by A. E. Radley
“Oui,” she said softly. She didn’t look up from the photo.
She felt the long vehicle lurch gently as it performed a U-turn. Her stomach did the same. The anger she had been holding onto crumbled. Guilt washed over her like a tidal wave, and she struggled to breath.
When Holly had vanished twelve months before, Victoria had felt betrayal that quickly turned to fury. The disappearing act of her second assistant had left her understaffed and embarrassed. While she wasn’t one to listen to gossip, she could hear the whispers during the catwalks and galas. She’d arrived with an attentive second assistant and left alone and humiliated.
Of course, she’d had assistants walk out on her before. She wasn’t exactly an easy person to work for. Countless names and faces blurred into one large disappointment, the people who couldn’t take the pressure, not ready for the greatness they could aspire to if they managed to survive a paltry two years of service.
Some handed in a letter of resignation, some ran crying from the building. Occasionally some vanished without a trace, only for a request for a reference to appear from a new prospective employer a few weeks later.
Holly’s disappearing act had taken Victoria by surprise. The girl had always been diligent and professional. Until the moment she vanished without a trace. Victoria had assumed that she’d pushed Holly too far during the previous year’s Fashion Week, suspected that the girl had finally snapped and left.
As the weeks and months passed, she was surprised to not hear anything. Not even a request for a reference. She supposed the girl had wisely set herself up in another state, or another country, to avoid Victoria’s wrath.
But Victoria prided herself on her professional ethics. Had a letter requesting a reference arrived on her desk, she would have provided a glowing recommendation. Holly Carter may have left her in the middle of the most important event and in the most crucial week in the fashion calendar, but she was still the best assistant that Victoria had ever had. Not that Holly knew that, of course. She’d never actually said the words. Much less hinted at them.
Now it was clear why no one had heard from Holly in the twelve months that had passed. Something terrible had happened. Maybe even the very night when Victoria was packing her own suitcase to fly back to New York, cursing Holly’s very existence as she did.
A head injury. Memory loss. Stuck in a hospital in a foreign country.
She quickly put the photograph on the seat between herself and Samuel. Turning, she looked out of the window and attempted to calm her breathing. She needed to compose herself, she wasn’t about to lose control in front of some dishevelled journalist.
She could hear Samuel speaking on his mobile phone. Her French was not entirely fluent and his animated speech was difficult to keep up with, but she could ascertain that he was speaking with someone at the hospital. When he referred to Victoria as Holly’s friend, she bit back a laugh.
The truth was, she was most likely the very last person in the world Holly would want to see.
4
The limousine pulled up outside the hospital. Victoria looked up at the imposing old building and took a deep, steadying breath.
Samuel exited the car and jogged around to open Victoria’s door for her. He was clearly in a hurry to fulfil his wish to see the two women immediately reacquainted. But Victoria, who had never dawdled in her life, suddenly felt like her muscles were coated in syrup.
With a deep breath, she pulled herself out of the car and wondered again what she was getting herself into. She debated getting back into the car and instructing the driver to take her to the airport. Louise could deal with this. Holly was just an assistant, an assistant who had left her.
Before she could react, the main door to the building opened and a woman hurried towards Samuel. She was young and wore a dark blue nurses’ uniform. She pulled Samuel into a hug, and the two swayed back and forth with elation.
A second woman exited the hospital. She was older and wore a light grey suit topped with a crisp, white medical coat. Her greying hair was pulled into a severe bun, but her face was warm and friendly.
“Madam Hastings.” She held out her hand. “My name is Doctor Fontaine, but please call me Charlotte.”
Victoria shook her hand. “Victoria.”
Charlotte nodded and gestured for Victoria to follow her inside.
“Samuel tells me that you know Clémence?”
Victoria bristled at the alias. “Holly. Yes, I do.”
“How is it that you know Holly?”
They entered the building, and the sharp smell of disinfectant caused Victoria to wince.
“She was my assistant,” she replied succinctly. She wasn’t interested in small talk, she wanted to see Holly as soon as possible and find out what was going on.
“I see,” Charlotte said. “And why was she in France?”
“Fashion Week.”
Charlotte lifted the plastic card that hung from a lanyard around her neck. It connected with a device on the door, and a green light shone. She pushed the door open and walked into an office where she gestured for Victoria to sit down.
“She did not travel back to America with you?” Charlotte asked.
Victoria looked around the office in frustration.
“Holly terminated her employment with my magazine during Fashion Week last year. We didn’t see her again,” she explained. She stood in the doorway, making it clear that she had no intention of sitting down.
“I see. Was there a disagreement?” Charlotte asked.
“No, there was no disagreement. Do you intend to continue this cross-examination of me?”
Charlotte sat in her office chair and looked up at Victoria.
“I’m afraid so, yes. Clémence…” She held up her hands. “I apologise, Holly, is under my care. And has been for eleven months. She was admitted after suffering from a serious head injury, with no memory and no identification on her. As I’m sure you can understand, this caused us many issues when dealing with her medical treatment, with no medical history to go on, and no understanding of why she suffers memory loss. I need to find out if psychological trauma was a factor in her accident or her memory loss.”
