by A J Waines
He narrowed his eyes, seemingly unaware of the full picture.
‘He had a terrible fall,’ I said tentatively, watching his face for signs of recognition about being on the roof, but nothing came. I didn’t say any more. Con must have lost additional memories during the reversal process, but it was a small price to pay.
Miranda got up and held my face in her hands. It was a tender and heartfelt gesture.
‘They won’t let me see him,’ I whispered. I wanted to dissolve there and then, but if I let go, I feared never pulling everything back together again.
Con turned around. ‘You doing laundry today?’ he said, having a stretch. ‘You couldn’t slip my jeans in could you? They’re filthy.’
Miranda gave me a wink. It looked like Con was on the way back to being his old self, but there was one thing I knew I had to try which would be the ultimate test. I went into the bedroom and came back with the paperback I’d hidden under the bed.
‘Con, have you seen this?’
He tutted. ‘You showed me that a few days ago. It’s not my cup of tea.’
‘But do you recognise the story at all?’
He told hold of the book, flicked it over to the back, then opened it at the first page. ‘No.’
‘What about page seventy-three?’
He swung his weight on to one hip and indulged me. ‘Right, page seventy-three.’ He started reading out loud in a lacklustre voice:
Lee turned to Robbie. ‘Can you smell that?’ he said. ‘It’s smoke.’
The train lurched to a stop in the tunnel. For a second, it seemed like everything was silent, then all hell broke loose. Everyone was on their feet, screaming, as smoke started billowing into the carriage…
He tossed the book on the table. ‘A load of rubbish, Sam,’ he said. ‘I hate these melodramatic things. I don’t know why you’re showing me it, again.’ He went towards the window, his mind on something else. ‘Fancy getting some fresh air?’ he said.
‘Yeah – soon,’ I said. I’d need to keep an eye on him for a few days to make sure, but the early signs were promising.
‘I’m going back to Linden Manor,’ Miranda announced. ‘I’ve decided.’
Another tremor of loss. Even though I found her erratic behaviour so unmanageable, I’d started to warm to the idea of getting to know her all over again.
‘You’re doing the right thing,’ I said, trying to be adult and sensible, when all I wanted was to beg her to stay for a while.
Once she’d packed up her stuff, I pressed the envelope I’d left by the door into her hand. ‘I’ll see you soon,’ I said. I meant it.
Danny came over shortly afterwards for Con. He’d agreed to spend time with him, just in case things hadn’t gone as smoothly as we’d all hoped.
Once they left, I was at a total loose end. My flat was too quiet and I was on high alert thinking there was something I should be doing. Somewhere I ought to be. Not having work or any plans meant too much time to think about Leo. With every moment that passed the hollow ache claimed another part of me. I had so much to process emotionally about him, about Con and the suicides – with dismay, confusion and grief all wrapped up, fighting for air.
I couldn’t help feeling concerned for Leo’s daughters too, left as orphans in such a short space of time. Not least, I was scared that my own disturbing visions were still around the next corner, ready to pounce now my guard was down.
Con came back late to spend the night. He thought his luck was in as we got ready for bed but, for me, having him there was more about making sure the memory reversal hadn’t left him with any nasty side effects.
As I climbed into bed beside him, I told him I felt sick – it was true – but I didn’t tell him why. He sighed and huffed in response.
Even with his protective presence beside me, I was too frightened to close my eyes. I needed to sleep, but the darkness that kept slipping its arms around me was neither warm nor inviting. It kept trying to snatch me away to dingy festering places. I tried to soothe myself with pictures of Leo’s face, his words reassuring me, but all I could find was an image of his twisted fallen body.
I’d never felt so alone.
I woke at around 9am with my cheek sticking to a newspaper and a crick in my neck. I must have got up in the night and fallen asleep in the kitchen, never making it back to bed.
A croaky rendition of Come Fly With Me was coming from the bathroom. Con bounced in with wet hair, boisterous and raring to go.
