“What the fuck, Miles. Why? Why the fuck are you driving around in a cut and shut?”
“Because Reed, because for once I wanted something nice around me. For once, I wanted something that everybody else was jealous of. I didn’t want to be that poor kid whose mum got murdered by her drug dealer. I didn’t want to be Miles, you know, his dad’s the piss head that used to be in the SAS,” he grips the wheel tighter as he shouts. We’re travelling down country lanes and as I look down at the speedo, I can see that we’re hitting tops of one hundred and twenty, one thirty miles an hour. The blue flashing lights of the police car are still following in the distance behind us.
“Slow down Miles, slow the fuck down.”
“No, no Reed, I can’t. I can’t get caught. Don’t you see, if I get caught, I’ll get nicked. I’ll probably go to prison, and all those arseholes that talk about us, the people that look down their noses and think they’re better than us, that think we’re scum, like your girlfriend’s mum and dad, I’ll just be making them right. I’ll just be making things worse for you.”
Then everything seemed to happen in slow motion. A car came toward us, I think Miles tried to swerve and we ended up going down an embankment. That’s when the car split in two. The back end of the car rolled and pulled the front with it. A branch came through the window and I ducked down in my seat, Miles didn’t and snap, his neck was broken. We came to a stop with the car on its roof. I could still hear the sirens for a while, then people shouting. While I hung upside down, trapped by my seat belt, staring into the eyes of my dead brother, and all I could hear above everything else was the Chili Peppers sing about their lonely view.
Physically, I walked away unscathed. I had some bruising, some scratches and the nylon of the seat belt caused a friction burn across my neck and chest but other than that, I was fine.
The car was the result of two insurance write-offs being salvaged and welded together to make one car. Miles was well aware of what he was purchasing, but he didn’t care. He was driving around in a thirty thousand pound car that he’d paid five thousand for, and that’s all that had mattered to him. His safety, the safety of his passengers or anyone else on the road was inconsequential to him. He’d given Tyler’s wife Jenna, a lift in that car when she was pregnant with their little boy Ethan.
As well as the details about the car, the coroner’s report also concluded that he was three times over the legal blood alcohol limit and traces of cannabis and MDMA, otherwise known as ecstasy were found in his system. There was also a small amount of cocaine found in his pocket. It turned out, I didn’t know my brother at all.
And because I’d been in a bit of trouble with the police when I was fourteen and fifteen, I spent three months locked up on remand before the courts decided there was nothing they could charge me with. I had no idea the car was illegal and no idea that my brother was over the limit. Well, maybe with regard to the drink, but I had no idea he’d smoked weed and had popped a pill. I knew he was no angel, none of us were. We were of the generation, and from an area where doing a line of charlie and popping a few pills on a Saturday night, was as normal as going for a few beers and a curry. It’s just how it was. I smoked my first joint when I was about thirteen, which was old compared to a lot of the kids at my school. What we didn’t do though was get in a car and drive once we were stoned or high… ever. Apparently, my brother didn’t live by that rule and that, combined with the condition of the car we were in, cost him his life.
My heart is pounding hard as I relive all of those events. I never normally let any of those thoughts or memories come to the surface but sometimes, sometimes, I’m just too tired to keep them away and that’s exactly how I feel right now. Exhausted. I want to get back to England, spend time with my brothers, their wives and their kids. I want to walk my dogs, play golf and sometimes, spend whole days doing absolutely nothing.
I close my eyes and drift off to sleep.
I pull the pillow over my head to try and block out the screams. I can’t remember what it was I was actually dreaming, but the girl screaming in my dream was beginning to piss me off. There’s banging at my bedroom door and I assume I’ve been shouting in my sleep and Jet’s come to check if I’m okay. I’ve suffered from nightmares since the accident, I even walk as well as talk in my sleep.