But there she was, Deirdre, in a little beat-up lime-coloured car, back seat packed full of boxes. And there Deirdre was looking all old and grown up. Funny how you always remember them as little — Deirdre sitting barefoot at the table, laughing at the bowl full of mouse turds. When Lucy’s own mother was dying five years back, she would cry out Oh my little girl to Lucy. And now here was her own daughter looking like she was an adult, all big and round in her stomach, a detail she of course hadn’t offered and what must have brought her home. Little lines by Deirdre’s mouth, by her eyes, on her forehead. Lucy hoped they were laugh lines. She understood then Deirdre was home for some love, love Lucy had never been able to give her, or anyone.

It is then Lucy feels a tight pain in her heart. Her daughter standing by the car door, smiling and walking over to her, moving slowly over the grass, running awkwardly as Lucy falls down in the sweet roses. Thorns piercing her arms as she gasps for a breath which does not come, choking on the honeyed details she finally tastes and savours, her eyes closing and flickers of green and white becoming a veil against the horizon of her mind as Declan and Deirdre’s voices blur and are lost in the beating of a thousand luminous hummingbird wings.

Dead Time

guilty, guilty, guilty their eyes all say, the words scratching themselves into the concrete walls. Beige. It’s the worst colour. So boring. So flat, just like all the people around me, like the life they want to force me into. But I am the consort of scarlet fire beings and sirens of the blue ice. The bland brittle world my captors exist in will never hold me, will never break me. In my mind I stand gazing upon the tall marble palace looming over a glittering sea that lashes and whips the unbreakable twilight. The exploding sun and the molten moon are infused in my blood. Through the grey mists and streaks of lavender smoke I alone see what stands in the turret and looks down upon me with glowing eyes, eyes the deep aqua of a cunning ocean which holds all the mystery and darkness of the world.

But these bland walls, where their judgment latches itself, this beige revolts me. The whole penal institution is this colour. That’s what this place is, a penitentiary, even though they call it a youth centre, like it’s a community club — a locked club with bars on the windows.

But I’m telling you, I’m not guilty. There was nothing I could do once Sergei started. He would have killed me. He was in a rage, and all I could do was scream.

I’m sitting here with my father. He’s not saying a word. He looks exhausted. His skin is shades of dirty beige except for around his eyes where it’s yellow and green, as though he hasn’t slept in days. He’s like a snake, so it wouldn’t surprise me if he could go for days without food or sleep, just slithering about behind people. That’s the kind of man he is. He hasn’t shaved and his fingers stroke the stubble on his chin and he puts his face in his hands. He’s totally wrapped up in his career as a politician, calling the shots, the backroom deals. I know the kind of people who live in that world, obsessed with themselves, monsters creeping toward the manger.