1Twenty Years Ago The Day of the Accident
Janie
On the day that I died, the sea was exceptionally flat. There was nothing to indicate that anything was amiss or that, in forty minutes, I would be out of this world.
Looking back, I can be quite precise about the time because it generally takes me thirty-five minutes to swim across the bay and back. If the sea is rough, it can take a little longer because you have to fight your way through the waves and pretend not to be frightened.
I’m good at pretending. Besides, the sea doesn’t like cowards. It can smell blood.
I prop my bike against the railings opposite the Seaside Hotel, the only one open on the front now. In summer, it’s quite busy but autumn is setting in. Business will perk up a bit when it gets to half-term. But right now, I savour the peace. It’s 6.30 in the morning. No one is around. Not even a dog walker. It’s as if the world has slept in. But the sun – the sun! – that’s awake all right! It’s rising now before me, like the tip of a giant beach ball, bathed in apricot and gold.
For a moment, I just stand there, drinking it in. If someone had made something like this in a factory and then put it in an art exhibition or the window of some fancy shop, it would sell for millions. But people take the sunrise for granted. I’m ashamed to say that I used to do that too. Until everything changed.
I make my way down to the beach. It’s the stony variety. If you want sand, you have to go further along the coastline. The water comes up to greet me and I flinch when it hits my skin. I can’t describe the shock of the cold. It’s amazing. “You’re one of those all-the-year-round swimmers?” people will sometimes ask me.
It’s an addiction. It makes you feel alive! Yes, there are times when my fingers go numb, even though I wear swimming gloves. But then I think of the hot shower I’m going to have when I get in, providing Dad’s not got there first. Although it will be hard to leave him, I can’t wait to have my own bathroom when I get to London!
There’s a point after you wade in, when it’s time to immerse your shoulders and actually start swimming. I’ve reached that point now. Sometimes I’m scared. I know that the sea can turn on you, just like that. But I also get a sort of primeval need to feel the cold. To be part of the water. So I take a deep breath and launch myself in. I don’t go far out because I don’t like being out of my depth. Never have done.
Once, I met a seal. At first I thought it was a whiskery old lady in a grey cap. Our eyes locked. Then she went under as if she was sliding down an invisible underwater fireman’s pole. Just like that.
My throat almost closed with panic. Where had she gone? Although I don’t like diving, I forced myself to go under to try and find her. But I wasn’t wearing goggles and the salt blinded my eyes so I couldn’t see.
I felt terrible when I got out, but then someone on the beach asked if I’d seen the seal and I almost slumped down on the pebbles in relief. I hadn’t let an old lady drown after all.
Back across the bay now. Swimming gives you thinking time. I’m going to miss all this when I leave. “You’ll be fine, Janie,” Dad says to me when I have the odd wobble. “It’s your dream job. I’ll still be here if you have time to come and visit.”
“Of course, I will,” I tell him.
He’s right. It IS my dream job. It’s only a junior position but they said it was “the first
rung on the editorial ladder”. Books are my passion, along with the sea. I’ve made my choice. And it’s the right one. I know it.
Mum would have told me to go. “She’d be proud of you,” Dad’s always saying. “Besides, you can’t stay here for ever, can you? Not if you’re going to work for a hot-shot London publisher!”
The rocks are coming up. You have to be careful not to go too near when the sea is rough or it can throw you against them. One year, a tourist was cut really badly. Locals get caught out too. You can become over-sure of yourself or become too wrapped up in your own thoughts and forget to avoid that bit further out between the rocks where there’s a rip tide. Someone drowned there a few years ago. I can’t think about that though; not now.
Three more days before I get the train to London. I’m packed already. “Are you sure you don’t want me to drive you?” Dad keeps asking.
“Thanks,” I tell him, “but we both know that’s not a good idea.” Neither of us can cope with goodbyes at the best of times – too many memories of the one farewell we were never able to say.
I make my way out of the water and then do what I always do when the sun is rising: turn back to breathe in the early morning light casting a path of gold on the water. “How am I going to manage without you?” I ask myself.
Walking up the stone steps to my bike, I remove the padlock. The truth is that I never lock it properly anyway. I just push the two ends together, so it looks secure. When your fingers are cold from swimming, it takes too long to turn it round to my code number: 1115.
I throw on my fleece but still I’m shivering as I cycle back along the promenade. It’s colder than I’d thought. Perhaps it’s time to start wearing a wetsuit.
Mind you, I won’t be here much longer, will I?
A seagull is flying overhead. It’s screaming as if trying to tell me something. I wobble a bit and then straighten up. A few years ago, I fell off my bike because the shoelace on my right trainer came undone and got trapped in the spokes. I broke a small bone in my elbow. “You were lucky it wasn’t worse,” Mum said.
I’m turning down a side lane now towards home as a short-cut. It’s still quiet. No traffic. No bikes. No walkers. Then again, I’m earlier than usual. I’m not sleeping that well, to be honest. I’m both scared and excited about my new life. I’m hoping – and this is a dream I keep to myself in case it doesn’t happen – that a job in publishing might help me become a real writer myself.
