Day of the Accident

by Nuala Ellwood

  ‘Where do you think you’re going, party pooper?’

  I turn round and see Ben. His hair is wet with sweat; all that dancing has taken its toll. But his eyes are sparkling. He looks radiant and happy; like the Ben I’d known as a child.

  I tell him that my parents will be expecting me to meet them at the gate soon but he takes my hand and puts it against his chest.

  ‘I’ve been waiting to see you all night,’ he says. ‘You know what parties are like. You have to go round everyone, make sure they’re having fun. It’s such a bore. And you were the only person I wanted to be here.’

  ‘Really?’ I say. Clichéd as it may sound, this is one of those moments when the room seems to stand still; the kind of moment you want to capture and bottle for ever.

  ‘Really,’ he replies. ‘Now, come with me. It’s far too noisy out here.’

  He takes my hand and leads me through the crowded room. Bobbed-hair girl is slow-dancing to a Sade song with some floppy-haired guy. She smirks when she sees Ben holding my hand. As we walk past I hear her mutter ‘cradle snatcher’.

  But I don’t care. All that matters is Ben and me, and the way my hand feels in his.

  He opens the bedroom door and we step inside. The lights are off and we begin to kiss. I’ve wanted to do this for so long. He tastes of alcohol but his lips are soft and it feels like I’m dissolving into him. Then he puts his tongue inside my mouth. It shocks me, but then I get used to it, and I use mine too, running it up and down his. It is the most beautiful feeling.

  ‘Come here,’ he whispers, and my body begins to tingle as he leads me further into the room.

  The moon is shining through the window, casting a silvery glow so that Ben’s face looks spectral. He sits down on the bed then beckons me to join him. We curl up next to each other and I feel his hands move down my body. He lifts my dress and before I know it his fingers are inside me. It’s a sharp, rather unpleasant feeling, but then as he continues it starts to feel almost good. I lie back and close my eyes, feeling Ben’s warm breath on my face. Then the door opens and someone turns the light on.

  ‘Shit, sorry, folks,’ says a girl in a red dress. ‘I was looking for the loo.’

  ‘Other way,’ hisses Ben. ‘By the front door.’

  ‘Where’s that?’ she slurs.

  As Ben is talking to the girl I sit up and notice a red stain on the duvet. My first thought is that my period has come. I’m utterly mortified.

  ‘Out there, you idiot,’ Ben snaps at the girl.

  ‘Charming,’ she mutters, backing out of the room clumsily.

  ‘Now where were we,’ says Ben, turning back to me.

  I put my hand over the stain, try to hide it from him, but he has seen. He smiles at me.

  ‘That’s normal,’ he says, stroking my face gently. ‘When you do it for the first time.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ I say, feeling my cheeks redden.

  He nods his head.

  ‘Listen,’ he says. ‘We’re not going to get any kind of privacy here and I really wanted this to be special. Are you up for an adventure?’

  I look at him quizzically.

  ‘Well, I promised my parents I’d meet them at the gate at eleven.’

  ‘We can make it back for eleven,’ he says, standing up. ‘We’re not going far. Just to the river.’

  The night air smells of meadowsweet and wood-smoke as we walk across the barley field towards the little stretch of river. Ben is holding my hand. The evening is peachy ripe, succulent and warm, and my skin tingles with excitement.

  When we get to the river, Ben takes his jacket off and lays it on the ground between two alder trees. I sit down while he stands and rolls a joint. I watch as he lights it then takes a hit. The weed smells foul but I nod my head all the same when Ben passes it to me. I don’t want him to think that I’m a stupid little girl. When we finish smoking I lie back on the ground, my head fuzzy. Then Ben comes and lies beside me. He strokes my hair and kisses me gently on my nose.

  ‘God, you’re beautiful,’ he says. And I feel it. I truly feel it.

  We start to kiss, soft at first and then harder. Ben shifts position and I feel something sharp digging into my stomach.

  ‘Ow,’ I cry out.

  Ben stops then fiddles with his trousers.

  ‘Shit, sorry about that,’ he says, holding up a square black camera. ‘It was still in my pocket from the party.’

