Forever Is Over

by Wade, Calvin

  “Kelly, are you OK?”

  “I can’t get out, Richie, I’m stuck! Please don’t let me die, Richie. I’m so scared. Please don’t let me die.”

  Before I passed out, I heard the distant sound of an ambulance siren.

  Jemma

  I was trying to wash the dishes in the kitchen and I heard the familiar sound of a little girl.

  “OW!”

  Melissa came wandering into the kitchen, looking like she was about to burst into tears.

  “Mummy, Jamie punched me!”

  I was getting sick of this. I stormed into the lounge.

  “Jamie, have you just punched your sister?”

  “Well, she took Thomas and Diesel off me, when I was playing with them.”

  “Did you, Melissa?”

  “He was being noisy with them. I couldn’t hear Dora.”

  Dora The Explorer was blaring out of the TV. My tolerance levels were at zero. I needed a good night’s sleep to re-charge but it was only early afternoon.

  “Right! I’ve had enough of this fighting. Why can you not just be nice to each other? Both of you, upstairs! Five minutes in your room!”

  Melissa bowed her hand and stomped away.

  “It’s always his fault,” she complained, “Jamie always gets me into trouble!”

  “It’s both your faults, Melissa. You shouldn’t have taken his toys off him!”

  “He was annoying me!”

  Melissa disappeared upstairs. Jamie had not moved from the carpet in the lounge. He had started to play with Thomas and Diesel again.

  “Jamie! Upstairs!”

  “NO!”

  “Upstairs NOW!”

  “NO!”

  “Get up!”

  “I am playing with my toys!”

  “Oh no you are not!”

  I made a grab for him and put him into the fireman’s lift position. Jamie began kicking and screaming, as per usual!

  “Get off me!”

  “No, you are naughty, cheeky little boy and you are going in your room!”

  I put my foot on the first stair and the doorbell rang.

  “Shit!” I muttered to myself.

  Our front door was glass, whoever was at the door could see straight in, so could see me carrying Jamie. I could not exactly pretend I was out. “Right you, I said to Jamie. Sit on the naughty stair whilst I see who’s at the door. If you speak, you go in your room for ten minutes.”

  “That’s not fair!” Melissa shouted down from her bedroom, “why does Jamie get to go on the naughty stair when I have to go in my room?”

  “Just shut up, Melissa!” was my non-parental reply.

  I quickly checked my appearance in the hallway mirror, which was a complete state, before turning, seeing two policemen standing outside and opening the door to see what they wanted.

  “Good afternoon! Does a Mrs. Jemma Billingham live here?”

  “Yes, that’s me.”

  I was trying to think what crime I could actually have committed. Speeding? Noise pollution? Failing to control a minor? Ever since I had been in prison, the presence of a police officer made me feel uncomfortable.

  “Mrs. Billingham, there has been a road traffic accident on Mill Lane, involving your husband, Richard Billingham and your sister, Kelly Watkinson.”

  This seemed preposterous.

  “Are you sure? I haven’t seen my sister for almost ten years. She’s abroad as far as I know.”

  “All documentation on her person seems to indicate that Miss Watkinson was involved.”

  This seemed like the weirdest crash ever. For me not to have seen Kelly for ten years and then for Richie to have crashed into her. It was bizarre.

  “Are they OK?”

  “Your husband has concussion and cuts and bruises. Miss Watkinson’s condition is more serious, I’m afraid. They have both been taken to the accident and emergency department at Ormskirk hospital.”

  “Is Kelly alive?”

  “Yes. She has life threatening injuries though, Mrs Billingham. We could take you to the hospital, if you would like us to.”

  “What about my children? I have two under fives.”

  “Do you have a neighbour or a family member you could leave them with?”

  “Yes, I’ll ring Richie’s Mum and Dad. They’d be here within twenty minues, could you wait that long?”

  “That would be fine, Mrs.Billingham.”

  “Did they crash head on?”

  “Yes, the other car appears to have been travelling at speed around a bend and it has caught your husband’s car, head on.”

  “So you think it appears to have been Kelly’s fault?”

  The policemen looked confused.

  “No, Mrs. Billingham, it appears the other car driver may have been at fault although that is just an assumption at this stage, we are not really in a position to apportion blame.”

  “But you just said Richie’s car was hit head on. I’m sorry I don’t understand.”

  “Mummy!” Melissa shouted, “can I come out now? I need a poo!”

  “Yes, Melissa. Out you come.”

  The second policeman tried to clarify matters.

  “Mrs. Billingham, your husband and sister appear to have been turning off Mill Lane into West Tower, they were hit head on by another vehicle. Tragically, a young lady in the other car was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the other car and your sister, both have life threatening injuries.”

  “So my husband and my sister were travelling in the same car?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Billingham. Your husband was driving, your sister was in the front passenger seat.”

  “Please come in. I need to phone Richie’s parents.”

