‘Greg, please marry me. Marry me and stay here in Trinity. Please.’
‘Isobel …’ he began, but at the same time he was thinking: Doctor Hamid said that it would be ‘disastrous’ if I left Trinity. Now Isobel’s telling me that I simply can’t leave Trinity. But nobody will tell me why.
Apart from that, there was Isobel’s physical coldness. How could he marry a woman whose skin always felt so chilly, and whose insides froze his semen into ice crystals?
And that wasn’t the only thing that disturbed him about her. He was still baffled and confused by what he had seen when he had woken up and looked at her this morning. Or what he thought he had seen.
In spite of all that, he didn’t like to see her so distressed. He put his arms around her and held her close and kissed her forehead and then her lips, and smiled at her and wiped the flour from the end of her nose with his finger.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll think about it. I promise.’
That afternoon, ragged gray clouds began to drift in from the south-west, and the inside of the house gradually grew dark and colorless, as if they were going back in time.
Michael came into the living room where Isobel was sitting in front of the television watching Days Of Our Lives.
‘Just going out for my obligatory walk,’ he told her. He nodded toward the television and said, ‘How’s life in Salem these days?’
‘A whole lot more exciting than Trinity,’ said Isobel. ‘You will be thinking, while you’re walking, won’t you? About you-know-what?’
Michael didn’t answer but blew her a kiss. He closed the front door behind him and headed down the slope toward Mrs Kroker’s house. He wanted to thank Lloyd Hammers for his help last night, even though he hadn’t managed to get away.
Not only was it gloomy outside, it was utterly still and silent. At ground level there was no wind at all, although the clouds were still moving, and a plume of snow was waving from the peak of Mount Shasta like somebody fluttering a long white scarf.
As he passed the house next door, Michael saw that their neighbor was standing in the window of his front room, wearing a mustard-colored cardigan. Michael didn’t know his name, and he hadn’t yet come by to introduce himself, but he was a stockily built man with slicked-back gray hair and a podgy, Slavic-looking face.
The strange thing was, he was pointing at Michael, and he appeared to have a disapproving frown on his face. Michael slowed down and then stopped and stared at him. The man continued to frown, and to point, as if he were accusing Michael of something. Michael pointed to himself, like Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver, and mouthed the words, ‘You pointing at me?’
But the man didn’t respond. He simply continued to point. After hesitating a few more moments, Michael continued walking. He glanced back once, but the man was still pointing at him. Michael felt distinctly uneasy. Another reason not to get married to Isobel and stay here in Trinity.
When he passed the next house, he saw two people standing in their living-room window, a youngish couple. The man was wearing a pale blue sweater and heavy-rimmed Clark Kent glasses, while the woman appeared to be pregnant and dressed in a floral maternity smock. They, too, were pointing at him; and they, too, had stern, accusing frowns on their faces.
Michael was tempted to walk up to their front door and ring their doorbell and ask them why the hell they were pointing at him, but they looked so hostile that he decided against it.
He carried on. As he approached the next house, he saw that there was nobody standing in the living-room window, even though there was a light on, and a television screen flickering. It was a two-story house, however, and when he looked up he saw an elderly woman in one of the bedroom windows, pointing at him in the same way. He stopped and stared back at her, but she didn’t flinch.
It was the same in every house on his way down the slope to the community center. In every one of them, somebody was pointing at him – single people, mostly, but some couples and even some families with children.
In the second-to-last house before he reached Mrs Kroker’s, a man of about his own age was pointing at him – slim, pale, with floppy brown hair. Michael went up to his porch and pressed the doorbell. There was no answer, so he pressed it again. When there was still no answer, he knocked on the door with his knuckles.
‘Come on, what are you afraid of?’ he shouted.
The door suddenly opened, and Michael was confronted by a middle-aged woman with short gray hair. She was quite handsome, although she was wearing a sludge-green woolen dress which reflected under her chin and made her look as if she were ill.
