Written for the One Million Project Thriller Anthology

The One Million Project raises money for charity.

‘Hello. My name is Patricia and I’m an alcoholic. It’s two years, seven months and four days since I last had a drink.’

                ‘Hello Patricia.’ A chorus of voices welcome her. Sweat gathers at her temples and the nape of her neck. She snaps a blue elastic band off her wrist, pulls her brittle hair into a rough ponytail, and twists the band as tight as she can. Un-trapped hairs stick to her face.

                ‘Have you anything else you wish to share?’

                Patricia shakes her head and stares at her legs, willing them to stay still. She frowns, it was a bad idea coming back to this town.  She hears other people talking through the curtain of her thoughts, raising her head at a familiar name. The man’s jaundiced eyes are swallowed by grey bags of skin, his fingers twitch. She doesn’t remember him.

                Patricia coughs to cover a snort of black humour. It would take a miracle to remember an old neighbour, or maybe he was a shop keeper or postman. Her therapist said the memories of her brief marriage, and briefer experience of being a Mum could return, if she stopped drinking. But after being dry for over two and a half years, she couldn’t remember what her baby had looked like. She only saw the empty cot.

She waits for the prickling behind her eyes to change to a pressure in her nose, then rummages in her coat pocket for a tissue.

Leaving the community centre, she averts her eyes and hurries down the road, not stopping until the do-gooders are shadows behind her. The smears of light from the streetlights pull her through the town, further than her legs want to go.

She stops and sits on a bench near a playpark. There are echoes of children’s laughter in the gloom. She stumbles through the fog in her head. Did she sit here before?  She turns her clenched hand over and opens it. Her palm bleeds, and there is red under her short nails. Memories hurt, and she has no alcohol to deaden the pain.

A bus trundles by, the number thirty-four. She knows that bus. Patricia stands and watches it slow at the traffic lights.

A memory flutters into her head. Once, she ran up this road, hand supporting her swelling belly, and the bus driver took pity on her smiling face. He opened the door although the lights had changed to green, and cars behind peeped their rush-hour frustration.

 She should smile at the happy memory, but her face doesn’t remember how.

Placing one foot in front of the other, she walks past the grey shuttered shops and a derelict pub.  The flap on her shoe catches on the edge of a cracked paving slab, and her hands slap the red-brick wall. Had these bricks watched her stumble before? Frustration lends her the strength to push her body upright and continue up the street to the hostel.

Patricia closes her eyes, and pulls the thin sheet over her head to block out the harsh light filtering through the mismatched curtains. She pushes fingers into her ears, but the rhythm of the town taunts her. The revving of an engine, sirens in the distance, laughter walking past the hostel with a group of young voices. Slurred, alcohol-lightened voices. Her stomach clenches and she licks her dry lips.

Her dreams are fragmented; a man’s firm hands guiding her, a hospital bed, tears and accusations, a baby’s cry. She follows the baby’s cry, walks on soft carpet and pushes open a door. There is a cot against the wall, a star mobile swaying above…an empty cot. A man’s hands on her back. Falling, she is falling.

Patricia falls awake, the sheet twisted around her legs, trapping her, holding her down. Kicking them away, anger swells in her veins like a tidal wave, her breath is short and rapid. Fumbling for the brown paper bag on the bedside table, she holds it to her mouth and counts air in and out. Panic fading, and her breathing slowing, she puts the bag down and grimaces. A new use for an old friend. Lying back down she waits for her alarm to tell her to get up, and get ready for work.

Streetlights flicker off as she leaves the office building.  Like her they had finished work for the day. A memory nudges her.

Hands pushing a pram, her footsteps loud in the quiet of early morning.

Her eyes widen, and she leans against a window for strength. It wasn’t here, not this street.

Her therapist had told her not to chase the memories. To let them come, breathe gently and be patient.

How long does she have to be patient? She scratches her arms, dry skin and scabs fall to the pavement, revealing a thin scar from her elbow to her wrist.

Patricia breathes, and waits.

She remembers the ache in her calf muscles, pushing the pram up a hill, birds singing, a car going by, a drop of water on her arm.

She shakes her head, feeling weariness in her bones, and the rain.  It is raining today. it wasn’t raining eighteen years ago. The alcohol-induced amnesia is fading, but not the rain, it soaks into her clothes, and splashes at her feet.

                She peers through a steamed-up window. Other early morning workers release damp into the warm café. She opens the door, the coffee aroma entices her in. It feels familiar. New owners, new décor. Not a memory, but a knowing. Progress.

                Nursing her mug, she watches the crowd change. The weary workers are diluted and replaced. People in suits with clean hands, hurrying for their morning dose of caffeine in a takeaway cup. No time, and no umbrellas. The rain has stopped.

                A group of yawning students tumble into through the door, bags slung over their shoulders. One of the students is wearing her face. Her heart beats double-time and she shivers. Is this a memory of her student days? She shakes her head. No. Here she was a wife and a mother, not a student.

