by Green, Cally
‘Go to bed,’ he said.
He walked over to the door and then he went out. Shutting it behind him.
Sleep was slow in coming. Despite her tiredness, Anna’s mind was in a whirl. She felt lost. Disoriented. Too much had happened in too short a space of time. She turned onto her back and lay staring at the ceiling, which she could dimly make out in the light from the moon. So much that had seemed difficult to understand had at last been made clear. Mark’s initial hostility, his moodiness. That air he had had of watching her, as if waiting for her to make a mistake. She had put it down to his character. Either that or a fight they had had, some bad blood between them from an argument she could not remember. But that had not been the cause.
She turned onto her side.
He had been so moody because he had thought she was an impostor. A fake.
How could he? she thought. She wanted to be angry but all she could think of was the wonderful times they had had together: their trip to Nottingham; their morning swim; their day in the forest; their countless shared pleasures. Pleasures that had gone.
She felt empty. She had lost something precious. Worst of all, she could never get it back. Because it had never really been.
Chapter Nine
‘What exactly did Serena say to you?’
Morning had come. When she had padded down to the kitchen at seven o’clock she had found Mark already there. He had barely glanced at her, but he had added another two rashers of bacon and a couple of eggs to the frying pan.
Anna sat down and folded her arms, leaning them on the pine table. She was unsure how to proceed. She was still angry with him; still confused and hurt; but she realised uneasily that, despite everything that had happened between them, her feelings for him had not gone away. ‘Very little. But enough.’
She had done a lot of thinking before she had finally drifted off to sleep and had come to realise that he had had at least some excuse for acting the way he had. She realised that her sudden appearance must have seemed contrived, especially as it had occurred so soon after he had told his aunts that he had a fiancée. But that didn’t alter the fact that he had deceived her, and it didn’t alter the fact that she felt betrayed.
He lifted the bacon out of the pan, putting it next to the two fried eggs on her plate. The smell was delicious. She had not thought she would be able to eat any breakfast, but she found she was ravenous.
He handed her the plate, setting his own down at the other end of the table. ‘Eat,’ he said.
She didn’t need any urging. The food restored much of her energy, and as
she rounded off her breakfast with two slices of toast and a cup of tea she felt human once again.
‘She told you we’d only just met, I take it?’ he asked, pushing his empty plate away from him.
His tone was still formal: polite. To her surprise she was relieved. It made it easier for her to talk to him. She could respond to him in the same kind of way, giving her overstrained emotions a chance to recover. ‘No. She told me who I am.’
His eyebrows shot up in surprise. ‘She knows you?’
‘Hardly. But she’d seen me before - or rather, someone at her afternoon party had. He told her that I wasn’t a concert pianist, but that I worked in a music shop. It’s strange, isn’t it? That’s all he was worried about.’
‘And when she told you what you did for a living, it triggered your memory?’ he asked.
‘Some of it. My name triggered the rest. You see, she told me that my name is Lisa.’
‘But the A. on the suitcase . . . ?’
‘Annalise. That’s why it sounded familiar when Emmy told me my name was Anna.’
‘So what else do you remember, Lisa?’
She shivered slightly. ‘Don’t. Don't call me that.’
‘Why not?’ he asked in surprise.
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. There’s something bad attached to that name.’
‘Do you remember what?’ he asked, his voice giving no indication of how touched he was by her vulnerability, or how much he wanted to hold her; restricted only by the thought that, if he did so, she would accuse him of using her again.
‘No. But I’ll find out when I go back.’
‘Do you know where “back” is?’
She nodded. ‘Yes. Serena told me where the shop is.’ She gave him the name of the place, which was some forty miles away.
‘Then that’s where we’ll begin.’ He picked up the plates and took them over to the sink.
She turned her face to follow him. Her shoulders relaxed. Ridiculously, his words had filled her with hope. ’We?’
‘Of course.’ He began to load the dishwasher. When it was done he switched it on and leant back against the worktop, arms folded over his chest. ‘You didn’t think I’d let you go back alone, do you?’
‘It’s my life,’ she said challengingly.
‘I’m not denying it. But it isn’t a good life. From everything you’ve told me, your memories are frightening, which is most probably why you’re blotting them out. That being so, you can’t go alone. You have no idea of what you may find.’
She felt a ridiculous sense of relief. Although a part of her told her she should refuse his help another part of her rejoiced at the thought she wouldn’t have to part with him so soon. Because the idea of parting with Mark illogically caused her a great deal of pain.
And on a practical level she was relieved, too, because she knew that what he was saying made sense. Whether or not he had betrayed her, she still found that, underneath, she trusted him, in every way that really mattered.
‘So when do we start?’ he asked.
She stood up with the air of one who is determined to get some unpleasant business over with as quickly as possible. ‘I think we should go right away.’
The journey was not as bad as she had expected. Mark continued to treat her with polite courtesy and she responded in the same manner, glad they could both be mature enough to put their problems aside - at least for the time being.
