by Jean Levy
‘Which at no point included throwing an apple at me.’
‘I …’
‘It’s OK. I almost forgive you.’
Tea and menus were waiting in our suite. By the time the cheery attendant came to clear away, we had decided upon Thai prawns, Portabella ratatouille and pineapple brulée. Our order was hurried away and I stretched out on the sofa to try to fix in my mind what I had been told about a husband and sister, both deceased. Matthew wandered around turning on lamps and fruitlessly searching the minibar.
‘I’d give anything for a gin and tonic.’
‘Annie said you drink too much!’
He arched an eyebrow. ‘Well remembered!’ He went to the window to check on his car.
‘Is it still there?’
‘I’m just pleased to have it back. And I’m pleased to have you back. I have got you back, haven’t I?’
‘Maybe. Was it expensive?’
‘What?’
‘Your car. Was it expensive?’
‘Yes, Lucy bought it for my fortieth birthday.’
I sat up. ‘My God!’
He started to laugh. ‘I’m always attracted to wealthy women. Apart from you. You’re my folly!’
I laughed too. ‘Did she really buy you the car?’
‘Yes. And she provided most of the money to set up the agency. I just provided the good looks.’
I lay back ‘What was she called?’
‘Who?’
‘The sister. What was she called?’
‘We told you.’
‘Perhaps it’s one of the specific things I’m not allowed to remember. Remind me!’
‘I’m not sure … God, I wish Bob Gray had given me a session on how to handle this.’
‘I don’t think he knows how to handle it.’
‘Now I really need a gin and tonic.’
‘Matthew, come and sit down! Tell me her name!’
‘Let’s wait until after supper.’
‘Matthew, now!’
‘Oh God, all right.’ He sat down. ‘This is exactly what Williams said: “Did you mention her younger sister, Arachne, who died the same day her husband fell and broke his neck.” The same day you disappeared.’
I stared at him: ‘Are many people called Arachne?’
‘Probably not. In Greek mythology she was changed into a spider. How do you feel?’
‘I don’t feel anything. Apart from afraid that my mind’s about to empty out completely. But no, I don’t feel anything. No noises, no laughing.’
‘You remember about the laughing, do you?’
‘Yes, of course. And I remember what I’ve been told. About a husband and a sister who died the day I disappeared. But I can’t feel anything because I don’t remember it happening. And I don’t really believe it. It might all be lies.’
‘I wouldn’t lie to you.’
‘You pretended not to know me.’
‘Sarah, I …’
I touched my finger across his lips. ‘I’m glad you did what you did. I couldn’t have survived any longer on my own. And, besides, the sex has been spectacular!’
Matthew frowned.
I frowned back. ‘What?’
‘That sounded like you. From before. Every day, but especially today, you sound more like you from before.’
‘So there is a difference?’
‘No, the sex was always spectacular! Are you still remembering?’
‘Yes. Do you think the bed’s big enough for two?’
Matthew sighed. ‘Sarah, I am now worried that you’ve gone mad!’
‘I haven’t. It’s just that the food won’t be here for at least another hour.’
‘Sarah, stop thinking about sex! Tell me the name of the sister.’
I tried to remember. ‘It was an odd name, wasn’t it? I watched his frown deepen. ‘She was changed into a spider. But I can’t remember… yes I can: Arachne. Why was she changed into a spider?’
‘She pissed off a goddess! So you have remembered?’
‘It seems.’ I tugged at his shirt. ‘It’s a really big shower.’
*
Getting dressed for dinner seemed to be an odd thing to do in a clinic, but we did it anyway, although Matthew said that acknowledging the occasion was intensifying his need for alcohol. I continued to remind myself about my husband and sister until, at precisely seven o’clock, our banquet was wheeled in complete with fine china and crystal. Matthew thanked the porters, watched them leave then sat and stared miserably at the jug of water. He fished out two slices of lemon.
‘Why do they always …? What are you smiling at?’
‘The first time we went to Tony’s bistro you ordered no lemon for me and I was too stupid to realise you already knew I didn’t like it.’
‘Clearly I’d never make a successful liar.’
‘Really?’
The prawns and the ratatouille were delicious but by dessert I was sick of remembering. I repeated yet again: ‘Jeff Blake, Arachne …’ I threw down my spoon. ‘This is ridiculous!’
Matthew glanced up from his brulée. ‘What’s ridiculous?’
‘Saying these things like they mean nothing. I ought to feel sad. And, anyway, how could all those things happen on the same day?’ I turned towards a distant rumbling. ‘Two accidents and me disappearing …’
I fought to ignore it. But it was drawing closer. I could feel that cold, grey mist rising up all around me, engulfing me, turning my feet to ice. And through it, beyond it, a darker shadow. I opened my mouth wide and tried to shout but I had no breath to shout with. Then all at once the mist began to disperse. I could feel Matthew shaking me. And it was gone.
