried, but there was nothing for us to do when we got there. The nurse on intensive care promised to let us know when Naomi was back. She said it like she meant it, pragmatic and positive, and it was a hope to cling to. Neither of us wanted to leave the hospital.

Phil rang Suzanne and arranged to pass on any news as soon as we heard, so she could visit again.

‘We really shouldn’t expect her to be doing this when she’s a tiny baby to cope with,’ I said.

Phil shrugged at me. ‘Wild horses, you know Suzanne. Besides,’ he exhaled loudly, ‘it’s… well, it’s serious, isn’t it?’

She might die, he meant, she might not recover. And her sister would need to know that she had done all she could to be with Naomi.

The girls had fought like cats in a sack when they were growing up. An endless bout of sniping and name-calling, one-upmanship and out-and-out rivalry. Any honest mistake or calamity that befell Naomi, Suzanne imbued with malicious intent – she broke the shower, she ruined my DVD, she took my plate, she knew it was mine – while Naomi complained that Suzanne was always trying to get her into trouble and boss her about. At eleven, Naomi spent several months referring to her sister as Mrs Hitler. The verbal clashes sometimes turned to physical brawls, in which Naomi, who was bigger and tougher, had the upper hand.

But when it really mattered, the animosity dissolved like salt in water. Naomi insisted on seeing Suzanne when she had meningitis, and was distraught when she had to wait until the antibiotics we had all been given kicked in and safeguarded her against contracting the infection herself. When she finally got there, she sat stroking Suzanne’s cheek with a sticky hand and making little cooing sounds, promising to give her all her worldly goods when she got better and came home. Phil and I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

When Naomi broke up with her first serious boyfriend and become very low, it was Suzanne who took the time to provide some treats and distractions: a makeover by one of the stylists at work, some casual shifts helping towards a charity fund-raiser that Suzanne was planning. And further back, when Suzanne was just starting school, I’d opened the door to an upset neighbour brandishing a note and holding a weeping child by the hand. The note, in Suzanne’s purple felt tip, on Barbie notepaper, read: dont be so mean or I will killl you, from Suzanne. I think the extra ‘l’ added feeling.

I’d called Suzanne in from the back garden.

‘What is this all about?’

‘He was mean,’ she said disdainfully, ‘lots of times.’

‘Glenn is smaller than you,’ I scolded her. ‘He doesn’t understand yet.’

‘Not mean to me,’ she said scornfully. ‘He’s horrible to Naomi and she’s more smaller.’

We had a talk there and then about death threats and bullying and how to ask for help, then I made Suzanne apologize and got her to tear the note up in front of the boy.

‘It’s not nice when anyone is mean,’ I said, hoping his mother would get the message and maybe pull him up on his treatment of Naomi, but she just looked at me with a humourless smile and said goodbye. Maybe she did it later, behind closed doors. Secretly I was pleased that Suzanne had tried to protect her sister, even if her methods were a bit full-on. It reassured me that she cared for Naomi when so much of the time they acted like sworn enemies.

I was getting a stream of calls from friends and colleagues who knew only that Naomi had been in a car crash and was seriously injured. I hadn’t the energy or inclination to reply to them yet. Though I did call my closest friend Evie, who also works in my department. She’d pass on any stuff for public consumption and keep quiet about anything I wanted to remain confidential. She listened while I gave a summary of what had happened.

‘Oh God,’ she said, then, ‘Okay, what needs doing?’ Her practical, social-worker side kicking in. ‘Shopping, cleaning, dog-walking?’

‘Idiot.’ We don’t have a dog. ‘We’re fine at home, but the office…’

‘Yep.’ I could see her, poised to write, snazzy glasses on, blonde curls wild. Often as not she’d scrawl notes on her arm if there wasn’t paper to hand. It drove her partner Lucy mad. ‘The last thing I want when things are getting romantic is to read about a court date or a custody hearing,’ Lucy once complained.

‘Get somebody to cover my shifts. I’m on tomorrow and Wednesday. And can you check the diary? I think there’s something pencilled in during the next couple of weeks.’

‘Call me when she’s out of theatre,’ Evie said.

‘Promise.’

‘She’ll be all right,’ Evie said. How could she say that? She should know better. It was there in all our training. Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Only offer what you can realistically deliver. I prayed for Naomi’s deliverance, but to speak the thought aloud would be reckless, dangerous, tempting fate. I felt a prick of anger, hot beneath my breastbone. ‘I’d better go,’ I said.

‘Take care,’ she said, and hung up.

It was another two hours before we had news. Naomi had come through surgery; further repairs had been made to her lower bowel. She would be moved back to the ward once she had come round from the anaesthetic.

We waited outside intensive care and were there when the porter appeared pushing the trolley with her on. She was awake but barely with it, groggy. She had a cut on her lip which was bleeding. I asked the nurse about it as they settled Naomi back on the ward, attaching a saline drip and the pulse monitor to her finger. ‘It’ll be from the anaesthetic; it’s not unusual for there to be minor damage to the mouth, broken teeth even.’

‘What do they use?’ Phil muttered. ‘A hammer?’

The nurse laughed. ‘We are a bit more advanced than that. Now, she’s still nil-by-mouth, but if she gets thirsty we can bring some mouth swabs for her to suck.’

Naomi’s eyes were closed; she hadn’t even acknowledged us yet. Did she know who we were? Was there any brain damage? The thought hit me like a cold shower. They’d have said, surely? Warned us?

‘Naomi?’ I said quietly.

She opened her eyes a little, scowling as though the light was too harsh for her. She looked at me, then her eyes moved to Phil at the other side of the bed. She gave a small sigh but still didn’t speak. In her gaze I saw the same blunt indifference that I found in my mother’s. My stomach tightened.

‘You’re in hospital,’ Phil said. ‘You’ve been in an accident, love.’

‘What?’ she whispered.

‘A crash,’ he said.

She looked numb, still woozy. ‘I don’t remember,’ she said, and closed her eyes. I tried to read her face and failed. Was she thinking, processing the information? The nurse came back then, depositing a pot of pale blue foam lollipops on the bedside table.