The Missing Pieces of Us

by Eva Glyn

  One thing’s for sure, I have to stop crying in front of her. I ponder it in the bath, sipping my gin. It can’t happen at work, either. But if I carry on like this I’ll have no more tears left anyway. Maybe blocking Connor from my mind was the right thing to do, and after all, it worked with Robin all those years ago. So now Claire’s helped me to prove my memories, why can’t I just shut him away again?

  But they’re not proven, are they? Not really. There’s a blurred line between what is wrong and what is right. More than a line – blurred years between the day at the fairy tree with Robin and when Claire was old enough to start remembering. How will I ever find out about those? I have my foothold but it isn’t enough.

  Those missing years are crucial. In many ways they made me who I am. I lost the love of my life. Yes, that happened, because whatever the how and why, I didn’t see Robin again for twenty years. I remember the flat in Shirley. I remember feeling broken. But why did I remember that he was there too?

  Did I want him so badly I made it up?

  And later, when my mother hauled me up by my bootstraps and bailed me out? That was so like her it probably did happen, and after all I did end up a teacher. She’d have swept down from Watford, given me a good talking to, then gone back to her WRVS work without a further thought. She’d fixed me so I could get on with my life. She’s not here to fix me now.

  Tears fall again and my head starts to thump. Could Fiona be right? Could there be a physical cause? It’s the scariest thought of all, because there’s no way I can leave Claire. I remember only too well how Robin was after losing his mother. But then I don’t, do I? How much of what I believe is built on untruths?

  The water goes cold around me and it’s only when Claire calls goodnight that I find it in myself to creep downstairs and sit on the sofa, Connor’s picture in one hand and a fresh gin in the other. I press the coolness of the glass against my forehead. Why, oh why, is this happening to me? But there is no answer in Connor’s smiling eyes.

  It is as I’m washing up my glass that I do remember something. Not Connor, but Robin. When we thought it was his memory at fault. Something about not having any wine because he didn’t want any more little grey cells disappearing. My hand shakes. No, it can’t be that. It’s not as though I drink very much, do I?

  Oh come on, Izzie, one moment you’re having a breakdown, the next it’s a tumour and now it’s the booze.

  Get a bloody grip.

  Tomorrow you need to phone your GP and sort this whole wretched mess out.

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  I sit in my car and gaze at the roses clambering over Jennifer’s front porch as I wait for Robin to come home. Pale pink and deep mauve in a swirling embrace, the leaves rocking gently in the breeze. I am too drained, too defeated, to do anything other than draw figures of eight on the steering wheel with my fingertip while I watch them dance.

  There’s a scrunch of tyres, an engine behind me. Robin’s van. Will he be angry or will he understand? I can’t even look in his direction but I hear his footsteps on the gravel and his shadow falls across me. After a moment he opens the car door.

  He clears his throat. “How did your appointment go?”

  I look up. He’s in his work clothes, his sweatshirt grubby with grass stains and a dead leaf in his hair. “I bottled it.”

  He crouches down, his warm, earthy smell level with my nose, his eyes fixed on mine. His voice is sad, not angry. “Oh, Izzie.”

  “I know. But I couldn’t… I couldn’t… Fiona said something this morning – about another child – but I hadn’t thought… I hadn’t thought… Robin, they could take Claire away.”

  He holds my hand as I sob. Nothing else. But the way he changes his grip to echo mine, I know he understands. I free myself and reach into my pocket for a tissue to blow my nose. He unfolds his long body and stretches.

  “Come on, I’ll make us a mug of tea. I’ve got some lemon cake too. Maria made it – she’s always trying to feed me up.”

  We sit opposite each other on low armchairs in the old dining room, with the French doors open to let in the scent of the honeysuckle surrounding them. The cake sticks to the roof of my mouth and the tea is too hot to wash it away.

  “So if you go to the GP, you think there’s a risk they would put Claire into care because you’re ill?”

  “There’s no one else to look after her, is there?” I want to add not since you moved out but that would sound as though I’m blaming him.

  “Well there is. There’s me, there’s Sasha’s mum – maybe Jack’s parents too, at a push. But I guess there’s no legal basis for any of that.”

  “No.”

  He speaks slowly. “The thing is, if there’s something physically wrong going undiagnosed…”

  “You don’t have to say it.”

  “OK, but what I mean is, I don’t really think you have the option to do nothing.”

  The tea scalds my mouth and I put my mug on the floor. “To be honest, I’ve been in such a panic all afternoon I haven’t been able to think straight at all.”

  “Want some help?”

  I nod.

  “Then take me through the possible reasons.”

  “I… I don’t think I can.”

  “I know it’s hard. When I thought I had a problem, everything just kept swirling around. But you have your foothold, don’t you? You know your memories are fine for the last ten, twelve years. Nothing recent is missing. And from what I saw of Jennifer, dementia works the opposite way. The old memories last the longest.” He shrugs. “Not that I’m an expert – I just have some practical experience of it. And Gareth said he didn’t think it was the case with me either, and what you’re going through now is the other side of the same coin.”

