Blink of an Eye (2013) (28 page)

His head jerks up and back, withdrawing. His expression changes, mouth open, derisive. He thinks I’m making it up.

‘Overdose,’ I say. ‘My mum found me. Been in a psychiatric unit too, after that. You prick.’ It comes out as a squeak between my teeth. My chin itches from the tears.

‘I thought you were dead!’ he explodes. ‘I thought you were dead. You weren’t breathing, you . . . I hadn’t any idea that . . . I never meant to . . .’

I wait for him to go on. The air electric, my wrists tingling, my spine on fire.

‘If you were dead, there didn’t seem any sense . . . My job!’ he cries.

I don’t know how long I stare at him. My mind numbly processing what he has just said.

‘You talk her into it?’ I finally say.

His mouth works, he blinks, then half a shrug. I get it. ‘The other way around. Because she’d do anything for you. For your fucking career. You selfish, shitting bastard! And that little girl . . .’

I haven’t heard the car, but suddenly Monica’s in the room, eyes blazing. ‘Get out!’ she says.

‘Mum . . .’ Alex says.

‘You don’t say a word.’ She points at him, then looks back to me. ‘Get out or I’ll ring the police.’

‘And say what?’ I’m trembling. ‘That you lied for him so I’d pay the price. That I didn’t count?’

‘Get out!’

‘We know,’ I say. ‘There’s a witness, so your little plan isn’t going to work. You’re not going to get away with it.’

The tiniest flicker of her eyelids, a moment’s doubt.

‘You bitch,’ I say, amazing myself. I can barely breathe.

She moves as though she’d strike me, and he calls to her again. ‘Mum!’

‘Intimidating a witness,’ she shouts, ‘that’s what you’re doing. Once the police—’

‘He’s not a witness, he’s a liar – and so are you. I thought I’d killed her . . .’

I can’t go on. I run out. And out of the front door. I’m halfway to the gate, and all the disgust and the guilt that has been smothering me seems to catch light, making me burn with anger, a tide that overwhelms me, pouring over my shoulders, through my belly, filling me with a strength I didn’t know I still had.

I grab the smallest pot with its pansies and ivy and God knows what, ignoring the stabbing pain as I lift it, and hurl it at the house. It shatters one of the sheets of glass in the bay window.

That’s good.

I don’t bother with the bus. I walk all the way home, sometimes crying. A little old lady asks me if I need help. Bless her. I thank her and tell her I’m fine.

I’m not fine. I don’t know if I’ll ever be fine.

But I’m alive.

Suzanne comes crawling out of the woodwork. I haven’t seen her for weeks. Not since I was charged. After I came out of the mental health unit, I told Mum I didn’t want to see her if she did come round. Suzanne isn’t healthy for me – like the news on television or lack of sleep. So I don’t exactly greet her with open arms.

‘Hi.’ A big bright smile. She’s let herself in, so I’m trapped in the living room with her. She’s dropped her Disgusted of Didsbury act and is talking all bright and quick. ‘Mum told me. It’s unbelievable! Alex lying like that – and Monica!’

I’m tensing up as she goes on about it, a knot in my stomach. I wonder if she feels awkward for disowning me. She never once says anything about that. I watch her mouth; she’s got bright red lipstick on and her teeth look white and even. She keeps talking but I see she’s avoiding my eyes. She glances in my general direction now and again, but never long enough to communicate. She doesn’t see my resentment building.

I interrupt her, hot and angry and unnerved. ‘You didn’t give a toss,’ I say. ‘You sacked me, wrote me off as a lost cause, and now I’m supposed to pretend it’s all okay? That it never happened?’

‘There’s no need to be childish.’

‘I’m not being childish. I’m sick of being criticized and slagged off and looked down on by you. I know I make mistakes. I’m not perfect. But you think you are. Well – newsflash, you’re not. Sometimes you’re just a right cow. You can be really toxic, you know. You’re only nice to people if they do things your way, if they agree with you.’

She gives a little snort and shakes her head, prancing a bit like a horse. ‘You might not have been driving, but you still got in that car. You were there.’

‘You think I don’t know that? I might not remember, but I go to sleep thinking about that, I wake up thinking about that. I dream about it. I can’t make it right, but I don’t need you or anyone else telling me how bad I should feel. Go on, fuck off home to your perfect house and your perfect man and your perfect Barbie and Ken fucking life. Just don’t pretend you give a shit,’ I say.

