The Miracle in the Windy Gowl

Vee Jarrett

1986

Its a bright blue spring day in Edinburgh in 1986. Im eighteen years old and reckon Im living the life. I was wrong about quite a lot of things then.

Since leaving home six months ago, Ive been exploring all the dangers the adult world has to offer. My latest project is a massive biker with dirty hands and a bad attitude. Hes exactly the sort of man any parent would want their daughter to avoid, hence the attraction. The shouting and swearing rows are a new thing after living with my quietly-spoken parents. Despite the novelty, I dont really enjoy them. I wonder if this is how people who arent my parents are supposed to behave. How should I know?

This morning were going with a bunch of friends to Knockhill to watch the racing and leave the flat at the top of Leith in a group of around half a dozen bikes, some carrying pillions. Weve already had a row and were both driving angry, glaring at each other at every set of lights.

I have my own bike, no pillion nonsense for this grown-up, independent woman. We tear up towards the Queens Park, the sunshine and warmth presenting an unmissable opportunity to throw the bikes round the bends on the lower Duddingston Road before heading out of town to the joys of the Coast Road. We enter the Park and take the low road.

Past Hangmans Rock like a great, black lump of coal. Round past Samsons Ribs, red and exposed like old meat. Everywhere the landscape is scattered with gorse and windblown grasses. The sky is china blue with soft brush strokes of cloud. Seagulls hang in the air over the Park like tiny white kites.

Since Ive not passed my test yet, I have a small bike: a blue hornet-like trail bike with skinny, knobbly tires. I try to keep up with the bigger road bikes but Im soon trailing in last place. Not that its a race, but who wants to be last all the same?

Im going way too fast as I pull the bike into a sharp left and hurtle down into the shadowy, wind-blasted cleft of the Windy Gowl. Im hugging the bike into the bend, left knee perilously close to the rock, praying for the road to straighten out but the bend keeps on tightening. I already know Im not going to make it when my front wheel hits a drain cover and folds in on itself, catapulting me high into the blue spring sky.

I think several pointless thoughts one after another: Wow, time really does slow down, Oh crap, Im going to die, and Sorry Mum. Im almost hovering, suspended within a split second that feels much longer. I see Duddingston Loch below me to the right shining like a mirror. I can see clouds floating in it. I notice that Im level with a seagull. It turns its sleek white head and eyes me sceptically.

Then Im down hard and rolling over and over. I see my bike po-going down behind me, crashing down onto its front wheels, the forks contracting and hurling it back into the air. Somehow it comes down on my right shin and bounces off again and we continue our crashing descent separately. It seems to last forever, a kaleidoscope of vivid images: rock and gorse, tarmac, sky, rock, tarmac, gorse, sky, twirling round and round.

When I eventually come to a halt all I feel is angry - angry at myself, angry at the drain cover, angry at him, angry that my bikes smashed. Theres so much anger I dont know what to do with it and start punching the hill, spitting curses into my helmet.

A couple come running over, asking if Im hurt. How should I know? Then another older guy runs up, hes a doctor and is asking lots of questions. A police car turns up and an ambulance whizzes round the corner. Im starting to wonder if these people were all following me, waiting for this to happen. Oh, and there he is, must have noticed eventually that I wasnt behind him anymore. Id rather he went away. He does.

Im being urged into the ambulance. My leg starts to hurt. A guy with a huge pair of scissors insists on cutting my jeans open from the ankle to the thigh. Im trying to stop him: theyre my best jeans. The leg is looking big but intact. I notice that bits of the skin on my forearms are missing and my left elbow isnt feeling quite right now I come to think about it.

At the hospital they insist on putting me in a series of wheeled things and referring to me as This Young Lady. I reckon theyre being sarcastic but Im in no position to object. After a few hours of intensive wheeling around and Young Ladying they tell me my legs not broken, just badly bruised. Its really comically big now, like a Tom and Jerry cartoon. Just as well they cut my jeans off or Id have had to limp home in knickers and bike boots, just to add embarrassment to injury. The elbow is cracked and Im given a sling. Otherwise Im just scuffed and dented but can go.

Back at the flat alone, I feel sore but impossibly elated; everything is vivid and sharp-edged, as if my eyes are focussing properly for the first time. Its almost uncomfortable and a bit frightening, but wonderful, excruciatingly wonderful. I sit and look at my hands, open and close them, turn them over and think how absolutely amazing they are, all those tiny bones and muscles, skin and nerves. Im a bloody miracle, I am. I grab hold of this feeling and squeeze it tight, willing myself to never, never forget how this feels.