In My Mind

by Shaida Mehrban

  From the time when I was in primary school I remember being a small boy tidying up, dusting with a feather floppy thing and sweeping my room, she’d say that it was my room so I had to do it myself but other children didn’t have to. I suppose it made sense as she did the rest of the upstairs and he did the downstairs. Upstairs we used no spray as she said they all had dangerous harmful rubbish in them but Father used them in his territory where she had no say. His polished bar and her polished nails both left lingering smells and they both said that polish made them happy. Perhaps that’s why her nails and the bar were treated to it regularly.

  It coloured her life! She never did colour her hair, though, as most women did but hers was a grey toned brown, limp and lifeless. She always wore her wedding band just for show, a symbol of her man, that was her pride. We often had thin sliced mother’s pride bread, both good proud things. Lots of things weren’t bad so long as Father was there. He just made life complete and happy, I didn’t need to think about things really as he did it for me, as a father should. I was a complete child but after Father’s departure she said that I was the only disappointment in their life.

  ***

  Steve sits and stands and sits again and all the while he reads the writing on the walls that surround him. Empty words but his mind is full of dialogue. The cold grey floor is as cold as he feels. Maybe this cell is exactly what and who he is, cold and empty. Lunch has been served and he has eaten it within minutes and as he watches the clock ticking near to six o’clock, he knows that it’ll be food time again. There isn’t much else to look forward to in here for Steve.

  Dinner has come and the plate is empty within a few minutes and the tinned builders mug is free from it’s liquid.

  There is an awful smell surrounding him like a thick urinated cover, the blanket stinks like the toilet close by. He has never slept or sat near a toilet before and there are no windows for ventilation but there is a tiny mesh for air near the ceiling.

  Another night’s darkness has arrived and it brings darkness to Steve’s eyes as the day has drained him. He pulls the small blanket over himself and knows that he has run out of choices or rights. Tonight, he leaves his shoes on because last night his number nine feet were cold in socks alone. His teeth are not chattering but a little after midnight when Steve closes his eyes to the frosted light bulb, it had been dim for a while now, finally his eyelids cannot flicker anymore. Darkness surrounds all as he lies in silence with his arms and legs bent and crossed like a child’s.

  Noises ring in Steve’s ears as if, for a moment, he is in the playground, the clanging of the school gates being locked, the clocks ticking away faster than ever and people rushing from one direction to the next. Maybe today Steve will move a little closer to his destiny but it is not in his hands as his mind is in turmoil. In his mind, things have gone on, perhaps a realisation has started to play tricks in his mind. He sees the light on and the day has dawned as he braces the dull blanket and smells it like a cat would. Does it have his smell or the smell of this place with many characters? It’s not his! He shrugs it off.

  He clears his throat and quickly before someone comes, uses the toilet, not smelly this time. Slowly, he moves to the sink and brushes his teeth using the disposable toothbrush and paste. A quick splash of cold water after a rub with the bar of soap and his eyes are wide open. He dabs it dry on his top. He pulls his trousers from left to right and makes sure that they are fitting in the right place and the belt is properly fastened the way it should be.

  He nods his head, he smooths his shirt as if he neatens it down. He is ready for a new day. He is not interested in eating today but quickly sips away at the tea. A few slurps and it’s finished. Shame! He quickly stands and watches at the cold bars, anxiously awaiting his day. His eyes are firmly on the ticking clock that messed with his head all night long. He doesn’t want to mess with the time today. He is waiting for time to not play havoc in his mind as life has, but hopefully to decide on his fate.

  He hums those words loudly, fate, fate, in my mind. Two big uniformed policemen stand like soldiers at the gate and a warden comes and opens it. The squeak of the rustic padlock stops and the door opens up. The policemen both put their hats on and try explaining some jargon. He does not listen to them at all, as Steve seems to be in his own world, a world where he is living more in his mind than in his being. Attentively, the soldiers lead him in their walkway, through a hallway and into a room. Steve rubs his tightened fists and watches his red knuckles from the corner of his eyes. His eyes look tired and a little puffy against the straight dark lashes. He twists his wedding band around his finger, yet is he even married? It is a ring to show that soon maybe he will be.

  He rubs his feet on the grey cold floor, but his eyes follow the young lady’s feet that are just walking past. He can hear them softly trodden and scared. Her mother walks behind her, sadness is walking beside them both. Steve can hear soft whispers coming out of the young lady’s whispers, dry and mumbling, almost choking with grief, simply scared. Steve wonders what age she is and what he’s in for but he slowly clears his throat and wonders why life is always difficult, why it cannot be simple. His ears open a little wider as he hears a strong man hurling some abuse in a drunken manner. The law lays down some ground rules that make him laugh, but he’s not happy here, no one is happy here. Everyone seems to come here with their own set of problems or issues and aches to cry about.

