by J. S. Monroe
I sit in silence as Laura explains to the doctor about the woman who’s just arrived on their doorstep, claiming to live in their house. Tony rubs the small of her back as she talks. I look away, close my eyes. This is all too much for me.
“Yes, she says she can’t remember her name...where she’s been...she says she lives here... I haven’t asked.” She puts a hand over the receiver. “She’s asking for your date of birth?”
The expression on Laura’s face suggests she knows already it’s another pointless question. I shake my head.
“She doesn’t know.” Laura listens for a while and then speaks again. “She lost her passport at the airport, along with her bank cards, laptop—” a glance up at me “—and all her other ID.” I nod. She listens again, this time for longer. I think she must know the doctor quite well, maybe as a friend.
“Thanks, Susie. Really appreciate it.”
She puts the phone down.
“Dr. Patterson, one of the locum doctors, will see you this evening. A personal favor. She thought you should go straight to the accident and emergency department at the hospital to check for any physical causes—head injury, stroke, that sort of thing—but I talked her out of it. We had a hellish time there last week, didn’t we, darling?” She glances across at Tony, who nods sympathetically.
“Six hours,” he says. I flinch at the thought of so long in a hospital.
“Because you’re not registered at the practice, I’m taking you in on an appointment in my name.”
“Thank you,” I say.
“Maybe she is registered?” Tony says.
“I don’t know,” I reply.
“Have you heard of something called psychogenic amnesia?” Laura asks.
Tony looks up.
“Susie, Dr. Patterson, she was just mentioning it. Major trauma or stress can cause temporary memory loss. A fugue state, I think she called it. I’ll let her tell you more. It comes back, though, the memory. Over time. There’s no need to worry.”
She touches my hand. “That’s good,” I say. “Can I use your loo?”
“Of course.”
“You know where the bathroom is,” Tony says, standing aside as I walk past him. I don’t answer. First left at the end of the kitchen.
CHAPTER 3
When I reenter the room, Tony is on the phone, waiting to be connected to someone. He turns his back the moment he sees me.
“Tony’s calling the police station at Heathrow,” Laura says. “To let them know about your missing handbag. Tell them that you are here and are having problems with your memory. I’m sure passport control can run a check, see who’s arrived from Berlin today, match your photo with their records.”
“I’m on hold for the Heathrow Terminal 5 Safer Neighborhoods Team,” Tony says, rolling his eyes, one hand over the phone. “Doesn’t exactly fill you with confidence, does it?”
His frustration seems to melt away when he looks at me.
“How you feeling?” he asks.
I smile weakly and sit next to Laura on the sofa. “What time’s the doctor’s appointment?”
Laura glances at her watch, a purple Fitbit. “Twenty minutes. I was thinking, is there anyone we can call? Your parents maybe? Friends? A partner?”
I look down, my lip starting to wobble.
“I’m sorry,” Laura says. “It’ll come back. You just need to let the mind settle.”
“About frickin’ time,” Tony says, walking away into the kitchen with the phone. He glances back at Laura and smiles.
“He doesn’t exactly like the police,” Laura says, turning from Tony to me, unable to suppress a giggle. “Always catching him speeding.”
“I did have a friend,” I say. “I kept a photo of her in my handbag.”
“Do you know where she lives?” Laura asks, encouraged. “We could call her.”
“She died.”
I pause, trying to recall Fleur’s face. And then I see her, knees up in the bathtub, crying. I grope for more, but the image dissolves into nothing.
“That’s all I know,” I add.
“Oh.”
In the awkward silence that follows, we both listen to Tony talk on the phone in the kitchen. He explains about my missing handbag and my inability to recall my name. After giving his own name and the house address, he offers a brief description of me, glancing through the glass door in our direction. “Short dark hair, late twenties? Business suit, a suitcase...we’re going to look inside it now... She arrived at Terminal 5 late this morning, maybe lunchtime. BA flight from Berlin... Said she lost it, or it was stolen, at Arrivals.”
Again, hearing myself described by someone else makes me feels nauseous. Laura senses my discomfort and puts a hand on my forearm. She’s very tactile. Her face is close to mine. Too close.
“Another tea?”
“I’m okay, thanks.”
“Shall we open your suitcase?”
I move to stand up but Laura is already on her feet.
“I’ll get it,” she says.
Laura wheels the suitcase into the room just as Tony comes off the phone.
“They’ve given me a website where all lost items at the airport are logged,” Tony says to us both, “but don’t hold your breath. It takes up to forty-eight hours for items to be registered.”
“What about her loss of memory? Are they going to check passenger records?” Laura asks.
“Better things to do. No one’s in danger, no threat to the peace. Said it was more one for social services. Anything inside?”
Laura lets me unzip the suitcase.
“I think it’s just clothes,” I say, lifting the lid as I kneel down on the floor. At the top are two pairs of black knickers, a cream camisole top and a black bra. Laura glances up at Tony, who stands back at a respectful distance. I search through more clothes beneath: another black business suit, like the one I’m wearing, the jacket neatly folded on top of the skirt; three blouses, a pair of jeans, two T-shirts, another bra, one pair of heels, two paperbacks, a box of tampons, a toiletries bag, some gym gear, a plastic bag full of dirty tights and a rolled-up yoga mat.
