Spider in the Corner of the Room - [31]

‘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.’

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…