Spider in the Corner of the Room (The Project Trilogy)

by Nikki Owen

  ‘He was right,’ Patricia says.

  ‘After he died, the workmen tending the estate showed me how to mend things. Father Reznik did, too.’ I stop, frown. ‘I remember he would time me, Father Reznik, time me how long it would take to fix things. He would set me a challenge to get faster and faster. He called it a game and it was fun, but…’ I clutch the torn letter pieces in my fist. ‘I wonder.’

  ‘What?’

  I grab my notebook and stop. An earwig scurries along the floor and disappears under the bed. I watch it, track its course. It is not simply here by chance; the earwig has made a path into Goldmouth for a purpose. I pause. Purpose. Everything has a purpose, has a reason why it occurs. So what was Father Reznik’s purpose?

  I rip open my notepad and look to Patricia. ‘What were you convicted of?’

  She twiddles the edge of her T-shirt. ‘They said I killed me mam,’ she says, her voice barely audible, so I have to lean in to hear. ‘My ma, she had cancer. It was hard, you know, at the end. I just couldn’t watch her suffer like that any more. It was cancer of the pacrea—’

  ‘Pancreas,’ I say. ‘Cancer of the pancreas.’

  ‘Morphine couldn’t touch it.’

  ‘How did you kill her?’

  She hesitates then says, ‘Her pillow.’ A small swallow. ‘She wanted me to. She couldn’t take it any more.’ She wipes her nose with her hand.

  There are tears in her eyes. This must mean she is upset. What should I say in this situation? I rack my brain for data to help. ‘The term “euthanasia” originates from the Greek word meaning “good death”. Nine per cent of all deaths in the Netherlands are physician-assisted suicides or euthanasia. In the Netherlands, you could be free.’

  She lets out a sudden laugh.

  I sit back. ‘What?’

  ‘It’s just that you…’ She shakes her head, waits a moment. ‘She had a will, me mam. A will. I never knew. It had a big insurance payout. My mam always wanted me to keep studying. She had money, left to her from an aunty. My sister hated me. In court she said Ma wouldn’t have let me do it, wouldn’t have let me end her life. She called me a liar.’ She tugs her T-shirt now. ‘My sister said I killed Ma for the money. I didn’t, but she wasn’t about to believe me.’ She lets out a breath. ‘Still doesn’t. I’m due for parole really soon. Been banged up ten years. But if I get out, who have I got to go back to? Where can I go now no one from my family will talk to me?’

  We sit on the bed, silence swinging like a noose in the air above us. If I close my eyes, I can see Father Reznik’s face. ‘I think I’m being watched,’ I say finally.

  Patricia turns to me. ‘You what?’

  I draw in a breath and tell her about Father Reznik, about the priest discovering he was a retired intelligence officer.

  Patricia’s mouth drops open. ‘Whoa. For real?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She whistles. ‘How do you know this?’ she says, just like that, believing me in an instant. I want to cry with joy.

  ‘You believe me?’

  ‘Of course. Why wouldn’t I?’

  I consider this. I have learnt not to put my faith in anyone, not to trust, because no one, not a man in a priest’s outfit, not a judge in a robe, not a God in the sky can be relied upon. But Patricia seems different, pure, a white sheet of cotton, a dandelion in the wind. She believes me. And I am tired, so, so tired at keeping it all in, to myself, the truth growing like a tumour. Gratitude washes over me, clear, running water, refreshing, energising, and I want to thank her, want to express how grateful I am for her faith in me, but I don’t know how. Instead, I remain rigid on the bed like a plank of wood.

  ‘I came to London to look for Father Reznik, took the job at St James’s Hospital so I had a base here,’ I say, slowly at first then faster still. ‘When a nun came into the hospital one day on a visit to a patient, she told me about the convent, and when I spoke about how I attended church in Spain, how Father Reznik had taught me how to fix things, she invited me to volunteer, two or three days a week.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘I met the priest there. He was nice to me. I told him how Father Reznik had just disappeared after all those years, and so the priest said he would help find him.’

  ‘And he found out this intelligence officer stuff?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How?’

