Day of the Accident

by Nuala Ellwood

  16

  Dear Mummy,

  They’ve told me that I’m starting a new school tomorrow and I’m scared. I won’t know anybody.

  Zoe goes to the school next door to mine. It’s a school for bad kids she said. I asked her if she liked it but she just shrugged her shoulders and turned her music up.

  Now I’m lying in bed writing this and my hands are shaking I feel so nervous. I’ve tried to think of my happy thoughts but Zoe’s music is drowning them out. My uniform is hanging up on the back of the door. It smells all musty and damp because Weasel Face got it from a charity shop. This one is all grey except the tie, which is blue with yellow stripes. Even my shoes are old. They used to belong to one of the other girls but she’s grown out of them. Weasel Face said they had ‘plenty of wear in them yet’.

  I wish I could read something to take my mind off things. There are books here but they’re not good ones, just annuals and ones with glitter and puppies on the cover.

  Zoe’s smoking again. She must have gone through a whole pack tonight. I told Weasel Face about it and she just laughed and said Zoe was a law unto herself, whatever that means.

  Anyway, I’m going to try to sleep now. I’ll dream of you and Daddy and our cosy home and I’ll wish with all my heart that when I wake up I’m back there with you.

  I love you.

  Your lovely daughter xxx

  17

  ‘Here, drink this.’

  Sonia passes me a bottle of mineral water. We’re sitting on a bench in a little side street, off the main thoroughfare.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say, taking the bottle. ‘I just need a minute to gather myself.’

  ‘Sure,’ says Sonia. ‘Take your time. Look, I know it’s none of my business but who was that woman?’

  ‘She’s the mother of my … of a man I used to know,’ I say, pausing to regulate my shallow breathing. ‘His name was Ben.’

  ‘She was pretty pissed off with you,’ says Sonia. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Ben and I got into some trouble when we were younger,’ I say, looking up the street in case Barbara is heading this way. ‘It ended badly. I can’t really … It’s too painful.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ says Sonia. ‘You don’t need to talk about it. You’ve been through enough these past few months. I mean, I don’t know the ins and outs but Amanda told me a little about what happened. Jeez, to lose your little girl like that; it must be hell.’

  I look at Sonia. She seems like a good person. A kind person. As we sit here I suddenly get the urge to unburden everything, tell this stranger every little detail of what has happened in my life to get me to this point: Ben, the bad place, my mum, me and Sean. But before I can speak, Sonia gets to her feet.

  ‘Come on,’ she says, holding out her hand to me. ‘Let’s get you home.’

  I lie down on the bed and pull the covers tightly round me. The room smells of pasta sauce and detergent. Sonia warmed up a ready meal in the microwave for me before she left but the thought of food made me feel sick, so I threw it away and washed the bowl. But though the food has gone the smell remains.

  I hear the lock being turned in next-door’s room and Hutchinson’s now-muffled voice filters through the wall.

  ‘Here it is, your twin bedroom. I fully understand, mate. Once you get to our age it’s separate beds all the way.’

  He laughs manically and I flinch. It reminds me of that place. No privacy, raised voices coming through the walls, people everywhere, but no one I knew. Trapped. Alone.

  Although I eventually escaped, the feeling of entrapment stayed with me for years. After everything that had happened, my parents couldn’t face living in the village any more so they had left Sussex and bought a small bungalow in Croydon. When I got myself straight I went to live with them and spent my early twenties working in a variety of retail jobs. From a sandwich shop in Sutton to the lingerie department of Croydon M&S, none of them lasted long and then my parents’ health deteriorated and the darkness reared its head again.

  Dad died first. A heart attack when I was twenty-six. There were no big goodbyes, no dramatic last speeches like you see in the movies; he just collapsed at his desk. His boss called us but by the time we got to the hospital he was gone.

