When he had finished eating, he went into his bathroom to make sure that he looked presentable for his sister’s visit. He stood in front of the mirror and stared at himself. He couldn’t remember what his sister looked like, but the strange thing was that he couldn’t really remember what he looked like, either. Was this really him? This pale, skinny young man with tousled brown hair and worried brown eyes and a thin, rather studious-looking face. He thought he looked like a not-very-successful tennis player.
He put on a fresh green-and-white striped shirt, washed his teeth and brushed his hair. He couldn’t think why, but looking at himself in the mirror made him feel lonely, as if there ought to be somebody standing next to him, smiling.
Again, he experienced that split-second flash of light and shadow and sound, and this time he thought he heard a girl’s voice say, you shouldn’t. He thought he could smell that flowery perfume, too, but that faded so quickly that he couldn’t be sure.
You shouldn’t. Shouldn’t what?
He went back into his room and sat in his chair and switched on the TV. He flicked through the channels, but he had a choice only of Max & Ruby, Charmed, Squawk on the Street or Plaza Sésamo, so he switched it off. Outside, the snow was falling thicker and thicker, as if God were in a hurry to bury the world forever.
He was still staring out of the window, thinking about nothing much, when he became aware of somebody standing in the corridor outside his open door. As soon as he turned around, she stepped inside, smiling. A tall, blonde woman wearing a red beret and a thick red-and-orange duffel-coat, and brown leather boots. She pulled off her beret and shook her curly hair and said, ‘Greg!’
He started to get up, but she gently pushed him back into his chair and said, ‘No, you don’t have to. I know your knees were all smashed up.’
She had a thin face like him, and he thought that she was quite attractive, although he couldn’t really tell for sure if there was any family resemblance. She had very large pale-blue eyes with sleepy eyelids, a straight Pre-Raphaelite nose and full, bow-shaped lips. As attractive as she was, he had no feeling at all that he knew her, even from her voice.
‘You’re Sue,’ he said.
‘That’s right, baby brother.’
‘I’m sorry, I’m not going to pretend that I recognize you, because I simply don’t. They showed me your Facebook picture, and they told me you were coming to visit me, but that’s the only way I know who you are.’
She dragged over another chair from the opposite corner of the room and took off her coat. Underneath she was wearing a long red knitted dress with a wide red patent-leather belt. She sat down next to him and laid her hand on top of his. He noticed her wedding-band and her engagement ring, white gold set with a large solitaire diamond.
‘I know you don’t recognize me,’ she smiled. ‘Doctor Connor has told me all about your condition – what you can remember and what you can’t, which is pretty much everything. But she’s very optimistic. She thinks that given enough time, it’ll all come back to you.’
‘Well, I’m glad she’s optimistic, because I’m not. I can’t even remember my own name.’
‘You’re Gregory.’
‘That’s what everybody keeps telling me. But I don’t know I’m Gregory. It’s really hard to explain.’
Sue gave his hand a squeeze and said, ‘When you were very small, you used to call yourself “Weggy”. You used to have a bright blue teddy bear and for some reason you called him “Numby”. Mom used to see you coming up the path and say, “Here they come, Weggy and Numby.”’
Michael shrugged. ‘Sorry, it means absolutely nothing. It doesn’t bring anything back at all. I know all kinds of irrelevant stuff, like facts and figures and random bits of general knowledge. I knew how long it was going to take you to drive here. But the rest of my mind … it’s like an empty room, with the light off.’
‘You don’t even remember Gemma?’
‘Unh-hunh. Who’s Gemma?’
‘Your very first girlfriend. She was the love of your life – well, the love of your life until you met Rhoda. And then Rhoda was the love of your life until you met Holly.’
Michael shook his head. ‘No. You didn’t bring pictures of them, did you?’
‘I will next time. But listen, I have an idea. Why don’t we call Mom?’
‘You can call her, sure. But what am I going to say to her?’
‘Just say, “Hi, Mom, it’s Greg … I’m calling from the clinic. I just want you to know that I’m getting better every day, and that I’ll come to see you pretty soon.”’
