Ten Fleeting Seconds

Ten Fleeting Seconds

We had to play outside for nearly the whole day when we were children. “Can we come in Mum?” we would ask and the short reply was “No off you go and find something to do”.  So we would find something to do. We would all go down the steep dirty track, racing to see who got there first, pushing and shoving and laughing until we reached the bottom. Deidre was always last and we would call her a rude name relating to her size – she would always cry and we would then call her a ‘big fat baby’ and start splashing at the edge of the lake.

We would all take turns in moaning about the fact that we had to stay out and ‘play’ for so many hours. It didn’t matter what the weather was like. When it was raining we would be told to “Put your raincoat on and make sure you button it up”. When it was really cold and a sharp cutting wind was blowing, we were told “Put your coat on and make sure you button it up to the top”. If we dared to retort with “But I’m still cold”….The reply was “Well put a scarf on”.

But we did have fun. We fought a lot. “Siblings shouldn’t fight as much as you lot do” Nan used to say. “It doesn’t seem right to me”.

“Me either” I would lie as I thumped Jennifer in her back.

I thought of our bedroom was tiny with two sets of bunk beds in it. I always got the top bunk, being the oldest and all. Deidre had a bottom bed because we used to tell her “You’re too heavy for a top bed. If you crash through and land on someone, you’ll kill them”. She would say “Oh I don’t want to kill anyone” and climb into the bed directly under mine. None of the sheets or covers matched and the blankets were a bit scratchy but it was the room for secrets to be told, and held onto.

Jennifer was the kindest of the siblings. She was very skinny and quite often sick. Mum used to take her to the doctor when she wouldn’t eat and he would give her a ‘tonic’. I remember if one of us finished our bag of sweets and looked at her still full white paper bag, she would sweetly ask “Would you like one of mine?” and offer up the bag of treasure to us. By the time we had ravaged it, there was hardly anything left for her, but she didn’t care.

In the mornings before school the small kitchen was crammed with bodies – hungry, rushing, and of course arguing. “Give me the milk for my cereal. You’ve had it long enough. Just pour it quickly and stop being melodramatic”.

“There you are Laura” said our only brother Derrick as he put the bottle of milk on the sink, as far away as possible from the table.

“You’re a basta….” I started to say before a bony hand grabbed a chunk of my hair and pulling my head close to her mouth, my mother told me “If I hear foul language in this house I’ve told you what will happen” and she pushed my head away, glaring with her dark brown eyes, and breathing quickly in anger.

I was determined not to cry, so I didn’t. I poured the milk on my cereal, spilling it deliberately on the table and digging my spoon noisily into the cornflakes without looking up.

By the time the four of us were out of the house after kissing our mother quickly on the cheek, we were all friends again, laughing and pushing each other on the way to the bus stop.

Derrick died when he was just fourteen years of age. It was a terrible time for us all – the ‘man of the house” had gone. I remember my mother answering the loud knocks on the old dark brown door, paint peeling in strips, the bell not working but the thick wood keeping us all safe from the horrible things that could happen on the other side of it, but not this time. Two policemen stood on the concrete step and said something to her, and then she collapsed to her knees and began to shout hysterically “No it can’t be Derrick. He’s at his friend’s house. It isn’t him, it isn’t him”. The somber men in their dark blue uniforms held on to her, bringing her inside to sit on a chair. She started sobbing and shaking her head. “Is there anyone we can call to come and sit with your mother?” they asked us. But we had all worked out the gravity of the situation and knew something serious had happened to our brother and we were all crying. I told one of the policemen through my tears that we didn’t really have anyone else but he could get our neighbor, Mrs. Jenson.

You never know when your time is up. I remember my Nan saying to me about a week before she died, “You can be here one day and gone the next you know”. She had put her dry skinned hand on my arm as she said it, and I just turned and looked at her wrinkled face and smiled.

“Yes Nan” I had replied but at the time I wasn’t that interested. Then, I thought I would live for ever and at my age, it wasn’t something you thought about. But I recalled the conversation sooner than expected – at her burial. Nan was right though about not knowing when your time was up – she wouldn’t have expected to choke on a chicken bone and die the day before her birthday.

I used to love our birthday celebrations. They weren’t big or fancy but Mum always baked a cake, a chocolate one. We could choose what we would like for dinner on our special day and I always chose fish and chips. We got them from the chippy down the road from where we lived and as he knew us from playing with his kids, we would get extra – so many that we all went to bed after a birthday tea so full of chips we could hardly move. Derrick would drown his chips in vinegar and Mum would tell him that he would get ulcers from all the acid. “Well just as well we don’t often get this for tea then” he would reply, putting soggy, sour chips into his mouth.

We wouldn’t get much for our birthdays or Christmas just because there wasn’t much money. But there were always a couple of presents – even if sometimes they didn’t look quite ‘brand new’, we didn’t really care. A doll was a doll no matter what and if a slightly scratched truck went racing down the dirt track then Derrick was happy.

After Derrick died my Mum was never really happy. She really did try to be but there was a sadness that engulfed her whole being. She made a little shrine to him and would sit in her green lounge chair and light a candle, put on some music and just sit. Her vacant staring was quite eerie at times and when you spoke to her it was as if she was in a trance. She wouldn’t hear you and you leant to just wait until her ‘mini mourning’ period was over….until the next time. She told me one day, a few years after his death that she blamed herself and should have been a better mother, and then he wouldn’t have lied to her about where he was that fateful night. And even thought I tried to convince her that she was a good mother and Derrick was just a teenage boy pushing the boundaries, she couldn’t be convinced, and her guilt weighed heavily on her.

I had a happy life. We were poor but there was plenty of love.

Jennifer found her own love and had children. And even though she is quite often sick, is content with her lot.

Deidre found her true love, didn’t have children but that was her choice. She’s living a fruitful life in a little village – a bit like one of those picturesque places in an Agatha Christie book or movie. All roses, white picket fences and tea shops where a bell tinkles as you walk inside to sit down at the little table spread with a floral tablecloth, the air smelling of scones and coffee.

I always believed that my mission in life was to help others. I’m not sure when I changed from being ‘all about me’ to putting others first and actually caring, but I did.

I think back to my nursing training in the huge, cold concrete building, the largest teaching hospital in London. It wasn’t all hard work and study…we had so much fun. I got asked to stay on after my three years and enjoyed ten years at St. Thomas’s.

I made a lot of friends – the kind of friendships that you keep for life – which I did. It really was ‘right to the end”. I was with my best friend when the screeching pierced our ears, the car came around the corner and BANG. Lucy held my hand tightly and told me how much she loved me, her best friend.

I remember reading that when you die your life flashes before your eyes, and I thought ‘your whole life in a flash – rubbish’, but it’s true.

Mine has taken ten seconds - all that thinking and all those memories in just ten seconds – amazing.

The pain has gone. I can see Jennifer smiling and Deidre is laughing at something. They were looking at me, but turn and walk away getting smaller and smaller until they eventually disappear.

Over in the distance are Nan and Mum holding out their arms and gesturing for me to come to them, and Derrick is running towards me. The final piece of life’s puzzle has been put into place. I smile and quicken my pace.