Mum had reached the front of the postal queue. I waited in anguish for her to pay for her letters and get her change. She took Anne by the arm and guided her out of the post office before she spoke, so I spent every moment trying not to project any of my worries too close to her thoughts. The last thing I wanted her to do was catch my voice in her head. It was all right with Leighton, he had no clue what was going on when I injected a thought here and there, but Mum, I felt, would not handle my voice in her mind in quite the same way. When they were out on the street Mum and Anne stood browsing the postcard stand away from everyone else, where finally my mother was willing to let slip the doctor’s verdict on me.
“Well, you know he’s a specialist don’t you?” Mum began.
Anne nodded. “That was the point of sending her to middle of nowhere, wasn’t it?”
Mum nodded too. “He’s a forward thinker, this Steven Bickerstaff, very brisk and proper on the phone, you know?” I could already imagine his emotionless tone talking to Mum. She would no doubt be impressed by it, thinking it ever so professional. “And he said…”
I could feel a strange warmth rising in her chest. Her heart was quivering just a little when she spoke, and I recognised the hotness building under her eyes. Anne looked quite concerned and took my mother’s arm.
“He said it might not be too late.”
Now I was concerned. Had it been too late for me already at some point that I wasn’t aware of? And too late how exactly? Too late for what? Was my nice old Doctor Baxendale really the idiot Bickerstaff claimed he was? Had he handed me a sentence that I didn’t have to serve?
“Well that’s wonderful!” Anne said, rubbing Mum’s arm. “Gail, why are you so upset? Isn’t this good news?”
“Of course it is,” Mum answered, fishing a tissue from her bag to dab her eyes, “He said he’s started her on a new treatment and this Mrs Price that’s got her is going to make her to stick to it, but-” Her voice collapsed there and her sadness overwhelmed me. It was a heavy kind of sorrow, like her heart was tied to a brick. “But it should be me there helping her,” she whispered, “I feel so helpless now I’m so far away.”
It was my turn to feel sad again, because I couldn’t tell her how close I really was. I contented myself that a speedy reply to her letter would have to suffice.
“But think of it this way,” Anne soothed, her kind face framed with blonde strands, “The next time you see her, she could be… well, she could be a lot fitter.”
“She could also be thirty the rate this war’s going,” Mum sobbed bitterly, “I wish they’d get on and clobber the Krauts so we can get back to normal.”
“But the longer she’s with that doctor, the better a chance she’s got,” Anne reminded her.
I didn’t agree. So far all Bickerstaff’s night splints had done were give me bruises behind the knees and inside the elbows that Mam had to cover up with make-up. If anything I was moving my joints even less than before. But my mother’s high hopes for me were not unfounded, especially if there was a way to put my real talents to good use.
Anne soon changed the subject of conversation to shake my mother from her guilt, and though it pained me to have to leave her I let my mind slip back towards Ty Gwyn until the connection was broken. When my eyes flickered open I found I was crying. As I rifled in my pockets to fetch a tissue my head ached terribly as it often did when I’d been visiting Mum. Even though the little brown sitting room was much darker than the other rooms of the house, the light streaming in through the small windows was far too bright. I closed my eyes, hearing my pulse in my head as the door opened gently.
“Oh dear,” Mam said as she rushed in from the door. She crouched in front of my chair and helped me dry my tears, rubbing my arms. She clearly thought I had been trying to propel myself in the chair. “Oh Kit, love, you mustn’t strain yourself. Only do what you can manage, eh?”
I just nodded, feeling as though my head was about to explode. What I could manage just wasn’t enough.
***
The whole Price family went to chapel in the village every Sunday, which was a strange experience for Leighton and me. We had both been christened Church of England, but Mum and Dad were never big chapelgoers except at Christmas and Easter. Mum always made us sit in front of the wireless and listen to something religious on a Sunday after breakfast, but that was a nice, peaceful affair. Sunday after breakfast at Ty Gwyn was something else entirely.