‘OK. If you think it might cheer her up. But I don’t like the idea of lying to her.’
‘It’s not her I’m concerned about. It’s you. If you hear Mom’s voice, maybe it’ll bring something back.’
She took a cellphone out of her big red purse and prodded a number. She lifted it to her ear for a moment, and then smiled and said, ‘Mom! Hi, Mom! It’s Sue! Guess who’s sitting here right next to me?’
She passed the cell over. Michael reluctantly took it and said, ‘Hi, Mom! This is Greg!’
‘Oh, Greg!’ said a quavery voice. ‘It’s so good to hear from you, my darling! How are you feeling?’
‘I’m still in the clinic, Mom, but I’m very much better. I should be out of here before too long and then I’ll come see you.’
‘Make sure you get out of there by July second.’
‘Oh, yeah? What’s so special about July second?’
‘It’s my birthday, Greg! Fancy you forgetting that! I want to see you on my birthday!’
‘OK, Mom. I’ll pass you back to Sue.’
Sue was rummaging in her purse for something, so Michael held on to the cell for a moment. He was about to tell his mother to hold on for a moment, when he heard her say, ‘Oh, shoot, George! Look at that snow! I wanted to go to Ray’s Food Place this afternoon!’
Sue said, ‘Aha! Here it is!’ She lifted up a yellow photo wallet, and Michael handed the cell back to her. Sue took it and said, ‘Hi, Mom – look, I’ll be back around this time tomorrow afternoon. You have that doctor’s appointment, don’t you? OK, no problem. OK. Lots of love, then. Greg is blowing you a kiss. Bye.’
‘Well?’ she asked Michael. ‘Anything?’
‘If you’re asking me if I recognized Mom’s voice, then the answer is no. She sounded like some old woman to me, that’s all.’
‘Try these, then,’ said Sue. She passed over the photo wallet, which contained about twenty glossy pictures. Michael looked through them, while Sue gave him a commentary, tapping each one with her red-varnished fingernail.
‘There’s you and me, on the beach. I was seven then, which means you must have been five. There’s you with your first bike, when we lived in Emerald Lake Hills. There’s you with your friend Carl. Love the hairstyle! You were inseparable, you two; you didn’t need a brother, you had Carl. And that’s you the day you graduated from Cal Maritime Academy.’
Michael examined the photographs carefully. There was no doubt that it was him, or some boy who looked uncannily like him. He turned some of them over, and they had scribbled captions on the back like ‘Gregory and Carl, Roy Cloud Elementary, April 1989’ and ‘Greg at Moss Beach, September ’91.’
He handed them back. ‘Thanks, but they still don’t bring anything back. Even if I can’t remember it, though, it looks like I was pretty happy. I mean I wasn’t half-starved and dressed in rags and I didn’t have to beg for money on the streets.’
Sue said, ‘Come on – let’s try to stop remembering things for a while. Doctor Connor told me that prompting you with photographs and reminiscences was all very well, but it’s your own brain that needs to do all the work, and that you need plenty of rest as well as people like me trying to jog your memory.’
‘What do you want to do then?’
‘Anything you like. I’m happy just to sit here and watch TV. It’s going to take us some time to get used to each other. There’s no point in us
trying to swap stories about childhood if you can’t remember any of it, is there?’
‘No, I guess not.’
He switched on the TV in time for Days Of Our Lives. Sue held his hand again, to show him that even if he didn’t remember her, he was still her brother, and she loved him. It was a strange feeling, watching TV while holding hands with a woman he didn’t know, but it was unexpectedly reassuring, too. Before, he had felt that he was adrift in the ocean, without any landmarks in sight. Sue, at least, was some kind of landmark – some point of reference from which he could start to rediscover who he was.
He suddenly woke up. The TV was still on, but it was mute, and Sue’s chair next to him was empty. He must have dropped off halfway through Days Of Our Lives.
He gripped the side of the bed and lifted himself out of his chair. He felt stiff all over, especially his neck and his spine. He was often dozing off like that, but he supposed it was all part of his brain and his body trying to conserve his strength.
