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memory.

5
    Friday 22 January 2021
    Today is my daughter’s birthday, would have been my daughter’s birthday if I hadn’t run her over and killed her. That was in 1994, when she was fifteen months old. Helena and I were living then in an Edwardian semi-detached house in Lathbury Road, too large and too expensive for us, but Helena, as soon as she knew she was pregnant, had insisted on a house with a garden and a south-facing nursery. I can’t remember now the exact circumstances of the accident, whether I was supposed to be keeping an eye on Natalie or thought that she was with her mother. All that must have come out at the inquest; but the inquest, that official allocation of responsibility, has been erased from memory. I do remember that I was leaving the house to go into College and backing the car, which Helena had clumsily parked the previous day, so that I could more easily manoeuvre it through the narrow garden gate. There was no garage at Lathbury Road but we had standing for two cars in front of the house. I must have left the front door open and Natalie, who had walked since she was thirteen months, toddled out after me. That minor culpability must have been established at the inquest, too. But some things I do remember: the gentle bump under my rear left wheel like a ramp but softer, more yielding, more tender than any ramp. The immediate knowledge, certain, absolute, terrifying, of what it was. And the five seconds of total silence before the screaming began. I knew that it was Helena screaming and yet part of my mind couldn’t believe that what I was hearing was a human sound. And I remember the humiliation. I couldn’t move, couldn’t get out of the car, couldn’t even stretchout my hand to the door. And then George Hawkins, our neighbour, was banging on the glass and shouting, “Get out you bastard, get out!” And I can remember the irrelevance of my thought, seeing that gross, anger-distorted face pressing against the glass: He never liked me. And I can’t pretend that it didn’t happen. I can’t pretend it was someone else. I can’t pretend I wasn’t responsible.
    Horror and guilt subsumed grief. Perhaps if Helena had been able to say, “It’s worse for you, darling,” or “It’s as bad for you, darling,” we might have salvaged something from the wreckage of a marriage which from the start hadn’t been particularly seaworthy. But of course she couldn’t; that wasn’t what she believed. She thought that I cared less, and she was right. She thought that I cared less because I loved less, and she was right about that too. I was glad to be a father. When Helena told me she was pregnant I felt what I presume are the usual emotions of irrational pride, tenderness and amazement. I did feel affection for my child, although I would have felt more had she been prettier—she was a miniature caricature of Helena’s father—more affectionate, more responsive, less inclined to whine. I’m glad that no other eyes will read these words. She has been dead for almost twenty-seven years and I still think of her with complaint. But Helena was obsessed by her, totally enchanted, enslaved, and I know that what spoiled Natalie for me was jealousy. I would have got over it in time, or at least come to terms with it. But I wasn’t given time. I don’t think Helena ever believed that I’d run Natalie over on purpose, at least not when she was rational; even at her most bitter she managed to prevent herself from saying the unforgivable words, as a woman burdened with a sick and cantankerous husband, out of superstition or a remnant of kindness, will bite back the words, “I wish you were dead.” But, given the chance, she would rather have had Natalie alive than me. I’m not blaming her for that. It seemed perfectly reasonable at the time and it seems so now.
    I would lie distanced in the king-sized bed waiting for her to fall asleep, knowing that it might be hours before she did, worrying about next