In the Light of What We See

by Sarah Painter

  ‘Okay,’ Parveen said. She seemed relieved that I’d moved away from questions about emotion and feelings. I didn’t blame her.

  ‘I mean, I will definitely pay you back. I don’t know where my stuff is right at this moment, but I will—’

  ‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘I know where to find you.’

  I sank back, grateful. ‘I’m not about to skip the country.’

  She nodded. ‘Your skipping days are over.’ As if realising that this might be a little too mean, even for the uneasy teasing truce we’d struck up, she said quickly, ‘Temporarily.’

  I smiled widely to show I wasn’t upset and made my request while she was still feeling guilty: ‘A cheap mobile. Pay as you go with some money loaded.’

  ‘A phone?’

  ‘I know there’s a payphone but I have to ask to use it.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Parveen said. ‘Isn’t it against the rules, though?’

  ‘I’m a maverick,’ I said.

  ‘And a layabout.’ Parveen was pulling on her jacket. ‘You’d better hurry up and get back to work. Stop skiving.’

  I wanted to remind her about the phone, ask her when she was planning to bring it. Just the possibility of it had made me want it more urgently. ‘Thank you for coming,’ I said, instead. ‘It is so good to see you.’

  Parveen gave me another arch look, shaking her head very slightly. She waited, as if expecting me to say something else, said, ‘’Bye, then,’ and left.

  Parveen was as good as her word. I was having one of my monster sleeps. The ones which embraced me so tightly that I didn’t know anything about anything for twelve hours straight. When I woke up I wasn’t groggy as usual; I felt tingly and alive. Sharp. The smell of the hospital was freshly antiseptic, like someone had just sloshed bleach around the room, and even the muted colours of the walls and curtains seemed bright. There was a starling on my nightstand. It was regarding me with that classic bird look of inquisitive stupidity. Both bright and blank. Despite my neurons firing on all cylinders it took me a moment to realise that the starling was standing on something. A box. A mobile phone box.

  I managed to sit up in double-quick time, ignoring the pains that ran up my spine, sending spikes into my skull. A nurse I didn’t recognise was at the bed opposite, chatting to Queenie. Every word seemed amplified and I hoped this new clarity would go away as quickly as it had arrived. Either that or I’d have to ask Parveen to bring me sunglasses and some earmuffs, too.

  I unpacked the phone and switched it on. The nurse gave me a disapproving glance but she didn’t come over and tell me I couldn’t use it. I guessed they had mostly given up enforcing that hospital rule. For a moment I was intensely glad for the overworked and under-organised National Health nursing. The phone was far fancier than I’d imagined. It had a touchscreen and icons for internet and email, as well as text and calls, and Parveen had put the SIM card and battery in ready for me. I was so grateful that I forgot to be annoyed by her presumption that I wouldn’t be able to do it for myself. I typed in Geraint’s number and listened to it ring. Eventually, on maybe the twentieth try, I was forced to put the phone away in my bedside locker. A nurse arrived to take my blood pressure and she was followed by someone else, who wanted to check my leg. By the time they’d finished, it was breakfast followed by Simon the Viking.

  Now that I had remembered Geraint and his phone call and I had the means of calling him back, I could hardly think of anything else. Simon made me do the most excruciating exercises, flexing my shattered knee until I thought I would pass out, but all the time my thoughts ran on an endless loop. It was The Geraint Show twenty-four/seven. I was remembering all kinds of things and each memory seemed to lead on to another. The time when we were children and he cut my hair. I had a clear memory of us standing in the hallway and looking at ourselves in the big mirror. I could see both of our faces: Ger’s dark-eyed and serious, from the neck up; mine barely visible. I was too short so just my eyes, forehead and my jagged new fringe were showing. I don’t remember Pat going spare over the haircut or Geraint actually doing the cutting, just that moment in which we stood side by side and admired his handiwork.

  Another memory: Auntie Pat was doing something mysterious with a big pot on the stove and the kitchen was filled with steam. I was sitting on the floor and she was singing. Geraint was drawing on the window with his finger and I felt intensely jealous that he’d thought of it first and had dibs.