Patricia stands and walks towards the group, willing the girl to turn her head, and she does. It was not a memory. The girl was real. Patricia gasps and bends over, pain slashes through her stomach. Her shaking arms grasp the edge of a table.

 She lifts her head at a giggled whisper, the students move away.  What do they see? A broken woman? A woman in pain? And yet they laugh. The girl with her face glances back, her lips curled in disgust.   

There is a pattern to her days. She works, and then finds places to sit while broken memories skitter through her head, and a gritty anger grows in her stomach.

She sits in the café nursing her coffee. Every day for five days the girl with her face buys drinks with her friends. Who is she?  How is she possible? Patricia spits out her mouthful of coffee. She needs a stronger drink.

‘Euh.  Gross!’ The girl with her face speaks with a nasally voice. Patricia shudders, she knows that voice. She gropes her way from the seat, and staggers out into the street. Her thin scarf is whipped away by the bitter wind. She pulls her coat tight, and crosses the road to stand in the shelter of a doorway.

The students leave the café, and catch the number seventeen bus. An hour later, Patricia catches the same bus. It smells of smoke, but there are no-smoking signs. When the bus passes the local college, Patricia stands, getting off at the next stop and walking back to the college entrance. She sits on a wall, waiting.

                At four-fifteen the girl with her face walks to the bus stop. She is texting someone. Patricia steps closer with hands fisted in her coat pockets. The girl lifts her head, Patricia walks past, counts ten shaking steps, and glances over her shoulder. The girl’s eyes flick away, her fingers dance on the screen in her hand.

What is she telling her friends? The crazy drunk from the café is outside the college? How dare she judge. Patricia bites her tongue. The warm, salty taste eases her anger. She walks on.

                The number thirty-four bus passes by. The face she wore as a teenager stares out from the back window.

On Saturday, her pattern changes. She doesn’t walk to the café, but catches the number thirty-four bus instead. It leaves the main town behind, and takes her to where the cars are shiny, and each house has a private drive.

Her heart thumps. She knows this part of town. This is where she pushed a pram. Down these leafy roads. She stands up and walks to the front of the bus. She alights, and allows her feet to take her home.

The house looks the same, but there is a double garage, and a drive has replaced the small front garden and white fence.

She sniffs her fingers, remembering him wiping them with white spirit before he’d let her back in the house. She smiles, but it twists on her face into a grimace. White spirit burns if you swallow it.

                The trees reclaiming the pavement are larger than she recalls. Choosing one, she stands in its shadow, watching the house. The garage doors lift silently as a silver car turns off the road. A man with her husband’s face stops the car in the safety of the garage. She grabs the tree, fingernails scrapping the bark as her legs turn to dust. The garage door closes. It is not a memory. It is now.

Searing anger and shivering fear fight for control of her body.

A door slams. The girl with her face, and a hint of his voice, shouts something about being back for tea, while her hands and eyes chat on her phone.

                Patricia stares. A car pulls into the curb, music abuses the air as the girl opens the passenger door and climbs in.

                ‘Can I help you?’ A woman’s voice startles Patricia. She flinches and steps out into the sunshine. The girl turns her head, and their eyes lock as the car drives away.

‘Are you lost?’ The woman steps closer.

Patricia looks up, she sees sympathy in the woman’s eyes.  ‘No. I’m fine.’ She walks away, straightening her posture, needing no-one’s pity.  

‘Hello. My name is Patricia and I’m an alcoholic. It’s seven months and eleven days since I last had a drink.’

‘Thank you, Patricia. Do you want to share anything?’

She opens her mouth, then closes it and shakes her head, leaving the meeting early and hurrying to catch the last bus to the better side of town.

Her chosen tree creates a deep pool of blackness in contrast to the light from a nearby lamppost. She looks at the house and watches the window on the left.

She remembers the dusty pink walls, with a border of fairies. Her arm aches with the memory. He didn’t like the border. There was a changing table. She smells the baby powder, and sees the white tube of baby cream. Her fingers tingle at the softness of the tiny baby grows. But the cot is empty.

 A movement at the window pulls her back from the past. The girl with her face is peering out into the darkness. Patricia steps into the puddle of light. The girl flinches and pulls the curtains together, shutting her out.

Patricia’s shoulders shake, she cries out with the sudden pain of her cracked memories. As she staggers away her cries soften to a kitten’s mewl, before fading into silence. Silence is better. Silence does not hurt.

As she walks back through the town, people and laughter spill from the pubs and clubs. She stops her limping progress, and inhales the scent of forgetfulness. It takes a mountain’s strength to drag her body past the welcoming doors. Two years, seven months and eleven days.

