was as if someone had held all that she could see over a flame until tiny holes appeared, then merged to form larger ones until her whole picture of the world had curled away. The strangest thing – the holes were not black. They were just places she couldn’t see, the colour of nothing.
This wasn’t what she said to Dr Lemming, though. What she said was:
‘Terribly sorry, I don’t know what it looks like. Because according to you, I can’t see.’
Her mother clucked softly. Agnes hung her head, embarrassed by her stagey petulance, then rolled her head in a neck stretch she used to do before matches. This was comforting.
‘Your sense of irony is admirable under the circumstances, Agnes,’ Dr Lemming said flatly. ‘It shows pluck.’ He tapped her knee with a rough finger. ‘But it won’t make you see again.’
Agnes felt a snag in her throat as he stepped away, his shoes chirping on the parquet.
* * *
Agnes had always been a shallow, chatty girl. Going blind did not deepen her but it did shut her up somewhat, mostly because she found it hard to tell whether someone was speaking expressly to her. At first she insisted that everyone in the family preface their remarks with her name if they wished her to pay attention to them. But then she grew weary of hearing her name all the time (bloody condescending!), so she decided that they should raise their voices instead. Several rather shouty breakfasts later, it was clear that this would not do, either.
‘Christ, Mum. No need to bellow!’ Agnes shouted. ‘I’m not deaf.’
‘Oh dear,’ Carolyn murmured, ‘we’d better…shall we…the tea should…’ and escorted Agnes from the dining room to her bedroom, the doleful girl banging her shoulder purposely against every doorjamb on the way. Since the visit to Dr Lemming, Agnes had made every little crisis an excuse to throw a tantrum and stay locked up in her bedroom for days. She would pee haphazardly into a bedpan and eat mechanically from a laptray that Carolyn herself restocked. Now, Agnes slumped onto the bed and patted the side table until she found a plate of stale toast congealed with honey. She crunched into it, knowing it would irk her mother.
‘Dear Agnes, must you…always said…chewing…I suppose…but really, it’s…’
‘And you, dear Mother.’ Agnes spewed crumbs. ‘Must you speak so gappily?’
Carolyn had developed this habit of speech when she’d married George in the early 1940s. Even back then, he’d had the aristocratic habit of interrupting people with encouraging noises: Mmm…yes…yes…of course…yes…mmhmm, he would murmur loudly, sometimes closing with an enthusiastic Well! If you responded to his cues by falling silent, you faced his expectant stare. Over the years, Carolyn had learned to accommodate her husband’s intrusions by speaking in waves, which also had the advantage of disguising her less refined accent. She had been educated in England but could not shake her foreign-born roots. Carolyn’s ellipses had grown especially lengthy lately, as she fretted over her daughter’s waist and marital prospects.
‘Sweetheart…food is…duvet cover…crumbs all…’ Carolyn dribbled out minor chastisements as she tidied up the mess around Agnes, who lay like a queen in her litter.
‘Nope. Sorry, Mummy. Can’t see crumbs.’ Agnes wiped honey from the cul-de-sac above her lip with a delicate pinkie. ‘Blind, enn eye?’
Carolyn, helpless, retreated from the close-smelling room. Agnes lay down and took a nap. She dreamt she was playing tennis with two slippery, bristly balls that turned out to be her eyes. They stared up at her from her palms, blue and white and unblinking. But if they’re in my hands, how can I see them?
She woke to a knock at the door. Her mother bustled in with her gardenia perfume.
‘Your father…out and decided…a cane!’
Carolyn placed Agnes’s hands on it. Agnes took it, held it cautiously away from her body, felt along its length.
‘Is it…white?’
‘Mmm?…oh, yes.’
‘I’ve never thought about it really, but – are they always white, do you know?’
Carolyn did not know. Agnes stood with her cane and tested out movements. Swing it in circles? Tap it either side like a metronome? Trace figures of eight? Hold it hovering above the ground like a divining rod?
‘Well, I suppose you…the most important thing…whatever…comfortable?’
Agnes put her hand on her hip and held the cane out like a challenge, then lunged forward and brandished it, duelling the air and surprising them both into laughter.
‘Well…I suppose!’ Carolyn summed up triumphantly.
Agnes lowered the tip of the cane to the floor. ‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘I suppose.’
This was improvement. Agnes