  Another: sitting in our favourite corner of our regular. Geraint was explaining something to do with prime numbers and I was watching the barman with the ponytail and nice arms. Another time in a club, when Ger was with some girl. We were seventeen or eighteen. She worked in Boots and told him she could get hold of out-of-date medicines and they kissed for hours. I couldn’t stop watching them. The memory of fascination and disgust and a weird kind of jealousy was so vivid, I found it hard to believe I was remembering something from years ago and not the week before.

  ‘You’re quiet today,’ Simon said.

  ‘Apart from all the screaming,’ I said.

  He nodded. ‘But you usually insult me more. You off your game?’

  He was smiling but his eyes were soft with concern. It made me want to cry, which made me want to be sick. I hated this mushy feeling, it was like I was dissolving. I forced a smile in return and made it brittle. ‘Just thinking of some good ones for next time.’

  After Simon had gone, I sank my head back on the pillow and closed my eyes. Geraint had always been highly strung. He’d get obsessed with things and forget everything else while he pursued them. He could forget to answer people, to wash, to eat. Just when you’d be starting to think things were getting really serious, the obsession would peak. He’d solve the equation, or finish building the computer, or master the clarinet, and would appear, hair brushed, ravenous, at the breakfast table. He was like an explorer, going on long voyages of discovery, pushing himself to the brink of mental and physical exhaustion and then returning just in time for tea. If any of us said we’d been worried (we’d said it before, of course, but he hadn’t been listening), he’d turn his insufferably confident expression on us and say, offhandedly, ‘I had it all under control.’

  Drugs were a bad idea.

  We smoked a little weed, did a few mushrooms, and that was it. One time, Geraint tried speed, something that any idiot could’ve told him was not a good mix with his personality type. He thought he was chewing gum and bit his cheeks and tongue bloody and, by the end of the night, was sitting on the ledge of his open bedroom window while I begged him to come inside.

  Afterwards, maybe the next day, I tried to talk to him about it. He laughed in my face. ‘This is serious,’ I said. ‘You can’t take that again. You could’ve fallen out of the window. You could’ve really hurt yourself.’

  Ger rolled a cigarette and told me to stop acting maternal. He said it didn’t suit me.

  I reached into the bedside cabinet and retrieved the phone. My back was hurting so I lay flat and held the phone above my face. I pressed the buttons and listened to Geraint’s phone ring and ring.

  GRACE

  When Grace was fifteen, their neighbour Bridget had taken her to see a gypsy fortune teller. It was their little secret; Grace’s mother would’ve gone spare, but Bridget said it was vital for every young girl to have her palm read. Grace spent the morning before they went in a state of anxious excitement. She’d read an adventure story once that featured gypsies. They lived in brightly painted caravans and had tiny bells sewn into their clothes, tinkling as they walked.

  The woman had lived in an ordinary semi-detached on Lowden Avenue and Grace was both relieved and disappointed when she opened the door in a navy wrap-over just like the one her mother’s housekeeper wore to do the cleaning.

  Madame Clara had ushered them through to the kitchen. It was smaller than Grace’s mother’s kitchen but had the same deep sink and water heater bolted to the wall. While Grace’s mother had smartly painted green
cupboards, Madame Clara’s were tired-looking and mismatched. There were gingham curtains hanging underneath the sink and plant pots lined up along the windowsill.

  ‘Please, sit,’ Madame Clara said, gesturing to the small table tucked against the wall.

  There was a crystal ball on the table. Grace blinked but it remained just as real as ever, planted next to the salt and pepper set on the flowered oilcloth. Madame Clara pulled the yellow blind down at the window, bathing the room in a warm glow, and lit a white candle. The candle was a tall dinner one stuck into what looked like a wooden egg cup. All in all, it wasn’t what Grace had been expecting.

  ‘Give me your hand.’ Madame Clara held out her hand for Grace’s.

  ‘Go on,’ Bridget said, nudging her.

  As soon as Grace’s fingers grazed the older woman’s, she felt a spark. She pulled her hand back. She smiled a nervous apology. ‘Static electricity. It always happens in the summer.’

