by J. S. Monroe
“No problem,” Dr. Patterson replies. She must be in her early fifties, confident manner, well-spoken rather than posh. No-nonsense. She’s wearing a fitted taupe cashmere jumper, a modest string of pearls at her neck. According to Laura, she’s a locum who used to be a partner at a practice in Devizes. And they are good friends, as I suspected.
“Thank you,” I add.
“So tell me what happened, when you first realized you couldn’t remember your own name.”
I take her through exactly what I told Laura and Tony.
“It’s upsetting,” I say. “Not knowing.”
“I can imagine,” Dr. Patterson says.
“When I try to remember, there’s just this void in my head.” I keep my voice steady but my leg is shaking.
“Were you able to tell the lost property man anything at all?”
“Nothing.” I pause, thinking about the meeting with Luke in the surgery reception. Who does he think I am? “It’s easier if I’m called Jemma.”
“Jemma? Why Jemma?”
“I’m going to need a name and—”
“Tony thought she looked like a Jemma,” Laura says, laughing nervously. “With a J.”
“And you?” Dr. Patterson asks. “What do you think?”
“It’s okay. For the time being.” I need to be called something.
“How are you feeling now?”
I take a deep breath. “Disconnected. Isolated. Frightened.”
Dr. Patterson sits back, glancing at the computer screen on her desk. On the wall behind her is a large map of the world, illustrating recommended injections for different countries. Southern India—diphtheria, hepatitis A, tetanus, typhoid—is partially obscured by her head.
“It’s quite normal for someone in your position to feel these things,” she says. “Your sense of disconnection may also turn into frustration and depression.”
“I’m not sure what I would have done if I hadn’t met Laura,” I say, feeling another pang of guilt for the woman who doesn’t know me, and is being so kind.
She looks at Laura and then at me.
“We were talking on the phone earlier about the various different types of amnesia. In most cases, memory loss like this tends to pass quite quickly, sometimes in a matter of hours. If your condition persists, we will need to run some tests, establish if you’ve suffered any physical trauma to the brain. We also need to rule out other organic causes such as a stroke, brain tumor, an epileptic episode, encephalitis and possibly thyroid disorders, even vitamin B deficiency. Recreational drugs and alcohol can also be factors in memory loss. My guess, though, is that you’re experiencing what we call psychogenic or dissociative amnesia—stress is one of the biggest causes.”
I sit up in my seat, aware of people passing on the pavement outside the window. It’s disconcerting to hear myself being discussed in this medical way.
“Would you like some water?” Dr. Patterson offers, sensing my discomfort. I nod, watching as she pours a glass from a plastic bottle and passes it to me.
“I’m just going to take your blood pressure,” she says, getting up from her chair. “Have a listen to your heart, check your breathing.”
She continues to talk as she wraps a sleeve around my arm, fastening it with Velcro before starting to inflate it. I try to relax, concentrate on my breath, the lower part of my lungs.
“Do you know today’s date?” she asks. I shake my head. “The month? Year?”
“I’m sorry,” I say. This is all so hard.
“Where we are?”
Another shake of the head. I hear Fleur’s voice in my ear. Right now all I want to do is curl up in bed and cry.
“It’s okay,” she says, undoing the Velcro. “I’d also like to perform a brief neurological examination.”
My hands tense as she picks up a stethoscope from her desk. After listening to my heart, she conducts a series of tests, assessing my balance, eye movements and visual field, shining a torch into my pupils and checking facial and neck muscles. It’s then that she reaches for her ophthalmoscope. An image of a white coat comes and goes.
“I just need to examine your retina,” she says, noticing me flinch. “Look for raised intracranial pressure,” she says, her cheek close to mine. “All seems fine.”
She sits down again, putting the instrument back on her desk. My eyes linger on it for a second before I look away. Instinctively I reach for the tattoo, pressing my fingers into my sleeve.
“Some people experience ‘anterograde amnesia’—when you can’t form new memories. Sufferers can recall the past, before the event that caused the amnesia, but nothing afterward. Let’s see what you can remember tomorrow, after a good night’s sleep.”
“How do you mean?” I ask.
“It’s possible you could forget everything that’s happened today.”
She glances at Laura.
“The other main form of amnesia is retrograde, where you can’t remember anything from before the event that caused the memory loss. Autobiographical details, your name, address, family, friends and so on. You are, though, able to form new memories. I suspect this is what you’re currently suffering from.”
“But she will get better?” Laura asks.
“It’s hard to say at this stage,” she says to me. “I’d certainly recommend further examinations, maybe an MRI brain scan. If the amnesia is stress-induced, it should resolve but may take time. You might be experiencing what we call a dissociative fugue. A temporary loss of identity accompanied by unplanned travel, confusion and amnesia. Right now you just need to relax, perhaps do some yoga with Laura? I think she’s already offered.”
Laura nods, smiling.
“I’d like that,” I say. Laura’s kindness makes me want to cry.
“I don’t think it’s necessary for you to be admitted tonight—even if there were any beds available, which I’m afraid there aren’t. The only other option is a night in a hospital corridor.”
