by Lana Newton
‘You don’t want those? They’re your favourite,’ said Paul. ‘You always ask for extra pickles on everything.’
Uncertainly she poked a pickle with her fork. ‘They taste like seawater.’
‘That explains why you like them. You love the sea.’ There was a fleeting smile on Paul’s face and this time Claire could swear it was genuine. ‘You look exhausted,’ he added. ‘Why don’t I show you to your room?’
Gratefully, she followed him up the stairs to a spacious room decorated in beige. It was tidy but for a worn-out silk robe on an armchair. The king-size bed looked so enticing, Claire was tempted to fall in and lose herself under the covers, wet clothes and all.
The room was quiet – no traffic, no voices and only a muffled whisper of leaves reached her through the open terrace doors. She peeked through the curtains but couldn’t see beyond the darkness.
‘My room is across the corridor. If you need anything, anything at all, just knock.’ He kissed her good night. His lips on her cheek were arctic. He might as well have been kissing a distant aunt.
‘Wait,’ she said. He paused in the doorway. She cleared her throat. ‘My mother. What’s her name?’
‘Angela. Angela Wright.’
‘And my father?’
‘Your father’s name is Tony.’
And with that he was gone, shutting the door and taking Molokai with him. Claire barely had the energy to change into her nightdress, but despite her exhaustion, sleep wouldn’t come. She closed her eyes under her beige covers and concentrated on the sound of rain hitting the windowsill, repeating her parents’ names quietly to herself and hoping to remember something, anything, about them. The events of the day played over and over in her mind until she heard the phone ring, and then Paul’s voice. A minute later there was a knock on her bedroom door.
‘Someone just called from the hospital,’ Paul said. ‘Your father is awake.’
Chapter 2
The human mind … what a fragile thing it was. One minute your life had meaning. You had a past, a present and a future that was anticipated and planned for. You went to work, saved money, paid into your pension. You got married, travelled the world, fell in love, had babies, pizza every Saturday and takeaway Chinese every Friday night. And then, just like that, without any warning or indication, your mind could turn its back on you, leaving you in a void. Knowing who you are, where you are in life, all gone like an early morning fog. Without that knowledge, what was left?
One day at the hospital, Claire had overheard the nurses chatting over their cups of coffee. If you could be anyone else for one day, who would you be, they mused as they took careful sips of their flat whites. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, to live someone else’s life for a day, to be them, to feel like them? A movie star, perhaps, or a famous singer. A cattle drover in Australia. To live a life as far removed from yours as possible, wouldn’t that be something? That was how Claire felt – like she was living someone else’s life. But it wasn’t wonderful. She felt like she was drowning and no one was there to save her.
With a start she woke up and for a moment didn’t know where or who she was. The strange room, the luxurious bed, the expensive furniture – none of it looked familiar. And then she remembered – she was home.
Sitting up, she rubbed her eyes. Spotting a silk robe draped casually over an armchair, she threw it on and stepped out of bed. She crossed the room in small, tentative steps and pulled the curtains open. The rain of the night before was gone. All she could see was the blue of the skies and the green of the trees. She wished she was outside, walking in the park, window shopping or having a coffee in one of the many cafés lining the nearby streets. She didn’t want to be in the alien house that was supposed to feel like home but didn’t.
Glancing at the clock, she noticed it was only nine in the morning. Another three hours until Paul drove her to the hospital to meet her father. How was she going to fill the time? A part of her wanted to fast-forward these three hours, while another part of her, a shy and retreating part, wanted to hide. It’ll be okay, she told herself. I might not remember him but he is my father. He loves me. We love each other. Last night when the hospital had called, she’d wanted to rush to her father’s side right away. But she had to wait. There were no visiting hours in the middle of the night.
She could hear a soft whimpering outside. Molokai, she thought. And she was correct – the dog leapt into her arms, whining happily, as soon as she opened the bedroom door. She ran her hand through his fur and was rewarded by a thousand kisses. ‘Look at you, you’re all muddy. Have you been out for a walk? No, not on the bed.’
