The Memory Collector

by Fiona Harper

  But even when the door is slammed shut behind her, when she’s standing in her living room, the two rescued items clamped to her chest by arms whose muscles have locked into place, she can’t seem to calm down. The terror comes in waves, blocking everything else out. Her heart is beating so hard she’s sure it’s going to burst out of its fragile membrane and decorate the inside of her chest cavity. And her breath… It’s gone. She can’t find it. It won’t come.

  Eventually, the lack of oxygen releases her frozen muscles. She drops the folder and album, letting them clatter to the floor, and her knees give way underneath her. She ends up kneeling on one of the items – she isn’t sure which – and it digs painfully into the side of her kneecap, but all she can think about is the next breath: sucking it in through her nose and mouth, trying to trap as much of it as she can before the tightness in her chest steals it away again.

  It feels like hours before everything returns to normal. Even her living room seems weird for a while – distorted, unfamiliar – but eventually her pulse slows to something approaching normal and her breathing steadies. She places her palms on the floor and pushes herself up. There’s a deep red mark in the side of her knee, and the tiniest of scratches where the corner of the photo album has broken the skin.

  She picks up the offending item. The corner is dented now, no longer sharp and square. That’s going to bother her. She places it on one end of the sofa and sits on the opposite end. The folder can wait until later.

  What just happened? She tries to remember it objectively, as if she was an observer on the outside, but her memory is blank and useless – like one of those dummy security cameras that’s all for show and doesn’t actually record anything.

  The panic. She remembers the panic.

  Her mother used to have episodes like this sometimes, often brought on when anyone tried to ‘help’ – which usually meant cleaning or decluttering or moving any of her stuff around in the slightest. It had all seemed so melodramatic at the time, but was this how it had felt on the inside? As if she was going to die? And not even just that, because a plain and simple end to the feeling would have been welcome, but instead it was a feeling that doom itself was pursuing her, wouldn’t be content until it swallowed her whole and kept her churning in its belly for the rest of eternity. It hadn’t felt nice. It hadn’t felt nice at all.

  Heather’s almost scared of opening the photo album now or of peering in the pockets of the folder, but she knows she has to. Taking a deep breath, she pulls the album towards her and flips open the front page.

  This one is much like the other one – photos missing here and there, yellowing edges where the lines of glue under the cellophane are ageing – but this one contains pictures from when she and Faith are older. Heather flips through, mentally reminding herself to come back and have a good look another time, but for now she’s hunting for two things: one, any other newspaper reports tucked inside the pages and, two, any photo taken inside the house in Hawksbury Road.

  She gets to the last page without finding any of either item. Nothing is tucked inside the back cover of this album and there are no photographs at all taken inside the house. Family holidays, yes. Christmas day at Aunt Kathy’s, yes. Even outings to Crystal Palace Park and Broadstairs. But nothing else. Heather doesn’t even have to guess why. She knows. It must have been bad by then. Bad enough to be ashamed of it, bad enough to want to hide it.

  She looks at a photo of her and Faith on the beach in Broadstairs with her father. Heather thinks she looks about eight in the picture, which means Faith would have been eleven. This must have been the last family holiday they had all together. How sad she can’t remember it. She doesn’t remember wearing that T-shirt with the glittery rainbow on it, or making that sandcastle with the four turrets. Nothing.

  She can see a difference in herself from the earlier photo album, though. Not the blonde hair and the big eyes – those are still there – but something about her expression, as if she’s having too much of a good time. That seems strange, doesn’t it? But, while Heather can’t remember this holiday, she can remember that feeling when they went away from the house for more than a few hours: that feeling of freedom and release. She remembers the dark underside, too – both the desperation to enjoy the time wildly and the sadness that it wouldn’t last. She can see it in her eight-year-old eyes. It’s there behind all their smiles, although, in her father’s case, it’s less frenzied delight at the escape and more broken-down tiredness. Heather wonders if he knew when the shutter was clicked that he was planning to go.