  Kelly

  I needed to get away from there. Married. Not just married, married with two kids. I looked blankly at the photos Richie passed me of his children and stared right through them whilst thinking, “What A Fool I Am!” I had been turning men down over the last four years believing I had already found “The One”, which was about the most stupid thing I could have possibly done given I had not been in touch with Richie for almost ten years. Why did I fool myself into thinking he would be waiting for me? It was all madness. First degree lunacy. During my celibacy, Richie’s wife had been giving birth to her second child. Roddy had been right all along. He had tried to talk me out of making a fool of myself, but I just wouldn’t listen. I had behaved like a silly little girl wanting Prince Charming to come back with my glass slipper. It was cringeful! Was it not about time I grew up? I passed Richie his photos back telling him his daughter was gorgeous, she might have been, then again she might have been a three headed bullfrog and I’d have said the same thing. I hadn’t really looked.

  To my credit, I snapped out of the reality induced haze. I wanted out of there but there was a little bit of me that was intrigued to hear about Richie’s family life. It’s lucky there was, as Richie was only too happy to pour his heart out about his troubled marriage! I listened intently and passed on what I thought was sensible advice about getting his problems sorted and working hard to save his marriage. Richie was a good man, a little bit battered and bruised around the edges emotionally, but a good man and he deserved some happiness in his life. Why I thought I would be delivering that after so many years away, heaven only knows.

  As we sat there chatting away about his relationship issues, it dawned on me that I no longer had any romantic feelings for him. I was not jealous of his wife’s situation. I did not hear him talking and wish it was me who had children with him. I think the second he said he was married, any feelings I had or misplaced ideas of romance had just evaporated. Richie did not seem to want to be there either. I think for him the idea of meeting up was exciting but the reality of it was less so and all he felt was guilt and as he described it “a sense of betrayal”. We had belonged together as teenagers but not now.

  Once Richie stopped talking about his wife and brought the conversation around to questioning me about
my disappearing act after Mum’s death, I decided it was time to go. Perhaps I owed him an explanation, but I felt we had reached a point where we were not putting our past behind us, so there seemed little point in raking some of it back up. I had been selfish, scared and had totally abandoned my sister, I knew that, Richie knew that and I am sure Jemma knew that too, we could talk about it until the cows came home, but the facts would remain the same. I just needed to go. Consign Richie to my history as a fond memory.

  I still had one further mistake left in me. I should have just declined Richie’s offer of a lift back to West Tower, but for some reason unbeknown to my logical side, my emotional side felt an urge to get back to the hotel as quickly as I could, to tell Roddy how he had been right all along and it had been a terrible idea. I also wanted to know about Richie’s cancer and why he had felt the need to hide this from me. It was about a mile to West Tower which would take me fifteen minutes on foot, but only three in the car, so I plummeted for the latter.

  During that short journey we chatted pleasantly like the old friends we were. Richie was asking when I would be heading back down to London and I was asking after his Mum and Dad. As the road neared West Tower, it narrowed into a single lane and I remember Richie steadily breaking and indicating right.

  It came out of nowhere. I know nothing about cars so can’t describe it very well, I just remember hearing its engine a split second before seeing it. It was a dark red car. Sporty looking. If I close my eyes, I can still picture them like a photograph, two young looking teenage boys in the front, two teenage girls in the back. One of the girls had really long, fair hair. Loads of it. My brain can still piece it all together, split second by split second, flicking from one frame to the next like a cartoon. Richie’s car slowing, then indicating, a loud engine noise, the other car and the teenagers inside, brakes screeching, the impact sound of metal on metal, the sound of shattered glass, something flying towards me - a large object, me instinctively ducking, a teenage girl’s face hitting the windscreen in front of me and for a second I swear our eyes met before her twisted body sagged, more glass shattering, silence and stillness, a constant, high pitched sound in my ears, Richie asking if I was OK, realising I was trapped, reverting to type and being consumed by fear and thoughts only for myself, begging not to die, hearing an ambulance siren, trying to speak to Richie again and realising he was not responding, going into shock. By shock, I do not mean shock like some sort of emotional surprise, I mean going into circulatory shock or as I have heard the doctors describe it since, hypovolaemic shock. As I slipped out of consciousness I remember thinking this was it. The End. My thoughts returned to Roddy. If my body was found here next to Richie’s, what would he think? He would think Richie and I were together. Roddy would get it all wrong. He would never know he was right, Richie now meant nothing and as he had kept saying, we should never have come.

  Richie

  “Daddy looks like a stormtrooper!” Melissa said, unusually for a five year old, she was into Star Wars and to her, the brace on my neck looked highly amusing. Melissa, Jamie, my Mum, Dad and Jemma were gathered around my hospital bed as I sat upright, propped up by several pillows. My injuries from the crash had been relatively minor, whiplash, a broken nose and seven stiches to a head wound. The only reason I was being kept in hospital overnight was due to the concussion I had suffered earlier.

  “Are you sick, Daddy?” Jamie asked.

  “No, Jamie, I’m fine. Daddy’s just been in a car that bumped into another car, so he’s hurt himself, but I’ll be coming home tomorrow.”

  The way parents alternate between the first and third person when talking about themselves to their children, does not really help children to master the English language, but we all do it!

  “Will you be a stormtrooper tomorrow?” Melissa queried.

