Chapter Twenty-Five #3
For a moment, I thought about doing it. I thought about shrugging off my darned cardigan and throwing it to my left; undoing the buttons on my homemade top and hurling it to my right; unzipping my patched skirt and tossing it high in the air.
Then I’d remove my Primark underwear and sling it at Samantha’s face.
Instead, I turned and began to walk back to the tents.
“You have to do the dare!” I felt a weight on my back as Samantha jumped on me and started pulling at my clothes. Next came Lauren. I gave her a good kick and she backed away, but before I knew it, Euan was above me, saying:
“Come on, Daisy, be a sport.”
In my peripheral vision, I could see everyone else standing, watching. Some covered their faces, but no one came to help.
I managed to punch Samantha hard. She swore and put her hand to her jaw, and I wriggled free. There was a moment when none of them had hold of me and it was enough. I stood and I ran.
“Go, Daisy!” I heard Katie shouting, and Samantha yelled at her to shut up.
I ran until it was too dark to run anymore and too dark for them to find me if they tried. They didn’t try. I sat down under a tree and there I stayed until first light.
As the sun rose, I examined the scrapes and scratches on my arm and the torn seam of my top.
Then I began to walk, but not back to the campsite, not straightaway.
I walked away from it, across fields not yet explored.
I would have to go back for the cars that were coming to take us home, but that wasn’t until midmorning.
At that moment, it was not long past dawn, and it was nearly midsummer.
As I walked, I crossed another field of mushrooms. I stopped and crouched down amongst them.
Then I picked and picked and picked, taking off my cardigan and carrying them in it.
There were no thoughts in my head; I just picked mushrooms. One, two, three, four, fifty, a hundred, more.
My cardigan was bulging with them by the time I stopped.
I don’t know how long it took me to get back to camp, but when I got there, most people were still in their tents; just a couple were up and they stared as I dropped the mushrooms by the stove. Then I marched to my tent, collected my washbag and fresh clothes, and headed for the shower block.
By the time I got back, the mushrooms were cooked, along with bacon and sausages, and the others were all stuffing their faces.
“There’s plenty left,” Samantha said when she saw me, as if nothing had happened. I ignored her and went into the tent.
Katie came in as I was putting Savlon on my cuts. “I’m sorry,” she said and I shrugged. I would forgive her, I knew, but not right there and then. “Come and have some breakfast,” she said.
“I’m not hungry.”
***
There was an accident on the M5 that day. It was closer to midafternoon than midmorning when our lifts arrived, but finally the cars drove in procession along the A370 toward the reopened M5 and back to Upper Iffley.
We were nearly home when the first car had to stop. Maisie was the quickest to jump out and run for the verge, followed by nearly everyone else. Soon their bodies littered the embankment and ambulances were called. The hospital subsequently declared a major incident.
Seven people died. Of those who survived, nine required kidney transplants, Samantha and Euan included. Interesting fact: Upper Iffley has the highest number of kidney recipients, per capita, in all of Europe, if not the world.
***
I thought the inquiries and inquisitions would never end; I thought they would take up the rest of my life. Twice I was arrested and questioned under caution.
I answered their questions about how well I knew my mushrooms and could I have made a mistake? Could I have done? I could recognize a field mushroom as easily as my own face, but I was very upset at the time of picking.
Eventually, the last question was asked, the coroner made his report, conclusions were drawn, and I was found guilty of nothing more than a tragic, but honest, error of judgment.
My mum’s friendship with Mrs. Billings became another casualty of the camp, and the rest of the village retreated with her.
Katie, a transplant recipient, didn’t speak to me again and after A-levels she went to university in London. She rarely returns.
***
Emma ended that part of her article with a final anonymous voice. “There’s always going to be some that remember it and think badly, but accidents happen and that Samantha Saunders is a nasty piece of work.”
“And on that, most of the village agrees” was the last comment in the article.
So, they didn’t all hate me for what happened, but I’d lived my life since then as a reaction to that misunderstanding. I’d rarely ventured into the village and when I did, I’d interpreted every interaction as hostile.