  I run my finger over the braid on the arm of the chair. “Do you think… Gareth would talk to me?”

  “In an instant.”

  “Off the record?”

  “I don’t know about that. But probably. An initial chat at least. I don’t really know how it works but you could always ask him.”

  “Could you do it for me?”

  “Of course.” He picks up his phone. He’s not going to give me the chance to change my mind.

  I stand and wander into the garden. The early evening warmth is reflecting from the walls and the grass feels so soft I can’t resist the urge to kick off my sandals and walk barefoot. It takes me back to a moment in time I struggle to place and the peaceful scene around me fractures. I dig my fingernails into my palms. Think, Izzie, think. Yes, my first trip to Ireland with Connor. A field so lush I told him I felt as though I’d walked into a butter advert, so he galloped around pretending to be a bull. But more than that I remember a feeling, a tautness inside me, holding something back, not laughing as much as I should have.

  Robin is crossing the lawn, holding out his Blackberry. “It’s all good. He and Stephen are coming for the weekend. Just have a quick chat with him to sort out a time you can talk.”

  Then he marches away towards the vegetable patch as I put the phone to my ear and say Gareth’s name.

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Once Robin and Stephen close the door behind them the kitchen is still, but we can hear them at the front of the house cutting roses to take to Jennifer’s grave.

  “It’s about time they went up there together,” Gareth says.

  “I wish I’d known Jennifer better.”

  “So do I. By the time Stephen brought me home she had already lost so much of herself. But the better part of her lives on in Robin. And Stephen too, in some ways.”

  “Her beliefs?”

  He nods. “And her compassion, and kindness, and inherent good sense. I feel I know her from the way they both speak about her.”

  “She certainly turned Robin’s life around.”

  “Stephen’s too. When he came out, his parents didn’t want to know him, and his brother, Toby, was always the blue-eyed boy with them anyway. He’d always felt second best, even i
n his own home, until Jennifer made him believe otherwise.”

  “Being second best is hard.”

  Gareth steeples his fingers together. “You say that with some feeling.”

  “I was never top of my mother’s priority list. And when I had Claire… the intensity of that love… I didn’t dare have another child in case it wasn’t the same.”

  “You were frightened that the love you had to give was limited in some way because of your relationship with your mother?”

  “Not because of that. Because I had given so much to Robin. Connor…” I swallow hard. “Connor was second best, but he made me feel safe and he loved me. I hope to God he never knew. I did everything I could to… to…” Tears threaten. Bugger. I’ve had a good couple of days up until now.

  “It must be hard to hide your feelings from someone for twenty years.”

  I sniff. “The thing is, I was good at hiding them from myself too. For years, really. And now I say it out loud I wonder… perhaps that was where the memory went? But even so, why the hell did I fabricate a completely different one?”

  “Tell me about those memories.”

  And so I do, while he sits back with his head on one side as he listens. Normally, Gareth is full of energy but now he is still, his attention focused completely on me. It encourages me to talk and I go on and on and on, everything I thought had happened spewed into a messy bundle on the table between us.

  Eventually I draw breath. “I’m sorry. I’ve… I’ve never spoken about it before. I’ve never been able to. But of course it doesn’t matter because it isn’t real.”

  “You said you blocked Robin from your memories for years. How do you think that happened?”

  “I don’t know. I… You see, he must have been there at first, because otherwise why would Connor have felt like second best? I do remember though – as much as I can be sure of anything – that when Claire was born I knew I had to move on.”

  “And you succeeded?”

  “Up to a point. And anyway, I didn’t have the energy for anything other than being a mother and a wife. I was the main breadwinner. I went back to work very quickly. There was no time to dwell on the past.”

  I close my eyes. The hiss of the Aga fills the silence and away in the woods a pheasant calls. And then there’s something…

  “Gareth?”

  “Yes?”

  “How… how do I know anything is real? The gap… it could be huge.”

  “Trust yourself, Izzie. Tell me what made you say that.”

  “When Claire was three,”—my mouth is dry so I sip my tea, but it’s cold—“Connor wanted to bring her to the fairy tree. Someone must have told him about it. So we had a family outing. W-when we walked up that slope and I saw it, it was like a tidal wave crushing me. It all came back: Robin and me holding hands around the trunk to wish, the storm, and making love under the willow… I was absolutely devastated. Too broken to even try to hide it from Connor.

  “Connor was very possessive. And I was OK with that because it made me feel loved, and safe. I couldn’t tell him the truth about how much I loved Robin though – he’d have hated it. And he might have guessed I didn’t love him as much. So instead I told him the tree brought back such awful memories – of a hateful, moody, drunken man, who lied to me when he lost his job then walked out, leaving me up to my neck in debt. But could I… could I have made that up?”

  “Would I be right in thinking that remembering this is something of a revelation?”

  “Yes, yes it is.” I stand and pace the length of the table and back. “That I could have made it up deliberately… then actually started to believe it… It’s not possible, is it?”

  “Of course it is.”

  That stops me in my tracks. “Really? How?”

  “Memory is a complex thing, easily distorted and fractured. There has been great debate over the years as to whether false memory syndrome actually exists, but it’s been proved under lab conditions so I believe it does.”

