Danielle

Danielle

1 I have become what I am today at the age of 21, on an icy, bitter day in the winter of 2006. I remember the exact moment. Hearing the cries through the thin wall in the cold and echoed house. That precise moment changed my life forever. But that was a long time ago, time has passed and now I can begin to move on.

Nothing can prepare you for what happens in life. Nothing can help you feel better, or worse than holding on to that one small piece of hope.

Hope that one day you will wake up and nothing will have changed.

Everything is still the same. The same as every summer when Gran and Gransh would take us away to the caravan holidays in the South of France, or playing in her small but spacious garden, throwing snow at each other, whilst writing plays to perform in our best fancy dress costumes.

In the summer of 1999 we went on our last holiday together. The same place as always, to a French caravan park in the middle of no-where. But that didn’t matter because we would make fun out of anything. There were slides in the pool that were most likely at least twenty years old, but we still used them with our dinghy’s flying face first into the cold, dank water. She didn’t like to spend as much time in the water as I did, I was more the water baby out of the two. I loved to spend time making handstands and roly-polys in the deep end, but I would tend to make it out after thirty minutes or so, because It wasn’t as much fun being on my own.

I would try my hardest to get her to come back in, but she enjoyed bathing in the sun, much more than I did. What is the point in lying in the

sun if you’re already dry? This I could never understand, until I got older at least. There was a small play park in the complex that was covered in dark, gritty sand, which would stick between the crevices in our toes, and rub until they were red raw. But the bright and colourful climbing frames made up for it, and Gran would always have some wacky remedy for any injury we came across. We met other French children there, and tried our hardest to speak as much French as we could – even though we barely knew how to say ‘bonjour’ or ‘au reviour.’ We would laugh about the different languages that we had learnt in school, pronouncing gracias as ‘grassy-arse,’ as you do. We for some reason got into a small fight with a couple of the French children there and I ended up punching one of them in the stomach. We both ran away frantically but giggling – because anything is funny when you’re that young. I cannot even remember why we ended up getting into a fight. I try to hold on to these memories, the ‘good old days.’

Every morning on holiday we would be woken up by loud, thundery showers, and we would look through the cabin holes in our room trying to spot the sun, in the hope that we would be able to get our costumes on and run down to the pool. Before we were allowed out, Gran would end up filling the caravan with the rich smell of bacon, sausage and egg by the time it was 9am, so we ended up making a sign, which said ‘Gran’s Café,’ mainly because the stench of grease and smoke that filled the complex for at least a hundred yards. It was good fun though, we would laugh and play games such as ‘snakes and ladders’ and cheat until our noses were as long as Pinocchio’s. The rain would eventually clear and the sun would come out by 10am without a doubt. We would grab our towels and run outside as quickly as possible. That smell of the rain absorbing into the coarse and dry ground filled our nostrils and we would know then that the day was ready to start.

I still find it hard to recall the memories I have from when I was child, because so much has changed. In fact, nothing is the same. There are no more family summer holidays together, there are no board games to play, and suitcases have been eroded in the attic by moths and dust.

These days, the rain just doesn’t seem to stop. I gave up waiting for the

sun to come out a long time ago, and the windows in my room at home are much bigger, and I am much bigger, so I don’t need to peep out of them anymore, I can just sit and look from a distance.

2 We had matching bracelets, mood rings and hair ties – which were the craze them days. We would always buy the same souvenirs to take back home with us, because once we were back home, there was too great a distance for us to see each other. We would then wait until our next summer holiday, or New Year when the whole family would come together to celebrate the past twelve months and look forward into the New Year. As we got older gran would let us have a snowball from her drinks cabinet, which was filled with nearly every alcoholic beverage you could imagine.

Mainly because she would buy it abroad and make us stuff them into our suitcases for the journey back to England. We loved snowballs – that mix of lemonade and advocaat, yellow in colour and creamy to taste. We felt so grown up, even though they probably had the tiniest drop of alcohol in, and were most likely drowned in fizzy lemonade. We would then sit down at grans solid wood, round table as if we were ladies, sipping on our drinks quietly, and preparing our takeover of the living room to perform our written plays.

