What Was Lost

by Jean Levy

  ‘OK, starting backwards from NOW, I’d like you to mark along the last stretch of the line anything you can remember since waking up in hospital. Try to label everything in the correct order.’ He watched me carrying out his instruction. Then he asked me to start on the far left and note down my earliest memories. I shifted the card then paused.

  ‘Dr Gray gave me photos of my birthday. That’s a new memory isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. But you did say the photos evoked actual memories, so include them.’

  So I marked down my seventh birthday, the Ribena incident, my granny going into hospital. I paused again: ‘I remember a little rag doll, but I had her for a long time.’ Sam suggested I mark her down where it seemed most appropriate. So I did. I looked up.

  ‘I’ve no idea what happened to that doll. She was called Raggedy.’

  ‘Raggedy?’ said Matthew.

  ‘Yes! And we had a cat, but it wasn’t always the same one. Unless it was a magical cat that changed colour. I could put the cats down in the order I remember them.’

  ‘That would be fantastic, Sarah!’

  When I’d finished locating my memories, Sam asked me to focus on the middle section of my timeline.

  ‘You’ll notice that, not only is that middle section empty, it is also disproportionately short.’

  ‘Does that tell you anything?’

  ‘Yes, it does! Essentially, there are two things to consider when we think back over our lives. One is the long stretch of time that has passed and the other is the events that fit into it. Your mind has been working to expunge those events. And, metaphorically speaking, if there are no events in time to maintain its integrity, then it shrinks away.’

  ‘But if my memories come back, will there be time left for them to fit back into?’

  ‘Sarah, nothing is actually disappearing. This is just a representation of the way your mind is diminishing your time. But, if you’re going to confront this mind of yours, it’s essential you realise what it’s denying you. It might help you refine your own conscious strategies.’

  ‘Do you think that’s possible?’

  ‘Yes! You already have successful strategies. Apart from the fork counteroffensive, which we do not recommend. You believe you can outmanoeuvre the repression by pre-empting it. And you’re also re-remembering. We all have implicit, procedural memory, which deals with everyday skills. It involves repetition. You’re managing to mimic that repetitive process against attempts by your mind to wipe the slate clean.’

  I looked from Sam to Dr Gray and felt inclined to complain. ‘You’ve all known that my mind was still wiping my slate clean but you never told me.’

  Bob Gray regarded me over his spectacles. ‘We find ourselves here not up against a static retrograde amnesia, which would be difficult enough. We are instead confronting a more dynamic, on-going repression. Right now things are improving and new information is being retained. That’s more than we hoped for a few weeks ago, I have to say. And we don’t want anything to confuse these improvements. We are your physicians. We are not so much concerned with your past; we are concerned with helping you remember it. Do you want to remember your lost time, Sarah?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Then we must go back to the beginning.’ He handed me a folder. ‘This is your story up to about a year ago. Let’s take a look at it. Then when you’re ready we’ll try moving closer to the moment things went astray.’

  I opened the folder and smiled at the first page. A single photo. A new child, fresh into the world, ready to embrace a life unchosen. In her tiny plastic crib, fingers splayed with the horror of new light and noise and smells, the little girl lay learning her life. New things had to be dealt with and dealt with straightaway. But more than anything she would have to remember so much. I couldn’t remember back then, nobody can, but I could imagine the feeling of isolation. And I could feel some inexplicable sadness. Perhaps because I knew that that small girl would one day be sitting in this room with a past so terrible that to remember it was incompatible with any happiness she had ever known. I breathed a sigh.

  ‘Where did you get this from, Sam?’

  ‘From your photo albums. It’s a copy. We’ve put all the originals back as they were.’

  I mustered a smile and turned the page: a baby in her mother’s arms; a toddler with her mother paddling in the sea; a tiny girl stumbling towards a man’s outstretched arms.

  ‘Is that my father? What was he called?’

  Sam answered. ‘Jack Clark. He and your mother separated when you were two years old, but he visited several times when you were at your grandmother’s, for possibly another three years. According to Annabelle, you tried to trace him when you were in college. She thinks he emigrated to Australia. We’re trying to check.’