“I’d rather not,” I interject.
“It was terrible up there last week,” Laura says.
“Your blood pressure’s a little high,” Dr. Patterson continues, ignoring her friend, “which is to be expected, but your breathing is clear and I can find no evidence to suggest a stroke or infection.” She turns to Laura. “Are you really okay for her to stay with you tonight?”
“Honestly not a problem,” Laura says.
However bad I feel about Laura, it’s much better that I sleep in her house.
“Normally I’d like to exclude all organic causes first, but the community psychiatric nurse is in the village tomorrow. And we’re in luck—there’s been a cancellation at 9:00 a.m. Would that suit?”
I nod, glancing at Laura, who smiles back at me.
“In most cases like this, the semantic memory is unaffected. You should still be able to understand words, colors, how things work, general knowledge, that sort of thing. And I don’t anticipate any other cognitive impairment. You aren’t at any personal risk.”
“I knew what to do with my train ticket today,” I say, “if that’s what you mean.”
“If you’ve got time,” Dr. Patterson continues, glancing at Laura, “take a walk around the village together. Try to relax, let the dissociated mind reconnect. Often all our memory needs is a trigger, a familiar face, for everything to start coming back. Maybe go along to the pub quiz tonight. You never know, someone might recognize you. These things can resolve themselves very quickly.”
“She remembers the layout of our house,” Laura says, shifting the mood again.
“Really?”
“The upstairs rooms, a shower in the downstairs loo—before she saw any of it.”
Dr. Patterson looks up at me and then back at her screen, deep in thought.
“We were wondering if she’d lived there before, a long ti
me ago.”
“Normally with retrograde amnesia, those sort of episodic memories are lost,” Dr. Patterson says, “although sometimes patients can recall things from their very distant past.”
“Maybe that’s it,” Laura says to me. “Perhaps you lived in the house as a child.”
Dr. Patterson either doesn’t hear Laura’s theory or chooses to ignore it. “For what it’s worth, we’ve got three Jemmas registered at the surgery, one with a J...” She pauses, turning from the screen to me.
Laura and I both look up, struck by the sudden change in Dr. Patterson’s expression. Her breezy manner has fallen away as she scrolls down the screen.
“What is it?” Laura asks.
I stare at Dr. Patterson, scared of what she’s about to say.
“Nothing,” she says, turning back to us, distracted, her mind clearly still processing what she’s just read.
We both know she’s lying.
CHAPTER 7
“I suppose Jemma could be my name,” I say, as we walk away from the surgery in the evening sunshine. “Though I don’t see how Tony would have guessed it.” Across the road, bell ringers are practicing in the church, peals chasing each other down the scale.
“It suits you,” Laura says. “And Tony’s good at guessing names. Uncanny sometimes.”
“Do you ever do the pub quiz?”
“Not really my thing. Tony’s obsessed with it. He’s only forty but lives in fear of getting Alzheimer’s—his father died of it. The quiz is his way of keeping his brain fit although he’ll never admit as much. He doesn’t like to talk about it.” Laura starts to giggle. “Oh yes, he also likes to sing.”
“Sing?”
“They always wind down after the quiz with an open mic session. The team who wins has to go first. Nobody can stop him, certainly not me. Singing’s Tony’s thing.”
“And you don’t like it?” I’m smiling too now. “His voice?”
“‘Let there be spaces in your togetherness’ and all that.”
“‘And let the winds of heavens dance between you.’” I look up at Laura, surprised. I completed the poem without even thinking.
“See—your memory’s fine.” She pauses as we wait to cross the road by the church. “Tony spent a large part of his early career taking photos of bands, hoping to sing in one himself. He used to sing to his dad too. In his dying days. Seemed to ease the Alzheimer’s—if that’s possible.”
We follow a path beside the graveyard and down through a water meadow to the railway, which runs parallel with the canal. A train is in the sidings, engines idling. After crossing the railway tracks, Laura shows me the slope where she and Tony went tobogganing on their first weekend in the village.
“Do you have any children?” I ask. I regret the question immediately. Behind us the church bells momentarily lose their rhythm, colliding awkwardly. We both know there were no signs of kids in their immaculate house.
“We’ve tried,” Laura says.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“It’s fine. We’ll keep trying.” We walk on down the canal, past a row of moored up narrow boats, flowers tumbling down their sides like May queens’ garlands.
“I know this sounds weird,” she asks, “but do you think you have any kids?”
I pause to consider. “I’m not sure how I’d know.”
“Tits heading south and a 24/7 state of tiredness and guilt?” she offers, laughing. “At least, that’s what the mums in my class say.”
Our conversation tails off after that as she shows me the drafty Scout Hut where she runs her yoga. I wonder if she’s thinking about Susie Patterson, what the doctor saw on her computer screen. Something upset her, dented her professional calm. On our way back up the high street, we stop outside a café.
“This is Tony’s place,” she says. “His pride and joy. He’s always dreamed of running his own New York–style vegan café and having somewhere to hang his pictures. We bought it a couple of months ago.” I look up at a sign that reads The Seahorse Gallery & Café. There’s a food counter with glass cabinets at the front and some tables and chairs at the back, where the walls are lined with big framed photos.
