We left the hospital and headed for the car. It was easy to spot, the car park had emptied quickly and ours was almost the only vehicle left. Dad, as usual, had parked in the most remote corner he could find and we walked across the brightly lit tarmac with the hum of the hospital fading behind us. Within a few minutes we were a world away from the shiny white wards and metal machines and nurses dressed in blue and were rolling along on black country lanes, trees on either side and darkness all around. I had only recently understood that night does not always mean blackness, that on some nights the moon will illuminate the fields and trees and roads like a floodlight. Even on the fell, without any streetlights for miles around, on certain nights you could walk along tracks with no torch needed, the light from the moon bright enough to guide you. Other nights, nights when the moon hid or was covered by cloud, it felt like a medieval darkness descended on the valley. It was a blackness that swallowed torchlight whole three steps out from the front door. Tonight was a black night and the only light for miles around came from our weak headlights which only just cut through the thick dark. We were halfway home when Dad cleared his throat and it might as well have been a drum roll. He was about to break his car silence and I braced myself. He spoke faster than usual, his voice hard with determination, three short sentences, pushed out into the car like gunfire.
‘It’s the inquest. Soon. They’ve set a date.’
I didn’t respond; I could tell more would be coming. He leant forward in his seat. He told me that they’d spoken to everyone else involved, they just needed to speak to him now and had gone ahead and set a date for the official inquest.
‘Are you going to be OK? With what people might say? The implications?’
I thought about his questions but I didn’t need to think too long. I’d been thinking about the inquest since the day the letter arrived and I knew exactly how I felt. So I told him that I wasn’t really interested in what they had to say. He shot me a surprised look and I explained. I told him, I knew it was an accident, that Mum wasn’t depressed that day and it didn’t matter to me what anyone else said, particularly a group of people who had never even met her. He looked across at me again to see that I was being honest, to check that I wasn’t trying to fob him off, but he could see I was telling the truth. He nodded, he seemed pleased, and said that was good, that he had come to the same conclusion himself. He was sorry that it was all being dragged up again, he said, and he was sorry that Brian Stuart’s family might be thinking Mum was to blame, but there was nothing we could do to change anything. He said that as long as we knew what we thought, that was what was important.
We drove on in silence for a couple of minutes before he spoke again. He said that as long as I was doing all right, getting by, that was the main thing. He looked to me for a response so I shrugged and said I supposed I was OK, that compared to Jon right now I was pretty much King of the Castle. Then he asked if I knew that I could always talk to him about anything, no matter what, including Mum. A river burst its banks in my chest. I squinted and stared ahead. I dug my nails into the palm of my hand until it stung. I wasn’t going to cry. I gathered myself. I nodded and said, yes and thanks, I did know that but thanks.
I didn’t know that at all. I tried not to think about all the times I wanted to ask him questions, to talk about her, to remember her out loud. I remember wanting to ask where all her clothes were and where all her little bottles of nail varnish had got to. Had he boxed all her belongings and brought them with us? Where was the book she had started and never finished? Was all that stuff left unpacked in one of the dirty spare bedrooms with all the other boxes we hadn’t opened? I wanted to know if he ever blamed Brian Stuart for driving such a stupidly big lorry that left her without a chance. I wanted to know if he was ever angry with her for crashing, for maybe losing concentration, just for a second. And I wanted to ask if he ever blamed me. If he blamed me for having a stupid after-school art club that meant I couldn’t get the school bus home and had to be picked up. But I didn’t ask anything. It was enough that he’d mentioned her; that her name was back in circulation.
Dad relaxed, he sank into his seat and his shoulders dropped. He talked about the inquest. He told me that they would look at all the evidence again and take Mum’s mental state and medication into consideration and then come to a final conclusion about whether her death was an accident, suicide or would be left as an open verdict. I nodded and said I understood. I didn’t say so but the whole thing seemed as useless as a machine designed to test the wetness of water. We turned off the fell road and onto our track and were bumping along as usual when Dad braked suddenly. We stopped in almost exactly the same spot we’d nearly killed Jon on our first day in Duerdale and I peered out into the dark to see why. The biggest owl I’d ever seen was sat on a gatepost by the side of the road. He was tall and white with big black eyes. He seemed oblivious to us but when Dad turned the car engine off he turned his head our way and looked right at us, his eyes taking in everything. He watched us for a while and then, bored, turned his gaze past the car and back down the road. Dad turned the key in the ignition and we slowly moved off.