“You must have been away awhile,” Laura says.
“Looks like it,” I say, searching more frantically. “There must be something here that will tell me who I am.”
“Into your yoga?”
“I guess so,” I say, still rifling through my things. Om mani padme hum.
“I’m a teacher. Vinyasa. Maybe we could have a session together. It might help.”
“That would nice.”
Laura is making me feel increasingly guilty. From the moment I arrived on her doorstep, she has been kindness personified. I sit back on my heels and flip the lid of the suitcase closed in a gesture of resignation.
“Don’t worry,” she says, her hand on my forearm again.
“No diary?” Tony asks, joining Laura on the sofa. “A hotel bill?”
“I think that was all in the handbag,” I say. “Sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” Laura says.
“May I ask you something?” Tony says, glancing at Laura. I get the impression she sometimes worries what he might say next. “Can you remember anything about earlier today? Knocking on our door half an hour ago?”
I nod.
“Your journey here?”
“Yes.”
“But not your flight?”
“Tony?” Laura interrupts, a hand on his knee. He rests his hand on hers.
“It’s okay,” I say.
Laura is being protective of me, which is good of her, but I also need to answer Tony’s questions, however difficult I’m finding them.
“I think it happened when I went to the lost property office. Everything seemed to fall away at that point, when he asked for my name and I couldn’t tell him.�
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“I’m not surprised,” Laura says. “It must have been disorientating.”
“A nightmare,” Tony agrees, his tone more sympathetic.
“I can remember a few minutes earlier, when my suitcase arrived on the carousel, but...nothing before that.”
I begin to feel dizzy again.
“And you can’t recall anything about your family?” Tony asks.
“I think we should leave it,” Laura says, standing up. “Until she’s been checked over by a doctor. It’s time we went.”
“I’m okay, honestly.” I glance at Tony, who is studying me intently.
“And your name? Nothing?”
I shake my head.
“You look like a Jemma to me,” Tony continues, leaning back on the sofa. “Definitely a Jemma.”
I shrug my shoulders. “I don’t know.”
“Jemma with a J.” Laura looks from me to Tony. “You can stay here if you like, in the spare room,” he adds. A flash of the serene smile he gave me earlier, when I was standing on his doorstep. “For a few days, while you get yourself sorted. This can’t be easy for you.”
“Absolutely,” Laura says. I sense she’s been waiting for him to make the offer.
“No squatters’ rights, though,” he adds. “I’ve read about those.” I think he’s joking.
A minute later, we are at the front door. I’m nervous about stepping outside, away from the house and into the world again. Laura senses my unease.
“It’s okay, I’m coming with you,” she says.
“I’m sure the doctor will be able to help,” Tony adds. “She’s good. And will vouch that we live here.”
We open the door just as a man walks past.
“Evening,” the man says to Laura. “Settling in okay?”
CHAPTER 4
Tony moves fast once the front door has closed. He knows it’s unnecessary, but Laura wants reassurance that it isn’t them who are the crazy ones but the woman who’s turned up on their doorstep today. Laura has done so well to beat her anxiety—all thanks to her yoga—but Tony’s learned it’s best to address her worries quickly, before they gain currency.
Upstairs, he opens a stepladder on the landing and unlocks the hatch. The small loft is his space, his man cave, as Laura calls it. She doesn’t come up here. Every square foot of the floor is covered with boxes, each one labeled with a year. Inside the boxes are sheet files of negatives from predigital days. Most of them are of weddings, but it’s the row of boxes down the left-hand side of the loft that he’s most proud of: his collection of daily images, 365 a year. A photo of Laura asleep; high filigree clouds; shells on a beach.
Laura teases him that they’re a sign of not wanting to move on, of failing to live in the moment, but it’s not about that. It’s about remembering. Not forgetting. Some people keep a diary; he takes a daily photo. No big deal. In recent years he’s posted the images on Instagram rather than print them up.
He leans forward, picks a box at random and pulls out a photograph: a tree freighted with late March snow, a few weeks before they got married. He can recall the day, the exact moment. Nothing wrong with his synapses; the neuronal traffic still flowing freely. A few minutes after it was taken, he had helped Laura sweep great swathes of snow off her VW Beetle. They had laughed, thrown snowballs. It was a month after another miscarriage and she was trying to be brave, but they had both known how happy the snow would have made a child, how happy a child would have made her.
He puts the photo away and turns to a box full of paperwork for the house: a real estate survey, environmental report, property details and, finally, a copy of the deeds. All fine. Of course they are. What was she thinking? He takes a photo of them with his phone and texts it to her.
Laura suspects the woman he’s calling Jemma might have lived here at some time in the past. She had discussed the possibility with him when Jemma went to the bathroom, thought it might explain her unsettling knowledge of their house.
