Irenosen Okojie - Butterfly Fish

The silence shrouded us in a deepening vacuum. There was no more bread left; Mrs Harris crumpled a white plastic bag before shoving it in her pocket. The ducks had begun to gnaw at shadows of passers by and pond water lapped at the curved lines of their bodies. The trail of white crumbs scattered into nothing. Maybe my mother was indelible, in the crackle of coppery gold autumnal leaves, in the slipstream bearing the ripples of a familiar looking back, in my one winged arm as I held the edge of a dark sky by mouth.

“Also, I’m celebrating.” Mrs Harris remarked, breaking the silence. “It’s the anniversary.”

“Congratulations. What’s the anniversary?”

“It’s the date I was discharged from Bedlam.” This was revealed casually, in the same way a person would say, “Pass the salt.”

“You mean Bedlam the psychiatric hospital?”

“The very same. I even wrote a poem on that day:

Once I had a spell in Bedlam,

Dancing beneath a hat,

They came for me goggle eyed,

Wearing the whites of angels .

This was followed by a bitter chuckle. I was stunned into silence. Mad butterflies, I thought. Now that the water knew secrets, it wore the glint of daggers. Bathed in another silence and connected by the mottled umbilical chord of lost mothers we stared at the water, lulled by its gentle, deceptive motion.

Windswept and ashen, Mrs Harris stood on my doorstep flickering like the flame on the candle I held. Blanketed by night, her white hair shone even more ferociously. She’d thrown on a black hooded jacket over green pinstriped pyjamas. Glancing at windows of the other houses it was clear the power cut had affected the whole street, I saw the dim glow of candlelight silently breathing against glass in many of them.

“Are you okay?” I asked, ushering her in. “You look sick.”

“It’s these terrible headaches I get occasionally. God! They’re worse than migraines, as though someone’s sawing my head in two.” She shrugged her jacket off, trailing behind me and slung it over the sofa. “I don’t have any candles you see, it’s horrible lying in the dark alone like that with an ice pack on your head.” Her voice was croaky and sleep lined, as if she’d just woken up. It was after 11pm. I’d lit the sitting room using fat candles that burned the scent of orange blossoms into the air. Some of my mother’s old photographs were strewn on the small, wooden side table in a weird time line. The TV sulked quietly and half a glass of green ginger wine promised warmth, sweetness and spice.

“It was so bad; I took some sleeping pills to knock myself out.” She continued amiably. “When I came round, everywhere was dark. I had to feel my way slowly out of the house.”

“You can sit with me for a while,” I offered. “I know what you mean, I hate being ill if I’m on my own. I get this horrible feeling of dread worrying that the worse case scenario will happen. How long have you been suffering with these headaches?”

She sank into the edge of the sofa, right next to the photographs. “They come and go. They first started when I was a little girl. It was horrible; I used to cry from the pain. Anyway, it’s dulling now somewhat. I feel like a stray! This is good of you, thanks.” She chuckled nervously and raised a trembling hand to wipe her brow. I headed into the kitchen; put the kettle on for some peppermint tea. I moved the blackboard covered with Anon’s comings and goings further back, glad I’d had the sense to wipe away some of the chalk markings from the sitting room. In the dark, things changed shape. I was used to it but I didn’t want disgruntled, faded markings to accost Mrs Harris.

The kettle hissed its intent. I looked around warily, watching for Anon to make an unexpected entrance. It dawned on me that she usually liked to wrong foot me during quiet times. I filled a cup with the word grubby emblazoned on its ceramic, blue body. Since Mrs Harris had revealed she’d spent time in Bedlam Hospital, I felt even more of a kinship between us. I wondered why she didn’t tell me all those times she came to visit me at the hospital. I was intrigued by the things that had been set in motion, which bound us together and were tracing our movements with their secretive tongues. I carried the steaming mugs back into the living room where Mrs Harris eyed the pictures curiously. The sound of an ambulance siren flooded the street. I handed a mug over.

“Do you need any painkillers?” I asked politely.

“No thanks, I took some already. I love old pictures,” she mused. “They reveal something to you every time you look.” She nodded at the display on the table and the short piles on the floor. From my vantage point, the pictures had chalk-drawn miniature nets etched over my mother’s mouth. I shook the invasion away. “I’m looking for anything that seems unusual. It’s hard to see her appearing so alive… But I need to do it.”

“Is this in connection with the brass head?”

“I don’t know, yes, maybe. It’s to do with her in general. I’m not sure what I’m looking for but I’ll know when I see it, if that makes sense. Will you help?” I asked.

“Sure, happy to be of use. I’ll earn my drinks,” she said.

As we rifled through the pictures, the rough, thick scab inside me began to peel. The wound beneath was red and angry, snarling against bones in my chest. And there was my mother, leaving footprints on my organs, removing the lines on her palms to make one long thread that dangled hauntingly. Each picture showed versions of her plotting to keep growing in the damp soil of memory. There she was, running on a bridge looking behind, cream coat tails flapping in the wind. Outside a café called Sal’s, wearing tattered dungarees and a white vest, laughing and holding a paintbrush dripping globs of red paint. In another picture she was on a pier, sunlight streaming over her body, clad in a Fifties flowery, orange dress. There was a wine red butterfly brooch pinned at the right side of her bust that looked ready to flap its wings and fly into my mouth. Mrs Harris watched my expression.

In the pier shot my mother’s gaze was direct and intense. The backdrop consisted of a candyfloss stall and a fairground ride of plastic horses, illuminated by smatterings of light on their false bodies. I felt the waves crashing beneath the pier, the pull of the tide. I saw sand-speckled memories washed up on the beach, until the water’s unpredictable line dragged them in again. My mother’s lips were pursed; I tasted the salty sentences that had loitered on her tongue. Mrs Harris had remained quiet for a bit, rubbing her temples, smiling sadly, and sipping tea. Suddenly she piped in. “Very striking woman, elusive somehow. There’s something in her gaze….” She paused, and then continued. “Chameleon like, I bet she navigated social groups easily, whereas you’re more of an odd character, in a good way,” she added, touching my hand.

I wondered if through my touch on the photographs, my mother could feel my fingerprints on her back. Sending her limbs into movement, crawling through dead soil onto fractured planes only those left behind could breathe into existence.

As we rummaged through more snaps, Mrs Harris’s face swam closer, then further back under the gaze of candlelight. The candle flames burned wax, flickered, threatening to lick the edges of the photos. She gingerly set her empty cup down next to my glass. “You can ask me you know, about how I ended up in Bethlehem Hospital. It’s only natural to be curious.”

“I guess I was surprised when you first told me but then it made sense, that’s why you came to see me so much in the hospital, why you took an interest. I’m grateful for that. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” I snuck a sideways glance at her; she seemed calm.