He pulled his chair round next to mine. ‘Why did that just happen? What started it?’
‘I don’t know.’ I gripped his sleeve. ‘It was suffocating me.’
‘Sarah, you know it’s not real. Tell me what you’ve been remembering.’
‘I’ve been remembering a husband who died. Jeff Blake.’
‘Who else?’
I couldn’t remember anybody else. I shook my head.
‘Sarah, what was the name of the woman who was turned into a spider?’
‘A spider?’
‘Sarah, try to remember our conversation! I told you her name.’
I could feel his frustration. I didn’t want to be doing this to him. Then a cold shock rippled through me: these new things I was forgetting … I choked back the panic.
‘What’s wrong? Is it starting again?’
‘I’ve forgotten you!’
‘What do you mean? You haven’t forgotten me.’
I was barely able to turn the fear into words. ‘I’ve forgotten things you said. That means I’ve forgotten you when you said them. My mind has stolen my time with you.’
‘Sarah, no! The time’s not stolen. It’s just out of reach because of the information that’s in it. Come on, let’s start again. We told you you had a sister who died. Concentrate.’
‘A sister?’ I tried to think of a sister.
‘Yes, we told you she died the same day Jeff had the accident.’ He ran his hands through his hair. ‘Sarah, tell me about Jeff Blake. What happened to him?’
I didn’t know. I closed my eyes and searched inside the darkness: Jeff Blake. He was alive and then he was dead and something happened in between. Earlier that evening I had known what it was. I had to pull that memory back. My own memory that was being hidden from me by my own mind. I rummaged through the hopeless jumble of thoughts, traces of the evening so far. Lucy. Matthew’s car. The shower. I opened my eyes.
‘He fell, didn’t he?’
‘Yes. He broke his neck and later he died. No one knows how it happened.’
‘But you said the husband had the accident the same day the sister died.’
‘Yes, the day you disappeared.’
‘Did the sister fall as well?’
‘No!’
I went to ask how, then, could those things all happen the s
ame day, but before I could even formulate the sentence I heard the laughter approaching:
‘It’s what I mustn’t know! What my mind keeps erasing every time I get close to it. I mustn’t remember how they died.’ Ignore the noises. ‘Did they die in the same place?’
‘Pretty much.’
Ignore the noises. ‘Where?’
‘At your mother’s house. In Hornsey.’
Episode Thirty-nine
‘But my mother’s dead. How can she have a house?’
‘She isn’t dead. She’s in an institution. With severe dementia.’
‘But they told me she was dead.’
‘No, apparently they let you assume it. They didn’t warn me about it. Your mother’s well but she needs constant care because of the dementia. Do you remember what that is?’
‘Of course I do! But isn’t dementia something really old people get?’
‘Diana’s not that old.’
‘Is that my mother’s name?’
‘Yes, Diana Dawson.’
‘Dawson?’
‘She remarried. Diana has a long history of alcohol abuse, which was why you went to live with your grandma. She was Geraint Williams’ third person, DD. She was there that day. Then she was taken into care. She hasn’t been able to tell anybody what happened.’
‘Where did you say my mother’s house was?’
‘In Hornsey.’
I shook my head and tried to absorb this new information but as I embraced non-orphanhood, an unpleasant possibility presented itself.
‘Was I at my mother’s house that day?’
‘Sarah, that’s what nobody knows. The last time anybody remembers seeing you was that morning. Two days later you were unconscious on a beach and no-one knows how you came to be there or if anyone else was involved.’
I tried to concentrate. Then something occurred to me, something really bad.
‘Matthew, you said the police suspected I hadn’t really lost my memory. Do they think I was there that day? Do they think I did something terrible and … ?’
There was a sharp rap on the door, which instantly swung open. Sam Clegg stepped in flanked by two porters. He looked different: his suit trousers and starched white coat had been abandoned for jeans and a sweatshirt; in fact he looked like a completely normal human being. He set his laptop case down and asked if we were receiving visitors.
Matthew leapt up. ‘Sarah, are we receiving visitors?’
I said yes, we were. Perhaps this would be an opportunity to stop worrying about the things I couldn’t remember. The things I might have done.
The table was cleared, the porters left and our young psychologist unzipped his laptop bag and pulled out a large packet of crisps and a bottle of Merlot.
‘Here, Matthew,’ he said, ‘I thought you might appreciate this.’
‘Sam, you might just have saved my sanity.’
‘You’re welcome.’ He sat across from me and smiled. ‘How’s the recall?’
‘I’m forgetting new things.’
‘We know. We’ll make it right.’
We chatted easily. I watched them enjoying their wine and tried to force my most recent fears from my mind. Matthew asked Sam a couple of questions about his research and edged around asking his opinion of Geraint Williams. I was nowhere near as tactful.
