Blink of an Eye

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Naomi

Today they got me out of bed and made me stand on my good leg, holding on to a frame, for a few seconds. My leg was shaking, weak as a kitten. Like in dreams where you can only run in slow motion, or when you can’t run at all even though there’s some bear or wolf or a psycho serial killer hurtling after you.

The physio will come back and in between I have to do these stretching exercises. It’ll be another couple of weeks before I can put weight on my broken ankle. The other women in the ward are so cheery and chatty and they’re always sharing their symptoms, but I feel awkward joining in. I don’t want them to know what I’ve done. When the rest of them talk, I pretend to read, or to sleep. They know I was in a road accident, but that’s all, I think.

They’ve moved me to a bed near the window because I don’t need any attention in the night. I can look out on to a service road with double yellow lines all along it. I see the vehicles going up and down and sometimes a smoker will walk by, puffing away. There is a building on the other side, a vast brick wall without any windows. It is impossible to count the bricks but I try, hoping it’ll lull me to sleep. There is a corner of sky at the far side of that roof. A little patch, just enough to see whether it’s cloudy or blue or night.

Mum paid for a TV for a few days but I told her I wasn’t fussed. It’s hard to explain: stuff that used to be a laugh even because it was so dire, like Come Dine With Me or Jeremy Kyle, well, I know it’s trivia, always did; I could poke fun at it, chat about it later. But now I glaze over. I can’t connect any more.

Not just with telly. With anything.

They try and jolly me along, Mum and Dad. They take turns coming now. Today it’s Dad. I always feel this pang when I see him. That I’ve let him down. He never asks about it, the accident, doesn’t go on about remembering like Mum does.

‘Hello.’ He kisses my head and puts a bag on the tray table. ‘Chocolate flapjack.’

‘Thanks.’

He takes off his coat and hangs it on the back of the chair, then shifts the chair about till he’s facing me. ‘Tickets will be out soon for Leeds Festival,’ he says, ‘if you and Alex would like to go? Or Sziget in Budapest if you fancy going further afield. Go with Becky and Steve, maybe? I can get some tickets. I could treat you.’

I can’t look at him, and he says, ‘You’ll be up and running by then,’ to chivvy me along. But that’s not why I’m skirting round it; it’s that I don’t want him to waste his money on something that I don’t think I could face. I can’t see myself in a field with a load of people, jumping about pretending things are okay. Can’t imagine ever doing anything like that again.

‘The police,’ I say. ‘Who knows what’ll happen?’ Because it’s easier to make an excuse about that than to tell him I couldn’t cope with his treat.

He sticks his lip out and sighs. His whiskers are grey now, eyebrows too. He looks old. I never noticed that before.

He’s downloaded me some more tracks, for my MP3 player. I let him load it up. All these lovely things; he’s trying so hard to make things better and I just feel like crying.

He’s got the paper with him, the crossword, and he reads out a clue. I never, ever get them, they’re way too hard for me, but it’s not a bad way for the two of us to spend visiting time, because the silences aren’t awkward while he’s working out an anagram and I can get away with the odd question like ‘What does it mean?’

Alex texts me: Hey u good babe? x There are signs on the wall about not using mobile phones, but everyone ignores them. I text back: K, dad’s here, sleepy l8trs x

Dad folds his paper up and gets his jacket on. The leather is so cracked now, the whole thing is dropping to bits. I can’t imagine him ever getting a new one; he’d look so weird in something neat and shiny.

He kisses me again. ‘Need anything bringing?’

‘No, ta,’ I say.

I lie down and close my eyes, but before long they insist on doing my checks. Then the expedition to the toilet. Then comes the night.

I dream of her a lot – Lily. I dream all sorts about her. Sometimes she’s fine. I dream, but what I need to do is remember.

Carmel

I was returning books to the library, unread and overdue, abandoned in the upheaval, just paying the fine, when someone called my name. Julia, Suzanne’s neighbour, the ones who came to the barbecue. I couldn’t remember exactly what she did, something with disabled children; she had a young woman with her, a girl with Down’s syndrome.

‘How are you?’ Julia said. Then pulled a face. ‘Sorry, stupid question. I’m so sorry, what a nightmare.’

‘Yes,’ I agreed.

‘Have you time for a coffee?’

‘Yes, if…’ I looked at the girl.

‘I’m leaving Lauren here, work experience,’ Julia said.

I waited while she said her goodbyes to Lauren, then we crossed to the nearest coffee shop further down the high street and took our drinks to a quiet corner at the back.

‘How is Naomi?’

Broken, I thought. But I tried to be less pessimistic. ‘Still reeling; she was quite badly injured.’

Julia nodded. I imagined Suzanne had told her some of what was going on.

