26 Evie

26

It rained for a week after Children's Day. It was like a fine mist that hung like smoke over the mountains, making everything feel damp and smell musty. The sun didn't emerge until late in the day or made no appearance at all.

I told Mama and Papa what had happened to Agnesa. I couldn't keep a secret – not back then – and I wanted to punish the person who had hurt her. I was wrong. I should have kept my promise.

Our lives changed. Mama and Papa spoke in whispers and argued in shouts. Erjon was eighteen. Agnesa underage. That made it illegal, Papa said. He wanted to involve the police, but Mama said, ‘It will be her word against his. And everybody will believe him because of his father.'

Papa's voice rose. ‘I saw the blood on her dress. I saw the bruises. She was raped.'

‘She shouldn't have been alone with him.'

‘It was not her fault.'

There were complications. Erjon's father was our landlord and he owned the meatworks where Papa worked and the truck that Papa drove. He had our livelihood in his hands. Mama said they should wait and see. That was her solution to most things – waiting and seeing. Whenever I asked for new clothes or a puppy or to be allowed to visit Aunt Polina in Tirana, she told me to ‘wait and see'.

I went to school. I came home again. Agnesa stayed away. She helped Mama around the house and occasionally went to the supermarket, but she didn't make eye contact with people. I remember feeling jealous that she could stay at home, but I was too young to understand.

The summer holidays began. The ordinary sights and sounds of the village returned. Nobody mentioned what happened, but it hummed in the background like an old refrigerator, keeping everything cold and preserved.

It was Mama's birthday. I made her breakfast in bed and went into the garden to pick flowers for the tray. We had an old outside toilet near the vegetable garden, which nobody used any more because Papa had built a bathroom inside the cottage. It was at the end of a stone path, beside a trellis with grape vines. The door was open and I saw Agnesa kneeling over the bowl, holding back her hair as she vomited. She shouted at me to leave, and I went to get Mama. Later, I heard them talking about Agnesa being late. Late for what? I wondered.

Mama told me to go to Mr Hasani's workshop because she was taking Agnesa to the doctor in Prrenjas. The following day, Aunt Polina arrived on the bus from Tirana. She had dyed her hair blonde and was wearing an off-white dress that made her look like an avenging angel without a flaming sword. Again, I was sent away, this time with an overnight bag and instructions to stay at Mina's house. I walked out of the front gate, but stopped at the next house and doubled back, climbing on top of the wall beside the cottage. I shimmied along the narrow bricks until I reached the walnut tree outside the kitchen. Papa, Mama, Agnesa and Aunt Polina were sitting around the table. Aunt Polina said she knew someone who could make the baby go away. I wondered how a baby could go anywhere without a mother. Did that mean that Agnesa was pregnant? Would she be going too?

I didn't hear everything that was said because Mama had her back to me and Papa kept pacing the kitchen, refusing to sit down. He said that Agnesa shouldn't have to shoulder the responsibility on her own and that Erjon would ‘do the right thing'.

‘I'm not going to marry him,' she replied.

‘You'll do as you're told,' said Mama, threatening to lock her in her room until she learned to be sensible. I couldn't imagine anything worse than having to marry Erjon Berisha. Yes, he had money, but he was cruel and he bullied people. He had hurt Agnesa, and killed Fisnik Sopa, and he once threw a dog off a cliff into a dam. The dog survived, but that's not the point.

Papa went into the bedroom and put on his coat and tie, which he only wore on special occasions. Mama followed. I couldn't hear what they were saying but I saw their shadows behind the curtains. I watched Papa leave and then tried to climb down from the tree, but it had grown dark, and I'd climbed too high, and I couldn't see the branches below my feet. I was wedged against the trunk, clinging on, as the night pressed around me, chill and damp, full of familiar sounds that became unfamiliar in the darkness.

Finally, I summoned the courage and uncurled my fingers and reached down with my toes, scrabbling for a lower branch. Once I began falling, I couldn't stop. I landed on the edge of the trellis, slicing open my leg just above my right knee. You can still see the scar, but only when I wear short skirts, which I never do. Mr Hasani drove me to the hospital and Mama let me sit in her lap as the doctor put eight stitches in the wound.

Papa still wasn't at home when we returned from the hospital. He was gone for hours. Much later, lying in bed, I heard him come through the front door and take off his shoes, knocking over a lamp and cursing. He fell asleep on the sofa. In the morning, I heard him climb the stairs to the bathroom and stand over the toilet bowl. Later, I noticed his faint pink handprint on the tiled wall where he had leaned against it. It looked like blood.

