Prologue
I am disconnected. Detached from time, from my sense of fear; from any sense of anything. I hardly even feel cold in the rushing breeze that lifts the hem of my thin dust jacket as I walk along the bridge.
Black water churns below me. I can hear it gurgling and chattering, calling me closer with icy lips.
The faintest trace of apprehension scratches at my insides as I reach the place, but I remind myself of why I am doing this. Even if I blocked the messages, even if my tormentor was to disappear all of a sudden, I know there is no getting away from it.
Not really.
I'm sick of the nightmares. I'm tired of never being able to sleep easily at night. I want the voices to go away.
I was once blessed with an opportunity to bring joy and life into my world, but I let it go. How different would things have been if I'd had a little light to revolve my life around? I've never regretted the loss of anything more; the memory haunts me increasingly with each passing day.
Now I just want some peace.
I clamber up over the railings that are designed to keep people in; keep them safe.
A chatter of voices echoes upon the cold steel all around me and I look up. A young couple in their late teens walks, arm-in-arm. The boy says something and they both giggle, sharing a knowing, secret smile. I wonder what other secrets they share as they walk away beyond the dim glow of the street light and disappear into the darkness.
I am all alone now.
I turn back to the bridge railings and I peer down into the black water. The wind lifts my hair. I have no idea how long I stare into the black nothingness.
But I know that I want it.
I climb up higher until there is no amount of hard steel to hold me in. Nothing to keep me safe. There is no going back.
One slip and I am gone forever.
I teeter on the edge and wait for my moment.
1
I know I can't cry. If I break down now I won't be able to make it through the service. And even though I am the sister of the deceased and not a parent, I feel like I'm in charge. After all, I knew April better than our mum and dad ever did, no matter how far apart we drifted as adults.
We were well taken care of during our childhood, yet at the same time, left to our own devices a lot. Perhaps because our parents thought we had each other, that we would be safe.
I would like to think I would never be so naive with my own daughter, Eva.
The disbelief that settled in my chest as soon as the news of April's death washed over me still hasn't abated.
Will read aloud the stages of grief again on the drive over here last night. He scrolled down the webpage on his phone from the passenger seat as I stared at the road ahead, barely hearing him. I love my husband, but sometimes I just wish we could have an interaction where his phone isn't involved.
Eva was in the back of the car, absorbed in something on her own phone. By the colourful glow that lit up her delicate features, I guessed she was playing some new game or other. I can't keep up with what she is into from one week to the next. I wish she wouldn't waste so much of her time on a screen.
'It doesn't say how long each stage takes though ...' Will said, staring at his phone with his smooth, still-boyish, yet bearded face illuminated too as we wound around wide country lanes and dark hedgerows. 'I think you've been in denial for too long. Wait, what am I doing? This isn't even the official NHS website. Hang on a sec ...'
I was only able to see a short stretch of road in front of me; our headlights illuminated the grey country roads flanked on each side by tall hedges
Every now and then a small bird would zoom from one side to the other, or a rabbit would dart wildly into the shrubbery as we flew past on the way to our home village. My fingers dug into the rough leather of the steering wheel at the thought of hitting one of the small creatures. Their soft bodies would have made a thud against the swift metal of our Qashqai and that would be the end.
A pointless waste of life. Just like April.
I let Will read quotes from the website to me for most of the journey, only half hearing him, the core of my mind elsewhere.
At the moment, I find I am flitting between total denial and something far worse; the thought that I should have done something more for my sister while she was still alive. How could I have guessed that she was suicidal? I still can't believe she was the type.
I should have been there to help her.
I take a deep breath and swallow hard.
A voice murmurs towards me through the small church. 'How're you feeling, Hannah?'
I turn to see the Little Bishopsford's vicar approaching where I stand near the front of the church hall.
Reverend Walker has been in charge of this church as far back as I remember, tending dutifully to his congregation over the years. It occurs to me as he reaches the altar how little he has aged. Despite his white hair and a light crinkling of his face and hands, the Reverend looks almost exactly how I remember him.
'I'm fine,' I say, thinking my voice sounds too high-pitched. My vocal cords must be pulled more taut than usual, working around the lump in my throat.
He peels back the foil on a fresh pack of Polo mints and proffers it forward to let me take one.
'Thank you.'
'I know nothing I say can help to ease the pain you are feeling at the moment, Hannah. You know, it is times like this that we struggle to understand the way the world works and why things happen the way they do. To lose a family member so unexpectedly must at the moment seem like an unimaginably senseless thing to endure. You probably know what I'm going to say though, don't you?'
I move the mint aside with my tongue. 'That God has a plan?'
He nods his head and smiles and I find myself returning a weak imitation of the gesture. Nevertheless, I feel slightly better.
He picks up a stack of white order of service booklets for the ceremony and moves away to start distributing them to the empty seats.
'Here, let me,' I say, taking them from him.
'Ah, Hannah you shouldn't really. It keeps me fit walking up and down these aisles, you know. The day I won't be able to any more will be a very sad one for me.'
I move along the identical rows of wooden seats, neatly placing a folded paper leaflet on each one so that April's serene smile faces me from many directions.
When it actually came down to it, neither myself nor my parents owned a recent photograph of April. I shamefully hadn't seen much of her in the last ten years or so, let alone taken photos. Only in recent weeks have I found out that she had kept my parents at a similar distance.
The only pictures we had are the ones I had taken at a family barbecue over a decade ago. I dug out my old laptop and clicked through them, eyes welling with tears so that I could hardly see the screen. In each image, a digital representation of April was displayed in a black strappy top and clinging jeans and I couldn't find a shot where she wasn't standing too close to anyone to get a good clean crop. Besides, none of them had seemed appropriate somehow.
In the end, we decided the profile picture from April's Facebook account would be the most fitting. We couldn't access the original. Nobody could find her phone anywhere in her apartment and her laptop was password protected. Will works in computer repair, but even he couldn't get around it. We eventually ended up downloading it from her public profile.