I remember the Millennium New Year so clearly. We travelled up to Wales to see the family as usual and walked down from gran’s house to the bottom of the mountain where Danielle lived with my auntie and uncle. We had hundreds of fireworks, or at least it felt like that at the time. Danielle and I had spent all morning and afternoon, once again, preparing a new play to perform to the family in the evening, which we had written in one of the school books you used to get given with the big lines at the bottom, and the empty space at the top to draw pictures in.

We would draw our costumes and our actions for each scene and then spend the rest of the time getting dressed up as fairies and princesses. We once dressed up Grans cat, Sandy, in scarves and those clip on earrings

– I don’t think she liked us that much after that, but she was getting old and was too focused on trying to get some sleep rather than running away from us. I stayed at my auntie’s house that night, I remember getting up really early in the morning and not being able to sleep again, so I would try my hardest to wake Danielle up so we could go and play more games – but she wasn’t having any of it. I remember so vividly staring at her alarm clock in the corner of her bedroom and wishing that time would move faster. But now, if I had a chance, I would wish that time had stopped, at that very moment, forever.

3 From memory, I think that that was the last New Year we ever got to spend together. I saw her again a year or so after for our Great Gran’s funeral. I remember the travel up to Wales, not knowing what to expect. I had never been to a funeral before, and I was upset. But as bad as it seems, I was also excited, because I knew that I would be able to see Danielle again. It was a sad day, but the whole family came together to say goodbye, and enjoyed some soup and wine at Gran’s house after. In the afternoon Danielle and I met up with a couple of her friends, Katie and Louise. We went for a walk around the small town and waited at a bus stop for a call from Danielle’s boyfriend. She was only fifteen, but I was younger than her so I didn’t really have any experience of boyfriend’s or even meeting up with boys outside of school. But she really liked him, and so I waited with her, eagerly, to meet this boy that she had talked of so much of. Whilst we were waiting, we went to the local fish and chip shop and she bought me a potato fritter for 10p. I had never tried one of those before but they were delicious. They are like a thick slice of soft potato smothered in golden batter, which melts in your mouth. We went back and got a few more but they begin to taste a bit greasy after a few.

As it got later into the evening, the sun began to sink into the mountains of the valleys and it grew darker, colder and wetter. The rain was hurtling down onto the pavements and splashing at our feet as we waited in

the shelter at the bus stop. Eventually, it got too late and the rain hadn’t stopped, so Dad picked me up and took me back to grans. It had been the first time in a while that we had been able to spend time together like this, and it was great. I felt like I was included in her group of friends, and I could see us spending more time like this together in the future.

I suppose I looked up to her as a role model. As soon as I would get back home to England, I would be looking for clothes and jewellery that she had worn, and would plead with my mum to buy it for me.

Looking back on it now, there are so many great memories that we had together, and I doubt I will get to do anything like this with her again in the near future.

4 In October of 2002, dad was offered a job in Australia.

I can see now why he took the opportunity, to have a better life as a family. To earn more money so that we could have a nicer home, a better car and more family days out together. If I am honest with myself, we have had more opportunities over here than we would ever have been given back home. But if it wasn’t for that phone call, I might have been happy here.

At the time, all I wanted to do was run away and hide from it all. I had thought about taking my money jar from the top shelf in my bedroom, smashing It on the cold hard floor in the kitchen, and running onto a train that would take me to the rest of my family, in Wales. I would grab my favourite toys: Doggy and Mousy, my pink and red backpack, and a photo of my Mum and Dad. It was a great plan, but deep down, I knew I wouldn’t have been able to stay in England without my parents and my younger siblings. I knew that I would never have even made it out of the front door, let alone to the train station. I had no choice; I had to leave

my family and friends, my best friend – Danielle.

