Lynne Barrett-Lee - Never Say Die

But the curse must have died on my lips at that moment because suddenly I was no longer riding pillion behind Aldo but airborne, and moving at speed. And then nothing. Only absolute silence and blackness. No thought. No sensation. Just nothing.

I don’t know how long I was out, but it soon became obvious that my blackout was only momentary, because the next thing I remember was a sound. Wherever I was—and I didn’t have a clue—there was something approaching. Something loud, something low. Pushing through the fog in my head with increasing insistence. A low rumbling sound. Getting louder.

Conscious again now, I opened my eyes, but the visor on my helmet was down so all I could see was smudged and dirty plastic. Like trying to see through a pair of grubby glasses, all I could focus on was the smudge. But the noise kept on coming. I turned my head towards it and the smudge became an outline, and then, almost as if propelled by some malevolent deity, I saw the bike, on its side, bare of driver and pillion, barrelling towards me headlight first. I heard a girl screaming. That’s not me, I remember thinking, as it hit me. That’s not me doing that. I passed out again.

In my head I went home then. At least, close to home. I was sitting beside Dad, in his ancient Morris Minor. He’d usually finished work by the end of my school day, so after the long walk to school, then home for lunch and then back, my treat was to have a lift home at the end of the day. I loved the Morris Minor. Loved sitting up front with Dad. Loved its feel, loved its warmth, loved its fusty pungent odour.

They say smell is the most strongly evocative of the senses, and, coming to again, I realised where the memory had come from. That same smell was pricking in my nostrils now.

Full consciousness returned in a rush of realisation. I touched the grass I was lying on. It was damp. There was no car. No Dad. Just the screaming. And the ground all around me soaked in—yes, that was it, that was what I could smell—it was petrol . And something else. There was a man. I squinted at him. He was waving his arms. He was wearing a brown coat and a cap and in his mouth—I gasped as I realised—was a lit cigarette. I tried to shout and felt a sudden warm wetness in my mouth. Oh God, no, I thought, watching him walking towards me. I’m going to burn—Oh, God, don’t let me burn.

But I obviously wasn’t the only one who’d seen it. The man—I didn’t know him—was quickly intercepted, and suddenly it seemed there were people all around me. But they melted away as fast as they’d arrived, as the blackness came and swallowed me again.

This time I went nowhere, and all too soon I was back on the cold ground with strangers staring down at me. The only warmth was in my mouth, but then also in my heart, as Juli’s face suddenly appeared. For a moment I felt calmer. She was here. She would help me. But she was crying and telling me to try not to move and saying sorry and holding onto my hand. I tried to tell her it wasn’t her fault but when I spoke a red mist sprayed all over my visor. Now everybody seemed to be shouting at once. ‘Internal bleeding!’ ‘What’s happening?’ ‘Where’s the ambulance got to?’ But almost immediately I realised what had happened. I’d bitten the tip off my tongue, and the warmth in my mouth was my blood.

I was grateful when the blackness claimed me this time and so, evidently, was my body, because I must have been unconscious for some time. When I next came round it was to the sound of approaching sirens. That was all I could hear now. No other sound at all. I’d retreated into a safe house somewhere in my brain, shutting the door on the horror. I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep it out for long, but I chose to remain there, hiding, and praying. Our Father, I chanted desperately in my head, who art in Heaven…

I was about to die, I decided. That was it. My body had been chopped in half in the accident and I was going to die at any moment. I don’t recall quite what I did with those thoughts at the time, but one thing became suddenly clear. That if I didn’t, I was going to get the mother of all rows off Mum and Dad. They’d been right. I’d been wrong. Whatever happened now—life or imminent death—I’d never felt more scared.

The man who had asked me to move my missing legs and feet reappeared. He was talking again. ‘Be still,’ he kept saying. ‘Try to keep very still. And don’t worry.’

I didn’t answer because by now my tongue had become swollen. I could feel a flap of it hanging free. So much blood in my mouth. I didn’t want to swallow my own blood. Someone then said something about how clever we’d been about the helmet. Juli and I had not let anyone take off my helmet. Someone—I didn’t have a clue who—had tried, but we’d both of us, ironically, been insistent about it; we’d done neck injuries in biology class the previous week. Something useful to know, but not the sort of thing I’d ever dreamt would apply to me.

Another face loomed. Another man. Another smile. ‘Hiya,’ he said. ‘We’re taking you to Neath General Hospital.’ He moved down and seemed to be feeling my legs—or at least, the place where my legs should have been. The terror flooded in again, and with it revulsion. I couldn’t see. Was he picking up bits of severed limb? But if that was the case, why wasn’t he looking disgusted? Why wasn’t everyone around me throwing up?

I tried to keep focused on what I was seeing and hearing, but the velvety blackness kept rising to engulf me, cloaking all sensation, all thought. I seemed to be almost floating above my own body, riding turbulent air, surveying my situation and, strangely, finding clarity in distance; in one single precious moment almost all became clear. This was real. It had happened. I was badly, badly damaged. My life as I’d known it was over.

The kind voice intruded and I was back in my broken body and lying on the sodden turf. He had yet another question. A strange one, to my mind. ‘Melanie,’ he was saying. ‘What’s your date of birth, love? What’s your age?’

‘I’m fifteen,’ I told him finally, my voice thick and strange. How did he know who I was?

Neath General Hospital was situated about a mile to the south of the town centre, on a steeply sloping hillside, facing west. The journey from Aberavon beachfront would, under normal circumstances, take about a quarter of an hour. What happens in the first ‘golden’ hour following an injury can have huge consequences on the outcome so it’s an important chunk of time for an accident victim.

But nobody seemed in much of a hurry. I must have blacked out again at this point because I have no memory of being loaded into the ambulance. But somehow I was in one. And so was Juli. I hadn’t a clue where Aldo and John might be—only that Juli had told me Aldo was OK.

I could hear someone talking on what must have been the radio. ‘We’re bringing in a teenager with a serious injury…’ Juli became agitated. If that was the case, then why were we travelling so slowly? No speed, no sirens, no nothing.

‘Because with a spinal injury,’ they told her when she asked, ‘smoothness is of the essence. We have to go slowly so we don’t do more damage.’ The atmosphere was tense, their words hanging heavily on the air. They seemed all too aware they had two terrified teenagers on board, and the fate of one young life in their hands.

By the time the ambulance had entered the outskirts of Neath, almost a whole hour had apparently passed. I’d spent much of it drifting in and out of sleep. I dreamed turbulent dreams. I dreamed about the princess in Arabian Nights , who’d defied her parents and fallen in love with a poor boy, with whom, despite their anger, she’d walk the beach at night. She’d been cursed by a sorcerer. He told her that if she continued to defy her parents, he’d turn the sand on the beach to knives beneath her feet. She didn’t believe him but it happened even so. Her life had been ruined. Had my life as well? Had my stubborn refusal to stop seeing Aldo brought a sorcerer’s curse upon me ?