Forgotten: a truly gripping psychological thriller

by Heleyne Hammersley

  ‘Okay, now try to make yourself heavy. Sag right into the chair as though you could fall through it. Good. Try to hold that feeling, and… relax.’

  Kai could feel herself drifting, guided by Ellen’s voice.

  ‘Tell me about the library Kai. Try to picture what you saw, exactly as you remember it.’

  She could see it clearly, more clearly than she remembered from the dream. She could see the papers on the desk rise and fall in a rippling motion as they were disturbed by a breeze from a ceiling fan somewhere above her. It was summer. The walls were a lemon colour, vividly lit by sunlight pouring through a skylight. She was sitting at the desk, comfortable, secure. Kai described all this to Ellen, listing each item she could see. Books, walls, carpet, desk.

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Calm. A bit hot. I’ve got to do something but I’m not sure what.’

  ‘Do you work there?’

  ‘I’ve nearly finished.’

  ‘Finished what?’

  ‘Work.’

  ‘What work?’

  ‘Not sure. I’m looking forward to it being finished.’

  ‘Have you been studying?’

  ‘Lots of reading. I’ve got a bit of a headache.’

  ‘What have you been reading?’

  ‘Lots of things. I can’t really remember. It’s all a bit of a blur.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘In the library.’

  ‘Where’s the library?’

  Silence.

  ‘Kai, where’s the library?’

  Nothing.

  ‘Can you hear me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  Kai opened her eyes. ‘Still in this bloody hospital.’

  Ellen grinned and Kai sensed her relief. Stretching her arms above her head, she smiled back.

  ‘That wasn’t from something I’ve read. I can really remember being in that room. I’ve no idea what I was doing there but it felt right. It might have been a college library, or maybe I worked in a library.’

  Ellen still looked doubtful, but Kai stood up and walked over to the window to avoid the doctor’s scrutiny. She didn’t want to be made to question what she knew for a certainty. This was from before, this was a real part of her past, something she could actually remember. It didn’t make much sense but the sensations and emotions were different from the ones in the dream. She was convinced that this was a genuine memory, a possible breakthrough and she wasn’t going to allow anyone to take that away from her.

  ‘Kai, I really don’t want you to get your hopes up over this. It’s something very small and it might not lead to bigger things. You’re not an easy subject, you know.’

  Kai turned to face her. ‘What does that mean?’

  Ellen shrugged. ‘When we used the prism, that first time, I sensed that you were resisting. I should have been able to lead you through the session much more easily, but you wouldn’t let me.’

  ‘Are you saying I don’t want to get my memory back? How can you even think that? I was really trying.’

  Ellen held her hands up, palms out as though she were warding off a physical attack. ‘That’s not what I’m saying. Consciously you’re willing but, on a subconscious level there’s something holding you back. You’re only able to sustain any sort of hypnotic state for a brief time; it’s like you won’t allow yourself to be controlled. Or you don’t fully trust me.’

  Kai considered this. It did make sense in the light of what she already knew about her past. And she didn’t really trust anyone. She knew that Ekachai wanted what was best for her and he genuinely was trying to help; but did she trust him? Then there was Ellen. As a person she was likeable and easy to be around but there was always the knowledge that, at any time, she could be analysing, forming judgements, even manipulating her.

  ‘You know you told me about your job the other day, being fed up here?’

  Ellen nodded.

  ‘Why did you tell me that?’

  The therapist smiled. ‘You want to know if it was like a trade. If I tell you something about my life you might trust me a little more? Quid pro quo?’

  Kai didn’t respond, forcing Ellen to continue.

  ‘I guess, in a way. I think that if you know me a bit better as a person you might feel more comfortable in situations like this. One of the downsides of this job is that people think you’re on duty all the time. I don’t do social psychoanalysis. It would really mess my head up if I was constantly trying to work out why everyone I met behaved as they did. And I’m sure I wouldn’t have many friends.’