  She’s never really thought about that much before. It was such a shock at the time, so devastating, it had always felt as cataclysmic as a natural disaster: sudden and unanticipated. It was odd to think about it brewing under the surface for weeks, maybe even months. But the more she thinks about it, the more she realizes this must have been the case.

  She closes the album and turns her attention to the folder. There are important things in here – a copy of her parents’ wedding invitation, and records of her and Faith being christened – but along with them are smoothed-out chocolate wrappers, flyers for window cleaners and Chinese takeaway places, and with it all is a folded-up square of newsprint.

  Heather flushes hot and cold when she sees it, and for a moment she thinks the panic is going to engulf her again, but then it subsides. She unfolds the paper carefully, reverently – this is what she went in the spare room to find, after all, what she’d endured all that turmoil for – and is horribly, horribly disappointed to discover it’s the same as the first report she found. Exactly the same. Same date, same reporter, same newspaper. The same grey eyes laughing at her from under the blonde fringe. She folds it up and puts it back, frustrated.

  And then she frowns. What is she going to do with the junk that was in there? The receipts and sweet wrappers and flyers? She probably ought to throw them away.

  Still, now the folder is closed again, she feels as if she’s had as much as she can handle for tonight. It’s too exhausting to consider opening it up again. She bought a plastic container with a lid to store these items in. She feels a rushing sense of relief when they’re put away neatly inside. Her own belongings are safe now, uncontaminated from what has been retrieved from the room. But the pleasant feeling only lasts for a few seconds before she realizes the sealed plastic tub holds no answers and there’s only one place she’s going to find them. Just thinking about going back into that room makes her feel jumpy again.

  She stands in the middle of her living-room rug and begins to breathe slowly, trying to recover a fragment of peace, when the doorbell rings and makes her jump.

  Jason? She has no idea why that’s her first thought. He’s never rung her doorbell before now, and he’s hardly likely to after the way she snubbed him at his barbecue, is he? He probably thinks she’s a cold bitch who’s far too precious about her crockery.

  But there’s also a part of her that can’t quite give up hope. Over the last few years, her life has become smaller and smaller. The number of people she interacts with on a daily basis has shrunk considerably, and those who actually have a kind word and a smile are even rarer. Jason was one of those people. Just the fact he took the time to greet her, to not rush past her in the hallway as if she was invisible, made her feel a little more alive.

  But it’s not Jason and his lovely twinkling eyes standing at her front door. It’s her sister.

  ‘Faith!’ Heather exclaims, and her volume isn’t right. It’s too loud. The words echo round the tiled hallway. ‘What are you doing here?’

  It’s 6.30 on a Thursday evening. Faith never comes here during the week, and she never arrives at Heather’s looking as if she’s ready for a night out. Her hair has been swept off her face and tied in a loose up-do, and she’s wearing black jeans, heels, an embroidered kimono, and bright lipstick.

  ‘Can I come in?’ Faith asks. ‘Just for a little bit?’

  Heather can hardly slam the door in her sister’s
face, so she nods and lets Faith pass, then follows her closely as she heads for the living room. Heather is relieved that her sister doesn’t even glance at the door to the spare room as she passes. It’s not even on her radar, thank goodness.

  ‘I’m off for a girls’ night out in Bromley – you remember Helena and Emily from school, don’t you? – and I thought I’d pop round first, just to… just to make sure you’re okay.’

  Heather folds her arms. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

  How does her sister do this? How does she always manage to show up when Heather is at her shakiest? It’s just not fair. It paints entirely the wrong picture, reinforcing all the bad things Faith thinks about her.

  ‘Don’t be like that,’ Faith replies, more gently than Heather would have expected. ‘I know you think I’m always hounding you, always checking up on you – and okay, maybe sometimes I am – but this is different. It must have been…’ She breaks off, searching the ceiling for the right word, ‘devastating to find out about… you know… what happened when you were little. Is there anything I can do?’

