by A J Waines
That was interesting.
She carried on. ‘It makes me think it couldn’t have broken open accidentally. What do you reckon?’
I blinked fast. ‘I really don’t know, Rosie. I think we should try to stay focused on what you can remember. We’ll have to let the police sort out the rest.’
‘Can you take me back again? I’d like to try to catch more of the lost pieces. My memories are like dandelion clocks. I’m trying to snatch at them, but most of the time I’m not quick enough and they float away.’
I smiled at the image she portrayed. ‘The way you describe things…’ I said, as I invited her to lie down, ‘it’s striking. I’m not saying you’re deliberately trying to keep me entertained, but if you are, you really don’t need to. I’m listening, no matter what.’
Her cheeks flared up into a sharp pink colour. ‘I didn’t realise…’ She sounded chuffed rather than embarrassed.
She closed her eyes as I pulled the blanket up to her chin. I gently led her back to those scenes in the Lake District, starting a little earlier on, when the quartet were packing up the van.
‘Was it just the four of you or did any of Hinds’ people help you with the instruments?’
‘It was just us. Max wouldn’t let anyone touch his violin. He wanted to keep it in the front beside him, but there wasn’t room. He even suggested Stephanie give up her seat for it and she went in the back with me, but Richard wasn’t having that.’
‘Richard stuck up for Stephanie?’
‘Yeah. The others took their seats and there was only one place I could go.’ She blew out a long breath. ‘Like I said before, being in the back saved my life.’
‘I’d like to try something, Rosie. Do you drive?’
‘Me?’
‘Yes. Have you passed your test?’
‘No. I had some driving lessons when I left college, but…I wasn’t… I never…’
‘That’s okay. You know how a car works, that’s the main thing.’
‘Yeah. Sort of.’
She tried to extend her hand towards mine, but I tucked the blanket around her in a measured and firm stroke, keeping her arms inside. The whole ‘holding hands’ business had started to become a habit and I wanted to break it.
‘Can we run the incident from the time you got into the van, but can you describe it as if you were in the front, in the driver’s seat?’
‘From Richard’s position?’ She cleared her throat. ‘I’ll try.’
I helped set the scene. ‘So you’re getting into the driver’s side, sliding on to the seat. Are Max and Stephanie already in? Is Rosie in the back with the instruments?’
‘Er, yeah. Max is just clicking his seatbelt,’ her voice became a slow monotone as she began to relive the events. ‘Stephanie is wriggling about, because it’s a tight fit in the front…I’m behind her…’ She ground to a halt and opened her eyes. ‘Sorry…’
‘It’s okay. Try to stay with Richard’s point of view from now on. I know it’s weird, but tell me everything from his perspective. You’re Richard, behind the wheel. Feel your feet on the pedals, touch the handbrake, check the rear-view mirror…can you carry on?’
‘I’m Richard…I’m…behind the wheel. I put the key in the ignition and the engine groans. It’s slow to get started. I try again. Then we’re off. We pull out of the Hinds’ gravel drive and head down the track towards the lane that leads to the lakeside road.’
‘As Richard, what do you see, how do you feel?’
‘I’m quite hot, I’ve got my sleeves rolled up. Stephanie hands me a bottle of water, but I don’t want it. She hands it to...Rosie in the back…no, hang on, that’s later…’
All of a sudden, she stopped and shot upright as if she’d been stung by an insect.
‘I can remember something,’ she said, dragging the blanket into her mouth, her eyes wide. ‘It was Richard. Before the crash. We were in the pub – it must have been the night we got there.
‘“Wouldn’t you love to see the look on his face?” he’d said. “It would be worth it just for that.”’
Memory recall is like that at times. Things jump around, come back in the wrong order. I went with it.
‘Was it just you and Richard in the pub, or was anyone else with you?’
‘No, it was just me…and Richard.’
I waited. She sank back down again, closed her eyes.
‘He was talking about Max’s violin.’ I watched her eyelids flutter. I imagined the pictures inside her head coming to life, like photographs emerging in a developing tray. ‘He put his hand over mine and then he asked me.’
She waited, as if she was listening for his words.
‘He said, “Are you in?”’
‘Are you in?’ I repeated neutrally.
‘And I said, “How? What do you mean?”’
‘“We steal it,” Richard said. “Are you in?”’
She made a little snoring sound followed by a sigh. I was aching to prompt her. I didn’t want her to lose the thread, but I didn’t want to distract her, either.
She sat up, alert, and pulled out of the trance. ‘It’s gone. I can’t remember what I said. But it would have been no, of course.’ She rubbed her eyes. ‘He can’t have been serious anyway. He would have known, like we said before, that there was no way it could be sold on. Unless…’ She stopped, seeming to think about it. ‘Could Richard have set up other avenues for fencing it, do you think?’
We tried revisiting the memories several more times, but got no further.
‘Why would Richard run the van off the road deliberately and risk killing himself?’ she pondered out loud. ‘He’d have had plenty of other opportunities to make Max’s violin disappear, wouldn’t he?’
She took a sip of water and waited for me to say something.
‘I’m afraid we’ll have to wait and see if you get any answers to that.’