Victoria’s eyes fluttered closed for a moment. She nodded.
“I apologise.” She took the offered seat in front of the desk. “I understand. Holly decided to leave us last year. I don’t completely understand why. One moment she was there, the next she was gone. We never heard from her again and assumed that she had left and returned to America on her own. It was quite a shock when Monsieur Durand showed me her photograph.”
Charlotte looked sympathetic. “I imagine it was. Tell me, do you know of any accident or any medical history that could explain her amnesia?”
Victoria shook her head. “No. She was in perfect health when I last saw her. As far as I was aware, anyway.”
Charlotte leaned back in her chair. She toyed with the pen in her hands while looking at Victoria critically.
“Forgive me for saying so, but your reputation leads me to believe that maybe your staff would be, shall we say, unlikely to confide in you?”
Victoria pursed her lips. It was a fair assessment but not one she enjoyed hearing.
“I suppose that is true,” she allowed. “But I’m still generally aware of my staff and their health and wellbeing.”
It wasn’t entirely true. She hadn’t noticed when Louise had pneumonia and was eventually carted off to the hospital in an ambulance, but Charlotte didn’t need to know that.
“How would you describe your relationship with Holly?”
Victoria tensed. She hadn’t felt under such scrutiny in a long time. She’d become used to doors naturally opening for her the moment she approached them. Her position usually allowed her anything she desired. Right now, she had a desperate need to see Holly but the gatekeeper wasn’t being cooperative. She knew that her usual strategy of demands and bullishness wasn’t going to work.
“We worked side b
y side for seven months. She was my assistant and, as such, she was closer to me than most. In fact, during that time I probably saw more of Holly than I did my own children.”
It was the truth, but it didn’t mean they were close. Victoria simply worked damn hard.
Charlotte leaned forward. She put the pen back down on her desk and looked at Victoria.
Victoria knew she was being analysed. She knew the look well, she used it herself to great effect. But she analysed magazine layouts, editorial photography, fashion trends. Charlotte analysed people. And that unnerved her.
“Have you ever spoken with someone who suffers from memory loss?”
“No,” Victoria said. “I’m afraid my knowledge is drawn solely from popular media, which I assume is not entirely accurate.”
Charlotte chuckled softly. “You are right. Unfortunately, the depictions you see in television and movies are not at all accurate. I must warn you that it can be very difficult to speak with someone with no memory of you.”
Victoria felt her frame loosen slightly with relief. It seemed that she was passing Charlotte’s entrance exam.
“I’m sure it is,” she agreed. “May I ask of her condition? How much of her memory is lost? Will her memories return?”
Charlotte leaned back in her chair again. She was the picture of defeat. Victoria realised that they had something in common; they were both protective of Holly. Charlotte was standing in between her and Holly, but Victoria knew that if their positions were reversed, she would do exactly the same.
“It is difficult to say,” Charlotte admitted. “The type of memory loss she has is very unusual. Usually with brain trauma, we see a tendency for future memories to become lost or muddled. Patients can often remember their past but have difficulty correctly recording and cataloguing events following the trauma.”
“But that isn’t what is happening here?” Victoria guessed.
“Indeed. With Holly, we see the opposite. Her memories before the incident are gone. Despite how often this type of memory loss appears on film, it is very rare in real life.”
“So, she doesn’t remember her past?”
Charlotte shook her head. “She remembers nothing. Not her name, her family. Her first memory is of waking up in the hospital after her accident.”
“What was this accident?”
“We do not know. She was taken to the accident and emergency department of a local hospital after being found by a police officer on the side of the road.”
Victoria clenched her hands over the arms of the chair.
“But we do not know what happened,” Charlotte continued. “Nor can we tell if the accident caused her memory loss. There is a possibility that something happened prior to the accident, causing her memory loss and therefore causing the accident.”
“I take it the not knowing makes treatment difficult?”
“We know very little about the brain,” Charlotte said. “There are no medications that can cure memory loss. It’s a matter of whether or not the brain will repair itself. Or if it can. The part of the brain responsible for storing those memories may have been damaged, or possibly have disappeared altogether as a result of the damage. Our knowledge of memory centres is very small. What we don’t know far outweighs what we do.”
Victoria swallowed. The enormity of what had happened was starting to settle in her mind. She suspected it would take a while to fully grasp the situation, what they currently knew of it anyway. It seemed that there were a lot of unknowns.
“May I see her?”
Charlotte stood and gestured towards the office door. “Please, follow me.”
5
As the taxi started to slow, Gideon Fisher looked over the top of his newspaper. He’d been so engrossed in an article that he hadn’t noticed that they had arrived at the airport. He folded the paper and grabbed his Ted Baker briefcase.
The passenger door flew open. His head snapped up in shock.
“Victoria’s gone AWOL,” Louise announced. “And where have you been? I’ve been trying to contact you.”
