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

by Nikki Owen

  I inhale. Calm. ‘Yes.’ I glance at Ramon’s file. ‘Her surname is O’Hanlon.’ Ramon writes it down. ‘Why are you noting her name?’

  ‘Maria,’ my mother says, Ramon’s pen hovering in mid-air. ‘Maria, look at me.’

  I glare at my brother, then slowly peel my eyes off him. I don’t like that he is recording every detail, every utterance. Why? Why would he need to do that?

  ‘Maria.’ Mother again. ‘It’s for your journal, remember? The one you began after Papa died.’

  ‘Why are you writing in my journal?’

  ‘No, I didn’t mean…We are not writing in—’

  I look to the two of them, eyes frantic. ‘It is mine. I don’t want you to touch it. They are my notes. My journal. Mine.’

  ‘Maria,’ Mama says, voice almost a whisper, ‘your journal contents—they are just dreams, random thoughts.’

  ‘No. They are facts, information I know. Real names, real numbers.’

  But she shakes her head. ‘My dearest, you know what the doctors said. The notes in it, well, they are just flights of fancy, manic thought patterns.’

  ‘They are not!’ I yell. We all stop. My chest heaves, guards stand straight, dart their eyes to me.

  Mother lets out a weak sigh and looks to Ramon. He tilts his head. No words. Mother draws in a long breath and clasps her hands. ‘My dear, this place is taking its toll on you already. Of course, if you wish, Ramon will not write in your journal.’ She coughs. ‘Have you been to confession?’

  ‘No,’ I reply after a moment, my ribcage easing yet my hands still clenched.

  ‘Well, maybe that’s something you should consider. It may help a little. May help with everything that…that you’ve done. Visit the prison chaplain.’

  I laugh out loud. It takes me by surprise. ‘How can I do that?’

  ‘What?’ Mother looks to Ramon.

  ‘Maria,’ he hisses, as inmates and guards look to our table, ‘not here. Not now.’

  ‘I cannot see a priest. Not with my conviction.’ I slap my hands to the table. ‘Mama, I told you something on the phone and you denied it.’

  ‘What?’ Ramon says.

  Mother presses her lips together. ‘She says she saw me kissing Father Reznik.’

  ‘Maria, you’ve gone too far this time.’

  ‘Maria,’ my mother says, ‘your memory is not correct, my dear.’

  ‘It is!’ I scratch my head, nervous at the cloud of confusion forming in my mind. Then something else: Papa. ‘Medical records!’ I say. ‘Papa found some medical records, about me, in the loft one day. From a…’ I tap my head. ‘From a hospital! I remember. It wasn’t long before the accident. He told me about it…’ I stop. Look down at the table. ‘At least, I think he did.’

  Mother reaches forward to me. ‘Darling, what do you think Papa told you, hmmm? You know you have blocked all that out. Remember what your therapist said, the one the Church put us in touch with? He said your grief was affecting your memory. Why, at one point you could hardly recall what Papa looked like, let alone recollect specific conversations—it was too painful for you. Oh, you were so close to him. Papa’s little girl.’ She reaches for me.

  But I ignore her advance, and close my eyes, will the memory—any memory—to work its way into my head, knocking aside the ingrained grief with all my might. Papa, whispering to me in the loft, I am so sure it happened. I scrunch my eyes tight, slap my hands to my ears to block out the sounds from the room. Think. He found paperwork, a trail of it via a computer link. What did it say? What? My mother’s voice is calling out at me now, opposite me, but I have to ignore it, have to relive what I saw so I can tell them, tell them that Papa was…

  ‘He was scared,’ I say aloud, my hands still cupped on my ears. ‘He was scared. I remember! He was scared when he told me about a document he had found, and I know this, I know he was frightened, because he said so and his were hands shaking when he spoke to me, when he showed me the file. It was crammed with names, dates, codes, contacts, countries. It was! With my medical details from a hospital in…’

  I avoid their stares, instead scanning my memory banks, urging my brain to help me, to not betray me this once. It works.

  ‘Scotland,’ I declare, a wide smile spreading across my face, elated. The conversation with Papa, the one I could never recall, the one I was always too upset to evoke, so sad was I at his loss, my brain jumbling my thoughts to a point where I made my papa into something else in my head, sometimes into a bear or a lion. And when he spoke to me in my fevered dreams it was, instead, with a roar or a growl. Not words. But now—now it is coming back to me. It must be here, in prison—the fresh trauma, the noise, the overloading of my senses. It has shaken my brain, unlogged something I thought I would never hear again: my papa’s voice.

