35 Evie

35

My therapist, Veejay, works from her house in Nottingham, where she has an office overlooking a garden, which is always littered with toys, including a paddling pool and a swing set. In all my sessions, I have never seen her children. I once asked her what she'd done with them: ‘Have you buried them in the garden?' Cocking her head, she studied me with her soft brown eyes and said, ‘Why do you ask?'

Her full name is Veera Jaffrey, but people call her by her initials, V.J. (Veejay), and she has a wonderfully deep voice, thick dark hair, and the faintest trace of a Pakistani accent. She doesn't make me lie on a couch. Instead, she has an enormous armchair, which is so deep that my legs stick straight out.

This is an extra appointment. Veejay knows about what happened at Cleethorpes because Cyrus must have told her, which annoys me, because he promised to stay out of my life.

‘What's the last thing you remember?' she asks.

‘The bodies in the water.'

‘Did you feel anything?'

‘Dizzy, I guess.'

‘Did you smell anything?'

‘Why?'

‘Sometimes people detect a strange odour like burning hair or rotting food just before they pass out. It's more a symptom than a trigger.'

‘I remember trying to run. Mentally, I was desperate to get away, but I couldn't move. The danger was getting closer and closer and I was frozen.'

Veejay jots something down on her yellow notepad. I often wonder what she writes. Maybe she's reminding herself to pick up a loaf of bread or to let the children out of the basement.

I don't mention the MRI scan and the unwanted tumour growing in my temporal lobe. Cyrus has probably told her. I hate him sometimes. All the time. Never.

My tumour has become my ‘white bear'. Cyrus once told me about a famous thought-suppression experiment where a psychologist asked people not to think about a specific thing – a white bear. That was their only goal, but the harder they tried, the more they thought about a white bear. It's a pretty stupid experiment, if you ask me, but I guess it explains why I'm fixated on my tumour and what lies ahead – the biopsy, the surgery, the chemotherapy or radiotherapy. I'm ugly enough without losing my hair.

Maybe they should leave it alone. They could spend their time and money on saving someone else. It's not as though I'm very important or productive. I'm not going to cure cancer, or work with lepers, or break any world records.

Veejay has been talking to me. I haven't been listening.

‘Any dreams?' she asks.

‘Not really.'

‘What does that mean?'

‘I've been thinking a lot about when my father died.'

‘You haven't talked about him.'

‘He was killed at work. They said it was an accident.'

‘Who said?'

‘The police.'

‘But you don't believe that.'

‘No.'

I try to swallow a lump that is caught between my voice box and my upper chest. Veejay is waiting for me to go on. I want to ask if we can change the subject, but that would be like telling a moth to ignore the light or a salmon to stop swimming upstream.

Involuntary memories are the worst. They creep up on me unexpectedly and leave me gasping for breath. The happy ones are OK. I picture myself riding on Papa's bicycle, tucked between his forearms as we coast down the hill towards the village, urging him to go faster. Or I'm sitting on his lap in Mr Berisha's truck, changing the gears, while Papa works the pedals.

But happiness is like one side of a spinning coin. Eventually it lands on tails and the memories change.

We marked Papa's grave with flowers and a small white cross that had an inscription giving his name, date of birth and the day he died. Forty-seven years. People said it was too young. I think it sounds too long.

After the funeral, Mama became an ancient figure, draped in black, staring at the walls. She spent weeks lying in their metal-framed bed in a darkened room with the door closed. I used to press my ear against the cool wood and hear her crying.

Aunt Polina cooked our meals, washed our clothes and told us stories about her time in Italy.

‘When you were strawberry picking,' I said.

Polina smiled. ‘Who told you that?'

‘Papa.'

‘I did lots of jobs.'

‘And you had a boyfriend,' I added.

‘Many,' she said. ‘I was very popular.'

Each mealtime, we put a tray outside Mama's door and collected it later, untouched.

‘She has to eat,' I said. ‘What if she gets sick?'

‘She'll eat,' said Polina. ‘Give her time.'

I began sneaking into Mama's room, where I found her propped up in the corner of the bed, elbow wedged against the wall. The sunlight threw shapes on the floor and spent the afternoon inching towards her pillow. Mama was like a life-sized statue of herself, wasting away, with no light in her eyes, no spark, no joy. I tried hard to make her happy. I picked flowers, and made cards, and drew pictures, but whenever she looked at me I felt something stir in her, a tremor, barely detectable, that made her small brown eyes brim with rage.

Polina was right. Mama did return to us. She left her room and moved through the house as though wading in chest-deep water. She ate. She slept. She cooked. She cleaned.

Papa's funeral used up the last of our savings; what Mama called our ‘rainy day money', although I've never understood why the weather made a difference. My English teacher Mr Joubert told me that I take things too literally and fail to see symbolism or hidden meanings. It's like when we studied Othello. He said Desdemona's handkerchief was supposed to symbolise her fidelity, but why couldn't she just want to blow her nose?

