by Darren Wills
Perhaps tonight would be different, with that delicious Asian cuisine. It was a cold Sunday night, the kind of evening where a couple might rekindle old emotions through a familiar experience indoors. We had located ourselves in the corner in what was an intimate alcove.
I had a glass of JD and coke in my hand as I gazed into Laura’s sweet eyes. Her hard-to-get strategy was really very sexy, I had to admit and at least we were together this evening, unless she suddenly decided to rush off somewhere, that was. Thankfully, Meadowhall was closed now. How good it would be to have her back properly, I couldn’t help thinking. I had worked hard on schoolwork that day to free up this evening. “I’m having my usual. I don’t need to look at the menu.”
“I’m going to have duck.” She gazed up at me, flashing that smile of hers.
“It’s another change.”
“How do you mean?”
“From the chicken and water chestnuts. Divine, you said last time.”
“Well, you know, life is about variety, babe. I’m back, totally refreshed by my crazy amnesia. Ready to taste some of that variety that makes life interesting. I guess the reset button has been pressed.”
“Sounds good to me. You know what I feel about variety.” I tried to give her a flirtatious smile and she smiled back but she didn’t seem like the Laura I had known. Perhaps I needed to press the reset button too, hopefully not repeatedly.
She closed her menu and placed it flat on the table in front of her like a novel she had just finished and took a sip from her glass of sweet white wine. She took her mobile phone from her handbag. “How long do you think the food will take to come?”
“I don’t know. Usually takes about twenty minutes.”
“You don’t mind if I go through my Facebook do you? I don’t want to seem ignorant.”
“You back on it then?”
“Of course. You can’t keep a good woman down. You don’t mind?”
No, babe. Feel free.”
I looked around the restaurant. What was I searching for? There were a range of couples and groups of varying ages. There were people laughing, having serious conversations, a couple looking into each other’s eyes.
“We’re usually like that.”
“Like what, babe?”
“That couple. So into each other.”
“Listen. I’m only on Facebook. I’ll be all yours in a few minutes. I promise. Don’t fuss so much.”
“Hey, don’t worry about it. After losing you for those months, I can cope with a bit of Facebook.” Clearly, I was pretending, but sometimes pretending was crucial. Tonight it definitely was. I had to think more on the lines of test match cricket or chess and drop my football mentality. Patience and timing were the keys now, not passion. I wasn’t sure where love was in all of this. I suppose it was waiting in the wings.
After about twenty minutes, not that I was counting, Laura put her phone away. She smiled disarmingly and within about two minutes the main course arrived. There were no words spoken during the meal and at no point did I remotely feel like the bloke in that cosy couple, but so what? My wife was back at least. The gap had to be bridged at some point.
When we got back to the house, I was all excitement and dared to anticipate. Would we consummate the return of our marriage? Would she come over all tender and needy, sexually demanding, like she used to be? I deeply hoped so.
Inside, Laura took her coat and mine and placed them on the coat hooks.
“I’ll make us a couple of hot drinks.” I said.
“Great. We can take them to bed with us to help us to sleep.”
My heart sank a little. Clearly, passion wasn’t that high on the agenda.
I brought the drinks to the bedroom. Laura was already in there. She was in a curled-up sleeping position, demonstrating how she wanted to nod off rather than develop things physically. Body language can be so tough. I placed the hot mug of hot black coffee on her bedside cabinet and got into bed. I couldn’t feel anger, although I so wanted intimacy.
Within seconds she was out of bed. She had the red satin nightie on, the one that had never stayed on for long two months previously. “Bathroom”.
She was in there for a while. When she came back, she placed her cup on the cabinet and got into bed. I immediately placed my arm around her.
She looked into my eyes and I knew the worst. “Let me sleep, babe.”
* * *
In the morning, when I came down I discovered that Laura was going through papers relating to banking and credit cards, kept in a large red storage box behind the living room sofa. She calmly put the papers back. “I wanted to have a look at our finances, babe. I have something to tell you.” I stood there, keen to hear what she had to say, praying that it was something positive.
She gestured to me to sit at the kitchen table. “I’m quitting the job.”
“What?”
“I don’t want to do it anymore.”
“Why ever not?”
“It’s just not me. Another reset change.”
“But they’ve always been good to you and you’ve been so good at it.”
“That’s not always enough. We only have one lifetime.”
“Why resign?”
“I want to do something else. It’s boring, not me anymore.”
“But we need the money. We can’t keep this house, our lifestyle, without your money.” That was definitely the case. Laura worked on commission, and because she was so good at selling paintings, she often made more money than me. That was a key feature of our relationship. The money she made was vital, funding our weekends away, as well as clothes and luxuries.
“What will you do? This is your profession.”
“That’s just it. I don’t know.”