Everything moved so fast, it turned out that my parents had been planning the migration for a long time, and everything was ready to go.

I had wondered why there had been so many car boot sales and trips to the local tip in the past year, but when you are young its hard to put two and two together.

November 2nd 2006, we were packed and ready to go. I could hear mum through the wall in her bedroom, sobbing on the telephone to family and friends. I hid; I didn’t want to speak to them because I didn’t want to believe this was happening. I wanted to close my eyes and wake up. To wake up and find that it was all a dream. Unfortunately, my story is not a fairytale, and no matter how hard I tried, it was still reality, and there was no escaping from this nightmare.

I had tied myself to my bedroom door with a piece of rope that I had scavenged from the tree house in the garden, and refused to leave.

There was no point, I was going whether I liked it or not. My younger brother and sister were too young to understand what was happening.

They didn’t understand that we would never see the house again, or spend time with our family, or friends. Not to mention the big, hairy spiders that I had heard about in class at school. We were going to be alone, in this big, hot country on the other side of the world. They were completely and utterly, oblivious.

From leaving the house to getting to the airport I wouldn’t speak

to anyone. I vowed to myself that I wouldn’t say a word in the hope that we could turn back. The airport was filled with fast moving suitcases and happy faces. There were people everywhere; queuing, coughing, laughing, joking and talking so loudly. Why did everyone have to be so happy?

Why couldn’t I feel happy? Why? Because I knew that we had a one-way ticket. I stayed quiet the whole twenty-something hour journey and only spoke when I realized that there was no going back.

What hurt me the most was that I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye to Danielle.

Everything was so alien to me. It was like the world was spinning around me at a pace that my body couldn’t bare. I didn’t know where to turn. There wasn’t anywhere to turn, other than forward. My body felt like a magnet to the plane. I didn’t want to get off. I couldn’t bare the thought of being alone. Being outside of my little bubble that I had grown so fond of. There were trees, and grass, and buildings, just like in England – But strangely nothing was the same. It was all so different. I would look left, and then right, and then back, and still nothing changed.

Colours were spinning in my mind uncontrollably, and all I wanted to do was scream. Scream until I had no energy left in my body to care. I had been brought to a place that I couldn’t control, I couldn’t understand.

5 Every night I go to sleep and hope that when I wake up, nothing has changed. Like I am still on holiday with gran and Danielle in a gritty caravan in France, and waking to the smell of greasy bacon. But it never happens. Only when I sleep do I feel like I am at home. I can trick my mind into forgetting the past ten years, and believe still to this day that I am back there.

It was only a year ago that I heard my parents crying in their room on the phone at the early hours of morning. I dreaded that something had happened. That maybe my Gran or Gransh had passed away, and that hope of seeing them again was over. When it was time to wake up my dad had gone to work and mum sat quietly in the kitchen. I was too scared to ask what had happened and so I ate my cereal in my room whilst I got dressed for college. On the way, mum was teary and quiet, and it wasn’t until I got out of the car that she grabbed my hand and said, “Emma, there is something we need to talk to you about when you get home, but we need to wait for your father to get home from work.”

Those words have still not left my mind. Even now, when I am travelling back to the UK, aged 21

6 That phone call a year ago was from my grandparents in Wales. I felt sick. I knew there was something wrong. I kept pacing the house waiting for dad to come home. That feeling of knowing that you’re about to given bad news tears up your mind; your body feels weak, and tense. It pulled back all of my emotions from 2006, not having any control over what is about to happen. I couldn’t control my breathing and the feeling of being in this place made me feel even more trapped.

There was a moment, that precise moment when everything appeared slow motion. The click of the key in the lock, the ticking noise as the key turned in the door, and the metal on metal squeaking as it turned full circle.

Dad appeared through the front door, placed his satchel on the floor and walked slowly into the living room.

Nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to find out.

I couldn’t control my body. I couldn’t feel anything but pain in my heart and my eyes wouldn’t stop pouring. I didn’t know where to turn.

