The fuss Dawn is creating begins spilling out across the floor, bringing with it a flurry of others to see the woman who has returned from the brink of death. They hover around me, question after question about how I am feeling and whether my head is still sore. The name Damien Treadstone is passed about between them, each in turn incredulous over how anybody could leave the scene of an accident and then deny he was ever there. They exclaim how it’s a miracle I survived. How they are just so very sorry. But despite my best efforts to answer, my focus is drawn to the building rather than the people.
Because as I gaze about the room at the posters on the wall, a mixture of info graphics and advertising campaigns warning against the dangers of drinking to excess, I realise that this place feels familiar. I know it, and more importantly I know myself in it: all the contracts I have approved, the late nights I’ve worked, the tireless hopes that somehow my work here will make somebody’s life more bearable than mine. I look over at a desk near the corner, alongside which there’s a small window. I know it has a view to a brick wall and lets in a draught, even in the summer. There’s a young woman in a smart dress sitting at it now. She looks strong, her arms well shaped as if she visits the gym. She notices the attention but she doesn’t get up, continues with her work. I don’t know who she is.
‘Come on through,’ says one of the guys—George, I think his name is—and he leads me away from the throng of people, all slowly returning to their desks after the excitement of my arrival has died down. ‘Janice is in the office. She’d love to see you. Go on,’ he says as he edges me towards a door with a sign on it reading Office Manager. Underneath that somebody has stuck a piece of A4 paper with the words Head Honcho printed on it, around which everybody who works here has signed their name to officialise the document. I see what looks to be my signature, bottom left. Not at all shaky like when I write now. Chloe Jameson, it reads, the person I used to be.
I take a deep breath and knock. ‘Come in,’ I hear, and I open the door. Janice rises to her feet, brings one hand to her mouth in shock. Her nails are well shaped and painted red. I feel her eyes taking me in, her stare settling on the dressing covering part of my head. I finger my hair into place and she beckons me through to sit in one of the low armchairs.
I recognise her, know instinctively that we share a past. I know her curvy body, the soft blonde hair cut into a sharp bob. The chunky oversized necklace like sweets around her neck. She’s my boss, has been for years.
‘I can’t believe it, Chloe.’ She sits down opposite me, pulls her chair in close. She gazes away for a moment, lost in thought, before shaking her head as she looks back towards me. She makes one more assessment of my injuries, those still visible and those that are healing, things she must have read about in the paper. ‘I tried calling, but nobody answered. I went to the house too, but there was nobody there.’ She shrugs, defeated. ‘I had no other way to reach you.’ She sounds apologetic, distraught, as if in some way she has let me down.
‘It doesn’t matter, Janice. You did what you could.’
‘Still, it wasn’t enough, was it? I want you to know we were thinking of you. All of us. And Joshua, too. I don’t even know what to say, Chloe. When I read the news…’ She shakes her head again, her eyes filling with tears. She reaches across and takes my hand. People seem to do this a lot since I woke up after the crash. ‘I’m just so very sorry.’
‘Thanks. It means a lot.’ And it really does. It was nice to experience their warm welcome when I walked through the door, a crowd of people pleased to see me. Because in my broken memories of this place, it seems to me that I was distracted when I was here, not really part of the team. But today I feel wanted and well liked. As if this is a place I once belonged. And if that’s the case, I need to get back to work as soon as I can. It will help me rediscover myself. Find the person I used to be. ‘So much has changed in the last few weeks. It’s nice to be here, somewhere familiar.’
‘I can only begin to imagine.’ She lets go of my hand before sitting back in her chair. ‘I don’t even know where I would begin if I were in your shoes.’ Her honesty is a relief: somebody acknowledging the mammoth climb ahead of me. ‘Tell me. How’s Andrew taking it?’
So she knows the truth, that Andrew is alive. ‘I’m not sure,’ I admit.
Her eyes narrow for a moment before her lips draw together. ‘You don’t know where he is, do you?’