‘I’ve already been out for a run,’ he said, ‘unlike some lazy tykes!’ He squeezed me hard and kissed my forehead.
The old Con was back all right. I asked him if he’d slept well and he said ‘never better’ as if things hadn’t ever been different.
The phone rang before I could check how much newsprint was smeared over my face.
‘I thought you would have rung by now.’ It was my mother.
‘I’m sorry, Mum, I’ve been a bit—’
‘I’m fine. Nice of you to ask.’
‘I’m sorry, I—’
She ploughed on as if I hadn’t spoken.
‘I’ll be scarred for life,’ she said. ‘Anyway. Look, the reason I’m ringing is to tell you that as far as anyone is concerned and I mean anyone – that includes Aunty Lorna and Uncle Jim – I was attacked by a dog, you understand. A savage dog. We’re keeping that girl out of it. Okay?’
I squeezed the word out. ‘Fine.’
I wanted to ask why Miranda had gone for her like that – there had to be a reason, but I knew I’d get nothing out of her.
‘Anyway, I just wanted to make that clear. Oh, and your father wants to talk to you, too. I’ve got to go. We’ve got a WI meeting tonight and I’m needed.’
With that, I was abruptly passed on.
‘Hi, sweetheart,’ he said. I heard their front door shut in the background.
‘How’s Mum’s face? How is she doing?’
‘Oh, she’d all right. Still absolutely fuming. She’s too humiliated to admit it was Miranda, so I’ve got to go along with this “mad dog” story.’ He tutted. ‘That’s all she seems to care about.’
‘What happened? What made Miranda react like that?’
‘Honestly…I don’t know. Moira said something to her in the hall, I know what – then the next thing, Miranda flew at her. Moira won’t talk about it. In fact, she’s removed the few family photographs we still had left around the house and put them in the loft. There are just pictures of the three of us, now. There’s no sign that Miranda is part of our family at all, anymore.’
‘That’s awful! Why didn’t you stop her?’
He sighed heavily. ‘I’ve got to live with your mother, Sam.’
He had a point.
‘It’s not easy,’ he went on. ‘She doesn’t know I’ve been in close contact with your sister all the time she’s been in care.’
I’d often wondered about the quality of my parents’ marriage; my mother so self-obsessed and demanding, my father always in the shadows and in her eyes ‘weak and ineffectual’.
‘Moira’s got a holiday booked with Lorna in a couple of days’ time. I’ll be glad of the break, to be honest.’
I was tempted to say he was better off without her for good, but caught myself just in time.
‘Moira’s been in such a foul mood and I can’t seem to do anything right, either…’
I gave him the chance to let off steam and took the opportunity to join in. We both railed against my mother, homing in on the appalling way she’d always treated Miranda. It was good to give vent to the tornado raging inside me that was really about Leo’s death.
‘I’m not blameless,’ Dad insisted. ‘I allowed Moira to get away with treating Miranda so callously all these years.’
‘We both stood by,’ I said, acutely aware that I’d let Mum poison my mind to her, when I should have known better.
‘Right now, I’m more concerned about Miranda than anyone else,’ he said. ‘The care home said
she ran off again, but she went back of her own accord.’ Another weary sigh. ‘I’m going over to see her today. She said she’s hoping you’ll visit her, too…’
‘I will…very soon,’ I said.
‘She feels terrible about what happened between you. She said she’d give anything to have her little sister back.’
I bit my lip. I couldn’t speak.
‘Sam?’
‘Sorry Dad. I’ve had a tough week.’
‘That boyfriend of yours okay?’
‘Yes. Much better, I think.’ Con had given me no cause for concern whatsoever in the past twenty-four hours.
‘Ah, well, that’s all right, then.’
Dad didn’t know about my suspension, Leo’s death or my own precarious sanity. I told him I had to go. I couldn’t face explanations.
Con went back to his flat that afternoon. He wanted to see the Saturday matinee at the theatre and he took me at my word when I said I needed to be alone.