The routine started with Idrys arriving at eight o’clock in his best chapel attire and complaining that Mam was never ready when she said she would be. Mam was in her smart white chapel dress but she still had her apron on and half a dozen rollers curled into the back of her head. Every time she tried to go up to her room to finish getting ready, something would interrupt her, like Ness appearing with her socks on her hands instead of her feet, or Blodwyn storming through the house complaining that all of her stockings were laddered. Idrys watched the whole fiasco with amusement for about the first twenty minutes, until he realised that the family would actually be late for chapel if he didn’t do something soon.
At that point he disappeared with Ness and reappeared about five minutes later with her properly dressed, then wheeled me out in front of the door and set the little girl on my knee where she was quite happy to sit and discuss dolls. He then marched back into the house and let his booming voice loose on the remaining populous; promising them that if they didn’t assemble outside in five minutes flat, the preacher would condemn them all to Hell. The first time Idrys said it Leighton came running out of the huge door like a greyhound, standing next to me in his little powder blue waistcoat.
“I bet you don’t remember what church is like, do you?” I asked, “You didn’t even come with us last Easter.”
“Of course I do,” Leigh answered with a look of protest, “It’s a bunch of old people and boring stories and all the singing’s out of tune.”
He was right on two counts out of the three, but I did rather enjoy the hymns for a change. Most of them were in Welsh, which I think made God and faith sound a little more uplifting, but that might have been because I didn’t understand the words. The actual service itself was a dull one, but being in the little chapel did give me a chance to see the collected mass that was the rest of the village. Judging by the sizeable crowd, it seemed that Bryn Eira Bach was the kind of place where absolutely everybody went to chapel, so I was glad to be part of the experience.
That was until we were outside the chapel gate afterwards, when the familiar frame of Doctor Bickerstaff started approaching us. I was stood with Mam as she adjusted her hat against the bright autumn sun, so I saw him coming first. He caught my eye with a familiar look of disdain, his gaze extending to my elbows, at which I immediately crossed my arms. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing the badly-disguised bruises his contraptions had caused.
“Good morning Mrs Price,” he said as he stopped before her.
“Bore da, Doctor,” Mam replied happily, “Lovely service today wasn’t it?”
“Hmm,” Bickerstaff answered thoughtfully, “the preacher speaks well on the progress of man indeed. I actually came to check on some progress of my own.” His round blue eyes settled on me. “How are you doing with the new treatment, Catherine?”
Thankfully Mam’s exuberance spared me from having to answer him.
“Well we’ve had the splints on every night and not a word of complaint,” Mam began, “and she’s had time every day to practice moving herself around.”
Bickerstaff didn’t look impressed in the least. “In that case I look forward to seeing your progress on Friday,” he said.
“Friday?” I repeated.
“Your next appointment,” the doctor replied.
In her attempts to make me sound good to the doctor, Mam had dropped me smack bang in the centre of an awkward situation. The mornings I should have spent trying to strengthen my arms to move the chair had been reserved for stepping in and out of Mum’s head in L
ondon and Leighton’s at the village schoolhouse. I was surprised that Mam hadn’t noticed I was in exactly the same place where she’d put me every time she came back to the room. Or perhaps she had and she was just more sympathetic than the suited cretin now judging me at the chapel gate.
“Same time as before, isit?” Mam asked.
Bickerstaff nodded, which meant I had exactly 120 hours to learn how to move more than half an inch across the floor without having a heart attack. It was a much more daunting feat than learning to infiltrate war-torn Europe with my mind, that was for sure, but I would have to make a serious go of it now before the doctor caught me out.
“Are we going then or what?” said a balshy voice approaching us. I twisted my neck to see Blod ambling down the cobbled path in her heels.
“Don’t be so rude in front of the doctor, Blodwyn,” Mam chided, and this time it was a proper chide, one with no amusement in her tone.
