So I decided to leave, my mind made up. That was when I found the gate locked. That was when I realised I couldn’t leave even if I wanted to. So here I am again at the edge of my parents’ land, my hands gripping the damp wood of the gate. This is as far as I can go thanks to an unbroken perimeter fence. I glance up the road into the thick white air. I can’t see anything, but I know there is a village out there; a hairdresser’s, a garage, houses full of people and lives. Surely there has to be. I rattle the gate, test it as I do each day. But it is locked with a code. Something else I don’t know. Something else they won’t tell me.
Standing here unable to leave, I feel as if they are trying to keep me prisoner.
THREE
My mother returns home just before lunch, complaining about the mud Ben brought in with him. She sits with me at the table while I eat. She watches as I take my tablets, then makes me a cup of tea before helping me into bed. I notice her gaze passing over my body, mentally listing my injuries as she pulls the covers up to my chin.
‘Once you’ve had a rest, how would you feel about getting dressed for dinner today?’
‘I’m not sure,’ I tell her. She often suggests this, as if the act alone has the power to make everything all right.
‘Well you can’t stay in your pyjamas for ever. And remember what your father said earlier. He wants you to sit down together tonight. I’m sure he’d appreciate the effort.’
I look to the cupboards. ‘But they’re not my clothes,’ I tell her. ‘All my clothes are still at my house. The house that none of you will tell me about.’
‘Not all of them,’ she says, indignant, ignoring my plea. ‘We brought a few things with us, remember?’ She reaches down, holds up a small bag. ‘This is your home now, Chloe.’
* * *
My father is back early from the hospital: Mum’s car has had to go to the garage and Jess needed collecting from some study seminar. Something about forensic toxicology at the local university so that she keeps busy during the Christmas break. But his work is far from finished and he summons one of the doctors from the hospital to discuss some cases that can’t wait. I hear the other doctor arrive, his car cutting tracks through the gravel driveway. Dusk is already settling when I move to the window, see him approaching the house through the mist.
The strangest thing is that I recognise him. I’m not sure, but I would guess I must have seen him at the hospital. I listen at the edge of the door, watch him come inside, loop his jacket over the banister in a way I’m sure my father must hate. Still, he doesn’t say anything.
It’s another hour before I go downstairs. I can hear their voices from behind the half-open study door, a mumble at first, then much clearer. It sounds as if they are still discussing work.
‘The thing is, Guy, what we have to accept is that her condition is much worse than we originally thought. We must ensure that our approach is tough, that it leaves no room for confusion.’
There is a heavy sigh as I approach the bottom of the stairs. ‘I appreciate that, Dr Daniels, but I’m concerned.’
‘About our chosen way forward?’
‘About what will happen if it takes us too long to reintroduce her to the…’
He stops. I am just passing the half-open door.
‘Chloe, is that you?’ my father calls. I take a few steps towards the study, push a hand against the rough wood. ‘I thought you were sleeping.’
‘I was, but I woke up a while ago.’
The man I vaguely recognise is sitting in a chair opposite my father. His fingers are pressed together, forming a steeple. Reminds me of school, when we used to play cat’s cradle. He smiles at me and raises his hand to wave, which seems to merge into the offer of a handshake.
‘Hello,’ I say.
‘Hi. I’m Guy. We’ve met before, at—’
‘The hospital.’ He seems surprised. ‘I remember your face.’
‘Dr Thurwell is one of my colleagues, Chloe. He saw you just after you came out of the coma.’
‘It’s great to see you doing so well.’
‘Thanks,’ I say, and after that there is a moment of silence, nobody sure of what to say next. ‘I’ll leave you to finish your work.’
My father gives me a nod. ‘Thank you, Chloe. I’ll see you at dinner.’
* * *
‘What did you do this morning?’ my father asks as we finish dinner. ‘Did you spend time looking at the album?’
‘Yes,’ I tell him as my mother and sister clear the plates. ‘But not much else. I felt pretty tired most of the day.’
