Difficult things happen in a life. The majority of the difficult that have knobbled up my life's thread I seem to be able to contemplate, and then write about. There is one thing though whose ramifications I only ever hint to myself about, so what follows is an indulgence, for I suspect it will be mere story-telling as opposed to analysis. The event that follows has probably had a more significant effect on how I encounter other people than anything else, but I still don't want to work out why. The section of the story in italics is not from my memory; I have no memory of those events, only what other people have told me.
It is the summer holidays between my second and third years of university. I am 21. The sun's shining, I have to get something from the barn; the barn is a ten minute walk away. So I get on my youngest brother's bike, whistle for Conan, my dog (my Irish Wolfhound), and off we go, Conan cruising along behind me. We live on a lane: Bereden's Lane. At the bottom of the lane it meets a road, not a quiet one but the Southend Arterial, or A127, which is the dual carriageway that connects London with Southend. It is a very busy, very fast road. I ride towards the junction of the A127; the private road that runs up to the slaughterhouse, and beyond that, the barn, is about twenty yards short of the big junction. I turn left to the barn, and Conan follows. I race up in the sunshine, dog at my side, and life is very good. Item collected, I ride back the way I came, and at the bottom of the private road turn right, away from the A127 junction and towards our house. Only when I'm in the drive do I notice Conan isn't with me. I shout at Jim, the gardener, who shouts back he thinks he saw the dog going towards the 127. I race off on the bike to that junction, and through the flashing bodies of cars and lorries passing at 70 miles an hour I can see Conan on the other side of the dual carriageway. I can't believe he's crossed the road. I have got to get him back safe, so I shout "SIT" and "STAY". Conan sits.I cross two lanes and get to the central reservation that divides the carriageway heading to Southend from the carriageway heading for Romford. I shout at the dog again. I run across to the dog, who is not wearing a collar or lead, and grab him by the skin of his neck. I run across with him and get safely to the central reservation again. Something scares the dog. He runs back in the direction we've just come from, and I run out after him. A young car salesman is on a test drive with a prospective customer: it is the new Jaguar, and the salesman is driving. He is doing 70 mph plus. I run out in front of him, try to turn, but he hits me on my right side, and I am thrown up and onto the windscreen, which I shatter with my head, then I rotate in the air and travel over the car (or the car travels under me) to land on my left side on the road. The white van behind the Jaguar also hits me, and drags me along the road a bit too. Meanwhile, Conan has crossed the section of carrigeway where I have caused pandemonium, got to the central reservation, tried to cross the next section of carriageway but has been hit by another car and is killed.
I am also close to dying.
Jim shouts to my mother that there's been an accident on the 127 and he thinks Conan might have caused it. Accidents at this location are common: Beredens Land faces Front Lane across the AI27 and people do cross here; it's also where the dual carriageway lights end, and drivers at night suddenly find themselves in a different darkness. My mother never walks down to see an accident. Today, my mother walks down, sees Conan dead on our side of the carriageway and can see a dead boy on the other side. Something makes her walk on. The shirt of the dead boy has been pushed up his body and over his face, and one arm is sticking out at an angle arms can't lie at. She looks at the arm, and sees a gold bracelet, the one Grandad gave me for my 18th birthday. My mother says "Oh my God, it's my daughter" and nearly faints, but comes around enough to say to anyone who will listen "Don't ring my husband. He'll kill himself driving back from Market".
(My father drove at warp-speed under normal circumstances, and Mum was scared he would have an acident himself if he drove any faster.)
There is an ambulance already on the A127, which is now blocked in both directions. The ambulance gets to me, the ambulance staff get me inside and I am dead. The ambulance staff bring me back to life, and take me to Harold Wood hospital.
I am up on the ceiling, looking down. I can see myself and I am having an X-ray taken of my head. That's all I can remember, nothing mystic, religious, white-light-y. I could just see myself from above, lying on a table, having a head X-ray.
I am about as injured as you can be, have broken virtually every bone except the two really vital ones, my skull and my spine. I have shattered both shoulders and the skin that remains on my body (a lot of it on my right side from the top of my head to my hip has been ground off by the tarmac I was dragged along) is full of grit and glass. I am kept "under" (i.e. unconcious) for about two weeks, initially being placed in a whole-body cast until the man that was to remain my consultant, Mr Kassab, came along and insisted it be removed because however my bones were set they would remain, and he was sure I would do better unplastered.
I come round and see my mother and father by my bed. My father's first words are "Dog's dead" and then I ask Mum if my face is alright. She looks at me and says "Yes". I know she's lying, and she knows I know that.
I can't move, can't feed myself, can't brush my own teeth, can't "toilet" myself, can only listen to the ward and the radio. There is a mad old woman in the next bed (it is the orthopaedic ward - all hip replacements) who calls me "next-door-neighbour" and won't stop talking to me, and the old lady opposite keeps on doing poos in bed and then wrapping them up in the top of her bedsheet. I am on morphine for the pain, which sends me stark raving mad too, so that all the nurses become Grace Kelly, and I know it is Grace Kelly who wants to kill me. They find a male nurse. I want my Mum, who occasionally asks if she may miss a visiting time (each afternoon and evening). I tell her she may not. Every visitor that comes to see me tells me I was lucky. Still no one brings me a mirror.
My daily torturer, the Australian physiotherapist, comes one day and says I'm going to walk. I say I can't. We walk, though I still have two arms that I cannot move in a complex double sling arrangement. That same night, when I'm sure the night nurse is away for a while, I get myself out of bed and head for where the bathrooms might be. I find them, push the door open with my hip, and walk into blackness. My eyes adjust, and I see a lightswitch. I can't turn it on. I think I'll use my nose, but my nose doesn't seem to be there. I use my chin. The light is blinding for a moment. I go to the mirror above the nearest basin.
This is the transformative moment. I look, and wish I had died in the accident.
Postscript:
I only missed the first term of my third year of university, although I still couldn't dress myself when I went back, or hold a book, now I come to think of it. Eighteen months after the accident I joined the Avon and Somerset Constabulary, having passed the fitness test.
Ta Da!
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