“It’s quite all right, I was just leaving.” The words came rushing out of Bickerstaff’s mouth faster than Leighton had moved when he thought he might be sent to Hell. He said good day to us all, put his head down and moved off at his usual brisk pace back towards his shiny white hospital car. I watched him go; already regretting that the next time I would see him was so close at hand.
“Honestly I can’t take you anywhere,” Mam grumbled at Blod, “Make yourself useful and push Kit back up to the house. It’s not fair us letting your Bampi do it both ways.”
Blod grumbled, contorting her pretty face into a dramatic frown. She gave me a nasty look and put her hands on her hips.
“What have you got a face on for?” she demanded.
I opted for honesty since I didn’t actually care what Blod thought of me.
“I really hate that doctor,” I answered bitterly.
The beauty queen cracked a little smile on her made-up lips. She came round me to grab the handles of my chair, letting out a little laugh.
“Well that’s one thing we have in common,” she observed.
I found myself a little happier too. We had bonded, if only for a moment. Nevertheless, Blod pushed me over every large or jagged cobble she could find as we made our way home.
It was Thursday night that I started to worry about the appointment. During the week I kept telling myself that if I practised with the chair I’d improve, but as Friday drew nearer and nearer I had managed only two inches of distance before it felt as though my shoulders had been ripped from my body like a ragdoll caught in a bulldog’s teeth. I had to tell myself firmly that any distance was better than no distance and if that didn’t impress Doctor Bickerstaff then he could lump it for all I cared. I wasn’t sure if I’d be brave enough to tell him that to his face, but I supposed that when the time came to challenge him I’d find out.
That was how I came to be thinking about him at bedtime, most especially when Mam strapped my arms and legs into the torturous splints that were slowly turning my joints a regal shade of purple. I had gotten used to sleeping with them as the nights wore on; it was the pain in the morning that I’d begun to dread, especially that first agonising moment after taking them off. I tried not to think of it as Mam tucked me in with her kind, rosy face, leaving me the water and the biscuit that Leighton would come and steal in the morning. She put out my light and left me lying in the dark where I tried not to think about tomorrow.
I expected, as I always did, that I would probably visit somewhere interesting on my way to sleep, but I was most confused in my half-slumber to find myself staring directly at Doctor Bickerstaff’s movie star face. It took me a while to realise that I was looking into a mirror, at which point the horror set in. I was in his head. Bickerstaff was looking at himself in the polished mirror of a very pokey little bathroom with grey tiled walls. His blue eyes were bloodshot in the harsh light from the unshaded bulb and his chin had a dark, stubbly shadow growing on it.
It was strange enough seeing him in his navy pyjamas, but as the doctor started to brush his teeth it was the strength of his emotions that disturbed me the most. He had a very peculiar feeling hanging about him; he kept stopping in his night time routine to stare at his face again in the mirror, like there was something about his look that troubled him deeply. It was like that feeling when someone takes the last cake off the plate just before you go to grab it, except that it consumed him completely. He was Leighton when he’d finished a particularly good dessert, staring at the empty bowl. He was me when I watched people dancing at a fete, feeling the cold metal of my chair against my useless legs.
Bickerstaff wound his way to a small, single bed with starchy sheets, into which he climbed with that awful feeling still weighing down his chest. He checked his watch before he flicked off the light, but in the darkness of his small bedroom he was just laid there staring at the ceiling. I had been to some depressing minds during my dreamtime visits, but there was something different about his. Perhaps it was just because I knew him that it was all so awkward. Perhaps someone somewhere was trying to teach me to hate him a little bit less.
But he didn’t have to sleep with dirty great slabs of wood strapped to his limbs that bruised him all night as his joints resisted them. Aside from whatever thought was troubling his mind, his body lay healthily and comfortably in his crisp little bed. As my own sour thought overtook his deepening sadness, I felt a cold shiver travel through me. It seemed to travel through him as well, making him shift onto his side. Bickerstaff finally closed his eyes and soon we were both asleep.
