Every Touch

by Parke, Nerika

  “Thank you,” she said quietly.

  She began to take off her nightdress, pulling it over her head. When she lowered her arms she saw he had turned away so he didn’t see her. His respect for her, even when he thought she was dangerous, tugged at her heart.

  “Please let me explain what’s going on,” she said as she dressed.

  “Go ahead.”

  His tone suggested he didn’t think she could and, as she thought about it, she knew he was right. He was looking out the door to the living room, an expression of confusion on his face.

  She finished dressing. “It’s okay,” she said, “I’m dressed now. Thank you.”

  He looked back at her, his expression softening for an instant before he looked back at the living room.

  “Where’s all my furniture?” he said.

  “You... you were in a coma.” That was true, at least. Kind of. “That’s why you had the drip and catheter.”

  He looked back at her. “Why was I in a coma?”

  “You were attacked. Injured.” Also semi-true.

  He frowned and raised a hand to his head. “I don’t have any injuries.”

  She was at a loss. She didn’t want to lie to him and couldn’t think of anything that would explain the situation anyway. And yet she couldn’t tell him the truth, he would think she was insane. She needed Trish. Denny would listen to his sister.

  “Please let me call your sister,” she said, “then we can explain everything.”

  “Why can’t you explain now?”

  “Because you wouldn’t believe me.”

  “That’s convenient.”

  “It’s...”

  She was interrupted by the sound of the intercom buzzer.

  “Don’t move,” he warned as he walked into the living room.

  She listened as he had a brief discussion and then reappeared at the bedroom door.

  “The police are on their way up,” he said, “you can try and make them believe you, but they won’t. You picked the wrong person to do whatever you’ve done to me. I work at the police station. I’ll probably know whoever is on their way up.”

  Laila froze. She hadn’t thought of that. What if he was right? What if it was someone he had known? She had just about worked out what she was going to say about Denny’s accusations, but he would be impossible to explain away if someone recognised him. A doppelganger to a dead man? In his flat?

  A sudden knock on the front door made her jump. Denny cast one more look at her then disappeared into the living room. She climbed off the bed as she heard the door open and found her shoes, stepping into them before following Denny through.

  Neither the man nor the woman in police uniforms standing just inside the door and talking to Denny were looking shocked at his presence, so she was hopeful she had at least dodged a bullet on that front. They both looked at her as she walked out of the bedroom and Denny turned to her. The woman came towards her.

  “Ma’am,” she said, “I’m Officer Clarke and this is Officer Brandon. Mr Carpenter has informed us that you may have drugged him and held him captive here in his flat.”

  Laila glanced at Denny. “Yes, I know.” She took a breath and plunged into her hastily prepared plan. “My name is Laila Smith. I can show you my driver’s licence?” She indicated her bag which was on the kitchen counter. Officer Clarke nodded and she went to get her purse, handing her the licence. “As you can see, I live here.”

  The police woman studied it and nodded, handing it back.

  Denny’s expression turned to shock.

  “I’m so sorry you were called,” Laila went on, trying to pour as much sincerity as she could into her voice. “My boyfriend has had a medical condition since he sustained a head injury a year ago where he gets confused on occasion and forgets things, people. He’s usually okay after a few minutes, but he woke up like this and it seems to be lasting longer this time.”

  “No!” Denny said. “She’s lying! You can’t believe her.”

  Laila looked at him, wishing desperately there was any other way to do this. “Ask him what year it is,” she said.

  Officer Clarke turned to look at him. “Mr Carpenter, what year is it?”

  Denny looked from her to Laila. Fear and doubt passed across his face. “It’s... it’s 2009,” he said quietly.

  The policewoman turned back to Laila. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Would you like us to do anything? Are you safe?”

  Denny’s anxious gaze was darting between the two police officers and Laila. “Isn’t it?” he said.

  Laila wiped at a tear sliding down her cheek as she looked at him. “Yes,” she said, returning her attention to Clarke, “We’ll be fine, thank you. He’s not dangerous. He’s just confused. I’ll make an appointment with his doctor.”

  The policewoman nodded. “If you’re sure you’re okay?”

  She smiled. “I’m sure.”

  Denny didn’t move from the spot where he was standing as they left. Laila closed the door and turned to look at him. He was staring at the floor. Her arms itched to hold him. She hugged herself instead.

  “What year is it?” he said, his eyes still down.

  “2014.”

  “Was what you told them true?”

  Laila hesitated, unsure what to do. He raised his head to look at her.

  “No,” she said, “it wasn’t.”

  “Then what is?” he exclaimed, throwing his hands into the air and walking to the window. “What is happening to me?”

  She looked at him as he stared out, running the fingers of one hand through his hair. She had dreamed so many times over the past four days what it would be like when he woke and every time it was the happiest moment of her life. Every time, he took her into his arms and she gazed into the blue eyes she’d never looked into and he told her with the voice she’d never heard that he loved her.

  She’d never imagined this nightmare.

  “I can tell you the truth,” she said, “but you won’t believe me.”