  ‘I’m probably just paranoid,’ Kai said with a smile.

  ‘Understandable. How about I tell you that my door’s always open, you know where to find me or you can always ask someone to go fetch me down. Have a think about that dream again. Maybe try to focus on some of the faces.’

  She got up from the bed and crossed the room. At the door she turned and said, ‘I know it’s hard and I know it’s slow but it’s all progress.’

  ‘Too bloody slow,’ Kai murmured as the doctor left.

  November 8th – Hanoi

  I’ve finally escaped the rain but it’s stiflingly hot and very humid in Hanoi. The room I’ve checked into isn’t really helping on that score. It seems to be made mostly of glass and plastic like some sort of badly designed space-age extension on top of the hotel. The air-con doesn’t work properly and the fan blows the curtains around like sheets of rain in a gale, exposing me to anyone passing in the corridor. At least the bathroom’s clean. And the hotel’s in a nice part of the Old Quarter.

  I arrived at about 6am after a very uncomfortable hard sleeper journey down from Sapa, sharing with an English woman and four loud young men of assorted nationalities. I never did get to the bottom of who was from where. I managed to book a mattress for 20,000 dong and later discovered I had been ripped off – no surprise there – but despite this token comfort I felt every lurch and bounce of the carriage and heard every hawk and spit from the compartments on either side.

  We pulled into Hanoi just as it was getting light. Everyone seemed to be up and about, but it was like they were moving in slow motion. I saw people cycling to work at a leisurely pace, as if they were out on a Sunday afternoon bike ride, and others squatting round stoves sharing glasses of tea and yawning. The whole city was just waking up, refreshed and ready to face another day. Of course, by the time I got to the hotel the day was bloody hot and unbelievably sticky and all I wanted was a shower and air-con.

  I managed to sleep for a couple of hours this morning and then went out for my usual wander. I was surprised to discover that everyone travels by motorbike here. They’re mostly those Honda step-throughs like my grandad used to have. Nobody rides them at home except middle-aged men because they’re seriously uncool but here they’re a status symbol.

  Crossing the road is even more of an adventure than it was in Beijing. You step out and face a wall of buzzing motorcycles all heading straight for you. It seems that the best thing to do is just walk and trust the drivers’ reactions. Most of them seem to miss the pedestrians. I don’t know how they manage it. Maybe there’s some sort of invisible force field around everyone who tries to cross the road which protects them. I bet that’s why people smile when I panic and run.

  I went to the bank today and used an ATM for the first time since I left home. I’m now a millionaire – one million dong, just like that. If only I could do that at home, just go to the bank and withdraw a million. Still, I suppose I should be grateful that I have control of my own finances again, at least what I have is all mine to do with as I will, without having to account for and justify every penny.

  One of my big jobs for the day was to check the poste restante to see whether anyone back home remembers me. I like e-mail because it’s immediate and easy but there’s nothing like getting an old-fashioned letter. I knew Penny had seen straight through my excuses
about not being sure whether the internet access was reliable in China and Vietnam but she played along and agreed to write ‘properly’. It really lifted my spirits to see Penny’s familiar handwriting. I sat on a bench next to Hoan Kiem Lake and read it about four times.

  There was one slightly alarming paragraph towards the end of the letter. It seems that David paid her a visit two weeks ago to see if she’d heard from me. Of course she didn’t tell him anything beyond the fact that I’m fine and happy. She said he was ‘quite insistent’; I hope that doesn’t mean he got aggressive. I’d hoped he’d have known better than to try that again with Penny after the last ear-bashing he got. She’s more than a match for him. I know he puts that down to her being a ‘butch, lesbian, dyke, man-hater’ but in reality she’s just strong-willed and too tough-minded to be intimidated by someone like him.

  So, that was my day. I found a great noodle place on the lake and really pigged out at dinner time. I’ve also booked myself on a trip to the Perfume Pagoda tomorrow.

