by Kate Hardy
‘Bath.’
‘Why?’ Double why: why was she in hospital, and why was she in Bath?
‘Don’t you remember?’ the nurse asked.
‘No.’ And there was something important she needed to do, but she had no idea what it was.
‘Can you remember your name?’ the nurse asked gently.
‘Yes, of course. It’s...’ She scrabbled in her memory to find her name and drew a blank. Panic flooded through her. ‘I... I don’t know. Why don’t I know my name?’
‘Try not to worry,’ the nurse said. ‘You’ve been in an accident, and you hit your head. An ambulance brought you here.’
‘Accident?’ She didn’t remember any accident.
And she didn’t know her name.
‘My phone. That will tell me who I am. If it’s actually charged.’ She remembered that. Everyone always nagged her about the fact she was terrible about keeping her phone charged. And that scared her even more. ‘How do I know I’m hopeless about remembering to charge my phone, if I don’t even know my own name?’ What else wasn’t she remembering? Would it all come back? Or did it mean that the accident—the one she didn’t remember—had caused serious damage to her brain and her life would be completely changed?
‘After a head injury, sometimes people have something called retrograde amnesia. The way memory is stored means you might not remember things that happened just before the accident, or even a couple of days before, but you can remember things from longer ago,’ the nurse explained.
‘So how come I can’t remember my name?’ Holly asked. ‘Because my name has always been the same.’ At least, she thought it had. But right now she couldn’t be sure of anything and it felt as if she was teetering on a narrow path up a high cliff, the ground crumbling a little more beneath her with every step.
‘Try not to worry too much. Memory can be a funny thing. We don’t completely understand how it works,’ the nurse said. She found Holly’s phone and handed it to her.
‘I’m sure I can’t be on my own in Bath,’ Holly said. ‘I don’t remember planning to come here in the first place, but if I’m here on holiday then I’m sure I’d be with my mum or my best friend.’
‘There was nobody with you. The person who called the ambulance was the mum of the child you saved.’
‘I saved a child?’ She didn’t remember that either.
The nurse nodded. ‘A little boy. You got him out of the way of a car.’
So why hadn’t someone been with her? She didn’t understand—and her head hurt when she tried to think.
Her phone was charged, to her relief. But there were no notifications on the lock screen about missed calls or new text messages. If she’d been meeting her mum or her best friend and not turned up, they would’ve kept calling and texting her until they got an answer.
She didn’t have any explanation, and it scared her even more.
What was her passcode?
She didn’t know that either, Biting her lip, she looked at the nurse. ‘I can’t remember the code for my phone.’
‘It might come back to you later,’ the nurse said. ‘But maybe you filled in the information on the medical emergency tab.’
Holly couldn’t remember doing that either. Or how to access it. ‘I’m sorry, could you help me, please?’ she asked, trying to stem the growing panic.
‘Of course.’ The nurse took her phone and then read out loud, ‘“Holly Weston”.’
Holly. She tested the name in her head. It felt right.
‘It says you have no medical conditions,’ the nurse said, handing the phone back to her, ‘but it seems you’re allergic to penicillin.’
Simon had made her put that in, for when she was on a dig. Just in case something happened.
Thank you, Simon, she thought gratefully, thinking of her fiancé.
Except Simon’s name wasn’t listed under the emergency contacts. Just her mum and her dad.
Memories came leaking back. Simon video-calling her to say he couldn’t go through with the wedding. That he’d fallen in love with his colleague Fenella and she was pregnant...
And the misery felt almost as sharp as it had been the first time round.
OK. Separate issue, she told herself. That wasn’t going to change. Deal with the important stuff—the urgent stuff—first. Why was she here?
‘What day is it?’ she asked.
‘It’s Sunday.’
Today and yesterday were both a complete blank, and the entire week before was spotty. She had no idea where she’d been staying or who she’d come here with or why she was even in Bath in the first place.
‘Can I ring someone for you?’ the nurse asked.
