Spider in the Corner of the Room - [28]

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.

A gust of wind bursts in and the window slams shut. I jump. Kurt glances over to it but says nothing, does not move. I slap my hand to my chest, slow myself. Something is happening here. Kurt was different just now. He was. I am positive. I have to try to seal it all in my mind, protect it, try to keep learning his contradictive nuances so I can paint the whole picture. So I can always remember.

A knock sounds on the door, breaking the suffocating silence. Kurt looks up. ‘Come in.’

The coffee woman enters, the same one as before. Why is she back? She passes Kurt a message on a square yellow piece of paper.

‘This came for you,’ she says, her voice a punnet of plums, a swollen bunch of black grapes. ‘They need to speak to you for a moment.’

The women then turns, stares at me, her mahogany hair bobbing by her shoulders, skin the colour of buttermilk, jeans black, painted on, her leather jacket studded, worn. She continues her gaze for three seconds then, throwing Kurt a smile, she leaves, clicking the door shut behind her.

‘Who is she?’

Kurt reads the note then stands. ‘She’s my…girlfriend. She helps out here sometimes.’

I look at the door where she exited. He has someone. Someone to hold, to love. I wonder what that must feel like.

Kurt scrunches up the note and drops it into the wastepaper basket. ‘That was a message about a patient. The service need to speak to me straight away,’ he says. ‘I have to leave. I will just be a few minutes.’ He turns to exit then pauses. ‘Maria, I’m sorry if I make you feel uneasy sometimes. I know I must do. It’s just the therapy technique. Let yourself trust it. That’s the best advice I can give to you.’ He applies a quick smile. ‘Well, excuse me.’

After he has left, I breathe out and stand. My legs feel like two dead limbs. I shake them, blood rushing to my feet, and think. What Kurt said about his therapy technique, perhaps he has a point. Perhaps I am fighting it too much, reading too much into it, looking for clues and lies that simply aren’t there.