Mindsight

by Chris Curran

  She nodded, and I sat back, exhausted.

  ‘Of course. Fine, then.’ She swallowed her coffee in a couple of gulps, thrust her feet back into the clogs and stood up. ‘In fact, how about starting tomorrow?’ She must have noticed my squirm of anxiety, because she smiled and added, ‘You can come in for half a day, see how it suits you.’

  Outside, I stood for a moment taking a deep breath. I glanced back through the window to see Stella, with her back to me, talking into the phone. For a moment I wondered if she was calling Alice to report on the interview, but I told myself not to be paranoid.

  It was all I could do to get back to the flat. Although it was only mid-afternoon I stumbled to the bedroom and was asleep in minutes.

  I’m in a cold room surrounded by flowers, trying to arrange them into wreaths, and I can hear crying nearby. My feet are bare on the tiled floor. I’m naked, too, under the rough dress. Of course I’m in the punishment block. And the flowers have disappeared. One of the screws, red hair tumbling over her face, looks in and tells me I’m no good to anyone. The room is full of smoke now, but the warder is holding me back so I can’t get to the crying, and the fire alarm is ringing and ringing…

  The phone had stopped before I got to it, but in my sleep I’d made a decision and one I knew I had to act on before I lost my nerve.

  I chose Alice’s home number instead of her mobile. As I heard the distant ringing, my hand moistened and my mouth went dry. A click signalled someone answering, and I dared not wait any longer. ‘Alice? It’s Clare. Is he there? Can I speak to him, please?’

  A moment’s silence. A breath. Then a voice with a heart-piercing adolescent wobble, ‘Mum? Is that you?’

  I hardly slept that night and by dawn I was sitting in front of the TV in my dressing gown. Inevitably, I dozed off and woke certain I was already late for work. I tore into the kitchen to check the clock, relieved to see I just had time to wash and dress. It didn’t matter that it was too late for breakfast, because I couldn’t have eaten anything. But my throat was bone dry, so I stuck my mouth under the tap and glugged down a few swallows of lukewarm water before setting off at a run.

  Stella had told me to come round to the back door, and I found her unloading the van, too busy, thank God, to notice I was breathless. ‘Oh, good, you’re just in time,’ she said, thrusting some trays of flowers at me.

  Harriet was already in the shop and they both talked almost non-stop as we got ready to open. They rarely seemed to expect an answer from me, so I focused on following the torrent of instructions. At nine o’clock Stella opened the shop door. ‘Harriet, sweetie, would you show Clare how we make up a simple bouquet.’ She smiled at me. ‘It’s not difficult, but best if you have a bit of a practice before you do it for real.’

  When the bell jangled half an hour later Harriet smiled at me. ‘Over to you then – your first customers.’

  The two women were poking at a large container of roses and, as I walked over, I forced a smile, very conscious of Harriet behind the counter. ‘Can I help you?’

  Without looking up, one of them began pulling roses from the vase and handing them to me. ‘Yes, can you do these up with some greenery, love?’ I knew my hands were shaking as I wrapped the bunch for her, but I managed to deal with the till without too much trouble.

  ‘Just started have you, dear?’ she said.

  Harriet answered for me. ‘This is Clare. She’s taking over when I go to uni.’ Obviously this was a regular, and they chatted for a few moments. I should have been relieved, but all the time I was aware of the woman’s friend watching me.

  ‘Local are you?’ she asked.

  I fiddled with the Sellotape dispenser, avoiding her eye. ‘I’ve just moved here.’ I could tell she wanted more, but her friend was already at the door. They stood outside for a moment, glancing back at us as they talked.

  When Harriet went into the back room to sort some orders, I leaned on the counter, my legs almost too weak to support my weight. I asked myself why I’d agreed to a job like this, where I would be constantly on show. Stella was Alice’s friend, of course, and they’d made it easy for me, but I wasn’t at all sure I was going to cope.

  I managed to deal with the next three or four customers and at last Stella shouted down that coffee was ready. Harriet ran up and brought down a mug. ‘Go and have a sit down with yours, Clare. You deserve it.’