Miraculously, the dog obeyed. Accompanied by Molokai, she set out to explore. There was an en-suite bathroom in her bedroom. She marvelled at the size of it – it was twice as big as her hospital room. All marble and granite, it was decorated in the same colour scheme as the bedroom. Absentmindedly stroking a cotton towel, she wondered whether she had picked out this colour.
There were two bathroom sinks next to each other. Did she once share this room with her husband? For a few seconds, as she peered at her reflection in a hexagonal mirror above the sinks, she thought about her marriage. There was so much she didn’t know.
The freestanding bathtub in the middle of the room – for it was a room in its own right – looked so tempting, she wanted to climb straight in and feel the water on her body. But for now, the shower would do. She undressed behind a waterfall of crystal-like beads and eagerly turned the shower taps. For ten minutes she stood under cascades of warm water, while Molokai patiently waited outside the glass door.
Afterwards, while the dog bounced around like an overexcited toddler, she sat in front of a tall mirror in her bedroom. One after another she opened five bottles of perfume, spraying a little bit of each on her wrists and neck and regretting it instantly. The smell was overwhelming and made her gag.
The house was quiet. No cars driving past, no voices from the park. She didn’t know where Paul was. His car wasn’t in the driveway. Tying the cord of her robe together, she left the room. There were three other doors on this floor and, holding her breath, she opened each one. Two of the rooms contained no personal touches and seemed unoccupied. The last of the three clearly belonged to Paul. It was untidy, with clothes all over the floor. The room looked like Paul – masculine brown wood and dark furniture. She stood in the doorway, feeling like a child locked in an unfamiliar house with no way out. It was unsettling and more than a little scary.
She didn’t want to snoop on Paul. It felt too much like encroaching on the private life of a stranger. She shut the door to his bedroom and walked down the marble staircase. Although she remembered the majestic living room from the night before, it still took her breath away. Suddenly she felt confused, like she was lost in the woods and didn’t know what direction to take. Everything in this house seemed alien and she couldn’t believe this was where she lived. Shivering, she walked into the kitchen. Just like she expected, it was spacious, with what she assumed must be all the latest appliances. In the fridge, she found a dozen sandwiches similar to the ones she’d had the night before. Reaching for a ham sandwich, she ate it as quickly as she could and then looked through cupboards. In amazement she stared at fruit she didn’t recognise, delicate crystal glasses, porcelain plates and every flavour of tea imaginable. She found some cat food and refilled the cat’s bowl, wondering whether it was hiding somewhere, too nervous to come out.
Her strength restored, she explored further, walking from the kitchen to the dining room to another guest room. They had a sauna, a swimming pool and an air hockey table in the basement. Finally, she spotted an old-fashioned piano in the drawing room. Tired now, she slid into a chair in front of it and ran her fingers over the keys. The most beautiful sounds escaped from under her fingertips and she paused for a moment, lifting her hands and staring at them as if she had never seen them before. Then she resumed playing. It wasn’t Swan Lake or any of the music she’d heard in the
hospital but a melody she didn’t recognise.
‘What do you think, Molokai? Did you know I could play the piano?’ she asked the dog, who wagged his long tail in response.
As Claire contemplated this newly discovered ability, somewhere inside the house a phone rang. She stopped playing and stood up, nervously clutching her hands to her chest. What was she to do? Did she answer the phone? Or let it go to voicemail? Slightly unsteady on her feet, she walked towards the sound and watched the phone like it was an explosive device about to go off. Eventually it stopped ringing and Paul’s voice could be heard asking to leave a message. ‘Claire, it’s me, Gaby. Call me back as soon as you get this. I need to see you.’
When the person on the other end hung up, Claire returned upstairs. She felt safer there. There were no phones she could see, no unfathomable voices coming through the speakers.
Back in her bedroom, she opened the wardrobe. Walking inside – yes, the wardrobe was big enough to walk inside it – she examined rows of designer clothes, shoes and underwear. It was like being in a department store. She went through every drawer, rummaged through dresses and looked behind shoe racks. Who needed what seemed like a hundred pairs of shoes? And all these clothes … most of them looked like they had never been worn.
