Day of the Accident

by Nuala Ellwood

  ‘What time is it?’ I ask, feeling disorientated.

  ‘1.45,’ she says. ‘We should get a wriggle on. You’ve got your physio session at the hospital at 3 p.m. Shall I fix you some lunch?’

  All that information makes my head spin. 1.45? I got home from the police station at 10. Then I lay on the bed, read Elspeth’s letter and then … then that dream. It was horrifying.

  ‘Maggie?’

  ‘Sorry, what?’

  ‘I said shall I fix you some lunch?’

  ‘I’m not hungry,’ I say distractedly. Part of me is still inside the dream.

  ‘Maggie, you have to eat,’ says Sonia. ‘Even if it’s just a little bit.’

  ‘Okay, thanks,’ I say, sighing. ‘Just something small.’

  Sonia smiles and heads back into the kitchen. I sit, motionless, running the dream over and over in my head. Was it just a nightmare, my worst fears coming out through my subconscious, or …?

  I can’t bring myself to contemplate the alternative.

  ‘Are you sure you’re okay, Maggie? You’re awfully quiet.’

  Sonia looks across at me as we sit in the hospital waiting room.

  ‘I’m fine, Sonia,’ I reply. ‘I’m just a bit tired, that’s all.’

  The truth is I’m not feeling fine. This is the first time I have been back to the hospital since I came out. Every so often I hear sirens outside and it makes me jump up in my seat. I look along the corridor as a man in scrubs and a mask hurries along. Is he responding to whatever is in the ambulance? Is it an adult or a child? Will he save them? And then it comes again, the dream, and I start to wheeze.

  ‘You okay, Maggie?’ says Sonia, beside me. ‘It’s so hot in here. Do you need your inhaler?’

  I nod my head and she reaches down and retrieves it from my bag.

  ‘Here you go.’

  I’m just taking a long inhalation when I hear my name being called. I look up and see a man standing in the doorway of the consulting room opposite. He is wearing a navy-blue polo shirt and pale trousers.

  ‘This is us,’ says Sonia, taking my arm and helping me to my feet.

  ‘Hello, Maggie. My name’s Adil. Please come through.’

  He ushers us into the consulting room. The walls are painted bright yellow and there are bits and pieces of apparatus dotted around. On the far wall is a large poster on which is written: THE BIGGEST OF JOURNEYS STARTS WITH ONE SMALL STEP.

  ‘Do sit down,’ says Adil, pulling out two chairs.

  We do as he says and I sit there trying to keep the panic that is rising up inside me at bay by tapping my fingers on my knee.

  ‘Okay, welcome,’ says Adil, smiling. ‘Now as this is your first appointment I wanted to spend some time asking a few questions about your health and your lifestyle so we can go on to formulate a treatment plan that will work best for you. Does that sound okay?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. I touch my forehead. It’s damp with sweat.

  ‘Great,’ he says. ‘Now I have your medical notes here.’

  He looks at his computer then blinks awkwardly.

  ‘I understand that you have been through an incredibly traumatic ordeal,’ he says, turning to me. ‘I’m very sorry about your daughter.’

  I nod my head then look down at the floor. Thankfully he takes the hint and changes the subject.

  ‘Okay,’ he says, clearing his throat. ‘Now I just want to gauge what kind of physical demands you have in your day-to-day life. May I ask if your job requires any kind of physical exertion?’

  ‘I don’t have a job,’ I reply, too drained to even begin to make excuses. ‘I was a full-time mother.’

  ‘Oh,’ he says, his face twitching slightly. ‘Erm, right, and how about your house? Do you have stairs?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Would you say that you were an active person?’

  ‘Active?’

  ‘Did you like jogging for instance? Or were you a keen swimmer? Before the accident, of course.’

  He smiles then. It’s a perfectly innocent smile but something inside me snaps.

  ‘Why are you asking me that?’ I cry, jumping to my feet. ‘I didn’t do it.’

  ‘Mrs Allan?’

  ‘Maggie. It’s okay.’

  I turn to Sonia. ‘I didn’t do it,’ I say.

  I look at her and she starts to blur in front of my eyes. I’m back inside the dream. My heart is beating so fast it feels like it will burst out of my chest.