  ‘Sam, where did my parents live when they were together?’

  ‘You were born in Wimbledon. The 1981 census lists both your parents as living there in April of that year. On the night of the 1991 census your mother was living in the house in Hornsey with you and your half-sister.’

  ‘Do you remember the name Hornsey?’ interrupted Matthew.

  ‘I think Sam mentioned it last night.’ There was an exchange of glances.

  Sam continued. ‘Your stepfather, John Dawson, had left by this time. He and your mother separated just after you went to live with her following your grandmother’s death.’

  ‘Did they blame me for him leaving.’

  Dr Gray held up his hand. ‘According to Miss Grant, you were, quite wrongly, accused of contributing to the breakdown of this second marriage by both your mother and your half-sister. You were never close to either of them. It’s far more likely that the marriage fell apart due to alcohol abuse. Your mother and Dawson were both addicted to alcohol. Dawson was twice arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol and barbiturates. It was while driving under such influence that he caused the accident which took his life.’ He looked at me. ‘It seems that it was at this point that your mother resumed her excessive drinking.’

  Sam indicated the folder. ‘The next pages illustrate the years with your grandmother in Kent, near Margate. There are several seaside images. Two of your father. There are others in your collection around this time. One of them shows a rock face in the background. It’s a bit of a long shot but we’re trying to determine whether it could have been taken by the cliffs at Beer Cove.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘It’s where you were found,’ said Sam.

  I shook my head and turned the pages, looked at scenes, vaguely familiar. I pointed to a garden photo. ‘It’s Raggedy and the ginger cat!’

  ‘I thought you’d like that one!’ said Sam.

  My school report at age seven spoke of the creative imagination of a child whose writing would be improved if she concentrated more on her spelling. I laughed.

  ‘Grandma said one day computers would do my spelling for me. What did Granny Clark die of?’

  ‘Pancreatic cancer,’ said Sam. ‘Quite suddenly.’

  ‘I hope my memories of her are safe. I’ll keep remembering them just to be sure. Do you know how often my mother visited when I was at my grandma’s?’

  ‘It seems she came down a few times. In the most recent of the Margate shots, she has the new baby with her.’

  I found the photo. Studied myself, standing beside my mother, slightly apart, looking up at her. The mother I couldn’t remember, smiling down at the new baby in her arms. I looked at myself, probably eight years old; at the woman, thin and pale but still recognisable as the mother of the elder daughter that had been me. But now the baby in her arms was the half-sister, asleep, protected, whereas I had been sent away. Her baby fingers were just distinguishable against the mother’s bare arm. Touching as I was untouched. Included as I was excluded. I felt a deep pang of rejection echo across the forgotten years. My eyes became uncontrollably fixed upon the tiny fingers. And then the tiny fingers began to move, closed tight against soft skin and pulled
the mother’s arm further away from the untouched girl. When the laughter came, it came from within the mother’s arms. I gasped.

  ‘She’s laughing at me!’

  Sam pulled the folder away. Slowly I relaxed. ‘I’m sorry, I forgot to be ready.’

  ‘Is the laughter there now?’ said Sam.

  I shook my head. ‘It’s a long way away. It was the sister. My mother holding her. Arachne. I remember her name. Why? I can’t remember anything about either of them.’

  ‘But you clearly did,’ said Bob Gray. ‘And they are clearly at the heart of your anxieties. Your husband maybe not so much. But then husbands and wives come and go and you can get over them. Fathers and mothers and sisters can break a child’s heart forever.’ He clasped his hands together. ‘Now, it’s almost lunchtime, so why don’t we …?’

  ‘But Dr Gray, what about the rest of the folder?’

  ‘Perhaps tomorrow, Sarah. The next section details the years you lived with your mother and sister.

  Episode Forty-four

  Geraint Williams’s contingent filed into the consulting room. I watched a brief flicker of irritation in his eyes as he directed Professor Bluet to her seat.