  “I think I’ll be a stormtrooper for a couple of weeks, Melissa.”

  “And will they give you the helmet too?”

  “I don’t think so, Melissa!”

  “Do you want me to ask for you?” Melissa suggested.

  She was used to getting her own way by using her charm and beauty and rarely saw me get my own way, so probably concluded she would be more likely to achieve the goal on this task than I would.

  “That’s very kind of you, Melissa, but no, I do not want you to ask!”

  “We get to stay at Gwanny Dot and Gwanddads!” Jamie announced, as though my accident had been a worthwhile sacrifice for their adventure. A trip to a hospital and sweets and biscuits at Granny Dot and Granddad’s was pretty exciting stuff for a three year old.

  “I know, lucky you! I wish I was going to Granny and Granddad’s instead of having to stay the night in hospital!”

  “But you may see people die!” Jamie said excitedly.

  Given neither my Mum or Dad were getting any younger, I was going to respond with a tongue in cheek, ‘so might you!’ but thought better of using my black humour in the circumstances.

  “Jamie!” Jemma scolded, “that’s not a nice thing to say.”

  “I think you’ve had your fair share of luck today, Richard,” Mum said, “more than your fair share!”

  Mum was a glass is half full type of person. You could argue I had had my fair share of bad luck, by all accounts I was not the one driving like a lunatic. I just crossed paths with him.

  “Yes, God has certainly been looking out for you today, son,” Dad added.

  This statement from my father should not have set me off, but I had been through a lot that day and was becoming tetchy and irritable. This was partially down to the ordeal anyway, but also because I had yet to have the “Kelly” conversation with Jemma which I knew was imminent. It was not a conversation I was looking forward to.

  “Don’t say that, Dad!” I snapped.

  “Don’t say what, Richie?”

  “Don’t praise your God for saving my life. What did he do, decide to cause a crash but then have the grace not to kill me off, just kill some of the other poor sods like that young girl on my bonnet? Mum’s right I was lucky, this was down to luck not divine intervention.”

  “You don’t know that, Richie.”

  “Dad, will you just give it a rest! Just for once can you stop preaching? You don’t know enough to preach! I know today was down to luck and anyway, why would your God save me but let millions of young Christians die all over the world?”

  “Millions of young Christians?”

  “In Africa, in third world countries across the globe, even in Britain young Christians die in car crashes or children of Christian families die of tragic illnesses, why would your God allow someone who worships him to die young, but allow a heathen like me to live?”

  “He isn’t just my God, Richie, but to answer your question, I do not know why God does what he does. I don’t really see that it is my place to question him.”

  “Yes, it is. You only find the answers by asking questions. But do you know why you don’t think its your place to question him, Dad?”

  My father had kept cool throughout this conversation, to my shame I had overheated.

  “Richard, stop arguing with your father!” Mum said trying to douse my flames.

  “I’ll tell you why it is, Dad! Because you’re not a bloody Christian!” I said in a virtual shout.

  “Sssshhh! Richard! Mind your language in front of your children.” Mum chided.

  “I am a Christian.” Dad insisted.

  “No, you are not. You are just a flawed individual with a gambling addiction who did not have the strength of character to give up on his own, so you’ve invented a pretend friend as your emotional crutch.”

  “You are so wrong, Richie,” Dad said. I felt like I had hit a nerve. I began to feel a little guilty for launching this tirade.

  “I’m not saying there isn’t a God, Dad, I’m just saying don’t use him as the reason for everything good that happens, but then relinquish him from responsibility when things go wrong. If you’re saying God saved
me today, you are also saying he killed that young girl. God’s to give and God’s to take away.”

  “I don’t think this an opportune time to have this conversation, Richie.”

  “Why not? I’m not having a go at you, I’m just telling you how I see it. As far as I’m concerned you deserve a lot of praise for giving up the gambling. It was you who gave it up, Dad, God did not do it for you.”

  “God helped me through it.”

  “How?”

  “Will you two boys give it a rest? Richard, leave your father alone. If he believes, let him believe!” Mum was getting all red in the face.

  “No, come on Dad, explain it to me. How did God help you stop gambling?”

  “God gave me the strength. I could not have done it on my own. I’ve tried so many times and failed, Richie.”

  “You never had any faith in yourself, Dad, but by putting your faith in your fictitious God, you gave yourself the confidence to do it.”

  “Why are you being like this, Richie? I am a better man now than I have ever been and that fact is undeniable. I don’t really care what you think has brought about this transformation, because I know God has been there for me when I have needed him most.”

  “No he has not!”

  It took a five year old child to get me to back off.

  “Stop arguing Daddy!” Melissa reprimanded me, “stop being mean to Granddad!”

  “I wasn’t being mean to Granddad, honey, we just have different opinions on something.”

  “Do you still love Granddad?”

  “Of course I do!”

  “Well, if you love someone, you do not do mean things to them, that’s what you always say to Jamie!”

  “You’re right, Melissa, but I did not do a mean thing to Granddad!”

  “Yes you did! You spoke to him in an angry voice!”