  We look at each other and start to laugh.

  ‘Talk about ruining the mood,’ he says, rolling his eyes. ‘Nice one, Ben.’

  And then I don’t know whether it’s the weed or whether Ben’s flattery has emboldened me but I begin to take my clothes off. Ben’s eyes widen then he smiles mischievously and undresses too.

  He lies down next to me and we kiss.

  ‘Ben,’ I whisper. ‘May I ask you something?’

  He stops and looks at me.

  ‘I haven’t got anything with me,’ he says. ‘But I’ll be really careful, I promise.’

  I laugh then, stoned and oblivious to any kind of risk.

  ‘Not that,’ I giggle. ‘Something else.’

  ‘What?’ says Ben. He is giggling too now. It’s contagious.

  ‘Would you take a picture of us?’ I slur. ‘For austerity.’

  ‘It’s posterity, you noodle,’ he laughs. ‘But sure, why not?’

  I smile and watch as he gets up to retrieve the camera that is lying on the ground by our clothes.

  ‘You need flowers,’ he says, stumbling around by the river’s edge. ‘Look, these are pretty. These pink ones.’

  He comes over to me with a handful of pink clover and starts threading it through my hair. When he’s finished he looks at me and smiles.

  ‘That’s perfect,’ he whispers. Then he kisses me, long and sensuously, on the mouth.

  ‘Come on,’ I say, pushing him away playfully. ‘Go set up the camera.’

  ‘God, you’re such a tease,’ he groans as he gets to his feet.

  I watch as he places the camera on a stone just in front of us.

  ‘Right, we’ve got ten seconds,’ he shouts as he runs towards me.

  ‘One, two, three, four …’

  I grab his shoulders and pull him down on top of me, wrapping my arms round his neck. When the camera clicks I throw my head back. I have never felt so free.

  I put the photograph down and my hands begin to shake so badly I have to squeeze them together to make them stop. It is all clear now, every little bit of it.

  The details I have spent the last few weeks desperately trying to hide from myself suddenly come tumbling forth. The day of the accident. I was sitting at my desk writing the next chapter of my novel. My phone buzzed. I picked it up and read the text. It was Ben.

  Are you free to meet tonight? It would be great to say hi. For old time’s sake …

  I’d held the phone in my hands for a couple of moments, trying to assemble my thoughts. I’d assumed his phone call the previous day had been a one off. I never imagined he’d want to meet up. I couldn’t do it, I told myself, I couldn’t rake up all those feelings again. Best to tell him thanks but no thanks. But then I thought about the last few months, about Sean’s late nights, his trip to Stockholm, Christmas Eve. I thought about my novel – the story of a woman having imaginary conversations with a long-dead author – and the loneliness that made me want to write it.

  Now I know why I have chosen to block out the events of that day. It’s because they confirm what I am: a selfish person; a disloyal wife; a terrible mother.

  But as I typed out my reply to Ben I didn’t feel any of those things. Instead I felt excited, alive. Even after what he’d done to me.

  Ben had texted back immediately, suggesting we meet at the pub by the river. The Plough Inn. I told him that I’d have to bring Elspeth and that I didn’t want to be too late as it was a school night. He’d replied that it would be lovely to see her, that one late night wouldn’t hurt.

  And th
en I bundled Elspeth into the car and drove towards the river.

  Her cardigan lies on the bed next to me. I take it in my hands and rub the coarse material between my finger and thumb. It all makes sense now. Sean sent it. He is the only person, aside from me, who would have access to Elspeth’s things. This is Sean’s way of punishing me, of making me feel the pain he has felt these last few months. It’s his way of telling me that he knows.

  I made a huge mistake and Elspeth paid for it with her life. There is nothing more to find out. I know the truth now and there is only one solution.

  I get up from the sofa and go into the bedroom. I take a notebook out of my bag and rip out two pages. Then, returning to the living room, I spread them on the coffee table and write two identical notes: one for Sonia and one for Julia. In it, I thank them both for all they have done for me these last few weeks. I tell them that I don’t deserve that kindness because I am a bad person. I tell them that I have discovered the truth about the day of the accident and that I am to blame for Elspeth’s death.