‘Can I call my mum?’ Holly asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Thank you.’ Holly took a deep breath. ‘Can I go home?’
‘I can’t discharge you,’ the nurse said. ‘You need to see one of the doctors.’
‘But I feel absolutely fine,’ Holly fibbed. There was an enormous gap in her memory that she’d try to fill in later, a headache that could be sorted with painkillers—and she’d ignore the soreness and tiredness because they’d go eventually. ‘Can I see a doctor, please?’
The nurse narrowed her eyes, but said, ‘I’ll go and see if I can find a doctor.’
‘Mum, there’s been an accident,’ Holly said when her mother answered. ‘I’m all right, but I’m in hospital. In Bath. Apparently I saved a child from being hit by a car, but I don’t remember anything.’
‘Oh, my God. I’m on my way now,’ Holly’s mum said.
‘You don’t have to come,’ Holly lied, really wanting to see her mum; and how ridiculous was it that tears were leaking down her face? This wasn’t her. She was cool, calm, efficient Holly Weston. Nothing fazed her, which was why her colleagues had nicknamed her ‘Lara Croft’.
And that was another bit of memory back. Please, please let the rest of it return, too.
‘You’re in hospital, love. Of course I’m coming,’ Ginny Weston said.
‘I don’t even know if they’re going to let me out today.’
‘Then I’ll find a hotel and I’ll stay nearby until they do,’ Ginny said firmly. ‘Love you, Holls. I’ll be there soon.’
‘Love you, Mum. And thank you.’
By the time she’d finished the call and scrubbed the tears from her face, the nurse had come back with a doctor.
‘I’m Anya Singh, consultant in the emergency department,’ the doctor introduced herself. ‘Janet here tells me you can’t remember anything from this morning.’
‘I can’t remember anything from the entire weekend,’ Holly admitted.
‘OK. Well, you dashed out in front of a car and saved a little boy from being harmed,’ Anya said. ‘The car hit you, you hit your head, and you’ve been unconscious for a while. Can I do some tests?’
‘If it means I can go home, you can do anything you like,’ Holly said.
Anya grinned. ‘That’s what I like. Cooperative patients.’
Holly submitted to a barrage of tests.
‘Now can I go home?’ she asked, when they were all done.
‘No,’ Anya said. ‘I want you kept in for observation. And I’m sending you for a CT scan just to check there isn’t any brain injury we haven’t picked up.’
‘I’m fine. Isn’t some memory loss after an accident like this normal?’
‘Often it’s just a couple of minutes before the moment of impact,’ Anya said. ‘And you were unconscious for long enough for me to worry that something might be brewing. I want you here in case it is.’
‘If the scan’s OK, can I go home?’
‘Once I’m happy that you’re not going to develop a brain injury, then you can go home,’ Anya said firmly. ‘Provided you have someone to keep an eye on you for at least the
first twenty-four hours after we discharge you, and you need to rest.’
Holly thought about it. ‘I live on my own.’ At least, she assumed she did. ‘But my mum will make me stay with her.’
‘Good. I’ll get that scan organised,’ Anya said, and patted her hand. ‘Don’t be stubborn. Tell us if you’re hurting anywhere. Otherwise you’ll be staying here for a week.’
Holly grinned, liking the doctor’s sense of humour. ‘Got it.’
* * *
Three days later, Holly was back in London under her mother’s watchful eye, and Natalie had called round to visit.
‘I feel so guilty,’ Natalie said. ‘If I hadn’t made you go to Bath on your own, it wouldn’t have happened.’
‘You’ll drive yourself crazy, thinking like that. I’m fine. No harm done,’ Holly said. Just her lost memory; bits of the week before had come back, but the weekend remained a stubborn blank.
‘So the accident means you didn’t meet your fling,’ Natalie said.
Holly frowned. ‘What fling?’
Natalie showed Holly the text she’d sent. ‘If you really did take my advice, that means you had a fling.’