He looked out of the window. It was still snowing, but only lightly. He was about to sit down again when he saw the revolving door in the middle of the clinic’s main entrance catch the light, and Sue stepped out, wearing her red beret and her red-and-orange coat.
She hesitated for a moment at the top of the steps and then she started to cross the forecourt toward the parking lot. As she did so, another woman appeared from around the side of the clinic and started to walk toward her. This woman was wearing a long black coat and a knitted black Peruvian beanie with strings hanging down. Although Michael couldn’t hear her, she obviously called out to Sue because she raised her arm and at the same time Sue stopped and turned around and waited for her to catch up with her.
The two women embraced and kissed as if they were old friends, and immediately started talking to each other, with the snow falling on their hats and their shoulders. Michael couldn’t see clearly at first who the other woman was, but then both of them laughed at something, and stepped back a little as they did so, and he recognized her as Isobel Weston, the woman with whom he was going to be staying.
He stood watching them, frowning. According to Doctor Connor, Sue had been up here to see him only twice since his accident, and it seemed extraordinary that she had made such a good friend of Isobel in only two visits. Still, she had probably stayed overnight on each occasion, which could have given the women the opportunity to get to know each other quite well.
After they had talked for three or four minutes, they kissed and embraced again, and Sue continued on her way to the parking lot, while Isobel walked around the side of the south-east wing and out of sight.
Sue appeared out of the parking lot a few seconds later, driving a silver Lexus SUV. She looked left and right, and then drove out of the clinic and turned right, away from Trinity and towards the interstate.
That night, Michael suddenly opened his eyes and sat bolt upright in bed.
It was 3:23 am, according to the digital clock on his nightstand, but his room wasn’t totally dark because the lights were always left on in the corridor outside. He could hear the night orderlies talking and the squeaking of trolley wheels.
Look at that snow! That’s what his mother had said. Oh, shoot, George! Look at that snow!
But wasn’t his mother supposed to be living in a rest home in Oakland, close to his sister? And although it occasionally snowed on the high ground around San Francisco, it never snowed in the Bay area … or hardly ever.
So if his mother had looked out of her window and seen that it was snowing … where the hell was she?
FIVE
The next morning he had an early breakfast with Sue in the clinic’s commissary. They sat at a green Formica-topped table next to the window, looking out over the snow-covered rose garden. The reflected light from the snow made them both look unnaturally pale.
Sue had tied her hair back with a red silk scarf with patterns of golden stirrups on it, and was wearing a red roll-neck sweater and black jeans. Michael thought she looked like the owner of a riding stable for tourists who didn’t know one end of a horse from the other; and there was no doubt that she did have that air of bossiness about her.
‘When are you setting off back to Oakland?’ he asked her. ‘The forecast said it’s going to start snowing again later this afternoon.’
‘Oh, I shall go as soon as I’ve finished this,’ she said. ‘In any case, I doubt if it’ll be snowing at all, south of Redding.’ She was cutting up waffles with the edge of her fork. Michael had ordered only a cup of black coffee. He usually liked waffles, too, or pancakes, but this morning he didn’t feel at all hungry.
‘Will you be seeing Mom when you get back?’
‘Oh, not until tomorrow, probably.’
‘You will give her my love, though, won’t you?’
Sue, with her mouth full, looked at him narrowly.
‘Is something bothering you?’ she asked him.
‘I don’t know. Should it be?’
‘You mustn’t get depressed, Greg, just because you have to stay here for a while. I’ve talked to Doctor Hamid and Doctor Connor, and they both have your very best interests at heart. And I’m sure you and Mrs Weston will get along fine.’
‘Well, you know her a whole lot better than I do.’
Sue swallowed and took a sip of lemon tea. ‘Excuse me? I don’t know her at all.’
‘Oh. I got the impression that you did.’
‘What gave you that idea? I’ve never even met the woman. All I know is what Doctor Connor told me about her.’
‘Oh. And what was that?’
