“What if I was a trigger and brought it all back before he was ready?”
“Darcy, he loved you. I only had to see you together in Quingpu. No, before that, right back when you slugged him one, to know he loved you. If he remembers you, how can it be bad?”
She couldn’t answer Peter. Her breath robbed by trying to hold back another torrent of tears.
“One thing you need to know. He’s back, but he’s not the same. Physically he’s better. I’ve never seen him look so fit. But his personality has changed. He’s still angry, easily irritated and he has no filter. He’ll walk away in the middle of someone talking to him. He broods. He exercises till he drops from exhaustion. He breaks things. We don’t know if this is all part of the recovery, or a permanent change. Now he’s talking it might be better, but honestly, with the amount of head trauma he suffered, well, anything is a miracle. I want you to come, but I understand if you think it’s too much.”
Sitting on the floor in the dark in her half empty apartment, her eyes swollen and stinging, her frayed heart beating double time, Darcy considered her options. If she went to Will and he remembered her it would be a chance to start again; to see if the new Will and the new Darcy could mean anything to each other again. If she went to him and he didn’t remember her it would be an end to it, a full stop. A new sentence for the rest of her life. Both options were frighteningly real. Neither could be ignored.
“I’ll be there this weekend.”
33. False Memory
“The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.” — Confucius
Fucking Pete was here again. He’d want to talk, play one hundred bloody questions. Get all happy-clappy because Will could remember something so fundamental as his own address.
Didn’t he have a fucking business to run? One Will built, and Pete was no doubt screwing up. He’d given Pete and Bo and Aileen, and the fucking smiling medical staff what they wanted—he talked. And in fucking complete sentences too. He showed them he remembered everything from the twelve month forward order for Chery autos to the combination for his locker at the golf club.
Now all he wanted was for them to leave him the hell alone. He wanted to swim laps until he choked on chlorine or lift weights until he felt light-headed. He didn’t want to do art therapy or walk with Bo or talk about his pain to some counsellor whose personal version of trauma was a broken fingernail.
He thought if he gave them what they wanted, they’d relax, stand the fuck down with their eerie vigilance and hopeful cheer. A man gets bashed and can’t walk or talk and everyone around him gets all judgmental eyes and false optimism. Treat him like a two year old. Applaud when he could stand up without having to hold onto walls. High five each other when he could eat a full meal without vomiting it back up. But what creeped him out the most was the way they tried to hide what they were really thinking.
He’d see that instant when the horror of watching him stumble, the disappointment of seeing him fail to remember, and the frustration of him not speaking, crossed their faces. They’d frown or flatten their lips, or he’d hear their breath puff, then they’d smile, big toothy, fake, ‘everything is all right’ smiles.
He didn’t stumble anymore. He remembered, and he gave them what they most wanted. He talked. Now he just wanted to be left alone.
But he should’ve remembered silence is a true friend who never betrays. He should’ve figured that once he admitted to being able to talk, that’s what they’d want him to do, as if they were starved for the sound of his voice.
He watched Pete come across the lawn in a pale grey suit that probably cost the same as a year’s rent in Honggiao and tried to still the desire to meet him halfway with a cocked fist and an instruction to get back in his overpriced Merc and go back to work. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d pummelled sense into Pete.
The thought of messing up his posh threads, wrestling with him in front of the whole rich person’s rehab centre made him laugh. It’d be the highlight of the week. Poor Will Parker losing it—again.
“It’s good to see you laughing, Will. You don’t know how happy it makes me.”
“You’d be unhappy if you knew what I was laughing at.”
Pete took a seat at the outdoor café setting and gave him an odd look. Will was expert at interpreting odd looks, a new skill, acquired from months of not talking. Except at night, when no one was around to hear him spit words out in the wrong order, or no order at all. Pete’s look said, ‘who are you going to be today?’ and for a moment Will thought of torturing him by pretending he couldn’t speak again.
“I don’t care what you’re laughing at. I’m still worried to leave you. Worried I only dreamed you were talking,” said Pete.
Pete was a sap. He’d always been a sap, a crybaby, a wimp. Pete was the reason for the scar under his chin, the burn on his ribs, two of his broken noses.
“Don’t you have a business to run?”
Pete grinned at him like he’d told a lame but inexplicably endearing joke. “It’s Sunday morning, Will. But I am going to work, a motor industry luncheon.”
“So, go, don’t let me hold you up.”
“You don’t say more than half a dozen words for the best part of eight months and now you’re doing sarcasm before morning tea. You’re incredible.”
“I was trying to be instructive.”
“You want me to go?” Pete’s eyebrows danced with surprise.
There was a scream sitting in Will’s chest, begging to be released. But only the truly mad patients screamed out loud. He kept his screams inside, and used them as energy to beat the pain and confusion. But he wanted to scream now: at Pete in his crisp blue shirt with pathetic hurt in his voice, at the waitress bringing them menus, at the nurses and carers in their white scrubs on the thick green lawn with their traumatised charges.
