What Lies Between Us(92)

I don’t respond, and I don’t think she has noticed that I haven’t said a word since she came upstairs to change my chain. She continues talking regardless, recounting her day, describing the new books that arrived at the library, what she’ll bring home over the next few weeks. I don’t care. I have long since stopped reading.

She reaches into her pocket and pulls out two tablets I recognise as painkillers. ‘You’ve barely touched your toast,’ she says. ‘And you’re not supposed to take these on an empty stomach.’

I don’t need her to tell me how they work. Last week she tried withholding them from me until I ate, but I didn’t give in. Perhaps I was cutting my nose off to spite my face because for the rest of the night, I was poleaxed by the pain. Tonight, my insides already feel as if they are being twisted and I know I’m in for an even more difficult time. I reluctantly do as she says and start to eat.

‘That’s better,’ Nina continues, and pushes the tablets towards me. I want to hurl every swear word I can at her but I hold back. Instead, I swallow my anger with my medication.

Nina has yet to make any mention of Dylan following his death months and months ago. Two days later and when she finally brought me a tray of food, I yanked open the door and demanded to know what she had done with his body. ‘Whose body?’ she replied blankly.

‘Dylan!’ I yelled. ‘Your son!’

‘Maggie, what are you talking about? I don’t have any children, you saw to that. Remember?’

I cocked my head and glared at her, searching her expression for an indication that she was being dishonest. But her look was not that of a woman who was pretending. It was of someone who genuinely didn’t know what the hell I was talking about. It was as if her brain had erased Dylan from her memory completely. That last psychosis must have been different to the others. When it passed, I can only assume it took away other memories with it. I considered whether trying to bring about their return was a battle worth persisting with. However, if I could unlock the room in her brain in which she had hidden her son, what might I be unleashing when she learned she had killed him? Would she discover she had done the same to her father and Sally Ann Mitchell? Would I really want to be trapped in a house with a person who learns all that about themselves?

‘I’m tired and confused,’ I replied instead. ‘Sorry.’

I passed on sharing dinner with her that night so she brought it upstairs for me. I picked at it, my thoughts dominated by all that I would never know about my grandson. I hoped he had led a good life, a happy life, a life full of love and light. But I will never truly know.

Since then, there have been times when I’ve considered if Nina’s been right all along; that I do have vascular dementia and that I’m trapped inside a prison of my own mind, which is why I’ve never been able to escape. Maybe this isn’t my house; perhaps I’m in a care home, we are unrelated and she is charged with looking after me. Perhaps Dylan’s death was a figment of my imagination too, because Dylan never existed. Maybe I’m acting out my relationship with my own mother, with me playing her part. Or perhaps Nina keeps me chained up because she has no other choice, as I am a danger to myself and to others. I’ve stabbed her, hit her, kicked her; I’ve done all I can do to leave, yet I am still here. Maybe it’s all a result of my own psychosis? Am I the sick twisted one and not her? Am I the unreliable narrator in our story?

My only certainty is that a disease is living inside my body and feeding from me. Every waking moment I am conscious of my cancer, slowly growing, asserting its dominance and spreading into all my nooks and crannies. It can’t be long now before it reaches further into my brain and renders me completely useless. I can’t wait for that moment to arrive. Because then I will have truly escaped this house and my daughter. Only then can we separate. Only then can we be ourselves. Only then will I be happy.

Only then will I be free of her.

‘I almost forgot, I have something for you,’ she says, interrupting my thoughts. She picks up a cupcake on a plate from the floor. There’s a candle in it shaped in a number three. She pulls a box of matches from her pocket, strikes one and lights it.

‘Happy anniversary,’ she says, and gives me a smile. I don’t know what she’s expecting in return but I give her nothing. ‘Can you believe how quickly the last three years have gone? Sorry but I didn’t have time to get a proper cake made. I’ll be better organised next year. Blow it out and make a wish.’

I do as I’m told; I let out a puff of air then I make my wish. And I have a feeling it might come true a lot sooner than I expected.





CHAPTER 77





NINA


Tiny green shoots with snow-white tips are sprouting from the mound of earth above his grave in the garden. I bought a bag of seed mix a few weeks ago then sprinkled and raked the contents into the soil. Despite the cold weather, I’ve been watering that section regularly and it’s paying off. They’re going to bring colour and beauty to such a dark spot by spring.

I’ve been thinking about him a lot lately and have spent time out here to feel closer to him. Maggie thinks that I have blanked Dylan from my memory, but she couldn’t be more wrong. He is in everything I do and always will be. I talk to him often, even when I don’t get a response. When Maggie’s time comes – and I don’t think it will be long – I will bury her here too.