The Things You Didn't See(55)

Do you remember, Mum, how you nagged him to give up smoking after he had the stroke, but it was the consultant who really put the wind up him, telling him he’d be dead in a year unless he did. If he’d been right, you wouldn’t have been shot.

He keeps his bad hand close to his body and nods to the officer. One thing about Dad, he’s a survivor.

The purple-haired officer returns with another escort, smirking at the visits officer as though she’s won a prize. The woman beside her wears a painted smile, her blouse is silky and scarlet, she gives her name in a small voice. The visits officer is charmed, winks at his colleague, not even bothering to hide it from the woman, whom he directs to the table next to ours. As she sits, I breathe in her heady floral perfume. My father leans in, and I think, Finally, he will explain.

‘You came, at least. I wasn’t sure you would.’

‘I didn’t want to.’

The woman is removing something – a bit of fluff ? – from her cleavage. The visits officer behind the desk has noticed too. I lean forward, and look Dad in the eye. Those same eyes – all my life I’ve been able to read them. And I can’t see any malice there, nothing different that tells me this man shot my mother.

‘Is it really true, Dad?’

He stares back at me with his flat grey eyes. ‘Why would I lie? You think I want to be here?’

‘Is it true that you were asleep?’ I can’t believe he shot you, but I find it even harder to believe he did it in his sleep.

There’s a pained silence. The woman and the officer have heard my question, but I don’t care. I just need an answer. His face slackens, and I see weakness for the first time. He didn’t have to confess – doing so cost him his freedom. Since that morning, I’ve been the only one to say that you didn’t shoot yourself, and no one believed me. Only Holly, everyone else told me I was in shock, that I was wrong, that I was crazy: Clive, Daniel, even the police. And Dad let this happen, only confessing when his beloved Ash, and Janet, came under scrutiny.

‘Are you really doing all this to protect them?’

He reacts to that: colour comes to his cheeks. He breathes deeply, then says, ‘Sleepwalkers aren’t responsible for what they do, Cass. Don’t you remember one Boxin’ Day, I went out with the hunt? That night I dreamed I were still ridin’ a horse over a very high hedge? I jumped out of the window, fell straight down, almost killed meself.’

I do remember – more than once he was found wandering around the farmland, unsure of how he got there. ‘But that was years ago, Dad.’

‘It was a few times, I fell from the window. ’Sides, that don’t matters how rare it happen, do it? Fact is, you can’t blame someone for what they do – they’re not responsible if they’re asleep.’

‘How fucking convenient,’ I hiss, and he catches his breath. I can see he’s about to swear or say something vicious, and then he stops himself. If we were at the farm, he’d be storming off towards the barns to vent his frustration on the chickens. Then he reaches for my hand, grabs it. He’s squeezing, stopping the blood flow, his eyes boring into the very heart of me.

‘I love your mother and I love you. And I’m sorry this has happened, but I can’t go turnin’ back the clock. So let me fix it, okay?’

I pull my hand free. It’s not us he was thinking about when he confessed, it was Ash and Janet, I’m sure of it. ‘If it’s true, what you say, why didn’t you tell the police that morning? Why now?’

An inmate arrives, dazed, like he’s woken from a long sleep. Even without the burgundy T-shirt and poorly fitting jeans, he has the defeated gait of a prisoner. His shoulders are hunched and his eyes rove in their sockets. He shuffles towards us, sniffing the air as if pulled onward by the woman’s perfume. He stumbles as he passes my father, and I’m surprised to hear him mumble, ‘Hector, my man.’

‘Toby.’ My father nods in recognition as Toby lowers himself to the chair, seemingly surprised to find his weight supported. He’s impervious to the lipstick kisses of his visitor – on his cheek, not his lips. They resemble each other: brother and sister.

‘Place is full of lunatics,’ my father says, not quietly.

‘Aren’t you one, then? Shooting Mum in your sleep sounds pretty crazy to me.’

I can’t sensor myself, I’m so fucking angry. This is what’s crazy: to be told you’re delusional, then to discover that the people closest to you lied. My dad in prison, my mum in a coma. I don’t know who to turn to. Even Daniel’s treating me like I’m unwell. Only Holly listened.

‘You can call it crazy if you like. But what it ain’t is cruel.’ I think for a moment he might cry.

Beside us, Toby places his hands on the desk and his sister cups them, steadies them, and in that moment our eyes meet. She smiles sadly, reaching out for a female connection in this dreadful place. To feel less alone. She’s a healthy, fleshier version of her brother – how he might be if he weren’t here, drug-addled and criminally inclined. They have similar mouths. Hers is smiling at me and I want to smile back, but my face muscles ignore me. Her eyes go cold and she turns back to her brother.

Dad taps my wrist with his cupped right hand and I flinch. ‘You met my solicitor then?’

‘I spoke with him on the phone. It was him who made me come.’