He nods his head agreeably. ‘It’s to be expected. Slowly does it, Chloe.’ And then he reaches across the table, touches my hand. For a second I can’t breathe, and my whole body freezes. ‘Together we’ll get there. Now don’t forget your tablets.’ I pick up the little pot from the table, swallow my evening dose. ‘I think it’s about time we made a start.’
* * *
I swing my feet up onto the couch and he helps adjust the cushions so that I’m comfortable. He pulls a chair alongside me and wedges himself into it, his body too big, the chair too small. He’s careful about how he sits, the open posture, the relaxed shoulders. He doesn’t want to force me to open up. He said that not long after I arrived here. He leant down to my level, all smiles and gentle hands as I sat there wide-eyed and scared. ‘You know I’m not forcing you to talk to me, right, Chloe? I don’t want you to feel cornered. But if we work together, I know I can help you remember the things you’ve lost.’
But three weeks down the line I still haven’t remembered anything concrete, and our sessions only seem to leave me feeling more confused and unsure. There are awards for his work on the desk in his study, so I know he’s an accomplished doctor. I suppose it is possible that I am just too far lost, but there is also a part of me that wonders if this isn’t doomed to failure.
‘Don’t you think this is a little bit weird?’ I suggest as I settle into position. ‘You’re my father. I don’t think people are meant to undergo therapy with their relatives.’
He shifts in his seat and smoothes out the paper on his little notepad. ‘But Chloe, this is what I do. How can I stand by and not help you get through this?’ He draws in a long breath, lets it filter silently through his nostrils.
‘Perhaps I could see one of the other doctors I met at the hospital. Guy, maybe, the one who was here with you earlier.’ I remember a sensation about our brief meeting, the idea of him sitting on the edge of the bed, smiling at me. ‘Maybe he could help me instead.’
He narrows his eyes as if he is giving the notion some thought. ‘Dr Thurwell? Well, I must admit he is a very good doctor, but I don’t think it is suitable for you to start seeing him as a patient. He is my junior, Chloe. My mentee. I can take care of your needs, help you rediscover the past.’
‘But we’ve been doing this for three weeks, and I still can’t remember anything.’
He rubs a palm against his beard, his lips pink and pouty. ‘Chloe, the human mind is capable of storing an incredible amount of information. It’s all in there,’ he says, tapping lightly at my head, ‘little packets of data about your life. But the accident made it all a jumble. Things everywhere, strewn about like your drawers when you were a child.’ Another offering from my past. Is that true? Was I a messy child? ‘But the brain is remarkable. We can usually recall complex memories from childhood as if they happened only yesterday.’ He snaps his fingers in front of his eyes to show the speed of the brain. ‘Your ability to recall has gone astray. What we must do is reconnect the subconscious with the conscious, reducing your peripheral awareness by creating an environment whereby those hidden memories can rise to the surface. Reconnect the dots, so to speak. Hypnosis is a wonderful tool.’
So I lie back, tempted again by the promise of remembering my life. I rest my head against a cushion and gaze up into his eyes, the whites shining bright in the firelight, the shadows underneath dark and deep. Although I’m still not sure I trust
him, he is seemingly my only hope at the moment.
‘I want you to start by taking some deep breaths,’ he says. ‘Let’s get you a little more relaxed. Concentrate on drawing air in through the nose and expelling it through the mouth. In through the nose, out through the mouth. That’s right. No, Chloe, don’t look at me. Focus on the pen.’ He holds a silver fountain pen between his fingers. Black ink has leaked onto his skin, bled into the cracks on his fingers. ‘Now just allow your body to rest into the rhythm of your breathing. That’s good. In and out. Well done, but try not to blink so much. Very good. You’re doing very well.’
After a while I feel calmer, and even a little sleepy. My arms feel heavy on the couch. I’m yawning, and the drumming of the rain against the window seems to resemble the crashing of waves against the shingle of a beach. Pebbles rolling in and out. Brighton, I think. Why do I know Brighton? Why did I think about it now?