‘And of course with, you know…’ It was still so hard to frame the words, to release them into the air, stark and forbidding. With the death… with the little girl dead. I shook my head, ‘She still can’t really remember anything,’ I said. ‘I’m hoping to find out stuff for her, talk to people who were at the barbecue and see if I can help her get her memory back. Did you see much of her?’

‘A bit. We talked about festivals,’ Julia said. ‘She and Alex couldn’t afford to go to anything and she was telling me how you and Phil took the two of them when they were younger.’

‘For years. I’m getting a bit past it now. I like my own bed. But Phil would sleep on a bed of nails if he got to hear some decent bands. Do you remember anything else?’

‘Her arriving with the champagne?’

But I’d seen that myself.

‘What happens now?’ Julia said.

I told her about the legal stages. She was sympathetic and non-judgemental while other people were avoiding us. I wondered where that came from.

I returned to the party. ‘What time were you there till?’

‘About half four. Collette was getting ratty and Fraser had promised to give Neville over the way a hand. Did you ever meet Neville?’

I frowned, not sure who she meant.

‘The dog people.’

I smiled. ‘Oh, right.’ The neighbours immediately across the road, in one of the new houses, trained dogs and had a kennels half a mile away.

‘They were moving, Fraser was giving them a lift.’

‘What are the new people like?’

‘Not seen them much yet. Youngish, out at work all hours. Makes you wonder if we’ve got it all wrong. There’s millions with no work and those that have jobs are working themselves to breaking point.’

Walking home, I considered who to talk to next, who else Naomi might have socialized with between five, when we’d left, and eight, when she had.

Naomi

There’s a saying somewhere, China or India, that if you save a person’s life you are responsible for them for the rest of your days. Which seems a pretty heavy-duty burden and might put you off in the first place. And it’s beginning to feel like that is how it is between me and Alex.

He visits and it’s as if he thinks we can go on like before. I don’t know. The accident has poisoned everything. It’s this horrible event that’s there, a dense shadow over our heads.

I can’t shift the guilt inside me, and the nicer Alex is, the worse I feel. I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve him. Why did I ever think we were right for each other? He’s got an amazing degree, he’s got ambition and a job to go to, and I’m just not in the same league. Imagine it, when he’s hanging around with all the legal types, going for drinks after work and staying up late cramming his textbooks, and I’m in a call centre or stacking shelves (if I’m lucky) or behind bars in prison (if I’m not).

Carmel

As I was starting work, an evening shift, one of the community social workers I’d not met before called in to follow up on a client.

The social worker, Ricky Clarke, had an easy way about him. Late twenties, a local lad, he was relaxed and friendly. I warmed to him. We covered what we needed to, then as he was leaving he paused and said, ‘Hope you don’t mind me asking, but I think you used to know my mum. Geraldine Clarke, was O’Dwyer.’

Good God! Petey’s sister. ‘Yes!’

‘And my uncle-’

‘Petey.’

‘Yeah, he was in a band…’ he said, sounding uncertain.

‘That’s right, the Blaggards, with my husband Phil.’ Geraldine, known as Dino. This was her son. Oh God. I was smiling, but suddenly I found it painful to remember and I didn’t know how much he’d been told. He was tiny when it happened. ‘Say hello to your mum,’ I said. ‘How is she?’

‘She’s good, yeah. I will.’ He grinned, and I saw a sudden flash of Petey in the way he tilted his head. Then he left.

Petey. Feeling shaken, I sat down.

He’d moved in with Dino in 1983. She was the one member of his family we’d all met, as she was closest in age to Petey and came to quite a few gigs. But she wouldn’t give the drums house room. She had a new baby. So the kit stayed at the shop.

He’d been living with her almost a year when it happened. We’d seen him on the Saturday. The Smiths were on at the Hacienda and we’d had a brilliant night. Phil and me, Ged and his girlfriend, and Petey. We walked partway home, oblivious to the steady rain, and stopped for a curry on the main drag in Rusholme. Ged and his girlfriend left and the three of us went back to Platt Lane. We stayed up another couple of hours, drinking and smoking and talking about all sorts. Phil was excited by the idea of setting up a gig for the Blaggards at the Capri Ballroom further down the road.

The next day was dry but clouded over, a hangover-type day. We ate sausages and beans for breakfast, drank loads of coffee and got smashed. Petey came to the park, where we had a chaotic game of frisbee and got stared at and called names by a bunch of scrappy kids.

He went off to get the bus from there. He had a loping walk, always had his hands in his pockets and leant forward as if he was struggling into a headwind. When he reached the end of Platt Lane, he turned and raised a fist, an ebullient wave, and we waved back, jumping and larking about. We were still kids, really, twenty-three and twenty-four. So young.

Dino rang the shop on the Monday morning. I was upstairs getting ready for work, on the rota for a double sleepover at the children’s home and intending to go shopping for some food before then.

Phil came into the room, his face ashen.

‘Phil?’ A shiver ran through me.