  But what I don’t tell them is that I am going back to the place where this all began, the place where I committed an act of violence against my child; the place that knows my secrets.

  I am going back to the river.

  50

  Dear Mother

  How do I hate you? Let me count the ways.

  I thought you’d appreciate the literary reference. After all, you love words, don’t you? That’s what Freya told me. She said that you were never without a book. Oh yes, how happy you must have been, lost in your dream world, surrounded by your precious books while your little girl was sent away, scared and confused.

  I’ve been sent to a new place now. It’s much the same as the other one though I have changed. I’m tougher now. I can handle myself. If one of the other kids tries to give me trouble I can see them off. Zoe taught me that. She taught me a lot of things, such as not to trust parents. They just mess with your head, she told me, and she was right. You have messed with my head, Mother, to the point where I thought I was going mad but I’m not the mad one. I know that now.

  Before I left the other place, Freya came to see me. She sat me down and told me what I had always known, deep in my gut, that you were not coming to find me; that you never would. She said that my father had gone somewhere far away for work reasons and also because he needed to clear his head and start afresh. I asked her again if she had given you my letters and she said she had, she promised she had. Your mother is a very complicated person, she told me, she is troubled and troubled people can think only of themselves. Some people aren’t meant to be mothers, she said, some people can only cause hurt.

  At that point I thought she was being harsh. Yes, you hadn’t replied to my letters but that didn’t mean you were a bad person. I said to Freya that maybe you needed more time; maybe you weren’t completely better yet. I told her that you were my mother and that you must love me, you had to love me. Mothers don’t just send their children away like that and never come back.

  Freya listened to me going on like this for about ten minutes and then she shouted ‘Enough!’ in this really angry voice. I’d never heard her like that before. Her face was all red and her eyes were bulging. I sat back in the chair and waited for her to calm down. It took a couple of minutes then she took a deep breath, turned to me and told me something so horrifying I almost passed out.

  She told me about you, Mother; about what you did that night by the river. I tried to take it in but it was just too much and I started to scream. Freya tried to hug me but I pushed her away. I didn’t want anyone to touch me. In the end the people from the new place intervened and told Freya to leave. I went and sat on my bed. For a second I thought about doing what Zoe did. About ending it all. But then I thought that would make it too easy for you. So, instead, I’m going to make sure I become a success. I’m going to work so hard that nothing and no one can ever hurt me again. I’m stepping out of the darkness into the light. You were my darkness, Mother; I know that now. It’s time I left you behind.

  So, there it is: my final letter. I hope the life you have led since that night has been worth it. I hope that you dream about me every night. I hope that you never find peace as long as you live.

  51

  It is a perfect late-summer morning. The sun hangs lazily beside a white cloud as though trying to make up its mind whether to hide or shine. I lay my blanket down on the ground beneath the alder trees and watch as a heron pokes its beak into the water on the other side of the river. Elspeth loved herons. She said they were her spirit animal; whenever she’d had a bad day one would appear and make everything better.

  The heron is a sign that I’m doing the right thing. Elspeth is near and in a short while I will be with her again.

  I sit down on the ground and open my bag, taking out the boxes of painkillers. I lift out the bottle of cheap vodka that I bought on the way here. Hopefully, if I drink enough, I should be knocked out before the drugs take effect.