‘Yes? What do you want?’ she asked him. From her accent, he would have guessed that she was Canadian.
‘I just wanted to ask that fellow in the window why he’s pointing at me.’
A pause, then, ‘Why do you think he’s pointing at you?’
‘I don’t have the first idea. And he’s not the only one. Everybody in the whole damn street is doing it.’
‘They’re giving you a warning, that’s why.’
‘A warning? A warning about what, exactly?’
‘Causing trouble. Asking questions that nobody wants answered. You think that word doesn’t get around, here in Trinity, just because everybody keeps themselves to themselves? Well, let me tell you, Gregory Merrick, word gets around. Everybody here is hanging on by their fingernails, and the last thing they want is trouble.’
‘Trouble?’ said Michael. ‘Believe me, I’m not out to cause trouble; and the only questions I want answered relate to my own personal health.’
‘So where are you off to now?’ the woman asked him, in the tone of a schoolteacher asking a pupil what he was doing out of class.
‘I’m taking a walk, that’s all. I have to take a walk every day. It’s part of my therapy.’
‘You’re not going to see Lloyd Hammers, then?’
‘I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t see that it’s any business of yours whether I do or not.’
‘Of course it’s my business. It’s everybody’s business. Everybody here is hanging on by their fingernails.’
‘I don’t understand what you mean.’
Instead of answering his question, the woman said, snappily, ‘Are you going to get married then – you and Mrs Weston?’
Michael half-turned away from the door in exasperation, and then turned back. ‘Again – I don’t think it’s any of your business. Who told you that, anyhow?’
‘She did.’
‘Well, we’ve talked about it, that’s all.’
‘I see. Maybe folks will stop pointing, if you do.’
Michael was about to ask her what possible connection there could be between him marrying Isobel and people in Trinity pointing their fingers at him when she abruptly closed the door, and noisily rattled the safety chain.
He stood in the porch for a few moments, but even if he managed to persuade the woman to open up the door again, he doubted if she would make any more sense. He turned around and went back down the driveway, conscious that the young man with the floppy brown hair was still pointing at him, even behind his back. He continued on his way to Mrs Kroker’s house. Across the street, in the living-room window of the house next to the community center, he saw a tall ginger-haired woman in black, and she was pointing at him, too.
To start with, all of this pointing had been baffling, and even faintly ridiculous. With each successive house, however, it had become more irritating; and then annoying. Now it was beginning to make Michael feel seriously uneasy. They were pointing at him, these people, as if they were accusing him of some terrible crime – a crime for which they would expect him to be punished. He felt like a murderer desperately trying to escape from a vengeful crowd.
He rang Mrs Kroker’s doorbell and Lloyd opened the door almost immediately.
‘Lloyd!’
‘Yes?’ said Lloyd. Today he was wearing a plain black T-shirt and black jeans. A small gold crucifix was hanging around his
neck.
‘I’m back, Lloyd. As you can see for yourself, I didn’t make it.’
‘Did you want something?’ Lloyd asked him.
‘Well, for starters, is it OK if I come in? That’s unless the gorgeous Mrs K is still in her night attire.’
‘Did you want something?’ Lloyd repeated.
‘I only wanted to tell you what happened, that’s all. That road that’s signposted for Route Ninety-seven and Weed – that road doesn’t go to Route Ninety-seven and Weed. It goes right around in a damn great circle and comes back here to Trinity.’
‘I see.’
Michael stared at him intently. ‘Are you OK, Lloyd? You haven’t been smoking the old sensemarilla, have you?’
‘Did you want something?’ said Lloyd.
‘Who is it, Lloyd?’ called a woman’s voice, from the living room. It wasn’t Mrs Kroker. It was a very much younger woman. ‘Can you close the front door, please – there’s a terrible draft!’
