The Sister(24)

‘Good, this will take around two hours. You can wait for him here, or you might like to take a walk. My secretary can tell you where all the best shops are; there’s a High Street not half a mile away.’ He pushed the paperwork across the desk in her direction. ‘If I can just ask you to check all the details are correct.’

She pulled a pair of tortoiseshell reading glasses from her handbag and put them on.

‘Yes…’ she sounded unsure. ‘Except for the surname, it is spelt wrong, there’s only one L in it.’

‘I’ll get that changed. Can I get you to sign the consent forms?’ He passed them to her; she read them carefully, and placed them on the desk.

‘You won’t be prescribing any drugs for him, will you? I’m dead set against them.’

‘For me, that’s the last resort. As I said just now, we tend to concentrate on therapy.’

She made small circles above the paper, holding an invisible pen between her thumb and forefinger.

He handed her a pen.

‘You’ll be able to help him, won’t you Dr Ryan?’ she said anxiously, pen poised above the page as if it were a condition of her signing.

‘We’ll do our best.’

Reassured, she signed quickly with a flourish, her large signature stylish, yet utterly illegible.

‘Mrs Milowski.’ He waited at the door, holding it open for her. ‘We’ll see you in two hours.’ As she passed him, he bowed slightly.

Sitting back down, he traced his cheekbone with the edge of his finger. ‘It’s hot isn’t it?’ He poured two glasses of water and held one out to his patient. ‘Would you like a drink, Bruce?’

‘There’s nothing wrong with me,’ he said, eyes sullen.

Ryan raised an eyebrow at him, tapping his notepad. ‘It says here you’ve become withdrawn and forgetful.’ He traced his finger across the paper. ‘And here – that you are now prone to losing your temper,’ Ryan leaned back in his chair. ‘It also says you’ve been having trouble sleeping, keep waking up with nightmares…’ The boy’s head drooped onto his chest. ‘Would you like to tell me about that?’ he said evenly.

Bruce shook his head.

‘Mm-m, so let’s talk about the accident,’ Ryan’s voice lowered, becoming gentler. With his right hand insistently clicking the lead out of his silver pencil, it sounded like a miniature metronome. Milowski squinted at it. The metal was polished, shiny from everyday use. It caught a flare of sunshine, which illuminated its whole length, radiating a beam so bright, everything else paled against it; the desk and then even Ryan, began to fade.

All he could see was the pencil and Ryan’s face hovering above it. He found himself drawn ever closer into the miniature elongated reflection of the window.

Something changed in his perception; he felt he was looking out through the mirrored image, at himself.

In the distance, he heard Ryan’s voice; he felt as if he were floating a few inches above where he sat, detached, but still aware. Bruce heard his own voice speaking, disembodied and distant, present at the accident scene once more. Milowski’s recollections unfurled, rolled out like a tapestry.





‘We let the others go snaking up the hill, the line of them thinned as it stretched out. When we realised we were going to get away with it, we moved further down the hill. Jones was on the other side of a mass of ferns that swayed like the sea. I think he was tempted by the dark shade of the trees beyond. 'Look down there! Let’s go and see,' he shouted. His pale blue eyes brimmed full of excitement. 'That little stream we saw earlier, does anyone else remember it? I wouldn’t mind betting that it opens out in those woods. That’s why it’s so green down there. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m so hot I wouldn’t mind a swim if I can get one, or even just a paddle. Come on!’’ He hesitated, clearly immersed in his recollections.

‘You followed him?’ Ryan prompted.

The question took a moment to filter through. ‘Yes, he charged off downhill. We shrugged at each other, and then raced after him. The others ducked beneath the top strand of the barbed wire fence. There was an old white tin sign with faded red letters swinging from the top wire, bent out of shape by a blast of shotgun pellets. None of us bothered to try and work out what it said. I was always the hesitant one. I parted the strands, and dipped under behind the others, careful not to catch my clothes. The quiet was overwhelming; hardly any light under the thick canopy of the trees. When I first saw it, the water didn’t seem real. Chickweed grew all over the top, covering most of the surface in a green and black mosaic. The sky, reflected in the patches of exposed black water, looked like an oil painting.’ He tilted his head to one side and dipped it as if looking down, staring intently, he had become inanimate.

‘Bruce...Bruce?’ Ryan tapped his pencil gently on the desk until the boy had half turned towards the sound. ‘What happened next?’

Concentrating harder, he said, ‘I had this weird sense of recognition, and it slowed me down. I tried to focus on what it was...where it came from. I can’t quite put my finger on it...’ he hesitated, biting his lip and then he exclaimed, ‘I knew I'd been there before! I didn’t recognise it, not from where I was then.

‘I was back in a place I last saw when I was a seven-year-old boy standing a couple of hundred yards up the hill and I saw me gazing down to where I was standing then...my head’s spinning...I can’t remember what it was my grandfather had warned me about the place...I sprinted to catch up. Jones was hopping about, frantically removing his trousers and shirt, getting ready to dive in. The other boys shook their heads, plainly thinking that even he couldn’t be that crazy...and then he charged towards the pond in his underpants. He’s actually going to do it!