  ‘I … can’t … breathe,’ I say as I sink to my knees. ‘Help … me.’

  Adil is beside me in seconds. He grabs my shoulders and brings me to a standing position.

  ‘Maggie, I need you to breathe really slowly out,’ he says. ‘Like this.’

  He makes an ‘o’ with his mouth and I can feel his breath on my face as he slowly exhales. I try to do as he asks but my chest is tightening. I’m going to pass out. I grab Adil’s arm. His face is the last thing I see before I hit the ground.

  ‘Maggie.’

  I can smell river water. It is everywhere. In my eyes, my nose, my hair. I am sinking but I need to keep afloat. I need to find Elspeth.

  ‘Maggie, can you hear me?’

  I try to keep hold of the car but it’s slipping. Pain rips through my fingers, so intense that I have no choice but to let go. I feel myself rising up, up, to the surface of the river. Water fills my lungs and I start to choke, gasping huge gulps of air in.

  ‘Oh, Maggie, thank goodness.’

  I surface, coughing and spluttering. Sonia and Adil are standing over me.

  ‘What happened?’ I say.

  ‘You fainted,’ says Adil, gently guiding me into a sitting position. ‘It looked like a panic attack.’

  ‘I need to get out of here,’ I whisper, trying to get to my feet.

  ‘Mrs Allan, slow down,’ says Adil, holding me by the arms. ‘You need to take a few moments before you try to stand up.’

  ‘No,’ I cry. ‘I’m fine. I just want to go.’

  It’s raining when we reach Western Road, light summer rain that falls like faint mist. The air smells like fresh soil as I step out of the car and I take great gulps of it. The panic attack has left me feeling weak and drowsy, like my body has just endured some great battle. I hold Sonia’s arm and wait while she unlocks the door.

  ‘That’s strange,’ she says as she tries to push the door open.

  ‘What?’ I reply impatiently, wanting my bed.

  ‘There’s something jamming the door,’ says Sonia, leaning her body sideways at the wooden frame. ‘On the other side.’

  She manages to get it open a fraction then she slides her hand inside.

  ‘Oh, I can see now,’ she says, her voice muffled as she grabs whatever it is from the other side of the door. ‘You must have dropped it on your way out.’

  She opens the door fully and as I step towards her my knees buckle. She is holding a tiny purple cardigan. Elspeth’s school cardigan.

  ‘It was just this blocking the door,’ says Sonia breezily. ‘As I said, you must have –’

  ‘Give it to me,’ I say, yanking it from her hands.

  I press the cardigan to my face but there is no trace of Elspeth. The cardigan smells of an unfamiliar fabric softener, one I don’t use. Someone has washed it. Some stranger.

  ‘Maggie, what’s the matter?’ asks Sonia, closing the door behind us as I walk into the living room.

  I sit down on the sofa and spread the cardigan out on my knee. I look at the label: Marks & Spencer. Age 8–9. Elspeth always wore the next size down. She was small for her age. I pull the label up and look on the other side. Her name will be here. I remember writing it in black pen on the first day of term: Elspeth Allan. Year 5. But her name is not there. It has been washed away.

  ‘Maggie?’

  Sonia sits down next to me and places her hand on my arm.

  ‘It’s Elspeth’s,’ I say, turning to her. ‘Her school cardigan. Someone’s posted it through the letter box
.’

  Sonia looks at me then at the cardigan.

  ‘Why would they do that?’ she says.

  ‘Because they’re holding her hostage,’ I reply, pressing the cardigan to my chest. ‘She said so in her letter.’

  ‘What letter?’ says Sonia.

  I put my hand in my pocket and give her the letter. She opens it up and starts to read.

  ‘How did you get this?’ she says, handing it back to me.

  ‘It was posted through the door last night,’ I tell her. ‘I went to the police this morning and they seem to think it’s some sick practical joke. Elspeth is officially dead, they tell me. Sean identified her so it’s obviously true.’

  ‘Maggie, they’re right,’ says Sonia gently. ‘Elspeth is … she’s gone. And as for this, well, if it’s someone playing a joke then they need serious help. I mean, what kind of scumbag …’

  ‘She needs me,’ I say, cradling the cardigan in my arms. ‘This just confirms it.’