‘Lloyd,’ Michael insisted, ‘you need to know what happened. They were watching us the whole time on CCTV. They could have stopped us at any time they wanted to, but for some reason they didn’t. Mr Vane said they let me do it as part of my treatment, but that didn’t make any sense at all. Natasha Kerwin could have died.’
‘OK,’ said Lloyd. ‘I’ll see you around.’
‘Aren’t you going to let me in?’ asked Michael. ‘I want to talk to you about what we can do next. We really need to find out what the hell is going on here, Lloyd. When I walked down here, everybody was pointing at me, you know, like I’m some kind of leper or something. Every single person, in every house.’
‘Lloyd – the door!’ the woman’s voice called out again, much more impatiently this time.
‘I got it!’ Lloyd called back.
He started to close the door in Michael’s face, but Michael stepped forward quickly and jammed his foot in it.
‘Listen to me, Lloyd. I need your help. I can’t do this on my own. They’ve told me that Natasha Kerwin’s beginning to recover. If that’s true, then I stand a much better chance of getting her out of here. But like before, I’m going to need some kind of diversion, which is where you come in.’
‘I’ll see you around, Greg,’ said Lloyd. Michael looked at his eyes and the pupils were like pinpricks. He repeatedly pushed at the door, trying to close it, as if he wasn’t aware that Michael’s foot was wedging it open.
‘Lloyd!’ the woman shouted, and now the living-room door was thrown open and she came storming out into the hallway.
Her hair was curly, which it hadn’t been before, but Michael recognized her instantly. It was his sister – or his so-called sister – Sue.
NINETEEN
Michael said, ‘OK. What the hell is going on here?’
‘You’d better come inside,’ said Sue. ‘We don’t want Mrs Kroker to catch her death. Let him in, Lloyd.’
Lloyd opened the door wider and allowed Michael to step into the hallway.
‘Who’s that, at the door?’ called out Mrs Kroker from the living room. ‘Lloyd, are you going to answer the door? Lloyd, do you hear me? Lloyd!’
Sue ignored her and said to Michael, ‘Come into the kitchen. I think Mrs Kroker has had enough upsets for one day. Lloyd – go check on her, will you?’
‘Sure,’ said Lloyd. He went into the living room and closed the door behind him.
‘Do you want to sit down?’ asked Sue, pulling out a chair from the kitchen table.
‘You’re not really my sister, are you?’ said Michael.
‘No, Greg, I’m not. You do have a sister, but she and her family live in Guatemala, and there’s no way she could have come to see you on a regular basis.’
‘So – what? So you’ve just blatantly been pretending to be my sister? I mean, why? What’s the point of it?’
‘I’m sorry you had to find out this way,’ Sue told him. ‘I’m sorry that you had to find out at all – at least until you could have remembered for yourself that I’m not really your sister. It’s all part of the therapy, having a family member to show you photographs and tell you stories about yourself when you were younger. It helps you to rebuild your inner perception of who you are.’
‘But it’s a lie, for Christ’s sake! It’s an out-and-out deception! Catherine Connor keeps telling me that I shouldn’t create false memories … but here you are, you’re creating a false memory for me.’
‘Not at all,’ said Sue. ‘I’m simply acting as a guide. Doctor Connor asks you questions about yourself, to see if she can reactivate your memories, while I actually show you what your life was like before your accident. She and I are both therapists, in our different ways. It’s an accredited technique, believe me.’
‘So when I called you on the phone, was that you or not? The number had an Oakland area code.’
‘That was me, Greg. But your call was diverted.’
‘And when I spoke to my mother, that wasn’t my mother?’
‘No. It was one of our senior nursing staff.’
‘So where did you get all of this background information about my life? Where did you get all those photographs from?’
‘From your real sister, of course, and other people who knew you. School friends, colleagues from work, girlfriends.’
‘Did I ever have a girlfriend called Natasha Kerwin?’
She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. Doctor Connor told me that you had a strong false memory that you used to know her, but no. I don’t know how you could have gotten hold of that idea. Maybe she just looks like some girl you used to go out with.’