‘If I didn’t turn up to meet this guy,’ Holly pointed out, ‘surely he would have called me?’
‘Maybe he thought you deliberately stood him up,’ Natalie countered. ‘Why don’t you ring him?’
‘And say what? “Sorry I didn’t turn up, but I got hit by a car, and I don’t remember a thing about you”?’ Holly asked wryly. ‘I’m sure he’d be thrilled to find out he was so unmemorable. Not that he exists. I was probably just teasing you.’
‘I don’t think you were. Give me your phone.’ Natalie checked the contact list. ‘Oh,’ she said, sounding disappointed. ‘I know everyone in your phone list.’
‘They’re all either related to me, work with me or are very old friends,’ Holly pointed out.
‘You could just drop them all a text and ask if they accompanied you to Bath.’
‘No,’ Holly said firmly. ‘Besides, if I’d agreed to meet anyone on that list, they would already have called me to see if I was OK.’ She was solid, safe and reliable; or, from Simon’s point of view, boring and unable to make his heart beat fast enough. The irony didn’t escape her that his job—accountancy—was notorious for being boring.
‘So no leads there to your mystery man, then,’ Natalie said.
Holly shrugged. ‘As I said, I was probably teasing you.’
‘I’m not so sure. You didn’t text me until Sunday morning—so my theory is you didn’t actually go back to the hotel on Saturday night. You went somewhere with your fling.’ Natalie flicked into the photographs. ‘Oh. No selfies. At least, none of you with the mystery man.’
‘I honestly think I must’ve been teasing. I’m too sensible to do anything else.’ And too plain and ordinary for a stranger to sweep her off her feet.
‘Maybe you’re right.’ Natalie looked disappointed. ‘I’m still worried about you, though. You spent two days in hospital, and now you’re staying with your mum under hospital orders.’
‘It’s only a precaution. I’m absolutely fine. I simply have a bit of a gap in my memory.’ Holly said. ‘If I’d missed anything urgent, someone would’ve reminded me about it by now.’ She shrugged again. ‘I guess we’ll just have to put the last few days down as being my “lost weekend”.’
* * *
‘That’s the fourth take you’ve messed up, Harry.’ Lucy handed him a mug of coffee. ‘Chug this down. It might wake you up a bit so you start playing the right notes in the right order.’
‘Sorry.’ Harry grimaced. ‘I don’t know why I’m playing so badly today.’
‘You’ve had a really amazing job offer and you don’t know how to tell us that we need to find another cellist to replace you?’ she suggested.
‘No.’
‘What, then?’ she asked. ‘You haven’t been the same since we played on that lake outside Bath.’
No. Because he couldn’t quite get Holly out of his head. Even though he knew it was ridiculous, because she’d stood him up and clearly wasn’t interested.
‘Harry—have you fallen for someone?’
‘That’s a bit out of left field,’ he said, horrified that he was so transparent.
‘So that’s it. Spill.’
He sighed. Lucy had been one of his best friends for a decade and she knew him too well. If he didn’t tell her, she’d nag until he did, so it was easier to give in. ‘And it’s ridiculous,’ he finished. ‘She obviously didn’t want to see me again or she wouldn’t have given me the wrong number.’
‘Her battery was flat. Maybe the problem was with your typing,’ Lucy pointed out.
‘I don’t think so.’ He gave her a speaking look. ‘If I can sight-read a complex score, then surely I’m capable of typing in a phone number.’
‘Point taken,’ Lucy said dryly. ‘I wasn’t saying that you were stupid—more that it’s easy to accidentally type the wrong number. There must be another way of getting in touch with her.’
‘How? I don’t even know her last name. I know next to nothing about her; we didn’t talk about personal stuff. The organisers of the event can’t give me her name because of Data Protection rules.’
‘True, but they could pass a message to her. Or you could put a message on social media. It’d go viral because it’s the sort of mystery people love solving. I can see it now.’ She drew a banner in the air with her hands and intoned, ‘Help Harry find his Lady in Red.’
