took over with a heavy sigh. ‘Let’s take a little look at this VT which might help shed some more light on that traumatic day.’
They cut to the same old montage of people laying posies and teddies outside number 12 Priory Gardens, old women crying and holding tissues to their noses. The vox pop of two old men saying how it was such a close community, how ‘nothing like this has ever happened round here before’. The glistening red doormat. Wailing fathers. Sobbing mums. Three little stretchers. The policeman talking about the ‘unprecedented situation’. My limp body, wrapped in Peter Rabbit blankets.
I was sweating through my Bare Minerals.
Just before the VT finished, someone in the darkness beyond the psychedelic sofas called out: ‘And we’re back in three, two, one…’
Carolyn and Tony’s faces were painted with a new expression of anguish.
‘Rhiannon, I can’t imagine how this must have affected you. Can you give us a flavour of what life’s been like for you since that tragic day?’
Flavour? I thought. What? Like some days I’m smoky bacon, others a little more ready salted, that kind of thing? No, no time for facetiousness, this was important and sad and important.
‘Well, my parents did interviews with all the tabloids and I went on some talk shows. They flew me over for this American one and they gave us an all-expenses paid holiday to Disney World. You can still see the clip on YouTube. The whole audience is crying. I just sound like I’m broken.’
‘How long did it take for you to learn to walk and talk again?’
‘Um, I don’t think I was fully restored until my early teens. I virtually had to relearn everything. How to talk to people, how to move. How to be. I found it very hard. For the things I didn’t know, I developed a kind of act for them.’
‘In what sort of way?’
‘Well, my mum used to worry that I never cried when I fell over and I stopped hugging her. She’d say to me, “Why aren’t you more upset? Why aren’t you crying?” and then I’d try and remember that was what I was supposed to do for next time.’
Carolyn reached forward to the coffee table and grabbed the tissue box, plucking one out to dab at her eye. ‘Rhiannon, I’m sorry, this story always gets to me.’
Try starring in it, love.
Tony leaned in to the rescue. ‘It was the front of your brain which was affected by the hammer blow, wasn’t it?’
‘Mmm, yeah, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Frontal lobe. I had a lot of surgery to repair my skull. I have this large zig-zaggy scar behind my hairline.’
‘Like Harry Potter?’
‘Not as neat as that.’
Tony checked his script. ‘The police said the whole attack only lasted a few minutes. Does anything bring memories or images back to you?’
He reeeeeeally wanted some dirt; some bit of gore to share exclusively with the world that the nation could chew over with their soggy Shreddies – how a child’s skull makes a noise like a vase smashing when it’s hit with a hammer; how the sound of a glass smashing even now can cause me to break out in a cold sweat; how Blackstone’s hanging body was the last thing I saw before I lost consciousness.
‘No,’ I lied. ‘Mercifully, I don’t remember any of it.’
They were speechless. I ventured a look downwards – Tony’s trouser seam was bursting with the pressure. Surely no material could hold back that penal tide.
‘You won Child of Courage and Pride of Britain Awards, didn’t you?’
‘Yeah. That was nice.’
The Pride of Britain one had snapped in half in the back of the taxi after the ceremony. I couldn’t remember what had happened with the Children of Courage one. Last time I’d seen it, it was in a box in Mum and Dad’s garage.
‘It must have been such a traumatic time for your family. In fact, your life’s been quite peppered with tragedy ever since, hasn’t it?’ said Carolyn.
‘Yes,’ I said, not venturing further information.
‘You lost a young friend in a car accident when you were still in recovery from Priory Gardens, didn’t you? Little Joe Leech, when you lived in Bristol?’
I nodded. ‘Yeah, he got run over. He’d been coming to visit me.’
‘And your mother died of breast cancer when you were in your teens? And your father from brain cancer just two years ago?’
It was a bit of a non sequitur. I guess they were building up the public sympathy a bit more and waiting for the waterworks. Carolyn pushed the box of tissues along the banquette towards me, just in case.
Good luck with that.
Tony readjusted his position – he was sitting on at least half of his dick, I surmised. That can’t have been comfortable for three hours on a daily basis. I could almost feel sorry for him, if he hadn’t had reached out to pat my knee – unauthorised body contact #3.
‘Yeah, death seems to have a thing for my family,’ I said. ‘Everyone just seems to leave me. I mean, I had a few years of warning with Mum. But with Dad it was weeks. Out of the blue.’
Tony nodded. ‘That must have been a massive shock for you.’
‘Yes, it was a massive cock,’ I said, without even realising what I’d said until they both looked at me in abject terror. ‘Shock, shock, yeah,’ I said, like I’d just stuttered and was trying to claw back the blush blooming in both my cheeks. I attempted some firefighting: ‘I was totally in shock about it for weeks. We had photographers camped in our front garden like I was a celebrity, which didn’t make things easier. Funny sort of celebrity.’
Tony’s bald patch burnt a greasy red. I could see the cogs going in his head – Don’t laugh, don’t laugh, career suicide, career suicide, dead kids, dead kids!
Carolyn had to do the rest of the segment alone with the camera focused squarely on her rock-hard expression. ‘But things are going well for you now, aren’t they?’ She was clearly desperate for a whiff of a happy ending amidst all the doom and cock shrapnel in the cheesy air. Less skull-crushing, more yay. ‘You’ve got your lovely boyfriend and a brilliant job in journalism?’
‘Yes, that’s right. Everything is… awesome.’
Journalism? Is that what we’re calling it now? Yeah, everything’s really awesome now, Carolyn: my journalistic career begins and ends with making coffee and typing up skittles scores, my novel has been rejected by every agent and publisher in the country, my boyfriend’s having an affair with a cum bucket called Lana, I think about killing someone every twenty-five minutes, I hate all my friends and I’ve just made a twat of myself on national TV. Yeah, everything’s gravy, baby.
When I didn’t offer up any more information, she glared at me like I was the Goth girl with the pierced clit who’d announced she was marrying her son. I think she was beginning to wish that hammer had struck my frontal lobe a bit harder.
‘And how do you feel about being up for Woman of the Century?’
I smiled. ‘Oh, yeah, I’m thrilled. It’s an amazing honour. I’m so excited about the ceremony tonight and all the people I’ll meet.’ I saw my face in the monitor. I really needed to work on my smile. It was as wooden as my grandmother’s sideboard.
Tony had composed himself, though he was pretty red in the face still. ‘Is your boyfriend proud of you?’ Cue lecherous glint. Even though it wasn’t bodily contact, I felt like he’d wiped his bell-end all over my face.
‘Yeah, he’s delighted.’
‘What’s his name? Give him a shout-out.’
‘Craig.’