Spider in the Corner of the Room - [24]

I rip it, the letter, straight down the middle. Rip, rip, rip. Patricia steps back. I tear the letter again. And again. And again. My teeth are clenched, tears tumble down my cheeks, but I do not wipe them, do not let myself calm down. Because I can’t, not now, not on hearing from my mother, from someone I should trust unconditionally and who says she is disappointed in me. I choke at the thought, hear my throat sound a yell, a cry, my chest crumbling under the weight of the reality that is ahead of me. That I am here. And I can’t get out…

Rip, rip, rip.

When the paper is torn into confetti-sized pieces, I stop. My chest heaves. My eyes sting.

‘Doc, you need to breathe.’

I stare at the pieces in my palm. Ink lies smeared on creamy paper, words bleeding, torn apart, dying.

‘Why don’t you sit? Maybe write it all down?’

I feel raw, ravaged, as if everything that has happened since my arrest has come out now, in one earthquake of emotion. My eyes blink, batting back the tears. I coerce my concentration towards Patricia, to her mouth, her words and what she is advising me to do. And I think: I should confess. I should admit what I discovered, what really happened, what the priest knew-and why he couldn’t go on with knowing it. Maybe that way I can truly start to decipher who is doing this to me-and why. Yes, that is it. It has to be.

I turn, flop to the bed, the letter confetti still in my fist, sinking into the mattress as I sit. And it occurs to me that more than anything I would like to keep sinking-to plummet so far that no one could possibly find me, hidden, as I would be, in the bowels of the bed, digested, absorbed. Gone.

‘I helped that priest,’ I say after a while. Patricia sits, listens. ‘I helped out there, at his convent. I did the fixing, carpentry, small electrics. My father taught me a lot of it…before he died. Papa said women are not the maids of men. He said I was equal. No different to anyone else.’

‘He was right,’ Patricia says.

‘After he died, the workmen tending the estate showed me how to mend things. Father Reznik did, too.’ I stop, frown. ‘I remember he would time me, Father Reznik, time me how long it would take to fix things. He would set me a challenge to get faster and faster. He called it a game and it was fun, but…’ I clutch the torn letter pieces in my fist. ‘I wonder.’

‘What?’

I grab my notebook and stop. An earwig scurries along the floor and disappears under the bed. I watch it, track its course. It is not simply here by chance; the earwig has made a path into Goldmouth for a purpose. I pause. Purpose. Everything has a purpose, has a reason why it occurs. So what was Father Reznik’s purpose?

I rip open my notepad and look to Patricia. ‘What were you convicted of?’

She twiddles the edge of her T-shirt. ‘They said I killed me mam,’ she says, her voice barely audible, so I have to lean in to hear. ‘My ma, she had cancer. It was hard, you know, at the end. I just couldn’t watch her suffer like that any more. It was cancer of the pacrea-’

‘Pancreas,’ I say. ‘Cancer of the pancreas.’

‘Morphine couldn’t touch it.’

‘How did you kill her?’

She hesitates then says, ‘Her pillow.’ A small swallow. ‘She wanted me to. She couldn’t take it any more.’ She wipes her nose with her hand.

There are tears in her eyes. This must mean she is upset. What should I say in this situation? I rack my brain for data to help. ‘The term “euthanasia” originates from the Greek word meaning “good death”. Nine per cent of all deaths in the Netherlands are physician-assisted suicides or euthanasia. In the Netherlands, you could be free.’

She lets out a sudden laugh.

I sit back. ‘What?’

‘It’s just that you…’ She shakes her head, waits a moment. ‘She had a will, me mam. A will. I never knew. It had a big insurance payout. My mam always wanted me to keep studying. She had money, left to her from an aunty. My sister hated me. In court she said Ma wouldn’t have let me do it, wouldn’t have let me end her life. She called me a liar.’ She tugs her T-shirt now. ‘My sister said I killed Ma for the money. I didn’t, but she wasn’t about to believe me.’ She lets out a breath. ‘Still doesn’t. I’m due for parole really soon. Been banged up ten years. But if I get out, who have I got to go back to? Where can I go now no one from my family will talk to me?’

We sit on the bed, silence swinging like a noose in the air above us. If I close my eyes, I can see Father Reznik’s face. ‘I think I’m being watched,’ I say finally.

Patricia turns to me. ‘You what?’

I draw in a breath and tell her about Father Reznik, about the priest discovering he was a retired intelligence officer.

Patricia’s mouth drops open. ‘Whoa. For real?’

‘Yes.’

She whistles. ‘How do you know this?’ she says, just like that, believing me in an instant. I want to cry with joy.

‘You believe me?’

‘Of course. Why wouldn’t I?’

I consider this. I have learnt not to put my faith in anyone, not to trust, because no one, not a man in a priest’s outfit, not a judge in a robe, not a God in the sky can be relied upon. But Patricia seems different, pure, a white sheet of cotton, a dandelion in the wind. She believes me. And I am tired, so, so tired at keeping it all in, to myself, the truth growing like a tumour. Gratitude washes over me, clear, running water, refreshing, energising, and I want to thank her, want to express how grateful I am for her faith in me, but I don’t know how. Instead, I remain rigid on the bed like a plank of wood.