Forgotten Girl

by Naomi Jacobs

  ‘Leo?’

  ‘Yes, hun, Leo.’ She gave me a strange look. ‘Your son.’

  I had guessed right then. Leo was the chubby-faced, yogurt-covered kid in the photograph on the kitchen wall.

  ‘He must be at school right now.’ She looked around the room as if I might have stashed him somewhere.

  This was information I couldn’t process, yet couldn’t deny. Stuck in a sort of maternal limbo, I did have a sense that my body had had a child, but trying to remember him made my head hurt again. I rubbed my temples and thought instead, That’ll be why these boobs look like they could hold a smeggin’ pencil case, never mind a pencil. But wait, she’d asked me some questions, hadn’t she?

  ‘I think I remember you. I don’t know where Leo is.’ I looked at her. ‘I don’t remember.’

  I pulled my hand from hers, trying to forget the let’s-test-the-pertness-of-your-boobs-with-a-pencil test the girls and I had done in the P.E. changing rooms.

  ‘Tell you what, why don’t you come to mine for a cuppa and we’ll figure this all out. Let’s get you dressed.’

  I stopped pacing and stared at her. I was scared, I was confused, I wanted her help, but she was a stranger.

  ‘Come on.’ I followed her up to the bedroom and watched her from the doorway as she opened the purple-flowered curtains, allowing a dim light in.

  ‘Clothes!’ she exclaimed cheerfully as if they were the answer to all my problems. We both looked at the white wardrobe stood in the corner. She pulled open the doors and went through the rack of garms2 bulging from their wooden home.

  This Katie was dressed a bit like a hippie, with a long black skirt, green kaftan top, beaded and crystal jewellery and loads of silver rings of all different shapes and sizes. With her full breasts, small hips and long unkempt hair, she kinda looked like an earth-mothery type. I relaxed a bit when I realized that this woman was not here to harm me.

  She pulled out a wine-coloured velour tracksuit and held it up. ‘This one.’

  I tried to stop myself from laughing and ended up snorting like Miss Piggy. The clothes were majorly offensive.

  ‘What?’ She looked from me to the criminal piece of clothing and smiled. ‘What’s wrong with it?’

  ‘Are you smeggin’ mental? Whose trackie is that?’

  ‘It’s the fashion,’ she sighed.

  ‘Yeah, like in the seventies maybe,’ I snorted. ‘That is sooooo making me wanna barf.’

  ‘Barf?’ She was clueless.

  ‘Hurl, spew, chuck . . . throw up?’

  ‘Oh.’ She burst out laughing. ‘I don’t get the tracksuit thing myself; it’s all a bit Crockett and Tubbs for me.’

  I gave her a small smile. Even though she was old, she seemed okay. I stepped fully into the bedroom and edged closer to her.

  Katie put the tracksuit back in the wardrobe. ‘Not doing a Miami Vice then,’ she told it, and pulled out a large black jumper instead. ‘There you go, plain and simple.’

  She closed the mirrored doors and I saw that old face again, my face, and felt panic twist in the pit of my stomach. She noticed my horrified reaction and put her hand on my shoulder. ‘Naomi, everything’s gonna be all right, you know?’

  ‘I know,’ I said, nodding. ‘I can borrow Eve’s Oil of Ulay.’

  Her smile dropped slightly when I said my mum’s name, but I blanked it, pulling the jumper off the hanger to put it up against my wiry frame. ‘Have I got jeans or a skirt or sumthin’?’

  ‘I think you wear it with tights.’ She opened the top drawer of the chest of drawers standing behind her.

  ‘It’s a dress?’ My jaw dropped.

  She smiled. ‘There you go.’ She handed me a pair of tights.

  I stared at them, stunned by the aqua green-blue nylon shimmer; the colour was almost unreal, acieed3 trippy unreal. I had never seen anything like it before.

  ‘Come on.’ She woke me from my fashion daze. ‘I’ll wait downstairs for you.’

  I got washed and dressed quick time, avoiding the mirrors. Instead, I concentrated on the clothes, thinking, We used to wear jumper dresses when I was, like, ten! Is this the eighties? What’s going on?

  Downstairs, Katie was holding a pair of black sheepskin-lined boots. I raised my eyebrows and turned my mouth in disgust.