  I sit back down, clutching the edge of my seat. “Tell me.”

  “The best known experiment reminded people of three genuine childhood memories and threw in a false one. Over time, when they were talked about, almost a quarter of the people believed them all.”

  “But how?”

  “Well, firstly, very few people remember as accurately as they think they do. They might perceive the actual event incorrectly, or perhaps something happens later to compromise memory retrieval once it has faded. The brain associates it with the wrong thing, if you like. And surrounded by the real memories, it becomes a truth all of its own.”

  I trace a figure of eight on the table. “So I’m not so strange, after all?”

  “Well lots of other things affect memory too, like grief, stress, depression – things with which I understand you’re familiar. Not to mention other stuff like alcohol abuse, even menopause. But all those tend to damage short-term memory. No, I’d say this is definitely false memory syndrome. It’s hard to see it could be anything else.”

  I put my head on my folded arms on the table and weep.

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  I look at the plate of carbonara in front of me, spaghetti twisted and tangled with no conceivable way of winding it onto my fork. I push it away.

  “Aren’t you hungry, Mum?” Claire asks.

  “It’s my own fault. A grateful parent brought in a huge box of doughnuts for afternoon break.”

  It’s not a lie. What I don’t say is that I didn’t eat any of them. In truth, I was too busy watching Fiona watching me. There’s something up, I know there is. But I also know damn well it can’t be because I smell of alcohol because I hardly drink anything in the week and I’ve taken to using mouthwash every morning anyway.

  I need to distract us both. “It’s your statistics paper tomorrow, isn’t it? Do you want to go through anything?”

  “No, it’s all good. I thought I’d cram for an hour after tea, then perhaps we can go for a walk to clear my head? Maybe just up to the copse and back?”

  “That’s a great idea. I need to check the test for the numeracy group. It’s their last lesson next week and although we don’t want to call it an exam, we need some sort of assessment and I have to hand it in to the office tomorrow for printing.”

  I leave Claire to finish her tea alone, telling her I’ll microwave mine if I feel hungry later. I pour a small gin from the bottle in my bathroom cupboard into my toothmug and take it to the study. But I don’t look at the assessment. I tip back in my chair and stare at the ceiling.

  I still can’t make sense of it. Everything’s mashed and muddled, when it all seemed so clear on Saturday afternoon talking to Gareth. I should ring him – he said to call any time – but I don’t want to disturb his evening. He emailed me some links on false memory syndrome and even though I know he’s right, they confused me even more.

  I know what happened. I’ve found a reason. It’s years in the past. So why can’t I let it go? For the hundredth time I tell myself it shouldn’t be this hard, but for some reason it is. It’s as if my foundations have been shaken and I don’t trust myself anymore.

  I want another gin but it can wait until Claire and I get back from our walk. We’ve had a little evening ramble a few times now and it’s good to do something together. Sometimes we work in the garden for half an hour instead. Anything to get us outside, she says. I’m so proud of the young woman she’s become.

  I look at my watch. I’ve only been here twenty minutes. Best get my work done. I’m sure if I really try I can concentrate. They’re lovely safe numbers after all but I’m pretty tired, to be honest. Another drink would perk me up no end but then Claire calls that she’s ready and I tuck my empty toothmug behind the computer and go to join her.

  Claire is quiet as we make our way down the footpath to the copse so I ask her if everything’s all right.

  “Everything’s fine. Well, fine-ish. Jack’s just a bit exam stressy at the moment.”

>   “And are you?”

  “No point. I’ve put in the work so what else can you do? But I’m lucky, aren’t I, because you and Dad always made it clear that exams aren’t the be all and end all. Jack’s parents heap the pressure on.”

  “That’s sad and unnecessary – counterproductive even. But there’s only a few weeks to go and then you’ll be off to Newquay and he can forget all about it.”

  Claire fiddles with the hem of her sweatshirt. It’s a sign I know well. I stop and smile at her. “Spit it out.”

  “I still don’t know if I should go.”

  “Because of Jack?”

  “No… because of you.”

  “I’m all right Claire. I only burst into tears very occasionally now and I promise I’ll eat my tea when we get back.” I laugh and link my arm through hers. “Honestly, talking to Gareth on Saturday helped me to sort out a few things that were bothering me and I feel so much better.”

  “What sort of things?”

  I’ve been ready for this. “Mainly to do with why I hadn’t grieved for your father sooner. It made me feel very guilty, you know.”

  “Mum, you mustn’t. He’d never have wanted that. He’d want you to be happy and I know he’d have liked Robin. I mean, how could anyone not?”

  “How indeed. He texted today and asked if it was too late to take you for a little surfing practice before your trip. I said he’d have to ask you and he will when he’s checked the conditions and tides.”

  Her face is shining. “Oh wow, that’s fabulous.”

  Robin is so good for her. All I want now is for me to be good for him.

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  “Bella, can I have a word?”

  It’s not as though I haven’t been expecting it all day, but all the same, Fiona’s voice at my shoulder makes me jump. “I’m invigilating next period. How about afterwards?”