  I remember the last time. It was winter, so different to now. The river was frozen solid and the two alder trees were stripped bare. I was fourteen years old and seven months pregnant with the baby Ben and I had conceived in this very spot the night of the party. At first I’d refused to acknowledge it, hidden my growing bump with baggy clothing, but by seven months it was getting too big to hide and I had to tell my parents. My mother reacted in her usual way: silence. For days, after I’d told her, she walked around the house like a ghost, refusing to speak to me. Dad, as always, tried to be helpful and pragmatic, talked about ‘doing the right thing’. Mum found her voice when she heard that. ‘Do the right thing? It’s far too late for that. She’ll have to go through with it and look at her, she’s only a kid herself.’ Ben had returned to Oxford a few days after the party and I’d found out from my mother via Barbara that he was now in a relationship with Zosha, the young woman from the party. ‘She’s a very bright girl,’ Barbara had said. ‘Her father’s in the Cabinet, you know. Very high up. And they have the most amazing house in Holland Park.’ At that point my mother had no idea what had gone on with Ben and she told me all this as a piece of gossip. I remember sitting there listening, my heart breaking silently. I hadn’t wanted to tell Ben but my mother was so angry she marched round to Ketton House and confronted him. He denied all knowledge, saying that I’d been obsessed with him; that he’d politely turned me down and I was telling lies in order to get revenge on him. Barbara had backed him up. She called me a little slut who had tried to destroy her son’s life. He has a beautiful girlfriend, she’d yelled. Why on earth would he be interested in Margaret?

  Bit by bit, everyone I loved, everyone I had trusted, pulled away from me. Ben, my mother. Even my dad. I overheard him talking to Mum one evening when they thought I was in bed. ‘What a mess,’ he said. ‘What a bloody mess. This will ruin her life, you know. It will ruin all our lives. I mean, what prospects will she have, a teenage mother? God help her, Marion, God help her.’

  And in that moment I knew there was only one way to go.

  So I came here that January morning with a bottle of vodka and the contents of my mother’s pill drawer. Before I took the pills I left Ben a note, telling him what I was doing and also telling him how much I loved him because back then I believed that what had existed between the two of us was love. I knew I was going to kill our baby too, but what choice did I have?

  It was Harry, Ben’s dad, who found me. He was taking their big old Labrador, Tilly, for a walk, and saw me lying unconscious on the riverbank. He called an ambulance and I was taken to hospital. What happened there – I still can’t bear to think about it.

  Barbara came to visit and told me to keep my mouth shut for the sake of my reputation and Ben’s. Though really she meant her reputation. But I nodded my head and told her that I wouldn’t cause any trouble; that I was out of her life for good.

  When I went home to Larkfields, everything fell apart. I fell behind at school; I stopped
eating. I shut myself away in my bedroom and tried to read but the books I’d loved so much no longer soothed me. Instead, they reminded me of everything I had lost. I had nothing. When I tried to kill myself for the second time, with my father’s razor blades, Mum said she couldn’t cope any more and booked me into the psychiatric hospital, where I stayed for three years. I emerged at the age of eighteen to a world that had passed me by. My school friends were all at university; Ben was working for a fashion magazine in the US; my parents had sold Larkfields. Nothing would be the same again.

  As I open the box of painkillers I know this is my only option. I deserve to die. I take a handful of pills and swallow them down with the vodka. The river ripples in front of my eyes, its surface glistening in the heat. I stare at the water as I summon the courage to take the next lot of pills and as I do I feel myself getting lighter.

  It’s different this time. My body is older, weaker. All the fight in me is gone. I take another long slug of vodka. It tastes disgusting but I need it if I’m to carry this out properly. As I knock it back my head begins to spin. I try to focus on the water in front of me but it has turned into a whirlpool, the ripples twisting into grotesque shapes; demons dancing on the surface of the river. It’s time. I fumble about for the box of pills but I can’t locate them. Everything is a blur. I try to get to my feet but I lose my balance and fall on to my back. And then the most extraordinary thing happens: I feel myself rising out of my body.

  I’m airborne now and the sky above me is no longer golden but black, deep and heavy and utterly impenetrable. I feel it wrap around me, tighter and tighter. I’m completely detached from my body and for a moment I feel euphoric, like a great weight has been lifted from me. All the pain, all the sadness has been removed as I hang suspended in the air like a feather caught in the breeze. Then I look down and see the riverbank. There’s a car, my red Nissan. It’s starting to roll. I see a figure running towards it. The feeling of euphoria is replaced with one of panic and horror. I scream and yell at her, then I realize the figure is me. I’m trying to stop it, but the car gains speed. Then I hear a voice, a woman’s voice. It is muffled and distant, like it’s coming through a wire. I follow the direction of the voice and see a flash of red in the trees. Then the person looks up and we lock eyes.