Nikki Owen - Spider in the Corner of the Room

Mother reaches forward to me. ‘Darling, what do you think Papa told you, hmmm? You know you have blocked all that out. Remember what your therapist said, the one the Church put us in touch with? He said your grief was affecting your memory. Why, at one point you could hardly recall what Papa looked like, let alone recollect specific conversations-it was too painful for you. Oh, you were so close to him. Papa’s little girl.’ She reaches for me.

But I ignore her advance, and close my eyes, will the memory-any memory-to work its way into my head, knocking aside the ingrained grief with all my might. Papa, whispering to me in the loft, I am so sure it happened. I scrunch my eyes tight, slap my hands to my ears to block out the sounds from the room. Think. He found paperwork, a trail of it via a computer link. What did it say? What? My mother’s voice is calling out at me now, opposite me, but I have to ignore it, have to relive what I saw so I can tell them, tell them that Papa was…

‘He was scared,’ I say aloud, my hands still cupped on my ears. ‘He was scared. I remember! He was scared when he told me about a document he had found, and I know this, I know he was frightened, because he said so and his were hands shaking when he spoke to me, when he showed me the file. It was crammed with names, dates, codes, contacts, countries. It was! With my medical details from a hospital in…’

I avoid their stares, instead scanning my memory banks, urging my brain to help me, to not betray me this once. It works.

‘Scotland,’ I declare, a wide smile spreading across my face, elated. The conversation with Papa, the one I could never recall, the one I was always too upset to evoke, so sad was I at his loss, my brain jumbling my thoughts to a point where I made my papa into something else in my head, sometimes into a bear or a lion. And when he spoke to me in my fevered dreams it was, instead, with a roar or a growl. Not words. But now-now it is coming back to me. It must be here, in prison-the fresh trauma, the noise, the overloading of my senses. It has shaken my brain, unlogged something I thought I would never hear again: my papa’s voice.

‘I saw it,’ I say now, fast. ‘Something about a hospital in Scotland and…’ I stall. Nothing else comes. Think. What was it? Who did he warn me against? Mama speaks, but my brain is on autopilot. Louder, faster, uploading data initiated from something from…from…

‘Mother!’

Ramon and Mama blink at me.

‘Jesus Christ, Maria,’ Ramon hisses, ‘what are you playing at? Everyone is staring.’

‘I remember now,’ I say, fast, fitful, giddy with possibilities, with what it all could mean. ‘Papa warned me. He said something was being done to me.’ And then it occurs to me. ‘Mama! My journal! Perhaps there is something in there, some clue I wrote down years ago.’

My mother sobs heavily, her hand flying to her mouth.

‘Why on earth are you saying all this?’ Ramon asks me angrily.

‘Because it is true. Don’t you see? I blocked it out because I was grieving, and now, in here, after the trial, the trauma, I remember it, not all of it, but-’

‘No. Maria, stop.’

‘Why?’ I say, confused.

Ramon forms a fist on the table. ‘Because you are lying again.’

‘I am not.’

Mama lets out another sob. Ramon glares at me, places his arm on her shoulder, but she shakes her head, draws a tissue from her pocket and dabs her eyes. She takes one sip of water then draws in a breath.

‘Maria,’ she says, her voice tiny, like a bird’s, ‘you can’t say things like that about me, about your papa. The therapist predicted this might happen. He said the conversations you believe you recalled having with Papa may never have even occurred. It was grief back then, Maria, that made you confused.’ She sniffs. ‘It is grief now.’

‘But it is true.’

A small head shake. ‘No, darling, no.’ She clasps the tissue between her fingertips. ‘My dear, you don’t see what we do. So much has happened to you that I worry. I worry what it is doing to you, how much it has scarred you. You are confused, scared. This much I understand. What I cannot comprehend is why you did what you did to that poor priest. Why you are spouting the lies you do now.’ She exhales, her shoulder dropping, her poise gone. ‘You need to stop now, my dearest. Just stop.’

My heart flutters. I wipe my eyes, not sure what to think. I know what I saw, what I heard. My mother’s hands tremble, tiny movements, but I see it. Have I gone too far? If she is worried about me, about what they say I did to the priest, maybe if I tell her, she will feel better.

‘I didn’t kill him.’

‘What did you say, darling?’

I look at Mama. ‘I didn’t kill him. The priest.’

Mother’s head drops. Ramon places his arm round her and twists his head to me. ‘Maria, this has to end. Your lies, the harm you cause.’ Mother sobs; he pulls her closer. I feel a stab of loneliness. ‘You were arrested, convicted, for God’s sake. Accept it. Now. Before any more of us suffer.’

I blink at the table. They don’t believe me. My own family. They still don’t believe me. I feel as if I am falling, through the sky into a deep pit, ready for dirt to be kicked on my face, into my mouth. Buried alive. I sniff. ‘Father Reznik left just after I graduated,’ I say, distress creeping into my movements, my thoughts. I need my family to understand me. ‘I came to England, went to the convent to find him. He was my friend. Mama, you said he had family in England. That is why I came here.’

‘What?’ Ramon says. ‘So it’s all Mama’s fault now that you came here? Mama’s fault that Father Reznik left? That you killed someone? Christ.’ Chairs scrape on the floor ahead, visitors beginning to leave. He pauses, glances at them, then back to me. ‘Maria, please. No one is conspiring against you. It’s all in your head.’ He pauses, swallows, his voice drops an octave. ‘It always has been.’

I grip the table as if I were clawing on to the edge of reality. It’s a puzzle. It has to be. Pieces, sections of time and events that slot together to create one complete picture. I just have to first find where all the pieces are.

‘I am going to get out,’ I say. ‘Mama? I am going to request an appeal. You have to believe me. I shouldn’t be here.’

Mother raises her head now, eyes rimmed pink, cheeks flushed. ‘Oh, my baby. Please, listen to your brother. We both care about you so much. You are doing so much harm to yourself pursuing these…stories. Because that is all it is. Fiction. Pretend. Made up in your mind.’

‘No,’ I say, shaking my head, trying to stave off the doubt, the rolling wave of reservation. ‘I have a new barrister.’

‘Who?’ Ramon asks.

‘Harry Warren. He’s going to help me. I am seeing him this week.’

Mama and Ramon share a glance. Ramon jots down the name.

‘Maria,’ Mama says, ‘you know an appeal won’t work, don’t you?’

My stomachs twists at my mother’s words. ‘Mama, I have to try,’ I say after a few seconds, squeezing my fingers together.

‘But what about your health?’ she says. ‘What about your…condition?’

‘It is accelerating in here.’

She goes still. ‘It is? How?’

I tell her about Dr Andersson. She listens, but does not speak, does not murmur, only a slice of grimace on her face. ‘It must be the prison environment,’ I say. ‘I can do and think faster. It happens, doesn’t it? To people like me. It happens. I am even recalling more things-numbers, calculations-things I have never learnt. I have written it all down.’ I stop. ‘My journal, please, Mama, can you get it to me? I can cross-reference my notes.’

‘Maria,’ Ramon says now, ‘are you lying again?’