The Mind's Eye

by K. C. Finn

  “Is your bedroom nice?” I asked him as I felt his little jaw chewing against my side.

  “It’s bigger than at home,” he answered with his mouth full, “But I had strange dreams.”

  “Don’t blame the room for that,” I soothed, rubbing his back, “That’s just you stuffing your face with cheese all day.”

  Leighton giggled for a moment, but it faded away. “Do want help to sit up?” he asked.

  I felt a pang inside. Mum had always been the one to hoist me up in the morning. I wasn’t even sure that Leighton would be strong enough to pull me.

  We had just about managed it between us when Mam arrived in the room, looking very smart in a pink dress that clung to her round shape. She thanked Leigh for helping and told him to dress before breakfast, which he found very odd indeed. At home he and Mum had always eaten jam on toast upstairs in my room whilst I tried to get my strength together for the day. The smell of cooked breakfast food wafted in as he stood there in doubt and I smiled as it tempted him away to find his clothes.

  “Do have something smart to wear Kit?” Mam asked as she gently brought me nearer the edge of the bed.

  I was about to ask what for until I remembered with dread. The German in my head had pushed out the appointment, but now I knew once again that I had a date with the doctor not long from now.

  ***

  Leighton was invited to stop at home and explore Ty Gwyn whilst we went over the hill to meet the doctor. Though I didn’t like the thought of Blod’s version of looking after him, he seemed keen to have a wander round the out buildings in search of chickens and things, so I put my faith in Mam and let him stay. It wasn’t fair really to drag him out to sit in a doctor’s waiting room anyway, no matter how much I needed a familiar face with me. I knew Mam had sensed my nerves because she put her warm hand over mine all the way to the surgery in the car. Every time I looked at her rosy face she was smiling, which made me feel a tiny bit better when the lovely white car pulled up outside a little cottage.

  It certainly wasn’t the whitewashed, sterile office in Bethnal Green that I was used to. When Mam wheeled me inside I was fascinated by the photographs of happy miners and farmers on the walls and the cosy collection of various armchairs that had been donated to make up the waiting room. The secretary that took some information from me was a dear old lady who offered me sweets as she starting telling Mam all the latest news from the village itself. I tuned out of the conversation, settling into the place and enjoying the smell of fresh flowers and peppermints as I waited.

  “Catherine Cavendish?”

  “Oh hello Doctor Bickerstaff,” Mam said, wheeling me round to the source of the voice.

  My first thought was that he looked like Robert Taylor the film star, except that he was much more fair-haired. Mum had taken me to see A Yank In Oxford last year in Leicester Square for my birthday treat. Doctor Bickerstaff couldn’t have been a day over 30. He was smartly dressed with big blue eyes that landed on Mam. He gave her a polite nod, and when he spoke again I realised that he was English.

  “Ah Mrs Price, good day. I’d like to see Miss Cavendish alone for the initial assessment if you don’t mind.”

  “No, no, whatever you think is best Doctor,” Mam answered. It was clear that she revered the young professional a great deal.

  Bickerstaff looked down at me, but he didn’t move to take my chair. I didn’t move either, of course, which left us in a strange, awkward staring contest for a moment. The fair doctor folded his arms.

  “Well?” he demanded, “Can’t you wheel yourself?”

  There was something terribly harsh in his voice like a schoolmaster. I felt my nerves rising again.

  “No of course not,” I answered, half anxious and half annoyed. Couldn’t he see how incapable I was?

  Doctor Bickerstaff sneered, and suddenly he wasn’t so much like a film star.

  “How disappointing,” he observed.

  He walked with disturbingly brisk strides to take my chair and wheeled me very quickly into his office. I had to hold on to my armrests so as not to slide out of the chair when he stopped short of his desk. Instead of sitting behind it he pulled up a chair opposite me and took a paper file from his desk, ignoring me for several uncomfortable minutes as he consulted it.

  “Juvenile Arthritis,” he concluded, snapping the file shut.

  “Excuse me Doctor,” I said quietly, “But Doctor Baxendale called it Still’s Disease. Is that the same thing?”

  “Your Doctor Baxendale’s an idiot.” Bickerstaff hardly looked at me when he spoke. “He doesn’t know his ilium from his olecranon. Now, I want to see you stand. Get up.”

  He said it like it was an easy thing to do. The blonde sat back in his chair expectantly, making it quite clear that he wouldn’t be giving me a pull to help me to my feet. I steeled myself, reaching both hands out to grip his desk ready to make the effort. When my feet found the ground I could already feel the pinch where the skin around my ankles was swollen, when I pressed a little weight onto them the sensation was like somebody inserting a screwdriver right into the joint and twisting it hard. I cried out at the first sharp moment of pain, looking at the doctor viciously.

  “I can’t,” I said through gritted teeth, “I’m sorry Doctor, but I can’t.”

  “Get up,” he repeated.

  I felt the hotness of water rising behind my eyes but I did my best to bite back the tears that wanted to come pouring out. I felt like his stern face might just break into a smile if I did. The only way to win the argument was to prove myself right. With an almighty force I hurled myself onto my feet as though I was shifting my weight onto a bed or another chair, but instead I used the desk to push all of my weight onto my legs. My knees buckled under me after just a few seconds and I felt myself dropping to the floor like a crumpled sack of vegetables.

  And Doctor Bickerstaff let me fall.

  He actually let my head hit the lino floor in his office before he even moved a muscle. After I had landed the impact sent a shockwave of pain through me so hot I’d have sworn I’d been set on fire. It was then that Bickerstaff got up to assist. He lifted my weak little frame with ease back into my wheelchair in seconds. I kept my head down, determined to show him no gratitude for the aid, since it was his fault I’d fallen in the first place.

  “I told you I can’t do it,” I spat, seething as blood flushed into my cheeks.

  “How interesting,” he said.

  Out of the corner of my eye I could see him offering me a tissue. I snatched it out of his hand like a child in my rage. Interesting? I’m sure he’d find it terribly interesting if he fell flat on his face and nobody gave him any sympathy. After I had dried my eyes I managed to look at him again, but he had his nose back in the file and he was writing something down. Then without even checking on me he got up and went to call Mam into the room. To my great relief she came in in a flurry as soon as she saw me red-faced and teary.

  “What’s this now?” she demanded as she pulled up the chair the doctor had been using and wrapped one matronly arm around my shoulders.

  “Nothing to worry about Mrs Price,” Bickerstaff said casually, “Catherine’s had a bit of a strain from the physical test I gave her.”

  A bit of a strain? Rude as it was for a young lady, I wanted to slap him across the face. If I had had the strength, I might have. The young doctor took his place behind his desk and pulled open a noisy drawer, producing four large objects made of fabric and wood. There were two boards about the length and width of shoe boxes with fabric straps attached to them, followed by two more that were only about the length of a domino box. The smaller ones had two boards each on them with a strap going all the way around, as though they were designed to be wrapped around something.

  “What are those?” I asked, my nose turning up against them.

  “Your treatment,” Bickerstaff replied in that same clinical voice. He turned his attention to Mam. “Catherine’s condition is quite serious, I’m afraid
, and her previous doctor has done very little to improve her chances in the last three years. We must resist the contractive fusing of her joints overnight before it becomes permanent.” Mam was hooked on every word he said, nodding profusely. “Every night for the duration of the night, Catherine must wear these splints on her knees and elbows to keep the joints straight and prevent contraction.”

  “Every night?” I exclaimed, looking at the horrible hefty things with loathing.

  “And I want her to practise propelling herself in the chair,” Doctor Bickerstaff continued as though he hadn’t heard me at all, “So give her some old gloves to handle the wheels and encourage her to move short distances alone. Don’t be tempted to help her.”

  Don’t help me. Had he really just said that?

  I told Leighton about the horrible Doctor Bickerstaff when we got back to Ty Gwyn and he called him some names that I didn’t know were even in a ten year old’s vocabulary. I should have told him off for them, but in truth it made me happy to see Leigh go for him. He promised me that when he grew big and strong he’d punch the nasty doctor on the nose, but as he mimicked the punches I noticed his hands were pink and pruney. I made him come closer so I could take a look.

  “What have you been up to?” I asked him, looking at the crinkly skin on his little palms.

  “Blod made me wash up the dinner service,” he said with a scowl, “There were loads of dishes. She says someone special is coming to dinner.”

  “And I’ll bet Mam asked her to do it, not you,” I added with a frown.

  We were in the kitchen having a drink when the culprit returned to the scene of the crime. Blod strode in wearing a flowing cotton dress and high heeled shoes. She had a sunhat on and a magazine and I knew exactly what she had been doing whilst Leighton was enslaved with her chores.

  “Enjoy yourself catching the last bit of summer, did you Blod?” I asked.

  She turned with a wicked grin, taking off her hat. “I’m trying to keep my legs a nice colour for the harvest dance,” she explained, “Not your kind of concern, I suppose.”

  I had tried to reason that Blod might come around to our presence in time, but twenty four hours with the young woman had done nothing to support that idea. Blodwyn Price was a cow, and that was that.

  “Listen you,” I said, channelling all my rage from the Doctor Bickerstaff encounter into my voice, “You don’t tell my brother what to do. Only Mam’s in charge of us here. Not you and not anyone else.”

  “Oh really?” Blod answered, “And what are you going to do? Leap out of that chair and knock me down if I’m mean to you? I don’t think so somehow.”

  I was all the more angry because she was right. If there was ever a time to learn to propel myself in this chair it was now. Perhaps if I got good enough I could run her over.

  “No, but I’m sure Mam would have something to say about the state of Leighton’s hands,” I countered.

  Blod’s beautiful face faltered for just a moment. “Well, if you want me to get on with the chores so badly, then clear out the pair of you. Bampi’s coming for dinner and he’s not going to want to see you scruffy articles cluttering up the place.”

  Leigh took the handles of my chair and pushed me out of the kitchen slowly. When we made it to the black and white hall I told him to stop and open my bedroom door. As he did so I reached down beside my leg and produced the old pair of leather driving gloves that Mam had fished out of her husband’s old trunk. Leighton watched me from the door. I put on the tough gloves and gripped the wheels of my chair, starting to push.