  November 9th – Hanoi

  The trip to the Perfume Pagoda turned out to be something of an experience. We headed south from Hanoi on some quite rough roads and saw interesting snippets of Vietnamese life beside the road – everyone busy, busy, busy. The dogs in cages were pretty disturbing. It’s a strange thing to know that certain things happen in some cultures, like the Vietnamese eating dog, but to come face to face with it is still a bit shocking.

  To get to the path up to the Perfume Pagoda we had to pair up in rowing boats. I ended up with a strange-looking German guy. He had thick glasses like the bottoms of jam jars and his hair was bleached to quite a vivid shade of yellow. It looked like he’d tried to hide it under a baseball cap that was pulled down over the tops of his ears, but the ends still showed. Thankfully, he didn’t seem interested in conversation so I just sat back and let myself be rowed through the spectacular countryside. It was quite an eerie place, a small river, thick with weed and weaving in and out of limestone outcrops. The limestone was covered in unlikely-looking ferns and grasses and lit by the reflections from the sun on the water.

  The pagoda wasn’t as interesting as I’d expected. We had to walk about two miles through the suffocating jungle, uphill all the way of course, and then we had to descend two flights of treacherous steps into a cave. Of course, the well-prepared members of our party had managed to remember torches. I just stumbled around in the dark. It was an interesting idea, a temple in a cave, but hardly worth such a long journey.

  I managed to be sociable on the way back to the boat and struck up conversation with an American woman who was taking a year off work to travel and write. She’s spent some time in India and really recommended it. I don’t know if I’m ready for that just yet; I think, as a lone woman, I’d attract too much unwanted attention. I’ll stick to Laos and Thailand and then see where the fancy takes me. Anyway, this woman, Andrea, claimed to be a workaholic and I got the impression that this trip was some sort of therapy for her, like letting go. I knew how she felt.

  Back in Hanoi I started to feel uneasy for no particular reason. I think maybe Penny’s letter is starting to sink in and I have to accept that David is still out there. I can’t change that so I have to change me. I spent quite a while looking for a restaurant that’s recommended in the guidebook but I just ended up getting hopelessly lost and I don’t know what triggered it, maybe the darkness in some of the narrow streets, but I started to panic. Suddenly everyone seemed to be looking at me like they knew everything about me. All the westerners I saw looked familiar in a sinister way. I saw a man in the window of a café wearing a shirt similar to one David used to have and suddenly I was afraid that he could be here, following me. I stumbled around the narrow streets for what seemed like hours without recognising anything that might have guided me back to the hotel and just as I was about to start looking for a taxi I saw the post office and I was able to find the lake. I managed to get back to familiar territory and grabbed a quick snack from one of the restaurants downstairs. I’m now sitting on my bed behind a carefully locked door despising myself for being so weak. Every time I close my eyes I have a flashback of David. I keep seeing his face when he slapped me, that blank look he used to get as though he was suddenly absent. I can hear him screaming at me that last time, when he finally lost it completely and pushed me down the stairs. And I can remember how I felt. Small and powerless and afraid.

  I will not go back to being that person.

  IX

  Kai’s hands shook uncontrollably as she placed the journal carefully on the bed cover, glaring at it as though it might rear up and bite her. She waited, half expecting to be assaulted by an onslaught of memories but the shock of discovery obviously wasn’t great enough to force the hairline cracks in her subconscious any wider open. What did it mean? It had become increasingly obvious as she’d read the journal that she’d escaped from some sort of abusive relationship. The entries for Dali hinted at some sort of violence in her past, but without any helpful detail. And now this. Suddenly the trip took on a new meaning. It hadn’t really seemed like she was on the run, rather that she’d come to some sort of uneasy peace within herself, but it was a peace that could be easily disturbed. This didn’t change anything about her situation, but it dramatically changed her understanding of herself. Now she understood how deep the fear ran, how fragile this inner calm had been, how easily her delicate equilibrium could be upset. She finally fully grasped why she didn’t like being touched, pushed or led. She could only guess at the fear of the lift, but the suggestions her mind flirted with were all unpleasant.