  ‘Bob,’ he said. ‘I hope you don’t mind: I’ve invited Andrew Booker to observe today.’

  He indicated a youngish man who looked as if he had just emerged, newly-suited, from his Bond Street tailor; even Geraint Williams looked shoddy beside him.

  ‘Andrew, let me introduce Robert Gray, our senior clinician and Dr Samuel Clegg, our research psychologist, seconded from Manchester University. This is Dr Andrew Booker from Dubrais Pharmaceuticals.’

  Bob Gray got to his feet and offered his hand. ‘Dr Booker, welcome. Geraint, we had better ask Ms Blake if she is happy to continue with these interviews in front of such a large gathering. Particularly, in the light of yesterday’s turn of events.’ He turned towards me. ‘Sarah? I know you’re feeling quite exhausted after this morning’s session.’

  I enjoyed a brief and quite malicious satisfaction at the look of surprise on Geraint Williams’ face as I offered Andrew Booker my hand.

  ‘I hope I prove to be sufficiently interesting to justify your time, Dr Booker. This is my partner, Matthew Parry.’ I watched Matthew and Andrew Booker shake hands. Aesthetically it was very pleasing; psychologically it was more pleasing than that.

  When everybody was seated, Bob Gray opened the session. He gave a brief summary of my new strategies then asked me if I would confirm these developments in my own words. I tried not to feel too exhilarated by the significant narrowing of Geraint Williams’ eyes as I addressed my audience, although his clear annoyance provided me with the precise burst of confidence I needed. I described how I was able to confront the threatened removal of my new memories by pre-empting the aura.

  ‘Are you hearing the laughter all the time, Sarah?’ asked Isabel Bluet.

  ‘No, Professor Bluet, but I know it’s there. I think it has something to do with my sister and mother. I have no memory of them and it seems my mind doesn’t want me to ever remember them.’

  Geraint Williams barely waited for me to finish speaking. ‘I am hoping to …’ He paused, clearly dissatisfied with the way in which Shoumi Mustafa was wobbling in an attempt to comment. ‘… I will be hoping to demonstrate any changes in the pattern of recall during this coming Tuesday’s MRI session. The scans …’

  ‘Dr Williams, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I won’t be able to attend this Tuesday. I have a prior engagement with my editor to discuss my latest series of children’s books.’

  All attention in the room was directed at me. Geraint Williams broke the silence. ‘Sarah, this is an expensive procedure. We were fortunate to acquire a slot at short notice.’

  ‘Well, I’m very sorry, but I really am not able to make alternative arrangements. My editor has already been forced to make changes to accommodate these days at the clinic. I was unaware that another scan was planned. And I assumed that, following these extended sessions, next week’s scheduled interview would be unnecessary.’

  Geraint Williams frowned at Shoumi Mustafa, whose increased fidgeting was now accompanied by an obsequious waving of his hand. ‘Shoumi, in a second, please! Sarah, we have reached a critical stage in our assessment. If this observation is not made, and made urgently, there is every possibility that something significant will be overlooked, and this might have repercussions in the future.’

  I glanced at Bob Gray. His eyebrows appeared above the rims of his spectacles. He had clearly decided to allow me to handle this disagreement. I turned back to Geraint Williams. ‘Dr Williams, I am really grateful for everybody’s concern, but I hope that on this occasion you’ll allow me to take responsibility. You must realise that my writing is very important to my future. I think Dr Mustafa wants to contribute.’

  ‘In a moment, Shoumi!’ exclaimed Dr Williams. He turned to Bob Gray. ‘Bob, I must question Ms Blake’s competence with regard to the management of her own ill-defined psychosis. Patients with dissociative disorders often exaggerate their own abilities.’

  ‘Geraint, I fully agree with you regarding the spectrum of competence within the group of disorders we refer to as dissociative.’ He softened his tone. ‘And I am very aware that, in Sarah’s case, we are treading unmapped territory. But I do assure you that, after these most recent sessions, I have no doubts about her ability to make decisions, or about the importance of Sarah continuing to maintain her professional life.’