  Heather stares at her sister. It’s nice that Faith dropped by, but her presence really isn’t wanted, and Heather wishes her sister would stop trying to fix her as if she’s a damaged toy that just needs a bit of glue or sticky tape. It just makes her feel even more pathetic and broken.

  ‘Not really. I mean, what can anyone do? It happened. I can’t change that.’

  ‘Have you found out any more?’

  Heather shakes her head. ‘I found that first article tucked away in the album I got that photo for Alice from. Who knows if there’s anything else or what illogical hiding place it has amid Mum’s stuff?’

  ‘Do you want me to help you look?’ She checks her watch. ‘I’ve got about forty-five minutes. Maybe it would be better to have someone with you if you actually did find something?’

  Heather stands up abruptly. ‘I’ve already searched,’ she says, maybe a little too loudly.

  Faith gives her an odd look. ‘Ok-ay… You’ve gone through all of it? I mean, I know Mum had a lot of stuff. You’ve finally thrown all the crap away and kept the treasures?’

  Heather nods, realizing for the first time that a gesture – even a silent one – can be a lie. ‘I’ve got it here!’ She scrabbles to pull the plastic-lidded box from the bookcase.

  Faith looks at it incredulously. ‘That’s it?’

  Heather nods again. Another lie.

  The truth is she has no idea what else could be buried in her spare room. There could be more photos, birth certificates they’ve already had to replace, even her mother’s engagement ring, but the thought of going back in there is making her want to hyperventilate again, and the thought of Faith going in there…

  She peels the lid off the box and pulls out a photo album, hoping to distract her sister with its shiny pages full of memories.

  Like a starving woman, Faith pounces on it. Heather doesn’t think she’s ever seen her sister so animated. She looks over Faith’s shoulder at a picture of herself at the seaside, all blonde fringe and hot-pink flip-flops. ‘When was this taken?’ she asks, pointing at it.

  Faith takes a look. ‘Hmm, difficult to tell. Is there any writing on the back?’

  ‘No.’ Heather’s already checked this one at least three times, which is stupid. It’s not as if some ghostly handwriting from the past will magically appear after a certain number of tries. Dead end, then. She thinks for a moment. ‘Do you remember me going on holiday with Aunty Kathy?’

  ‘Of course. There were a couple of times just you and I went away with Kathy and Uncle Mike. I reckon they enjoyed it and it gave Mum and Dad a break. Pity they never had kids.’

  ‘Did I ever go on my own?’

  Faith frowns. ‘Maybe. I do remember one summer when my friend Carly invited me to go with her family to their villa in Brittany. I was only there for four weeks, but I came back convinced I could speak fluent French, even though most of it was gobbledegook.’ She turns her attention back to the album. ‘Can I take this home so I can scan some of these in?’

  Faith continues to pore over every page, stopping every few seconds to jabber on about events and people Heather has absolutely no memory of. Heather would like to join in, would even be happy to fake it, to laugh at family in-jokes she can’t recall, or make up stories about the strangers in the pictures, but all she can think about is that Faith is only approximately twenty feet from all her secrets and lies, and she feels the door must be burning, glowing bright, betraying her.

  ‘When did you say you were meeting Helena and Emily?’ she asks innocently.

  Faith looks up, confused for a second, then checks her watch. ‘Oh my goodness! In five minutes! I must get going.’

  Her sister hurries out the door, promising to be in touch about the upcoming Sunday dinner – maybe they’ll go out? There’s a nice gastro-pub in the village that’s just got a new chef and Matthew’s heard it’s very good – and then she’s gone. Heather leans on the door to check it has shut properly, double-locks it and then slumps to the floor, exhausted. Her mind is full of sea breezes and Aunty Kathy’s red coat.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  NOW

  Heather can’t sleep. Her head is too full of beaches and Christmases and smiling blonde-haired girls. It’s as if the static, two-dimensional pictures from the album she looked through earlier that evening are burrowing through her skull in an effort to graft themselves in as proper memories. The only problem is that the recollections they correspond to – their living, moving, three-dimensional counterparts – are missing, and without an anchor the images just swirl around, spinning on a carousel that won’t stop.