That’s when I hear it. When the noise punctures my thoughts. When I hear the screech. Not a seagull. More the kind of ear-piercing sound a car
makes as it brakes suddenly.
But this time it’s a large white van with horizontal chrome bars across the front in a sinister grin.
It’s coming straight towards me.
There isn’t time to gasp with horror. There isn’t time for the stomach-churning fear you read about. There is no time at all to brace myself for the body-ripping agony of impact.
Yet strangely as the massive wheels crunch over my bones like a fierce punch of a wave, and the smell of burning rubber hits me, there’s time for one more thought.
I’ll never find Mum now.
2Twenty Years Later
Robbie
He knows when his wife calls out to him that this is it. There’s something in her voice that has never been there before. A mixture of fear and disbelief. An unspoken plea that says, “Please tell me this isn’t happening. What is going on?”
Irena doesn’t know. How could he have told her? Only three others are in on it and they’ve all disappeared. He’s Googled their names enough times and can say, hand on heart, that they could be anywhere on earth – or in hell, for that matter. Of course, there is a fourth. But there’s no way that person would want this to come to light.
In a way, it doesn’t matter who it is – the result will be the same in any case.
The van. The bike. The crunch.
“I’m coming,” he calls back. He’s on the top floor, where Irena has hung the gold and platinum disc music awards he’s accumulated over the years. There’s also a gallery of photographs showing Robbie with the world’s rich and famous.
Sometimes when he looks at himself in the pictures, it’s as though he’s seeing someone else.
His wife has framed some magazine and newspaper cuttings too. “The nation’s favourite ‘family man musician’” is one of many. Next month, he’s due to be on Desert Island Discs. One magazine wanted to feature their “stunning historical Surrey mansion” but he turned it down because he wanted to preserve his family’s privacy.
“Robbie!” Irena calls out again, the fear in her voice rising this time.
But his feet won’t move. He needs to breathe in this favourite part of the house, which he loves, not because of the awards but because of the view over the gravel drive below (where one police car is already parked) and the acres around them. It’s all so different from the cramped council house in Devon where he’d grown up. Yet right now, he’d give anything to be back there. To be eighteen years old. Before the accident.
He looks out at his daughter, riding her pony around the paddock. At his son practising his bowling technique. He’s just been selected for the county’s under-12s cricket team. How will Robbie break this to them?
Both children are stopping now. Turning to look at a second police car arriving, its tyres crunching on the stones. He’ll have to explain to them. Have to explain to everyone.
Yet as he takes the first step down the circular mahogany Regency staircase, Robbie can’t help feeling a strange relief. After all, hasn’t he been waiting every day of the last twenty years for this to happen?
When he finally reaches the bottom of the stairs, he finds two policemen waiting for him. Irena looks terrified. His whole body feels frozen.
“Mr Manning?” asks the taller one.
He nods.
Their eyes are hard. He notices one of them glancing briefly towards the home-cinema room – the door is open – and then back to him. No doubt they saw the indoor pool through the glass on their way in.
“Robert Manning, you are under arrest on suspicion of…”
The words wash over
as they caution him. It’s as though this is happening to someone else. His ears start to ring with shock. His skin becomes clammy. His mouth dries up.
Irena’s face looms in and out as though he’s about to faint. “Robbie, tell me this isn’t real,” she gasps. “You couldn’t have done that… ”
His body is numb. His lips can’t – or won’t – form a reply.
The police officers handcuff him and lead him quickly towards the door.
His wife’s face is white as she hurries alongside him. She puts a hand on his arm.
“It’s all right,” Robbie manages to whisper.
But it’s not. It’s about as far from all right as you can get.
“Where are you taking him?” demands Irena.
“To the station for questioning,” says the younger policeman grimly. “Then he’ll probably be charged.”
He’s about my age, thinks Robbie. In his forties or perhaps early fifties. He might have been to one of my concerts. Listened to my music. Been taken in by all that “good family man” stuff.
Irena is still gripping his arm. “Wait! I have seen the films. You must not be questioned unless you have a lawyer present. We need to call Paul.”
This was the man who had been handling his contracts ever since he’d made it big, telling him when they were safe to sign.
But the word “safe” had now taken on a different meaning.
“Paul’s an entertainment lawyer,” Robbie hears himself saying, although the fear ringing in his ears makes it sound as if someone else is talking. “He won’t know anything about… this sort of thing. We need a criminal lawyer.”
As he speaks, Daisy comes running in, her riding hat tucked under her arm. Simon follows, cricket ball in hand. His children look confused. Dazed. As if the sky has fallen out of their world.
Which it has.
“Criminal lawyer?” repeats Daisy. “Dad! What’s going on?”
“Why are you wearing handcuffs?” asks Simon.
Robbie tries to speak again. To reassure his daughter. His son. His wife.
But he knows he can’t say anything that will make it better. Because the past has inally caught up with him. ...
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