by Dani Atkins
He took his eyes from the road and glanced over at me, and I sensed he could tell I was disappointed with his answer. He briefly took one hand from the wheel and reached across to squeeze mine.
“I missed you, though.”
I thought of the countless nights I had cried myself to sleep in grief and loss in the years since he had died.
“I missed you more.”
By then we were winding through the back streets of London, and it took us longer than we had thought to locate the address we were seeking. Eventually, after several wrong turns, we pulled up in front of an ornately porticoed Victorian building.
“Here we are,” announced Jimmy, swinging the car into a vacant parking bay in the small courtyard at the front of the building. “Home.”
“Not mine,” I muttered bleakly, but nevertheless reached for the handle and got out of the car. I stood for a moment in the cold morning air, looking up at the unfamiliar building.
“Come on then, let’s go check it out.” He reached out his hand, and with obvious reluctance I allowed him to lead me toward the building’s stone steps.
I thought we were going to be stymied at the first hurdle, for as we neared the entrance we could see that the building had a security door with a keypad entry system to gain access. I halted halfway up the three shallow steps.
“That’s that then,” I proclaimed, and knew the relief in my voice was obvious.
“Not so fast,” Jimmy urged, continuing to pull me toward the door. At that precise moment a blue-uniformed nurse appeared on the inside of the glass entrance, clearly hurrying to exit the building. As she opened the door Jimmy hurried up the steps to catch it before it closed behind her. The nurse eyed him suspiciously for a moment, then saw me and clearly decided not to challenge our entry.
“Thank you,” said Jimmy as we passed the nurse on the threshold.
Automatically I too voiced our gratitude: “Yes, thanks.”
She was through the doorway and already descending the stone steps before she called out cheerfully over her shoulder.
“No problem, Rachel.”
WE WERE SILENT in the lift as it ascended. And the tension followed us out when the doors slid open on the fifth floor. The corridor spread before us, leading both to the left and the right.
“Which way?” asked Jimmy.
“How should I know?” I snapped back.
He walked back to me then, kinder and more patient than I probably deserved.
“I know this is hard, Rachel. I really do. But we knew you’d have to face something like this. Don’t give up on it all just yet.”
He was right, of course he was. But I had so wanted this all not to be true.
My key opened the door to the flat: of course it did. We wandered through the rooms like prospective buyers, not really knowing where we were going. When I opened what I thought was the door to the bedroom and ended up stepping into a walk-in closet, we thankfully both found our sense of humor. In the closet … Isn’t that always the last place you look for it?
I felt a little like a burglar, rummaging through drawers and closets looking for something of value. I recognized very little, but then every so often I would stumble across an item of clothing, or a piece of jewelry, and my pulse would quicken when I recognized it as one of mine. The passport and tax papers all neatly filed in a metal storage box only served to hammer home even more evidential nails in the coffin. I definitely lived here.
And that would have been far from a tragedy to accept in any other set of circumstances, for the flat was extremely nice, very tastefully decorated and about four times the size of my home above the launderette. Even so, my accommodation upgrade gave me no pleasure at all. If this was my home—and how could I refute it when surrounded by such unshakable evidence—then what possible grounds did that leave me for continuing to insist that this life was not mine?
While I was ransacking the bedroom, Jimmy had made his way to the kitchen, coming out a few minutes later with two steaming mugs of coffee.
“Black, I’m afraid,” he apologized, handing me one of the mugs. “You’re out of milk. Actually you’re pretty much out of everything; the cupboards are quite bare. I’m guessing you eat out a lot.”
That sounded logical and it would certainly fit the lifestyle I imagined Matt would have.
Holding on to the mug very carefully, I lowered myself onto a cream leather sofa. I cautiously shifted my weight, anxious not to spill any hot drink on the expensive-looking surface. I was an extremely nervous visitor in my own home.
“How can I afford all of this?” it suddenly occurred to me to ask. “I know what London prices are like. This place must cost a bomb; surely my new job doesn’t pay that well.”
Jimmy’s eyes darkened for a moment and he looked away from my questioning face before replying.
“I believe Matt’s family own this flat. Own several, I think, in this building. I guess you get it at a reduced rent, being almost one of the family.”
I felt myself blushing with embarrassment, although I wasn’t exactly sure why. It wasn’t as if I’d done anything to be ashamed of.
“Oh,” was my only response. For a journalist, I clearly wasn’t all that articulate.
We finished our inspection of the flat together. And though I kept on looking for evidence that this was not my home, all the clues around me screamed out in contradiction. And if the pile of bills and junk mail in my name wasn’t conclusive enough proof, there was a single silver-framed photograph on a small coffee table that seemed pretty indisputable.
Jimmy came up behind me, leaning with his chin upon my shoulder to see what I was staring at so intently in my hands. The image looking back at me from behind the glass was of Matt and me by the Eiffel Tower. He was standing behind me, much in the same way as Jimmy was at that precise moment. Matt and I were both laughing into the camera, and although the day must have been cold, for we were bundled up warmly with coats and scarves, there was such a feeling of warmth exuding from our faces that I felt winded by a kick of shock.