Pete was a sap, but he didn’t deserve to be screamed at. But the waitress was fucking hovering, looking at him like he had two heads. He snatched the menu from her hand, making her flinch, and thrust it at Pete. He could’ve guessed what was on it. He’d seen the waitstaff deliver the food to patients and their families, but what was Pete here for except to feel superior because he was whole and well, and could read.
“Are you hungry?” Pete scanned the menu. He must’ve known it by heart as well.
“Just coffee.”
Pete smiled at the waitress. “I’ll have a cappuccino and a strawberry muffin, Will would like—”
“Black coffee.”
“Sorry, I forgot you could—”
“Speak for myself.”
The waitress was still hanging around. Will turned to her, raised his voice, “Go.” Skittish little thing, she jumped backwards and knocked into another table, making it scrape on the tiles. “Klutz,” he said.
“Will, go easy.”
“How hard is it to take an order efficiently?”
“Okay, never mind. What do you want to talk about today?”
“I don’t want to fucking talk about anything.”
“Oh.”
Pete was gloriously quiet. Will tried to ignore the hurt look on his face. “It’s... I feel... I…”
“Go on, Will.”
“I don’t fucking want to digest the past, avoid the fact I don’t remember what happened, or shoot the breeze with you, okay. If I was ever that guy, I’m not him now.”
“Okay.”
“You say okay, but you’re speaking to me as if I’m a weak kid who doesn’t know his own mind. I’ve let you and Bo and Aileen and every doc who ever laid eyes on me grill me for—if this is Sunday—three days. I don’t care if it’s significant I can’t remember where we lived in Tara or what I did to get here. I don’t care to discuss the issue of losing my languages and the dyslexia coming back. I don’t fucking want to talk about it.”
“We don’t have to talk. Let’s have our coffee and enjoy the sun.”
Too good to be true. But that’s what happened. They
sat in the sun and watched a game of croquet—croquet for God’s sake, what sort of a game was that—until Will couldn’t stand Pete’s patience. “I want to go home.”
“Hmm, yeah, well—”
“I’m not asking you. I’m telling you. I’m going back to the house in Luwan and yes, Pete, I do know the suburb got renamed.”
“You’re not ready. You only started talking three days ago.”
“There’s nothing wrong with me except a little memory loss.”
“You need to be signed out.”
“So you want me to get you a pen?”
“One more week. Convince Doc Yang you’re good and I’ll spring you.”
He stood, blocked Pete’s sun. “Three days.”
“Will.”
“I’m going for a run. You don’t need to wait for me.” Even behind his sunglasses Pete managed to look wounded. Will couldn’t stand being with him, feeling the pity and hope pour out of him. He dumped his t-shirt on a chair and took off across the lawn. By the time he’d loosened up Pete might’ve gone off to lunch.
He ran a circuit of the extensive grounds of the rich man’s crack-up centre. He had to give it to the gardeners, they did a great job keeping it manicured but not so tidy it looked fake. When he was good and wet, and the kinks were out of his neck, he turned back. Great, Pete was still there. He contemplated taking off again, but Pete got up, ready to go.
Will stood in the shadow of a stand of trees and watched as Pete greeted a sexy blonde woman and felt everything in his body tense. What was she doing here? He wasn’t ready for this. His head spun. He doubled over and dry-retched into a clump of hydrangeas. She shouldn’t be here. She could’ve died because of him. He’d almost died because of her. This idea of re-acquaintance was fatal.
Every night he’d dreamed of this woman. She was a wraith, a shadow on his consciousness he didn’t understand. Until the day he remembered who she was to him and how all the pieces fit together. That was the day he remembered everything. Being set on at the temple, being cuffed to the bed, singing till he was hoarse, then jail and steamed buns and Bruce Lee, and fear like he’d never known, fear that someone he loved might die.
And then he mourned. For the life he’d had, and might not get back, for the man he’d been, and was no longer, and for the woman he’d loved, and could not risk hurting again.
It was better not to remember how she felt in his arms, how she got in his head, how she’d screamed and screamed. Seeing her now, he understood she’d been with him when he hadn’t known himself. She’d held his hand. It’s why he’d never asked about her. Because he remembered she’d survived, but was a memory he didn’t dare open again.
He should run, back the way he came, anywhere, it hardly mattered. He did not think he could be close to her and pull off the act of not wanting to touch her, have her touch him again. But she was free and he wasn’t who he’d been, and it was wrong to want what he shouldn’t have, and worse to let her continue to hope for it.
He walked across the lawn. There was power in his anger, and he was about to use it. She stood when she saw him. She was so thin, had she been ill? She was dressed immaculately, designer stuff, gear Jiao might’ve worn. He could feel his heart trying to carve its way out of his chest, pulling other vital organs with it. He stepped up next to Pete and ignored her.
“Don’t you have a lunch to go to?”
“Ah, Will, this is...”
He turned to Darcy, let his eyes rake her from head to foot and back again. As cold and predatory a look as he could muster while his stomach was clenched tight and his throat closed over. They were both waiting to see if he recognised her.
“Didn’t think you had it in you, Pete. She’s high class.”
“Will, this is, not...”
He nearly laughed at how easily Pete got flustered at the suggestion Darcy was for hire. “She’s not? Shame. I’d have put in a bid. She’s very fine.”