I left it as late as I could before going to bed that night. I was beyond tired, by then – dizzy, disoriented, wiped out. I took twice the stipulated dose of sleeping tablets, praying for a tiny piece of oblivion.
Even so, shortly after I hit the pillow the demons claimed me again. For no apparent reason, I was forced into my fiercest nocturnal battle yet. I awoke with all my bedding on the floor, my pyjamas soaking in sweat, my heart clanging inside my ribcage. I felt like I’d been dragged across the Sahara without water, made to stumble over rocks on a barren moon and dropped back amongst hostile outcasts in pitch darkness.
Then, still in my dreams, blinding lights came on and I had to witness brutal events that seemed to be caused entirely by me, and me alone. I saw Jake, falling like a broken branch from the bridge; watched as his face was crushed under the front wheel of the number forty-six bus. I saw Jane, her legs caught in reeds sucking her down in the fast-flowing river; heard her lungs fill with water. Then there was Terry inside an industrial waste bin, his open eyes pressed against the carcass of a rotting fish, a family of rats taking chunks out of his ankle. I saw the needle sticking out of his arm like a giant insect.
When I woke, it didn’t stop. I felt to blame for Leo’s death too. For dragging him into the situation that ultimately killed him. For causing his daughters, having already lost their mother, to be without both parents. I felt like every terrible thing that had happened was my fault.
I went to the bathroom and poured cold water into the sink, letting more and more gush in until it was filled to the top. I stared at it and gripped both taps, seized by the thought that there could still be other affected people out there. I knew of only four – but there could easily be more.
For a split second, I hated the world and all the evil and brutality within it. It wasn’t a place I wanted to belong to any more.
Without taking a breath, I pressed my face under the surface of the water. Bubbles gurgled by my ears. I stayed under, my nostrils burning, my cheeks ready to burst.
Don’t do this.
Was that Leo’s voice, calling to me from some faraway place?
I came up for air, hungrily sucking it in, my shoulders heaving. I buried my face in the towel. I wasn’t ready to give up. I had an appointment with my therapist in three hours’ time. All I had to do was hang on until then.
When the time eventually came, I spent the entire session in tears. I told Dina everything.
‘You’ve been through hell and back,’ she said, when my tragic story finally drew to a close. ‘I’d say you’re suffering from extreme stress – nothing more sinister than that.’
I wanted to hug her. Leo was the only one until now who’d offered me this level of empathy at any point during this entire ordeal – and he’d gone. Only now did I see how much I was still struggling to cope with.
‘You need a break, take some time to catch up with old friends,’ she said, as the session ended. ‘Be with people you trust.’
I felt uplifted when I left and decided to catch a train to East Grinstead to surprise Miranda. On the way, I rang Hannah and invited her out to dinner.
‘My shout,’ I insisted. We fixed a date.
Then I called Stephanie, an old friend from school, to invite her for a drink and catch-up in the luxury Oxo Tower Restaurant next weekend. I even stopped at a newsagent’s on the station and bought thank-you cards for Imogen and Dina, scribbled in them hastily and dropped them in the post box.
I was almost starting to feel myself again.
Chapter 38
My phone rang as I stepped into a taxi at East Grinstead station. Linden Manor was ten minutes away, the driver said, so I took the call.
‘I found more of Dad’s psychology notes.’ Felicity’s voice sounded brittle. ‘I thought you should know.’
I took a deep breath. I thought I’d already got everything Leo had been working on.
‘I haven’t read them in detail,’ she continued, ‘but there’s another file. Looks like the same kind of material as the notes you took – stuff about memory research – only old stuff. It doesn’t mean anything to me.’
Anything linked to the false memory research was gold dust. If nothing else, it might point to who was responsible.
‘Can I take a look at them?’
A hiccup of silence. ‘There’s just one thing. Dad put a note in big letters at the front: “Confidential – these notes must be destroyed without being read” – I’m not sure if I should be handing them over to anyone.’