We both looked so happy and carefree and so … in love. I realized for the first time that since I’d returned to Great Bishopsford, I’d been so busy trying to unearth the past that I’d somehow managed to bury all my feelings for Matt.
“I believe that was where he proposed to you.” Jimmy’s words were devoid of any betraying emotion.
I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off the photo, and a moment later I felt Jimmy step purposefully away from me.
“I’ve always wanted to go to Paris,” I said reflectively.
Jimmy didn’t reply, just bent down to take our empty cups back to the kitchen, so I don’t know if he heard me finish saying in a quiet emphatic voice, “… but I’ve never been there.”
THERE WAS NOTHING left to hold us in the flat. I rejected Jimmy’s suggestion that I take a few more things with me back to my father’s. It would have felt too much like stealing.
Once back in the car, I felt I had to say something to break the awful cloud that had descended between us.
“Even though I’ve seen what I’ve seen, even now none of it seems real.” I waved my hand in the direction of the Victorian building. “Logically I can see the proof before me, I have to accept that, but in my mind, in my heart, it still all seems completely and utterly wrong.”
Jimmy also seemed to make a deliberate effort to shake off the suffocating shroud we were under.
“Don’t worry. You can’t expect it all to come back at once. Let’s go and get a bite to eat and then we’ll check out the magazine where you work. Perhaps we’ll find something there that will give us some answers.”
He had no idea how prophetic his words would turn out to be.
———
THANKFULLY, JIMMY HAD suggested we telephone the magazine in advance to warn them we were coming, which was just as well, as the place was enormous and we’d never have found our way unaided to the section where I worked. We walked across an ice-
rink-shiny reception floor to a large curved desk, behind which sat several receptionists. Everyone around us was incredibly smartly dressed and well put together, and while the clothes I was wearing definitely weren’t out of place, I certainly felt that I was.
I lost major points in poise when I forgot the name of the person we were meeting and had to hunt in my handbag for the piece of paper I’d written it down on.
“Miss Rachel Wiltshire to see Mrs. Louise Kendall,” provided Jimmy smoothly while I was still scrabbling with an indecent lack of reverence within the cavernous Gucci bag. “She is expecting us.”
We were instructed to take a seat on an impossibly low red leather settee situated directly opposite the bank of lifts. I fidgeted nervously as we waited to be met, half rising each time the lift doors slid open and a woman came out. This was ridiculous. The building was vast and there was a constant stream of people flowing out into the reception area. My boss could be any one of them.
In fact it was fifteen more minutes before a woman no more than ten years older than me came walking swiftly over to us clad in a designer suit and unbelievably impractical heels.
“Rachel!” she cried out when she was halfway across the foyer. I got to my feet and held out my hand. This she ignored and swooped in like a hawk to air-kiss the space beside my head, enveloping me in a haze of expensive perfume.
“How are you, you poor old thing? We’ve been so worried.”
Something in her voice made me seriously doubt that. She’d wasted no time on further greetings and had already pivoted on her killer heels and was making her way back over to the lifts. As she had completely ignored Jimmy up to that point, I thought it only polite to offer an introduction.
“Mrs. Kendall, this is an old friend of mine, Jimmy Boyd. He’s brought me into London today to see if anything here might jog my memory.”
She turned to flash the briefest of smiles at the man beside me, but it was only her mouth that moved, none of it reached her eyes. I’d already seen the top-to-toe appraisal she had raked over him when we had risen to greet her. I only hoped Jimmy hadn’t noticed it too.
“Not ‘Mrs. Kendall,’ just Louise,” she corrected as she jabbed a perfectly manicured finger on the lift call button. “Your darling young man Matt called on Monday and explained all about the dreadful mugging. How terrible that must have been. And they got your beautiful ring?” Her eye dropped to my left hand as if to verify it was really gone. “What a tragedy.”
As we followed her into the lift I couldn’t help but feel it was losing my diamond that my boss deemed more tragic rather than any physical peril I’d been in. There was something about her that reminded me of Cathy, or how Cathy could turn out to be in another ten years or so.
We exited the lift on the ninth floor and Louise was instantly accosted by a junior member of staff dashing down the corridor carrying a sheaf of papers. As she stopped to sort out the crisis, Jimmy and I both took a polite step backward and surveyed our surroundings. We were in a large open-plan office, brightly lit by long fluorescent tube lighting. There were innumerable desks to both sides of the lift, divided up into workstations by blue felt-covered partitions. It looked like one of those experimental things you see in laboratories: the ones that rats run around in.
“Nice woman, your boss,” commented Jimmy, whispering low into my ear so he couldn’t be overheard. “Very sincere.”
“Shhh,” I giggled back, but was pleased I wasn’t alone in my assessment.
Crisis averted, Louise sent the junior on his way and turned back to us saying, “I’m not quite sure what you want to do next. Would you just like to wander about and say hi to people or do you want to have a poke around at your desk?”
“Er, just the desk, please, I think.”
“All right then. Well, good luck. I’m sure I’ll see you again before you leave.” And with that she turned to walk away.
“Um, Louise.”