  Stella was standing, draining her mug. ‘Take your time,’ she said. ‘No rush.’ I suspected she was going to get a progress report, but was just grateful to be able to lean back and close my eyes for a few moments; to give in to the thoughts I’d been fighting since yesterday.

  A part of me was terrified about what I had to face that night, but another part was joyful. I had spoken to my son, and – the memory was a sliver of sunlight dancing with motes of something wonderful, something amazing, something I’d thought impossible – Tommy wanted to see me.

  ‘Did Alice tell you I was out?’ I’d said when I was able to speak, cursing myself for the crass remark.

  ‘She said it was soon, but I worked that out anyway.’ There was silence, as his unspoken question hung in the air. Why didn’t you come and see me right away?

  There was no point in making excuses, no point, either, in raking up the past. The conversation, if you could call it that, faltered to a halt and I asked to speak to Alice, to arrange for her to drive me over. ‘That’s OK, I can tell her,’ he said, the edge to his voice suggesting he suspected I might try to get out of the arrangement.

  Neither of us mentioned his dad, or his granddad. Or Toby – his twin – his other half.

  Tommy had always been the more forceful, the more independent, of the twins even though he was the younger by half an hour. He hadn’t been involved in the crash because he’d been invited to his best friend’s birthday party the weekend of the wedding and he’d stayed over. Toby had been happy to come on his own: to have all our attention to himself for once.

  After I was sentenced, Alice took Tommy on and brought him up: yet another thing I had to be grateful to her for. It was agony to lose him too, but at least I knew he was with someone who loved him almost as much as I did.

  Down in the shop again, Stella said she needed Harriet to help in the back room. ‘You’ll be OK out here on your own, won’t you, Clare?’

  I was very aware of the sounds of clipping and muttering, the scrape of shifting stools and the occasional burst of running water. At least the shop was quiet, only two more customers buying flowers from the displays. Neither of them did more than glance at me and I began to tell myself that maybe it would be all right.

  By quarter to one I was almost too drained to keep standing and I found myself looking at the clock every few seconds, sure it had stopped. Finally, it crept to one o’clock and, on the dot, Stella emerged. ‘Right, I’m starving and we close for an hour now, so why don’t you pop off?’

  As I crossed to the other side of the counter, she was fiddling with her hair and frowning down at a small notebook. But, before I could escape, she spoke. ‘Oh, Clare…’ I looked into her button brown eyes. ‘Now I know I said you could start properly next week, but…’ I froze, ‘… I wonder if you could do tomorrow morning too. Saturdays are always busy and we’ve had a load of last minute orders.’

  I managed to gasp out a, ‘Yes, that’s OK.’

  ‘And if you can do Monday to Wednesday next week that would be wonderful.’

  He must have been listening for the car because he was standing on the steps of Beldon House as we pulled into the driveway. I knew, of course, that he was thirteen now: I’d pored over each new set of photographs for hours. But the shock at his height and the sharp bones replacing the soft roundness in his face jolted through me all the same. His arm rose and then fell as I climbed from the car and he took a half step towards me. But the car door was comfortingly warm and I leant back against it smoothing my dress with damp hands.

  A deep breath. ‘Hello, Tommy.’

/>   His eyes flickered away and his hands pulled at the sleeves of his sweatshirt, dragging them out of shape. It was a habit the twins had shared, and I swallowed, trying to move the huge lump blocking my throat. Then I pushed myself forward, hands stretched out.

  On the step he was taller than me. ‘It’s lovely to see you.’ Stupid, stupid. I didn’t blame him for turning away without a word.

  Head lowered, he led the way through the hall to the kitchen. As we’d approached the house it looked the same as always – the same as it had been when Alice and I grew up here. Inside, the hall with its black and white tiles certainly hadn’t changed. Mum’s favourite vase, a big copper thing filled today with sunflowers, still stood on the table by the stairs and Alice had put a photo of Mum and Dad next to it. But, as Tommy threw open the kitchen door, I saw that a huge and lovely space, with the sun streaming through open French windows, had replaced the clutter of little rooms I remembered. Tommy slumped down at the table twisting open a can of Coke and watching as a line of fizz foamed down the side.