Suddenly, Molokai leapt off the bed and growled. Seconds later she heard the doorbell. Unsure of what to do, she froze with a shoe in her hand. Molokai ran through the door and soon his excited barking could be heard from downstairs. She followed on legs that seemed to have turned to jelly.
From behind the front door, she heard a woman’s voice. ‘Hello, anyone there?’
‘One second,’ said Claire, throwing a quick glance in the mirror and wondering whether she was dressed appropriately for a visitor. Through a gap in the curtains she could see a delivery truck parked on the opposite side of the road. Concluding it was just a courier and breathing out in relief, she fiddled with the lock. It was complex and she couldn’t open it. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t have the keys for this door,’ she called out. ‘Are you delivering something? Can you leave it outside, please?’
‘Claire, it’s me, Gaby,’ she heard in reply. ‘Can I come in?’
Claire recognised the voice from the answer machine. To her surprise, a key turned and the door opened.
A stunning brunette was standing in the doorway. She looked like she had just walked off a movie set. There was a hint of something foreign about her – the Mediterranean tinge to her skin, the deep caramel to her eyes. A leather skirt hugged her slim hips. There was a bouquet of flowers in her hands.
‘Oh my God, look at you!’ she exclaimed, drawing Claire into a hug and almost crushing the flowers. Claire struggled but only for a second – resistance seemed pointless. ‘It’s so good to see you! You have no idea how worried we were.’
Claire extricated herself from the embrace, mumbling, ‘It’s good to see you, too.’ She didn’t know what else to say. Unlike Claire, Molokai seemed to know exactly who the woman was. A chewed dog toy – a plastic duck with its head missing – miraculously appeared in his mouth and he presented it to the visitor. His tail was wagging.
The brunette ignored the decapitated duck but gave Molokai a distracted stroke. ‘These are for you,’ she said. Her eyes twinkled as she shoved the flowers into Claire’s hands. ‘They’re orchids.’
Intimidated by the woman and the flowers, Claire wished she had brushed her hair instead of dousing herself in all that perfume. I must smell like a bouquet of flowers myself, she thought. But the woman didn’t seem to mind.
‘You don’t remember me, do you?’ The brunette shook her head with disapproval, as if talking to a child who was struggling with her homework. ‘It’s me, Gaby. Your best friend.’
As Claire stood in the doorway gawking, Gaby made her way into the dining room. She seemed to know her way around Claire’s house much better than Claire did.
‘You have the key to the house?’ Claire asked to break the silence.
‘Of course I do. You and I are like sisters. I went to school with Paul. That’s how we met.’
While Claire arranged the flowers in a vase she had found, Gaby walked into the kitchen and poured two glasses of red wine. A sudden thought occurred to Claire. Didn’t a person tell their best friends everything? If that was the case, Gaby would have all the answers she was so desperately searching for.
Gaby handed Claire her wine. Taking a careful sip, Claire put her glass down.
‘You don’t like it?’ asked Gaby. ‘It’s your favourite.’
Claire found it hard to believe. Her taste buds seemed unacquainted with the sharpness of the wine. She was desperate for a sip of water to get rid of the bitter taste but didn’t want Gaby to think less of her. She felt a little intimidated by her old self, who would have enjoyed the wine and known what to say to this beautiful stranger.
In the first week at the hospital, many people dropped in to see her, faces and conversations she could hardly remember now, so confused and drugged up she had been back then. Little by little, however, the stream of visitors dwindled, before finally disappearing altogether. There was only so much one-sided conversation even a good friend could take. Only so much small talk with someone who did nothing but sit in her bed, staring into space, not knowing what to say, not knowing who she was.
What if she couldn’t live up to the person she had once been? And how could she, if she remembered nothing about her? ‘I’m not sure I’m allowed wine. I’m on all sorts of medication.’ She pushed the glass away.
