Community

by Graham Masterton

  ‘How was your walk?’ asked Isobel, as he came in.

  ‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘Educational, even.’

  He sat down on the couch next to her to unlace his boots and she shuffled up close to him and ruffled his hair and kissed him. ‘Did you think about you-know-what?’

  ‘About supper, yes. I thought, I could murder one of Isobel’s beef enchiladas.’

  She gave him a playful slap and said, ‘No – I mean you-know-what with a capital M.’

  ‘Sure, yes. And the answer is – yes. We could get married in the summer, couldn’t we? June weddings, they’re so romantic. And June is only five months away – less than that – four-and-a-half.’

  Isobel pressed her hand over her mouth and her eyes filled with tears.

  At last she took her hand away and said, ‘You mean it? You really mean it? You’ll marry me?’

  ‘I couldn’t think of any reason not to.’

  She put her arms around him and kissed him again and again. ‘Let’s go to bed,’ she said. ‘Let’s go to bed now! I’m going to suck you till you scream for mercy!’

  The following day was just as gloomy and a thick wet snow was coming down. Michael sat in Doctor Connor’s office watching it through the window behind her. It looked as if it were falling in slow-motion.

  ‘Sue told me about your conversation at Mrs Kroker’s house,’ said Catherine. She looked a little more relaxed today, in an oatmeal-colored sweater and a brown skirt, and a pair of Ugg boots, stained with dark wet blotches from the snow. ‘She said that you seemed to be very understanding about her pretending to be your sister.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Michael.

  ‘She also said that you would be happy to help Natasha Kerwin to convalesce.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I am.’

  ‘She explained that it could be very good for you, too? That it could help you to get your memory back?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Catherine stood up. ‘In that case, why don’t we skip the question-and-answer session for today and go see her?’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really. Come on.’

  She left her office and walked ahead of him along the corridor that led to Natasha Kerwin’s room. Over her shoulder she said, ‘We’re so excited how quickly she’s recovered. You won’t believe it when you see her.’

  She knocked on the door and then pushed it open. Natasha Kerwin was sitting up in bed, propped up by pillows. She was still attached to the Veris monitor, but she looked very much better. In fact, she looked even more like the girl that Michael believed he had loved. She had a white gauze bandage around her head, but underneath it her straight blond hair was clean and brushed and shiny. Her eyes were bright, and although she was still quite pale, she had a touch of rose-petal pink on each cheek. Instead of a hospital gown, she was wearing a flowery cotton nightdress with a ruffled collar and puffy sleeves.

  She was talking to Doctor Hamid and two nurses who were standing around her bed. Doctor Hamid was telling her, ‘—you will, Natasha, I swear to you – just as soon as we are happy that all of your vital signs are completely stable.’

  When Michael and Catherine entered her room, Natasha gave them only a cursory glance. She had probably had doctors and nurses and orderlies walking in and out all day and two more weren’t anything exceptional. But as they came up to her bed and stood beside Doctor Hamid, she turned her head slowly around and looked up at Michael, and this time her eyes widened and her mouth opened as if she were about to say something, but couldn’t think of the words.

  ‘Ah, Gregory, so pleased you could join us!’ said Doctor Hamid. ‘Do you see how much improved our patient is today? Natasha, this is Gregory – Gregory Merrick. Gregory, this is Natasha Kerwin. Of course, you met before, didn’t you, Natasha, when Gregory accidentally came into your room. But perhaps you don’t remember?’

  Michael smiled and said, ‘Good to meet you again, Natasha. It’s great to see you looking so much better.’

  Natasha closed her mouth and then opened it again but still didn’t seem to be able to say anything.

  ‘You did say she was talking?’ Catherine asked Doctor Hamid.

  Doctor Hamid laughed. ‘I think our friend Gregory has stunned the poor girl into silence. Don’t worry! She has been talking and joking with us all day, haven’t you, Natasha?’

  Natasha still didn’t take her eyes away from Michael. He went up to her bedside and took hold of her hand. Her fingers were very cold, almost as cold as Isobel’s, so he cupped his other hand over them to warm them up.

  ‘It’s you,’ she whispered, so softly that he could barely hear her.