Gideon ignored the hyperactive woman and leaned forward to tap his bank card on the payment machine. He gestured for Louise to stand back with a shooing motion and exited the car. The taxi driver unloaded his luggage from the boot.
“Merci,” Gideon said.
He pulled up the suitcase handle and attached his briefcase to it. He slid the newspaper into the front pocket and patted his coat down to ensure he had everything he needed.
“Right. Now, let’s have that again, from the start?” he requested.
“Where’s your phone?” Louise demanded. She waved her own phone about. “I’ve called you a million times.”
“Impressive,” he said, raising his eyebrow. It wasn’t unusual for Louise to become agitated. “My phone is updating, some software thing that—”
“Never mind that,” Louise said. “Victoria is AWOL. Missing. Lost!”
Gideon raised his arm and looked at his watch. There was still time before the flight.
“Her driver didn’t show up. I called him, but he hardly speaks any English. He said he dropped her off somewhere, but I couldn’t make out where.”
“Okay.” Gideon lowered his arm. “Have you tried calling her?”
“Of course I have,” Louise sighed. “No answer.”
Gideon shrugged. He grabbed the handle of his suitcase and started to walk towards the departures terminal. “Well, there’s not a lot you can do at the moment. There’s still time before we need to call the National Guard, or whomever you call in a situation like this.”
Louise fell into step behind him.
“But this isn’t on the schedule,” she complained.
“It’s not the first time Victoria has changed her schedule,” Gideon reminded her. “Maybe a meeting opportunity came up? It’s Paris Fashion Week, remember? Anyone who’s anyone is here. She’ll want to maximise every moment of her time.”
“I ordered her brunch,” Louise said. “Do I tell the chef that she isn’t coming?”
Gideon sighed. “I have no idea. Which is why I’m grateful that looking after Victoria’s schedule is your job and not mine.”
He offered her a half-sympathetic smile and walked towards the check-in desk.
6
Victoria followed Dr Charlotte Fontaine through the hospital’s in-patient recreation room. She’d never felt so out of place in her life. Her expensive couture was at odds with a room filled with people wearing what could generously be described as loungewear.
Her heels clicked loudly on the linoleum flooring, causing patients to look at her as she passed. She tried not to make eye contact with any of them.
In the corner of the room was a table. Three chairs around the table were unoccupied. The remaining chair faced away from Victoria, but she knew its occupant was Holly.
As they got closer, she could see that the girl was reading a book. Charlotte took the seat opposite Holly and gestured for Victoria to sit between them. Victoria was grateful that Holly was looking at Charlotte as she sat down. She was sure her usual neutral mask had slipped upon seeing Holly. The short hair and unhealthy pallor were shocking to see in person.
“Bonjour, Clémence. How are you today?” Charlotte asked.
Holly smiled and laid her book down on the table. Victoria noted that it was a moth-eaten copy of Moby Dick.
“I’m good, thank you.”
Four simple words, so common in everyday conversation, struck fear into Victoria’s heart. There wasn’t a trace of recognition from Holly. She didn’t sound like herself, she sounded hollow.
Victoria wasn’t sure if she believed in the concept of a soul, but if she had to explain Holly’s demeanour in that moment, it would be as if hers were missing.
“Bon,” Charlotte replied. She gestured to Victoria. “This is Victoria.”
Holly turned to look at Victoria and held out her hand.
“Nice to meet you,” Holly said, a polite smile o
n her face.
Victoria stalled for a moment before shaking her hand.
“Likewise,” she said simply.
Holly retracted her hand and looked back at Charlotte. Confusion was clear in her expression as she waited for an explanation.
Victoria looked down at her own hand. She realised that it was probably the first time she had ever come into direct physical contact with Holly.
Charlotte gestured to Victoria, encouraging Holly to face her again.
“Do you recognise Victoria?” Charlotte enquired casually.
Holly turned to look at her again.
Victoria held herself taut. It was the first time any of her assistants had ever looked at her with such a probing eye. Most of her staff, Holly included, avoided eye contact at all costs. It felt strange to be under such scrutiny, especially from someone who had formerly been so timid.
“I’m sorry,” Holly addressed Victoria politely. “I don’t remember anything from before a year ago. I had an accident. Did we meet?”
Victoria felt her face contort into a supportive half-smile. She had felt for sure that Holly would take one look at her and would experience some kind of total recall. She’d recoil in horror, but at least her memories would be intact.
“Do you think you’ve met?” Charlotte asked before Victoria could speak.
Holly looked at Victoria again. Her eyes scanned her face, her hair, her clothes, looking for anything of consequence that might jog a memory. She looked back to Charlotte with a sad shake of her head.
“I don’t know, I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologise.” Charlotte smiled warmly. She stood up. “I’m going to leave you two to get reacquainted. Call me if you need me, I’ll be right over there.”
Victoria’s heart nearly stopped. Before she had a chance to protest, Charlotte had stepped away. Still within earshot, but far enough away for Victoria to feel abandoned and under an intense spotlight.
Victoria looked at Holly. She opened her mouth and then closed it again, unsure of what to say.