“Well, don’t resign yet. Have a long think about it.”
“It’s too late. I sent the email on Friday. I’ve finished, Dom. I’m not going back in.”
“That’s ridiculous. How are we going to live? Send another email, or go and see Max. He knows about your problems. He’ll not want you to resign.”
“I’m not going there again, not for anything. It won’t be for long.” She was wanting me to look away and show some acceptance. “Don’t worry.”
Daughter Dearest – A Family Portrait
She had put it off for several days. She just wasn’t ready. She made an emotional phone fall first, to help her overcome her nervousness, she said. I could hear the loud expressive sounds from the other end of the line and it was arranged for Laura to go to their house the following evening. George had wanted to see her then but Laura had put them off, saying how tired she felt. She asked that I drive her there, which was unusual, but she expected to have an alcoholic drink and didn’t want to risk anything. I had work to do for school and Laura’s idea that I would drop her off suited me. Surprisingly, she said she would feel under more pressure if I was there as well, which I didn’t fully understand but I went along with it.
“They’ll appreciate you being back. He’s been a mess without you. Just like I was.” I stayed in the car long enough to see her knock on the front door. Why hadn’t she just opened the door and walked in like she usually did? When I started up the car, she was being lovingly embraced in the doorway by her father with her mother behind him. I drove off feeling quite saintly.
Thirty marked books and four prepared lessons later, I heard the key in the door and Laura stepped into the hallway. She had a satisfied smile on her face as I greeted her with an offer of coffee. “Did it go well, then?” I asked her.
“Yes, babe. Very well. It was so good to see them. Their house too. I mean, their house is looking better than ever.”
“Well, they do spend a lot on it. It was a palace when they bought it.”
“I know it was.”
“Was George pleased to see you?”
“She’s probably holding back for your benefit. Lillian’s usually as emotional as he is.”
“I know that. I’m not an idiot.
A Mother’s Ruin
It was eight o’clock. I had just sat through the misery and predictability of Coronation Street, waiting for those dreary provincial closing titles when there was a knock at the door.
I encountered a perturbed-looking Lillian on the doorstep. “Why didn’t you just come in? You don’t have to knock.”
“I need to talk to you.”
“You do? Laura’s out. Meeting up with an old school friend.”
“I know. I texted her. It’s you I need to speak to.”
What was this about? I wasn’t in the mood for any kind of reprimand or warning. Yet, that was more her husband’s style than hers. Lillian always tried to keep the cart on its wheels. To be fair to her, Lillian had always given me the benefit of the doubt and, if the potential son she never had was putting it too strongly, she always seemed keen to keep me in the family.
“It’s about Laura. I wasn’t sure, but I had to come and see you.”
Bewildered, I was all ears. “Please sit down. Would you like a drink?”
“No. I just need to talk to you.”
This was very dramatic. I sat on the chair opposite her, feeling a tad uncomfortable. She was clearly nervous and I noticed she was trembling. Was it bad news? Had somebody died?
She looked at me, as if she was probing me for something mutual, for some sign of something that I couldn’t figure out. “Laura…Well, she’s not really Laura is she?”
“What do you mean?”
“Surely you’ve noticed. She’s totally different. She was at ours for half an hour but that was enough for me.”
“Half an hour? She must have been there longer than that. She didn’t get back to mine until half nine.”
Lillian raised her eyebrows slightly. “She must have gone somewhere else after. Her friend picked her up.”
“A friend? Which friend?”
“She didn’t say. She just said it was a friend.”
“She never even mentioned a friend to me. I thought she was getting a taxi back to ours.”
She’s changed too much.”
“Of course she has. She’s been through a pretty bad ordeal.”
“It’s not just that.” The grave expression wasn’t going away, like this was the worst thing in the world for her. I wanted to help her in this, but at the same time I was curious.
“What are you thinking, Lillian?”
“That’s not Laura. That’s not my daughter.”
I laughed. I knew from her deeply-troubled face that I shouldn’t have done, but I always did the wrong thing at the wrong time. “Of course it’s Laura. Who else could it be?”
“Dom, she’s not right. Just not Laura. Everything she does, says and reacts to is different. It’s as if she’s a very good impersonator, but not quite the real thing.”
“Come on. So she’s a bit changed. It’s hardly supernatural.”
“There are too many things. The words she uses, the way she moves, the things she says. It’s all not her.”
“Of course it’s her.”
“No, Dominic. In fact, she says so little, when it comes down to it. She says the minimum.”
“What does George think?”
“He just sees Laura. That is why I’ve come here. Do you not sense something?”
“It’s her. I know she’s different but we all know why. A brain injury can do terrible things to a person. Fred West became a mass murderer after a brain injury. All the things you’re querying are down to that bloody attack.”
“Yes. She told us about that. I’m not sure about that.”
