by Chris Birch
Mum looked at me open-mouthed.
'She’s fine love, well done for remembering,’ she said and then stroked me on the arm.
It instantly gave me a rush of confidence and so, I carried on fooling Mum.
When we were in the sitting room one evening a travel programme came on the TV.
'Florida is a popular destination for families,' the blonde-haired presenter announced, seriously, as she stood next to a white, sandy beach.
It was the perfect opportunity to rehash some of the stories Dad had told me the week before about one of our family holidays.
'Oh, do you remember our holiday in Florida, it was lovely wasn’t it?' I said, matter-of-factly.
'That looks a bit like the beach we visited, doesn’t it?' I added.
I met Mum’s glance, her eyes were popping out of her head, she looked like she had just drank five espressos.
'You remember?' she quickly asked.
'Course I do,' I lied.
'Wow, Chris! That’s amazing!' she squealed, her hands squeezed into fists.
It was deceitful but I reasoned that my lies weren’t hurting anybody, they were harmless, as least I thought they were to begin with.
The problem was that I viewed the truth as a solid thing, as if it were black or white, I hadn’t taken into account that everyone’s version of the truth was different. As soon as I thought I had a memory down, that I had revised whatever my mum or Dad had told me, someone else would tell me their interpretation and it would be different. I realised that the truth about my past depended on who I was speaking to. Mum would paint a different picture of my childhood to my dad and my friend’s stories about old Chris didn’t always match up with my mum’s.
I had to become like a detective, I deciphered the information I was given based on a series of tests. Are they trustworthy? Do they have something to gain from telling me this? Are they trying to manipulate me for some reason? Simple statements, like a friend telling me I liked a certain song, seemed rife with weaknesses. Maybe I pretended I liked the song because they liked it? Maybe they had heard me wrong when I said I liked it? Maybe I was drunk at the time? I realised I couldn’t take anything on face value and so questioned everything.
One afternoon I sat in my bedroom and studied the contents of my memory box, I picked up each item, intensely scanning every edge. It wasn’t that memories didn’t flood back when I looked at things, they did now but the voice I heard wasn’t mine, it was someone else’s. I picked up a photograph of me and some boys from high school and stories came to my mind; tales of detention, getting into trouble in science lessons and sleeping on the bus on school trips. Colours, sounds and possibilities ran through my mind, the bus was red, no, blue? Did I like science? Yes, I’m sure I did but then….I remembered something my Dad had said about me struggling to concentrate in lessons, no I didn’t like it. It was hard to decipher between what was my own memory and what had been implanted in my brain by other people.
I remembered holidays in the way Dad had explained them, my childhood because of stories my mum had told me and school seemed familiar because of tales my old friends had told me. My memories were not my own, they were someone else’s, a puzzle made up of borrowed pieces which didn’t quite fit together. It was exhausting and I began to wonder if instead of trying to remember, it would be easier to try and forget.
I quickly threw all the items back in the box, hurriedly folding the photographs back into folders before closing the lid on top. I pushed down on the cardboard lid again, the pressure jammed it tightly closed. With all the memorabilia away I instantly felt better, the space in front of me was tidier and so was my mind. I thought back to when Mum had first realised that the stroke had stolen parts of my memory.
'It will come back Chris, you see, it will,' she had insisted.
I thought everything would fall back into place exactly as it had been left but six months on from the accident and my memory was no better.
My eyes rested on the box that held my old life in it.
It’s gone, I thought, and it’s not coming back.
I took a deep breath and aware that it was a significant moment I waited for tears to come, or, some kind of emotion but instead, the only thing I felt was relief. It had become so confusing, trying to decipher what was my own memory and what was someone else’s, that it suddenly seemed much easier to accept the things I didn’t remember, rather than pretend that I did. Whilst I could fake a few memories, I couldn’t fake my whole life. There were so many gaps in my memory that I would never be able to fill them in and become the Chris that I was before the accident. The things that had made me who I was, those experiences were gone. Left in it’s place was a blank canvas and rather than try to repaint an impersonation of the old painting, I had to start again. I had to be whoever I was now and it had become clear that that person was very different to the old me.
The next day at work, as if by some kind of divine intervention, my colleague, Tom, told me he had a spare room to rent out in his house.
'Don’t suppose you want it Chris?' he offered.
'It’s cheap and really close to town so it’s easy for work and that,' he said.
Leave home? I pondered.
I thought of my room at home, full to the brim of clothes, films and crap that I no longer liked or wanted, the remnants of old Chris that were still lurking around.
Maybe that’s just what I need, I thought.
It would be much easier to be the new Chris without living in the shell of my old life, without people breathing over my shoulder who just wanted me to go back to what I was before the stroke. I had felt so claustrophobic recently.
‘Yes, I’ll take it,’ I heard myself say.
Tom grinned and shook my hand.
‘It’s yours,’ he said with a smile.
I left work that day excited and broke the news to Mum over dinner that evening.
'I’m going to move out,' I said.