‘I’m sorry I haven’t been to see you in hospital. I’ve been away for work. My first time in Japan, what a fascinating place …’ Gaby spoke fast, and her cheeks looked flushed. ‘Yesterday we went to that amazing Thai place you love. What is it called?’ She looked at Claire expectantly. ‘Oh yes. Thai Basil. Tina, Ruth and Betty were there. We were talking about you. Let me tell you, I was absolutely beside myself when I heard. I wanted to cut my trip short, of course, but there was still so much to do. And I thought, you’re already in hospital. Paul and your mum are there. There’s nothing I can do.’
‘My mum wasn’t there.’
Gaby’s eyebrows shot up in surprise but she didn’t comment. Instead, she told Claire all about Nijo Castle (‘I’ve never seen anything like it!) and Mount Fuji (‘We went on the most amazing boat.’ A boat on the mountain? Claire wanted to know. But apparently there was the most amazing lake there, too.). Finally, Gaby lowered her voice and said, ‘I’m sorry about your dad.’
‘My dad’s awake. He’s going to be okay. Paul is taking me to the hospital to see him later.’ Impatiently she looked at the clock. Another two hours to go. ‘Have you met him? What is he like?’
‘Paul?’
‘My dad.’
‘I’ve met him a few times. I thought he was quite the flirt.’
‘He was?’ asked Claire, wondering if Gaby was making things up, embellishing to make her stories more exciting. She seemed just the type to do something like that.
‘All completely innocent, of course.’
‘Of course.’
‘He seemed besotted with your mother. I remember wondering if I would ever meet anyone who loved me that much. The guys I meet …’ She shook her head. ‘Never mind. So, are you telling me you don’t remember—’ Gaby leaned forward and lowered her voice to a whisper ‘—anything? Not even your birthday party last month? Come on, no one could forget that night.’
Dejectedly Claire shook her head. ‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘No, I don’t.’
‘Wow,’ Gaby whispered, staring at Claire like an entomologist studying a particularly rare beetle. ‘What does it feel like?’
‘It just feels …’ Claire thought about it. ‘It feels blank.’
‘Sometimes I wish I could forget my life.’ Gaby seemed lost in thought for a moment, then shrugged. ‘Enough about me. You have to promise you are looking after yourself. It must be so terrible. I can’t even imagine.’
Now it was Claire’s turn to shrug. ‘Tell me something about me. A story to jog my memory.’
‘How about some photographs? Let me have your phone.’ Gaby grabbed Claire’s phone and pressed a few buttons. ‘Here is your Facebook page. You must have thousands of photos up there.’
She scrolled through pictures, telling Claire funny anecdotes about all the people in them. Claire had spent hours in the hospital staring at the photos. But it was one thing looking at faces of strangers and quite another listening to Gaby bringing these strangers to live. ‘This is Tiffany,’ Gaby was saying. ‘You went to ballet school together.’ Tiffany was wearing a tight-fitting business suit, as if she had just stepped out of a job interview, but her posture, her body, the way she carried herself betrayed a dancer.
‘She’s beautiful.’
‘You call her the cow behind her back. And sometimes even to her face.’ Another photo popped up. ‘And this is Kevin. He tried to kiss you at your birthday last year. And when you turned him down, he kissed three other people just to prove it didn’t mean anything.’
‘Three other women?’
‘Not all of them women.’ There must have been shock on her face because Gaby laughed and added, ‘Dancers, what can I say?’ She had a good laugh, loud and infectious. It lit up her face and made her eyes twinkle. Suddenly Claire felt like a ray of light had illuminated her otherwise dark universe. She had a friend. She was no longer alone.
When a photo of a blonde woman in her fifties appeared, Claire exclaimed, ‘That’s Mum!’
‘You remember?’
‘I just knew.’ But she didn’t know how she knew. She pondered it for a moment, wondering if it was a memory or just intuition. Her mother was looking straight at Claire from the screen, her light hair pulled away from her face, her arms around the man Claire had spent hours watching at the hospital.
‘This is her with your dad at a barbecue a few years ago.’