  ‘You’ve got powerful energy,’ Madame Clara said. Grace didn’t believe her for a second. She was always getting little shocks from static electricity. There was nothing mystical about it.

  Clara reached for Grace’s hand and, once again, the static sparked between them. ‘Ouch,’ Clara said, sticking her fingers in her mouth. She looked at Grace appraisingly for a moment and then said: ‘Tea leaves.’

  While the kettle was boiling, Clara and Bridget chatted. Bridget spilled every detail of her life and, seemingly, every thought that had passed through her mind since waking up that morning. When she came to have her reading done, Clara would have plenty to choose from. Grace was wondering how much Clara charged and whether it would be a good way to make pocket money, assuming of course that Grace’s mother didn’t kill her flat dead for even considering such a low-class idea, when she saw something odd. Madame Clara had crossed the kitchen to make the tea and when her back was turned, Grace saw a shadow. It was square in the middle of Clara’s back. Grace looked around to see what was casting it, but there was nothing. She looked again and the shadow was still there, and when Clara moved the shadow moved with her. Grace blinked. She stared at the place Clara had been standing, trying to see the shadow against the sink or the cupboard, but it wasn’t there.

  Clara put the pot of tea on the table, making ‘uh-huh’ noises while Bridget rattled on, nineteen to the dozen.

  ‘May I have a glass of water?’ Grace said. She felt sick and the skin on her arms was raised in goose pimples. Bridget shot her an old-fashioned look, but Clara nodded and went to the sink. There it was. A large black shadow, its edges clearly defined and unmistakable. It was an asymmetrical oval, the topmost point jutting up between Clara’s shoulder blades and finishing just above her square waist.

  ‘There’s something on your back,’ Grace said. She couldn’t help herself.

  ‘What’s got into you today?’ Bridget said, frowning.

  Clara turned around. She was pale. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Sorry,’ Grace said, fighting embarrassment and ingrained reticence. ‘There’s a dark shape on your back. Is it a stain?’ Grace knew it wasn’t, but she had to see it again.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Bridget said to Clara. She reached out and tapped Grace smartly on the back of her hand. ‘Don’t be so rude, young lady.’

  Clara didn’t answer, she was twisting her neck, trying to look over her own shoulder. ‘I can’t see anything. I can’t see . . .’

  ‘Here,’ Bridget stood up. ‘I’ll look. Perhaps the dye has been fading in your pinny. That happens, especially with the dark colours. Don’t you find?’

  Clara joined her in the middle of the kitchen, presenting her back to Bridget for inspection.

  ‘There’s nothing there,’ Bridget said. She gave Grace another look. This one was harder to read. Confusion mixed with irritation.

  Clara’s face was frightened, though. ‘What does it look like?’ She twisted again, showing her back to Grace. ‘What do you see?’

  Grace looked at the black oval. It seemed to be moving slightly, undulating with the shifts in Clara’s position. It was a shadow but it looked alive somehow. Shapes stretched out on either side of the oval like the wings of a bird, the tips of its feathers brushing her shoulders. Grace closed her eyes. ‘Nothing. There’s nothing there. It was just a trick of the light. Sorry.’

  Clara sat back down, grasping Grace’s hand. She felt the jolt of static electricity again and saw Clara wince, but the woman held on tight. Too tight. ‘What did you see? Tell me?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Grace said, truly frightened now. ‘Nothing. I swear.’

  Three months later, Grace was eating porridge at her mother’s dining table when Bridget dropped in for an early visit. She was in a lather and wouldn’t join the family at the table. She and Grace’s mother were closeted in the kitchen and when Bridget was fit for company, her eyes were red. She played nervously with a sodden handkerchief. ‘You remember my friend Clara, don’t you?’

  Grace nodded, her breakfast porridge making a sudden bid for freedom, back from her stomach and up her throat.

  ‘She’s in hospital.’ Bridget paused and when she spoke again her voice was barely a whisper. ‘Cancer.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Grace managed. She thanked the heavens for ingrained politeness, for the socially acceptable platitudes that sprang to her lips. She didn’t know if this was why Mother had always been so strict about manners, but they did give you a road map, something to follow when you felt as if you were dissolving from fear and uncertainty.