His mouth trembled as he spoke. ‘It’s Petey, he’s dead. Been killed.’

‘What!’

‘Run over.’

‘Oh my God. Where… when?’

‘Last night, Regent Road.’ One of the major roads in Salford. ‘The guy stopped. They breathalysed him, apparently. He was drunk.’

‘Petey. Oh, fuck.’ I dropped the top I was ironing and began to cry.

The shock was overwhelming.

I wondered who the driver was. Some flashy business guy who’d been drinking at one of the private members’ clubs or entertaining clients before leaving for home? Or a local lad tanked up on cheap cider? Was the driver on his own? Was he hurt? The lack of any detail was infuriating.

I still went into work, muddled through in a daze.

A couple of days later I rang Dino to ask about the funeral arrangements. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I told her. ‘We all are.’ The news had spread quickly around our circle of friends and acquaintances.

‘We’ve had the police round again,’ she said. ‘They say Petey walked into the traffic on purpose.’

‘What?’ I thought I’d misheard.

‘He walked into the road and just stood there. He wanted it to happen.’ Her voice was ragged, tired, hopeless.

‘No,’ I said, my stomach twisting and a shock of cold dropping through me.

‘There were witnesses; they’ve got it on camera, too.’

‘Oh, Dino.’

‘Why would he do that?’ Her voice broke and I got a lump in my throat. I had no answer.

Apparently several cars had swerved to avoid hitting him. But he stood there, unmoving, facing the flow, and eventually the driver, an engineer with a family and no history of driving offences, ploughed straight into him.

It was so tempting to grasp for other explanations: was Petey high, tripping on something, or sleepwalking, oblivious to the peril? Each fiction, thin as tissue paper, tore under the slightest examination.

He hadn’t left a suicide note, and that gave us hope that he’d had no set intent to end his life when he left home and walked to Regent Road in the rain. Perhaps it was a whim, a bad few hours, and if the car hadn’t struck him or the traffic had been lighter, or it hadn’t been raining or someone had stopped him for a light, he might have changed his mind.

We were looking everywhere but at the truth. Plain and stark and mystifying. Petey had deliberately stood in a road because he wanted to die. We never knew why he wanted to die, presumably because carrying on living was unbearable. It’s hard to accept that someone you love can feel so desolate, that you are incapable of providing what they need to make life tolerable.

Over the weeks that followed, we tried to make some sense of it, going over what we knew of him, what we’d seen, how he had been. We failed.

There hadn’t been any cloud of depression like a black halo over his golden hair that final weekend; he had not been surly or angry or anxious in our company.

He’d barely seen his father since moving out, so it wasn’t as if he’d been attacked again recently. We could find no explanation, no justification. His death was like something random, wicked, fickle. It took me years to be able to think about Petey without the cramping pain of grief and guilt.

And of course what hurt more than anything, a sting in the heart, was that he hadn’t been able to tell us; we hadn’t been able to help him.

The funeral was ghastly. A Catholic service with lots of prayers and hymns and communion. It had nothing of Petey in it. Not in what was said or the music or the flowers. We could have been burying his grandmother; apart from the name and the reference to this young man, it would have been exactly the same.

We sat at the back, a gang of us, his mates, like interlopers. Dino, her face softened by sorrow, holding the baby on her hip, was the only one who even spoke to us. Their mother had to be helped to walk, so distressed was she, and their father, a big beefy man with a large head, was like an ogre in my eyes.

I fantasized about exposing him, laying bare the truth of how he used to terrorize his son. Cloud cuckoo land; besides, I didn’t really know the hard facts about his mistreatment.

After the cortège left to go and bury Petey, we all got the bus to the Grant’s Arms in time for opening hours and held our own version of a wake. Drinking beer and putting our favourite tunes on the jukebox. I kept expecting him to join us. Someone would come into the pub and I’d glance across, my heart rising in hope, thinking I’d see his flare of hair and his sweet face; that he’d pull up a stool and drum on the table or scrawl a picture on a beer mat or print the opening line for a new song. Beat me at arm-wrestling.

We’ve a few photos from those days. My favourite, the one I got blown up to A3 and mounted for Phil’s fortieth birthday, is one of the band after they had played a little club off Shudehill behind the Arndale Centre. It’s dark and it’s been raining and the four of them are outside, with the gear, waiting to load it into the van that Ged had borrowed. It’s in black and white, and the flash picked up silver drops on the brickwork behind them. Lorraine and Ged are to the right, then Petey in the centre and Phil on the left. Someone has said something funny and the other three, their faces bright with amusement, are all looking at Petey, who is finding it absolutely hilarious. His head is flung back, he’s got this great smile on his face, one hand clutching his chest as though he’d die laughing, the other half raised in a little fist of triumph. I can’t remember the joke, but that’s how I like to remember Petey: happy, helpless with laughter, with his mates, loved.

The Blaggards never played again.