I glanced around the walls, the skirting boards, the tiny hallway and the clutch of minuscule rooms beyond. As if I might have missed the charm of the place the first ten times I’d looked around.
I felt as if my life had been bleached of colour and texture, like my very soul had been daubed an insipid magnolia shade, inside and out.
I turned away and stood at the small window which looked out on the damp patch of scuffed grass. The letting agent had had the audacity to call it a ‘front garden’, what a laugh that was.
Weeds choked the slender borders and dandelions sprouted between the paving slabs in awkward, impractical places, buffeted by the cool breeze and swaying like drunken soldiers.
I turned away from the window and looked around the room.
Piled up in the corner were a few cardboard boxes and overstuffed bin bags. The sum total of the last eight years of our lives.
All the good times and the bad times were documented in those bags; sentimental items tangled up together and packed in tightly so nothing moved, so nothing else could slip.
A burst of laughter, bright faces and family times filled my head and then were gone, like the brief flash of an old celluloid film before it finally dies. Perhaps one day I’d manage to unravel it all, smooth out the fine, knotted threads of everything that went wrong. Finally make sense of why the nightmare had happened to us.
Maybe then I’d have a chance of sleeping again.
A noise at the door made me start but I turned to see it was only Mum, her face worn and lined, her wiry frame too rigid and tense. Her energy and drive to get things done was enviable, but now it stuck in my side like a blunt needle, constantly reminding me of my own inadequacies.
She frowned at me, seeing the truth with her special mother’s X-ray eyes. ‘Leave no time for thinking, isn’t that what we said?’
She clapped her hands and there I was, ten years old again with Mum demanding I hurry up and get dressed before I miss the school bus.
If only it were that simple, I’d willingly transport myself back there. What I’d give to have another go at life, make some better decisions.
‘Fancy a cuppa?’
I nodded, watching as Mum walked over to the boxes and perused the handwritten labels.
I caught sight of my handbag sitting there on the floor, where I’d left it while I humped in bin bag after bin bag from the boot of the car. I moved forward and reached past Mum to pick up the bag.
‘Just need to check my phone,’ I muttered as she turned to watch me.
I didn’t root around for the phone, but stood stock-still, hugging the handbag to my chest like a prize.
Mum looked at me for a long moment.
‘What?’ I challenged.
She broke her gaze, sighed and pulled open a box, effortlessly plucking out the kettle and two mugs she’d shrouded in bubble wrap.
‘Tea,’ she announced, disappearing back into the kitchen.
I hated deceiving Mum. But then, deceit was probably too strong a word. What I was doing didn’t affect her in the least. It was more a case of me not telling her every last thing.
After all, at thirty-five years of age, I was more than entitled to make my own decisions without involving my mother. That’s what I told myself anyway.
It was true I had a lot to thank Mum for.
After months of deliberations and dithering, she had persuaded me to up sticks from Hemel Hempstead and move Evie to Nottingham, closer to her, to make a fresh start.
I’d always thought it was an overused phrase: make a fresh start. You could say it so quickly and easily, but in reality it took months to plan and sort everything out. And even then, there was still masses left to do.
Still, I had already arranged for Evie to start at the local, Ofsted-rated ‘good’ school, St Saviour’s Primary, at the beginning of term.
Like Mum said, it was important to keep her educational upheaval to a minimum.
Somehow, I’d muddle through and try to do my best for my daughter. For our now less-than-perfect family.
‘Evie is really excited about starting her new school,’ Mum called from the kitchen. ‘She was chatting to me about it this morning before I dropped her off at playgroup.’
A spike of conscience jabbed me in the guts. I hadn’t yet had time to sit down and talk to Evie properly about all the change, what with selling and renting houses and making all the necessary moving arrangements, as well as trying to settle Andrew’s medical bills with the insurance company. It had all been a nightmare.
But I was pleased to hear Mum say Evie was excited.
‘I’ve made an appointment to look around the school tomorrow afternoon at two,’ I called back to Mum. ‘If you fancy it, you could have a run over with us.’
She groaned.
‘I’ve got my osteopathy appointment. I had to cancel it last week, remember, because of collecting your keys?’ I received the barb loud and clear. ‘I don’t think he’d appreciate me doing the same tomorrow, but I do want to know all about it when you get back.’
Though Mum was fond of reminding me how much she helped me and Evie out, truthfully, I don’t quite know what I’d have done without her. How I’d have got through, after Andrew died.
Eighteen months ago, they’d called him back to Afghanistan for an urgent mission. A ‘special operation’, his sergeant had called it, attaching status with a few meaningless words as if Andrew ought to be grateful – honoured, even.
He had been both of those things.
I’d wished desperately that this time, by some miracle, he wouldn’t want to leave Evie and me. But as soon as I broached the subject, Andrew had said simply, ‘It’s my duty.’
And I knew that meant the subject was closed.
He didn’t know it then, neither did I, but in that single moment he had indelibly sealed his fate. He had sealed all of our fates.
I knew Andrew loved us but he loved his job and his country too. And me and Evie, well, we never really stood a chance from the moment he got called up.
Andrew was already estranged from his remaining family when I met him, due to some terrible family argument from years ago that was still alive and kicking. I’d tried to reach out to his dad and brother after the accident, offering to take Evie, who they’d never met, to Liverpool to visit them. I never received a reply.
After the accident, Mum had helped us financially, even though, since her partner Brian had died three years earlier, she hadn’t a great deal of money to spare herself. We’d been through years of hell and worry with Dad’s heart problems before his eventual death. Then two years after Dad had died, Mum had met Brian at her local rambling group and we thought she’d found a new shot at happiness. Sadly, within six months, Brian had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and Mum had had to go through it all again.
Sometimes, it was hard to fight the feeling that, basically, life just sucked.
3
Present Day
Queen’s Medical Centre
I stare up at the blank, white ceiling, momentarily absorbed in how the cheap eggshell paint reflects the shards of light that arrow in from the window, turning them into lasers.
It’s the same view 24/7, unless somebody or something decides to change it. Yesterday, a black fly crawled across the vast whiteness of the space above me. It stopped directly in my line of sight and proceeded to clean its front legs.
The longer I stared, the closer it seemed to be, magnifying itself until I became convinced I could clearly see its iridescent, compound eyes and its sucking mouthparts.
I was utterly revolted but completely unable to stop looking at the useless thing. Until I remembered that the fly could do more for itself than I can.
There is no fly here today; it must have taken off. Flown to its freedom, bored of my hopelessness.
I search my mind for clues of what happened to me. How I ended up here.
Unlike my body, my memories are alive. I can feel them, hovering in the back of my mind, just waiting to be captured.