Authors: Sharon Sant
So when I heard the bells that day, as loud as if they were in my living room in our silent house, that’s when I realised how utterly alone I was. And how alone I will always be unless I can turn things around. It’s hard to admit that I want to, but it must be true. Like you just said, why would I come here if I didn’t?’ I rub a hand over my eyes and sniff hard. I’m supposed to be able to cry here, right? If there is a good place to cry, it’s in the office of the woman who is trained to fix me but even now I beat myself up for the weakness.
For a while she doesn’t speak, she looks down at her notepad and scribbles. ‘I think we have a lot of work to do,’ she says finally.
‘I’m not even sure where to start.’
‘The first hurdle we have to cross is your guilt. It seems to me you’re holding tight to it right now.’
‘What else can I do? What’s so special about me that I was chosen over them?’
‘Despite what you may feel, there is no choice, it was luck – something to do with what side of the car you sat in, the road conditions, where the other car hit you – all of those things and more, probably. But it’s only natural you should feel guilt that you survived when your family didn’t.’
‘I didn’t
survive
. I came back to life.’
‘Whatever the reason,’ she says slowly, ‘the issue is that you are here while your family are not.’ She can’t quite look me in the eye when she says this, like it hurts. It’s the same look I get from everyone. I’ve had eight months to recognise it now.
I check my watch. Mum bought it for me when I left school. It’s a chunky thing, big leather strap – a man’s watch, really. Mum said she would rather have seen me in something daintier when I showed it to her in the shop, but she bought it for me anyway. The face is still cracked where it hit the window of the car but it works so I wear it. I’m suddenly very tired and I want to be alone. I’m relieved to see that we’re near the end of the session. ‘We’re done here for today?’
‘Yes,’ she says getting up from the
let’s get all your feelings out in this nice flowery place
armchair and crossing to her desk. She pulls a leather-bound diary from the drawer. ‘If you feel you’ve had enough. Shall I book you for the same time next week?’
‘For what good it will do,’ I reply, shrugging on my coat.
She looks as though she wants to say something for a moment but then her mouth clamps shut again. She doesn’t like me, I can tell. I don’t blame her. I don’t like me
right now. I should be dead but I’m not and I’m glad and I can’t deal with the guilt that brings. But I suppose she gets paid to sort out my angst.
‘The receptionist will book the appointment for you if you give her this,’ she says filling in a small white card with the date and time, which she then hands to me. She smiles but it doesn’t reach her eyes.
I take the card. Maybe I’ll come back next week, maybe I won’t. Maybe Death will realise his mistake before then and come to claim me.
The reception is dry and hot and my coat is heavy. I know my cheeks are burning as I wait for the woman at the desk to finish her phone call. People are watching me; I feel their eyes bore into me. They know about me. The walls close in, sweat runs down my back, my breath is sharp in my throat. I need to get out. The receptionist glances up at me and then turns her attention back to the phone call. It’s a colleague on the other end, I think, there’s a respectful familiarity in her tone. The floor is sloping, the room spinning, tipping me off balance. I should have known better than to come here like this, I should have known I’d have one of my attacks. I gulp in air. I can’t have this, not now, not here while people are watching me…
Get off the phone; I’m not going to make it…
She drops the receiver back into the cradle and I almost throw the card at her in my desperation to get out. She looks at it and then taps at her keyboard.
‘Next Wednesday?’
I nod.
‘Two fifteen?’
Again.
Just give me the card and let me get out
.
‘There you go, Miss Brown.’
I grab the appointment slip from her and almost run to the door.
Outside, I lean against the cold brick of the wall and suck in huge breaths. I turn my face to the sky and close my eyes, letting the sting of freezing rain chill my face. I can almost hear the hiss as it evaporates on my hot skin.
‘Are you alright, love?’
My eyes open to find an old woman regarding me with concern and some curiosity. My mouth is dry and feels glued shut.
‘Fine,’ I manage to croak.
She looks like she might say something else. Then she gives me an absent smile before shuffling off on her way.