Dressed as a Sunday morning jogger in her hoodie, trainers and loose-fitting trousers, she leans on the tree. Her ex-husband walks out of the door. He is a mirror image of her, except his jogging clothes are new, his trainers do not flap like a gasping mouth, and he has a large dog on a lead.  He stretches and jumps on the spot, while the dog yawns, before leaving the safety of his drive. When he sweats his way home an hour later, she crosses the road and stands in his way.

‘What the?’ He tries to dodge past, but she steps in front.

‘Hello, Simon.’

He freezes, wide eyed, like a startled animal. ‘Patricia?’

‘Simon.’

His eyes darken. ‘What are you doing here?’ The dog sniffs her feet.

She stiffens. ‘Remembering.’

He grabs her arm and pulls her away from the house. ‘You can’t be here. Go away.’ He pushes her, and she stumbles into a wooden fence. He sneers in disgust, turns his back and walks away, pulling hard on the dog’s lead. ‘Drunken sot.’

 ‘No. I’m not.’ She rubs her arm, a memory shivers through her body, but the slamming of a door pushes it away.

There is a new pattern to her days, and memories elbow each other for space, none of them complete. A seething anger builds as she walks to the pleasant side of town, a take-away coffee cup in her hand. Leaning against the tree, she gulps the lukewarm drink, and watches Simon drive to work.

Patricia crushes the empty cup in her hands, drops it, and grinds it to a papery mush under her damp shoes. She walks across the road, and up the drive to the quiet house.

The girl with her face opens the door with a smile, before her face pales and she tries to push the door shut, but Patricia is quicker. She kicks it with a strength born form anger, and the girl stumbles back against a table. She stifles a cry of pain. Patricia remembers the sound and red hate flashes through her body.

The girl whimpers.

                Patricia sighs. ‘I won’t hurt you. I want to see the house.’ The girl is trembling, but her hand slips into her pocket. Patricia grabs the girl’s arms, pinning them against her body. ‘Give me your phone. I won’t hurt you.’  She releases the girl.

                Tears in her eyes the girl hands her a phone. Patricia slams it on the hall table, and the girl winces.

                ‘Walk in front of me, and keep your hands where I can see them. Go to the kitchen first.’

                The girl’s steps are hesitant, her shoulders hunched. Patricia follows her. Her eyes skimming the room. Everything is different. Her shoes squeak on the tiled floor.

                She gasps and stares down.  A blurred memory of nails scrapping the floor buzzes through her head. 

                 ‘What do you want?’ The girl stifles a sob.

 ‘Memories.’ Patricia points to the lounge. Photos of the girl growing up and Simon cover the walls, but there are none of a baby. Patricia bites her lip, and they walk the house in silence. It has been re-decorated and re-furnished, except the upstairs bathroom.

Patricia sees the memory of blood, and smells vomit, she sways against the doorframe and gags.

The girl steps away, eyes wide. Patricia shakes her head and points to the bedrooms, leaving the baby’s room for last. The bedrooms stir no thoughts or feelings.

Patricia stares at the two plaques on the door in front of her– Samantha’s Room, and Knock before entering.

The name echoes deep in her heart. ‘Your name is Samantha?’ Her voice a mere whisper.

The girl nods and opens the door. Patricia hesitates, her legs weaken. She leans on a wooden table outside the room. It wobbles and a painted pebble tumbles to the floor.

She picks it up, remembering the smell of salty water, the fresh wind in her hair, ice-cream and laughter. A stark contrast to the life she knows now.

Her fingers curl around the comforting weight and she steps into Samantha’s room. Dusky- pink has been replaced with a cool-green. Posters and pictures cover two of the walls. There is a desk strewn with paper, pens and books. More books on shelving. A large wardrobe, its door open, revealing colourful clothes. A single bed with an open laptop and more books. A teenager’s room.

An anger swells. ‘Where is my baby?’ Patricia steps towards Samantha.

Samantha backs into the wall. She cries out as her shoulder catches on the corner of a wooden framed photo.

Patricia steps closer, her lips twitch as she pulls back her arm, raising the pebble above her head.

‘No. Please don’t hurt me.’ Samantha drops to a crouch, covering her face with her hands.

Patricia releases her anger and smashes the pebble into the framed photo. Glass rains down on the terrified teenager. The pebble thumps to the carpeted floor as Patricia pulls the baby photo from the broken frame.

She turns and closes her eyes.

Seeing the dusky-pink walls, and her baby’s cot, she steps towards it and grunts as her shin hits a bedside cupboard.

The memory is shattered.

Patricia takes a breath, and the memory returns.

 In the cot is a baby. Wisps of fine hair cover her perfect head. Her tiny eyes are closed and she suckles on her thumb.

A door slams, and the memory is lost again. Patricia looks out the window and sees Samantha running across the street with her phone to her ear.  

Patricia closes her eyes again, willing the memory to return, but an ache in her hand and sirens in the distance force her into reality. She runs from the house, clutching the crumpled photo in her fist.