I’d been itching to ask her a question, and with a few moments left I finally managed it.
‘When we first met, you said you hadn’t had any therapy for about six months, is that right?’
‘Yeah, that’s right.’
‘Is it okay to ask how long you’d been seeing your previous therapist?’
‘Yeah, sure. About…’ she appeared to count in her head, ‘eighteen months.’
‘That’s quite some time. And…you decided to end the sessions?’ I felt a twitch of guilt for putting her to the test.
Her eyes dodged across the room. ‘No. She died.’
‘Wow – that must have been really hard for you. You didn’t say…’
‘I didn’t know you at first. I was too upset to talk about it. I would have told you eventually. Bit of a shock, actually. You get to depend on someone always being there. Then, out of the blue, they’re gone.’
It was hard to imagine what impact Erica’s death must have had on Rosie, given her unstable background and lack of formative attachments.
‘Did you…did you get on well with her?’
She sniffed. I could see she was aiming at nonchalance. ‘Yeah. Not bad.’ She glanced up at the clock. ‘My time’s finished now. I’d better go.’ She got up and left before I could pry any further.
Chapter 17
Rosie
She thinks I’m special. Okay – to be honest, she didn’t actually use that word, but she seems to like the way I describe things. She thinks it’s unusual. It’s probably about as close to feeling special as I’m going to get.
She’s asking a lot of questions about the accident, so I know she’s intrigued by the mystery of it. We pass ideas back and forth; sometimes, it’s like sharing gossip with a proper friend.
She’s even done some research herself. I’m impressed by that – really chuffed. Erica would never have gone that far. She only ever asked me how I felt about things, how I was coping. Sam seems to want to be involved. It’s as if we’re a team, trying to solve the mystery together. And that’s exactly how I want it to be.
She wa
s really sensitive around Erica when I told her she’d died. I bet she was wondering whether I liked Erica better than her.
I couldn’t see the thank you card I sent anywhere – I was disappointed about that. Maybe it’s by her bed or amongst her private things, so that no one else can see it. Yes, that would explain it.
It’s quite relaxing lying there on her special couch, only I didn’t get to hold her hand this time. I don’t need to hold her hand, of course – maybe just that first time, but it’s wonderful when it happens. I think she’d have liked to, this time, only we had work to do and she seemed to respect that. I’m hoping we’ll get the balance right soon and we can show affection for each other without her feeling so awkward. It must be hard for her when she’s used to seeing me at the hospital.
It’s brilliant to have her hanging on my every word when she uses the memory trick that helps me access my subconscious. It makes me feel all warm inside. And I don’t have to tell her everything I remember either. In fact, for all she knows, I could be making it all up. She’s only got my word for it.
The following week sank into a pointless, grey wasteland until I got to see her again. As soon as Thursday came around the world was worth being a part of once more.
Sam and I did the trance thing again, but this time it wasn’t so comforting. Quite scary, to be honest.
I was lying down under the blanket, away with the fairies, talking through who did what – and I’m not sure what happened next. One minute I was listening to Sam’s voice guiding me along the road beside the lake, the next I was gasping for breath, with great swelling sobs jerking my body like jolts from a defibrillator. All of a sudden the horror of it overwhelmed me. Richard trying to take evasive action even though we were already airborne. Stephanie wailing in the brief moment before we hit the water. Max frantically trying to wriggle out of his seatbelt.
I shot up on the couch, my hands clawing the air, my nose running, and I couldn’t see a thing. My eyes were pumping out tears like a burst water main. Sam held me. I couldn’t believe it. It was like being lifted up to heaven with my angel of deliverance. She wrapped her arms around me and stayed still. Like that was okay. Nothing out of the ordinary. Like I deserved it. I had to practically peel her arms away from me; she didn’t want to let me go.
‘I can see blurred images of their terrified faces.’ My voice came in short bursts, between ugly snorts. ‘But I couldn’t have seen them…I was behind them…I could only have seen the backs of their heads.’
‘It’s your imagination playing tricks on you,’ Sam reassured me. She gave my arms a rub and finally let go.
‘Why is my brain trying to give me nightmares?’ I cried.
‘It wants to fill in the gaps. It’s trying to create its own video of the event. It’s what our brains do.’
Sam retreated to her chair and I pulled my knees in to my chest, shivering under the blanket. My tears had left damp patches on the pillow and the side table. I felt stupid, a bit like I’d wet myself.
‘Why am I crying when I was the one who came out alive?’
‘I’ve been expecting this,’ Sam said calmly. ‘It’s a perfectly normal reaction. It’s partly the shock; you’re still trying to process what happened and why.’
‘It’s over nine weeks since we went down, since they went missing. Why now?’
‘Take your time,’ she said, waiting for more.
‘I keep going through the normal routine of my life, then remembering that Richard won’t ever down a pint of real ale again, Max won’t ever play the Tchaikovsky or tune up his beloved violin. Stephanie won’t see her kids going up a shoe size. I want them to have those things again. It’s like I’m trying to live their lives for them inside my head, because they can’t.’
‘It’s partly survivor’s guilt,’ Sam reassured me. ‘You might feel a range of strange feelings and reactions as part of that. I’d like you to know that you can talk about all of those confusing feelings here.’