I take in my surroundings. The street is held in the lull before rush hour. I have to move now; I have to get home before it starts, before the streets pulse with commuters and noise, before darkness brings the piercing white beams of headlights that hurt my eyes. But it’s a long walk back to the house and I’ll never make it in time and the thought of it now makes my legs go weak. I can’t stay here and I can’t go home and I feel the panic start to swell in my chest, filling me up, displacing everything else.
Breathe, Cassie, breathe
.
One day at a time – that’s what Gran tells me. And I try, I really do, but it’s hard. This journey’s the same, maybe. One step at a time, maybe that’s all it takes. So I move my foot out. Inch along the wall. I know people are staring at me, staring at the freak, but one step at a time might get me home and it’s all I have.
The house is in darkness. A shaking hand twists the key in the lock and I push the front door open, tumbling over the silent threshold, my breath ragged and harsh. I reach and find the light switch, flicking it on to reveal the empty hallway. No fire already burning or TV murmuring in the next room, no snatches of laughter or arguments, no dishes clinking in the sink, no waves of fragrant basil on the warm air. I live here alone now.
I drop my bag and lean back onto the door. It closes with a heavy thud. Bolts are drawn across and I’m hidden from the world. My bag is abandoned in the hallway. It’s freezing, so I go to the sitting room, find the light there too, then flop onto the sofa and curl up in a corner, coat and scarf still on.
This is my house. There’s a vintage railway clock on the wall. Mum bought it from a flea market. A plush, red rug from India – a present for Mum and Dad’s anniversary from Mum’s friend. A deformed pot on the shelf that Tish made at school when she was six. A gilt mirror over the fireplace – Mum went mad when I bought it for her out of my first student loan but she still hung it. This is my house. A house full of dead people’s things. I didn’t want it but I didn’t want anyone else living here either, so when the estate was settled and it was clear it was mine to do with as I wished, I kept it.
The crying stopped soon after the accident, but perhaps crying would be better, perhaps crying would make me more human. Instead I have this void, this cold,
empty space where my heart used to be. Every day is a battle to stop it from swallowing me whole. I lean on the arm of the sofa and close my eyes. When I can’t see the world is it still there? Hunger gnaws at me but I don’t have the strength to move. Not yet.
The silence is shattered by the shrill call of the phone out in the hallway. I jump as my eyes refocus on the room. I’m tired, too tired to get up. Seeing the counsellor took everything I had and now I’m numb. It rings off. For a brief moment there is silence until it starts again. Whoever it is knows I’m here and they’re not giving up on me any time soon.
I think I know who it will be and I don’t want to talk to him so I let it ring.
The light forces my eyes open. I’m shivering, still wrapped in my coat on the sofa where I fell asleep last night, surrounded by ghosts. Then again, ghosts would be easier, more comforting. I’d be able to see my family, instead of just seeing their deaths, replaying over and over in my head, fused now with my own memories. The clock says nine. Eight months ago that would have seen me jump up, cursing my lateness for a lecture. Not today. Today there is nothing to move for, so I pull my coat tight around me and squint at the blinds where the winter sun pours through in yellow bars.
I should get up, make some pretence of the day having a point to it. You’d think escaping death would make me want to grab life around the neck and suck it dry. But I don’t feel like I did escape death; it’s always with me.
The money won’t last forever, or so Gran keeps telling me. Gran says I need to get a job, or something to make my inheritance stretch further. I know she’s right and I want to get a job. After all, that’s what normal people do, isn’t it – get a job, get a boyfriend, watch telly, eat pizza, go to the cinema on a Saturday night – all the things Gran tells me I should do. But Gran doesn’t have all this death pulling through her head. How can I have what normal people have when I’m not normal?
The phone’s ringing again. Doesn’t look like he’s giving up any time soon. There’s a sticky staleness in my mouth; my breath must reek. My joints ache from sleeping in the cold all night.
I need something to drink so I drag myself off the sofa, past the phone still screeching for my attention and into the kitchen. My eyes skim the dishes in the sink.
