A Million Tiny Diamonds

There are always moments that define you as a person. We have been conditioned to never admit to weakness because, in the shame of bad judgement, the metaphorical fingernails of others can get a hold on you from the chink you've exposed by sharing your confession. You can then be prised open, your vulnerability there for all to see, to be poked and prodded mercilessly by a metaphorical stick held and being controlled by the will of another. And what would be the result of that poking? It would let the shame out, the dampener and the twister of all emotions which transforms people into ogres, which we try and subdue, putting it into the darkest corners of ourselves.

We're always protecting our soft underbellies. The best way that we've been taught to do that is to blame someone else or to claim ignorance. These seem to have become the watchwords of self preservation - but are they?

Adopting these tactics can hide the truth from others but can they ever really hide it from yourself?

I've come to a dilemma, to decide whether to give a voice to a shameful episode from my past.

Do I want to share?

I find my pivotal moments are key to who I am. Everything that I've experienced has shaped me and I will admit to being quite precious over how I view these...what shall we call them? Episodes in "The Life of Rachel Deeming".

I'm quite partial to my unmarked underbelly. Do I have the courage to expose it to scrutiny? Can I honestly explore internally as this challenge suggests?

It was a long time ago. I am different now. But still...

*

Teenagers make bad judgements. It is a necessary evil in order to disabuse them of their invincibility. For example, it's probably best not to climb flagpoles when pissed. Likelihood is you'll fall. I've seen a teenager attempt this anyway with the likely predicted result.

As a teenager, I made a lot of bad judgements. I don't dwell on them much; they make me squirm. My mind flits towards them and I make it veer away, repelled by the embarrassment emanating from them. They're like the Sirens of my mind.

I don't believe in wallowing; I can extricate myself from past misdemeanours, knowing that they were of that time and I can do nothing to change them - but they've left their swamp-like presence on my psyche regardless.

*

When I was 16, I went out a lot. Dancing, sometimes drinking, frequenting a lot of pubs. I was underage but I looked older. It was a thing: all of us did it. I wanted to do it at 13 but my mum resisted my pleas, thank goodness. 13? Fear of missing out was rife - if there were others doing it, I wanted to be involved but my mum held out until, at 16, I was allowed out.

I know. Underage drinking. Bad. But it was a small town and pubs were about the only thing there was to do leisure-wise; that and beach parties as I lived near the coast. There weren't always a lot of those though. We'd have been drinking on the sand too. Pubs it was.

I'm Welsh so there was also a lot of rugby. Rugby boys had a certain allure: they were fit, laddish, difficult to snare. All of the attractions that should probably make a girl go the other way but don't.

It was inevitable that I would be drawn to one such character. I was so unsure of who I was. I didn't know what sort of girl I wanted to be. I liked to read but I liked to party. I wanted to be popular but I didn't like to be bad. I wanted to be with people but I liked my own company. I was a typical mixed-up teenager. I was scared of danger but I wanted a taste of it too.

Just a lick.

I'd made a connection with one of these rugby lads. I hesitate to call him my boyfriend because I'm not really sure that he was. I remember some fumblings, the first sparks of knowing what it was like to have someone else's hands on you. I remember the taste of mint mixed with beer. I remember cologne, probably something by Calvin Klein. I remember liking the attention but feeling uncertain with it, the motive behind it: was it for me or what was expected of me?

I couldn't tell you one thing that we talked about but I could tell you every detail of what happened between two static caravans outside a nightclub.

And I can tell you everything about that night.

*

It was a Saturday. A rugby day. We'd arranged to meet in town at a certain time. I wanted to think that he wanted to see me but I knew that rugby came first. He lived in the town along so it was an effort to come to the pub where I'd be. I didn't want to go to the rugby club. Too male. Too much drinking.

I can remember seeing him with his friends outside the Castle. He was wearing a white shirt and jeans. I was relieved to see him more than pleased. He hadn't let me down - he was late but he turned up. I was grateful for that.

I asked him if they'd won and he'd said "Yes". His friends were singing and drinking and laughing. He was drinking orange juice.

"I'm driving," he said. "I wasn't going to pay to get a taxi up here and back and you wanted to see me, so..."

He had a white car, a Cavalier. He was restless all night. He wanted to be with his mates, I can see that now. He was chatty, verbose. The pub was busy and we were being jostled. He suggested that we go for a drive. His orange juice was half drunk. I'd had vodka in mine.

Just a lick.

And so we went for a drive, out of the town into the country. It was nice to be just us. He showed off a bit, driving fast. My heart beat fast with fear and excitement. I had no idea what I was doing and no idea how the night would end. I wanted to be a woman, to enter that world of sexual experience that others in my school were already whispering about. I wanted to feel...