'What? What do you mean?' she snapped.
I tried to keep my eyes focused on my food but I could feel Mum’s stare boring into my face. I finally looked up. Her expression was every bit as angry as she sounded.
'A friend at work has a spare room, I’ve got the money now I’m back at work, I think it would be good for me,' I explained.
'That’s a terrible idea.’
I looked at her, waiting for some kind of explanation but none came. She just stared back at me, her eyebrows forced together by her frown. Finally, after looking at each other with exasperation she folded first and spoke.
'Why would you want to leave home? What if something happens? It’s too soon.’
'It’s not too soon Mum, I’m a grown man, I’ve been hibernating in my bedroom for too long.'
Mum looked down sadly, she could tell I had already made up my mind, there was nothing she could do.
'You always tell me I need to go out more, this way I can.’
Mum sighed again. It was one of those long, dramatic, drawn out sighs that meant much more than words could ever articulate. She was annoyed with me. But to my surprise, I didn’t really care. Mum expected me to do what she wanted, maybe that’s what happened before the stroke but I was different now.
'You can come and visit, I move in next week,' I said before cutting up a piece of potato and shovelling it into my mouth.
'Oh, it’s decided is it?'
'Yeah, it is.’
As Mum tutted repeatedly from the other side of the table I began to imagine myself in Tom’s flat in Cardiff. The time had come for me to finally leave my past behind. It was time to stop trying to remember old memories and create new ones instead.
Chapter Eleven: Am I Gay?
Exhausted, I stretched my legs out down the length of the sofa, used my heels to kick off my shoes and rested my arms back behind my head.
'Ahhh,' I yawned to myself.
It felt good to finally have my own space. There was no-one breathing down my neck, trying to force me t
o do things I didn’t want to do, or, see people I didn’t want to see.
The past two months of being back at work had drained me. Not because I couldn’t cope with the workload, with all the confusion going on in my personal life I welcomed the distraction but because my job was mind-numbingly boring. I wasn’t sure if it had always been so dull but it was hard to see how I had ever enjoyed it. Locked away in the office, on a desk on my own, I envied the staff downstairs in the branch who could chat to the public, at least they had someone to speak to.
The TV flashed onto an advert that caught my attention, a dark-haired, young, handsome man was running on a sports track, loud, electronic music thumped in the background. My eyes were drawn to the man, it was like I was transfixed, my stare focused on him and I struggled to look away, a strange feeling started to grow.
Wow. He’s good looking, I thought.
I felt a sexual excitement I hadn’t experienced since the stroke.
I shook my head in shock at my own thoughts.
The man disappeared and a Christmas advert flickered on the tv, with boxes of presents spilling across the screen. That was weird, I thought. It wasn’t until the advert came on in the next break that I recognised the same, familiar, flushed sensation and a pull towards watching the man. There was no escaping that excitable tingle.
Do I fancy him? I wondered.
I was baffled by my own mind, it was an extraordinary thought. I noticed that I didn’t get the same buzz when an attractive, half-naked, woman appeared on the screen. But instead of questioning my feelings further I pushed them to the back of my mind, I had had enough of being interrogated by everyone else, I wasn’t going to start questioning myself.
At work the next day I forced myself to type up the data that I had been given, I loudly tapped each word, taking out my frustration on the keyboard. My job was so dull, I wondered if I had ever enjoyed it.
'How was your weekend?' I said, shouting across to a lady on the other side of the room.
She peered over at me and waved.
'Can’t hear you love,' she shouted.
I tapped my fingers on the desk. It was like being kept in quarantine, separated from other humans, I was starved of conversation. I noticed the window to the side of me and spun my desk chair around so I could look at the bustling high street below. I envied the sellers on the market stalls who were able to chat to people.
My eyes focused on a man, he looked the same age as me, he was tall and so stood out from the crowd around him. He had a crisp white shirt on and black smart trousers, he was classically, good-looking.
Wow, I thought.
A smile suddenly spread across my face and my heart began to beat a little faster. My eyes were still fixed on the man, I followed his journey down the street until he swooped into the office entrance across the road.
Then one of the business managers appeared at my desk and I forgot all about the man and why I had wanted to watch him.
'Can I have a word Chris?' my manager asked.
I nodded, worried I was in trouble and followed her into her office.
‘Look … ’
She shut the door behind me, before sitting down at her desk and signalling for me to sit opposite her.
'You don’t seem happy,' she continued.
I frowned, worried she had picked up on how bored I had been. I scanned the certificates behind her head and wondered what to say.
'I thought you might like a new challenge, perhaps a training course?’
Before I could answer she held her hand out to stop me.
‘I know you like routine and you like being in the office, it probably seems a bit daunting..’
‘That sounds great,’ I said.
Why does she think I like routine?, I wondered.
‘That sounds great, just what I need,’ I said.
'Wow, okay, I thought you would need some convincing’.
'I could do with getting out of my comfort zone,' I admitted.
'You want to get out of your comfort zone?' she repeated.