She had dressed herself with unusual care. The Anna who had crashed outside Little Brook had been shabby and afraid, but the Anna who was returning to her old home was calm and poised. There was still fear inside her, but she had an inner strength now to counterbalance it. That inner strength had been missing a few short weeks ago, and reluctantly she had to admit, if only to herself, that most of her new-found confidence had come from Mark.
They talked of neutral topics as they drove along, avoiding any subject which might make their tempers or passions flare. The weather, the road, the towns they passed through, the countryside - anything, as long as it wasn’t intimate or personal.
And so, in a little over an hour, they arrived in her home town.
The grey streets were just as she remembered them. Some sun would have rendered them more hospitable, but the day was overcast. Conversation failed as Mark threaded the Porsche through the busy streets before pulling into the car park of the town’s best hotel.
Anna had objected to the idea of a hotel at first, but Mark had insisted, saying she needed a base. ‘If your home turns out to be safe then there’s nothing to stop you staying there,’ he said in carefully neutral tones as he switched off the engine. ‘If not, I want to make sure you have somewhere to go.’
‘But you’re not leaving me?’ she asked.
‘No, of course not.’ He got out of the car and went round to her door, helping her out. ‘Will you come in?’ he asked.
‘No. I’d rather get this over with.’ Then, on a different note, she asked, ‘Are you sure they’ll let you take a room without any luggage?’
‘That’s my problem. You have enough of your own. Here.’ He took something out of his jacket pocket. It was a mobile phone. ‘In case you get into difficulties,’ he said.
She took the phone and put it in her bag, glad of the security it gave her.
‘You’ll let me know how you get on?’ he asked. Calmly again, dispassionately,
like a stranger.
‘Yes. Of course.’ Her smile was polite.
He nodded. ‘Good luck.’
She had thought she might have some difficulty in remembering where the music shop was, but that part of her memory had remained untouched. Just as she had been able to remember how to play the piano, so too she remembered how to thread her way through the maze of streets until she came to the one she wanted. And there it was, the shop where she had worked for the last - how many? - years. As she approached it her footsteps slowed. Somewhere inside, she hoped she would find the answers for the missing parts of her life. She took a deep breath and went in.
As soon as she set foot in door it all came flooding back: her job, her colleagues, her whole life there, all brought back by the sight and sound and smell of the place. It was all exactly as she remembered it. But then again, why shouldn't it be? Although it seemed a lifetime to her, in reality she had been away for less
than two weeks.
The shop was arranged on two floors, with the ground floor consisting of a large open space divided into four segments: one large segment for displaying pianos and keyboards; one segment for sheet music; one for schools music and the final one for sundries. A spindly staircase in the far corner led to the upper sales floor, where electric guitars and the like could be found. The till was by the door.
At that moment the assistant by the till looked up. Her eyes widened in amazement. ‘Lisa! We’ve all been worried sick about you. Where on earth have you been?’
Anna looked at the young woman blankly for a minute before remembering her name. ‘Cindy?’ she ventured. And then with more assurance, ‘Cindy! Hi.’
Cindy, eyes still wide in amazement, stepped out from behind the till. ‘We thought you’d done a runner. Gone for good.’ Her face broke into a smile. ‘I’m glad you haven’t. It’s been really dull round here without you.’
The shop was fortunately almost empty. It was still early, and apart from a long-haired youth loitering by the keyboards and a mother choosing a recorder book there was no one in.
‘So what happened?’ Cindy asked. ‘When you didn’t come into the shop we feared the worst.’
‘I had an accident.’ The longer she spent with Cindy the more Anna remembered. At first she had remembered only Cindy’s face and name, but now she was remembering more details. She found herself remembering how awkward Cindy had been when she had first come to work in the shop. She had been clumsy and careless, but Anna had quickly seen that the girl’s problems were nothing more than the usual difficulties faced by school-leavers suddenly thrust into the world of work and had taken her under her wing. From then on they had become friends.
‘I wondered,’ Cindy said.
Was she imagining it, thought Anna, or was there something cagey in Cindy’s voice?
‘But you’re OK now?’ Cindy continued.
‘Yes. No.’ Anna decided to confide in her. ‘I really need to talk to you.’
‘No problem.’ Cindy called to the youth, revealing that he was a new assistant, and told him to watch the till. Then she and Anna went into the back room, where tea and coffee were habitually made. It was, as always, a mess. The shop employed a number of musicians who needed a way to support themselves until they made it big, or to pay the bills when they realised the big break might not come. As a result the back room was littered with musical paraphernalia: half-written songs, abandoned scores, odd lyrics jotted down on scraps of paper, as well as loose strings, disassembled oboes and broken reeds. It was all as familiar as an old pair of shoes.
Whatever had frightened her, Anna realised, it had not happened here.
‘Cup of tea?’ Cindy asked as she put the kettle on. She was famous in the shop for her endless cups of tea.
‘Thanks. The problem is,’ Anna said, when they were both sitting on rickety chairs drinking their tea, ‘that I banged my head and lost my memory in the accident.’
‘Bummer.’ Cindy’s voice was sympathetic.
‘Which is why I need to talk to you. Some of it’s come back. Most of it, in fact. But there are still things I have no memory of. And I was hoping you could help me to fill in the blanks.’