How many days have they been there? There’s just me, though, so it doesn’t really matter. Good job Gran doesn’t get over here to see. There’s a dribble of orange juice left and I slurp the lot straight from the carton. Despite how I feel about it my body is very much alive and I need to pee. The climb up to the bathroom makes me dizzy. I suppose I must need to eat too at some point, which would probably involve me having to shop as the cupboards are almost bare. Shopping is still a nightmare but easier than it used to be. After the accident I didn’t want to do anything. I used to lie in my bed wondering if I could starve. I wondered if I actually could die if I tried. Death had already spat me back out once. What if he doesn’t like the way I taste? If I hadn’t been such a spineless loser I’d have put it to the test – stuck my head in an oven or something. But the fact is that even with all the guilt and sorrow and loneliness, there must be a tiny part of me that is glad I survived. And that’s the hardest thing of all to accept.
The mirror catches my attention. Hollow eyed, skin grey, hair scraped back. I’m a real catch. There’s a headache building. I loosen my hair from the band and it falls about my shoulders, instantly feeling the relief. Flame-haired, my mum used to call me. It’s more of a dirty rust today. I peer closer and scrape a patch of dry skin away from my nose. The longer I stare at myself, the stranger I look. I’m not sure I recognise the girl in front of me anymore. And that’s why I need help.
Cornflakes from the packet will have to do as there’s no milk. There’s been no milk since yesterday. Mum would be horrified if she saw the way I lived now; she was a real stickler for healthy balanced diets and sitting around the table to eat at meal times, no matter what else was happening. She said it bonded us as a family and would give us all long, happy lives with our own. I always wanted to skulk off to my room with my food but Tish loved to share her day with anyone who would listen, even if that was our deeply untrendy parents. Mum always said Tish was the light to my dark, but that both were equally important in life and equally loved. She didn’t half talk some crap but I loved her for trying to understand why I wasn’t like my perfect sister.
The cornflakes are dry and bland without milk but I munch them down anyway. Besides, bland is good, bland is ordinary. Bland suits me just fine. The phone starts to ring again. Jesus, what do I have to say to stop this guy from hassling me? If I
give him what he wants maybe he’ll leave me alone. I suppose a curiosity like me is impossible for someone like him to simply forget about. Slamming the cornflake box down, I go to get it.
‘Yes?’
‘Is that Cassie?’
‘Who else would it be?’
‘Of course… Have you made up your mind yet?’
‘I told you no.’
‘But you didn’t seem sure.’
‘How does saying
no
communicate uncertainty?’
‘A young girl like you, on your own, fending for yourself – I’m sure you need all the help you can get.’
I take a moment to think about it. I know what Gran would say. I do need to think about money soon.
‘I can make it more if it’s not enough,’ he presses.
‘People like you always bring everything back to money.’
He’s silent for a moment.
‘I’m sorry…’ I mumble into the gap. ‘I just don’t want to reduce the lives of my family to money.’
‘Look, Cassie… last time we spoke I realise I was probably insensitive and I went about my offer all wrong. I’m sorry for that and I can see why you wouldn’t want to talk to me now. But money is all I can offer you of any worth, that’s why I mentioned it again.’
‘Money won’t bring my family back.’
‘No, but it will help you rebuild your life.’
I’m tempted to tell him that nothing will rebuild this half-life I find myself living now but I think that information would be wasted on someone like him. ‘It’s not that,’ I correct him. I sigh. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’
‘I wouldn’t,’ he says. ‘But you could help me to. I’ve been to lots of people who have suffered losses like yours, in all walks of life and all situations. You’d be amazed how many of them tell me that talking to me makes them feel better. Look on it as a way to honour their memory, to share your version of what happened with everyone so people can understand it.’
I doubt whether anyone would understand the real version, but I have to admit that the rest is tempting… if that is what he really wants from me, of course. ‘Would I have to come to your office?’
‘If you don’t want to I can come to your home. Might be less stressful for you there.’
Neither prospect sounds appealing right now. ‘I can’t decide. I’ll think about it.’
‘Ok. You know where I am if you do decide to go ahead. Just say the word and we’ll arrange it.’
I’ve only just picked up the cereal box again when there’s a knock at the door. I stiffen. People have stopped knocking at my door now. It couldn’t possibly be him, could it? He’s only just phoned me and surely he wouldn’t dare come round? I wait, motionless in the ticking silence. Just when I think they’ve gone, there’s another rap at the door. Then a voice through the letterbox: