Inheritance

by Thomas Wymark

It was Neil.

  ‘Just phoning to see how you got on this morning,’ he said. ‘At Colin’s.’

  The emphasis on his name said it all. It was nice to hear from him — even if was only to check up that nothing untoward had happened with the counsellor.

  ‘It was pretty intense,’ I said, and then regretted my choice of words.

  ‘Intense?’

  ‘I mean, it brought up a lot of issues. To be honest, it gave me even more shit to think about. I thought the idea of counselling was to make you feel better, not worse.’

  ‘What sort of things?’ Neil said.

  I didn’t really want to talk about them again.

  ‘Just stuff to do with the dreams and what happens after a trauma. He asked whether I was bullied at school. That sort of thing. It’s all fine though.

  ‘Anyway — the police found my handbag. They dropped it round a short while ago.’

  Silence on the other end of the line.

  ‘Neil?’

  ‘That’s great,’ he said.

  He sounded distracted. I wondered if anyone else was with him in the office. I didn’t want his colleagues hearing how fucked-up his wife was.

  ‘Did they catch the bastard that attacked you?’ he said.

  ‘Not yet. I don’t think it’s much of a priority anymore. They said they might get him if they “get lucky”.’

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ Neil said. ‘I may be working late again. I’ll see you later.’

  The phone clicked off before I even said goodbye.

  I hadn’t seen Neil jealous for ages. Years, probably. It was a side of him I didn’t like. But at the same time it made me feel wanted. Like sweet and sour at the same time. Maybe it stemmed from guilt. Perhaps he had something to hide.

  I gave myself a massive bollocking for considering suicide. I had far too much to live for, and I was way stronger than anything happening to me.

  If I really was going mad, losing complete control of my mind, I was sure that there were ways to deal with it outside of myself. I would be medicated, perhaps given a room at some sort of hospital. Did they even have institutions like that anymore? Maybe, if I was sufficiently sedated, I could still live at home. Carers would surely be available to make sure I was OK. To make sure I wasn’t hurting anyone. If I was safe, they wouldn’t take Michael or Rose from me. After all, Neil would still be there. He still had control of his mind.

  But did I really want a life like that? Medicated. Sedated. Monitored.

  Of course not.

  I picked up the phone and dialled a number. It answered on the third ring.

  ‘Hi Dad. It’s me.’

  Dad sounded tired, a bit muffled.

  ‘Are you and Mum both in?’ I said. ‘Can I come and see you?’

  The kitchen clock said it was five past one. I grabbed a banana and an apple, picked up my inky handbag and headed out to the car. I made a note of the mileage this time, ticked off 1pm on the time-sheet and switched on the car radio. If I had something tangible to listen to it might hold me in the present.

  As I drove I noticed things around me. A red coloured roof on a white painted house; trees swaying in the wind; a woman whose coat blew open as she walked, its belt flapping wildly. I paid more attention to the road signs, played games with the number-plates of the cars coming the other way. Made up stupid sounding meals from the letters on the licence-plates and used the numbers as the amount they had paid for their meal. Worms, Triffids, Maggots, Yaks and Goldfish — and you paid £809 for it!

  It helped me to concentrate on the “now”. Gave my hellish mind something else to think about. I quite enjoyed the journey.

  Dad’s car was in the drive. I drew up next to it. Mum was at the front door as I clambered out of the car, having just ticked off 1:30pm on my time-sheet and noting down my mileage.

  ‘Your dad’s a bit under the weather,’ she said.

  We kissed, and I hugged her.

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’

  ‘He’s just a bit run down, dear. We’re obviously worried about you. I think it’s got to him a bit.’

  Shit. They needed this visit like a hole in the head.

  ‘Sorry, Mum. But I won’t stay long. I just needed to talk to you both about something. Just test your memories a bit.’

  She flinched.

  ‘I could come back when he’s feeling better if you like.’

  A shadow loomed up behind her.

  ‘Come in, Chris,’ Dad said. ‘I’m fine. Just a bit tired, that’s all.’

  I followed Dad into the living-room. Mum wandered off to the kitchen. I could smell the coffee and milk already in the mugs, waiting for the hot water. I could smell that the kettle had already been boiled once too.

  ‘How are you really, Dad?’ I said.

  He flopped down into his armchair, his back to the window. The light shone through is grey hair making it look thinner and more sparse than it really was. For the first time I saw him as looking older. It stirred something in me that I didn’t want to think about.

  ‘I’m fine, Chris. Really. It’s just tiredness. What with all this stuff that’s happened to you. It’s a worry for us. I’m just not sleeping great at the moment. But our concern is for you.’

  Mum walked in, the coffee mugs clinking in her hands. She held out a mug for me.

  ‘And how are you, Mum? Are you OK?’

  ‘Oh I’m fine, dear. As your Dad says — we’re both worried about you. But we’re OK in ourselves.’

  All three of us sipped our coffee. I heard the wind blowing outside, saw a few leaves fly past the front window.

  ‘They found my handbag,’ I said. ‘A council workman found it as they were trimming some bushes along the high-street.’

  ‘Was there anything in it?’ Mum said.

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t think there’s much chance of them finding the bloke who attacked me either. I got the impression that it was more or less on the back burner — unless they get lucky.’

  ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with our society today,’ Dad said. ‘It feels like we all have to look out for ourselves. We certainly can’t rely on the police anymore. Too busy handing out speeding tickets.’

  Mum raised her eyebrows. Gave him one of her looks.

  ‘Well that’s what it feels like,’ he said. He pointed his hand at me. ‘Someone gets attacked — hospitalised — and the police do nothing. It’s been nearly two months since it happened and they haven’t even found a suspect. Not one. What the hell are they doing? It’s not like she lives in the crime capital of the world. They can’t be that busy.’

  Mum ignored his rant and looked toward me.

  ‘I’m sure they’re still looking, dear,’ Mum said. ‘They keep these things open all the time, don’t they?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mum. I’d like to think they would, but I just don’t know.’

  Dad had a bit more colour to his cheeks now. Perhaps a regular outburst about something was all he needed to aid his recovery. He sat more upright in his chair. Now the light from the window gave his head a slight glow around the edges. With a little imagination I could visualise a sort of halo. Actually it needed a lot of imagination.

  ‘I went to see that counsellor chap again this morning.’

  ‘Oh, Christine.’ Mum said.

  ‘Actually it brought up quite a lot of stuff. It was pretty helpful, I think, to see things from a different perspective.’

  ‘What did he say, Chris?’ Dad said.

  ‘I think he was trying to establish a link between me being attacked, and some of the dreams I’ve been having since then. He was trying to make sense of them — or rather, get me to make sense of them. Personally I can’t see that these particular dreams are linked directly do the attack, although I do think that the attack has caused me to have them.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Mum said

  I rested my coffee on the arm of the sofa and itched my eyebrow.

  ‘I mean that the dreams are as
a result of the attack — but they’re not about the attack. I’m not reliving the attack or wreaking revenge on the bloke that did it. That’s not what the dreams are about. But I absolutely believe that the attack has in some way triggered the dreams that I’ve been having.’

  Dad nodded. He sat forward in his chair.

  ‘But the counsellor was trying to get me to establish a link that would explain the dreams and connect them directly to the attack in substance.’

  Dad coughed quietly.

  ‘It would make sense if there was a link of some sort,’ he said.

  ‘It would help enormously,’ I said. ‘And it would make me feel less of a danger to people. Less of a risk.’

  Mum made a noise that was a cross between a laugh and a snort.

  ‘Chris,’ she said. ‘How can you say such a thing. You’re no danger to anyone.’

  I didn’t want to tell her about the blackouts, about being in Rose’s room, about hanging around outside a pupil’s house — and about not being aware of any of it. I could see they were finding it hard enough to cope with my situation already, I had no wish to make it harder still.

  ‘I know, Mum,’ I said. ‘But it’s a bit scary, you know, having dreams about hurting people, vulnerable people. It just makes you worry. Makes you wonder what you really are capable of.’

  ‘Well we know you, darling,’ she said. ‘And you’re just not like that. You’re not that kind of a person.’

  Up to the point of the attack, she was probably right. I wasn’t that kind of person. But since then, my mind had changed. Sometimes it felt as though my whole physiology had changed. I wasn’t sure that I was the person I used to be. I wasn’t really sure who or what I was at all anymore.

  ‘Colin, the counsellor, asked me about my childhood. He asked if there was anything that happened to me.’

  Mum’s face grew pale. Dad’s flushed pink. I noticed his hands clench into fists.

  Their physical reactions surprised me. The back of my neck prickled.

  ‘What do you mean, Chris?’ Mum said.

  ‘He asked me if I had been bullied by anyone at school. Or whether a group of girls had hurt me in any way. I told him that I had had a great time at school. Lots of friends, no problems at all. That’s right, isn’t it?’

  ‘Of course it is,’ Mum said. ‘You loved school. You were sad to leave, you worried that you wouldn’t see all your friends again.’

  The colour seeped back into her face. I looked at Dad. He nodded.

  ‘As far as we know,’ he said. ‘You never had any problems at school. Certainly not with other people. You might have been a bit late with your homework a few times, but never a problem with friends.’

  As if in reaction to Mum, the colour in his face slowly drained back to normal. His hands relaxed.

  He let out a nervous little laugh. Mum followed suit. They both looked like they had dodged a bullet.

  ‘Colin said that sometimes our minds protect us from pain. He said that it’s possible for something to happen to us, physically or mentally, that is so painful our mind literally forgets it. It sort of wipes it from our memory. He wondered if anything like that happened to me, and whether you might remember it because I can’t — my brain has wiped it.’

  They looked at each other and shook their heads.

  ‘’There’s nothing from your school days, Chris,’ Dad said. ‘I’m sure we would remember if anything nasty had happened to you. We really would.’

  ‘I don’t like thinking like this,’ Mum said. ‘It somehow seems to taint something that was good. You had a lovely childhood. We all had such fun. You weren’t bullied, Chris. You were so popular.’

  I felt deflated, and that surprised me. I had known all along that nothing had happened to me at school. And the only reason I had come to see Mum and Dad was because Colin had put the idea in my head that something may have happened that seemed so bad to my young self that my brain wiped from my memory. I hadn’t believed it. But subconsciously I had obviously hoped for it.

  ‘It would make sense,’ I said. ‘If I had been. It would help explain why I was dreaming about hurting girls. School-age girls. It would mean that as a response to the skateboard attack I was fighting back in my mind to something that had already damaged me before. Something that had hurt me or caused me pain, something more significant than the skateboard attack.’

  ‘I’m sorry, love,’ Mum said. ‘I really am.’

  Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.

  ‘What about outside of school?’ I said. ‘Did anything happen to me outside of school?’

  ‘Chris,’ Dad said. ‘We’re really sorry, darling. Nothing happened to you when you were that age. And nothing since, as far as we know.’ He managed a weak smile. ‘Maybe there’s another link that we just haven’t thought of yet?’

  35