  I steady my hands from shaking. ‘He had contacts, asked a few questions. I was not sure at first—it all appeared so unusual, untrue. And then he died.’

  ‘So you didn’t kill him?’

  ‘I…’ I drop my head, smothered suddenly by the reality of the situation. How did I let it happen? He died. I witness his blood every night when I sleep. I am testament to that. After a moment, I breathe out, rub my cheeks, my chin.

  ‘You all right?’

  I nod. ‘Father Reznik taught me how to detect patterns, codes. Trained me in fixing things fast.’ My notebook sits under my palm. I run my fingertips over the pages now etched in ink, scratched with numbers, words, odd cryptic codes. My shoulders drop, body, mind, tired. I don’t know how all this just appears in my brain. ‘Why?’ I say after a while.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean why did Father Reznik teach me these things? Even when I was at university, I would come home, visit him and he would give me tests to do, advanced mathematical challenges.’ I shake my head, cross at myself for not realising before. ‘Don’t you see?’ I let out a laugh. ‘He taught them to me for a reason. And if he used to be an intelligence officer, then why? Why did he do those things with me? Why? And my mother, kissing him—did she know who he was? It all connects, you see. It all has a purpose.’ I stab the notebook with my finger. ‘And all this data. What does it mean?’

  ‘It’s stuff you’ve learnt, isn’t it?’

  ‘No. That’s the problem. I haven’t learnt it at all. I’ve always recalled data, written it down—facts, details. I had a journal at home in Salamanca when I was growing up and I used it so I could record everything, every event, name, number.’ I pick up the pad, shake it, feeling something— an anger?—surge inside me. ‘How can I remember all this information when I don’t even recall ever studying it?’

  Patricia opens her mouth then closes it, exhaling. ‘I don’t know, Doc. I don’t know.’

  I throw the notebook down, peer at its pages. I suddenly feel wired, fired up, charged to accelerate. My leg jigs over and over, the prospect of the truth ahead, the quest of it all making me giddy, light-headed. By my feet, another earwig scurries past, silent, stealth. I move my foot and grind its body flat with my heel.

  Patricia watches me. I reach forward, slam the writing pad shut. It all makes sense now, all of it. ‘I have to call my mother.’

  And, as I stand, the shredded letter remains slip from the bed and float to the floor.

  Chapter 8

  ‘We discussed false memories briefly before, do you recall?’ Kurt says. ‘That the mind can play tricks on us.’

  Up until now, Kurt has remained silent. This is the first time he has spoken to me since I ceased talking, telling him about Patricia, about her life, her loss. For some reason, I clutch my mug tight in front of my chest as Kurt watches me, a languid smile lounging on his lips.

  ‘Why are you asking me about my memory?’ I say after a moment.

  A heartbeat passes. ‘Why do you think I am asking you?’ He holds my gaze. I look away, scorched. ‘Tell me,’ he says after a few seconds, ‘what would you say memory is?’

  I press my palms into my lap, hard, sweaty, unsure where he wants to take this, because he is still smiling and I don’t know what it means.

  ‘Memory is the way we use our past experiences to understand the present,’ I say. ‘Memories are created when our brains encode, store and retrieve events.’

  ‘That is a textbook answer.’ He straightens his neck. Smile gone. ‘You said you remembered the inmate, Michaela Croft talking suddenly in a Scottish accent, about her me
ntioning Father Reznik. And then you say he was a former intelligence officer. You even say you recall codes, numbers that you do not remember learning.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Think about it. The beating, for example. Your memory is recalling an event, a traumatic incident. An incident that, in my opinion, could not have occurred as you recall it. A fabrication.’

  ‘No. This is not make-believe.’ A bird lands on the window ledge, beats its wings, rapid, frenzied, as if it were about to topple. Then it falls still, takes two steps, flies away.

  ‘You said Michaela also mentioned something called Callidus.’

  I turn my head from the window. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I know what I know.’

  ‘You see, Maria, here’s where I have a problem. How could Michaela have ever known about Father Reznik? And this Callidus? Our brain can change what we remember—it is how we cope with trauma. So, in the end, what we think happened is different to what actually occurred. And we recall people as different to how—or who—they really are.’