Harry couldn’t think of anything more horrific than having his love life plastered all over the media. He’d been there and done that during his divorce, and he had no intention of repeating the experience. ‘No, thanks.’
‘There might be a good reason why she couldn’t meet you,’ Lucy said. ‘And you said her phone battery was flat, so she didn’t have your number. That’s why she couldn’t ring you.’
‘And that’s where your theory falls down,’ Harry said. ‘She knew I was playing at the hall on the Saturday night. If she’d looked up the details of the ball, she could’ve sent me a message through our website. She hasn’t—so she’s not interested. She ghosted me. It’s not very nice.’ It had made him feel horrible. ‘But I just have to accept it and move on.’
‘Oh, Harry.’ Lucy ruffled his hair. ‘I know it went wrong with Rochelle, but history isn’t going to repeat itself.’
Absolutely—because he wasn’t going to let that happen. Ever.
‘I’m not being stubborn,’ he fibbed. ‘It’s fine. And please don’t do anything to embarrass me on social media, Lucy. I mean it.’ He didn’t need a relationship. And he’d make the same choice that he made last time: his career, rather than his love life. He knew where he was with music.
* * *
‘OK, Holls. You know the drill from last year,’ Shauna, the nurse at the university clinic, said. ‘I ask you if you’re pregnant, you tell me that you’re not, and then I give you the malaria tablets and off you go on your trip to Egypt.’
Holly smiled. ‘OK. I’m n—’ She stopped. When had her last period been? She thought back. Two months.
Two months.
‘Can being knocked over by a car stop your periods?’ she asked. ‘Because of shock or something like that?’
‘It’s possible, but it’s not the most likely cause of a missed period.’
No. They both knew what that was.
Shauna looked at her. ‘How many have you missed?’
‘Two.’ Holly had been so busy at work, she hadn’t really thought about anything else.
‘Could you be pregnant?’
She shook her head. Simon had been in America for months before he’d called off their wedding. She hadn’t dated anyone since they’d split up. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d actually had sex.
The best way to get over someone is to have a fling. Natalie’s advice slid into her head. Along with her own text: I took your advice.
Had she? Had she really had a mad fling during her lost weekend, rather than just simply teasing her best friend about it?
She couldn’t remember even meeting anyone, let alone having sex with him or using birth control...
‘Holly?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. But it was beginning to look like a possibility.
‘Have you had any other early pregnancy symptoms?’ Shauna asked. ‘Sore boobs, feeling really tired, needing to pee more, feeling sick?’
‘I’ve felt a bit tired, but I’m pretty sure that’s because of the accident,’ Holly said.
‘OK. Have you been sensitive to smells, had any cravings, or had any mood swings?’
Holly shook her head.
‘Then go and buy a pregnancy test, just to be sure.’ Shauna smiled at her. ‘You’re right, and it’s probably the stress of the accident that’s messed up your cycle, but I’m afraid we do need to make absolutely sure you’re not pregnant before we can give you the malaria treatment. Which means you need to take a test—just to tick all the boxes.’
If the test said she was pregnant, that meant no malaria treatment. Which in turn meant no Egypt—and an awful lot to think about.
Holly took a deep breath. ‘Go away and come back tomorrow, then?’
Shauna nodded. ‘It’s probably nothing to worry about. I’ll book you in now.’
‘OK. Thanks.’ Holly walked out of the clinic and headed for the nearest supermarket to buy a pregnancy test.
She hadn’t had even the slightest feeling of nausea. Her breasts felt completely normal. She’d put on a couple of pounds, but that was probably because she hadn’t been to the gym since the accident. Her final check-up was next week and then life could go on as normal.
Pregnant?
Of course she wasn’t.
But the idea niggled away at her. Supposing she was pregnant? Supposing she really had had a mad fling and they’d been so carried away that they hadn’t thought about contraception, or maybe the condom had failed?