  ‘I saw it,’ I say now, fast. ‘Something about a hospital in Scotland and…’ I stall. Nothing else comes. Think. What was it? Who did he warn me against? Mama speaks, but my brain is on autopilot. Louder, faster, uploading data initiated from something from…from…

  ‘Mother!’

  Ramon and Mama blink at me.

  ‘Jesus Christ, Maria,’ Ramon hisses, ‘what are you playing at? Everyone is staring.’

  ‘I remember now,’ I say, fast, fitful, giddy with possibilities, with what it all could mean. ‘Papa warned me. He said something was being done to me.’ And then it occurs to me. ‘Mama! My journal! Perhaps there is something in there, some clue I wrote down years ago.’

  My mother sobs heavily, her hand flying to her mouth.

  ‘Why on earth are you saying all this?’ Ramon asks me angrily.

  ‘Because it is true. Don’t you see? I blocked it out because I was grieving, and now, in here, after the trial, the trauma, I remember it, not all of it, but—’

  ‘No. Maria, stop.’

  ‘Why?’ I say, confused.

  Ramon forms a fist on the table. ‘Because you are lying again.’

  ‘I am not.’

  Mama lets out another sob. Ramon glares at me, places his arm on her shoulder, but she shakes her head, draws a tissue from her pocket and dabs her eyes. She takes one sip of water then draws in a breath.

  ‘Maria,’ she says, her voice tiny, like a bird’s, ‘you can’t say things like that about me, about your papa. The therapist predicted this might happen. He said the conversations you believe you recalled having with Papa may never have even occurred. It was grief back then, Maria, that made you confused.’ She sniffs. ‘It is grief now.’

  ‘But it is true.’

  A small head shake. ‘No, darling, no.’ She clasps the tissue between her fingertips. ‘My dear, you don’t see what we do. So much has happened to you that I worry. I worry what it is doing to you, how much it has scarred you. You are confused, scared. This much I understand. What I cannot comprehend is why you did what you did to that poor priest. Why you are spouting the lies you do now.’ She exhales, her shoulder dropping, her poise gone. ‘You need to stop now, my dearest. Just stop.’

  My heart flutters. I wipe my eyes, not sure what to think. I know what I saw, what I heard. My mother’s hands tremble, tiny movements, but I see it. Have I gone too far? If she is worried about me, about what they say I did to the priest, maybe if I tell her, she will feel better.

  ‘I didn’t kill him.’

  ‘What did you say, darling?’

  I look at Mama. ‘I didn’t kill him. The priest.’

  Mother’s head drops. Ramon places his arm round her and twists his head to me. ‘Maria, this has to end. Your lies, the harm you cause.’ Mother sobs; he pulls her closer. I feel a stab of loneliness. ‘You were arrested, convicted, for God’s sake. Accept it. Now. Before any more of us suffer.’

  I blink at the table. They don’t believe me. My own family. They still don’t believe me. I feel as if I am falling, through the sky into a deep pit, ready for dirt to be kicked on my face, into my mouth. Buried alive. I sniff. ‘Father Reznik left just after I graduated,’ I
say, distress creeping into my movements, my thoughts. I need my family to understand me. ‘I came to England, went to the convent to find him. He was my friend. Mama, you said he had family in England. That is why I came here.’

  ‘What?’ Ramon says. ‘So it’s all Mama’s fault now that you came here? Mama’s fault that Father Reznik left? That you killed someone? Christ.’ Chairs scrape on the floor ahead, visitors beginning to leave. He pauses, glances at them, then back to me. ‘Maria, please. No one is conspiring against you. It’s all in your head.’ He pauses, swallows, his voice drops an octave. ‘It always has been.’

  I grip the table as if I were clawing on to the edge of reality. It’s a puzzle. It has to be. Pieces, sections of time and events that slot together to create one complete picture. I just have to first find where all the pieces are.

  ‘I am going to get out,’ I say. ‘Mama? I am going to request an appeal. You have to believe me. I shouldn’t be here.’