  Bridget, however, was staring at Grace with a piercing gaze. As if she was waiting for the girl to say something else.

  Two weeks later Clara was dead, and, from then on, whenever Grace saw shadows that shouldn’t be there, she looked resolutely in the opposite direction. Even when one appeared on her own body, a shaky black circle on her stomach, she pretended it wasn’t there. She used every ounce of willpower to ignore it, never allowing her gaze to stray towards her middle, until it was too late.

  MINA

  When I was a kid, I thought X-rays were magical, that those wobbly black-and-white images were brought about by some strange alchemy. Working in radiology, I used multiple-imaging techniques as tools for diagnosis and research, and X-rays were the least impressive of the lot. They should have become routine to me, but I never lost the feeling that they were dispatches from the unknown. I knew the science, of course, but there was a part of me that had never really stopped believing they were something else, something other than the effect of electromagnetic radiation on photographic paper. There was something ghostly, something otherworldly, about the blurry white shapes glowing on the dark background. They revealed and concealed in equal measure. They had revolutionised medicine, given us the ability to see inside ourselves without cutting, but they gave an incomplete view. A shadow on an X-ray might be an artefact, a mistake in the developing process, or it might be a tumour that was going to kill your patient within the next seventy-two hours.

  I was sitting up in bed, waiting for my breakfast and thinking about my brother. I was trying to remember whether I should be worried about Ger, or whether I was merging memories and feelings from the past. I had an inkling that it was myself I should be worrying for, a horrible sense of dread that had wound itself around my insides, but that could be the depression. Dr Adams kept on reassuring me that every thought, every feeling, every down-in-the-dumps day, every bleak view, was normal and to be expected. It made me feel worse. Not only did I still feel like crap, but I also felt like a walking (or, more accurately, lying) cliché. I didn’t want to be a collection of symptoms. I wanted to be a person. I wanted to be me again.

  I closed my eyes and ran through the things I was certain of. My name, my age, my address. I still couldn’t picture my flat. I had an image of a purple sofa, the one that Mark had told me about, but I had no idea if it was a memory or just my imagination. I remembered my office at work, Parveen, Paul and Mark. I remembered starting at the hosp
ital and the early months of my relationship with Mark. I’d never been out with anybody so grown-up and sorted, and I remembered how much I’d loved the novelty of a man who organised proper dates and trips away. Then things got hazy.

  Further back was easier. If I let my mind wander, memories from childhood were crystal clear, just waiting. Memories I didn’t think I’d visited in a long time. Memories I hadn’t wanted to visit. When I left the peninsula, I left it. The way most people leave childhood, by shoving it into an unloved corner of the mind and forgetting about it until psychotherapy or hard drugs or, apparently, head trauma, dragged it kicking and screaming into the light.

  Today I was at the giant’s grave. A Neolithic burial ground made of stones. It was sixty feet long and twenty wide, low stone walls with a grassy roof. I was sitting on the edge with a friend. I don’t remember what we were talking about, or which of our rambling walks had taken us there. I just remember the quiet in the clearing, the line of trees in my sight line. I remember the Opal Fruits I was sucking, and that I was letting the chewy sweet spread out and lie on the roof of my mouth to give maximum sweet-eating time.

  And then, with the visceral memory of the sugar syrup running down the back of my throat, I remembered something else. We’d been warned not to go walking on our own. A girl had been found in the woods and it had been in the paper. My friend’s dad was in the police and she said that he’d told her the girl had been interfered with. I didn’t really know what the phrase meant and I never knew the girl, but I dreamed about her for weeks. I’d seen a bird before the news had broken. Every day while I was waiting at the stop for the school bus there had been three wagtails. They sat inside the bus shelter, in a neat little row, their tails unnaturally still and sombre. When I got on to the bus they flew inside and perched on the rail of the seat in front of mine. Every morning I had my wagtail shadows and every night I dreamed of a girl, about my age, sleeping in the woods. Her clothes were torn and dirty and her leg didn’t look right. She had fairy music playing in her ears and her eyes were wide open.