Her eyes flash and she swallows, and I wait for her to come back at me, my breath tight in my chest.

‘Obviously I was wrong,’ she says.

‘And if Mum hadn’t kept asking questions, hadn’t found Larry? Would you have written to me in prison? Or carried on acting like I didn’t exist?’ I’m shuddering and my voice is all over the place.

‘You’re upset,’ she says. As though this is an aberration. The cheek of it! I laugh aloud.

‘For fuck’s sake—’

‘Naomi, I’m sorry. Really, I am sorry.’ At last she looks in my eyes, but hers are guarded.

I don’t say anything else. It feels like too little, too late.

I get up and go upstairs, and soon afterwards I hear the door go as she leaves.

Although there was a huge relief once the charges against Naomi were dropped, like someone cutting ropes that had bound us, allowing us to breathe again, there was still a massive question mark hanging over Alex. The police were continuing their investigation; both Naomi and I were interviewed, and Naomi was told she would likely be called as a witness if it went to court. Her amnesia persisted but she could still tell them about the conversation where Alex had all but admitted to the deception. All we could do was try and carry on while we waited for news.

Don rang Naomi one lunchtime as she was filling in a job application form.

I heard the anxiety in her voice as she answered the call, then she listened, looking at me now and again. The scar on her cheek was still vivid but a little less puckered. She was suffering from an ear infection and taking high-dose antibiotics to prevent any further infection.

‘Oh no!’ she said, then, ‘When?’ She listened. ‘Monica, really? What with? Right. Thanks for letting me know. Yes. Bye.’ She put her phone down. ‘Alex has been charged,’ she said. ‘He pleaded not guilty at the magistrates’ court. And they’ve charged Monica with attempting to pervert the course of justice.’ She raised her face to the ceiling, shook her head. ‘I just want it to be over.’

If they’d pleaded guilty, it would have been. ‘It’ll be Monica,’ I said. ‘Bet you anything she’ll keep fighting till the bitter end.’

‘How can she keep lying like that?’ Naomi asked.

‘Probably convinced herself it’s true. Don said she did go to the gym, they’ve records that prove she was there – all she had to do was invent passing you, seeing you at the wheel. If she says it often enough, fervently enough, she’ll come to believe it.’

‘And him,’ Naomi said, her face furrowed with distress. ‘After all that happened, I thought he might have the guts . . .’ She broke off, shaking her fists by her head in frustration.

I
try not to think about Alex too much – it still takes my breath away, it hurts so deep. I talk about it with the therapist, going over and over it. I weep buckets for the little girl and for myself. For Alex even, and losing him. And sometimes the rage comes, clean and cold and sharp as ice. But I am not going to prison. I’m a little stronger every day.

It is another four months before we get to trial. Late January, eight months after the accident. I’m not allowed in court until I’ve given my evidence. I wait in a special room for witnesses with Alice and Larry from Birmingham. The solicitor for the prosecution says it’ll be towards the end of the prosecution case before I’m called. I will be talking about two things – the fact that we always decided who would drive and stuck to it, and what Alex said the last time I saw him at their house.

Mum and Dad and Suzanne will be there in the court, but they are not supposed to tell me anything about the case. A couple of weeks after her ‘apology’, Suzanne came round with Ollie on her way back from work. She was restless and went on about her trainee like he was a right dork, and she didn’t want any pasta, probably because it was dried not freshly made, for fuck’s sake, and might poison her.

Ollie was cranky and I didn’t know why she hadn’t gone straight home. I was the only one there.

She went to the loo and Ollie cried. Real tears, and his bottom lip was trembling like the world was ending, so I picked him up and sang to him, ‘Daisy, Daisy’, and he was quiet enough, then he grabbed my earring, which was agony, and I swore just as Suzanne came back in.

‘Naomi.’

‘Yes?’ I prepared for a lecture about bad language and setting examples. And she said, ‘How are you?’

Was it a trick question? ‘Not bad.’

Ollie gurgled and patted my nose. ‘Ow,’ I said, but it didn’t hurt.

She nodded. ‘Your hair’s nice,’ she said.

Good God, I thought, we’ll be talking about the weather next. ‘I’m going out soon,’ I said, dropping a big hint. I blew a raspberry on Ollie’s cheek and he chortled and patted me again. Suzanne hadn’t moved. ‘I need to go and get ready,’ I added.

‘Jonty’s left me,’ she said, quick and quiet, her chin wobbling.

‘What?’
She did not just say that!