  ‘What did she say?’ asked Catherine. The room was quite noisy, with the nurses chatting and the Veris beeping and Doctor Hamid leafing through his notes and clearing his throat as he did so.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Michael. ‘I think she’s a little overwhelmed, that’s all.’

  ‘It’s you,’ Natasha repeated. ‘It really is you, isn’t it?’

  Michael put one finger to his lips and gave her an almost imperceptible shake of his head. Then he leaned close to her so that only she could hear what he was saying. ‘Later,’ he murmured. ‘Don’t say anything now. I’ll come back.’ He nodded then, to show her that he meant it.

  Catherine said, ‘Are you two having a tête-à-tête here?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Michael. ‘I think she’s mistaken me for someone else.’

  ‘How about you? Have you really met her before?’

  ‘I’m not too sure. I think I may have. She seems kind of familiar, but I don’t know. Like you say, maybe she just reminds me of someone.’

  All the same, the two of them continued to stare at each other with such intensity that eventually Catherine said, ‘I think that’s enough now, Gregory. We don’t want Natasha to get overtired.’

  ‘No,’ said Michael. Reluctantly, he let go of Natasha’s hand. He was convinced now that he did know her, although he still couldn’t remember who she was. Since he didn’t even know who he was, that was hardly surprising. But she had recognized him, which meant that whoever she was – a past lover or a work colleague or a friend or just a casual acquaintance – Kingsley Vane’s assertion that it had been ‘geographically’ impossible for them to know each other had been yet another lie.

  ‘You can see her tomorrow, after your session with me,’ said Catherine, as they walked back along the corridor. ‘With any luck she won’t be so shy and retiring when she sees you again.’

  Michael said, ‘OK,’ and nodded, although what he really felt like doing was shaking her and screaming at her to tell him the truth. The truth about himself, the truth about Natasha, the truth about Isobel – and most of all the truth about all of the residents of Trinity, who had assembled outside his bedroom window without leaving a single footprint in the snow and who had pointed at him so accusingly.

  The woman in the sludge-green dress had said that they were hanging on by their fingernails. But hanging on to what? Their sanity? And what would happen to them, if they were to lose their grip?

  TWENTY

  Again that night Michael pushed his Vinpocetine capsules into the plughole of the bathroom basin, and rinsed them away.

  He was beginning to remember more and more random fragments – songs, conversations, images of people running and laughing. None of these fragments had yet begun to reassemble themselves into a coherent picture of what his life had been like before his accident, but he was sure that his memory was gradually coming back. His real memory – not the memory that Catherine was trying to invent for him.

  In particular he kept remembering sitting in the back of a car and driving along Fonderlack Trail, and feeling so desperately unhappy that he had to bite his lip to stop himself from crying.

  And he could remember that poem. Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree.

  And saying to somebody, ‘Fifth highest peak in the Cascade Range.’

  And a girl, opening her eyes
and looking at him, again and again, like an endlessly repeated loop of film.

  ‘You shouldn’t let me—’

  ‘You shouldn’t let me—’

  ‘You shouldn’t let me go to sleep like that.’

  And then lights flashing, and metal screeching, and his whole world rolling upside-down, over and over. And another crash, so deafening that he could hardly hear it.

  He was still staring at himself in the mirror over the bathroom basin when Isobel called out, ‘Sweetheart – are you coming to bed?’

  ‘Won’t be a moment. I just have to brush my teeth.’

  When he came into the bedroom, Isobel was sitting up in bed, bare-breasted, nipples stiff, with a suggestive smile on her face. He lifted the covers and climbed into bed next to her, and she immediately turned over and wrapped her arms around him. She parted her legs and he could feel her chilly wetness against his thigh.

  ‘You’re not going to make me jealous, are you, when your Natasha comes to stay with us?’ she asked him, running the tip of her finger across his lips.

  ‘Why should I? She’s probably not the girl I thought she was. So Catherine says, anyhow.’

  ‘But supposing she is?’

  ‘I don’t know, Isobel. I’m just trying to take things day by day. It would help if people around here told me the truth now and again.’

  ‘I always tell you the truth, don’t I? When have I ever lied to you?’