  Mum was never the same after Dad died. She was already heartbroken from having to leave Larkfields and Sussex, and no matter how much poor Dad tried to put a gloss on things, the Croydon bungalow in an unassuming cul-de-sac could never compete with beautiful Larkfields; with the Sussex country set, with Barbara and her dazzling parties. But while Dad was alive, Mum still had a role, however outdated it might seem. She would still cook elaborate dinners and get dressed up to greet him from work. When he died, she shrivelled. Her whole world collapsed around her and the only person left was the daughter she had spent years trying to avoid. We may have lived under the same roof but Mum could barely bring herself to look at me. I had destroyed her life and here I was, a twenty-something burden floating from one dead-end job to the next. For my mother, Dad’s death only served to magnify my presence. If I walked into a room she would find an excuse to leave it. Sometimes at night I would hear her crying through the wall that divided my bedroom from hers, thick, heaving sobs that sounded like they were coming from the depths of her soul. It was unbearable.

  Still, nothing could have prepared me for what she did. I’d just started a new job, a temping role at an insurance company in London. It was better money than I’d ever made and I enjoyed being in the city, commuting from grey Croydon into the heart of the West End. The office was based on Shaftesbury Avenue and I would spend my lunch hour walking through Chinatown, people-watching. After the silence of the countryside, the noise of London was a welcome relief. For the first time in years I felt like I could breathe easily; that I wasn’t being judged. Sometimes the girls from the office would invite me to join them for drinks after work. I went along a couple of times but I never really felt comfortable. Having to make small talk and mingle made me feel anxious so I would usually make my excuses after one drink and head out into Soho or Covent Garden, bustling places where I could lose myself in the crowd. Most people would say it was a sad, lonely existence but back then I needed to be alone like other people need air. It was the only way I could make sense of everything that had happened to me. As the months went by I found myself spending less and less time at home. Mum’s moods were getting worse and the thought of having to spend night after night sitting on the sofa while she watched some mind-numbing TV show was too much. So on weekends I would travel back to the West End. Sometimes I’d watch a matinee performance at the theatre; other times I just wandered round the shops; anything rather than have to face Mum and that depressing house. For a short period in my life, the dark thoughts that had festered inside my head since I was a child began to lighten, and I allowed myself to believe in the possibility that I could actually get better. Maybe Mum picked up on this; maybe, because I was always out of the house, she could sense me slipping away from her. I don’t know. I will never know because she never gave a reason. There was no note next to the body when I found her slumped over the kitchen table one Saturday evening, no ‘I love you’, no goodbyes; just my mother, cold and lifeless, next to an empty box of pills.

  When the house was sold, I was left with a small sum, after debts and other fees had been accounted for. I should have bought a modest property, invested in my future, but nobody had ever taught me how to handle money properly and in many ways I was still a naive fourteen-year-old girl, locked in a state of arrested development. So instead of getting on the property ladder I spent the last few years of my twenties on a mad spending spree. I got expensive haircuts and shopped on Bond Street. I started to wear make-up and would think nothing of buying a scented candle for two hundred quid. I moved to London and spent a fortune renting a tiny flat in Battersea. It would have been cheaper to flat-share but my past experiences had left me distrustful of others. Home was my refuge, a place I could go back to each night
, close the door and shut out the world. I worked in a series of admin jobs, usually front of house, where I could sit and read novels in between having to answer phones and make coffee. It was like I was a teenager again, only instead of lying on my bed, reading books and blocking out the world, I was sitting behind a desk doing the same. One of my bosses, a woman called Helen, once caught me reading a novel when I should have been preparing a meeting room for an important conference. I thought she would go ballistic and sack me for neglecting my duties but she sat down and asked a bit about me, about my past, where I’d grown up, where I’d gone to school. When I told her about my lack of education, she urged me to go back to college, perhaps enrol on a literature course and put the reading to good use. But I was too scared. Doing that would mean facing up to everything that had happened, opening up hopes and aspirations that I’d long since buried. No, I was happier to block it all out by sitting behind one dreary reception desk after the other. Better to be numb than to have my heart broken again. But then I met Sean and everything changed. He gave my life meaning. He gave me Elspeth.