I couldn’t afford to let this slip through my fingers. ‘The notes could be very important,’ I stressed.
‘I know.’ Her voice dropped in volume. ‘I don’t want to shred them and then find out they were part of some ground-breaking research.’
The wheels crackled on the gravel as the taxi driver took me through the imposing gates of the Manor and up the long sweeping drive.
‘How about I take a quick look at them to help you decide?’ I suggested.
‘Maybe that’s the best thing. You’ll be able to make sense of them.’
We arranged to meet in Hyde Park, a couple of days later.
Linden Manor was regal and impressive from the front; the kind of place the National Trust would salivate over. Georgian, with a Palladian entrance, it boasted a frieze of Greek figures running under the edge of the roof. The facade was dominated by rows of sash windows, but when I looked closely, I noticed every one of them had bars on the inside.
I climbed the broad stone steps and walked inside, welcomed by the pungent smell of lilies. A nurse asked for identification and signed me in, before leading me through a series of corridors to a large room. Net curtains billowed in the breeze from the open windows, like sails on a ship.
Miranda was in the far corner, adding touches to an oil painting. There was no one else there and she hadn’t seen me. I stood inside the door and watched her. She took a few steps back from the canvas, bent her knees and darted around getting different viewpoints of the picture. I realised there was so much about my sister I didn’t know. I didn’t recognise her movements for a start; the way she dabbed the palette knife onto the canvas, tipped her head to one side, tapped her middle finger on her lip in contemplation.
For around twelve years she’d been a ghost – a whited-out figure in my life. Even before that, I hadn’t wanted to know her. Miranda had been a disruptive child – that was never in question – but I hadn’t persisted in asking why. When she’d been diagnosed with schizophrenia, Mum had said it explained everything, but I should have followed up my doubts. I should never have let my mother make up my mind for me. I was convinced now, more than ever, that the story she had force-fed me for years contained strategic omissions.
Miranda turned and saw me. Her unbridled delight made we want to cry before we’d even exchanged a word. I gave her an enveloping hug and asked how she was doing.
‘I’m good. Your letter helped. I’m getting an early assessment from the psychiatrist, but they’re already letting me use t
his room again.’
I took a step towards the painting.
‘It’s not finished,’ she said. As if that would make any difference. It was chaotic, savage, smudged in orange, red and purple. I didn’t pretend to know what it was or what it meant.
‘Do you have a title for it?’ I wanted to sound interested.
‘Degradation,’ she said softly.
I couldn’t tell whether she wanted me to ask more. She looked at it again, rubbed the knife on an oily rag and left it on the table. ‘Let’s go for coffee.’ she said. ‘We can sit in the grounds. You haven’t been here before, have you?’
‘No.’ My voice was sodden with shame. In the two years since she’d moved there, I’d not visited once.
We went into a large library and she poured from a stainless steel coffee pot on a table in the corner. The cups jiggled in their saucers as we carried them outside. We strolled down stone steps to a gravel walkway and continued down to the next level; a large expanse of freshly mown lawn, with cows dotted across the rolling fields in the distance.
A woman in her pyjamas was standing holding one arm up in the air, next to a bird bath. From time to time she stamped her foot and let rip with an expletive at the top of her voice, ‘Bastard…gobshite…arsehole…’
The edges of my heart curled up at the thought of Miranda living in a place like this.
A nurse bustled over. ‘Come on, Nancy, how about we have another go at hunt the thimble?’
We carried on across the grass.
‘There used to be a lake here,’ Miranda said, ‘but it was too dangerous in a place like this. Now there’s just a fountain,’ she pointed to a walled garden on the far side, ‘but people still try to drown themselves.’
There was an unoccupied bench beside a sprawling cedar of Lebanon, so we sat and sipped, not speaking for a while. There was no sound except for a pair of squabbling blackbirds and a distant tractor.
‘Thank you for coming,’ she said eventually. Miranda seemed to be back to her adult self; the ‘little girl’ tucked away for the time being.