  ‘No. You are wrong. With this, you are wrong. I know my facts. I know what has happened.’

  ‘You are questioning a scientific theory? You? A doctor?’

  ‘No, I…’ I falter. What is he trying to do to me? To my mind, my sanity? ‘I understand the science,’ I say, voice quiet.

  ‘So understand that it applies to you. That perhaps your memory is not what you believe it to be. Take your notepad. You say you write everything down—it’s your obsession. But to say you don’t recall learning the data you have recorded is absurd.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  He smiles. ‘No? Then, Maria, there’s only one conclusion.’ The smile vanishes. He narrows his eyes. ‘The information you are recording is purely made up.’

  ‘What? No!’ I tap my hands now hard on my lap. Banging. I don’t like him, this so-called therapist. He cannot continue to voice these types of opinions. No one understands me. No one.

  Kurt sits forward. ‘I know this is difficult for you to see, the complex emotion involved, but, Maria, as a doctor, ask yourself this: is your memory reliable?’ He searches my face. ‘How can you believe what you heard that day in the cell? Our memories encode events. Our memories can change facts into something else. That’s how they store the data, how they process everything we see and do—by modifying it. There’s simply too much to cope with otherwise.’ He tilts his head. ‘For example, say there was a loud bang. Our brain may convert that sound into a colour, instead, and that is how we remember it—as a colour, not a sound. We may even forget the bang altogether. To that end, how can you be certain, for example, that your mind hasn’t altered a London accent into a Scottish one, plucked a long-distant name from the air, in order to protect itself from trauma? In order to cope?’ He pauses. ‘How do you know if this intelligence officer thing is true?’

  My hands go still, my breath rasps, unsteady. I am suddenly beginning to doubt myself. ‘What…what are you saying?’

  ‘I am saying that you have been traumatised by your prison experience. Your brain has encoded the beating, has changed it and stored it as something different, and so now, when you attempt to recall what happened, you remember it in another way. Your mind has created a new memory.’

  ‘You…’ But I close my mouth, as if the words have all dried up, a desert, just sand, tiny grains of sand. I want to cry, but I can’t.

  Kurt leans forward. ‘Would you like some water?’

  I shake my head, too scared to speak, not trusting that my own voice will remain calm. Not trusting that my hands won’t find his neck.

  Kurt pours a drink for himself. The liquid trickles into the tumbler, and the curve of it reflects in the sunlight, wobbling water on the wall, a swirl of blue and lemon. Fresh. Innocent. As he holds the glass, I force myself to look at it. It is still the same glass. There. Real. But what Kurt said, the science of the memory, it has touched me, entered my hardwiring, my internal computer system now, and I cannot let it out. Because what if he is right?

  What if everything I remember, everything I believe, is wrong?

  I draw in deep breaths, try to quell my panic, think of my father, this time of his office, of the oak-slab desk I would slip under when we played hide-and-seek, his laughter, when he found me, filling the room like the boom of a cannon.

  Slowly, I open my eyes, my heartbeat now a little calmer, and rest my gaze on the ceiling. I frown. Is that what I think it is? I check again, but it has disappeared now. There one minute, gone the next.

  ‘Maria?’

  ‘Just a moment.’ I shut my eyes, rub them, then reopen and blink. A chill crackles down my veins, because what I saw once, then couldn’t, is back.

  I touch my forehead. A spider. One spider in the corner of the room.

  I stand by the phone bank and hold the receiver. It has slid from my palms twice already, my nerves visceral, unforgiving. I cannot get the words out of my head: Disappointed. Guilty. What if she will always feel that way about me, my mother? Where does that leave me? And when I ask her the question, finally, after all these years, what will she do? Did it really happen? Did I really see them kiss?

  ‘You okay, Doc?’ Patricia says, standing to my left.

  I nod, but I am not okay. I am scared of what my mother’s answer will be. I am scared because I do not trust my brain.

  The phone line crackles.

  ‘Maria?’

  I freeze at the sound of my mother’s voice. It instantly takes me back to our home in Salamanca. I close my eyes, picture my mother seated on the patio, the wrought iron table set with a fresh pot of coffee, her fan by her side to fend off the early morning heat, her hands bony, her ballerina-like build upright, poised, ready. I sniff. A scent of oranges and Chanel No 5.

