off place. A vast echoing chamber. Or a faltering trickle into a dark yawning cave. First sibilance. Just off a hiss. Followed by a wheezy gasping sound. ‘Ssss – rhey.’
Was it drawing closer or becoming louder? It was certainly getting clearer, wafting to me on an unfelt breeze. ‘Sorr- rhey.’ Puffed out in tones of torment. Fleshed out with a sob.
Falling on my ears, with a cold snatch of breath I got it. The single word. And it was on my lips. ‘Sorry.’
Then I was sitting up in bed, awake. Fully alert. Despite the lightness of the cotton nightie sweat had pooled under my breasts. I was gulping down air as if I had only just reached the surface of some dark, subterranean lake. The bed sheet was twisted around my legs like a boa constrictor trying to eat me alive and my heart was banging like mad.
What was that?
Had I said that? Or was someone in the flat?
I strained to listen into its depths.
The hum of the fridge. The trees shushing in the breeze outside my window. The sound of roadworks further up the hill. A door slamming in the neighbour’s flat. The deceleration of a train pulling into Chalkwell station.
But nothing else. No one in the flat.
It must have been me.
Well, I knew I had just articulated the word – said it out loud as I was coming into consciousness. But I had a notion that I was merely repeating someone else’s plaintive cries.
Sorry.
It had happened several times since the funeral. Each time I had woken up from a nightmare I couldn’t remember, with the absolute conviction I was not on my own.
But then, the mind has a funny way of dealing with grief.
And of course, I was sorry.
Terribly.
The guilt was almost unbearable.
I knew Mum had been trying to talk to me. That last time we were alone at the hospice. I’d walked in to find her sleeping, so had kissed her on her forehead. Her hair was spread like a black fan across her pillow. She had been a young mum, and if you looked past the lines the illness had carved on her face, with her perfect semi-circles of long dark lashes and her thick black hair, she was still as serene and beautiful as a Renaissance Madonna.
But she’d woken at my touch and when she realised it was me she’d made a big thing of trying to meet my eyes. At first I thought she said, ‘Sadie – fit.’ It was difficult to tell. Her speech was much impaired since the last stroke. She’d been left with paralysis on the left side of her face and was unable to move her left arm.
‘You okay, Mum?’
She was frustrated. ‘Ift.’
I said nothing, waiting for her to try another attempt.
She struggled up a bit. I reached behind her and helped her sit up onto the pillows, plumping them carefully as she rested her neck.
She took a breath and looked at me. Her mouth opened, tongue lolling to the front. ‘Gift.’
‘A gift?’
She nodded.
‘Okay. Who for?’
She moved her good hand in my direction. ‘You.’
‘You have a gift for me?’ I looked at the bedside table. Glass, hand cream, anglepoise lamp.
‘No. Come.’ She paused for breath. ‘To … you.’
‘I have a gift coming?’
She expelled a lungful of air and shuddered. I could see the frustration scratching across her face. ‘Speak Dan.’
Dan was my mum’s boyfriend of about twelve years. A nice chap with a heart of gold. But he’d gone AWOL a couple of days before and Mum was in a real state about it, naturally. The poor woman was totally incapacitated, unable to do anything to find out where he was.
Thing was, Mum and Dan had a lot of things in common. They were both educators; both furious campaigners for human rights; and they both loved me. But, and this was a big but, they had both experienced long periods of depression. Mum’s strokes had been a result of high blood pressure, which, in turn, it was suggested, had been brought about by her often high state of anxiety. See, Mum didn’t have bouts of sadness, she had episodes of deep clinical depression, some of which developed into psychosis and paranoia. Just like Dan. In fact, that’s where they had met – in a private clinic. Therefore we were all concerned about his absence. I shook my head and said, ‘We still can’t find him, Mum. He’s not at work. He must have had to go somewhere urgently.’