  ‘They’re your Ugg boots,’ she said.

  ‘Ugh.’ They were even worse than the tracksuit. ‘Is that, like, short for “Ugly”? Is this a joke?’ I looked around for the hidden camera, as this was beyond the realm of mental.

  She burst out laughing. ‘Everyone wears them; try them on.’

  I hesitated. Then reckoned if she was my spar4 like she said she was, then surely she wouldn’t let me leave the house looking like a total div? I grabbed them from her, put them on, and found they were warm and comfy.

  ‘Come on. Ged’s waiting.’ When she opened the front door my stomach started to flip and I sucked in my breath. I was frozen again, unable to move.

  ‘No, I can’t. I don’t want to.’ I stared out into the street. It was quiet except for the rumbling traffic in the distance.

  She grasped hold of my hand. ‘Naomi, look at me. I will not let anything happen to you. You will be safe with me.’ She said each word slowly, making sure I heard every last syllable. ‘I know you don’t remember anything right now,’ she continued, ‘but one day, I promise, one day you will and, until that day, I will make sure you are okay. Okay?’

  The look of sincerity in her eyes seemed to coax my fears out from a small corner of mistrust and into a space of acceptance. I nodded and hung my head, relief flooding over me. She put her arms around me and I let her hug me, feeling safe. As long as I had this friendly, calm, patient woman around, things wouldn’t feel so . . . stale5.

  This woman, who was called Katie but was not my friend from school, gently wiped my face and then beckoned me to the car. She grabbed some keys from the hook on the wall and closed the front door. Her husband gave me a friendly smile, jumped out of the driver’s seat, and opened the back door for me.

  As the car pulled away, I stared out of the window at the unfamiliar house in which I had woken up. It was a small, brown-brick two-up two-down, with a tiny garden at the front. It was my own house of horrors, the last ride of the travelling funfair that stopped entertaining the moment I found myself trapped in it. Katie turned in her seat. ‘I’ve called your sister, hun. She’s on her way.’

  We pulled up into the drive of a terraced, newly built, three-storey grey and white house. I got out of the car and stared down the long cul-de-sac, not recognizing anything.

  ‘We’ve been here about three months. Four bedrooms, three floors,’ Katie informed me as I followed her through the hallway into the kitchen. ‘And this is my domain,’ she said proudly.

  The kitchen was light and airy and very large, with a big dining table and a brown leather sofa at one side. I could smell a faint aroma of sweet incense; in the corners were exotic-looking plants and glacial crystals. The walls were covered with crayon drawings of angels, dolphins, rainbows and robots. It was warm and inviting.

  ‘Sit down, babe. I’ll stick the kettle on.’

  I sank into the sofa; it was comfortable. On the other side of the large patio doors a gigantic, fat cherry-wood Buddha sat facing me. I felt like it was laughing at me.

  ‘When’s my sister getting here?’

  ‘She’ll be here soon. She’s not far. She’s left work early but it’s on the other side of town so . . . She’ll be here soon, babe. Naomi, do you know where we are?’

  I nodded. ‘Yeah, Manchester.’ Wow! What? Wait! I thought. How did I know this all of a sudden? Katie asked me more questions. How long had I been living in the city? Yes! I knew the name of the road and the number of the house I had woken up in. I was flummoxed. How did I know this? I didn’t know it when I woke up. I tried to remember moving into the house or the first time I arrived in Manchester.

  Nothing.

  ‘But when I woke up, I did
n’t know where I was, or how I got here, and it’s like I know where I am now, but I can’t remember living here.’ I was so confused.

  ‘So what’s the last thing you do remember?’ she asked.

  I looked into the drink she had handed me, hoping to see a reflection or an image of my life. I saw my pink and white bedroom in our house in Wolverhampton. I saw the small red-brick terraced house I shared with my younger sister, my mum, and my stepfather. I closed my eyes and clasped the cup in my hands. All I could see was me in my bed, late at night. I could hear my mum watching TV downstairs. Simone was on the top bunk bed above me, snoring quietly, while I was under the blankets with my trusty torch reading a French GCSE revision book and thinking about Robert Harris, the totally fit boy I fancied, but who didn’t fancy me back.

  ‘I fell asleep and . . .’ I paused. ‘I woke up in the future.’