  ‘Maria? Darling, talk to me. Are you well?’ She speaks in Castellano, our mother tongue, our homeland Spain. I draw in a breath and speak it back to her.

  ‘Mama,’ I say, ‘it is me.’

  A shriek. ‘Oh, my darling! My poor baby. How are you? Why have you not contacted me before? Why wait until now?’

  The sound of her voice crashes like a wave, breaking all over me. I gasp, shocked at how much relief floods my body just by hearing her voice. ‘I have not been…’ I stall, gulp in a breath.

  ‘It is okay, my child. It’s okay.’

  I sniff. ‘Prison is very loud, Mama.’

  ‘Are they helping you?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘There is a psychiatrist. Dr Andersson. She is—’

  ‘What does she look like?’

  I pause. ‘Why do you want to know?’ I look at Patricia. She smiles.

  ‘Oh, you know me,’ my mother says, ‘I like to know who is looking after my daughter, like to know every single detail. To picture it, if you will. Her hair, for example. What colour hair does she have?’

  ‘Blonde.’

  ‘Long?’

  ‘Yes. She is Swedish.’ Total silence. ‘Mama?’ A crackle echoes then a sharp bang.

  ‘Maria? Sorry. I dropped the telephone.’

  I start to bite my nails. Something is not right. ‘Mama, I have a question that I need to ask you.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Something I remembered about Father Reznik.’

  She does not reply. Only the rasp of her breath fills the line. ‘Maria, my dear,’ she says finally, ‘he left. I’m so sorry, I know you adored him, but people leave. That’s just the way the world works. It wasn’t your fault, I have told you this. Your therapist from when Papa died told you this.’

  I swallow a little. ‘Mama, I remembered something.’

  A small sigh. ‘Okay, dear. What did you remember?’

  I glance to Patricia then back to the phone. ‘I remember seeing you and Father Reznik…kissing.’

  ‘Oh, Maria.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It is happening again.’

  A f
lush of anger. ‘What is?’

  ‘Your mind making things up. Darling, this is what you do. I have been trying to help you for so long now.’

  I grip the phone. ‘But I saw the two of you! Kissing near the vestry when I was supposed to be outside waiting for you. And…and you gave him something, some sort of letter or…or package. I know what I saw.’ Patricia steps forward but I ignore her, my fury feverish now, lethal. I cannot believe my mother is saying this again about me. I do not want to believe it. To believe her.

  ‘Maria, just calm down a little.’

  ‘No. You are denying it, but you know it is true. You and Father Reznik.’

  ‘You are still upset that Father Reznik left you.’ I go still. ‘Maria, I am right, no?’

  I shake my head, blink. ‘I…What are you trying to….’ And then it steps into my view, an image, a memory, strong this time, all the colours clear, the image crisp. Father Reznik is waving goodbye to me, an aeroplane in the background, me watching, enraged, for some reason, that he is leaving me. My hair is long down to my back, so I am fifteen, perhaps sixteen, and I break free from my mother, her calling out to me that he will be back, but I am running to him, and when I get to him, just as Father Reznik opens his arms to hug me, saying he is leaving for just three months, I kick him hard in the shin.

  ‘Maria.’ My mother’s voice slices through the memory. It shatters into a thousand pieces. ‘Maria, you were always so angry when he left Spain, angry at the Church. The Catholic Church has been in Spain for hundreds of years, that’s just the way it is, but I know that always frustrated you, that control that you say they had, the lies that you said they told.’ She pauses, a petite cry. ‘You shouldn’t have taken out that anger on someone else, on that poor priest, poor Father O’Donnell at the convent.’

  ‘But I didn’t. I…’ A slow shriek. It spurts out from me. My mother. She doesn’t believe me.

  ‘Maria, sssh. There, there. It’s okay. It’s okay.’

  Patricia steps over, stands beside me, not touching me, but there, real. I scratch at my scalp, my mind jumbled, exhausted. I let out a long breath and feel my shoulders finally loosen. I simply want to go home.