Spider in the Corner of the Room - [34]

Ramon follows the trolley, his eyes damp, his lips mouthing a goodbye to me. How do I tell him that I don’t want to be left alone here? That it is dark and cold? Instead, I stand and stare; he sighs, turns his back and walks away.

‘Visiting time is over,’ says a guard.

I turn, knowing now what I need to do. ‘I have to speak to Governor Ochoa.’

The guard laughs. ‘Not going to happen.’ She points to the door. ‘Exit’s that way.’

As the door swings open, a movement in my peripheral vision makes me halt. Someone has entered to the far right of the seated area. My mother is on the stretcher, just as I left her, three medics hovering around her, but now-now there is one more body, one more person.

Dr Andersson.

‘Martinez,’ says the guard, ‘time to go. I haven’t got all fucking day.’

I take one last look. Dr Andersson leans over and whispers in my mother’s ear, rising and turning to speak to Ramon.

And Ramon? Ramon is nodding.

Ramon is staring at me.

Kurt tilts his head. ‘How did you feel when your mother collapsed that day in the visiting room?’

Kurt is asking questions about my feelings. These are the worst kind. I am never sure what the correct response is. I shift in my seat, the room stuffy, suffocating. ‘It was loud,’ I say. ‘The visiting room was loud.’

‘Were you scared? Happy? Shocked when you saw her?’

I tap my finger on the chair. I do not speak, anaesthetised by the image of my mother frail on a stretcher, by the sheer desperation I felt when she said I was lying, her and my brother. Outside, the sun flickers and fades, the clouds take over.

‘Tell me,’ Kurt says after a while, ‘have you ever wondered about your Asperger’s, why certain aspects of it are more…heightened at times, particularly in comparison to others on the spectrum?’

I inhale, try to imagine I am elsewhere, that I am someone else, someone normal. ‘Officially, being on the autistic spectrum and having Asperger’s are now the same thing,’ I say eventually. ‘The American Psychiatric Association officially eliminated Asperger’s as a separate syndrome.’

‘And what do you think of that?’

I think about myself, how I am different from others, and them from me. ‘People with Asperger’s and those with autism do not have the same needs.’

He smiles. ‘Really?’

‘Yes.’ I pause. He is still smiling. What does it mean? ‘High-functioning autism cannot occur in a person with an IQ below sixty-five-seventy. Those with Asperger’s have high IQs. That is why you cannot merge Asperger’s with autism.’

A beat passes. Then, ‘You think you are different?’

I lower my voice. ‘I know I am.’

‘Special?’

‘I cannot answer that.’

‘Above everyone else?’

‘I do not know what that means.’

He rests his cheek on his fist. ‘So you believe you are high-functioning?’

‘Yes. Of course.’

‘How do you know this?’

‘I have a photographic memory. I can fix things, reassemble electronic components at speed. I know numbers, can calculate vast equations, remember dates, decipher codes, detect patterns. I can-’

He holds up his hand. ‘And you think that is normal?’

A phone shrills somewhere from outside, one second, two seconds, then stops. ‘My father always said I could be myself.’

‘And was he right?’

‘Yes.’

‘And how is that working out for you, being yourself?’

I say nothing, disarmed by his question, by his frozen smile. I don’t feel safe.

‘Was being convicted of murder “being yourself”?’ he asks now. Then he suddenly sits forward, sets the Dictaphone on the table. ‘How about this: have you ever considered that your Asperger’s is not simply about nurture, or about how your father helped you, or about how you react to the environment around you?’

‘I don’t-’ I halt. Be careful, a voice in my head whispers. Be careful.

‘What about nature?’ Kurt is now saying. ‘What about the theory that what we are, what we do, is preprogrammed? That our DNA, ultimately, defines us? Maybe you have ended up where you are because of your genes. Maybe this-’ he gestures to the room ‘-was always going to happen to you.’

My chest tightens. Be careful. ‘What are you trying to say? What do you know?’

He remains quiet, still, like ice. I shiver. The clouds outside turn black, a droplet of rain taps the windowpane. ‘Okay,’ Kurt says finally, ‘we are going to move on now.’

He consults his file. I blink, press my palms together, barely breathe. What just happened? Does he know? Does he know what we found out?

‘You had a therapy session,’ Kurt says, voice clipped, businesslike, ‘with Dr Andersson on the twenty-third of May-the day you also met with your barrister for the first time. I want you to tell me about that.’

My shoulders tense. My friend, that day-I will never forget it, no matter what anyone tries to do to me. ‘That was the day that Pat-’

‘Yes, I know. I want you to tell me what happened.’

I try to remain steady, but even as I begin to speak, my hands shake a little.

Because all I can think is: why is this man here? And is he really a therapist?

‘It seems your face is all over the papers. Again,’ Dr Andersson says.

She talks sitting with her legs crossed, poised and ready for our therapy appointment. She slips one hand down to her shoe, flicks off the heel and rubs the arch of the foot. It is small, supple; I imagine what it would look like tied up in rope. Sighing, she pops her heel back and reaches forward to touch the pile of newspapers that fan out on the low table in front of her.