  Mother raises her head now, eyes rimmed pink, cheeks flushed. ‘Oh, my baby. Please, listen to your brother. We both care about you so much. You are doing so much harm to yourself pursuing these…stories. Because that is all it is. Fiction. Pretend. Made up in your mind.’

  ‘No,’ I say, shaking my head, trying to stave off the doubt, the rolling wave of reservation. ‘I have a new barrister.’

  ‘Who?’ Ramon asks.

  ‘Harry Warren. He’s going to help me. I am seeing him this week.’

  Mama and Ramon share a glance. Ramon jots down the name.

  ‘Maria,’ Mama says, ‘you know an appeal won’t work, don’t you?’

  My stomachs twists at my mother’s words. ‘Mama, I have to try,’ I say after a few seconds, squeezing my fingers together.

  ‘But what about your health?’ she says. ‘What about your…condition?’

  ‘It is accelerating in here.’

  She goes still. ‘It is? How?’

  I tell her about Dr Andersson. She listens, but does not speak, does not murmur, only a slice of grimace on her face. ‘It must be the prison environment,’ I say. ‘I can do and think faster. It happens, doesn’t it? To people like me. It happens. I am even recalling more things—numbers, calculations—things I have never learnt. I have written it all down.’ I stop. ‘My journal, please, Mama, can you get it to me? I can cross-reference my notes.’

  ‘Maria,’ Ramon says now, ‘are you lying again?’

  ‘What? No.’

  ‘Maria,’ he urges. ‘Come on. All this “doing things faster”. It sounds impossible, unbelievable.’

  ‘I am not lying!’ I shout. My chest explodes and, when I look down, when I glance at my torso, I realise, to my surprise, that I am standing. Guards take a step forward; inmates gawp.

  ‘Ramon,’ my mother whispers, but we do not look at her, our attention fixed on each other. One second, two seconds, three.

  ‘Ramon?’ Mother repeats, a little louder this time. ‘Ramon, I need to—’ She slumps to the table.

  ‘Mama?’ Ramon looks down to her now, as do I.

  My mother’s body seizes like stone, then, softening, floats to the floor.

  Chapter 10

  An alarm pierces the air and guards rush to our table.

  I stare at the floor where my mother now lies, fitting. A smell of vomit fills the room.

  ‘Mama?’ Dread washes over me, fills every molecule of my body, momentarily paralysing me. She fits again and I snap to. Moving quickly, I drop to my knees and loosen her blouse, check her vitals.

  I glance to Ramon. ‘Do you know what could have triggered this?’ My fingers are on my mother’s neck checking her pulse, her blood pumping, weak, laboured. I tilt my head, hover my ear over her mouth listening for signs of breathing. It is shallow, but there, the stench of vomit drifting in and out of my consciousness. I am about to check her chest when I feel myself dragged upwards, hands under my shoulders.

  ‘Hey!’ I shout. Two guards haul me up.

  ‘Stay,’ one of them orders like an owner would to their dog. I snarl but do as I’m told, only the sight of my mother preventing me from screaming at the guards. Ramon shoots me a glare.

  A doctor and two nurses arrive now. I try to give them my medical observations but they ignore me. ‘Why are you not listening to me?’ I shout.

  A guard intervenes to constrain me when Mama coughs, oxygen spluttering into her lungs.

  ‘Mama?’ I rush to her. Have I caused this? Have I driven my mother to illness all because of who I am?

  ‘What is happening here?’

  I turn. The Governor stands one foot from the scene, shoulders wide, face set in a frown. He spots my mother on the floor. ‘Ines?’

  ‘Balthus?’ she croaks.

  I spin round to her. ‘You know him? How?’

  The Governor turns to the attending medic. ‘Will she be okay?’

  But the doctor only nods before commencing chest compressions. I look back to the Governor, my eyes wide, agitated. ‘How do you know my mother?’ When he does not respond, I say, ‘Tell me!’ But a guard has arrived and is now speaking into the Governor’s ear.

  ‘Take care of her,’ the Governor says to the medic team, and, throwing one more look at my mother, he strides away.

  I watch as he exits the door. How does the Governor know my mother? Why did he not tell me when we met? I rub my head, spinning round to see what is happening, where my mother is. The room whirls around my head like clothes in a washing machine, noises muffled, woolly.

  ‘Maria!’ Ramon shouts.