***
I thought I could have done without the creepy and depressing experience of being inside Doctor Bickerstaff’s head, but when I went to my appointment the next day I was surprised by how much less intimidating he seemed after my little excursion. When he wheeled me briskly to his room I cared nothing for his smug, sharp-suited façade; I rather thought he must have noticed because he even gave me a curious smile when he took his place opposite me next to the desk.
“You seem very relaxed Catherine,” he observed.
“I really do prefer to be called Kit, if you think you can manage it,” I answered. It seemed the sight of him, depressed and alone in his navy pyjamas, had done wonders for my confidence.
Bickerstaff almost laughed, haughty and oblivious to the source of my amusement.
“I do hope you’ll be putting this newfound spirit of yours into your treatment,” he said in his schoolmaster tone.
“We’ll see,” was my reply.
“I’d like you to try and stand again,” he said.
Confidence, I learned then, is a very fragile thing. My sense of superiority flooded away as I remembered the embarrassing display from the last time the doctor had ordered me onto my feet. I thought about refusing to do it, but I had an idea that Bickerstaff was stubborn enough to just keep me there until I did as I was told.
“Do you enjoy seeing me fall over then?” I asked, gripping the arms of my chair as I forced my feet to find the lino floor.
“Not as much as you think I do,” he answered. I was annoyed that it wasn’t a clear ‘No’.
To my surprise he stood up after that and crossed the small gap between us, waiting patiently for my upheaval. Dragging my torso up by the strength of my elbows was just as painful as the last time I had tried it; I felt the familiar burning of the strain as flames of pain seared up and down my arms. I persevered, shifting myself forward forcefully onto my unsteady legs as I had before.
For the briefest of moments, I thought I had done it. I was standing. But it was just a few seconds of false hope, and this time as my knees gave way the doctor at least had the courtesy to catch me around the waist and drop me back into my chair. I felt the red flush of defeat in my cheeks, turning my face away from him and chiding myself for my own stupidity. I don’t know why I thought I could win against him, because every time I fell back into that chair I had lost. And I would always fall back into the chair.
Bickerstaff was writing in his file when I dared to look again. At l
east I had stopped myself from crying this time. His pen raced across the page he was turned to.
“You’re not practising moving around enough,” he said without looking up from the page, “Your elbows ought to be stronger.”
I bit my lip to resist answering him back. There were a lot of things about my body that I thought ought to be different; I didn’t need him pointing them out one by one like they were easy things to fix. No matter how troubled the doctor was in private, at least he could hide it behind his smart suit and smug face. I was troubled for all to see and pity me for it, and so long as I was stuck in this chair that fact was not going to change.
***
The first few months of life at Ty Gwyn turned into a drab but comforting routine from there on in. I devoted about a quarter of my free time to Doctor Bickerstaff’s rotten exercises and my mobility in the chair grew inch by inch until I could wheel from my bedroom door to the edge of the bed unaided. It was about three feet, which was not much use to me or anyone else, but it was enough to shut the rotten doctor up, which meant I had the other three quarters of my time left to train my other, far more important skill.
I went to school with Leighton many times, mentally of course, but his lessons in the winter term were simple things that I had learned years ago and I grew tired of sitting in his mind listening in. I tried to visit Mum’s mind plenty more times as the weeks went on, but the psychic journey to London gave me unrelenting headaches for hours after a trip. The headaches did get less the more carefully I focused on the connection between us, but in all truth her growing sense of guilt for our welfare and fears about the war made it hard to stay in her mind for very long.
With my two usual avenues of practice fast becoming useless, I decided that a few other targets around me would be a better use of my time. I deliberately avoided Doctor Bickerstaff for fear that his depression might be catching, but if I could get into his head from over the hill then the inhabitants of Ty Gwyn’s farmlands were surely within my grasp. Ness Fach was easy to find; one thought of her huge blue eyes and I was there with her rolling in the stiff winter grass and flinging Dolly across the mud. I was there when her Bampi picked her up by the ankle and told her it was too cold to play outside. I watched the upside down world full of her giggling joy as she was transported back into the house.
Worlds Between Page 9
