Never Say Die. Lynne Barrett-Lee
a ride on the Honda.’ She smiled at me, and suddenly I realised that she might have another agenda. Perhaps this was more about me than her. More specifically, about me and John. Though he was way out of bounds—he had a very scary girlfriend—Juli knew how much I fancied him. She also knew that despite his going steady, in private he’d intimated that he was interested in me. Was this a manoeuvre to organise things so we could spend a bit of time alone together?
But I felt—and very strongly—that that wasn’t what should happen. I shook my head. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Let’s leave things as they are.’ The most significant ‘no’ of my life, as it turned out, and even now I’m not sure why I’d felt the way I did. Later I’d come to find solace in that. However much I might have wished that what happened hadn’t happened, I was infinitely more grateful it hadn’t happened to my friend.
Aldo always rode fast. He didn’t seem to have an off switch. When we were out on our own he drove reasonably sensibly, but put him in the middle of a big group of bikers—on big bikes—and the testosterone kicked in. He went for it, always. There was never any point in telling him to slow down, let alone pointing out that with one ban for speeding already behind him they’d throw the book at him if he was caught. I tried it once, early on, and soon learned. He would simply growl at me and go faster.
But this wasn’t—hadn’t been—that sort of day. Just the four of us, two bikes, and an uneventful ride home in prospect. Why should it be otherwise? The route back was undemanding enough and the roads were, more often that not, quiet. I knew those roads well; the places where he’d let out the throttle and gun it, the corners and the straights, the scenic stretches through the burrows, the odd glimpse of sea, and the sweep of mountains that loomed to our right. Today’s journey to Porthcawl had been largely uneventful, and I had no reason to suppose the ride home would be any different.
But fate, it seemed, had other plans. Aldo lived with his parents, two brothers and dog on Golden Avenue, a part of the Aberavon beachfront. We were driving towards it now, along Princess Margaret Way, when that absolute no-no, a smaller bike, passed us. Before I’d even thought, irritably, that he probably would do so, Aldo had already given chase. The road seemed to shimmer and dance beneath the wheels. I felt the force of rushing air trying to push me backwards and gripped hard; one hand clenched around the seat strap beneath me, the other, behind me, clutching tightly to the bar. I remember feeling a bolt of proper fear now, as the road curved away into a sharp right-hand bend that took it inland, away from the seafront. This wasn’t just any old bend—it was Jeff’s bend, named after a biker who had died trying to get round it some years before. I felt the bike dip beneath me and automatically leaned with it. How bloody ridiculous, I recall myself thinking. So close to home and he has to get involved in this. Not for the first time, I silently cursed his childish male pride.
But the curse must have died on my lips at that moment because suddenly I was no longer riding pillion behind Aldo but airborne, and moving at speed. And then nothing. Only absolute silence and blackness. No thought. No sensation. Just nothing.
I don’t know how long I was out, but it soon became obvious that my blackout was only momentary, because the next thing I remember was a sound. Wherever I was—and I didn’t have a clue—there was something approaching. Something loud, something low. Pushing through the fog in my head with increasing insistence. A low rumbling sound. Getting louder.
Conscious again now, I opened my eyes, but the visor on my helmet was down so all I could see was smudged and dirty plastic. Like trying to see through a pair of grubby glasses, all I could focus on was the smudge. But the noise kept on coming. I turned my head towards it and the smudge became an outline, and then, almost as if propelled by some malevolent deity, I saw the bike, on its side, bare of driver and pillion, barrelling towards me headlight first. I heard a girl screaming. That’s not me, I remember thinking, as it hit me. That’s not me doing that. I passed out again.
In my head I went home then. At least, close to home. I was sitting beside Dad, in his ancient Morris Minor. He’d usually finished work by the end of my school day, so after the long walk to school, then home for lunch and then back, my treat was to have a lift home at the end of the day. I loved the Morris Minor. Loved sitting up front with Dad. Loved its feel, loved its warmth, loved its fusty pungent odour.
They say smell is the most strongly evocative of the senses, and, coming to again, I realised where the memory had come from. That same smell was pricking in my nostrils now.
Full consciousness returned in a rush of realisation. I touched the grass I was lying on. It was damp. There was no car. No Dad. Just the screaming. And the ground all around me soaked in—yes, that was it, that was what I could smell—it was petrol. And something else. There was a man. I squinted at him. He was waving his arms. He was wearing a brown coat and a cap and in his mouth—I gasped as I realised—was a lit cigarette. I tried to shout and felt a sudden warm wetness in my mouth. Oh God, no, I thought, watching him walking towards me. I’m going to burn—Oh, God, don’t let me burn.
But I obviously wasn’t the only one who’d seen it. The man—I didn’t know him—was quickly intercepted, and suddenly it seemed there were people all around me. But they melted away as fast as they’d arrived, as the blackness came and swallowed me again.
This time I went nowhere, and all too soon I was back on the cold ground with strangers staring down at me. The only warmth was in my mouth, but then also in my heart, as Juli’s face suddenly appeared. For a moment I felt calmer. She was here. She would help me. But she was crying and telling me to try not to move and saying sorry and holding onto my hand. I tried to tell her it wasn’t her fault but when I spoke a red mist sprayed all over my visor. Now everybody seemed to be shouting at once. ‘Internal bleeding!’ ‘What’s happening?’ ‘Where’s the ambulance got to?’ But almost immediately I realised what had happened. I’d bitten the tip off my tongue, and the warmth in my mouth was my blood.
I was grateful when the blackness claimed me this time and so, evidently, was my body, because I must have been unconscious for some time. When I next came round it was to the sound of approaching sirens. That was all I could hear now. No other sound at all. I’d retreated into a safe house somewhere in my brain, shutting the door on the horror. I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep it out for long, but I chose to remain there, hiding, and praying. Our Father, I chanted desperately in my head, who art in Heaven…
I was about to die, I decided. That was it. My body had been chopped in half in the accident and I was going to die at any moment. I don’t recall quite what I did with those thoughts at the time, but one thing became suddenly clear. That if I didn’t, I was going to get the mother of all rows off Mum and Dad. They’d been right. I’d been wrong. Whatever happened now—life or imminent death—I’d never felt more scared.
The man who had asked me to move my missing legs and feet reappeared. He was talking again. ‘Be still,’ he kept saying. ‘Try to keep very still. And don’t worry.’
I didn’t answer because by now my tongue had become swollen. I could feel a flap of it hanging free. So much blood in my mouth. I didn’t want to swallow my own blood. Someone then said something about how clever we’d been about the helmet. Juli and I had not let anyone take off my helmet. Someone—I didn’t have a clue who—had tried, but we’d both of us, ironically, been insistent about it; we’d done neck injuries in biology class the previous week. Something useful to know, but not the sort of thing I’d ever dreamt would apply to me.
Another face loomed. Another man. Another smile. ‘Hiya,’ he said. ‘We’re taking you to Neath General Hospital.’ He moved down and seemed to be feeling my legs—or at least, the place where my legs should have been. The terror flooded in again, and with it revulsion. I couldn’t see. Was he picking up bits of severed limb? But if that was the case, why wasn’t he looking disgusted? Why wasn’t everyone around me throwing up?
I tried to keep focused on what I was