  But nothing happened. The pressure wasn’t enough. I pushed harder, feeling my elbows start to strain. When they were stretched so far out that my shoulders started to tense I felt movement at last, but the pain was too much to push again. I had to stop for breath. I had wheeled half an inch, perhaps less, and already my bones were creaking. I dropped my arms, exhausted. I could feel my heart banging on my ribcage in protest at the effort.

  “Honestly that Doctor’s got no clue,” I sighed, “How does he think this is even possible?”

  Leighton made his punching motions again and I laughed, taking off the gloves.

  “Shall I push you then?” he offered.

  “Yes please,” I replied, “You heard Evil Blod; we have to get scrubbed up for dinner with a Bampi, whatever that is.”

  It turned out that Bampi was the pet name for Blod and Ness’s grandfather, Idrys Pengelly, who was the owner and operator of the farmlands around Ty Gwyn. He was Mam’s father and he lived in a cottage on the far side of the pasture behind the house where the cows grazed, so Ness Fach was the first to spot him coming when she was playing outside that evening. At her announcement that Bampi was walking through the field, Mam helped me into the sitting room so Leighton and I could be introduced.

  The first thing we knew of him was his booming voice as he entered Ty Gwyn; I could hear him greeting Ness in the wide hallway. He came into the sitting room at Mam’s call carrying her under his arm like a briefcase whilst she giggled. Idrys Pengelly was a tall old man with the same rosy face as his daughter. When he smiled he had several missing teeth at the sides of his mouth, which was surrounded by a reddish beard and moustache. The hair on his head was much more grey and nestled largely under a flat-cap, which he took off as he dropped Ness onto the sofa beside him.

  “Well now,” he said loudly, patting his knees with a thump, “Who do we have yur then?”

  He spoke almost exactly like Mam save for the deep, echoing tone that threatened to shake the roof from its rafters. I instantly liked him with his warm smile and the fact that he had worn his bright blue farmer’s overalls to dinner, he reminded me of my own Granddad, who had died when I was eight.

  “I’m Catherine, Mr Pengelly, but people call me Kit.”

  “Short for Kitty, isit?” he asked. I nodded happily, then nudged my brother in the side.

  “Oh! I’m Leighton,” he said with a start.

  “Are you indeed?” Idrys replied. “Well come yur and let me look at you.”

  Leigh gave me a nervous look but I pushed him in the back, grinning. He approached the old man very slowly until he was close enough for Idrys to take hold of his shoulders. He looked at him carefully with an approving smile.

  “Ie, ie,” the old man said, “you’re a strapping boy all right. But what’s this behind yur yur?”

  “Behind my what?” Leighton asked, but Idrys had already put his hand up to my brother’s ear. He pulled back his hand to reveal a shiny sixpence, grinning at Leigh.

  “I think this must be yours mate,” he supposed, “I wouldn’t keep it back there, if I were you.”

  Leighton took the coin with a look of amusement on his face.

  “Say thank you,” I pressed and he did, but very shyly.

  “Blod and I’ll get the dinner on,” Mam said from the doorway, “We’ll call you when it’s ready Da.”

  “Ta love,” Idrys replied.

  He settled back comfortably into the sofa and Ness crawled onto his knee and lay down, looking up at the ceiling. Idrys tickled her belly until she ran away to the corner with a huge grin.

  “It’s lovely to have young people in the house again,” the old Bampi remarked, “Ness is too young to yur my stories, see?”

  “What stories?” Leighton asked, learning forward eagerly in his armchair.

  “Well I was in the first war, see, the Great War, but I must’ve told Blod a hundred times and well, she’s grown up now init? She’s yurd it all.”

  “I’m sure we’d love to hear some stories before dinner, Mr Pengelly.” It wasn’t just that hearing about the war would be interesting; the mention of Blod made me feel the need to escape from the present moment for a little while.

  “Well then,” Idrys said happily, “D’you want to yur about the battles or the spies?”

  “Ooh!” Leighton exclaimed, raising his hand like he was in a schoolroom, “The spies please!”

  “In that case, I�
��ll tell you something you’d never believe and you tell me if you think it could be true.” Idrys leaned forward and steeped his fingers together, his loud voice becoming softer as he started his tale. “When I was in Dover waiting to be sent out to France, there was a spy billeted with us, sleeping in our barracks, like. It was his job to infiltrate the German forces and look at their top secret plans, but he did it all without ever leaving Dover.”

  Idrys paused for effect.

  “What? How?” Leighton asked impatiently. I found myself eager for the answer too.

  “Well, he was what you’d call a psychic,” Idrys answered, “He said he could travel, in his mind’s eye, to see things on other continents.”

  I felt my breath catch in my throat.

  “But that’s ridiculous!” Leighton exclaimed, slapping his leg, “That’s like a fairy-tale thing!”

  “Ah well,” Idrys said, holding up a finger emphatically, “I thought that too, so did all the fellas, so we asked this psychic if he’d prove it to us.”

  “And what did he do?” I asked, finding that my voice was trembling. I had never met anyone who talked about things like this before, never heard anything even slightly similar to my secret gift outside of fiction.