  In the end, Heather decides to get up and go to the toilet, and then maybe she’ll go and sit in the living room and read a book. It would be better to be either properly awake or properly asleep. She’s had enough of this surreal slide show. So she throws back the duvet, swings her legs out of the bed and, barefooted, heads for the bathroom.

  She’s only three steps down the hallway when she treads in something cold. Something liquid. She’s instantly awake. She turns and reaches for the light switch.

  Her hallway is full of water, only a few millimetres deep, but it’s stretching from outside the kitchen to where she’s standing just by her bedroom door.

  She sloshes through it, grabs a couple of towels from the laundry hamper and throws them on the hall floor, then goes back to find more. It takes a good ten minutes to mop everything up. She deposits the soaking towels directly in the washing machine and turns it on. She’s properly exhausted now, and the knowledge brings a flush of relief; she wasn’t looking forward to sitting in her living room and staring out into the darkened garden. The blankness of sleep is much more welcome.

  Only, as she heads back to her bedroom, she notices there’s a sheen on the hall floor again. She reaches down and her fingers come away wet. Damn.

  Adrenalin wipes away any traces of sleepiness as she remembers Jason saying something about plumbing problems, about workmen maybe needing to check the pipes out.

  She snaps into fight-or-flight mode, runs out of her front door and up the stairs, and hammers on Jason’s door before she thinks properly about what she’s doing, noticing too late that she’s wearing only a pair of shortie pyjamas and a cardigan grabbed from the hook near her front door.

  She’s on the verge of running away again, leaving him to think it was a cruel, nocturnal version of Knock Down Ginger, when he opens the door, messy-headed and smothering a yawn with his hand. ‘There’s… there’s water!’ she stammers.

  Jason looks just as confused as she does. He also looks utterly delectable, in a dressing gown thrown over a low-slung pair of pyjama bottoms. ‘Water?’ he mutters.

  ‘In my hallway! You said something about plumbing problems…?’ She starts to back away towards the top of the stairs, her eyes begging him to follow her. Jason blinks a few times, ties his dressing gown, and nods. By the time they�
�re back down in Heather’s hallway, it’s almost as bad as when she first discovered it.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Jason says, yawning again as he squints at the long puddle snaking down the hallway. ‘Carlton sent a plumber round. It was something to do with a dodgy pipe under my shower, but he said it was all fixed.’

  Heather looks at him.

  ‘You’re right,’ he says. ‘This doesn’t look very fixed to me either.’

  Heather wraps her arms around herself. She’s starting to shiver. ‘What are we going to do?’

  She’s surprised when he pulls a mobile phone from his dressing-gown pocket. He must see her eyes widen because he gives her a lopsided smile just as she’s trying not to wonder who he might have been texting late at night.

  ‘Best mate having a crisis called just before I went to bed,’ he says. ‘I’m not sad enough to sleep with my phone – honest!’

  He dials a number and starts talking to someone whom Heather assumes must be the emergency plumber, leaving her to wonder about the friend who called him seeking support, and if she’s the kind of person people would call in the middle of the night if they were having a crisis. If she had any close friends, of course.

  Probably not.

  She always seems to be the problem. Her admiration for Jason grows as he chats effortlessly to the person on the other end of the line – a stranger, someone he’s woken in the middle of the night. When he’s finished he puts his phone back in his pocket.

  ‘He says he’ll be here in about fifteen minutes. While we wait, we may as well try and find out where it’s all coming from. Have you got anything we can mop this lot up with?’

  Heather runs to get her few remaining towels from the airing cupboard and they set about soaking up the water. At least it’s clean, she thinks, as she crawls around on the floor, trying to keep the corners of her cardigan from draping into the mess. At least it’s not sewage. She definitely wouldn’t have been able to cope with that.