‘Now, Chloe. What can you remember about that night?’
‘The rain,’ I say. ‘It was raining.’
‘Very good. Where are you?’
‘In the car,’ I tell him. ‘My head is hurting.’
‘Keep going back. Keep looking, Chloe. What else can you see? I need you to go back as far as you can go, to the start of your journey. I want you to try to think back to the moment when you picked up the keys, when you got into the car. Can you do that for me, Chloe? Can you try to remember?’
* * *
I wake with a start. My eyes flicker open and I see his smiling face peering down at me. The fire has died down, only a few golden embers glimmering. The air around me has grown cold and dark. What time is it? How long have I been here?
‘Well done, Chloe. How are you feeling now?’
I look round at the clock and see that it is a little after eleven. My head feels light, sloshy, as though it is submerged. As though I’ve been underwater. I lost myself, slipped into his dream world, the one he lulls me into each time we sit like this. I reach up and touch the dressing on my head. My father takes my hand. A wave of concern flashes over his face. ‘What’s wrong? Are you all right?’
‘I fell asleep,’ I say, pushing myself upright, looking at the clock on the mantelpiece. So much time has passed. Almost three hours. The dream comes back to me. The beach, the pier, my speeding car, and then … Nothing. What did I recall? I can’t remember. ‘Did I say anything? Did I talk during my sleep?’
‘A little. Most of the time you were just resting. Listening. Nothing discernible. But you did very well, Chloe. You told me some simple details about the speed you were travelling, the weather conditions. All information that will be useful when the police want to talk to you.’
‘The police? Do they still want to speak to me?’ They had been to see me once in the hospital already. I remember little of what they told me, those early weeks a blur.
He stands up, pulls the edge of his shirt from inside his waistband. He has become more casual during the time I’ve been asleep. He has lost his tie, and his shirt is loose, unbuttoned to reveal a tuft of hair on his chest. ‘At some point. But there’s no rush. You really don’t seem to remember much about that night. Still, perhaps that’s for the best. It was a terrible accident.’ He brushes a heavy hand over my sweaty brow. ‘I’ll fix us a cup of cocoa, how about that?’ He goes to walk away and I push myself up, my arms heavy. Just before he slips from the room, he turns back to look at me with a smile on his face. ‘Great job tonight, Chloe. I’m very proud of you.’
He might well be feeling proud of me, but somehow everything feels wrong, has done since I first arrived here. Two days ago, after the last therapy session I had with my father, I asked him if there was something he was hiding from me. I just have a feeling, as if something happened that nobody wants to mention. I asked him if we had argued before the crash, if there was a reason for me to be speeding that night. He told me that everything was fine beforehand. It was just a terrible accident, he said, distorted by a mind full of half-baked memories.
But deep down, although I can’t explain how, I know that he is lying. There is something about my life before the accident that they don’t want to tell me. I can feel it in their silence, my isolation, the way my mother and sister go out all day even though they seem to have nowhere to go. And until I can find out exactly what happened that night, I’m never going to be able to move forward. I’m trapped by a man who doesn’t want to tell me the truth, and who with each therapy session seems only to confuse me more.
And if that’s true, if I am correct, it means I’m going to have to find out what really happened on my own.
You said that you wanted to escape, that you needed a way out. And with that, what started off as a game became something that meant so much more. We stopped being about laughter and happy moments together and started being about something real that we could feel deep inside. I thought we started to be about us. I just didn’t realise—and it makes me so sad to admit this now—that for you it was only ever about you.
Right from the first moment I laid eyes on you I knew it was different with you. That you were different. I could feel it in my movements, the way I held myself, wondering when you would look at me. I wanted to know what it would be like to touch a girl like you, to caress you and feel your hands against my skin. It was like a dream, Chloe. You were like a dream. I wanted right then and there to make you my wife.