There was no doubt about it this time: Cindy was definitely looking uncomfortable.
‘What is it?’ Anna asked. ‘What don’t you want to tell me?’
Cindy put down her cup. ‘Why don’t you tell me what you do remember first? And then I can tell you what you don’t.’
Anna nodded. Briefly, she told Cindy everything she remembered about her life. ‘But the thing I really need to know is, what was I doing in Nottingham?’
‘Well . . . ’ Cindy spoke slowly, drawing the word out. ‘You didn’t always confide in me, but if I had to have a guess . . . ’
‘Do.’
‘Well, I’d say you weren’t doing anything in Nottingham. I’d say that you were running away from here.’
‘Running away?’ repeated Anna. And then, with acceptance, ‘Running away.’
She took the mug of tea in her hands. Its heat felt comforting. A part of her felt she should be ashamed of having run away, because running away was the behaviour of a coward. But another part of her knew that whatever she had run away from had been bad. Too bad to be resolved by staying.
‘But what was I running away from?’ she asked Cindy.
‘Well . . . I don’t know all the details . . . But I don’t think it was a what. I think it was a who.’
A who. Anna felt a frisson of fear. Yes, it had been a who. ‘Not someone here,’ she said, thinking out loud.
‘No. Definitely not.’ Cindy was emphatic.
‘At home then?’
Cindy didn’t answer.
‘But why? What happened? I remember my father dying. I remember old Mrs Voronowski. But I don’t remember anyone else.’
Cindy toyed with her cup, rolling it between her hands. ‘Maybe you don’t want to remember.’
‘Do you know who it was?’
‘Yes. I know.’
‘And do you know why?’ Anna probed.
Cindy shook her head. ‘No. But if I were you, I’d think twice before going back.’
Anna was relieved to see the hotel. She had decided to return there for something to eat before setting out on the last part of her journey of discovery. Despite Cindy’s ominous words she was determined to stop at nothing until she had found out what had happened to make her run away.
She made enquiries about her room at reception and picked up the key,
then went straight up. The room was small and characterless, but nevertheless it looked clean and comfortable, and the bathroom was well stocked with a selection of soaps and toiletries.
Stripping off Anna had a wash and then, feeling refreshed, re-dressed slowly. She would have liked to have changed her shirt but had not brought a change of clothes with her. She had been too busy thinking about what might lay ahead to think of practical details.
Nevertheless, she was feeling much better when the knock came at the door.
‘Who is it?’ she called.
‘It’s Mark. Are you ready for lunch?’
‘Just a minute.’ She took her comb out of her handbag and ran it through her hair, then opened the door. She was glad that Mark had suggested having lunch together. Her room was too intimate a place for a conversation, but sooner or later Mark would have to know what she had found out. The restaurant offered a private, yet public, place where they could talk.
Sitting in a secluded corner ten minutes later with a mineral water in front of her Anna was ready to tell Mark about her morning.
‘Did they know you at the music shop?’ he asked, as he made his choice from the menu, adding, ‘The beef Wellington looks good.’
‘It’s too heavy for me,’ she said, looking through the choices. ‘I think I’ll have the Tuscan chicken.’ She closed the menu and put it aside. Then, answering his question, she said, ‘Yes, they all knew me. It seems I’ve worked there for almost fiv
e years.’
They were both being formal, which made the situation easier in many ways. But Anna could not rid herself of a longing to lean her head on Mark’s shoulder and feel him running his fingers through her hair. She was troubled, and Mark’s strong presence was reassuring, despite the fact that their relationship was strained.
‘And?’ he prompted her, beckoning the waiter over.
They gave their order and, once they were alone again, Anna went on. ‘I met one of my colleagues, Cindy, and she filled me in on a few things.’
‘Were there any problems with the boss?’ asked Mark.
‘No. Nothing like that. In fact, I enjoyed my job. It wasn't what I’d been hoping for, but when my father was taken ill . . . ’
‘I understand. I know how deeply you were attached to your father. It can’t have been easy, giving up on your own opportunities in order to care for him.’
‘I never regretted it,’ she said honestly.
‘I know.’
There was a moment’s silence. Then, ‘Tell me more about the shop,’ he said. ‘Didn’t anyone wonder where you were?’
‘Yes. But they didn’t want to interfere. There were problems at home,’ she explained. ‘They thought I’d . . . run away.’
‘And had you?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’ She kept her voice steady. ‘I think I had.’
The waiter arrived with their first course: paté for Anna, and for Mark a salad of duck. Once he had gone Mark asked, ‘So what next?’
‘Next I have to go home.’
‘No.’ He put down his knife and fork.
She looked up from her paté, her hand pausing in the act of spreading it onto wafer thin toast. ‘No?’ There was a note of challenge in her voice.
‘If there’s something there you were running away from then it’s the last place you should be going.’
‘The answers are there,’ she reminded him.
‘You could get them from Cindy.’
‘Cindy didn’t know. She knew a bit but not everything. This is my life, Mark. I have to know.’