The previous owner had given Laura a bundle of historic documents, which are at the bottom of the box, and a list of the owners before him. A keen amateur property genealogist, he had traced the house right back to 1780, when it was built as an estate cottage. Tony finds the list of names and scrolls through them. No need to text a photo to Laura.
CHAPTER 5
“We moved in a month ago,” Laura says, as we walk down the road toward the pub. “We rented in the village for a year, waiting for it to come on the market.”
“It’s old, isn’t it,” I say.
“Eighteenth century, I think. Tony’s heart was set on the place—owning a slice of English history.”
We pass a young couple pushing a high-tech pram, another child meandering behind them on a simple wooden push-bike with no pedals. The Slaughtered Lamb, on the corner of the high street, is busy, drinkers spilling out on the pavement. Tony has stayed behind to cook dinner, which will be ready when we get back, if I want to eat with them.
“Do you know who lived in the house before you?” I ask.
“A young couple with a toddler. He worked for Vodafone and was relocated. She was a teacher at the primary school.”
“Not me, then,” I say, managing a faint smile.
“That’s just what Tony and I were thinking. It would have made everything so much easier to understand.”
We arrive outside the village surgery, a shiny new glass-fronted building with steps and an access ramp leading up to the main entrance. It can only be a medical center, a place of doctors and disinfectant. Sharp instruments. My stomach tightens. My mind is like a bird, searching the wide-open sea, occasionally alighting on tiny islands of memory.
“Perhaps you lived at the house when you were much younger?” Laura asks, as we walk up the steps. “You obviously feel some sort of connection with it.”
“I just knew I had to get back there,” I say, taking a seat in the waiting area.
“We’ve got a list of all the old owners in the attic. We can check your name against it—when you remember.”
I pick up a magazine while Laura enters her date of birth on the computer screen to let the surgery know she has arrived. It’s an old copy of Country Living, full of tasteful cottages with roses around the door. I feel disorientated. Cut off. What am I doing here? Sitting in a doctor’s surgery in rural England?
“So sorry to trouble you,” a man’s voice says. His tone is tentative, uncertain.
I look up to see a man—late forties, maybe older—standing above me. He’s in a cream linen suit with a white collarless shirt and no tie, and wearing brown suede shoes. A tan courier bag is slung over one shoulder. I have never seen him before in my life—at least I don’t think I have—and my confusion is obvious.
“Do we know each other?” he continues.
I shake my head, my confusion obvious. Is the guy chatting me up?
“Oh God, sorry,” the man says, looking at me with a mix of shock and embarrassment. “I thought you were someone else.”
“Luke,” Laura says to the man, rushing over to join us.
“Laura, didn’t see you there.” He gives her a kiss on both cheeks. “I thought I recognized your friend.” He laughs nervously, but he seems to be finding our encounter anything but funny. “From a long time ago,” he adds, his voice tailing off.
Laura looks at me, searching in vain for a flicker of recognition. I rack my brain desperately but it’s a blank. I don’t recognize him at all.
“Sorry to disappoint,” I say. Despite his shock, Luke has a nice smile, and for a fleeting moment I wish we did know each other.
“No need to apologize,” he says.
There’s a pause as he waits for an introduction, glancing first at Laura and then back at me. His smile falls away as his eyes linger on mine. What’s he thinking?
“My mistake,” he adds, quieter
now, filling the silence. “Funny thing, memory.”
Laura sits down next to me as Luke walks off.
“That was awkward,” I say, shifting uncomfortably in my seat.
“I couldn’t introduce you because—”
“I know, it’s okay.”
“For a moment I thought we’d solved the mystery. When he said he recognized you.”
“Me too,” I say, sitting back. “Maybe I do know him? He seemed nice enough.”
“Luke? He’s gorgeous.”
“Laura Masters?” a voice calls out from down the corridor.
“That’s us,” she says, standing up. “Luke’s a journalist. Wrote an article about the local vicar banning my yoga classes in the church hall because they were ‘rooted in Hinduism.’”
“Doesn’t sound very Christian,” I say.
“There was an outcry. Apparently, the vicar didn’t want to be seen supporting ‘an alternative world view.’ No wonder no one goes to church anymore.”
Just as we are walking away from the waiting area, Luke appears again by my side.
“Sorry, forgot to give you one of these,” he says, handing me a small business card.
“Thanks,” I say, feeling confused by his attention.
“You know, just in case.”
CHAPTER 6
Laura’s phone buzzes when we walk into Dr. Susie Patterson’s consulting room. She glances at a text from Luke and shows me the screen as she sits down in one of two empty chairs. The text is from Luke. Who’s the new woman in town? Weirdly familiar x. We both smile, though in truth his interest makes me nervous. I sit down in the other chair. The room feels oppressively clean, and I can feel my chest tightening already. There’s a bed along one wall, covered in a roll of white paper. And on her desk, laid out like cutlery, the tools of Dr. Patterson’s medical trade. I glance away, pressing my hands together. In my mind I had prepared myself for an innocent consulting room. I force myself to look up.
“Thanks for seeing us so quickly, Susie,” Laura says.