‘I don’t know how you can work with that bastard Williams,’ I declared. ‘And Shoumi Mustafa’s a creep!’
Sam laughed. ‘Well observed, Sarah! But Geraint is an accomplished surgeon and he’s rumoured to be a good clinical researcher. He did time at Caltech a few years back. The drug companies love him and that brings bags of money our way, so Bob tolerates him, despite the fact that he’s an arsehole. And Bob’s your physician so he’ll always be the one making the decisions. Between you and me, he was absolutely furious about Della Brown.’
‘Me too!’ said Matthew. ‘Would you get it in the neck if Bob knew you were here?’
‘No, I asked him if it was OK, and he said yes, but no discussing what an arsehole Geraint is because it’s unprofessional. But, I’m research staff, so I can be as unprofessional as I like.’
Matthew laughed. I was relieved to see him relax. I, on the other hand, while the conversation rambled on, was mulling over the fact that my mother was still alive in an institution somewhere, and the possibility that the police suspected that I’d been involved in something terrible. But I seemed to have forgotten exactly what that terrible thing might have been. With all the excitement of Sam’s visit, the memories had ceased to stay fresh in my mind. I needed to ask them to remind me what I was supposed to remember.
‘Sweetheart, are you OK?’ They were both staring at me.
‘I’m fine.’ I looked at Sam. ‘Matthew told me my mother’s still alive.’
‘I said that Diana has been in an institution since the incident with Jeff and Arachne.’
Jeff and Arachne. It occurred to me that it might help if those names were written down.
‘Sam, would it be cheating if we wrote those names down?’
Sam stretched over and grabbed his notebook. ‘There’s no cheating, Sarah. We’re making this up as we go along.’ He pulled out a page and handed it to me along with his pen, then watched me write down the two names, helped me to spell Arachne. ‘I should have thought of physical processing … and taking advantage of visual memory.’
Another kind of memory. I placed the piece of paper on the table and felt instantly relieved of some of the burden of remembering. ‘Perhaps if I could see photos?’
Sam took a quick mouthful of wine before responding. ‘Geraint is of the opinion that photographs corrupt memories rather than enhance them. And I’m inclined to agree with him up to a point. We often remember photographs of people rather than the people themselves. Nevertheless, it is Bob’s intention to show you photos tomorrow.’
‘Will Geraint Williams be there?’ asked Matthew.
‘Not first thing. He’ll be showing Isabel around. Exhibiting his most interesting patients. Then he’ll be allowing some drug rep to take them all to lunch. So it’s just the four of us until two-thirty.’
I felt a wave of relief pass over me. I looked again at the two names on the paper ‘When did you first become interested in memories, Sam? Or don’t you remember?’
He laughed. ‘Actually, I do remember. It was shortly after I fell out of a tree. It was an old apple tree covered in mistletoe. A slight variation on Mr Newton’s iconic moment. But still significant.’
‘Are you going to enlighten us?’ asked Matthew.
Sam took another swig of Merlot. ‘I was twelve. I’d built this dodgy tree house with my brother. And we were sitting in it arguing about whose idea it had been. So I jumped up and declared that I’d been planning to build it since before he was born. Which was unlikely since I was only two years older than him. And I fell off the edge of the platform. Broke my leg in three places. Had to have a rod stuck through my femur.’ He acknowledged our groans of sympathy. ‘Then, a few weeks after the surgery, it started to dawn on me that there was a whole stretch of the previous year I couldn’t remember: about six weeks, that just happened to include my birthday. My parents had given me a mountain bike, but I couldn’t remember getting it. And I’d been taken to Alton Towers for my birthday treat and all I could remember were disconnected fragments of the day: things I’d remembered since. It wasn’t investigated because I didn’t tell anyone, but it was the beginning of my interest in forgetting.’
‘Did the memories come back?’ I asked.
‘No. They were gone. In retrospect, it must have been the anaesthesia. Small foci inside my brain must have suffered hypoxia, low oxygen, and just burned out. If it hadn’t have involved my birthday memories I would never have noticed. We forget things all the time. That’s the normal state of affairs. But memories about my birthday, about things I would have chosen to remember, they ought to have been there.’
‘Do you think my memories have burned out?
’
‘No, I don’t. But you need to gain access to them.’ He pulled open the bag of crisps, offered them across the table then helped himself to a handful. ‘You know, Matthew, I think it was great the way you got back with Sarah. The whole isolation idea was ridiculous. Bob was willing to go along with it for a while. But he insisted on Sarah’s return home. I think he knew at that point the isolation would be impossible.’ He looked at me. ‘So, you discovered the things in the upstairs flat?’
‘Matthew was going to let me carry on not knowing.’
‘Sarah, I …’
‘Did you punch him?’