‘So what about Jack? What happened to him? And Lloyd? Lloyd’s gone all weird since last night. He hardly seems to know who I am.’
‘Greg – so many of the people who live here in Trinity are in one form of recovery or another. Both Jack and Lloyd have suffered something of a relapse. Jack’s was physical … Lloyd’s, as you can see, was mental. I’m not blaming you, but when you asked them to join you in abducting Natasha Kerwin, that put a great strain on both of them. We’re sure they’ll improve, in time.’
Michael said nothing for almost half a minute, staring at Sue and breathing heavily, as if he had a head cold.
Then he said, ‘Bullshit.’
Sue shrugged and gave him a slanted smile. ‘You can think what you like, Greg. But I’m sure Doctor Connor has told you that the more resistant you are to us helping you, the longer it’s going to take for you to get your memory back.’
‘It’s still bullshit. I don’t believe any of it.’
‘Then what do you believe? Tell me – it could help.’
‘I don’t believe that my name is Gregory Merrick. I don’t believe that I’m a marine engineer. I do believe that I know Natasha Kerwin. In fact I believe that Natasha Kerwin and me used to be friends. Maybe even more than friends.’
‘OK. Is there anything else?’
‘Yes. There’s one more thing. I don’t believe that if I leave Trinity it’s going to be disastrous, which is what Doctor Hamid told me. And Isobel said that I can’t leave, although she didn’t say why. I believe that I can leave, so long as I can find the way out of here, and even if I’m still suffering from amnesia, I believe that I’ll be able to survive.’
‘You can see Natasha Kerwin tomorrow morning.’
‘What?’
Sue nodded, and kept up that slanted smile. ‘You can see her. You never knew her, but you obviously find her very attractive, which is why your mind is telling you that you once had a relationship. Natasha is going to need a lot of support and encouragement to help her to recover, and who better to do that than you?’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Absolutely. And both Doctor Connor and I believe that it may help you, too. As you get to know Natasha better, you should gradually come to realize that you didn’t actually have a relationship with her, after all, and that will strengthen your ability to distinguish between real memories and false memories.’
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br /> ‘But if I do that I’ll have to stay here, in Trinity?’
‘For the time being, yes.’
Michael thought: If I do stay here for a few weeks longer, until Natasha Kerwin recovers, I can plan how to get her away from Trinity without us being intercepted, or driving around in a fifty-mile circle, like we did last night.
‘OK,’ he said.
‘You mean it? You’d really like to give it a try? In that case, you can see her at the clinic tomorrow, when you go for your appointment with Doctor Connor, and after that you can visit her whenever you like, until she’s ready to come home with you, which shouldn’t be more than three or four days.’
‘You mean back to Isobel Weston’s house?’
‘Of course. You still need Isobel to take care of you, and in her own way she still needs you.’
Michael wondered if he ought to ask Sue about Isobel, and how cold she was, but then he thought: No, don’t rock the boat. He didn’t want anything to make Natasha Kerwin’s doctors change their minds about allowing him to look after her.
He did say, though, ‘I guess you know that Isobel wants me to marry her. Well – everybody else in Trinity seems to have heard.’
‘Yes. She said that to Emilio, too. She’ll get over it. It’s only because she’s feeling insecure.’
‘So what should I say to her?’
‘Tell her that you will, in the summer. Tell her that there’s nothing more romantic than a June wedding.’
He walked back up to Isobel’s house. It had grown so dark now that the street lights had switched themselves on, even though it was only quarter of four in the afternoon. The drapes were drawn tight across the living-room windows of every house he passed. He felt as if – having been accused – he was now being ostracized. In some ways that left him feeling even more isolated and even more unsettled than before. He had nobody to rely on any longer, like Jack or Lloyd, and everybody else seemed to be lying to him. Not only that, they all seemed to be telling him different lies, which made it impossible even to guess what the truth was.
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