‘No,’ I say as I shake my head.
‘I take it he does know what happened?’
I realise that I don’t actually know for sure. Is he aware that our son is dead? Something close to disbelief washes over me as I realise that I never even considered this until now. Does he know anything about the accident? I feel my heart quicken as it occurs to me that I might have to be the one to break the news to him.
‘Actually, I don’t know that either,’ I tell Janice. ‘My father said he took money.’ For a moment she appears confused. ‘In order to leave me alone.’
She stands up, pours two glasses of water from a jug on the side. I look down, see my hands are shaking. She breathes a heavy sigh. ‘What an absolute mess,’ she says as she sits again. ‘He was always letting you down, Chloe, but I do feel for him in this. We weren’t exactly friends, you and I. You liked to keep yourself to yourself. Thought you could hide what was going on at home if you shut yourself away from the world.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The drinking, Chloe. We all knew it was difficult for you.’ She pauses. ‘I suppose I should keep quiet. I have no right to speak this way about him. It’s just that you gave that man so many chances, and all any of us wanted was to see some effort on his part. Goodness knows he had all the support in the world from you. How many times a day would I see you looking at your phone, waiting for a call or checking in on him?’
‘Really?’
‘Yes,’ she says, and in that moment she almost seems irritated by him. ‘And now that you really need him, he has gone AWOL. You have helped so many people with your work here, but the one man you really wanted to help would never let you. What an awful disease it is.’
‘Yes, it is,’ I say quietly, my sympathy for Andrew rising, even knowing that he took my father’s money.
‘I used to see you sometimes at lunchtime down on the beach. On your own. You were so lonely. I was so pleased for you when you decided to make a fresh start.’
‘What do you mean, fresh start?’
‘The fact that you left him. I was sure it was for the best when you told me. Everybody did, I suppose. I didn’t know anything about the money, though. The Chloe you were before the accident wouldn’t have told me about that.’
I am beginning to realise that my life with Andrew was a disaster that everybody knew about. I suppose there was no way to hide it, his drinking tarnishing everything. And I suppose that now he isn’t dead and is simply missing—potentially paid off if my father is in any way to be believed—I’m starting to feel a certain satisfaction that I did decide to leave. I found the strength and courage to demand something better for myself and Joshua. But what doesn’t make sense is that according to DS Gray, I was supposed to be meeting Andrew on the night of the crash. If I was leaving him, trying to get away, why would I arrange to meet him first?
‘There’s a lot of the past I can’t remember, Janice. I’m trying to piece things together, but to do that I have to find Andrew, find out what he knows.’
She nods. ‘You just need to take it steady. One step at a time, Chloe.’
‘I need to start moving forward too.’ I’m beginning to feel the prospect of a future tantalisingly close. At least now I know where my home is, that I have a job, and a life outside of my parents’ confinement. Only last night I found comfort in another man’s arms. I can re-create something, can’t I, try to move on and start a new life. Do I have any other choice? ‘I’d love to come back to work soon, maybe on a phased return or something like that.’
Janice sips her water,
then sets the glass down on a coaster in the shape of a seashell. She takes another look at the dressing on my head. ‘What do you mean, come back?’
‘Well, the doctor has to agree to it first, I know, but soon enough—’
She cuts me off, shaking one of her fingers. ‘No, I don’t mean that. When you say come back, do you mean to work here?’
‘Of course. It feels good to be back. I want to get into a routine as soon as possible. Perhaps I could start with a couple of days a week, or a few hours a day.’ Already in my head I’m planning my return to Brighton, my second escape.
She fiddles with an oversized earring in the shape of a fish. A moment of anxiety sits heavily between us. ‘But Chloe,’ she says eventually, staring at her desk, ‘you don’t work here any more.’
‘What?’ My mouth goes dry. ‘What do you mean?’
Her voice is quiet, her words accompanied by shaky breaths. ‘You handed in your resignation. You were due to leave, but about a week prior you had your accident.’