  The problem was, who to tell. Ekachai seemed the obvious choice but he couldn’t do much with the information. Mark? Somehow that didn’t feel right. His concern seemed genuine but she’d not been around him long enough to get a feel for whether he could be trusted. The only person who could use this information to help her was Ellen, but Ekachai’s warning ‘some say it’s dangerous’ echoed in her mind. What if the therapist somehow pushed her over the edge, into a psychotic episode? Could it be any worse than not knowing what had happened to her?

  Unsettled, she began to pace as far as the narrow confines of her room would allow, her mind bombarding itself with questions until she was convinced that madness had started flirting back with her and it was time to do something before she found herself on an uncontrollable slide towards breakdown. She threw herself restlessly on the bed and jabbed at the button that would summon one of the ever-friendly nurses, hopefully one who spoke some English.

  Almost instantly a small woman bustled into the room.

  ‘What wrong?’ she asked, her face a study in concern.

  ‘I need to see the doctor – Ekachai – can you get him for me?’

  ‘Doctor?’ the nurse repeated maddeningly.

  Kai struggled to maintain her composure, reminding herself that she was the foreigner here not the nurse. ‘Yes, doctor. I need to see the doctor.’

  The nurse grinned her understanding and hurried out, leaving Kai to pace and fret about whether she was doing the right thing. Was there a right thing? She couldn’t use her history or self-knowledge to make a judgement so she had to rely on the only option open to her, intuition, gut feeling, instinct. Whatever she called it, it came down to the same thing: groping in the dark.

  Ekachai looked worried when he appeared at the door moments later. He looked slightly more dishevelled than she was used to as though he’d rushed away from something else to attend to her problems.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ he asked frowning. ‘The nurse said you needed to see me urgently.’

  Kai smiled at his agitation. ‘I’m fine. I just feel like I need to talk to Doctor Thomas again, if you can arrange it.’

  His relief was obvious from his expansive grin.

  ‘Of course. I am sure she will be pleased to see you. I had hoped your trip outside would help you to relax and come to terms with your situation. Perhaps your friend Mark has
also helped a little?’

  ‘No,’ she snapped, resenting his suggestion that she needed to rely on somebody else. ‘This is my decision. I can’t live like this, it isn’t a life. I can either try to get my life back or try to start something new, but I won’t be able to do either by sitting on my arse feeling sorry for myself.’ Her anger was growing, she could almost feel it crackling around her like static, wide-ranging and irrational. With a huge effort she reined it in.

  Ekachai had retreated to the door looking worried again. He thinks you’re mad a paranoid little voice whispered. He’s scared of what you might do.

  ‘I will speak to Doctor Thomas,’ he said, clearly eager to be out of range of her anger. ‘I am sure she will be able to see you today, later.’

  Try telling her I’m going fucking crazy Kai thought.

  ***

  Whatever Ekachai had said to Ellen had obviously been enough to convince her of the urgency of his request because Kai found herself sitting in the claustrophobic office less than two hours later. The last time she’d been here she’d felt nervous and uncertain, but this time she was confident, aware. As the therapist slid the prism out of her desk drawer and on to the dark wood surface Kai shook her head.

  ‘No, I don’t need that, I just want to talk to you.’

  Ellen frowned. ‘Dr Ekachai didn’t really explain why you wanted to see me. I just assumed that you were willing to give the hypnotherapy another try.’ She glanced round to Ekachai for confirmation but he simply gave her a non-committal shrug.

  ‘And can I just talk to you?’ Kai asked pointedly. Again Ekachai shrugged and smiled at her before slipping silently out of the door. As he closed it behind him Kai relaxed into the armchair which was the focus of the small office.

  ‘So, you just want to talk,’ Ellen stated, not quite able to keep the disappointment out of her voice. She pulled up her desk chair opposite Kai and leaned closer to her. ‘Has something happened? Another memory? Another dream?’