“This is Darcy Campbell.”
Darcy took her sunglasses off and held out her hand. Will wanted to haul her into his arms and bury himself in her fragile loveliness. He ignored her hand and reached passed her for his shirt. He flicked it over his shoulder, gave Pete a salute. “Three days,” then stepped around them to go. Over his shoulder he said, “Real nice to meet you, Daisy,” and headed towards the pool.
At the door to the pool complex he snuck a look over his shoulder. She had her head down and Pete was trying to comfort her. Was she crying? Fuck.
The scream inside him was back; frustration, pain, and regret. He took a swing at the door and connected. A large crack sounded, glass shattered under his knuckles, fragmenting into crystallised shards, but it held in the frame. Not like him; his frame, his sense of self had no centre, no hold, and no integrity. He hit it again and again until he punched through it, until his knuckles split and ran with blood, until he knew he’d broken his hand.
He heard feet running towards him, looked up and saw a flash of white in the other sheet of glass. Saw the shocked looks on Pete and Darcy’s faces, and wanted to take another swing at the next pane; knock it all out, but they were coming for him.
He shook his hand and stepped through the doorway, and it was a more painful transition from sunlight to darkness than any he’d ever made.
34. What if
“Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.” — Confucius
Darcy sat across from Peter on the terrace of M on the Bund and wished he was the old Will for the third time since they’d got here.
She’d had time to partially digest the shock of seeing the new Will that morning, and deal with the awful realisation he didn’t know her. It was a harder thing to swallow than that she didn’t know him. For all the times she’d daydreamed him into existence, he was always reined in strength, slow spreading smiles, and the quiet confidence he had you right where he wanted you.
He looked different, younger, sharper, more angular, more heavily muscled. His face was perfectly symmetrical now, no scarring around his eye or cheekbone. He was more rakish con man out of the pages of a mystery novel than swaggering pirate. He limped a little, a slight favouring of his left leg, the one they didn’t shatter, and his body was even more scarred than before. Pete said he’d wanted to do more plastic surgery but Will would only allow them to fix his face.
He sounded different too. His voice was deeper, smoother. There was little trace of the slow country cadence he’d had. Even his eyes were different. Still that deep, vibrant blue but cold, distant, calculating, without a trace of humour.
Peter poured the wine. “The chances of him coming out of this at all were slim. But I’m having trouble accepting this new hard Will. Dr Yang warned us the anger Will showed earlier might be a new feature of his personality, but I always hoped it was temporary. Hell, I’d be furious too. It’s hard to deny him that emotion, but if the last couple of days are anything to go by he’s lost something that...I don’t know, it’s hard to explain.”
“He’s lost something that made him Will. He had a dashing quality, despite the roughed-up appearance. He was charming and charismatic.”
“He was—you’re right. The whole ‘men wanted to be him, women wanted to be with him’ thing. Oh shit sorry, I didn’t mean to...”
Darcy laughed. “It’s all right, Peter. I did want to be with him, so much so that when I discovered his duplicity I slugged him one, remember. I’ve never hit anyone or anything in my life.”
Peter lifted his glass, swirled the contents. He got a faraway look on his face. “I’ve always wanted to be him. I had the education, but he had the guts and the street smarts. It’s as though he’s lost his humanity. I know that sounds harsh, but this new Will has no compassion. I don’t think he likes people very much, and he was always such a good a study of them. Now he just wants to be left alone.”
Darcy lifted her glass too. She needed this alcohol if she was going to sleep tonight. “Is that so bad?” It was terrible, but it was what they were left
with, and she needed to get used to it.
“Given what we might have been discussing tonight, no, but Lord I’m going to miss him. I have to get accustomed to the idea I’m not allowed to need him anymore.”
Darcy’s breath out was a sigh to empathise with Peter’s loss. “You’ve done fine.”
“Not really. I’m struggling. I don’t have Will’s knack of seeing to the heart of things. Of knowing what battles to pick and getting knocked down and shaping back up again. I’m the politician. He was the strategist, the general, the visionary. He made the business in his image. Oh, he knew eventually he had to put in stronger systems and processes that depended less on his influence, but he was having too much fun to step back yet.”
Darcy watched Peter trying to be nonchalant as he studied the menu. She’d long since stopped thinking about him as an evil Spiderman. He was a friend. He had dark circles under his eyes and looked thinner and paler. He was hurting almost as much as Will. To make it worse, she knew more about his troubles than he suspected. But did it cross the line, shift her from friend to journalist on the lookout for a lead news item, if she told him?
Peter looked up. “The lamb is superb here, and leave room for the pavlova. Just because he didn’t know you today doesn’t mean he won’t remember. I keep forgetting he’s only been back for a few days. In one way it’s like he’s never been missing. You should go see him again. Bo will take you out there.”
“He punched that door on purpose.”
“Yeah. He does stuff like that now,” Peter sighed. He caught the waiter’s eye. “That violence, that dead mean streak, it was always in him. It’s the reason he thought he might’ve killed Feng. But he always knew he had a choice, control it or be controlled by it and he got off on the control.”
Detained Page 24