I can’t believe it. ‘But I loved my job. I would never have done that.’
She stands up, walks over to a filing cabinet covered in stickers. She rifles through and locates a letter, pulls it out with those perfect nails. It’s dated August, and is signed by me, a request to terminate my contract. I stare down at the decision I had taken. ‘You said that you were going to make a go of it elsewhere,’ she says.
I let the paper fall to my lap. I look up at Janice, then back to the letter. ‘But it doesn’t make any sense. I don’t remember planning to go anywhere.’
‘I’m so sorry, Chloe, but I don’t know what else to say. You were a very private person. You didn’t tell us much about your life. But we knew through the charity about Andrew and his drinking. When you told me you were leaving, I figured it was to get away from him. I know you had been staying with your parents, but I don’t know where you planned to go from there.’
‘So when you said I’d decided to make a fresh start, you meant I was leaving everything, wiping the slate clean.’ She nods, looking genuinely sorry for me. ‘Surely I must have told somebody where I was planning to go.’
‘Maybe, but you didn’t tell me. You said it was better that way; that nobody could accidentally pass information on if they didn’t know where you were. I’m sorry I don’t know anything more, but that’s how you wanted it.’
And then I remember what Cecil said, the idea of a good friend. Surely I would have confided in her if I was planning to leave. ‘What about Sara? Maybe I told her something. Is she here? Can I talk to her?’
She shakes her head. ‘I’m sorry, Chloe, but nobody called Sara works here.’
‘But my old neighbour said that I used to talk to her every day. He thought maybe she was a work friend.’
She shuffles some papers into a pile, pauses. ‘Well, you did occasionally mention a friend called Sara. You used to say that you were meeting her at lunchtime for a coffee.’ For a moment she looks away, as if she’s unsure about whatever it is running through her mind. ‘I saw you once, down at the beach. You had told me that you were meeting her that day. But you were with a man.’
‘What man?’ Could it have been Ben?
She takes the resignation letter from me before setting it down on the cluttered desk. It’s too hot in here. My armpits are damp, my cheeks on fire. What is she trying to tell me?
‘All I know is that it wasn’t Andrew. Not long after that, you told me you were leaving. I put two and two together, came up with five, I guess.’
She reaches forward, tries to take my hand again, but I pull it away. All this time I thought we were separated because of Andrew’s drinking, and now I find out that it could have been my fault; that I left because I was seeing somebody else. Is that even possible?
‘Don’t feel bad, Chloe. After what you went through with Andrew, anybody would be able to understand it.’ I stand up, turn towards the door. ‘Chloe, wait,’ she says, but I am already through it, desperate to get out. I can’t be here.
She catches up with me just as I reach reception.
‘I have to leave,’ I tell her, pulling away from her desperate hands. I notice the others watching us. They are talking amongst themselves, but each and every one of them is looking my way. I have lived this moment before, I realise, the weight of their eyes upon me as I move. I am still the subject of office gossip. Which of them here saw me at the beach?
Janice hands me a leaflet for a rehab centre in a village just outside Brighton. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I heard Andrew was staying here. He’s on a detox programme, trying to work things through. Maybe he can help explain the things you can’t remember.’
* * *
I return to the car and sit in silence. Guy is quiet, waits for me to speak.
‘Well?’ he asks eventually. ‘How did it go?’
I fold the leaflet in my hands, crumple it up into a ball. What should I say? I am so ashamed, I don’t want to tell him anything, especially not after what happened between us last night. What kind of person am I? All this time I have been pleading my case, trying to search for Andrew, and all along my father was right: I didn’t love him. I had left, was hoping to start again away from here. With another man. How could I have done that to Andrew when I knew he needed help?
‘Chloe, how did it go?’ Guy asks again.
I turn to look at him. He is smiling, waiting for my answer, that grin that only yesterday offered me hope. I hear a lone gull cry out. ‘She said I could start back whenever I want.’