She turned back and was a fraction too slow in sliding the smile across the look of irritation on her face. The I’m-a-busy-woman-and-I-really-don’t-have-time-for-this look was just peeking out from beneath.
“Which one is my desk?”
A look of almost delighted astonishment filled her face.
“Oh my God. You really do have amnesia! How bizarre! Matt said you did … But, well, it’s just so utterly unusual.”
Her fascination with my condition lasted all the way to my desk as we wove around and between the cubicles of my coworkers. Some dismissed me with a fleeting glance, but many of them looked up and smiled. I smiled at everyone, just in case I knew them well.
Eventually she stopped in front of an area where two desks sat face-to-face. A young woman sat in one, banging furiously away at the keyboard in front of her.
“Dee, can you spare some time to show Rachel a few things?” And then, as though imparting the most delicious of secrets, she stage-whispered, “She really does have amnesia!”
We waited until she had gone, then the young woman got up from her chair and held out her hand in greeting.
“Hi. I’m Dee Ellis and we both joined the magazine at about the same time.”
I nodded, and smiled back at her, unable to think of anything to say.
“And we both can’t stand Louise.”
I grasped her extended hand warmly. I didn’t know who the heck she was but I felt I had just found a friend.
Dee was extremely patient but I could tell from the surreptitious glances at the wall clock and her computer that we were keeping her from her work.
“Look, I can see you’re busy, please don’t feel you have to babysit me here.”
She smiled ruefully.
“I’m sorry,” she said apologetically. “Big deadline coming up. You know how it is.”
I didn’t actually.
“Is there anything Rachel can look at while she’s here? Perhaps something she was working on last week that might help her to remember anything?”
Dee looked directly at Jimmy, and I could see that she, unlike Louise, had warmed to him in an instant. I liked her even more.
“Well, there’s nothing that she was in the middle of.” She frowned as though searching for a key to unlock a door. “You’d been working really hard to get everything done before your friend’s wedding. How was that, by the way?”
“I missed it.”
“Bummer.” She bit her lip in concentration. “Oh, I know. Would it be useful if you looked through some of the articles you’ve worked on in the last few months? Is that the sort of thing that might help?”
“That would be great,” I assured her.
She disappeared from us then, murmuring something about “archives,” and while we waited I sat down at the vacant desk. There were no personal items cluttering up its surface and nothing to be found in either of the two drawers except the expected stationery. I shut the drawers with a guilty slam when Dee returned carrying a stack of magazines, feeling like I’d been caught snooping.
“Here we are. You can see which ones you were involved with from the indexes. And I’ve just checked that the conference room is free, so if you like you can browse through them in comfort in there.”
Although constructed of wall-to-wall glass, the conference room at least gave us some degree of privacy from the open-plan office. Jimmy laid the stack of magazines he had taken from Dee’s arms down on the polished oak table and pulled out a couple of the comfortably padded chairs. I checked out the dates of the issues and dragged the earliest one toward me. Jimmy plucked a random one from the pile, and when I raised a questioning eyebrow, he gave a boyish shrug.
“I thought I could do the quizzes while I’m waiting.”
We sat in silence, reading the back issues for several hours. Twice Jimmy left and returned with Styrofoam cups of something hot and brown from the nearby vending machine. The room was filled with nothing but the sound of turning pages.
“You know, some of my stuff is really quite good,” I observed, c
losing another magazine and placing it on the completed pile on the table.
“And she’s so modest with it,” Jimmy teased.
I felt my cheeks grow pink.
“I’m not being big-headed,” I corrected, “I’m just surprised I was good enough at this to actually achieve my dream.”
He gave my hand a friendly squeeze. “I never expected anything less.”
TWO MAGAZINES LATER my perception of reality exploded in smithereens in front of my face.
I hadn’t noticed the title of the article at first. My attention had been drawn to the small color photograph occupying the top right-hand corner of the page.
“Oh my God!” I gasped, feeling the color draining from my face.
“What? What is it? What’s wrong?” exclaimed Jimmy, getting instantly out of his chair to stand beside me.
Unable to find my voice, I pointed with a trembling finger at the photograph. Jimmy bent lower to read the caption out loud.
“ ‘Dr. James Whittaker of the Hallingford Clinic.’ ” He turned to me, confused. “So?”
“It’s Dr. Whittaker,” I said, my thoughts buzzing around my head like angry bees. “Dr. Whittaker is my doctor,” I went on, knowing I was sounding increasingly annoyed at his lack of comprehension. “He’s the specialist I was under after the accident. He’s the person who has been treating me for my headaches for the past six months!”
We both read the article through twice. It was only when we were done that our eyes met and the silence was broken.
“It doesn’t mention that he treats head trauma cases,” Jimmy ventured in a quiet voice.
“I know.”
“In fact, from the sound of it, he doesn’t seem to treat patients at all anymore.”
“I know.”
“He seems more involved in these clinical trials and research.”
I stayed silent.
“It’s a good article,” offered up Jimmy at last, as though that might be some consolation.
“Thanks.”
I turned the magazine toward me as though I wanted to read the title again, but I didn’t need to, I had already committed it to memory.
