Dad told me he didn’t think anyone would want to buy Nana’s house so close to Christmas, but he was wrong. People came first thing this morning, before I was even dressed, for a viewing, that’s what Roger calls it. Sometimes he knocks on the door, but sometimes he just lets himself in because he has his own key. He talks about Nana’s home as though he lives here, but he’s never lived here and he keeps getting it all wrong.

I didn’t mean to lose my temper. Dad had a job interview this afternoon, he’s decided to get a new one. Mum had popped to the corner shop to get a can of baked beans, so I was here on my own when Roger let himself in. I crept out of my room and could see the top of his shiny head through the banisters. He was talking very loudly, like an actor on stage in one of the plays Nana used to take me to see. Actors do that so that the people in the cheapest seats right at the back of the theatre can still hear. Roger was shouting at a fat couple even though they were standing right next to him. I wondered if they were hard of hearing like Grandad was. They waddled around the hall like ducks who’ve been fed too much stale bread and I didn’t like the look of them.

Roger was talking so loudly that I picked up the robin doorstop and quietly closed my bedroom door, but I could still hear them. I tried to read my book, but I couldn’t concentrate knowing they were poking around down there where they shouldn’t. They came up the stairs, which creaked even more than usual, and then spent ages looking at the bathroom. It’s not a particularly big bathroom, has all the normal things in it, so I’m not sure what took so long. It was like listening to burglars walking around our home, the only difference was that Mum and Dad had invited them in.

They went into what used to be Mum and Dad’s room. They were right on the other side of my bedroom wall and I listened as the fat man talked about our house being a ‘fixer-upper’, wondering what that meant. Only Mum sleeps in that room now and I hate her, but I still didn’t like the idea of them being in there and touching her things. The fat woman started to speak, she hadn’t said much before that and it was her, not Roger or the other man, that made me really angry.

The three things she said that made me lose my temper were:

1. ‘Nobody in their right mind would want to live here.’

2. ‘It needs knocking down really.’

3. ‘It’s such an ugly little house.’

I felt my breathing get faster and things inside my head got really loud, the way they do when I’m very upset. I couldn’t believe that anyone could be so rude and stupid. I didn’t know what I was going to do, I didn’t plan it, but I had to do something. I didn’t want the horrid fat couple to buy Nana’s house. I didn’t mean to do something bad, I think I just wanted them to get out.

It all happened very quickly. I heard them leave Mum’s room and walk along the landing, then Roger opened my bedroom door and I just screamed as loud as I could for a really long time. The fat woman looked terrified and Roger looked a bit scared too, the fat man was already bright red in the face from walking up the stairs and I thought he might have a heart attack.

‘Calm down, little girl,’ said Roger. That made me even more cross, I’m not a little girl. Then he said that they hadn’t meant to scare me, which was stupid. They hadn’t scared me, I’d scared them. I wanted them to leave then, so I said what Mum said to Taylor’s mum when she wanted her to get out. I shouted, ‘Get out of my house, you fucking bitch!’ really loudly over and over again. Even when they got to the bottom of the stairs, I stood on the landing still screaming at them. Then I threw the iron doorstop at Roger’s head but it missed, hit the wall instead and landed on the carpet. I was glad when they were gone. I was scared I had broken the robin, but it was exactly the same, not even a scratch, unlike the wall which had a beak-shaped dent. Funny how something so small can do so much damage and still look exactly the same.

When Mum came home with the baked beans I didn’t tell her what had happened. The phone rang and she answered it in the kitchen, so I couldn’t hear very much or tell who she was talking to. She called me downstairs a little bit later and said that Roger had called. She told me to sit down on the sofa and I thought I was in trouble. But then she sat down next to me and when I looked at her I saw that she was wearing her sad face, not her angry one. She told me that someone who came to look at the house first thing this morning had bought it and we’d have to move out very soon. I cried, I couldn’t help it, then she cried a bit too. She went to hug me, but I pushed her away and ran up to my room.

A little later she came upstairs. She knocked on my door, but I ignored her. I knew she wouldn’t come in without me saying it was OK, not after what happened last time. She stayed there for ages before eventually just whispering ‘Good night’ like a ghost and walking away. I replied too late, I don’t think she heard me, it was a rhyme she taught me herself:

Night-night.

Sleep tight.

Don’t let the bed bugs bite.

And if they do, squash them.

I rolled over and put my pillow over my head. I held my breath for as long as I could but eventually it pushed its way out of my mouth and I didn’t die.

Now

New Year’s Eve, 2016

‘How you doing?’

I open my eyes to see Jo sitting at the end of my hospital bed and I’m so happy to see her, even if she hasn’t come alone.

‘If you didn’t want to come back to work after Christmas, you could have just said so, you didn’t need to crash a car into a tree and put yourself in a coma you know.’ She smiles and holds my hand. She looks so young. I wish time had been as kind to me as it has been to her. I can see my room and it’s so much nicer than I imagined, so bright and colourful. The window is wide open, framing a clear blue sky as birds provide us with a little background music.

‘Do you remember what happened yet?’ she asks. I shake my head. ‘You do know it wasn’t Paul, don’t you? He’d never hurt you. Not like this.’ I nod because I know now that she’s right. The truth has got a little tangled and twisted while I’ve been lying here, but the strands are starting to unravel and straighten out.

‘It wasn’t an accident, was it?’ I ask. It feels strange to hear the sound of my own voice out loud again.

‘No.’

I nod again. The pieces of the puzzle are starting to show themselves, but still don’t fit together.

‘Why did you do it?’ asks Jo. She’s no longer talking about the crash.

It’s so good to see her, she’s the only one I can be completely honest with, no secrets, no lies. I try to sieve the truth from my memories.

‘You know why,’ I reply.

‘I don’t know why you resigned, you didn’t need to.’

‘I only took the job to get to Madeline, you know that.’

‘I also know having that job was good for you, something of your own.’

‘It was a shit job.’

‘Being a presenter on a top radio programme, listened to by millions, is not a shit job.’

‘No, but I wasn’t really the presenter, was I? We just made that up for fun,’ I say.

Jo frowns. ‘Did we?’

‘Yes. I was just Madeline’s PA.’

‘Were you?’

‘Yes, Jo, you know this.’