  ‘Maggie,’ says Sonia tentatively. ‘You’ve been so tired today. Maybe you took it out of one of Elspeth’s boxes.’

  ‘Then why would it be on the doormat?’ I snap.

  ‘Maybe you were holding it when we were heading out,’ says Sonia. ‘We were in a bit of a rush. You could have dropped it …’

  ‘I’m not crazy, Sonia,’ I say, exasperated now. ‘Yes, I’m tired and grief-stricken and stuffed to my eyeballs with medication but I know I didn’t take that cardigan out of the box and I know something is not right here. Elspeth is alive. I’m certain of it.’

  ‘Maggie, you’ve got to stop this. You’ll make yourself ill. Do you want me to call Dr Mathers?’

  ‘No, I don’t want you to call Dr Mathers,’ I snap. ‘I just want to be left alone.’

  ‘Maggie?’

  I get up off the sofa, clutching the cardigan to me.

  ‘Can you please just go, Sonia?’ I say, making my way to the bedroom. ‘I want to be with Elspeth now.’

  I stop outside the bedroom door and listen as Sonia opens the porch door and lets herself out. Then I go into the room and lie down on the bed, holding the cardigan in my arms like a sleeping baby, and I start to cry so hard it feels like my heart is snapping in two.

  48

  Dear Mummy,

  Here are some psychological terms for you:

  – Mentally unstable

  – Lack of emotion

  – Obsessive

  – Delusional

  – Socially awkward

  – Prone to violent outbursts

  – Inability to form friendships with others

  The school counsellor has referred me to a child psychologist and this is how she described me in her notes. She is so stupid she didn’t know that I could read what she was writing on her crummy notebook even if it was upside down.

  So because some girl, who had bullied me for months, finally got what she deserved I get psychologically assessed. Me! I’m the victim here. I told the psychologist this but she wouldn’t listen. She kept on going on about my anger issues and said that I needed to let go of the idea of you and Daddy coming back for me, that it wasn’t going to happen.

  Well that was it. I didn’t care what she said about my mental state or any of the things that I listed above, but to say that I had to let you go! My parents! The two people that are supposed to love me more than anything in the world? Is she totally stupid? If I’m incapable of feeling emotion then how come I love you and Daddy so much it hurts? And what about Zoe? I loved her like a sister. She was the only one who knew what it felt like to be abandoned.

  But I didn’t bring Zoe into the conversation and neither did the psychologist. She was too busy going on and on about you and Daddy and how I needed to let go of the ‘idea’ of you.

  I told her that she didn’t understand the concept of ideas and then I told her about Charles at the museum and the picture of the woman with no legs. I told her about my specimen jars and how science is stepping out of the darkness into the light. I told her how Charles had told me that ideas are there to be made manifest so in that case my ‘idea’ of you and Daddy had every chance of becoming a reality.

  But she didn’t listen. She just sighed and shook her head. Then she wrote something down in her book but I wasn’t finished.

  I told her there was no way I was giving up on you and Daddy, that you were both just sorting your lives out and then you’d be coming back for me. And then, you know what she did? She shook her head and said, ‘You have to stop this fantasy now. You have to start living in the real world. It’s not doing you any good to be telling yourself something is going to happen when it isn’t. Your parents are not coming back for you. You have to accept that.’

  And then she smiled. She bloody smiled – sorry for the swear word Mummy but as you’ll understand sometimes it’s the only way – with her jagged yellow teeth. And that was it. I jumped out of my chair, grabbed her grubby little notebook and ripped it to pieces. That list she’d written had already been committed to memory. Did I tell you I have perfect recall?

  Anyway she got all fussed and pressed some button then they all came running, the people who work at the clinic. There were two women and a man. They ran towards me, put me on the floor and held my arms. I don’t know why they had to be so dramatic. It’s not like I was going to kill the stupid cow. I just didn’t like what she said to me and I didn’t like her smile.

  I don’t know why I’m putting all this in a letter to you. It’s not like you’re going to write back is it?