In the kitchen Papa was boiling two eggs for his lunch and putting butter and jam on a slab of bread with a bandaged hand. Normally, he would have swept me into his arms and danced me around the table, one-two-three, one-two-three. A dip. A twirl. An explosion of giggles. Today was different. It felt as though someone had robbed us during the night, but we didn't know what had been stolen. Papa put his lunch in a paper bag and wheeled his bike into the cool of the morning, cycling to work.

This is how I wake now, slipping quietly out of sleep, as though I've spent the night in hiding. Poppy is nudging her head against a bell that hangs from my doorknob, letting me know that she wants to go outside for her ‘morning constitutional'. That's what Cyrus calls it. Why don't people say what they mean?'

I go downstairs and unlock the laundry door. Poppy heads outside, sniffing every corner of the garden, seeing if anyone has invaded her territory overnight. Foxes or squirrels or neighbourhood cats.

There is a moggie who lives two doors down, a moth-eaten-looking creature, who torments Poppy by sitting on the fence grooming herself, knowing that she's out of reach. This happens at least ten times a day, working the Labrador into a frenzy of barking that has caused the neighbours to complain. Just once, I want Poppy to learn how to climb and to snap her jaws around the cat's neck. Not to kill her – I'm not a monster – but to scare one of her lives away.

Upstairs, as I'm getting dressed, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Hair messy. Dark rings around my eyes. I touch my forehead, trying to picture the tumour growing inside, the parasite feeding off me, filling my space, pressing on my brain. The size of an almond, Dr Bennett said. Why do they always compare things to fruit or nuts?

If I leave it alone, it could change me. If I cut it out, it could change me. Would that be such a bad thing? I don't want to know when people are lying. I want to be normal – but not in a boring, beige, colour-between-the-lines sort of way. I want to be me without the freaky bits.

Maybe the MRI scan was wrong and the tumour was a shadow or a blob of nothing. I mean, I haven't had headaches or numbness or dropsy or begun forgetting things. Yes, I had a meltdown on Cleethorpes Pier, but that might have been a one-off.

Dr Bennett told me to avoid googling, but that was never going to happen. I've been researching brain tumours, and how they can affect behaviour and emotions. The articles use words like ‘deficits' and ‘side effects' and ‘cognitive changes'. If the tumour keeps growing, I might not recognise facial expressions. It could reduce my reliability and foresight and emotional control, or blunt my emotions, or make me more childish or disinhibited.

Then again, if I get the tumour cut out, I could cause deficits and side effects. And if it all goes completely wrong, I could finish up with the IQ of a ramen noodle, drooling into my lap. Will Cyrus look after me? More importantly, will he smother me with a pillow if I make him promise to?

I join him downstairs. He's been for a run and his T-shirt clings to his chest and I can see the outline of his tattoos beneath the white cotton.

‘Did you sleep well?' he asks.

‘Meh.' I put a pod in the coffee machine. It belches and coughs and spits out a brown creamy liquid. I like the smell of coffee more than the taste.

‘Can I get you something for breakfast?' he asks.

‘I'm not hungry.'

I think about telling Cyrus what happened on my non-date with Liam, but it's too embarrassing. Instead, I ask him about the man with the scar.

‘His name is Angus Radford. He comes from Scotland.'

‘How did he get the scar?'

‘Some sort of fire. Have you remembered any more?'

‘No.'

‘I could help you.'

‘By hypnotising me?'

‘It's called a cognitive interview. You would always have control – and could stop at any time.' He pulls his chair closer. ‘Time perception is difficult for people who suffer abuse, particularly when they're young. The systems that regulate our sense of time get altered and sometimes past events can feel like the present or the details become blurred, making it hard to pinpoint a year or a month.'

‘Someone like me?'

‘Yes. But if we can access a single event or moment in time, we can work backwards or forwards. It's like painting by numbers, starting at the edges, and filling in the rest.'

‘What moment?' I ask. ‘I don't remember where I met him.'

‘It will come to you.'

We sit at the table, saying nothing, until the silence seems to be taking root and sprouting leaves and bearing fruit.

‘And I want the surgery,' I say, challenging him, spoiling for a fight.

‘OK,' he says.

‘I'm not going to change my mind.'

‘I know.'

Why is he being so agreeable? Is this some form of reverse psychology? God, he can be an arsehole!

‘Scrambled eggs,' I say.

‘Pardon?'

‘That's what I want for breakfast.'

Without complaint, he takes a pan from the drawer and eggs from the fridge. He talks as he cooks, asking about my plans for the day.

‘The dog shelter has a team that rescues strays. I thought I might tag along with them. Help out.'

‘And you won't bring any animals home?'

I look at Poppy, who is hovering near the stove, begging as usual. ‘One is enough.'