‘He’s been sleeping with his production assistant. All the way through the pregnancy and since. Shrewsbury, Belfast, Aberdeen.’ Suzanne was shivering.

Fuck me!
‘Oh, Suzanne.’

‘I don’t know what we’ll do. Probably have to sell the house, and we’ll lose money on that. Won’t be able to afford the nursery.’

‘Oh God.’ I jiggled Ollie on to the other hip, and got Suzanne to sit down while I made her a cup of tea.

‘How did you find out?’ I sat down opposite her.

‘He told me – yesterday. Said he had something important to talk about. I thought it was going to be a new commission at work, maybe going abroad . . .’ She couldn’t continue. Her nose went red. She gave a big sigh.

Ollie had fallen asleep on my lap. He was amazingly heavy. I stroked his head. I didn’t know what to say.

‘If I can’t find child care, then my job . . .’ She shook her head.

‘People manage,’ I told her. ‘Childminders are cheaper, aren’t they, must be cheaper than where you’ve got him?’ He was at a really swanky nursery.

Ollie gave a little start in my arms and relaxed. Then it came to me. ‘I could look after him. Unless you’re worried I’ll be a bad influence.’ I couldn’t resist the dig.

She looked at me; hard to tell if she was intrigued or appalled.

‘I’m not having much luck with interviews,’ I said, ‘and I need to work. You’d have to pay me the going rate.’

She nodded her head. ‘I think it could work,’ she said slowly. ‘We’d have to agree some standards, and you’d have to pay your own National Insurance, have a contract and everything.’

Only Suzanne.
‘Of course. I’m so sorry, Jonty must be off his head, everything he’s throwing away. The bastard.’

I didn’t intend to build bridges with Suzanne; a stepping stone or two was more than enough. But I didn’t want to miss out on being an auntie, and minding Ollie would be a way of seeing him, and earning some money, without having to spend much time with her. Keeping a reasonable distance is the only way I know to protect myself from the unhealthy pattern of our relationship.

And I wanted to keep getting better. That week the therapist had asked me if I’d been thinking about the future at all. And I had. For the first time without total dread or fear, wondering what I might do next. Little things like arrange a break away or look for some new clothes.

And I’ve been minding Ollie ever since.

Now, waiting with the other witnesses, I can feel the pressure building up inside and the echoes of the worst times when I was falling apart. I try to breathe slowly and deeply, and distract myself. I try to connect, chat to Alice and Larry; again we mustn’t discuss the trial, so we end up talking about who we like on
X Factor
or
The Voice
and Alice talks about the sheep she has on the farm.

We’re all nervous, it’s not just me. Alice keeps messing with her hair and she laughs a lot even at things that aren’t the least bit funny, and Larry goes out for a cigarette every five minutes.

I’ve been warned that I could get some pretty rough treatment under cross-questioning, but I think it’s the first sight of people that’s going to be the hardest. Lily’s parents and her brothers, and Alex and Monica. Alex in the dock.

Where he would have put me.

We were all sitting together, Phil and Suzanne and I immediately behind the Vaseys, who arrived just after us. Everyone in their best, sombre clothes. I caught Tina Vasey’s eye as the family made their way along the row of seats and tried to express my sympathy without words, and she gave a tiny nod of understanding. She wore a grey suit jacket and skirt, on the jacket a brooch, enamelled white and green. A lily.

The two boys, Robin and his brother, look so alike, I’m not even sure which is the one who came to the house.

The solicitor hadn’t been able to tell us how long it would be until Naomi was called. Might even be the next day. Before her there would be evidence from Alice and Larry and then from the police who were first on the scene and the paramedics. After them the hospital doctor and the police officer who interviewed Alex and later Naomi. Sometimes they play the 999 call in court. I was dreading that. Imagining Alex’s voice, torn and frantic, stumbling to explain, high with panic:
We hit a little girl. Oh God, I think she’s dead, and my girlfriend’s not breathing.
My stomach hurt. My mouth was dry. I had some mints; I took one and offered the packet to Phil and Suzanne.

Suzanne was still reeling. I’d hoped that Jonty would see sense, crawl back with his tail between his legs, but apparently not. Though whether Suzanne would have given him a second chance was highly debatable. She’d thrown herself back into work, even done a couple of trips abroad, Milan and Paris, for the fashion shows, and Ollie’d stayed with us. Suzanne had put the house on the market. She was looking at renting somewhere until the divorce was sorted out and the financial situation was clear.