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but
I had never attempted to reach her any farther afield than that.
Now was the time to try. I raised my hands up for the heel of each
palm to touch my forehead, my eyes slipping shut. Two big breaths.
In and out and in and out. And I thought hard, thought of Mum and
her short, curly hair the colour of autumn leaves, her eyes the
same navy blue shade as mine, her smart brown hat with the pretty
white bow that she wore to go out and about.
I opened my
eyes to a familiar scene: Blackwell’s Post Office in East London. I
could see my mother’s slim white hands holding a small stack of
letters. She was waiting in a noisy little queue. I congratulated
myself very quietly on a job well done. My gift had taken me all
the way back to London, though it was still into a head that I
already knew I could reach, it was something. Distance was
possible.
    “ Hello Gail,” said a woman behind my mother in the bustling
queue. She turned and through her eyes I was overjoyed to see the
familiar sight of Anne, my mother’s childhood friend who lived not
far from us.
    “ Oh Anne,” Mum said, giving the woman a hug with one hand
whilst she clasped her letters in the other, “How are you dear? Did
Bobby and John get off okay?”
    “ Yes everything was smooth as you like,” Anne replied with a
smile, “They sent me a letter from Merthyr.”
    “ I thought they were going to the Rhondda something-or-other?”
my mother pressed.
Anne waved a
casual hand. “Oh there was a terrible mix up, too many kids in one
place and not enough homes to put them in!”
    “ How awful,” Mum said. I thought the same thing.
    “ No harm done, the boys are all right with the new family.
Have you heard from your two?”
As I felt a
wave of disappointment wash over Mum, the crushing guilt grabbed me
like those awful splints Bickerstaff had given me, except this time
the hard boards were cramping around my heart. I hadn’t even
thought to write to Mum yet, everything had been so busy here and I
had set off on this new psychic mission without even thinking about
her as more than a practice target. It made me feel a little
sick.
Mum was
trying to smile; I could feel the movement in her face. “I’m just
sending them a letter now,” she said, indicting her pile of mail as
the queue shifted forwards, “So I’m sure they’ll send me all their
news then.”
Too right we
would. I would make a point of sending pageloads to tell her how
much we missed her and make sure Leighton did the same.
    “ I have heard from her doctor though,” Mum added, “He wrote as
soon as he’d seen her the other day.”
I froze,
hating Doctor Bickerstaff all the more for pipping me to the post
with my own mother, especially before I could give her my own
impression of him.
Anne asked
the question that was on my mind. “And what did he say?”
Mum had
reached the front of the postal queue. I waited in anguish for her
to pay for her letters and get her change. She took Anne by the arm
and guided her out of the post office before she spoke, so I spent
every moment trying not to project any of my worries too close to
her thoughts. The last thing I wanted her to do was catch my voice
in her head. It was all right with Leighton, he had no clue what
was going on when I injected a thought here and there, but Mum, I
felt, would not handle my voice in her mind in quite the same way.
When they were out on the street Mum and Anne stood browsing the
postcard stand away from everyone else, where finally my mother was
willing to let slip the doctor’s verdict on me.
    “ Well, you know he’s a specialist don’t you?” Mum
began.
Anne nodded.
“That was the point of sending her to middle of nowhere, wasn’t
it?”
Mum nodded
too. “He’s a forward thinker, this Steven Bickerstaff, very brisk
and proper on the phone, you know?” I could already imagine his
emotionless tone talking to Mum. She would no doubt be impressed by
it, thinking it ever so professional. “And he said…”
I