  And now they are gone.

  The piece of paper with the list of names I compiled yesterday sits redundantly on the bedside table, my search for Sean put on hold until I get a new phone. We were supposed to go and buy one today but the encounter with Barbara left me so shaken I couldn’t face staying in town. Sonia said she would pick one up for me tomorrow. She promised she’d get the cheapest model she could find. But even then, the £198 I have in my account is not going to last long.

  Thoughts of the past have left me feeling restless and panicky. I need to distract myself. I toy with the idea of turning on the TV but I know that will only make me feel worse. Then I see the diary Amanda brought back. It’s sitting on the counter, by the sink. I get out of bed and go over to the kitchen. Pouring myself a glass of water, I pick up the diary. Do I read it? It’s tempting. But then I ask myself what good will come from revisiting the horrors of what happened? So I put it down and take my glass of water back to bed.

  I lie there for a couple of moments, the silence of the room seeping into my skin. I close my eyes and try to sleep but it won’t come. I sit up and look over at the diary. I’ll just read a bit of it, I tell myself, as I get out of bed, then if it gets too much I’ll stop. I take the diary over to the chair by the window. A silver beam of moonlight filters through the curtains and lights a wavering path across the room. I open the book and read the unfamiliar writing on the first page.

  Hello. We hope this diary will help you to make sense of the time you spent in Intensive Care.

  You were admitted to Lewes Victoria Hospital at 21.47 p.m. on 12th May 2017 suffering the effects of Near Drowning. At this stage you were unconscious as a result of hypoxia.

  I look up at the wall, trying to take in the details. 21.47 p.m. Elspeth was already dead by then. ‘Dead at the scene’ is how Elms put it. Dead at the scene. I try not to let the images come but I can’t stop them: my little girl trapped in the back of that car, unable to breathe, unable to escape. She will have screamed my name and I couldn’t save her. Her mum, the person she trusted more than anyone in the world, couldn’t save her. Not only that but I had locked her in the car. The guilt presses down on my chest. I can’t bear it.

  I remember how furious I had been when Sean told me what happened outside the dry-cleaner’s when Elspeth was seven. ‘How could you?’ I’d screamed at him. ‘How could you lock our child in the car like that? She was terrified.’ And yet, Sean’s actions that day were nothing compared to what I did at the river. And not one bit of it makes sense. I was always the overprotective one, the one who made sure Elspeth wore a helmet when she went bike riding, who panicked if I lost sight of her in the supermarket.

  My paranoia was a constant source of conflict between Sean and me. He used to say that I was doing Elspeth no favours by being so overprotective, that she wouldn’t thank me for it in the future.

  Well, now there is no future.

  The diary is still open in front of me but as I skim through the rest of the page all I can think of is Elspeth. I look again at those words, ‘Near Drowning’, and then I read on as they describe their attempts to prevent further damage to my lungs, about the CT scans carried out without my knowledge but with ‘your husband’s permission’.

  I read about the tracheostomy I was given and touch the small scar on my neck where they made the incision before fitting the tube into my windpipe, and I want to scream and shout.

  While those doctors and nurses were battling to save my life, Elspeth was lying in a cold morgue. Her life ended by a decision I can’t even remember making.

  I can’t read any further. I let the book fall to the floor, the room momentarily erased by my tears.

  The B & B is silent now. Light filters through the curtains. The digital clock by the bed reads 5.37. Morning has come. I lie back on the pillow wishing that my brain would be like Elspeth’s dream catcher and clasp my memories in a woven net. But as I close my eyes I see the river. Elspeth paddling in the water, wading out further and further until it reaches her shoulders. She stops and turns to me, her face beaming with happiness.

  ‘Come back, Elspeth,’ I call. ‘Please, angel, it’s too deep.’

  She starts to speak but I can’t make out the words. It sounds like she is underwater though she is right here in front of me.

  ‘What is it?’ I call. ‘I can’t hear you.’

  And then she disappears underneath the water but at the very moment her head submerges I hear her voice whispering in my ear, so close I can feel the warmth of her breath.