  Say something, do something for God’s sake. I glanced round. ‘Shall I make some tea, Alice?’

  But she wasn’t going to let me off that easily. ‘No you sit and talk. I’ll make it.’

  I pulled out a chair next to my son. One large hand, his nails chewed like mine, traced the grain of the table while the other turned the can round and round making a series of wet, sticky circles on the wood. He muttered something to the tabletop.

  ‘Sorry, Tommy. What did you say?’

  ‘Tom – everyone calls me Tom now.’

  ‘Oh yes, sorry, I should’ve remembered. You started putting Tom on your letters.’

  We both watched the can as he turned and turned it again.

  ‘Sorry… I’m sorry about not writing lately.’ His ears and the side of his jaw had flushed pink and I realised he thought I was telling him off for neglecting me. My throat throbbed.

  ‘That’s OK. I expect you’ve been busy.’ This was hopeless, hopeless. Say something sensible you stupid fool.

  Alice sat opposite plonking two mugs and a biscuit tin with a floral lid on the table. ‘Tell your mum about your music, Tom.’

  His voice was so low I could only make out odd words. Grades and examiners, and soon he stopped speaking and went back to playing with the can.

  ‘Would you like to be a musician?’ I said it softly, and for the first time he met my eye, nodding, before looking down to crush the sides of the can with a crack.

  ‘Tell you what. It’s too nice to sit inside. Will you show me the garden?’ I jumped up, hoping to make it impossible for him to refuse.

  We left Alice in the kitchen and my tall son strode down the tiled path so quickly that, as I tried to match his pace, my skirt caught on the overhanging plants and a sweet herby smell filled the air. Alice had worked magic on the garden too; its flower-filled lushness bore little resemblance to the vast expanse of lawn bordered by huge woody shrubs that I recalled. He led me to the far end where a bench overlooked a vista of fields. The sun was hot once more and the fields flared with the painful yellow of oilseed rape, dotted here and there with a flush of poppies. It reminded me of a Van Gogh painting – too bright, too hectic.

  I sat on the bench, but Tom stood by the low wall staring over the fields. His hair was a slightly darker blond than it had been when he was little. ‘I’m sorry I stopped writing to you,’ he said.

  ‘Tom, it really is OK. You don’t need to feel bad about anything.’

  ‘I was mad at you.’

  I gripped the bench, the rough wood biting into my palms. I wanted so much to help him. To tell him if he wanted to shout at me, to hit me, it was only his right.

  ‘You lied about me not being allowed to come and see you in prison. Mark’s dad’s a solicitor and he said.’

  How stupid we’d been. ‘You see, Tom, I didn’t want you to come there because Holloway’s not a very nice place and …’

  ‘That’s bollocks.’ His voice broke and the word hung in the air. I think he was as shocked as I was. ‘Sorry.’ When he turned I could see his eyes were glassy, and I was beside him, my arms round him, rubbing his stiff back. He was too big and too bony, but then I felt him relax, his head resting on my shoulder as he muttered again, ‘Sorry, sorry, Mum.’

  I led him to the bench and made him sit. He scrubbed his face ferociously, as I patted his other forearm and echoed his throat clearing and sniffing with my own small cough. ‘Tom.’ I laid my hand over his larger one. ‘You’ve got nothing, nothing at all, to say sorry to me for. I can’t make it right again, I know, but please don’t blame yourself for anything. All I want is for us to be friends.’ Even as I said it I knew I’d got it all wrong. But what would have been right?

  He looked up, and there in his clear grey eyes was my little lost Tommy. ‘OK, and if it’s all right with you, I want to live with you again. Alice says I can’t, but you are my mum aren’t you?’ The words came out in a rush and I guessed he’d prepared them.

  My own eyes filled with tears, but whether they were tears of joy at hearing the words I’d never dared hope he would say, or of pain that I couldn’t take him home right now, I didn’t know.

  Don’t lie to him again. ‘Well… Alice does have custody you know.’

  ‘Yes, but you’re my mum.’ His voice was hard.