  Two smartly-dressed policemen who are wearing half sleeve, sparkling crisp white shirts sit down opposite Steve. Half-sleeved, why not full-sleeved? That was a question and a half for Steve. That was intriguing, why only half? Half a ton, half of a mother tongue, half a language, half of a speech, half of a problem. What would be good is half of a person, half of pain and problems. Some things are actually nice in halves. If only she wasn’t there or only half of her was with Steve so he would feel as if she wasn’t there in his life, his mother of all evil. The root of the problems all his life.

  Now these police people are going on about what they supposedly think he said and all he says is yes. He just agrees to everything because he thinks that is what they want.

  Steve has not heard a word that is said by any of these people. Life would have been only half of an issue without her, he mumbles under his breath. No one takes any notice of him so he takes no notice of himself or others.

  Time has been filled with words that he says but no one takes real notice of. All he knows is that it has been a little while since he has been sitting here, but in fact, he has sat here for over four hours. The clock has struggled but managed somehow to trot along and so do the men in the uniform as they slowly show Steve the way back to the cell. He has not registered what conversation has taken place in the interview room whatsoever. In his mind, he imagines a lot of his life being un-ravelled into tiny jigsaw pieces of a muddled-up life that he has lived, but he feels that most of it was lived in his mind rather than body, except for the time spent with Father.

  “Father, is that really you? Yes, it is, I am sure. As sure as the fact that Gabriella my butterfly always plays chess. I see her even now sitting at that corner round table playing chess with that long haired well educated person. I must be seeing things, I must be. They are all saying that all these things are in my mind and not in reality and what I see is not here and not there so what I hear is not at all there.”

  “Hi, Son, come on just take a deep breath. I am here now and I am going to take care of it all, you don’t worry. I am here to care for you and to take care of all this mess. I will sort it out, don’t you worry. Have faith in your old man and I’ll fix it all, but just relax, take a few big deep breaths and calm down.”

  All three of them together in this cell take a slow but sure breath of relief, letting in the good and breathing out the evil. Steve sits crumpled on the bench of this tiny room of his. His father sits to his right and her, his mother to the left. Steve
wants to shout and swear and ask why this evil woman is with him within his four walls of this tiny place where he has been for a few days now. Why is she here now, why now and not before? Why did she have to even come today? But something inside of him has calmed him down.

  He tries not to look at her hand that is holding his left hand tightly in hers. He looks not at her but just at her hand. Steve can tell that she has applied a lot of Vaseline hand cream as she always has since he could remember, pink, soft scented and caring, unlike her. Was that her or the cream? Were they all trapped within lives or were they living within these walls, the cream screaming to be released from the tube? Steve can see the pink liquid flowing slowly, wanting to be released from a life that showed her the green grass. Steve smiles and tries to remember the last time he smiled, he can’t even think that far back.

  Chapter Four

  Steve makes no attempt to release his hand from hers. He pretends to look elsewhere but all the while, his eyes are firmly fixed on the lines that have firmly cracked through her skin to show the years of her washing the dishes. Her thumb still has small scratches from the time when she had often cut herself on the tin pull up cans and the sharp knives that she would often use to delicately cut salad. Sharp and strong, that wasn’t her that he knew recently, she was not this caring person. She deserved all she had as her hands proved their worth to Steve and Father. Perhaps he has not seen her in that way for a long time now, perhaps he has lost himself and others and those in between, everything just gets further and further away. In his mind, he is a happy man to some extent. In his own mind, time has come and gone and that time, those moments in between, are almost lost!

  He can still feel Father’s heavy arms around his neck, cradling him like a child comfortably. There is such joy in that child’s mind today and Steve loved it when father did that in the bar before, showing love and solidarity. It feels good today as other times, he feels safe and happy, a feeling that he has been robbed of for a long time now. At this moment, Steve is happier than he has been in a very long time. His mind is relaxed and all the questions are mixed up and answers feel quite numb now. In fact, his mind feels quite numb overall. The concussion of events turmoil around his head as he silently sits without a care in the world. Father’s here and he will take care of it all, he convinces himself.

  Father puts his hand warmly on Steve’s hand. Steve smiles like a lost child. “Father, I knew you would come but you took an awful long time, but you came, you have come, that’s the important bit.”

  Steve tells himself that his father cares for him and now all will be well as it was a long time ago. He and his father and their work serving their community keeping people happy and entertained, providing a service to the community they live in. He knows that things will go back to how they used to be, father and son downstairs and the lady of the house upstairs and the father, the man of the house, serving the community with his son beside him. Good times will come again, no doubt.

  “Is that what you really think, Son, after what has happened? Do you actually know what has happened or are you choosing not to see it? Nothing may be the same again. Do you not see what you have done? What you have done is big and is going to affect all of us, not just you and can we come out better at the end of all this? I simply don’t know and I will not make empty promises either.”

  Steve hears it all but not in his mind. Perhaps he is just still living those days when all was great for him, behind the bar in the presence of his father. Father and Mother’s words come tumbling on Steve’s ears but they slowly bounce off as if Steve is totally unaware of the words. He hears their voices going on and on but the details of the conversation are not acknowledged by him. Steve does not need to be concerned, Father knows exactly what to do.

  After a while, Steve realises that he is no longer sitting in his square ward cell but is in the sitting room upstairs.