Her frowned forehead resembled a creased shirt.
'Erm, yeah, I mean, it’s good to do something different isn’t it?' I muttered and
wondered why she was being so odd.
'Look, have I said something wrong?' I asked.
'No, it’s just, well, you’re a bit of a creature of habit Chris, I mean, we offered you
this training course months ago and you seemed too nervous to do it.’
'Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you’re up for it but I’m just surprised,’ she said.
As I left her office that afternoon and returned to my desk a nagging thought occupied my mind. I had liked my job before the stroke and now I found it boring. I knew the stroke had affected my memory but now it seemed like it had altered major parts of my personality too. I began to wonder, what other parts of me has the stroke changed?
Two weeks later I found myself sat in a small conference room, inside a hotel, in Cardiff, with dozens of other bank employees. It was a relief to see a room full of new faces, I didn’t know them and more importantly, they didn’t know me. For the first time in a long time I could speak without worrying that I was about to say something wrong. Something that, according to others, I wouldn’t normally say.
The speaker clicked a button and changed the image on the screen in front of us to an illustration of the earth. I was so relieved to not be staring at the same white walls of the office. I felt like an animal who had been penned in for months and then let free. I glanced to my side, a dark-haired girl was sat beside me, she looked around the same age as me. Her hair was pulled into a tight bun, her bright red lips and thick black eyelashes contrasted against her pale white skin. I glanced back around the room at the other women, they all seemed plain compared to the girl sat next to me, less eye-catching.
She’s pretty, right? I thought to myself.
She must have felt my stare because the woman turned towards me, caught my eye and smiled. She reminded me of a glamorous air-hostess.
'Hi,' she whispered.
'Hiya,' I said, 'I’m Chris'.
‘Steph.'
The speaker raised his voice and when I turned towards him he was staring straight at me. I tried to keep my gaze on the screen but moments later, when he changed the slide again, I turned back to Steph and she was staring right back at me.
'Don’t get me in trouble Chris.’
I flashed her a smile. She’s flirting with me, I thought, I’m in there.
'Right, let’s take a break there,' the speaker announced.
The room suddenly burst into chatter, people moved around the room and Steph looked at me expectantly.
'Where you from then?' I asked.
'Manchester,' she said, ‘you?’
‘Bargoed, it’s a small town outside of the city.’
‘I think a few of us are going to go for a drink after this, fancy coming?’
It had been a long time since I had been on a night out, even longer since I had been on one that I enjoyed.
‘Definitely, I’m up for that,’ I nodded.
After the course six of us went to a pub opposite the hotel. As we chatted about where we worked, where we lived and how annoying the training instructor was, round after round of drinks disappeared. Before I knew it, the music had been turned up, the lights had been dimmed and a small dance floor had been created in front of the bar.
It was a relief to be around new people, people who just took me as I was and didn’t wish I was someone else, people who hadn’t met old Chris. Enjoying the chance to let off steam I let Steph lead me over to the dance floor and swayed in time with the music.
'Want to come back to my hotel room?' Steph shouted over the loud music.
The colourful lights behind the DJ booth rested on her face for a moment as she looked up at me.
Wow. I thought. I’ve pulled. I didn’t really second guess my feelings too much, a girl was inviting me back to her room, the o
bvious answer was ‘yes’. I had been a bit out of practice thanks to the stroke but from all the stories the boys told me I was a ladies man. Of course I want to go back with her, I thought, why wouldn’t I?
We walked through the deserted high street hand in hand and the bright street lights blurred in my vision. It wasn’t that late, bouncers were still proudly guarding the doors of every bar we walked past. We jumped into a cab and Steph tightened her grip on my hand.
'I knew you were going to get me in trouble,' she giggled.
I smiled back at Steph and she leant in towards me then rested her hand on my knee. Instead of feeling excited I didn’t feel anything at all.
It wasn’t until I was sat next to Steph, on the end of her bed, in her hotel room, that I realised I didn’t really know what I was doing there. I suddenly felt incredibly uncomfortable, unsure of what I should do I focused my eyes on the floral curtains instead of making eye contact with her.
'Are you alright?'
I had been staring at the curtains for a good two minutes.
'Yeah, fine,' I said, still not looking at her.
'Look, you don’t need to be nervous, you can kiss me.’
I felt Steph’s hot breath on my neck and all I wanted to do was move away from her. My eyes scanned the room desperately and finally fell on the black fridge underneath the desk.
'Ooh a minibar, let’s have a drink.’
'Great idea!'
Steph jumped up from the bed, grabbed two glasses and poured out some white wine.
'Cheers,' she smiled and passed me a glass.
I took a long sip and another, then drained the rest of the glass, the slow relief of alcohol began to warm my body. Steph poured me another glass which I quickly swallowed and then my head began to spin.
‘I feel sleepy,' I slurred before collapsing in a pile on the bed.
The next thing I knew I was woken by the sound of a hairdryer. I squinted and a bright yellow light filled the room, the curtains were open.