Claire Allan - Forget Me Not

But there it was. The faintest pulse. Thready. Slow. The softest exhalation. Short. Shallow.

‘She’s alive,’ I said to the operator. ‘But only just. Be quick.’

I untied my jacket, placed it on her – as useless as it probably was. Even though it was already hot, she was so cold. The bleeding from her neck wound had been profuse but it had slowed now. I lifted the jacket, moved it and pressed against the wound, almost afraid that I’d press too hard, that my hand would slip inside it.

‘Help’s on the way,’ I said, for my own benefit as much as for that of the unknown woman in front of me. ‘If you can hang on, help is on the way. I’m Elizabeth and I’m not going to leave you. I’m going to be here until the paramedics arrive. So if you could do me a favour and just hang on, that would be great, lovey. It really would.’

I took her hand in mine. Could barely countenance how it could feel so cold and still have life in it.

‘You’re not alone,’ I told her, trying to reassure her.

I wondered who she was and who she belonged to. She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. There didn’t appear to be much at all distinguishing about her. It was hard to tell the true colour of her hair, matted as it was with mud and blood. If I had to guess, I’d have put her in her mid to late thirties. But it was hard to tell given how bruised and battered she was. Her toenails were painted bright green. It looked so gaudy against the mottled, discoloured skin of her feet – the large areas of raw flesh, gravel-speckled flesh where it looked as though she’d been dragged along the ground, her ankle pointing in the wrong direction.

Someone had wanted this woman very much dead. Someone had left her here. On this quiet country lane, bleeding out.

I could hardly believe she was still alive.

‘You keep fighting,’ I told her. ‘You hold on and keep fighting.’

I was shivering then. Shock was kicking in. My muscles were seizing. I rubbed my arms, tried to release the spasms. Kept an eye out for any traffic that might pass. An ear out for the sound of sirens. Any sound of an approaching police car or ambulance.

I both wished I’d stayed at home and was grateful I was here – at least she had a chance. However small. I put my ear to her mouth again, listened for those shallow breaths. Almost imperceptible but still there. I heard a small gurgle. A rattle. The words ‘Warn them’ carried on the last of her breaths.

Then she was silent. Still.

And I could hear the sirens approaching.

I saw the news on Twitter first: ‘Body of woman found on Derry outskirts.’ It linked to a short article in the Derry Journal saying little more than the headline. Police were at the scene. The Coney Road, from Culmore Point onwards, was closed until further notice. There would be more on this story as it broke.

I felt a shiver run through me. Was it a hit and run, maybe? Oh, God, I hoped it wasn’t a paramilitary attack. No one wanted a return to those days.

No matter the reason, someone would be getting bad news. I shuddered. This woman – she could be a mother, a sister, a friend. Some poor family was about to have their whole world turned upside down.

It was just another reminder that life was short – too bloody short – and as clichéd as it sounds, we don’t know what lies around the corner for any of us. If I’d known this time last year what the following twelve months would bring I might have run away or hidden under my duvet and refused to come out.

I would have wanted to hit pause, but of course I couldn’t. The world kept turning anyway – even though I felt mine had ended with the death of my mother – sixty-five. No age at all. Breast cancer.

I hated that when I talked about her to new people now, the conversation always seemed to wind its way round to how she died. Like it defined her. That final, stupid, too-short battle. Surely everything else she’d done in her life should have mattered more?

I slid my phone back into my bag and along with it I buried my emotions for now. I had to get in front of a classroom of thirty demob-happy youngsters and keep them focused.

At lunchtime, in the staffroom, I pulled my phone from my bag again. Switched it on and looked at it. No substantial updates from the Derry Journal except a photo from the scene – dark hedgerows, bright sunshine. In the distance, beyond the bright yellow, almost festive police tape, there was an ambulance and what looked like the top of one of those white forensic police tents.

Local political representatives were expressing their ‘shock and sadness’, all of them saying it was important not to jump to conclusions until the police had more information. All the police had said so far was that the road would remain closed for some time and that they were appealing for witnesses in relation to the ‘fatality’.

‘We’re appealing for anyone who travelled along the Coney Road on the evening of 5 June or the early hours of 6 June who may have seen any unusual activity to come forward and speak to police.’

I clicked out of the link, tried to join in the chat around the table. The looming end of term meant it wasn’t just the pupils who were feeling giddy at the thought of the long summer break. Still, this news story had brought a sombre feel to the classroom.

‘It’s awful,’ I heard Mr McCallion, one of the geography teachers, say. ‘I heard, from someone who knows these things, that it looks like a murder. A particularly gruesome one at that.’

‘What?’ Ms Doherty, our young, quirky, opinionated art teacher chimed in. ‘Like, is there any kind of a murder that isn’t gruesome? The two tend to go hand in hand,’ she said with a roll of her eyes and a smile that showed she was amused at her own wit.

‘I don’t think us gossiping about it is very appropriate,’ I snapped.

I couldn’t help it. The feeling that some poor woman had lost her life shouldn’t be the subject of staffroom banter. Maybe my own grief had made me raw to it all. Ms Doherty said nothing, but the look she gave me spoke a thousand words. She thought I was a killjoy, a fuddy-duddy. Someone bereft of ‘craic’. She hadn’t known me before my mother died. Before I’d been changed, utterly.

My phone beeped again with a text message from one of my oldest friends, Julie:

Have you heard anything from Clare? She didn’t go into work today. I called round her flat but there was no answer and her phone is off. You know, it’s not like her – and there’s been that woman found …

Julie was always prone to drama and tended to jump directly to the worst possible conclusion about everything, but this time a nagging, sickening feeling started to wash over me. Julie, Clare and I had remained the very best of friends after we’d left school. While I’d trained to teach English, they’d both joined the Civil Service and worked for the Pensions Department on Duke Street. They didn’t do anything without the other knowing.

I immediately tried calling Clare myself, I don’t know why. I hoped for some sort of rational and reasonable explanation as to why she wouldn’t have got Julie’s call. When it went straight to answer service, I wondered who else I could call to try to find her. It would be a bit hysterical to call the hospital, wouldn’t it? I mean, she was a grown woman. She could be anywhere. She might be with her parents. Out with another friend. She’d been seeing someone lately, someone she’d admitted to developing deep feelings for. She could be lying in post-coital bliss in his bed right now, being decadent and loved-up for once in her up-to-now sensible life. I almost envied her, if she was. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been post-coital anything, never mind blissed-out.