  “Father, Father, how can it be that just now, almost right now, we were sitting in that cold room and now you and I are back here in our sitting room?”

  “Son, we three are here, home in our own home. Look, Steve, all three of us are here as before, perhaps if we had stayed as three, this day would not have come or needed to exist. I blame myself for not taking care of you. It was unfair to leave you here alone with your mother. She struggled and you struggled even more. It was too much for you as you had to grow up overnight and as for your mother, I am sure she tried her best. She did all that she could to look after you but it is not easy and it is different with father and son then with the mother. Some mums and sons just don’t have that special bond but you could and I think you choose not to at the moment but that doesn’t mean that she loves you any less than me or that she doesn’t care for you the way that you think. She tried, maybe you should have as well. Believe me, Son, she tried.” He sighs but Steve still smiles away.

  “Shall we all sit at the table to eat as before, do you think you could manage that, Son?” she utters. Steve angrily looks at her, directly into her eyes, gazing into them, she nervously blinks. He blurts out that he is not her son, not really, not the way it should have been. Quietly, she repeats the question again and then asks politely that they move to the table but before she ends her sentence, she addresses him as “Steve son.”

  Father is at the four-seater table and asks them both to come and sit beside him. She carefully places the napkins with the carefully wrapped utensils, clean and shiny, next to the plates of food. Father serves himself as before and then Steve follows. The mother serves herself as she watches them eating. She smiles as a lump of guilt is swallowed down her throat. At the back of her mind, someone is telling her that perhaps she too had a big part to play in today. Did she deal with Steve the right way or did she deal Steve a low hand?

  Steve knows that the television is on but there is no noise from downstairs. There are only three people up here but now downstairs is silent and in Steve’s mind, there is a grey blank canvas floating around. He cannot see anything of his life in that canvas. Sounds of voices of laughter, of news, he recognises the bells toll at ten, news time and then Father telling him to leave and wash and go to sleep as he needs to rest his mind. It has been a long day.

  ‘Rest the mind,’ Steve thinks, ‘my mind has been doing overtime. Does Father not realise that since he left? And today after such a long time he is telling me to rest? I am rested because Father’s back and I will rest forever.’

  “Steve, please stop thinking so much. I can tell that you are thinking too hard, get a grip of yourself and your mind and try and be positive and remain calm. Try to think clearly and, for the moment, stop thinking too hard about what’s happened. Learn to relax. A good night’s sleep will help and things will be much clearer in your head in the morning sun.”

  Quietly, Steve eats all his food and listens to the people talking on the television and then they both get up and they help him to his bedroom door. He looks at them as they open his bedroom door to the world that he knows, his own world.

  “But where are my things?” he blurts out. “This,” he carries on, “is not my room. My room was my world, how can this be my room as this room is empty and my life wasn’t? This room was so full, everywhere I looked around me, with things, just my things, with clothes and shoes and socks and lots of stuff, things about my life, my photos and pictures and many other things that are me.”

  “Could you be specific about what exactly you are looking for and what has been lost?” asks Father. Steve’s eyes search hurriedly. Frantically, he searches, everything is neatly tidied up but that is not the way Steve had everything. It is all folded away or in a neat pile, surfaces polished, his bedside table gleaming and the mirror is actually shining so you can see your face in it. No traces of his life that he had spent in this room.

  “My photographs?”

  Mother quickly goes to the chest of drawers and hesitantly pulls open the top one. There
in front of him is a big display of his life. Steve breathes a sigh of relief. Steve’s breathing raises as he slowly moves his heavy feet closer to the chest of drawers, standing with feet touching the wooden panel and he starts to look through the cold frames, he can see the food in his own nails. That’s why Father said to have a wash.

  “Wash indeed. These photos are precious to my being, to my life and she’s put them away, tucked away as if they are the past, certainly not. Why would she try to erase that part of my life and why do I have to hide them away?”

  He takes them out, each frame, one by one, and places them the way that he had them before, some facedown and then wiping them clean one by one on the sleeve of his own jumper. One by one he makes them all stand up and glares at them attentively. One by one, side by side, and next to one another was a collage of Gabriella, herself. Steve smiles.

  “There, Gabriella, you see your importance in my life. You will always be this important forever till the end. This one I took of you the day when you first came to my restaurant. You mesmerised me then and you probably remember that you came with your university mates. Those two girls, one was the hippy type with the flowing flowery skirt and gypsy blouse and the other one, you could tell she was an artist. Perhaps she played a cello or some other instrument or perhaps she played a piano and then there was that guy, a typical student with that gorgeous brown long wavy clean hair parted from the side, of course, with his shoulder bag on his left side and always wearing his navy Mac.

  “You know, Gabriella the first time you came, I liked you so I went to the side of the bar and took a photo of you, but you knew I meant you no harm so you didn’t mind me taking pics. Now then, Gabriella, see this one of you. It’s not that clear but not too bad and from then on, I took many moments of you whenever I could. I always had to go and get the good ones developed and I put some in these frames and the rest just tucked away here.”