  He turned round. “It can’t be worse than not knowing,” he said.

  “Okay,” she said, smiling, “but first, I really need the bathroom. Are you hungry? Take anything you want from the fridge.”

  He nodded. “Thank you.”

  She walked through the bedroom to the bathroom and closed the door, leaning her head against it. At least she’d been able to get rid of the police, but she had no idea what was going to happen now. There was no way Denny would believe what she had to tell him. She wished Trish were here. She would tell him the same thing as Laila, but at least he trusted her. Denny had no idea who Laila was.

  Despair began to take hold. What if he never remembered her? With everything they’d done so they could be together, what if she lost him anyway? The tears that had been threatening since Denny woke began to roll down her face and she brushed them away angrily. There was no time for her to fall apart now. That luxury would have to wait.

  She did what she had come to do and freshened herself up a little, then headed back, feeling as ready as she was going to get to tell Denny what had been happening to him for the past five years.

  When she reached the living room, he was gone.

  Forty-Four

  Trish’s mobile phone number went straight to voicemail. Laila left a frantic message then, in desperation, called her landline number. She recognised Trish’s husband John’s voice when he answered.

  “Hello, is Mrs Mason there please?” Please be in, Trish, please.

  “I’m sorry, she’s not here. Would you like to leave a message?”

  “Uh, no, thank you. I’ll try again later.”

  She hung up.

  This was bad. Really bad. Denny had raided her bag while she was in the bathroom and taken her car key. A quick look out the bathroom window down to the building parking area revealed her car was missing. How could she have been so stupid as to leave him on his own? She was almost sure he would try to find his sister and she didn’t want to think wh
at would happen if he went to Trish’s house and John and Jay were there. And she was desperately worried about Denny. He was on his own in a world that he’d been away from for almost five years.

  He didn’t even have any shoes.

  Kelly was working so Laila knew her phone would be off, but she tried anyway, without luck.

  She looked at the door, wracked with indecision. Should she stay in case he came back or should she go and try to find him? She wanted to stay, but she realised that was what the old Laila would have done. The man she loved needed her and she wasn’t going to let him down.

  Grabbing her bag, she ran out the door.

  It took Laila ten minutes to get to the taxi rank where she knew she would find a cab. It was another fifteen for them to reach Trish’s house. Neither her car nor Denny were anywhere in sight. Trish’s car wasn’t in the driveway either. Maybe she’d got Laila’s message and headed him off. Nevertheless, Laila waited in the taxi outside the house in case he showed up.

  She wondered where else he would go. He must have had friends before he died, but she didn’t know who they were, let alone where they lived. The truth was she had no idea where he would go. After waiting twenty minutes, she knew she must have either missed him or he wasn’t coming. Another call to Trish still went to voicemail. Frustrated with herself and not knowing what else to do, she instructed the driver to take her home.

  Back at the flats, she was shocked and overjoyed to see her car parked amongst the vehicles of her neighbours in the car park next to the building. She ran inside, impatiently waiting for the lift then urging it to go faster on the way up, wishing she had just run up the stairs.

  When the door opened at the third floor, she was so relieved to see Denny sitting on the doormat outside their flat that she almost ran up to him and hugged him. His knees were pulled up to his chest, his back to the door and his head down. But when he looked up as she stepped from the lift, her joy turned instantly to sadness. His expression of hopelessness almost broke her heart.

  “I don’t have a key,” he said. “I’m sorry I took your car. I think I need help and I don’t know where else to go.”

  She crouched in front of him and, without thinking, took his hand. He looked at their hands together and, for an instant, she thought she saw a glimmer of recognition in his eyes, but then it was gone and she wasn’t sure if she’d imagined it. She let go.

  “Let’s go inside,” she said, standing.

  “My foot’s bleeding,” he said, standing with her but holding one bare foot off the floor. “I think I stood on some broken glass on the way back in. I don’t want to get blood all over my... all over your floor.”

  She smiled up at him and opened the door. “It’s okay, I’ll just clean it up.” He followed her inside. “Go and put your feet in the bath and I’ll get supplies and be right in.”

  “Thank you,” he said, hobbling into the bedroom.

  When she joined him, bringing with her an assortment of medical supplies, he was sitting sideways on the toilet lid, his feet in the bath, rinsing the dirt off with the shower attachment. He looked up as she entered and smiled slightly. She pulled a chair up next to the other end of the bath and set her supplies down, handing him a towel and draping another over her lap.

  “Give me your foot and I’ll make sure there’s no glass left in it,” she said, patting her lap as he dried himself off.

  “You don’t have to,” he said, “I can do that.”

  “I know,” she answered, “but it will be easier for me.”

  He dropped his eyes. “Thank you.”

  After drying his feet carefully, he lifted the left one and rested it on the towel on her lap. The ball of his foot had several painful looking cuts, a couple of which were slowly oozing blood. Laila picked up a tissue, some tweezers and a magnifying glass and went to work.

  “Your name is Laila?” Denny said after a while.

  “Yes. Laila Smith.”

  “How do you spell that?”