  Geraint Williams grasped the bottom of his waistcoat. ‘Bob, with respect …’

  His protest was interrupted by my most convincing sneeze. I touched my fingers over my nose. ‘I’m so sorry!’ I glanced across at the folder on Sam’s lap. ‘Does anyone know whether I suffer from hay fever?’

  Dr Gray smiled. ‘I’m sure that will be somewhere in our notes.’ He handed me a box of tissues. ‘Compliments of the house. Now, where were we? Ah, yes, will our guests still be available next Tuesday week?’

  Isabel Bluet said that she would be; Dr Booker said that he was fully booked, but he would follow my case with great interest.

  ‘Excellent!’ said Bob Gray. ‘Geraint, could we possibly reorganise the scan?’

  Dr Williams paused for a brief moment: ‘Quite so, Bob. I will have my assistant co-ordinate with all concerned.’

  ‘Excellent! Now, perhaps we ought to ask Shoumi what he wants to say.’

  I noticed Sam pinching his nose.

  Shoumi Mustafa sat forward. ‘It’s Ms Blake’s language. Her presentation is completely changed!’

  ‘Would you like to elaborate, Shoumi?’ said Geraint Williams, once again grasping the ascendancy. He addressed his guests. ‘As you know, Shoumi is investigating the relationship between memory and language. Shoumi, please, your comments.’

  Shoumi Mustafa proceeded to address Dr Williams and his guests, ignoring everyone else. He detailed my immature speech patterns from previous tapes and interviews, my diminished vocabulary, inability to suggest synonyms, specifically regarding certain thematically-linked or emotive-content words. He stressed my previous tendency to rely upon simple single-clause sentences, with the occasional compound rather than complex constructions, whereas today I had demonstrated a command of subordination and multiple embedding within complex sentences. I was clearly more relaxed with sentence modality which indicated greater confidence with both assertion and interrogation. This increased confidence was also obvious, today, in my lexical choices, my use of extended noun phrases and the tone and the controlled meter of my discourse.

  Professor Bluet waited for a pause and asked if Dr Mustafa might give examples of these changes, since her understanding of psycholinguistics was quite basic. I listened to Shoumi Mustafa detail my changing discourse and marvelled at the extent to which this zealous man had recorded my utterances. I noticed Geraint Williams’ fixed smile disappear. Five minutes into the presentation, he interrupted. ‘Shoumi, I’m sure that by now everyone has a very c
lear picture of the patient’s altered speech patterns. I wonder if we might determine whether there have been any other changes in her capacity to recall. I speak of course not of instruction since the catastrophic incident, but rather of anything from before. Has anything arisen in the previous session, Bob?’

  Bob Gray turned to me: ‘Sarah, would you like to mention memories that have been evoked by reminders of any kind?’

  I noticed a slight sparkle in his eyes. I looked at Dr Mustafa. ‘Since the incident, my ability to write trailed behind my ability to read. But, recently, I’ve been able to write …’

  ‘And other than the writing skills?’ interrupted Geraint Williams. ‘Any changes in your capacity to recall anything from before the catastrophic incident?

  As best I could, I mimicked the insincerity of his smile. ‘I remember making love, not any actual occasion, but I was certain I already knew the emotional intensity. And I knew I had experienced those moments with Matthew. I knew it was with him.’

  There was a brief silence. Geraint Williams’ expression changed from scorn to surprise. Dr Mustafa’s pen was still. Dr Booker shuffled in his chair. Then Professor Bluet spoke. ‘Those feelings run deep, Sarah. The sensory memory snaps up those sensations and passes them on for encoding and storage. And it seems that, however they are stored long term, the mind finds ways of clinging on to them.’ She leaned forward in her chair. ‘Are you saying that when Matthew introduced himself, in a shopping mall, I believe, you did not recognise him? Yet when you were intimate, you were able to recognise your intimacy? And am I correct in assuming that still no memory of your previous relationship has returned?’