When school began, other children avoided me – all except for Mina. They whispered that Papa had died because he upset Mr Berisha and that now my family had a blood feud and compensation had to be paid – an eye for an eye, a life for a life. ‘If only there was a son,' people said, as though men were the solution to every problem.

When the rent became due at the end of August we had no money to pay Mr Berisha. He came to the house. I was at the kitchen table doing my homework. Agnesa locked herself in the bedroom.

Mr Berisha was a fat man with a second chin, which turned into three when he dropped his jaw to his chest to look over his half glasses. And he made a clicking sound in his throat whenever he disagreed with what someone was telling him.

Mama asked for more time to pay the rent.

‘Are you working?' he asked.

‘I'm looking for a job.'

‘What about your daughter, Agnesa? I could find her a position.'

‘She's still at school.'

‘She could work in my office. I like having a pretty face to greet customers. She couldn't be pregnant, of course. Not when she's unmarried.'

Mama's knuckles whitened as her hands closed into fists.

‘Is your son going to marry Agnesa?'

Mr Berisha chuckled. ‘This is not some Cinderella story.'

‘She was underage. He raped her.'

‘She tricked him into sleeping with her.'

‘I'll go to the police. Let's see what they say.'

He stepped closer. Mama backed away. She was trapped against the sink, looking anxiously at me. Mr Berisha ran his fingers down her cheek and neck and the front of her dress.

‘You have ten days to sell your furniture and pack your things,' he said. ‘You will pay me whatever you raise, and I will arrange your passage to England. I will organise jobs for you and somewhere to stay.'

‘What jobs?'

‘Your English is good. You could work for one of the big hotels in London. Your daughters could do the same.'

‘And if I don't agree?'

He leaned closer and whispered something. I didn't catch the words, but Mama's eyes widened, and she spun her head to look at me, letting out a groan.

That night I was sent to bed early. Mama and Aunt Polina and Agnesa stayed in the kitchen talking. Later, Agnesa lay in bed next to me, her arm resting on my waist. ‘It will be an adventure,' she said, as she talked about England, and I fell asleep dreaming of flower sellers and chimney sweeps and magical nannies.

In the days that followed, Mama applied to get us passports. Normally it would have taken weeks, but she bribed a police officer. We opened the house to our neighbours, selling everything – the grandfather clock, the tall black wardrobe from the bedroom, three chests of drawers, a washing machine, a fridge, the TV, and Papa's bicycle. Some of the offers were insulting, according to Mama. She said that ‘honour and reason cannot be bought', which I didn't understand.

She allowed me to fill a small suitcase with clothes and shoes, but I had to leave my toys behind. ‘You're too old for dolls,' Agnesa said, but she saw my tears and promised to buy me a new doll in London from a famous toy store.

Mr Berisha did not get his money and we didn't follow his instructions and meet ‘his man' in Durr?s. Instead, we left the cottage before dawn and Mr Hasani drove us to Tirana International Bus Terminal. We caught a bus to Kotor in Montenegro, and another to Sarajevo in Bosnia and another to Zagreb in Croatia. At each border Mama said we were tourists or visiting friends and she always had an address to give them, but I don't think they were real. A night bus took us across the top of Italy through Venice and Verona to Milan, where we caught a train to Padova and another bus into France.

Agnesa turned sixteen on the journey. I was nine, almost ten, and every new country was taking me further away from the only life I'd ever known – hour after hour, mile after mile – away from Mina and Mr and Mrs Hasani and Aunt Polina and Papa's grave.

My mind aches from so much useless remembering. What does it matter? What can I hope to achieve? The past is not trying to speak to me. And even if it was, I don't want to hear what it has to say.

Cyrus is waiting for me outside Veejay's house.

‘I thought I'd come and meet you,' he says.

‘He's dead, isn't he?' I ask, studying his face.

‘Yes.'

‘How?'

‘Let's take a walk.'

Crossing the road, we descend a set of stone steps beside a bridge over the Nottingham and Beeston Canal. The rain has stopped, and the sun is out, throwing shadows on the wet towpath. We walk between patches of light and shade, passing an old lady feeding the ducks from a bench and a party of tourists wearing life-vests who are paddling kayaks on the canal.

‘It could have been a diabetic coma,' says Cyrus. ‘We won't know until the post-mortem.'

‘It's still murder.'

‘Yes.'

‘I told Arben he'd be safe.'

‘It's not your fault.'

Then whose fault is it? I want to ask. Who can I blame? We are still walking but I'm so angry that I struggle to focus.

‘I'm going to Scotland,' says Cyrus.

‘Why?'

‘That's where Angus Radford comes from. I want to find out more about him and where you might have met him.'

A lump expands in my throat.

‘I'm not asking you to come,' says Cyrus. ‘It's safer here.'

‘How will you know the truth if I'm not there?'

‘It's too dangerous.'

‘Angus Radford didn't recognise me and he's in prison,' I say. ‘And nobody else knows who I am.'

Cyrus doesn't answer, which is a good sign. We walk on a while longer.

‘Who'll look after Poppy?' he asks, but he knows the answer already. Mitch and Lilah.

We're going to Scotland.