When it came to a stop, Sergio held her hand as she stepped up into it, and she slumped into a seat at the front ignoring the lecherous grin of the driver.
The twenty-minute drive back to Marviña passed in a blur, a confusion of thoughts and emotions. She tried not to think about her parents, but focus instead on the time she had spent with Sergio. But as her bus turned up the hill from the roundabout at Santa Ana de las Vides, she couldn’t prevent fears of what awaited her from creeping into her conscious thoughts.
It seemed profoundly dark as she stepped off the bus into the Plaza del Vino. The square, she knew, was ringed with street lights, and she wondered for a moment if there had been a power cut. She heard rather than saw the bus pull away and the hand of fear closed around her heart and filled her with dread. Why couldn’t she see anything? It was as if the whole town was smothered in black dust. She was gripped almost immediately by a complete sense of disorientation. It was only a five-minute walk to the apartment, but she had no idea which way to go. She turned left, then right, stumbling over a kerbstone and nearly falling. She put her hands out ahead of her to avoiding walking into a wall or a building or a lamp post and wanted to call out for someone to help her. But at this hour the town was deserted. Shutters closed, bars emptied, lights out.
Her fear was so great now it took almost physical form, rising up from her chest and into her throat, very nearly choking her. She staggered forwards, hearing the approaching vehicle before becoming aware, even more distantly, of its headlights turning towards her. She spun around in a panic, heard the screech of tyres, and the impact of the car as it sent her careening sideways. The world tilted, the falling sensation ending abruptly as her head hit the tarmac and true darkness enveloped her.
*
When light finally penetrated the black, she became aware of a softness enfolding her, almost as if she were suspended in it. But with the light came pain, a searing pain that spiked through her skull and violated her consciousness. She opened her eyes, startled, only to be blinded by the light in her bedroom.
Beyond initial confusion, shapes took form around her. Silhouettes against the light. Faces crystallized into familiarity. Her mother, her father. Isabella. A man who it took her some moments to realize was their family physician, Doctor Celestino. A small and balding man with large, horn-rimmed glasses. They leaned into her field of vision and she could see concern on all their faces.
The doctor’s voice came to her faintly. Her hands shot instinctively to her ears, but her hearing aids had been removed.
‘She’s lucky,’ Celestino was saying. ‘Some cuts and bruises, but nothing broken, I think. The driver said he had come to a virtual standstill before he hit her.’
Then her father’s voice, tight with anger. ‘I can smell alcohol on her breath. She was out drinking with that boy!’
Anger gave Ana the strength to pull herself up on to one elbow. ‘I am not drunk!’ she shouted, only convincing everyone in the room that she was. ‘I couldn’t see when I got off the bus. Everything was dark, like they’d turned out the lights.’ The effort of speaking exhausted her and she dropped once more on to her back. ‘I couldn’t even see the stars in the sky.’
‘So you were blind drunk!’ her father growled.
‘Papi!’ It was Isabella’s voice, trying to calm their father.
Doctor Celestino leaned in close to peer into her eyes. ‘Has that ever happened to you before, mi niña?’ he asked.
‘I’ve never let her drink in this house.’ Her father was defensive now. ‘Not once.’
But Celestino ignored him. ‘Ana,’ he said. ‘Has it?’
Ana tried to bring clarity to her confusion. ‘No. Not like that. I never see well at night. Never have.’ She paused. ‘It’s like that for everyone, isn’t it?’ Then, ‘It’s as if I was blind. I just couldn’t see.’
Ana’s mother’s voice now. ‘Is there something wrong with her, doctor?’
But Celestino kept his focus on Ana. ‘Do you have trouble seeing things in your peripheral vision, little one?’
Ana didn’t understand. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Bump into things or people on either side of you that you just don’t see. Trip over stuff on the ground.’
Ana remembered what she had told Sergio only an hour before. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘All the time.’
Celestino turned towards Ana’s parents, his voice laden with concern. ‘I think maybe Ana should see a specialist.’
*
Resentment simmered in Ana’s house for the next ten days. Neither of her parents could forgive her, nor she them. She did not go back to the centre while she waited for her appointment with the ophthalmologist in Estepona. School had closed for the summer, and it had not been decided whether Ana would return for a repeat year or apply for a place at college. Her results were not yet in, and everything would depend on how good, or bad, they were.
The days dragged and she wished there were some way she could contact Sergio to tell him what had happened. But she had no idea where he lived, or even his family name.
Nights were worse. She had noticed, with an increasing sense of disquiet, that her night vision was deteriorating rapidly, and she did not even want to venture out of the house after dark
She spent most of her time shut away in her room listening to music, or reading, or simply daydreaming. Anything to avoid facing the uncertainty of a doctor’s diagnosis and a future whose clarity was obscured by doubt.
Her father took the day off work