  Without missing a beat she said, “S-M-I-T-H.”

  She glanced up when he snorted and his smile made her heart flip. She smiled back and their eyes locked for just a second, then he looked down again. She returned her attention to his foot and tried to get her heart rate under control.

  “L-A-I-L-A,” she said, pulling a tiny shard of glass from one of the cuts and dropping it onto the tissue on the side of the bath next to her.

  “It’s a pretty name,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  She hated her common surname, but liked her first. She had often thought lately how much better it would sound attached to ‘Carpenter’.

  “Why are you being so nice to me?” he said. “I don’t even know you. And I called the police on you and stole your car.”

  “I understand why you did all that,” she said, extracting another, larger piece of glass. She heard his sharp intake of breath. “I’m sorry, am I hurting you?”

  He shook his head. “Just a little. It’s okay.”

  “When you woke up,” she said, peering through the magnifying glass again, “I never for a second thought you wouldn’t remember. I would have made sure it was less traumatising if I’d known that was going to happen.” She carefully extracted a third glass splinter then dabbed at the blood still seeping from the lacerations. “I think that’s the last of it,” she said, holding the tissue firmly onto the wounds to staunch the blood flow. “I can imagine how shocked you must have been to find yourself in bed attached to a drip and a catheter next to a woman you didn’t know.”

  “Yeah,” he said, “shocked is an understatement.”

  “Where did you go in the car?”

  He sighed and she looked up at him. “I went to my sister’s house.”

  Laila began to panic. “Did you go in?”

  “I was going to. But as I was about to get out of the car, my brother-in-law and nephew came out of the house. That’s when I knew that you had to be telling the truth about what year it is.” He closed his eyes as if to shut out what he had seen. “Jay looked so different. He’s grown up so much.” His eyes opened again and he wiped at them. “So I left without getting out. On the way back I stopped at a newsagent to check the date on the newspapers.” He lapsed into silence, staring into the bath.

  She looked away, blinking rapidly, and turned her attention back to his foot. “I’m sorry,” she said softly.

  The blood had stopped so she gently applied antiseptic cream to the cuts and covered them with a pad of gauze, the area being too big for a plaster.

  “So why are you being so nice to me?” he repeated.

  She finished taping the gauze in place and looked up at him. “Because I love you,” she said.

  Denny’s jaw dropped.

  She lifted his foot from her lap and placed it on the floor, then put the towel on the bath. “Stay here,” she said, “and I’ll get you something to wear on your feet. I’ll go out and buy you some shoes later.”

  He was still gaping at her as she stood and turned away, walking from the bathroom. As soon as she was through the door and away from his line of sight she sagged against the wall.

  Retaining her composure was becoming more and more difficult. She was teetering between bursting into tears and throwing herself into his arms and right now she didn’t know which would be worse. He was here, he was with her, he was alive. It was everything she’d dreamed of and now he had no idea who she was.

  How could this have happened? Had they got something wrong in the ritual? Or was this always going to be the result? She would call Crystal later, but she didn’t expect her to be any help. Surely if this was going to happen she would have warned her. Even Crystal, annoying as she was, wouldn’t have kept her in the dark about this.

  Laila pushed herself away from the wall. One thing at a time, that’s how she was going to deal with this, and the first thing to do was find Denny something to put on his feet. The second, she suspected, was to stop him from freaking out becau
se a complete stranger had just told him she loved him.

  “These should fit,” Laila said, handing Denny a pair of thermal socks when she returned to the bathroom. They were men’s that she’d bought to fit over her own socks to keep her feet warm in the winter.

  He was still sitting on the toilet seat when she got back and seemed reluctant to look her in the eye. She couldn’t blame him.

  “Thanks,” he said, starting to pull the socks on, carefully manoeuvring the left one over the bandage. “Where do I live?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Everything in here is yours. There are no men’s toiletries, so I obviously don’t live here. Where do I live?” He stood and hobbled after her into the bedroom, only putting weight onto the heel of his wounded foot.

  “You live here,” Laila answered, leading the way to the living room, “we live together.”

  “Nothing here belongs to me,” he said, his voice rising in frustration, “not even the men’s clothes you have hanging in your wardrobe. How is it I live here?”

  She was dreading this. How was she possibly going to tell him the truth without him thinking she belonged in an institution? She couldn’t even think how she would be able to explain how he’d been a ghost for the past five years. Where did you even begin with something like that?

  “Are you hungry? I can make you something to eat.”

  “I’d rather hear what’s going on,” he said, grasping her arm.

  She turned to look at him and he let her go, lowering his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Her eyes brimmed with tears. She could see how confused and afraid he was and she longed to hold him and comfort him the way he had for her so many times. But she was afraid that all she could do was make him feel worse.

  “Come and sit down,” she said, leading him to the sofa. She took her laptop from the dining table and sat next to him. “I know you’re confused,” she said, switching on the computer and finding the document she needed, “and what I’m going to tell you is the truth. But I need to warn you, you are going to find it very hard to believe.” She handed the computer to him and stood. “Read that and I’ll make us some sandwiches.”