“We just need to help her on her road to recovery. She will get better.”
It was like she hadn’t been listening to me. “I was suspicious from the first second. She hugged me like a stranger. Differently. Call it a mother’s intuition if you want. Just don’t call it the demented hysteria of a mad old woman, because it’s just too uncanny. She seems to remember so little from before her time away and everything she mentions or asks about is different, it seems to me. She walked in our house like she had never been here before.”
“Again, that would be the amnesia. She’s different. I will give you that. I’m having to deal with some changes myself but I think we just have to help her. It might take time, but we all have to help her to find herself. If I can do it, then surely you can.”
She leaned forward. “Listen. I’ve known Laura from the day she was born. I know her totally, utterly, comprehensively. That’s not her.” At this point her eyes were as wide as they could be, like a facial exclamation mark.
“What do you mean from the day she was born? You adopted her from an agency. She walked into your arms.”
Lillian was suddenly sheepish. She had said too much. I waited for her to continue and she knew she had to say more. She paused, then took a breath. “That’s not the entire story. In fact, it’s not the story at all. We adopted her from a woman who didn’t want her. We cut some corners.”
“What corners?”
“ George knew people back then.”
“What do you mean? Organised crime?”
“Yes, I suppose so. He had some pretty powerful friends who could arrange things. Most of them are dead now, but back then…”
“How did you get away with it? The hospital people would have had something to say, surely?”
“I delivered her. I even cut the umbilical cord myself. Her mother was really a kind of surrogate. She didn’t want a baby. Was a bit of a low life, and we were desperate. George sorted out the paperwork, or lack of it.”
I thought, then took a breath myself. “Well, I’m sure you’ve never regretted it.”
She was staring at me, searchingly. “Do you really think that’s Laura with amnesia or some mental condition?”
I nodded.
She looked at me as if I was somebody foreign, saying words she didn’t understand. She paused for a while before speaking. “Ok. Hear this. I started talking to her about our holiday in Poole, the one when she was a teenager. I knew how much she loved that holiday and always regretted that we never went back there. I wanted her to mention the donkeys in the neighbouring field. They made a big impression on her.”
“Yes, she told me about them. She named them after Disney characters.”
Lillian laughed gently. “All she did was try to change the subject. In fact, she made several attempts. She didn’t give me any of the memorable details of that holiday, the one she always said had meant so much to her.”
“She’s just forgotten stuff, Lillian.”
“Yes, and that was when she got up to go. Her friend’s car was outside. Said she had to go. Funny!”
That holiday in Poole was something she always liked to talk about. Laura must have become quite ill. It must have been some bump on the head.
A Trying Time
A week on from Lillian’s unexpected visit, there was a gentle breeze today that refreshed, while the temperature was friendly. We had had what I thought was a wonderful early evening walk, and I tried to put the mother’s notions behind me. It had been the same as it had always been. It was clear to me that that romantic connection we had had for so long was now returning, and both Laura and I were smiling as we returned to the car.
More than ever, I knew that Lillian was wrong in her struggle to accept the circumstances relating to Laura’s return. My wife and I had held hands as we walked around the Dam Flask like we always had and I sensed that this was so much the Laura I knew and loved. I felt so sure that things were on the way back to how they had always been. I don’t know much about psycho
logy, but I was convinced that time would heal Laura’s emotional wounds and her mother’s fears would prove groundless. Emma, a former colleague of hers, had picked Laura up at her parents’ and they had gone for a coffee before she had returned to mine. It was good that she was renewing acquaintances, a sign that she was returning to normality, even if she felt the need to go out very day and enjoy the city and its surroundings. A normal marital relationship was something that could not come soon enough for me.
In both my heart and head, I knew things would ultimately be resolved to everybody’s delight. I was ever the optimist when I wasn’t drinking.
“I’m going to take a bath. It’s so muggy. I feel dirty.”
“Shall I sit with you? We can talk about stuff.”
“As long as you bring me a large vodka and orange.”
While Laura sat back and soaked I sat on the toilet and we discussed plans for the weekend. “ ‘Mission Impossible’ and Chiquito’s it is then.”
Laura, with her eyes closed, said, “I feel like a holiday.”
“We talked about this before you went away. Where do you fancy?”
“I don’t know.” She looked so relaxed and at peace. “What do you think?”
“Sorrento probably. Loved that place.”
“Why? That hotel was miles away from anywhere. And then there was the fight you had.”
“What?”
“The fight you had.” She paused. “With that German.”
“What? I’m sorry, babe. I had no fight with anybody. What German?”
“The one who pushed in front of you in that queue.”
“Where did you get that idea?
“What?”
“I think I would have remembered fighting. And with a German.”
Laura paused, and kept her eyes closed. “Perhaps you were drunk. Perhaps you don’t remember.”