  ‘Do you know how old you are?’ Katie was staring at me, wide-eyed, like an owl.

  ‘Fifteen, I think, but I know I’m not. I know I’m old.’

  Katie laughed. ‘God, if you’re old, then I’m ancient; you’re only thirty-two.’

  I smiled, but it so wasn’t funny. Thirty was ancient. After that, you were cashing in your pension.

  I took a sip of the coffee. It tasted awful, bitter and acidic. ‘Gross, Mr Morose,’ I muttered. ‘Do I like coffee?’ I asked her. ‘I mean, who would, like, really drink this?’

  ‘Well.’ She hesitated. ‘You do, in fact. You drink it all the time.’

  I didn’t understand and Katie looked confused. But hey, I just didn’t like coffee. I decided not to go there. Instead, I tried to remember something, but the pain just kept kicking my brain around my skull like John Barnes with a football.

  When she asked certain questions, I found I was able to answer them easily. I knew my date of birth, my age, my address, my postcode, Leo’s name, Katie’s telephone number, specific details about this life. I even knew it was Thursday 17 April and it was 2008. But what I did for my last birthday? No. How I met Katie? Nothing. What happened at the birth of Leo? Nada. I couldn’t find the memories anywhere in my mind.

  ‘When I look too hard, I get, like, this white-hot burning sensation that slaps my temples silly and shakes my head into, like, a dizzy spazoid meltdown. It seriously just makes me wanna hit the deck, and hurl again.’

  ‘I have no clue what you just said then.’ Katie gave a nervous laugh and shook her head. ‘I think . . . just . . . don’t try and remember now; I’m sure it will come to you.’

  She didn’t look so sure. Neither was I, and in that moment I decided that I would use all of my brainpower to will myself to fall asleep that night and wake up the next day back in my bunk bed, safe, secure, still fifteen and still thinking only of school, exams, and totally fit Robert Harris. Yes, back to 1992.

  As we were talking, the doorbell rang and Katie got up to answer it. It was my sister, I knew it was, but at this moment, I was afraid to see her. The last thing I remembered of my fourteen-year-old sister was that we had been arguing over hair gel and insulting each other in the worst ways imaginable. Should I believe the photos on the walls in that house? How much had she changed? Did she look old? Were we close or distant? Would she believe me? Could she help me? Would she tell Mum and Dad? Cause I sooooo didn’t want her to.

  As she walked into the kitchen, I freaked out. She wasn’t the Simone I knew but I could tell it was her. She was taller but still shorter than me, the corkscrew curls in her hair were now straight and she had gone kind of chubby.

  Wait. How had this happened? I thought. How had I gone skinny and she gone podgy? Simone still had the same almond-shaped soft brown eyes with fine eyelashes, straight nose, and full lips. Her smile was still large and beautiful and . . . she wasn’t wearing braces.

  What? She’s had her braces off? NO WAY! I touched my teeth and realized that I had also.

  And then it hit me like a ton of bricks.

  This really is the future.

  When I realized the gap in memory was so huge and I had missed seventeen years of loving my sister, I burst into tears. She came straight to me and gave me one of her infamous hugs. Her backbreaking, oxygen-squeezing, I-really-love-you hugs, and as she held me tight, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was Simone. My beautiful, loving, kind but tough as6 sister. I sobbed into her embrace.

  ‘It’s okay, chica,’ she said gently, taking a step back and wiping my soaked face. ‘What’s happened, babe?’ Tears welled in her eyes.

  ‘I don’t know, Sim, I don’t know.’ I couldn’t breathe. ‘My brain’s gone anal and it’s, like, crapping itself!’ I grabbed my head. ‘And I’ve got blue tights.’ I pointed at my knees. ‘Oh my God. Look at you!’ I laughed and pointed at her. ‘I feel sick.’

  I wiped away my tears, took a deep breath, and went over everything since I had woken up in the future, trying to leave nothing out. My sister listened intently. She became more serious as I told her about waking up in that house and not remembering how I got there, but she didn’t say a word.

  When I finished, she looked at Katie then turned to me. ‘You remember me, right?’

  ‘No, not really. Not like you are now.’

  ‘It’s okay, babe. It will be okay. I think we should call your doctor. Do you know the number?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘What about your mobile?’ she asked.

  ‘My what? Why the smeg would I have a baby toy?’

