My sister came back (Part Three)

Part Two here

I frantically kicked off my shoes and pulled my hoodie over my head, handing it to Kerry. “Stay here OK? Just wait for me,” I ordered. She nodded and clutched the hoodie to her chest. I stepped into the freezing, fast water of the river and it covered my ankles immediately, sending cold chills up my legs. I was still focussed intently on the figure on the other bank. It was Claire, I was sure of that. Smiling, waving, her brown hair blowing across her face slightly. “Claire!” I shouted over the sound of rushing water and waved frantically. I stepped forward again, this time with a slight stumble as the rocks underneath my feet moved. This time my knees became submerged and I felt the strong current pulling at me. I pushed forward, keeping my eyes on Claire, until my waist was under. I glanced behind me to see Kerry. She was standing back from the bank, clutching my hoodie tightly as if it gave her comfort. The river suddenly became much deeper. I raised my arms up as it lapped at my chest. I had to lean against the current just to stay upright as it pulled me downstream.

My memories are fuzzy about what happened next. I remember stepping forward and expecting to find hard rock beneath my feet. I remember my face hitting the cold water and my chest contracting with the cold. I remember a sensation of falling and being dragged. The water covering my head and then swallowing water and desperately gasping for air. I felt like I was in a washing machine as the current dragged me under and downstream. And the rocks. I remember my arms and legs striking rocks as I flailed around. And then nothing.

My next memory is strong male arms pulling me up. And concerned voices. And being carried in someone’s arms, like you’d carry a baby. I remember Pete’s voice. And my mum’s. Pete was reassuring her but I couldn’t understand what he was saying. I remember opening my eyes and seeing my mum’s face hovering over mine, full of tears and worry. I remember trying to tell her I’d seen Claire and her shushing me and stroking my face with her warm hands. And then I remember being in bed.

It felt like it had been a dream at first. Until I put my hands to my head and found it had been bandaged. I didn’t remember being treated by a doctor or being taken to hospital. I kept my eyes closed as I lay there under my familiar bed sheets, trying to make sense of what had happened. Eventually a noise outside caught my attention. A car slowing down and then the crunch of pebbles as it pulled onto our drive. I opened my eyes and pulled my body upright to look out of the bedroom window. It was a police car. It’s strange how these things stay with you, but I remember thinking I was in trouble. The police had come round to talk to mum because I’d gone out to the river. I’d get a lecture about how dangerous it was and how I was lucky to be alive.

A uniformed policeman stepped out and put on his bobby’s helmet - the kind you barely see anymore - and then another man got out the passenger’s side. This man was dressed in a long trench coat and was wearing shirt and tie. They both walked up to our front door. I stared down at them from my vantage point upstairs. I saw the man in the suit say something to the police officer and the police officer took his helmet off and held it in front of him with both hands. I remember noticing the balding head of the officer as he took the helmet off. How his comb-over looked ridiculous from above. The door must have opened because I saw the man in the suit say something and then look down at his feet. And then I heard it. A heart-wrenching scream from downstairs. I sat bolt upright in bed, instantly terrified. I jumped out of bed and grabbed my dressing gown from the back of the door. I bounded down the stairs and through the hall towards the front door. My mum was curled up on the floor. Her arms wrapped around her knees, sobbing loudly, her face pressed against the carpet.

They’d found Kerry a quarter of a mile downstream. Caught up in some branches that hung low over the river. Her body, battered by the rocks, was still clutching my hoodie when they pulled her out.

I fell on top of mum, hugging her and crying with her as the police officer and the detective stood silently, staring at their feet at the front door. I don’t know how long we were there for, but I remember looking up to see Pete pushing past the police officers as he rushed into the house.

It still brings me to tears whenever I talk about this. It took mum a long time to get better after that. I blamed myself, of course. Why had Kerry followed me into the river? Was she trying to save me? The water would have been over her head at just a couple of metres in. I tortured myself daily for the next few months, playing it over and over again in my head. I even beat myself up for believing I’d seen Claire. It was just a trick of the light, the moon bouncing off the branches in the wind, I told myself again and again. And I even believed it for a time. But that fantasy was brought to an abrupt end by what happened a few months later.