Danielle had been in a car accident and was critically ill. We didn’t know if she would live or die. She had lost all memory.

The pain lasted for weeks as I waited for updates on how she was. She got worse, she had been put into a coma and there was no knowing of when or if she would come back.

7

Whilst on holiday in the summer of 99’, I remember clearly one of the days that we decided to go on a day out, for a ride on some pedalo’s.

It was a beautiful day and the sun was the hottest it had been all week.

There was a small town nearby with a river running through it. At the top of the town was a damn, with a road running alongside it leading to a small beach with golden sands, and a restaurant surrounded by luscious green trees. There was a large lake that led onto the river, which was held in by the damn below. The water was so fresh, that you could see your feet at the bottom of the sand, and when the sun shone down on the still, crisp layer of water, it would sparkle – like magic.

We found our pedalo; it was a sunshine-yellow colour that stood out from the local surroundings. Danielle and I sat in the front, manning the boat whilst Gran and Gransh relaxed in the back. We soared through the river as fast as our little legs would let us. People on the river would look at us a wave as we went past. We had one of those disposable cameras on the boat with us so we pulled into the side of the river to take a few photos of us on the pedalo.

Once we got off the pedalo we walked up the road alongside the damn and bought a lilo from the restaurant to use in the lake. We spent most of the day on them playing around and splashing the people around us – by accident.

When the day came to a close we went into the restaurant for a bite to eat. Danielle and I popped to the toilets to get changed and dry so we could sit down for dinner. As we were getting changed we were laughing and joking in the toilets. Danielle had her purse in her mouth and was trying to get her jeans on at the same time. I made a joke about gran wanting to put yoghurt on us later as an after sun remedy, and she laughed so much that the purse fell out of her mouth, and went straight

down the toilet. It was probably one of the funniest memories I have with her. We fished it out of the toilet and gave it to gran to clean, as we didn’t want to go anywhere near it after it had been sloshed into a public toilet.

About a month after the accident, Danielle came out of the coma, and was watched intensely by a team of doctors and nurses. I have never felt so relieved about anything in my life before. I had made a promise to myself that if she began to get better I would travel back to the UK to see her. I got a job working in a local bar serving pints to the customers for six months whilst studying to get enough money together to pay for my flights. It was a tough and intense time, waiting to hear from my family for updates, and working late nights to save as much money as I could.

I spent a lot of time writing about our memories together, and sending her letters in the hope that it would bring back some more of her memory. She couldn’t write back. I hoped that one day she would be able to remember all the holidays we spent together and to enjoy life as she

Distance and time was the hardest part for me. But I got through it, and so did she.

8

2013

I can honestly say that in the 21 years that I have been here, I haven’t been dealt the easiest road to take. But, I wouldn’t be the person I am today without the memories and experiences that I have foretold.

On November 2nd 2006, I didn’t migrate to Australia; neither did my family. My parents divorced a few years after the Millennium, and I didn’t have to work for six months to save money for flights. I stayed in England and moved into a house with my mum and my siblings.

It was on November 2nd 2006, that I heard my mum crying through the wall in the next room. It was on this day, that on my way to school, mum said to me, “Emma, there is something I need to talk to you about when you get home, but we need to wait for your father to get home from work.” I spent all day at school panicking and worrying about my grandparents, thinking that something had happened to them.

When I got home from school my dad had finished work early and was waiting in the living room to talk to us. On this day, Danielle and three of her friends; Katie, Kayleigh and Louise, were in the back of a car of a boy they knew, who had just passed his driving test. The car slid on an ‘icy’ road at the top of the mountain. Danielle, and her three friends, all died. Instantly.

I never did get to see her again. I wanted to give her a chance to live, an opportunity to live her life, like I have mine. For my family, I wanted them to have another chance at feeling normal – not empty. No one can ever be prepared for the loss of someone so special, and so young.

The pain does get easier with time, but it will never heal the whole in my heart where she is meant to be.

For Danielle, 22/03/1990 – 02/11/2006