Nikki Owen - Spider in the Corner of the Room

‘Huh? Oh, just bored.’ She loops the sock rope over the chair and places a newspaper in my lap. ‘You’re not going to like it.’

She drops the bundle of newspapers on my lap. ‘You need to read these.’

Taking a paper, I scan the page. At first, it makes no sense, and then it registers. On it, there is a face. A face I know too well. And beside it: a name.

Patricia sits down. ‘Speak to me.’

My mind fusses and flurries, hands begin to jitter. I read the words on the page. ‘My mother,’ I say after a while. ‘My mother is in your newspapers. How?’

‘She’s visiting today with your brother, isn’t she?’

‘Yes.’ I grip the periodical, the print transferring to my palms, to the pillowed tips of my fingers. I smear them together, rubbing them, the ink staining my skin, my brain not knowing how I feel about seeing my family again after what has been almost a year.

I spread my fingers over the image of my mother’s face.

‘You don’t think she told them, do you?’ Patricia says. ‘About the visit?’

The morning buzzer sounds. Time to exit our cells. The meeting with my mother and brother is in two hours. I don’t want to disappoint her, don’t want to feel angry at her.

Not again.

I arrive in the visitors’ room and stop. I feel slightly sick, nerves nudging my stomach, its contents threatening to erupt. My face is blank, but my mind is alive with doubt.

Inmates’ feet shuffle on the tiles while voices saturate the air, air that reeks of perspiration, of a waterfall of bodily secretions. It swamps my head. The glare of the strip lights, combined with the ice-cold judgement of the white walls all momentarily freeze me. I lick my lips for moisture. Only when a guard digs my elbow and tells me to shift it do I move on.

I locate the table with my family, walk to it and stall. A lump swells in my throat. My mother. Her hands, hands that were once fleshy and strong, hands that lectured law at university, instructed housemaids, placed Band-Aids on my knees, are now bony and frail. I bite down hard on my lip to restrain the cry that wants to break out from within me. My family is changing before my eyes and I worry that soon they will all alter so much that I won’t recognise them any more. That I won’t have them, won’t know if they are on my side or not. Won’t feel that I fit in, not that I am ever sure I did.

‘Oh, Maria!’ my mother cries to me, her grainy Castellan voice guttural, instinctive. She stretches out her arms, pulls me into her. I go rigid. ‘Oh, my daughter! What has happened to you?’

Tears threaten to spring up, invade my face. Being close to my mother is one step away from my papa, dead or not. I touch my cheeks, surprised at the dampness staining my skin. My mother holds me out at arm’s length.

‘Oh my darling, it’s okay. Sssh. Sssh.’ She reaches forward to wipe my face. I hold my breath; a guard tells her there’s no touching. She apologises in English, sits back, omits a sigh, dabs her forehead. ‘Oh, dear. This is all too much.’

‘Mama, are you okay?’ Ramon, my brother. His crisp green eyes scan our mother, her own eyes, the same apple-fresh hue, blink back, her head tilting slightly, neck smooth, slender. She pats his hands.

‘I am fine, son. I am fine.’

Ramon’s gaze stays on her for two seconds more, his forearm strong like a tree trunk rooted to the table, his body baptised in a shroud of nut brown, stomach muscles taut from years of sport-running, swimming, skiing. Finally, he looks away, directing his attention at me for the briefest of moments before he dusts down his suit and opens up a legal file on his desk.

‘Hello, Maria,’ he says, a small flicker of a smile. My brother, a man of few words, to me at least. To everyone else? An eloquent, accomplished tax lawyer. But he has always been there, by my side-whether I wanted him to or not. When we were young he was like dog dirt on my shoe: impossible to shake off.

‘Now,’ Mother says, after clearing her throat. ‘Let’s have a look at you, my dear.’

She scans my face and her smile wobbles. ‘Oh, you look so tired. Are you eating? Sleeping?’

‘Yes. I have a friend.’

She goes still, her eyes wide. ‘Really?’ She throws a glance to Ramon. ‘Really? My darling, that is wonderful news! Wonderful.’ She takes a sip of water. ‘Who is it?’

‘Pardon?’

She set down her glass. ‘Your friend.’ A small cough. ‘Who is it?’

‘Why?’

‘I…I am just interested. Making conversation.’

I open my mouth to speak, but suddenly check myself. My voice is raised, my fingers still pressed into the table. I soften, lean back, try to stay calm, try to stop searching for inferences that are not there. ‘Her name is Patricia,’ I say finally. ‘My friend’s name is Patricia.’

Ramon jots the name down. ‘Do you know her surname?’ he asks.

‘Do you need to know that?’

‘Ramon,’ my mother says, ‘it’s okay.’ She turns to me. ‘Do you trust her, this friend? Talk to her?’

I inhale. Calm. ‘Yes.’ I glance at Ramon’s file. ‘Her surname is O’Hanlon.’ Ramon writes it down. ‘Why are you noting her name?’

‘Maria,’ my mother says, Ramon’s pen hovering in mid-air. ‘Maria, look at me.’

I glare at my brother, then slowly peel my eyes off him. I don’t like that he is recording every detail, every utterance. Why? Why would he need to do that?

‘Maria.’ Mother again. ‘It’s for your journal, remember? The one you began after Papa died.’

‘Why are you writing in my journal?’

‘No, I didn’t mean…We are not writing in-’

I look to the two of them, eyes frantic. ‘It is mine. I don’t want you to touch it. They are my notes. My journal. Mine.’

‘Maria,’ Mama says, voice almost a whisper, ‘your journal contents-they are just dreams, random thoughts.’

‘No. They are facts, information I know. Real names, real numbers.’

But she shakes her head. ‘My dearest, you know what the doctors said. The notes in it, well, they are just flights of fancy, manic thought patterns.’

‘They are not!’ I yell. We all stop. My chest heaves, guards stand straight, dart their eyes to me.

Mother lets out a weak sigh and looks to Ramon. He tilts his head. No words. Mother draws in a long breath and clasps her hands. ‘My dear, this place is taking its toll on you already. Of course, if you wish, Ramon will not write in your journal.’ She coughs. ‘Have you been to confession?’

‘No,’ I reply after a moment, my ribcage easing yet my hands still clenched.

‘Well, maybe that’s something you should consider. It may help a little. May help with everything that…that you’ve done. Visit the prison chaplain.’

I laugh out loud. It takes me by surprise. ‘How can I do that?’

‘What?’ Mother looks to Ramon.

‘Maria,’ he hisses, as inmates and guards look to our table, ‘not here. Not now.’

‘I cannot see a priest. Not with my conviction.’ I slap my hands to the table. ‘Mama, I told you something on the phone and you denied it.’

‘What?’ Ramon says.

Mother presses her lips together. ‘She says she saw me kissing Father Reznik.’

‘Maria, you’ve gone too far this time.’

‘Maria,’ my mother says, ‘your memory is not correct, my dear.’

‘It is!’ I scratch my head, nervous at the cloud of confusion forming in my mind. Then something else: Papa. ‘Medical records!’ I say. ‘Papa found some medical records, about me, in the loft one day. From a…’ I tap my head. ‘From a hospital! I remember. It wasn’t long before the accident. He told me about it…’ I stop. Look down at the table. ‘At least, I think he did.’