The girl with her face

Part One

'

'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.