Nikki Owen - Spider in the Corner of the Room

I swallow a little. ‘Mama, I remembered something.’

A small sigh. ‘Okay, dear. What did you remember?’

I glance to Patricia then back to the phone. ‘I remember seeing you and Father Reznik…kissing.’

‘Oh, Maria.’

‘What?’

‘It is happening again.’

A flush of anger. ‘What is?’

‘Your mind making things up. Darling, this is what you do. I have been trying to help you for so long now.’

I grip the phone. ‘But I saw the two of you! Kissing near the vestry when I was supposed to be outside waiting for you. And…and you gave him something, some sort of letter or…or package. I know what I saw.’ Patricia steps forward but I ignore her, my fury feverish now, lethal. I cannot believe my mother is saying this again about me. I do not want to believe it. To believe her.

‘Maria, just calm down a little.’

‘No. You are denying it, but you know it is true. You and Father Reznik.’

‘You are still upset that Father Reznik left you.’ I go still. ‘Maria, I am right, no?’

I shake my head, blink. ‘I…What are you trying to…’ And then it steps into my view, an image, a memory, strong this time, all the colours clear, the image crisp. Father Reznik is waving goodbye to me, an aeroplane in the background, me watching, enraged, for some reason, that he is leaving me. My hair is long down to my back, so I am fifteen, perhaps sixteen, and I break free from my mother, her calling out to me that he will be back, but I am running to him, and when I get to him, just as Father Reznik opens his arms to hug me, saying he is leaving for just three months, I kick him hard in the shin.

‘Maria.’ My mother’s voice slices through the memory. It shatters into a thousand pieces. ‘Maria, you were always so angry when he left Spain, angry at the Church. The Catholic Church has been in Spain for hundreds of years, that’s just the way it is, but I know that always frustrated you, that control that you say they had, the lies that you said they told.’ She pauses, a petite cry. ‘You shouldn’t have taken out that anger on someone else, on that poor priest, poor Father O’Donnell at the convent.’

‘But I didn’t. I…’ A slow shriek. It spurts out from me. My mother. She doesn’t believe me.

‘Maria, sssh. There, there. It’s okay. It’s okay.’

Patricia steps over, stands beside me, not touching me, but there, real. I scratch at my scalp, my mind jumbled, exhausted. I let out a long breath and feel my shoulders finally loosen. I simply want to go home.

‘Maria, I’m going to come over to see you, okay?’

I drop my hand. ‘What?’ I sniff. ‘How?’

‘I’ve looked into it. You just need to request a visiting order. Ramon will accompany me. He’s very concerned about you.’

My brother, too? ‘But he has never been concerned about me before.’

Another sigh. ‘Maria, you’re his sister, of course he is concerned about you. We need you to arrange the visiting order. Can you do that?’

Visiting orders. Prison. Iron bars. Loud screams. So much to process, to consider. I feel smothered by it all.

‘Is there anyone that can help you?’ my mother says.

Patricia tilts her head and smiles. ‘Yes,’ I say, after a moment. ‘I have someone who can help me.’

A whoosh of exhalation. ‘Oh, that’s wonderful. Wonderful. Does this mean you are making friends? Actually, no, don’t answer that. Tell me all about it when I see you, okay?’

I nod.

‘Maria? I said, okay?’

‘Okay.’

‘Good.’ There is a tinkle of silver, the coffee pot being poured. ‘Darling, keep your chin up in there, yes?’

‘My chin?’

‘It means stay positive. As much as you can, anyway. At least being in prison means you can get help now, where no one can be hurt.’ She sniffs, lets out another dainty cry. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Ignore me. It all gets a little much for me at times.’ I hear her breathe in. ‘But no matter. We will fly over to see you.’

Pips sounds. The prison phone. ‘I have to go, Mama.’

There is a stillness. ‘I know,’ she says, after a brief moment. ‘You look after yourself.’

‘Yes.’

She goes quiet. The pips patter again. ‘Maria, you’d better go. Take care. And-’

But she is cut off. For a few seconds, I do not move, just stand, staring at the receiver. Have I remembered everything incorrectly? I have just accused my mother of kissing another man. What sort of person does that make me? Slowly, Patricia reaches forward and prises the phone out of my hand. She returns it to its holder and looks at me. ‘How are you?’

I blink, find a focus. ‘She said they never kissed. That my memory is impaired.’

‘Oh.’

I roll my shoulders, pinch the folds of skin on them to try to get some blood flowing again through my muscles. Maybe everything I have believed is not true. Maybe life has jumbled everything up in my head, mixing memories like the shuffling of a deck of cards, throwing them in the air so they land randomly, out of synch. I drop my head to my hands. All I have are facts. If I stuck with them, if I used the facts I have to piece it all together, would I see the final picture on the puzzle?

We walk away from the phone bank in silence. Only the shuffle of our feet fills the air, the regular prison screams in the distance temporarily suspended.

‘Hey,’ Patricia says as we stop at the next door, ‘you’ve met the Governor, haven’t you?’

I nod.

‘Well,’ she says, rubbing her palms together, ‘listen to the gossip I discovered about him earlier. It’ll take your mind right off the phone call with your ma.’

Kurt is writing notes.

A wind shoots through the window and a shiver runs down my back. Kurt does not flinch.

I scan the edge of the room. Kurt’s talk of memory, of its distortion, is unsettling. Therapy is supposed to help you understand yourself, to feel better. But this? Now? I don’t feel better. I just feel frustrated. And frightened.

‘Maria?’

I turn. Kurt’s file rests on his lap, the Dictaphone lying on the edge of table, red light flashing.

‘I am going to ask you some more questions now.’ He crosses his legs. ‘You said, that when you spoke to Patricia in your cell after the call with your mother, she told you something about the Governor. I want you to tell me what she said.’ He clicks his pen and waits.

I sit up straight. This is not the right question. ‘Why are you discussing this instead of what my mother said about my memory?’

He tilts his head. ‘Do you not want to tell me about the Governor, Maria. Is that it? Is there some reason, perhaps, why you won’t talk about him?’

‘What? What do you mean?’ I press myself back against the lip of my chair. His eyes are suddenly steel, his voice prickles. The urge to flee wells up inside me again.

He leans in to me. ‘I want you to tell me exactly what Patricia said.’

Kurt is so close to me, so near that I can see every sinew of his skin. Not a blemish, not a stain. He has me chained to him. What choice do I have?

‘Patricia…’ I stop. Swallow. ‘Patricia said that the Governor was married to the UK Home Secretary.’

‘And you did not know this already?’

‘No. I…I did not realise.’

‘But everyone knows. It’s news. Are you telling me you didn’t hear about it?’

‘I do not follow such things.’

He sits back. ‘Maria, would it be true to say that when it comes to relationships, when it comes to men, women-or whatever your persuasion-you have difficulty understanding the situation?’

‘I…Yes,’ I say finally.

‘Have you ever had a relationship yourself? A boyfriend? Girlfriend?’

I sit and stare, the question hanging there, hovering like a floating ghost. The loneliness of my life is something I have been able to push to one side, to hide in a box, keep the lid tight shut. Until now.