  Simone looked at Katie. ‘Your mobile phone? It should have all of your numbers in it.’

  I had no idea what they were talking about. Maybe it was that strange-looking cordless phone at the house.

  ‘It’s at the house . . . I think.’

  ‘I’ll send Ged for it,’ Katie said.

  Like a sergeant major pulling troops together, Simone’s voice changed to the familiar tone of someone taking charge. ‘Okay, and we’ll call the doctor and get you in, see if he can figure out what’s happening.’

  ‘What about taking her to the hospital?’ Katie suggested.

  ‘NO!’ I bellowed. ‘Don’t take me to the hospital. I won’t go, and you can’t frickin’ make me!’ Images of doctors telling me it was a brain tumour or some deadly brain disease suddenly had me wanting to fight anyone who might force me to step inside an A&E. Besides, later, under the cover of darkness, I was going back to 1992 so it didn’t matter.

  ‘I’ll go to the doctor’s. It’s not that serious.’

  While Ged went to fetch my ‘mobile phone’, Simone and Katie started discussing what could possibly be wrong with me. The conversation between them was interjected with questions to me about whether I had possibly wrapped up7 and banged my head without knowing it. Trying to remember anything was still causing me major pain so they stopped asking me questions. Instead, sensing I couldn’t take too much in, they gave me the basics, explaining about Leo while I just listened, a little fascinated about a life I had no clue about. This helped to stop the searing pain and I began to separate my mind from the person they were telling me about. They were talking about someone else, someone I didn’t know. They were talking about Adult Naomi.

  I didn’t ask that many questions. I was too afraid to know why certain faces were missing from the wall of photographs, namely my mother and my stepfather. I waited for Simone to mention them and she didn’t, so I decided I didn’t need to know, because maybe they had left us like I always thought they would. Anyway, it was Adult Naomi’s business, not mine, but . . .

  Having a child at twenty-one years of age? What was that about? I couldn’t believe it. I wondered whether she was totally off her head. That’s too young to be having a kid. I mean, I had babysat for kids since I was twelve, but no way was I gonna have any.

  Unless I was getting paid to babysit, I sooooo didn’t do children! To be told Adult Naomi did, and quite early on in her life, was totally incomprehensible. I was also majorly disappointed to learn that the house I had woken up in was in fact her two-b
edroom council house that she shared with her son. I did not want to know how she’d ended up living there. In fact, there wasn’t much I did want to know about her life because it wasn’t mine.

  Gerald returned with the mobile phone. He handed it to Simone and I watched as she used the tip of her fingers to touch the screen and search through a long list of numbers. There were no buttons and you just had to touch it to make it work. It was like something out of a film. I sat there thinking, Wow, this really is the future, expecting Doctor McCoy to walk through the door, hands on hips, saying, ‘It’s a phone, Jim, but not as we know it.’

  ‘Right, found it.’ Simone tapped the screen a few more times and placed the small phone to her ear. I stared at her, curious to see how she would conduct the conversation; more so how the person on the other end would hear her, given the mouthpiece was nowhere near her mouth.

  She didn’t talk into it like the Star Trek device I thought it was. Instead, she kept the phone in the same position throughout the conversation.

  ‘Yes, okay, okay, yes, no, she doesn’t want to go to the hospital.’ She looked at me; my stomach churned again, then rumbled. I was hungry. ‘Okay, yes, one moment.’ She took the phone away from her ear. ‘Babe, your doctor is on annual leave; he won’t be in for another two weeks. You can see another doctor, but not until Monday.’ I looked at Katie. I knew she was trying to send telepathic messages for me to go to the hospital. It wasn’t an option. I shrugged my shoulders and nodded that it was okay. Any doctor would do, I didn’t care. I was sure I would be back in 1992 before Monday anyway.

  ‘Doctor Davies, five o’clock, then, yes, I’ll bring her myself, okay, thank you.’

  Simone placed the phone next to her and held my hand again. She didn’t hang up. I continued to stare at the strange piece of technology, believing the receptionist was still on the other end listening. ‘Are you okay with this, Nay?’

  I nodded and whispered, ‘Yeah, sure.’

  Simone gave me a strange look. ‘Why are you whispering?’ she whispered.

  I leaned in closer and looked at the device. ‘She can still hear you.’