The Nurse by J. Corrigan (list of ebook readers txt) 📕

had a bad chest for weeks now. I want to tell him to cut out the fags. ‘Okay. Let’s start, Rose.’ There’s an edge to his voice. He’s really fed up. The session will be short. ‘Let’s talk about your husband.’ He leans forward in the prison-themed electric-blue chair and picks up his glass of water, swigs it back in one go. Coughs again. ‘Do you discuss your feeling with Miles… about being in here?’ His hands gesticulate, taking in the room, the prison, although he doesn’t say and what you did.

Abe’s death is never talked about openly; only, it seems, by Theo. Theo can take it. Theo is real. I think he is the most real person I’ve ever met in my life. I want to see him again. I don’t want to be here with Don. I want to be sitting opposite Theo. That would be enough for me, just being near him. But it will never happen. The thought floors me for a moment, and I hear my own gasp for air.

‘You all right, Rose?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Let’s talk about Miles.’ Don always wants to know about Miles, but I cut him off there every time, and he knows I will do the same today. But he tries anyway. Miles is somewhere I won’t go. Every time I cut him off, Don does exactly the same thing – pushes back imaginary hair from his forehead. I think he is the sort of man who lost his hair early.

He closes the open file that sits on his knee. I know he’ll bring up my mother next, because like clockwork he always does. He is so out of his depth.

I’m so out of my depth.

I say, as I always say, ‘I don’t want to talk about Miles.’ And it happens.

‘Let’s explore your feelings about your mother.’

‘I have very few feelings about my mother,’ I say. It’s what I always say.

‘You love her?’

I don’t answer. He always asks me this too, just in differing sentence constructions.

‘You blame her in some way?’ he presses.

‘My mother is my mother. As you know, we are… estranged.’ I pause. ‘But you know, Don, not every flaw we have can be traced back to a parent.’

‘Indeed, Rose.’ His vowels are stiff. ‘Yes, your mother has only visited you once. I’m sorry.’

‘It’s fine, Don.’ I should mention him telling Theo about Bella’s visit, but it’s pointless. It’s done and perhaps it’s a good thing Theo knows.

He does something unprecedented now. Stands up. Walks towards me. Sits on his haunches, very near. I can smell his breath, a hint of his morning smoke and coffee. I’m sure this is Don attempting to look sympathetic.

‘Do you want her to visit more?’ he asks finally.

‘No, Don. I don’t.’

He sighs loudly and I’m supposed to hear it. ‘Why are you talking to Theo Hazel? What do you hope to achieve?’ he asks.

What he really wants to ask is why I won’t talk to him.

‘It seems like the right thing to do.’ I smile, and Don’s back to standing. Given up.

‘Your mother bothers you, Rose?’

‘I really don’t want to talk about her.’

‘But you mentioned her in one of our early meetings. This is key. I’ve been seeing you for some months now, and we need to talk about this.’ He wrings his hands. ‘Talk to me.’ He’s sounding desperate. ‘It will help you come to terms with what you did, and why you did it.’ He’s sitting again, legs splayed apart, an unusual posture for Don. ‘You didn’t plead insanity, but clearly—’

‘I knew what I was doing, Don.’

He snaps his folder closed. He feels the need to be out of here quickly. ‘Let’s have another session tomorrow,’ he says without enthusiasm.

I’ve already stopped listening. My mind is on Theo again, and guilt sweeps over me about my husband – that I feel something I should not for Theo. But I have loved Miles.

Without me realizing, Don is ushering me from the room. I have half an hour before I start work in the library, where I’m cataloguing medical reference books and teaching biology to several inmates who signed up for the GCSE. I return to my cell for half an hour’s peace. And as I sit hunched on the bed, I cast my mind back twenty-five years. To my baby.

My body shakes. Someone is walking above my grave – or is it Miles’s grave?

Or am I walking over Abe’s?

32

Theo

16 April 2016

Since leaving the prison and Rose the day before, and with only a few hours’ sleep, Theo has been tightly ensconced in his study, blinds closed, the desk lamp throwing out shadows he hasn’t noticed before. The weather outside is abysmal. Torrential rain and wind. A branch of the old birch outside is tapping incessantly on his flat’s third-floor window. A stack of bills sits on the left-hand side of his desk. He opens the latest letter from the bank that lent him too much money and scans the words. Folds it up again and returns it to the envelope. He stares at the other correspondence, still sealed. Three credit card bills that he can’t pay. He doesn’t bother opening them to view the eye-watering balances, or the even more astronomical amounts of interest.

He does the ostrich thing and thinks of Rose. All in all, the visits are going well, very well. He didn’t fully appreciate the underlying acrimony between mother and daughter, but after his lunch date with Marion, and Rose’s own words, he certainly does now. Remembering Marion’s expensive clothes, the nice house in the right part of Nottingham, intrigue is gathering. And somewhere inside the unfinished equation that Rose has given him is her husband, Miles.

Her story is unrolling.

He picks up his notes. He planned his book to have three separate strands: what Rose is telling him, her story; a second layer with his own independent findings; and Abe’s sections, which are forming as Natasha reveals more about his early life. He’s allowed himself some artistic licence with Abe,