  ‘And there’s nothing I want more than to have you with me all the time. But, you know, it’s going to take me a while to get settled. I’ve already found a job so that’s a good start. And, if it’s all right with you I want to see you as often as I can, because we need to get to know each other properly again. So will you be patient for just a while longer?’

  He jumped up and began pacing the little patio. I couldn’t tell if he was angry, disappointed, excited, or just too full of life and energy to sit still.

  When he turned to me, his eyes were shining. ‘One thing, one thing I’ve been thinking, is that I could help you.’

  ‘What do you mean, Tom?’ I loved saying his name.

  ‘You know, to show them they made a mistake; to show them it wasn’t your fault.’

  Chapter Four

  Alice had roasted a chicken with all the trimmings and opened some wine. I knew she was trying to make this a celebration of sorts for my homecoming, but I couldn’t force much down. My mind whirled with it all, but mostly with the idea that Tom still believed I was innocent. At the trial I’d pleaded not guilty, but in prison I finally had to accept what Mike and the others told me: that my amnesia was caused by my inability to face the reality of what I’d done. I’d tried to explain it to Tom in my letters, and I cursed myself for not making it clearer.

  We didn’t speak much, but he ate well. When he’d cleared his plate he pushed back his chair, looking at Alice. ‘Got to do some homework,’ he said.

  As he thundered upstairs, Alice touched my hand. ‘It’s bound to be hard for him. Give him time.’

  ‘He thinks there could be some way to prove I was innocent.’

  She shook her head, and I followed her to the kitchen where she fiddled with a fancy-looking coffee machine. ‘I was afraid of something like this.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He spends a lot of time at his friend Mark’s and, according to Mark’s mum, the two of them have started watching that bloody programme about miscarriages of justice.’

  I knew the one she meant; it was a favourite with some of the women inside. ‘But you should have told him there was nothing like that with my case.’

  ‘It wasn’t so simple, Clare. I tried, but what could I say? If your letters didn’t convince him how could I? I couldn’t tell him about your past, the drugs, and everything, could I?’

  ‘But you should have made him understand.’

  ‘Look Clare, it’s you who doesn’t understand. You haven’t lived with him all these years.’ She slammed a brimming mug on the table so that coffee dripped down the yellow stripes on the china. ‘He believes what he wants to bel
ieve. I tried to talk to him about it, but all he would ever say was, “My mum’s a good driver and when they find out she’ll come for me.” Lately he just won’t discuss it, not with me anyway.’

  I sat down, gulping at the scalding coffee. ‘I’m sorry. I know it hasn’t been easy for you.’

  She shook her head, looking suddenly very grey. ‘Tom’s a great kid and he deserves to know the truth. But that can only come from you.’

  ‘But I can’t remember, you know that. Just those few images I’ve told you about. I’m not even sure they’re really memories. I’ve heard so much about what might have happened that I could have invented them to fit.’

  Alice pushed her fingers through her hair. ‘Well, tell him what you do know then.’

  ‘Be completely honest, you mean?’

  She nodded, taking my hand and gripping it hard. ‘I’m sure most kids are wiser and more realistic than we imagine.’ I put my hand over hers and looked into her blue eyes. They were shining with tears and for the first time in years she looked like my little sister again. ‘Go on,’ she said, ‘speak to him now.’ She sniffed and smiled and when I stood she kept hold of my hand for a moment.

  I paused in the doorway of Tom’s room. It was the one the twins had always slept in when they stayed here. His choice or Alice’s, I wondered? At least I was thankful it looked different from the room where I’d kissed my boys goodnight so many times.

  It was large, like all the rooms in the house, and seemed larger with only one bed now instead of two. There was a distinct, though not unpleasant, tang in the air: a mixture of damp socks, orange peel, chocolate, and peppery sweat. The bed was rumpled, a shirt and a bath towel in the middle of the floor, but otherwise it was surprisingly tidy.

  The mantelpiece and the shelf next to it held a row of metal trophies and the walls were decorated by several large posters – The Hobbit, Hunger Games, and a couple of footballers.

  I noticed Tom’s hair still stuck up at the back and his shoulders, bent over the keyboard as he tapped away, were surprisingly broad.