S.D. Robertson - If Ever I Fall

‘You all right?’ Miles calls down to me.

‘Yes, I’m fine. I’m going for a wander. See you in a bit.’

‘Be careful. Make sure not to lose your way.’

‘Don’t worry, I won’t.’

I’m convinced the red is from the woman I spotted out of the window yesterday: the slender figure looking over the cliff, who Miles claimed not to have seen. There’s no logic to this other than the fact that she was wearing a red coat, but I’m gripped by the notion and I race in that direction to try to catch her.

There’s no sign of her at the front of the house. I’m confused. I look all around, casting my eye up and down the coastline. I retrace my steps to the rear of the house, taking care to stay out of Miles’s view, but still no luck. Eventually, after several minutes of scratching my head, I figure I must have imagined it. It’s the only rational explanation. I have had a recent head trauma. Seeing flashes of colour is probably a side effect. Besides, if I’m to believe Miles, I probably imagined her in the first place. And yet somehow I’m still not convinced of that. The first time I saw her she was so realistic, so alive.

I return to the front of the house and decide to walk to the place along the clifftop where I first saw the mysterious woman in red. Miles wouldn’t approve, but what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. I soon reach the spot, but of course she’s not there and there’s no sign of her either. So I carry on, focusing on a crooked sea stack in the distance that reminds me of a witch’s nose.

I take in the cool, fresh air with deep breaths – as slow as I can manage – in a bid to calm myself down. I feel all worked up; my shoulders ache. I hadn’t realised how tense I was until now. Having no memory is so frustrating; how can I understand myself when my past is a mystery? My mind is like an empty library: useless without the volumes of knowledge that define it.

I’m picturing that image in my mind when it’s ripped apart and set alight by the burning arrow of another memory.

It’s dark and the streets are full of monsters with bags of loot.

A little ghost is gripping my hand and pulling me towards the light of a nearby front door. ‘They have a pumpkin in the window,’ she says. ‘They should definitely answer.’

‘Well spotted,’ I tell her. ‘You’ve got excellent eyes for a ghost. Would you like me to come to the door with you or to hang back?’

‘I want you to come. You don’t look scary though. I said you should have worn a mask.’

‘Never mind. I’ll pull a really creepy face instead. How’s this?’

She looks up at my attempt at facial contortion and giggles while pressing the bell.

A moment later the door swings open and we both shout: ‘Trick or treat!’

‘Wow! You do look scary,’ booms the large bald man who answers. ‘I’d better give you some sweets, hadn’t I?

He reaches to grab a big bowl of mini chocolates from a shelf above a coat rack standing beside the door. How strange, I think. All the jackets hanging there are red.

‘Here, help yourself,’ he says. ‘And please don’t trick me.’

As the little ghost reaches out, the man turns to me. ‘Are you okay?’ he asks. His voice is different now, though. It sounds female. Like that of a young woman.

What’s happening? One moment I’m looking him in the eye, wondering what the hell is going on with his voice, and the next everything fades to black. I’m shouting out, but I can’t hear myself, like I’ve been muted. I’m confused, afraid.

Then I hear that voice again.

‘Can you hear me?’

It definitely sounds like a young woman; maybe a teenager. The tone reassures me somehow. It seems familiar, although I can’t put my finger on why.

‘You have to get up. It’s not safe here. You need to open your eyes.’

Bright sky is above me: light blue with fluffy sheep clouds. I turn my head to the right, feel damp grass under my cheek and view the sea through the gaps in the rickety fence. Why am I lying on the ground? What happened?

I heave myself up. First into a sitting position and then, once I’m sure everything’s working, on to my feet. I feel dizzy, especially when I look at the sea far below. There’s a twinge from my head, but nothing like the pain I felt when I first woke up after the accident. I must have fainted or passed out. It didn’t feel like that, though. It was more like I was in a trance – reliving a forgotten memory, as I had before.

So who was the young girl trick-or-treating with me? Was the little ghost my daughter? It felt like she was. But how can I be a father and not remember? That’s not the kind of thing you ever forget, is it? I must be mistaken. Maybe she was a niece, a young sister or a friend’s daughter. Perhaps it wasn’t a memory at all. It could have been a scene I watched in a film, although again it felt so real.

I think back to the feeling I keep having that I should be somewhere else, with someone else. Maybe there’s a good reason for that.

I shiver in the wind. What about the older girl’s voice that spoke to me at the end? She told me to get up. She said I wasn’t safe. Was she right? And why did she sound so familiar?

I turn 360 degrees, scanning the open space in every direction for some clue. And then I see her: far in the distance along the clifftop, in the opposite direction from which I was walking.

The woman in red. Or maybe not a woman at all. Could she be the one who just spoke to me? Could she be a girl? A teenager?

She looks identical to the last time I saw her; same jeans and knee-length coat, billowing long black hair. She’s looking at me, although she’s some distance away: too far to clearly make out her face. So how could she have been talking to me?

I cup both hands around my mouth and shout to her. ‘Hello! Can you hear me?’

She doesn’t react, so I wave my hands above my head, staring at her the whole time and shouting some more.

She stands there, hands in her pockets, looking straight at me but through me.

Then I blink and she’s gone.

Dear Sam,

Sorry about breaking off so abruptly last time. Ruby had got herself all confused, poor thing. She’d had some sort of nightmare; then she woke up and got into a panic at not being able to move her arm. It’ll take her a while to get used to the plaster cast.

I’m keeping her off school for a couple of days. Yesterday she was shattered after all the time we spent at the hospital. Today it was more about giving her a chance to get used to doing everything one-handed. She should be fine to go back next week, from what the doctors said. As long as she’s not in any pain and keeps her arm rested in a sling. She’ll still be able to do most of her schoolwork, thanks to being left-handed, but there’ll be no PE or Games for a while. She’s mainly excited about all her friends signing the plaster.

I didn’t have a chance last time to tell you about the hospital visit itself. We went to A&E at St Joseph’s and were there for hours. One nice – and somewhat surprising – thing was that Dan turned up.

There, I’ve mentioned him. You probably wondered when I was going to. It had to happen eventually; he’s still in our lives and always will be, despite what happened between us. Forgive me if I’m not as impartial or diplomatic about him as I ought to be. I’m writing to your future self, Sam, not to the person you were. So these letters are making the assumption that you know all about the separation and so on. The whys and wherefores are not something I want to discuss here. I will say, though, that you mustn’t feel bad about any of that – I’m not suggesting you do; there’s absolutely no reason to. But just in case.