  I cock my head, blink at him. Ramon’s words sound as if they are underwater. I feel strangely stoned, intoxicated almost by events, by the confusion, the drama, the guilt.

  Ramon steps over to me now, his face looming large in my vision. He finally swims into focus. ‘Maria. She is trying to speak. Can you translate for the medical team,’ he says. ‘Maria, help, please, this once.’

  Mother is lying now on a stretcher. My mama, frail, almost invisible under the blanket that shrouds her.

  ‘Balthus?’ My mother’s voice croaks to life. ‘Ramon, Balthus was here. My stomach hurts this time…’

  I peer at her, my brain whirling back to life, connecting, solving. I relay to the medical team what she is saying, before looking back to Mama. ‘How do you know the Governor, Ochoa?’ I pause. ‘His name is Balthus.’

  ‘Maria,’ Ramon says, ‘leave her—’

  ‘He is not who he claims to be,’ mother says, then coughs into her hand.

  ‘What does that mean?’ When she does not respond, I tap her cheek. ‘Tell me what that means.’ But the cough returns, more violent this time, hacking.

  Ramon pulls me away. ‘It’s back,’ he whispers. ‘Maria, the cancer is back. It’s stage three this time.’ He glances at her. ‘She went into treatment last month.’

  I feel decapitated by Ramon’s words, sliced apart, severed by the fact that she may leave me, that someone else may leave me. I steady my voice and force myself to ask the question. ‘What is her prognosis?’

  He shakes his head.

  ‘Maria?’ My brother and I turn to our mother.

  ‘No more trials, darling, please.’ Her voice is flimsy like a thin sheet of tracing paper. ‘You have to end this. Balthus cannot help you. He is not a good man. You are in prison. Accept it, my beautiful daughter. Get better.’

  I wipe my eyes. ‘Why must I stay in here?’ I pause, try to breathe, be calm, quell the panic, the fear. ‘Mama, please, how do you know the Governor?’

  But her hands go limp, her eyelids flutter. The medics begin to wheel her away and I can barely look, my fingers squeezing each other, my mind knowing that, as she goes, my mother takes away the answers, takes away any belief or comfort she may ever have had for me. I am on the edge of jumping into an abyss of solitude.

  Ramon follows the trolley, his eyes damp, his lips mouthing a goodbye to me. How do I tell him that I don’t want to be left alone here? That it is dark and cold? Instead, I
stand and stare; he sighs, turns his back and walks away.

  ‘Visiting time is over,’ says a guard.

  I turn, knowing now what I need to do. ‘I have to speak to Governor Ochoa.’

  The guard laughs. ‘Not going to happen.’ She points to the door. ‘Exit’s that way.’

  As the door swings open, a movement in my peripheral vision makes me halt. Someone has entered to the far right of the seated area. My mother is on the stretcher, just as I left her, three medics hovering around her, but now—now there is one more body, one more person.

  Dr Andersson.

  ‘Martinez,’ says the guard, ‘time to go. I haven’t got all fucking day.’

  I take one last look. Dr Andersson leans over and whispers in my mother’s ear, rising and turning to speak to Ramon.

  And Ramon? Ramon is nodding.

  Ramon is staring at me.

  Kurt tilts his head. ‘How did you feel when your mother collapsed that day in the visiting room?’

  Kurt is asking questions about my feelings. These are the worst kind. I am never sure what the correct response is. I shift in my seat, the room stuffy, suffocating. ‘It was loud,’ I say. ‘The visiting room was loud.’

  ‘Were you scared? Happy? Shocked when you saw her?’

  I tap my finger on the chair. I do not speak, anaesthetised by the image of my mother frail on a stretcher, by the sheer desperation I felt when she said I was lying, her and my brother. Outside, the sun flickers and fades, the clouds take over.

  ‘Tell me,’ Kurt says after a while, ‘have you ever wondered about your Asperger’s, why certain aspects of it are more…heightened at times, particularly in comparison to others on the spectrum?’

  I inhale, try to imagine I am elsewhere, that I am someone else, someone normal. ‘Officially, being on the autistic spectrum and having Asperger’s are now the same thing,’ I say eventually. ‘The American Psychiatric Association officially eliminated Asperger’s as a separate syndrome.’

  ‘And what do you think of that?’

  I think about myself, how I am different from others, and them from me. ‘People with Asperger’s and those with autism do not have the same needs.’