The Mind's Eye (32 page)
Authors: K.C. Finn
Tags: #young adult, #historical, #wwii, #historical romance, #ww2, #ya, #europe, #telepathic, #clean teen publishing, #kc finn
put out and extremely pleased to be told I’d be sleeping in Ieuan’s
room from now on. Knowing that the young RAF officer was alive and
well in Toulouse had taken away the creepy atmosphere of his little
room; it now felt as though I was keeping it tidy for him until he
came home. It was also the room that Henri had used for the few
weeks he’d stayed here, which was usually comforting, but sometimes
very sad when I thought about the threat hanging over my head if I
tried to contact him again. I was also daunted by the prospect of
tackling the stairs every day, but Idrys promised he’d carry me if
things ever got really bad again.
Leighton
loved the idea that I was upstairs again, in London we had always
had rooms next door to one another and now we were back to that
arrangement. I, in truth, had been avoiding my little brother for
fear that Mum was sitting in his head keeping watch on me, but now
that I wasn’t using my gift I thought it couldn’t hurt to be around
him again. I let him help me move my clothes and things upstairs to
make Clive’s old sitting room look as little as possible like a
teenage girl had been living in it before Bickerstaff wheeled
himself in to inspect his new quarters.
“
I can’t understand why he sold his house,” Mam said one
morning before the doctor was up and about.
sitting at the table with Idrys and me as we cradled cups of
steaming tea against the cold November wind that was cascading
through every crack in the doors and windows of the little farm
house.
“
I don’t think he thought he’d be coming home,” Idrys
supposed. I knew he was right but I said nothing.
“
Poor soul,” Mam said, looking down at the table, “He’ll have
to start all over again now. New house and everything.”
“
Does that mean he’s out of the war for good?” I
asked.
“
I spect the home guard will give him a clerical job if he
wants it,” Idrys mused, “I can’t see him going back into medicine
after what he’s been through.”
the kitchen quietly, apparently surprised to find us all sitting
there so early in the morning. She went to the sink to fill a glass
of water.
“
What you up to, love?” Idrys questioned, giving her a careful
eye.
“
Steven wants some water,” she muttered, her cheeks flushed
pink. She disappeared again swiftly, the glass dripping as she
went.
“
She’s been ever so good with him,” Mam said
proudly.
“’
Course she has,” Idrys added with a wry smirk, “He’s still a
handsome devil even with that godawful scar down his
face.”
“
Don’t be daft,” Mam said quickly, but in the silence that
followed I could see her mind turning things over behind her glassy
blue eyes.
that Blod had suddenly engaged in a life-changing transformation to
take on the role of dutiful nursemaid but it didn’t seem to be
achieving the effect she desired. Bickerstaff was more miserable
than ever. Most days he wheeled himself outside despite the icy
fingers of winter that were slowly getting a grip on Ty Gwyn and
sat contemplating the pasture until someone came to bother him. The
young doctor continued to dress in his old smart suits, one trouser
leg hanging down limply from the front of the wheelchair, a great
gaping hollow where his foot ought to be.
The kitchen
was beastly hot where Mam was making dinner and I was too tired to
brave the stairs to retreat to my room, so I hauled outside on my
crutches intending to limp off in the opposite direction to the
moody physician. But something caught my eye, specifically the arms
and legs of a certain rag doll being waved in his face. Bickerstaff
had his back to me in his chair, but as I approached I could see
Ness standing in front of him talking his head off, Dolly flying in
all directions as she used her to punctuate her speech.
“
But Mam says I can’t have a house for Dolly ‘til I’m five,”
she was explaining, “Bampi’s going to build it, but he wants to
build me a farm.”
her nose up at the notion.
“
You don’t want a farm,” Bickerstaff said thoughtfully, “Dolly
needs a proper house with carpet and curtains and
windows.”
“
Ie!” Ness said, bouncing on her heels. “Could you build it
instead of Bampi?”
“
We’ll see,” the doctor replied.
a heavy stone and alerted them both that I was nearby. Bickerstaff
struggled to wheel around on the small cobbles with Ness attempting
to push the side of his chair to help. What she was actually doing
was pushing the side of the chair into Bickerstaff’s side, but he
didn’t tell her off.
“
Afternoon,” he said, inclining his head a little. I did the
same. He looked me over with a thoughtful frown. “Quite the
reversal, this,” he added, sweeping a hand over what used to be my
chair, “Are you having any problems just being on the aids all the
time?”
“
I have to sit down a lot,” I replied, wary that he seemed to
have reverted to his surly doctor mood for the moment, “But
actually it’s quite good. I didn’t know I had the strength until I
was forced to do it.”
smile pushed one side of his lip up. “It’s like that with a lot of
things,” he mused.
“
Are you going to try that fake leg the hospital sent
you?”
looked away. “I’m not sure.” A chilly wind whipped up around us and
Bickerstaff turned to Ness, patting her gently on her crown. “Go
inside for a bit and warm up.”
She took his
gentle words with a nod and scampered off down the cobbles, falling
over once on the way. We both made to go after her but Ness was a
tough little thing, she picked herself up, giggled and ran off back
into the house.
“
I’ve been thinking about this gift of yours, Kit.”
had been with us for almost a week and he’d said nothing thus far
about what I could do. I’d almost started to think that Blod hadn’t
told him.
