Julie

I wasn’t sure I could live with myself when my husband told me I’d caused a crash that took a girl’s life. And yet, each day, I got up and did it. I lived.

There were times, following the accident, when I would wake from nightmares, sweating and shaking. I’d go into the kitchen to get something and just start crying. Or I’d find myself walking to clear my head and two hours later, I wouldn’t have a clue where I was.

But Harry was there for me.

What had happened brought us together. We closed ranks.

And I didn’t touch a drop of drink.

Alcohol would have made it easier. I think that’s why I didn’t resort to it. I needed to feel remorse for what I’d done. I couldn’t hide from it with booze.

That. That was rock bottom.

Harry went to work so everything would look normal but just like the previous year, after Richard, he rushed home each evening to be with me. We went for long walks. He ran me baths. We talked – not about what had happened, just about something and nothing.

At no point did either of us even contemplate going to the police. I know how fucked up that makes us sound, but you’d have to have walked in our shoes to understand.

Harry had spent years hiding his illegal activity at the bank. Not talking to the police was our norm.

I couldn’t bear to know the name of the girl whose life I’d taken – to see her face or know what she’d been like. So I abstained from the internet, from the news, from anything that would tell me those things.

But it was unavoidable. Ten weeks to the day later, I was standing in the kitchen, idly buttering toast I wouldn’t eat, when the news bulletin came on the radio that Harry had left playing.

‘RTÉ’s monthly edition of Crimecall will tonight focus on the death of Charlene Andrews, killed in the early hours of the morning of the 8th June. Ms Andrews, aged twenty-two, died as the result of being hit by a car on the Malahide Road, while walking home alone from a party. The driver of the car failed to stop and drove his or her vehicle away from the scene. Crimecall will show a reconstruction of events that night in the hope it will jog the memory of members of the public who may have seen something. An Garda Síochána have urged viewers to tune in this evening and says additional helplines will be in operation for the next seventy-two hours.’

I dropped the knife on to the counter with a clatter and had to grab hold of the granite to keep myself upright.

I had to watch that show. It was being made in order to find me. I had to see the girl. Charlene Andrews, twenty-two.

That night, I sat glued in front of the television screen as an actress playing the Andrews girl was shown at a student house party in Malahide somewhere. She was a young, pretty girl, the actress. Blonde curls, smiley face. I wondered how close a match she was to the real Charlene.

Harry was in the shower. I’m not sure he even knew Crimecall was on. He would have turned it off and thrown the remote control out the window if he had.

‘You’ve stood by me through so much,’ he’d said, the morning I’d found him in our garage and he told me what happened. ‘I will fix this.’

The reconstruction showed Charlene leaving the party alone that evening after unsuccessfully trying to secure a cab. She told friends she’d walk and grab a taxi along the road, and nobody had the good sense, or was sober enough, to tell her that wasn’t a good idea. She was stone-cold sober. She didn’t drink, apparently.

Why had I insisted on the car keys?

Why couldn’t I have just passed out, like a normal bloody drunk?

I watched, horrified, and with the strangest feeling of the surreal, as the actress walked down the dimly lit road without a footpath, dangerous ditches on either side, eerie trees towering overhead. I was frightened for her. It was like watching a film. She’d got a full two kilometres down the road when we, the viewers, heard the car approaching. The Charlene actress turned to see if it was a taxi, her features illuminated in the headlights, and next thing – bang.

The car sped off.

My heart was thumping so hard I thought it was going to explode.

The camera returned to the studio, where the presenter said that nobody had come forward to admit to seeing Charlene on the stretch of road that night, which was unusual.

‘We believe there may have been witnesses, other drivers, who are scared to ring in for fear of involving themselves with us,’ a Guard explained to the presenter and the TV audience. ‘But I want to stress tonight to anybody out there in that position that they should contact us, and that they have nothing to fear.’ He turned to the camera. ‘We need to talk to you to find out if you saw any other vehicles that evening, especially coming from the direction of Malahide.’

‘And we’re also appealing to the driver of the car involved, aren’t we?’ the presenter prompted.

‘Yes,’ the Guard said. ‘We are saying to this man or woman that it’s not too late to hand yourself in. Charlene’s family and friends are devastated, and knowing that this was an accident and that the person involved is taking responsibility will help them to cope at this difficult time.’

The camera swung back to the presenter, who read out the relevant numbers as they appeared on the bottom of the screen. Then a photograph filled the television – Charlene Andrews as she was, the real person.

She was beautiful. So very beautiful. Friendly eyes, a wonderful smile. The sort of endearing shyness in front of the camera that you just don’t see any more. The presenter spoke over her photo, saying that she’d just finished her nursing degree.

She was dead. That wonderful light had been extinguished from the world, because of me. I couldn’t carry that guilt. I couldn’t. I had to turn myself in.

I closed my eyes and, suddenly, I saw her. I saw it happening. Her hair. Her face as she turned towards the car. The look of shock as it hit her.

I hadn’t heard Harry come in, but he was standing behind me, staring at the image on the screen. His hands came to rest on my shoulders at the same time as I looked up and saw his reflection in the large sitting-room window.

‘Oh, darling,’ he said. ‘Why are you watching this? Why are you doing it to yourself ?’

I jumped away from him like I’d been scalded.

‘Don’t touch me,’ I hissed.

His mouth fell open.

‘Julie? What is it?’

I looked around in desperation, seeking out the only thing to hand. His crystal ashtray, a cigar resting in it.

I picked it up and flung it at him as hard as I could.

He dived out of the way. The expression on his face when he stood back up was one of horror.

‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’ he said. ‘Have you lost your mind?’

‘I remember!’ I screamed.

‘You remember what?’ Harry’s voice was choked.

‘I remember that night.’

I bunched my hands into fists at my sides. I was going to kill him. I was actually going to fucking murder him.

‘I wasn’t driving, Harry,’ I yelled. ‘You were.’