  ‘Go home, Mummy,’ she says. ‘Go home.’

  I wake up gasping for air. I climb out of bed and go to the kitchenette for a drink. As I stand by the sink gulping mouthfuls of icy water I run the dream over and over in my head. I think of the flashback I had in the job centre, sitting at my desk and my phone buzzing beside me. Could that be a memory of the day of the accident? I don’t know. But then I hear Elspeth’s words again and it all makes sense. She is right. I can’t expect to recall the events of 12th May by hiding out in this room. If I want to find the answers I need to go home.

  18

  Wednesday 2 August

  Thirty minutes later I’m washed and dressed and on my way to Lewes bus station. I left a note for Sonia with Mr Hutchinson, who was manning the reception desk. In it I told her that I was going for a walk; that I needed to be alone to gather my thoughts. I thanked her for leaving the two codeine tablets on the kitchen counter last night and said that I would be back at the B & B no later than 3 p.m.

  Thankfully the streets are quiet as I head into the town centre. I still feel weak and confused and the thought of bumping into someone from the village or the school or, worse still, Barbara, fills me with dread. I pull the hood of my coat up, put my head down, and don’t look up until I reach the bus station.

  At the concourse I stand for a moment to read the timetable. I haven’t caught a bus in years and with my limited brain function the timetable reads like a complex mathematical equation.

  ‘You all right there, love?’ says a male voice from behind.

  I turn to see a man in his late sixties. He’s got a newspaper under his arm and a polystyrene cup of tea in his hand.

  ‘I’m fine, thank you,’ I reply, turning back to the timetable. ‘Just looking.’

  I hope the tone of my voice deters him from pursuing a conversation. My speech still isn’t fully recovered. I can think of words in my head, and they sound right, but when I try to say more than a sentence or two they come out all jumbled. I really don’t need the embarrassment of having this stranger pity me. But I can sense him still standing behind me.

  ‘Which bus are you after?’ he says, tapping me on the shoulder.

  His touch makes me flinch and I jump backwards, clutching my chest.

  ‘Hey, it’s okay,’ he says, his eyes widening. ‘I’m not going to hurt you, just thought you needed a hand m
aking sense of that blooming timetable. It’s as clear as mud.’

  He smiles warmly and I suddenly feel bad for acting so jumpy. He’s just a chatty pensioner, not some serial killer.

  ‘I need to get to …’

  I look at him blankly. What is the name of the village? It’s completely gone.

  ‘Yes, dear?’ says the man gently.

  ‘Erm … sorry, I … my mind’s gone blank,’ I say. ‘I need to get to … the village … the village where Virginia Woolf lived.’

  ‘Ah, Rodmell,’ says the man.

  ‘Yes,’ I cry, clapping my hands together. ‘Rodmell.’

  I mutter the name under my breath several times, terrified in case I forget it again.

  ‘Well, that’s easy,’ he says, jabbing his finger at the timetable. ‘I live just near there. It’s the 123 towards Newhaven you want. Rodmell’s the sixth stop. Next one’s due any minute now.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘I really appreciate your help.’

  ‘Not a bother, dear,’ he says. ‘You like her, do you?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Mrs Woolf,’ he says. ‘I’m guessing that’s why you’re off to Rodmell. To see Monk’s House? Where she used to live?’

  ‘Er … yes … yes, that’s right,’ I reply, looking over his head to see if the bus is coming yet.

  ‘Oh, we get a lot of fans here, making the pilgrimage to Monk’s House, particularly on the anniversary of her suicide,’ he says, taking a sip of tea. ‘When I was a taxi driver I used to get loads of them. They’d start off here in Lewes, get off at Rodmell to see the house then they’d go to the spot where her body was found in the river at Southease and lay flowers. Funny lot they were. All dressed in black with pale faces. Most of them looked like they could have done with a good meal. You look pretty normal to me.’

  I smile politely. I just want the bus to arrive so I can get on with what I need to do.