“
You could see into the ambush in Africa?” he asked. I nodded,
swallowing back the images that threatened to flood my head. “Were
you in my head or Henri’s?”
“
Henri’s,” I answered quickly.
looked down at the hollow trouser leg now flapping in the wintery
breeze. He caught it and tucked it up under his leg.
“
Then you saw…” he began, but then fell into silence. I could
imagine how hard it was to find the words, to actually say “You saw
me get my leg blown off”, when it was you that had to sit there
looking at the empty space where your own foot should
be.
again. Bickerstaff sighed.
“
Well there’s one good thing that’s come out of it,” I said
shakily. He raised a quizzical blonde brow at me. “You and Blod,” I
explained.
again, his features soft but still ultimately moody, then shook his
head.
“
I don’t think that’s going to work out very well,” he
muttered.
“
Why not?” I exclaimed, thinking of all the trouble Blod had
put me to, keeping watch on him across continents. “Don’t you love
her?”
gave me a brief angry look like the one he frequently gave Henri
when he was about to tell him to mind his own business, but then it
fell away.
“
I do, but it’s not as simple as that.”
“
It should be,” I insisted.
“
You see, you’re exactly like her,” he complained, waving a
hand at me, “All women most likely. She has this great romantic
idea that she can take care of me, but she hasn’t thought about the
reality of it.” He hung his head down, rubbing at his temple. “At
the end of the day, if she marries me, she’d be married to half a
man.”
stand his defeatist attitude any longer. He had been wrong about
me, wrong about Henri and about the war, and he was most certainly
wrong about this too.
“
Better to have half the right man than the whole of the wrong
man,” I supposed.
judgemental sort of look I was giving him and started to wheel
away. I was terribly pleased when I caught up to him despite the
crutches and the cobbles.
“
God I wish I hadn’t agreed to help you sometimes,” he
muttered, trying to get to the door. I blocked his path with a
well-timed crutch that hit his shin.
“
Well you did,” I answered, “And now I’m going to help you.
And unlike you, I’m going to try and be fairly human about
it.”
Blod didn’t
like the thought of being shut out of what the doctor and I were
doing, but she eventually agreed to give Bickerstaff some time
un-nursed and we retreated to the dark little sitting room at the
front of the house. The fake leg, which he insisted on calling a
prosthesis, was mostly made of wood but it had some clever joints
in the ankles and where the arches of the foot should be that shone
silver. The proud doctor made me look away when he attached the
thing to the stump at his knee and when I looked back he’d let his
long trouser leg come down so that only the dark brown wood of the
foot was showing. Once I’d put a sock and shoe on it for him, you
would hardly have known the leg was false at all.
That was,
until he started trying to use it. We had to be careful when he
tried to walk because there was no way I’d be able to pick him up
if he fell and that last thing he wanted to do was have anyone in
the Price family see him flat on his face on the floor. I secretly
thought it might serve him right after all the times it had
happened to me under his guidance, but since I was trying to be the
bigger person I kept my mouth shut. I sat on the old sofa whilst he
borrowed my crutches for balance, finding that with just one aid
under his left arm he could manage quite well.
“
I’ll call the place in Cardiff where they made yours,” he
said, the first true smile on his face in weeks, “He’s a friend
from medical school, I’m sure he’d do me one outside of the
practice.”
“
Blod would hardly have to do anything for you,” I observed,
returning the grin, “All I’ve done is passed you the
crutch.”
“
You’ve done quite a bit more than that,” he said, turning
away again to try another lap of the room.
in my chest. It was perhaps the first good thing I’d ever done
without using my powers; it gave me a funny sort of satisfaction to
think that I had value beyond them. Bickerstaff was almost laughing
as he rounded the room quite quickly. He had a clunky sort of walk,
but he was spritely and bright compared to the forlorn figure
sitting out in the winter wind a few days ago.
“
So what do you think then?” I pressed, taking advantage of
his rare good mood, “About you and Blod?”
his good leg and leant on the crutch, looking down at his feet.
Then slowly he nodded and gave me a tiny smile.
“
Well,” he mused, “it’s certainly going to put a new spin on
‘going down on one knee’.”
I knew the
proposal had happened by the high pitched squeal that echoed
through Ty Gwyn after breakfast one morning. I was upstairs when I
felt the vibrations of Blod’s heels trampling all over the house to
make sure that everyone had heard the good news. By that point of
course no-one was really surprised, especially considering she’d
been giving every spare second of her day to him for almost three
weeks. For his part Bickerstaff managed to keep a smile on his face
for nearly the whole day before I caught him returning to his
pensive and moody self just after dinner. He had a long chat with
Idrys that night; they were still in the small sitting room when I
struggled up the steep stairs to bed.
I hadn’t
thought about eavesdropping with my powers in quite a long time, it
was as though being restricted from them now made things like that
seem frivolous, selfish even. When I settled into my borrowed bed I
thought sadly of Henri. Mum had promised to try and look after him,
but what if she hadn’t succeeded? Was I supposed to go on living
this normal life, ignoring the abilities I had to help and comfort
him, and if so until when? The end of the war? It had been a month
since I’d used my powers last, when Henri and Bickerstaff were
still in the desert heat of Africa. What on earth would Henri think
of me for abandoning him for so long? Would he even forgive
me?
I reasoned
sadly that he probably wouldn’t. But either way, it was time to try
and find out.