“It used to be the village shop,” Laura says.
“Are they his photos?” I say, peering in through the window at the pictures hanging on the back wall.
“Tony loves seahorses.”
“Different,” I say, turning to walk on quickly. “Was it always a shop?”
“It was once the village bakery—a long time ago. Is it ringing any bells?”
I shake my head. “The only place I feel I’ve seen before is the pub.”
“And our house.”
“And your house,” I repeat quietly, stopping in the street to look around. “I just wish I knew why I came here. Who I am.”
Laura touches my arm, managing a weak smile before she walks on ahead. This is difficult for me, but it’s tough for her too. A stranger pitching up on her doorstep. As we turn into School Road, I can feel the adrenaline build again as I remember the moment I knocked at the door. I look around for something to distract my mind. A thatcher is working on a roof up ahead, strands of straw lining the sides of the road.
“Are you sure it’s okay for me to stay the night?” I ask. “Tony seemed a bit—”
“Of course it’s okay. He’s keen to help you. We both are.”
“How long have you guys been together?”
“We got married last year. Six months after we met. Whirlwind romance.”
“White wedding?”
“Not quite,” she laughs. A group of people walk past us, on their way to the pub quiz, perhaps.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.” Unable to discuss my own past, I seem to be obsessed with other people’s.
“It’s fine. We had a wonderful day. I always thought I wanted a white wedding, but he talked me out of it.”
“How come?”
“He’s a wedding photographer—at least he was. Seen too many loveless white weddings to want a traditional one of his own. So he whisked me off to a field in Cornwall that overlooks Veryan Bay, near where I was born. It was so romantic. Twenty friends watched us get married in an old stone-built coast guard lookout—we spent the evening dancing and drinking among hay bales and newborn lambs as the sun set over the sea.”
I am surprised to find that Laura’s memory causes a feeling of unbearable sadness to well up inside me. I swallow it down. “Sounds like heaven,” I say. “And at least the lambs were in white.”
Laura smiles as we reach the front door where I fainted. And then she stops.
“I saw your beautiful tattoo, by the way,” she says.
“Thank you.” I look down at it, as if seeing the tattoo for the first time.
“Why a lotus flower?” she asks, putting the key in the lock.
I blink, and Fleur smiles. “I don’t know.”
I take a deep breath and follow Laura inside the house.
CHAPTER 8
Tony is cooking dinner in the kitchen, where he has laid out three places around a small table beyond the island. A piano concerto is playing on a Bose sound system, scented candles burn and there’s a Persian blue cat asleep on the sofa. A scene of domestic calm, but I’m nervous about being back in the house again. The plan is for an early meal and then Tony’s off down to the pub for the quiz.
“How was it at the surgery?” he asks.
“Susie was very helpful,” Laura says, stepping in on my behalf again. She means well but I need to speak for myself. My voice is not as loud or as confident as I’d wish.
“Apparently, I might be experiencing a dissociative fugue,” I say.
“Interesting,” Tony says, reaching for a porcelain jug of water, shaped like a salmon dancing on its tail. He pours out three glasses th
rough the fish’s mouth. “It might explain the travel. People in a fugue state have been known to travel hundreds of miles from their home. Adopt completely new identities. Can you still remember arriving here today?”
“At the moment, yes,” I reply, transfixed by the sound of the glugging jug.
“But Susie says it might be different tomorrow morning,” Laura says.
“How come?” His blue eyes are focused on mine, and I have to look away.
“We’ll know then if I can form new memories or not,” I add.
“Anterograde amnesia,” Tony says.
“Tony’s obsessed with not forgetting anything,” Laura says, by way of explanation. I notice she doesn’t mention Tony’s father, his Alzheimer’s.
“Really?” I ask, my scalp suddenly tingling, but he chooses not to elaborate. Laura said earlier how he didn’t like to talk about it.
“I Googled it while you were out,” he says, glancing at Laura. “Shall we eat?”
Tony serves up fresh grilled sea bass with Jersey potatoes, and a vine tomato and avocado salad with a fennel dressing. Laura seems happy to leave Tony to it in the kitchen.
“I didn’t know whether you are a vegetarian or not, so I compromised with fish,” he says, passing the plate of bass to me.
“I don’t know either,” I whisper, serving myself.
“The village thinks Tony’s a hard-core vegan, but he’s a secret pescatarian at home,” Laura says. “I can’t live without my seafood.”
“That’s love,” Tony jokes. “I even ate steak on our wedding night.”
“You did not,” Laura laughs.
“I’m kidding,” he says, leaning over to kiss her. “Just don’t tell my customers about the fish.”
“I won’t,” I say.
Any reservations Tony might have had earlier about me seem to have evaporated. His whole manner is different, welcoming. I hope it stays that way.
“This must be so strange for you,” he says. He is sitting opposite me, Laura to my right.
“Leave it if you don’t like it,” Laura says.
“They look delicious,” I reply, passing the plate of fish onto her.