New Order played on his music system. He pointed it out to me, proud of the system he had put in, the power that it pumped out of the speakers, "Bizarre Love Triangle" ricocheting around my drunken ears. I had an appreciation for this, a music lover myself. It was the closest I had ever felt to him. A connection had been made.

We were going fast. He stopped to rev the engine, like we were at the start of a drag race. I was both embarrassed for him and thrilled. The showing off made me cringe uncomfortably but I relished the attempt he was making to excite me, to scare me, to show me what he thought was power. It was a heady mix.

I remember pulling off at speed and feeling the rush of night air with the window open. I wasn't tense; my feelings were dampened by the alcohol. It was me, living dangerously. A virgin, I was nervous but drink had coaxed my powers of analysis into a VIP room and was courting them with sweet talk, chocolate and cushions.

I wondered what would happen when we stopped again. It wasn't long before I found out.

A corner taken at speed and a bank. Being jolted roughly. The car careering over rough ground and my body shaking. It's not on tarmac anymore. I'm not thrown but I'm rocking, like I'm in a tractor.

But I'm in a white Cavalier.

He's swearing and then I look down and I'm covered in a million tiny diamonds. The car has crunched into something and it's fallen onto the sun roof and the night is shattered. I don't scream. We keep moving and the car rocks but more slowly now, although still fast. It's like we're in a riot and hostile people are rocking us either side to tip us over. Then whatever caused the sunroof to cascade into shards onto me is gone and there is another crunch and then we're stopped.

We're both wearing a seatbelt. Small mercy.

I look down at myself and see tiny glittering pieces, twinkling. I look up and I see night but the stars are still there. I realise it is glass and attempt to brush myself down. I don't think about how I might get hurt. I'm not panicked. It is the story of the night.

This is where it becomes vague. The pieces of what happened have dispersed and I can't recover them, just snatches of an atmosphere. I remember police. I remember standing. I remember being cold. I don't know where he was. I remember "Shit! Shit! Shit!"

I don't remember getting out of the car but I must have. I don't remember what the car looked like but I must have looked at the car, caved in at the front after it hit a telegraph pole which fell onto us. I don't remember where the telegraph pole was but knew that it was propelled by momentum off ours because it wasn't on top of our car anymore.

I remember Duran Duran "Save a Prayer" playing in the background.

I remember being disoriented and saying "I just want to go home." I remember being asked whether he'd been drinking and telling the police that he had orange juice with me all night. I remember thinking that I thought he'd been drinking at the rugby club but had taken his assurances that he wasn't actually drunk on trust. I didn't tell the police this. I didn't need to.

He was three times over the limit.

I remember being taken home by the police and going to bed, exhausted.

I remember him phoning the next day after it happened and my mum being so nice to him, I'm not sure why: maybe because I wasn't dead and he was going to be punished and he'd pay for his stupidity and being horrible to him wouldn't change that?

"Everyone's alright, love. That's all that matters."

I remember being astounded and grateful for my mum's magnanimity and her calm and her not asking me any questions about why I'd been in a car with him on my own out in the countryside. She could have grilled me, as could my dad, but instead, they left the story alone. I think they knew: they didn't need it spelt out.

I'd been punished enough already.

Later, they told me that the police advised that I was lucky. The telegraph pole had fallen right in the middle of us when it fell on the top of the car.

Two inches to the left and I'd have been dead. Head smashed in.

It was a shameful incident but you could argue I had no reason to feel any. But I did. Not then, but later.

When I was back in school, my friend, Debbie told me that someone else had been involved, had been hurt. I didn't know. An old lady returning after a night out, her next door neighbour, Eunice. She'd been hit by the same telegraph pole that hit our car, which had further careered onto her car. She'd been taken to hospital that night, was shaken up by what had happened. Debbie told me Eunice was scared to go out now.

This is where the shame lay because I felt responsible. Like my desire and wants had propelled that pole into her car, that it had hurt her at my instigation; my lust had been a force. Not true, of course, but to this day, I feel the stigma of being part of something so irresponsible and how I perhaps could have prevented it.

Our relationship never progressed any further. We drifted after the accident although we were closer for a time, brought together by a shared experience, a close brush with death. But ultimately, that night shattered more than just a sunroof.

He's dead now. Died of cancer. Lived somewhere else, southern England, I think. I felt sad when I found out, like a piece of me had evaporated. Strange as I don't think I ever saw him again other than a Facebook profile picture.

I think Eunice is probably dead now. I'd like to apologise to her from my sixteen year old self. It wouldn't be an awkward stuttering. My experience would speak and offer a sincere, contrite confession. I'd hope she would forgive me.

And I'd add too, if I had the chance, that I never, NEVER, drink and drive. I took a lick of that particular danger and didn't like the taste.