  ‘You made out you didn’t know Sue, just like Sue made out she didn’t know you.’

  Isobel kissed him, and slid her hand down between his legs to squeeze him. ‘You know why we had to do that. That was part of your therapy. Sue said that it was the best way of helping you to remember your childhood. But I swear on my life that I’ve never told you any other lies. I wouldn’t. I love you too much. Besides, we’re going to be married, aren’t we?’

  The next morning, at the very beginning of his therapy session, Catherine asked him if he remembered a family vacation in the Napa Valley when he was nine years old.

  ‘You took a canoe out on to Lake Berryessa, you and Sue. Your real sister Sue. And the canoe capsized.’

  Michael closed his eyes for a moment. He did remember taking a canoe out, on to a lake. He could picture it clearly. A sharp, sunny day, with a breeze making the waves slap against the side of the dock. But his companion in the canoe wasn’t Sue. It was a blond-haired boy in a blue-and-white T-shirt.

  Tim, that was the boy’s name. Tim Freeman. And he was sure it wasn’t Lake Berryessa. It was Lake … what was it? It was Lake …

  ‘You remember that?’ Catherine asked him. ‘You look like it’s all coming back to you.’

  Michael said, ‘Yes … it is. I remember that day distinctly.’

  Lake Mendota, thought Michael. It was Lake Mendota, and I was eleven that day, not nine. I’ve never even been to Lake Berryessa.

  ‘At last!’ smiled Catherine. She reached across and patted him on the knee. ‘At last you seem to be making some progress.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Michael. ‘I do believe that I am.’

  Afterward, Catherine took him to Natasha’s room. Natasha was sleeping, with only a Korean nurse sitting in attendance, in a pale green uniform and clumpy black shoes.

  ‘Mind if I stay here for a while?’ asked Michael. ‘Maybe she’ll wake up.’

  ‘That should be OK,’ said Catherine. ‘But I’ll have to leave you now, I’m afraid. My next patient will be waiting.’

  She left, and Michael pulled up a chair and sat close to Natasha’s bedside. The nurse was writing out some long medical notes, punctuated by regular sniffs, and took no notice of him at all.

  Natasha continued sleeping. After a while, Michael reached up and took hold of her hand. Chilly-fingered, like before, but her blood pressure was still very low, after all. She stirred, and whispered something, and then very abruptly opened her eyes. Those blue-gray eyes, the color of a lake after a rainstorm has just passed over.

  ‘You came back,’ she murmured.

  Again, Michael raised his fingertip to his lips. ‘Yes. I told you I would.’

  ‘Doctor Hamid said I’ll be coming to stay with you.’

  ‘That’s right. Just until you’re well again.’

  ‘I am well,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me at all.’

  ‘Well, not much. Only the small matter of a serious skull fracture.’

  ‘It’s all healed up now.’

  ‘I don’t think so. Only yesterday it was still bleeding.’

  ‘It’s all healed up now,’ she insisted. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘You know who I am?’

  ‘Yes, of course I do. You’re Gregory.’

  Michael looked at her for a long time without saying anything. She was speaking in a whisper but he was so shocked that she might just as well have screamed it at the top of her voice. If Natasha Kerwin knew him as Gregory, then maybe he really was Gregory. Maybe Catherine was right, and his mind had been inventing scenes from some imaginary childhood just to fill in the gaping holes where his early life should have been. Had he really taken a canoe out on to Lake Mendota, with a boy called Tim Freeman? Or had he been on Lake Berryessa, with Sue?

  ‘Gregory?’ he echoed.

  ‘That’s right. Gregory Merrick.’

  ‘So how do we know each other?’

  Those blue-gray eyes suddenly filled with tears. ‘You really don’t remember, do you?’

  ‘I’m sure that we know each other. I’m certain of it. I told my therapist that I probably made a mistake, and that you just happen to remind me of a girl I once knew. But I’m totally convinced that it’s you.’

  ‘Oh, Gregory. Oh, Greg,’ she said. The tears slid down her cheeks into the pillow and her mouth was turned down in misery. ‘We were engaged. We were going to get married. We had a crash on the interstate.’