‘Am I having a breakdown?’
‘I don’t think so. It’s completely normal after what you’ve been through.’
Sam soothed me, talked to me, listened. She waited as I tried to finish my sentences, gave me space to say what I needed to say in my own messy way. She didn’t patronise or belittle me; she took everything I said seriously. I felt embarrassed about my little outburst. I thought I was more in control of myself than that. I’m used to showing people what I want them to see, not letting it all spill over like a pile of dirty washing. Sam didn’t seem the least bit perturbed, so I found myself bringing up stuff I’d hardly ever talked about with anyone.
You’d think having had therapy on and off since I was sixteen, I’d have gone back and forth over my childhood, like a seamstress pressing creases out of crumpled linen. But I haven’t. I’ve covered the ground, of course. Done it to death. But only in terms of what happened. The facts. I’ve never felt able to open up sufficiently to tell someone how I felt about it. How it affected me. I’ve wandered into that territory on my own many times, but never taken anyone with me. Now it felt like Sam might be the one to go alongside me.
‘I have yucky black thoughts when I look back over my childhood. They’re not even as clear as thoughts,’ I told her. ‘They’re more like gloomy smudges that spoil anything good that ever happens. It’s hard to pin down what I feel – I try my best not to feel at all, really.’
‘We could try to pin it down now, if you feel ready?’
‘I’m not here for that though, am I?’
‘Well, you know our original agreement was for memory retrieval after the crash, not for more general therapy, but it doesn’t mean we can’t explore your past in more detail. You’ve told me some of what happened and we can develop that. In fact, it might be useful. Your past has made you who you are and it will directly influence how you react to significant events.’
‘Can I tell you the most vivid memories from my childhood?’
Sam nodded, earnest and concerned.
‘One is of my mother – seeing her on the floor in the bedroom with a red pool spreading beneath her, across the carpet. I didn’t see the rifle straight away; I thought the bangs I’d heard were doors slamming or something. And the other one is of my father swinging from the banister; the rifle must have been too big for him to turn on himself.’ I felt my mouth twist to one side. ‘It can’t have been a quick death. I remember his tongue turning black, a wet stain seeping down his trousers. Those two events happened in the space of about half an hour.’
Sam looked distressed. She put her notes down and I thought she might have to leave the room. I pursed my lips and heard them make a strange popping noise. I didn’t want to cry any more.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’
‘Rosie, don’t apologise. It’s so terribly sad. Such devastating memories to have to live with.’ She looked genuinely appalled.
‘Oh, I’m used to it. The worst part is that after my dad died, a policewoman or social worker, I can’t remember now, told me he’d left a note. It said he’d planned to take me with him, but then he’d changed his mind.’
I couldn’t stop the tears this time. There was a backlog going back decades.
‘Even in death you see, my dad didn’t want me.’
Those words, I’d never said them out loud before, they’d been rotting inside my heart for over twenty-seven years.
It was good to tell her. I cried on and on, but Sam didn’t seem to mind.
After about twenty minutes, I started to feel better and put the tissues she’d given me onto the side table in a soggy bundle. ‘I don’t have anyone close any more; no sister like you do,’ I reminded her. ‘Sometimes women like us need a shoulder to cry on, don’t we?’
Her mouth did the funny twisty thing it does sometimes when she doesn’t quite know what to say. I cleared my throat and asked to go back into the trance. Ironically, it was a bit of relief to go back to the crash after my little detour talking
about my family. And I did remember something new, as it happens. From when I got out of the water.
‘I was sopping wet and the ambulance had arrived to take me away,’ I told her, lying under the blanket. ‘There was a shape in the bushes. A thin board sticking out. A number plate.’
‘When you say number plate, was it lying there discarded or was it attached to a vehicle?’
‘Attached,’ I said. ‘I can’t see anything else, though.’
‘Can you remember any of it?’
In my mind I tried to look, but it was a mush of letters and numbers. I shook my head.
‘And was it on your left or your right as you came out of the water?’
‘On my left.’
‘So, it was a vehicle that had come past the crash site – unless it was there beforehand…’
Sam was thinking aloud then. She does that sometimes when I’m in my trance. I don’t think she expects any answers; she’s working it through for herself. I love the way she’s so interested in the puzzle of it all. She wants to get to the truth almost as much as I do.
We were interrupted at that point, by the intercom buzzer. Someone wanted to come up. So irritating. I thought she’d have some way of switching it off while I was there.
I sat up, coming out of the memory with a huff so she’d know I was put out. I was expecting her to ignore it, after all, we were right in the middle of things, but she said she’d better see who it was. What a cheek! I’m paying for her time.
She got to her feet, slipped out of the room and, to be fair, she wasn’t long. In a jiffy, she was back saying it was nothing. She apologised, at least that was something, but by then our time was over.
In spite of the disappointing ending, I couldn’t keep the smile off my face as I walked down the street. Sam didn’t know, but when she rushed out to the intercom, I made the most of being left alone and took a quick look at her appointment diary – it was open on the table beside her. I wanted to find out what she does when she’s not ‘on duty’.