You let me fall in love with you, and believe that you loved me in return. Would you still say that you love me now? Would you tell me still there is nothing else you think about? Do you remember that you promised me forever? Do you think about me when you go to bed at night? Do you remember anything about us at all? I can’t stand the thought that you have forgotten me. Still, all I can do now is wait. Wait for you to remember. I have been reduced by your existence, Chloe, reduced to a beggar, forced to make do with empty promises of our broken life together. Sometimes I feel that’s all that’s left for me now. And sometimes, my love, I hate you for it.
FOUR
My eyes flicker open, registering the pained look on my father’s face looming above me. I have woken up screaming. I could hear myself in the final moments, when day and night are truly blurred, that moment when you are neither awake nor sleeping. His wrinkles are etched as deep as geographical fault lines, his voice shrill and urgent. The rain continues its assault against the window, streaming down the glass in the same way as the sweat runs across my face. Church bells chime to mark the start of another new day, the first of a new month. December: the last month of the year. Another juncture draws to a close.
‘Chloe,’ he says, hands pulling at my floppy body. He draws me in close to him. ‘It was just a dream. You’re all right now.’ He strokes my wet hair away from my face and presses me into the soft flesh of his chest. My wounded head throbs at his touch. The scent of his deodorant is strong, his skin freshly showered.
‘He was drowning,’ I say as I try to escape his grasp. Our eyes meet; his are glassy in the pale light, his pupils black and bulbous as a seal’s. ‘He was drowning and I couldn’t save him.’
‘Who was drowning?’ my father asks as he looks to my mother, just arriving at the door to my bedroom.
‘I don’t know. A boy. Oh God, I couldn’t save him.’
‘Oh Chloe, it was just a bad dream,’ he says again, squeezing me tighter still. ‘Look at you, you poor thing.’ He smoothes his hand over the curve of my head. ‘You’re shaking.’
I scramble from his grip and push the sheets aside. Despite the weather, I am burning up. I can hear the sound of Jess moving around outside my room. My mother looks out into the corridor, ushers her away.
‘I can’t breathe,’ I say, hurrying to the window. I throw it open, gasp for breath, the cold air a shock to my lungs.
Then my father is at my back, a hand rubbing at my shoulder. ‘Dreams are nothing for us to be alarmed about, Chloe.’ He shoos my mother away, and although she seems reluctant at first, she does as she is told. ‘But y
ou must rest, Chloe. You need to take your time, like Dr Gleeson told us, especially with that head wound. Don’t rush to get up.’ He edges me back towards the bed, plumps the pillows as I sit. I allow him to cover me and tuck the sheets in tight. ‘Try to get some sleep.’
After my father’s sessions, my dreams are always vivid. Last night it was a boy, faceless, drowning in the shadow of Brighton pier. I watched as he ran down the beach, ducking under the rafters. I was edging towards the water, scared to go in, desperate to save him yet powerless to do so. A couple of nights ago it was a car chase, me trying desperately to reach the car in front. I didn’t see the boy’s face that time either. I only saw his body, in the moments before I woke. He was lying on a forest floor, covered in blood.
* * *
By the time I get downstairs, my parents have both gone out. I feel so jealous of their freedom, the ability to come and go as they please. I glance out of the window to see both of their cars missing. And just on the edge of the driveway Ben is kneeling alongside a bush, trimming back the dead branches. He is young I think, certainly no more than thirty, but his face is well wrinkled, weathered by the elements and a life outside. He smokes a lot, badly made roll-ups which he has to light over and over as they dangle from his mouth. I turn away, go to find Jess, who is in the kitchen, nursing a cup of tea.
‘Morning,’ she says, smiling. ‘Are you OK?’
It is such a simple question, but one I feel overwhelmingly incapable of answering. Am I OK? I have no idea. I can barely tell her who I am or what I’m doing here. I feel like a cardboard cut-out of my previous self.
‘Not sure.’ She smiles and motions to a chair. I take a seat. ‘It’s all still a bit confusing.’
Between the Lies Page 2