‘Oh, really?’ He seems surprised. He rubs at his stubble-covered face, starts the engine. ‘Well, that’s great. Soon enough you’ll be back to normal, eh? Get your life back on track.’ He reaches over, pats me on the knee. I freeze, my whole body tight. His touch brings none of the comfort or excitement it did last night. I feel only shame now, over who I was. Who I still am.
I think of everything Janice told me. That I was seeing another man. That I had left my job. Only two days after that, I crashed my car in an accident that didn’t make sense. How is this all connected?
The more I learn about my past, the less I know myself, the less I understand what happened. What I am beginning to realise is that in order to go forward, I have to go back as far as I can, to the place where all the lies began. And if I’m to do that, there’s only one person who can help me now. The one person I vowed I would never need again.
THIRTY-THREE
I call my father and tell him I am on my way back. By the time I get home he is crazed, pacing the floorboards of the hallway, still in his clothes from the day before. My mother is trying desperately to calm herself down and looks in need of a drink. Jess is there too, appearing relieved to see me when the front door opens. I asked Guy to drop me off at the end of the driveway. I am too ashamed to let them see me with him.
‘Where the bloody hell have you been?’ My father doesn’t give me a chance to answer. ‘And what were you thinking, staying out all night? I kept calling, left messages. When I see Guy…’ His breath is shaky, his cheeks ruddy and flushed. I was so angry with him yesterday, angry that he’d lied, over my assumption he’d cleared out my house. Only a couple of hours ago I was ready never to see him again, but now I think I might understand. Now, after what Janice told me, I need to give him a chance to explain.
‘Thomas, please,’ Mum says, arriving at my side. She takes my coat, hangs it over the banister. ‘Give her a chance to breathe. She’s not a prisoner, is she?’ She walks me through to the living room and Jess sits down next to me on the settee. ‘Do you want to tell us what happened, Chloe? We have been very worried.’
‘I didn’t want to come home last night,’ I tell her. I look to my father, see his anger increasing, that same tight look that I saw the night he found me in the mill with Andrew. I feel small and weak, sitting here in his shadow as he paces about in front of me. But I push on, looking up at him, bracing myself for what’s to come. ‘I want to tal
k about what you’ve been doing to me. The reconsolidation therapy.’
He stops pacing, glances towards my mother. He scratches his head, checks the pocket of his jacket. He folds his arms across his chest, steps closer. ‘What is it you want to know?’
His openness throws me. Thoughts fly around my brain. Possibilities. I snatch at one, run with it. ‘Can it be used to change people’s memories? To make them forget?’
‘Yes.’ Just like that, an answer. Just like that, he admits he has been manipulating and lying to me all along.
‘And did you try to make me forget Andrew and Joshua?’
My mother yelps, brings a hand up to her head like she might pass out. My father scoffs, shakes his head. He is angry with me, irritated.
‘How could you make such an absurd suggestion? Why would I want that? Why would I want you to forget your son?’
‘For the same reason you didn’t tell me about him when I first woke up.’
He is indignant. ‘You think I was happy about that? That you couldn’t remember your own child? My grandson? I might have been pleased that you couldn’t remember that poor excuse of a husband, but to think I would try to erase them from your memory … Chloe, I’ve been trying my best to help you recall them. Both of them.’
Is he lying? How can I know? If he wanted me to remember then surely he could have taken me back to my house instead of trying to keep it a secret, could have given me access to their things. I look him in the eye. ‘Was it you who took their things?’
He shakes his head, disgusted, as if I just keep making things worse. ‘You’ve been to the house as well? First he keeps you overnight, then he takes you there.’ He looks to my mother in the hope that she shares his outrage. She doesn’t. She is bewildered. ‘I’m going to kill Guy when I see him.’ And then, as if what I have accused him of suddenly registers, he says. ‘How could you think that of me, Chloe? I’m your father. I love you, for goodness’ sake.’
Between the Lies Page 20