  I told that woman that I believed in you and that I loved you because I didn’t want to prove her right. I wanted her to think that I was strong. But you know what? As time goes on I’m starting to wish that it was you who died instead of Zoe. She was more like a mother to me than you’ve ever been. She looked after me, made sure I ate properly. She was a real live person in my life who cared; not an idea, not a fantasy. But I’m beginning to realize that’s what happens when you love someone. They leave you.

  49

  Friday 11 August

  Golden light trickles through the open curtains. It’s morning now and I’m still holding Elspeth’s cardigan. Though it no longer has her smell, it still retains her shape. I spread it out on the bed in front of me and as I lie looking at it I see her, standing in the driveway at Larkfields. She has her hair tied back in a plait and she’s holding a Hello Kitty lunch box in her hands.

  ‘Come on, Mummy,’ she says impatiently. ‘We can’t be late. Not on the first day.’

  ‘I just want to take a photograph of you so we can text it to Daddy,’ I say, holding my phone out in front of me. ‘I want to show him how grown up you look now you’re Year Five.’

  ‘Okay,’ she says.

  Then she holds up her hands and jumps in the air and I press the red button.

  ‘Let me see. Let me see,’ she says, running to my side and looking over my shoulder as I get the image on the screen. ‘Oh wow, I look like I’m flying.’

  And she’s right. The picture shows a beaming girl, her arms skywards, her legs curled up beneath her, floating in the air like some gappy-toothed angel.

  ‘Send it to Daddy. See what he thinks,’ she says excitedly as we make our way to the car.

  I open the back door for her and help her secure the seat belt. Then I get in the driver’s seat and type a hurried text to Sean with the photo attached:

  Look at our big girl flying off to Year 5.

  Within a minute he texts back:

  Go get ’em Elspeth! Daddy loves you very much xxx

  ‘What did he say?’

  I pass her the phone and hear her giggling. Then she kisses the screen and says, ‘Love you too, Daddy.’

  ‘He can’t hear you, Elspeth,’ I say as I start the car and pull out of the drive.

  ‘Oh, he can,’ she says. ‘Daddy has special powers. Mummy, isn’t it great that my uniform is purple? How did they know that it was my favourite colour?’

  I look dow
n at the cardigan and run my fingers over the fabric, willing it to take shape.

  ‘Where are you, baby?’ I whisper. ‘Where are you?’

  And then I think about those words: ‘Daddy has special powers.’ I need to hear Sean’s voice. I need him to assure me that our little girl is definitely dead.

  I sit up in bed and take the ICU diary from the bedside table where I left it last night. I turn to his first entry and read it closely, looking for any small detail that might prove that the child he identified wasn’t Elspeth.

  ‘… every part of me wanted to say, “No, that’s not my daughter. My daughter’s at home, safe and well.”’

  But the next sentence, the one I have memorized word for word, confirms what I’ve always known.

  ‘… when I looked down there was no question who it was.’

  I slam the diary shut and put it down on the bed. If Elspeth is dead then where did the cardigan come from? And how to explain the letter, written in her hand? Did she write it before the accident? Was she play acting? My head begins to throb. None of it makes any kind of sense.

  I look down at the diary, remembering what Amanda had said when she gave it to me: some patients find it helps. I take the diary in my hands. No matter how painful, I want to read Sean’s last entry again, try and work out what he was talking about. I flick through the pages impatiently and then something drops out on to the bed: a small square photograph.

  I look at it in disbelief. How did that get there?

  Taking the photograph in my hands, I look down at my fourteen-year-old self. I’m lying on my back, my arms stretched out behind me. My eyes are glazed and drooping and a chain of pink flowers has been placed precariously on my head. Ben is beside me. His bare arms are wrapped round me, his lips touching my face.

  ‘No,’ I cry, dropping the photograph on to the bed. ‘God, no.’

  We’re in the playhouse. Ben’s unofficial party. I’ve spent most of the evening standing in the corner of the room, watching as Ben’s friends get more and more drunk. Ben, ever the social butterfly, flutters about, topping up people’s glasses and dancing with the girls. By nine o’clock I’ve had enough of being a wallflower and decide to leave, but as I reach the door I feel a hand on my shoulder.