‘She used to be an English teacher – in Portland, I think it was. She had some kind of accident which was why she was brought here to Trinity-Shasta. Her partner was quite a lot older than she was, and he passed away not too long ago.’
‘I see.’
Michael thought: Why did you just lie to me, and say that you had never even met her? I saw the two of you talking to each other like old friends.
However, he bit his lip, and said nothing. I’m confused, he thought. My brain isn’t firing on all eight cylinders. Maybe he had simply misinterpreted what he had seen and heard. Maybe that hadn’t been Isobel that he had seen with Sue – although, if it wasn’t, who was it? What other woman did she know at Trinity-Shasta well enough to kiss and embrace and spend nearly five minutes chatting to?
Maybe his mother hadn’t said, ‘Look at that snow!’ He could easily have misheard her.
In any case, what was so sinister about Sue being friendly with Isobel, or his mother saying ‘Look at that snow!’ Maybe it had snowed briefly in Oakland, without it settling.
Doctor Connor had warned him that post-traumatic amnesiacs often get feelings of paranoia. They have no memory of how things used to be, and so they have no concept of how things ought to be. Something that appears to them now as strange or threatening may be perfectly flush-centered and completely harmless, if only they could remember why.
As they were finishing their breakfast, Doctor Hamid made his way toward them between the commissary tables, with a smile on his face.
‘Good news, Gregory!’ he announced. He opened the yellow Manila folder that he was carrying and said, ‘That CT scan you had yesterday morning shows me that your spine is in very much better shape now.’
‘That’s wonderful,’ said Sue, reaching across the table and taking his hand.
‘Oh, yes, surprisingly good improvement!’ said Doctor Hamid. ‘There is now hardly any subluxation of the neck vertebrae and subsequently a great deal of pressure has been taken off your nerves. Physically, you are healing much more quickly than I had expected.’
He closed his folder and said, ‘You will of course need continuing spinal therapy for some months to come, and of course your psychological therapy, which is much more difficult to predict. However we think we can release you today, back into the big, bad outside world. Well – when I say “big, bad outside world”, I mean of course Trinity.’
‘So you’re moving me in with Isobel Weston?’
Doctor Hamid smiled at Sue, and Michael was sure that some flicker of understanding passed between them. Nothing more than a twitch of the eye, but that could be enough to communicate something which they both already knew. Or again, maybe he was just being paranoid.
Before she left, Sue drove Michael around to Isobel’s house, although he had only one overnight case to carry. She promised him that she would go round to his apartment on Pine Street and collect all his clothes for him, and bring them up to him next weekend. Maybe her husband Jimmy would come next time, as well as their two little girls, Felicity and Alyson.
‘Well, thanks for coming,’ said Michael, as she pulled up behind Isobel’s Jeep. ‘It’s a hell of a drive just to see somebody who doesn’t even remember who you are.’
Sue leaned across and kissed him. ‘I know who you are, Greg, and that’s all that counts. You’ll start to remember stuff before too long, I’m sure. You’re in the best possible hands.’
At that moment, Isobel appeared at her front door and came down the driveway to greet them. Both Michael and Sue climbed down from the Lexus to shake hands with her.
‘Oh – Isobel, this is my sister Sue,’ said Michael. ‘Sue, this is Isobel, who I’ll be lodging with for a couple of months, if she can put up with me for that long.’
He glanced quickly from one to the other as they shook hands, to see if either of them gave any indication that they knew each other already, but if they did they gave nothing away. Sue said, ‘I’m pleased to know you, Isobel. Doctor Connor told me all about you, and I’m sure you’ll take real good care of Greg.’
‘I’ll do my very best,’ smiled Isobel. ‘So long as he likes my cooking, and doesn’t mind watching Two Broke Girls.’
‘Don’t you worry,’ said Sue. ‘Even if he can’t remember how easy-going he is, Greg is Mister Tolerant. Even when he was a little kid you couldn’t rile him. You could drop caterpillars down the back of his neck and all he did was laugh and say that they tickled.’
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