  Michael said, ‘Engaged?’ He could hardly catch his breath. ‘You and me, we were engaged?’

  ‘Is everything all right?’ the nurse interrupted, looking up from her paperwork. ‘Ms Kerwin must not become stressed, please.’

  ‘No, no, everything’s fine,’ said Michael, even though he was close to tears himself.

  Natasha gripped his hand tightly and said, ‘Doctor Hamid said they only have to do three or four more tests, and then I can come to stay with you. I promise you, Greg, I’ll tell you everything then. I love you, darling, even if you can’t remember me.’

  At that moment the door opened and Doctor Hamid came in, accompanied by one of his juniors.

  ‘Ah! Gregory! How are you and Natasha getting along? Natasha? Is everything all right? You look as if you have been crying.’

  Michael tugged a Kleenex out of the box beside the bed and handed it to her. Natasha wiped her eyes and said, ‘No, honestly. I’m fine. A little over-emotional, that’s all. I’m really looking forward to getting out of here.’

  ‘Well, there’s a good chance I may be able to release you tomorrow or the day after,’ said Doctor Hamid. ‘Meanwhile, Gregory, I am afraid I must ask you to leave us.’

  ‘Sure, yes,’ said Michael. He raised his eyebrows to Natasha as if to say ‘sorry’ and then he stood up and left the room.

  Walking back along the corridor, he felt as if somebody had hit him on the head with a ball-peen hammer. If he and Natasha had both been injured in the same crash, there wouldn’t have been any question that they knew each other, and their families must have told the clinic that they were engaged. So why had Kingsley Vane and Catherine tried so hard to persuade him that he didn’t know her? Was it for his sake, or was it for hers, or was there some other reason? And why had they suggested that Natasha came to stay at Isobel Weston’s house with him? If Catherine’s therapy was effective, he would remember sooner or later that he and Natasha had once been lovers, and engaged. And what was he going to do about Isobel? He had promised to marry her, even though he hadn’t really meant it.

  As he reached the lobby, the door to Kings
ley Vane’s office opened, and Kingsley Vane emerged with a sheaf of pink medical folders under his arm.

  ‘Mr Merrick – Gregory – how are you?’

  How do you think, you lying sonofabitch? You can take your ‘geographically impossible’ and shove it where it’s geographically impossible.

  ‘Fine. OK, thanks.’

  ‘I just want to tell you on behalf of TSC how much we appreciate you and Mrs Weston taking Natasha Kerwin under your wing.’

  ‘She seems to think that she’s better already.’

  Kingsley Vane gave him a toothy, humorless grin. ‘Brain trauma, Gregory, brain trauma! It affects the perception in so many ways. It’s extraordinary how the smallest of cerebral contusions can affect our way of looking at the world around us. So easy to become paranoid, and think that everybody is deceiving us. So easy, too, to become overoptimistic, and believe that all’s right with the world when we’re teetering right on the very brink of catastrophe.’

  ‘I see. OK. I’ll do my best with her.’

  ‘We’re sure that you will, Gregory. And we’re confident that it will help you immensely, too – clear up all of those doubts that you’ve been having about your identity. Ex cineribus ad astra, as the Romans used to say – out of the ashes and up to the stars!’

  Two days later, a white Grand Cherokee drew up outside Isobel’s house, closely followed by the black Escalade driven by the clinic’s security men.

  It was a bright, cloudless afternoon and the snow was beginning to melt, so that Trinity’s silence was interrupted by a syncopated pattern of dripping. Michael opened the front door and waited while one of the clinic’s orderlies unloaded a wheelchair and helped Natasha out of the passenger seat. The orderly covered her knees with a blanket and pushed her up the driveway, but although he was treating her like an invalid she looked brighter than ever, and she gave Michael an enthusiastic little finger-wave as she came up to the porch.

  Isobel came up behind Michael and laid a hand on his shoulder – a little possessively, Michael thought.

  ‘Welcome!’ she said, as Natasha was pushed up to the door.

  Natasha drew back the blanket and climbed out of the wheelchair. ‘I could have walked,’ she said. ‘But Ramondo here insisted. It’s the rules. Something to do with insurance.’