But the car didn’t slow down.
‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ blared out across Blacksand Bay as the blue Volvo got closer. But I was worried, and I wasn’t happy. I remember how the sky was an inky black, and the stars were shy and sometimes hiding. I remember the sound of the sea crashing on the rocks below, and I remember how very cold I was. My teeth wouldn’t stop chattering.
All I had on was a denim dungaree dress, a stripy long-sleeved T-shirt, my rainbow tights and my daisy trainers, and it was a particularly cold Halloween. I had pulled my last-minute sheet costume over myself, trying to keep warm as I walked along the cliff road. I didn’t care whether I looked like a ghost; I already felt like one. Maybe a ghost was all Conor saw when he drove his dad’s car into me at thirty miles an hour. Otherwise I’m sure he would have hit the brakes.
I remember the sensation of flying through the air. So high, like a bird. It didn’t hurt a bit. Not even when I landed on the road. The white sheet flew too, then fell on top of me, covering my face as though declaring me dead. The car skidded to a sudden and violent stop, the twin beams of its headlights shining at the sheet, and me hidden beneath it. Then everything was perfectly still and silent and calm.
Until one of the car doors opened.
It was Lily’s voice I heard first. She sounded very drunk. ‘What was that?’
Then two more car doors opened.
‘Conor, I think you hit something,’ said Rose. ‘You should have been watching the road instead of playing with the stereo.’
‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ Conor said, sounding even more drunk than my sisters. ‘It came out of nowhere.’
‘It?’ said Rose. I could hear her slowly walking towards me. The way she would have if I were an injured animal on the side of the road. ‘Is that Daisy’s ghost costume?’ she whispered. ‘Oh my god, did you hit Daisy?’
‘No!’ said Conor. ‘No, it’s just a sheet.’
‘Sheets don’t bounce off bonnets,’ said Lily.
One of them pulled the sheet back. I think it must have been Rose, because I heard her scream first. It was a gentle scream, if there is such a thing. I wanted to reassure her that I was fine. But that was the moment when I realized that I couldn’t speak, or open my eyes, or move at all. I was only thirteen years old, but I had already died eight times before. Even if my heart had stopped beating, I knew there were ways to make it start again. There always had been in the past. They just needed to get help.
‘What have we done?’ Rose whispered. ‘What. Have. We. Done?’ She screamed the words a second time, sounding hysterical.
‘We didn’t do anything,’ said Lily, sounding more sober all of a sudden. ‘Conor was the one driving.’
‘This isn’t helping,’ said Rose. ‘We have to help Daisy.’
She checked for a pulse, and I remember that her trembling fingers felt so warm on my cold skin. I wanted her to hold my hand and tell me that everything was going to be all right.
‘She’s hit her head. It’s very bad. There’s a lot of blood . . . a lot.’ Rose leaned down over me, and I could smell the alcohol on her breath. ‘I can’t find a pulse and . . . I don’t think she’s breathing.’ Rose started to sob loudly. ‘We need to find a phone and call an ambulance.’
‘How?’ said Lily, and I could hear that she was crying too.
We all knew that they couldn’t call for help without either driving into town or driving to Seaglass, then scrambling down the cliff path and across the causeway to use Nana’s landline. Both options would take at least twenty minutes, by which time it might be too late if it wasn’t already. None of us had mobiles in 1988. Even now, there is no phone signal on this corner of the Cornish coast.
‘Wait,’ said Conor. ‘We should think about this before we do anything we might regret.’
‘What are you talking about? Haven’t you already done something that you regret?’ Rose screamed at him. ‘You’ve killed Daisy!’
‘I didn’t pass my driving test,’ Conor said quietly.
‘What did you say?’ Rose asked.
‘I didn’t pass my driving test, but I didn’t want to tell you that I’d failed. How could I confess to my genius girlfriend – who was about to head off to Cambridge – that I couldn’t pass a simple test? I lied. For you. And I didn’t ask to borrow my dad’s car tonight because he would have said no – he knows I don’t have a licence.’