The Man Who Forgot His Wife

by John O'Farrell

  One of the neurologists, on the other hand, was particularly focused on my claim that I hadn’t lost memories of general current affairs or the wider world. ‘So would you remember, for example, the publication of The Computer Under Your Cranium by Dr Kevin Hoddy?’

  ‘Er, Kevin, lots of people might not remember that …’ interjected one of the other doctors.

  ‘Okay, what about the BBC Four series The Brain Explorers, co-presented by Dr Kevin Hoddy?’

  ‘No – I don’t recall that.’

  ‘Hmm, fascinating …’ said Dr Hoddy. ‘Absolutely fascinating.’

  It only compounded my depression to realize that, at the moment, my very best friend in the whole world was Annoying Bernard in the next bed. In one way Bernard provided a valuable service to me during those first seven days. On the inside I was almost crippled with anxiety about what had happened to me, who I was and whether I would ever recover the rest of my life. But it never seemed like I had much time to dwell on this, due to being in a constant state of mild irritation at the man in the next bed congratulating me for remembering what I had for breakfast.

  ‘No, that’s not a symptom of my condition, Bernard. Remember, you were there when the consultant explained it all.’

  ‘Sorry, I forgot! It must be infectious!’

  Bernard meant well; he wasn’t an unpleasant person – in fact, he was unremittingly jolly. I just found it a bit wearing to have to spend twenty-four hours a day with someone who seemed to think that my neurological disorder could be overcome if I was just upbeat and cheerful about the whole ‘bloomin’ business’.

  ‘I tell you what, there’s a few embarrassing things in my past that I wouldn’t mind forgetting, I can tell you!’ He chuckled. ‘New Year’s Eve 1999 – know what I mean?!’ and he mimed drinking as he rolled his eyes. ‘Oh yes, I wouldn’t mind forgetting that one! And a certain lady from the Swindon Salsa Dance Club … oh yes, I wouldn’t mind that episode being struck from the official record please, Mr Chairman!’

  Eventually one doctor in particular seemed to take the lead on my case. Dr Anne Lewington was a slightly mad-looking consultant neurologist in her fifties who was supposed to be at this hospital only two days a week, but was so perplexed by my condition that she made a point of seeing me every day. Under her supervision I had a brain scan, I had wires attached to my head, I had audio-visual stimuli tests; but in every case the activity in my brain was apparently ‘completely normal’. It was a shame my brain had no button just to switch it off and then switch it back on again.

  It took me a day or two to work out that Dr Lewington’s excitement at examining my results bore no relation whatsoever to any progress or understanding of what had happened to me.

  ‘Oooh, that’s interesting!’

  ‘What? What?’ I asked optimistically.

  ‘Both hippocampi are normal, the volumes of both entorhinal cortices and temporal lobes are normal.’

  ‘Right – so does that explain anything?’

  ‘Nothing at all. That’s what’s so interesting! No bilateral damage to the medial temporal lobe or diencephalic midline. It would appear that your extra-personal memories have been consolidated in the neocortex independently of the medial temporal lobe.’

  ‘Is that good or bad?’

  ‘Well, there’s no discernible logic or pattern to any of it. But then that’s typical of brain scans as a whole – such a mystery!’ she said, clapping her hands together in delight. ‘That’s what makes it so utterly compelling!’

  I felt my body slumping back in the chair again.

  ‘And as for how memories are processed and stored – that is one of the most baffling areas of all. It’s such a thrilling subject to be researching!’

  ‘Hmmm, great …’ I nodded blankly. It was like having open-heart surgery and hearing, ‘Wow – what’s this big muscle in here pumping away of its own accord?!’

  It was quite a few days before Dr Lewington had reached her conclusion and came and sat by my bed to explain what she thought had happened. She talked so quietly that Bernard was forced to turn off his radio on the other side of the curtain.

  ‘From cases similar to your own in the United States and elsewhere, it seems that you have experienced a “psychogenic fugue”; literally a “flight” from your previous life, possibly triggered by extreme stress or an inability to cope with whatever was happening.’

  ‘A fugue?’

  ‘Yes, this only happens to a handful of people every year in the whole world, though no two cases seem to be identical. The loss of personal items such as your phone or wallet was probably deliberate on your part as you slipped into the “fugue state”, and it’s usual to have no recall of consciously abandoning all traces of your former life. Clearly you have not forgotten everything or you would be like a newborn infant, but typically with “retrograde amnesia”, the patient would know, say, who Princess Diana was, but might not know that she had died.’

  ‘Paris. 1998,’ I said, showing off a little.

  ‘1997!’ came Bernard’s voice from the other side of the curtain.

  ‘Your recall of these extra-personal memories suggests you stand a good chance of getting your personal memories back and returning to your old life.’

  ‘But when exactly?’

  ‘Thirty-first of August,’ said Bernard. ‘She was pronounced dead around four a.m.’

  Dr Lewington was reluctant to make any promises, and had to concede that there was no guarantee that I would definitely recover. And so I was left alone with this frightening thought, staring at the green curtains around my bed, wondering if I would ever make contact with my previous life again.

  ‘Maybe you’re a serial killer?’ said Bernard’s nonchalant voice.

  ‘Sorry, Bernard, are you talking to me?’

  ‘Well, she said it might have been caused by a need to shut out your past; perhaps it’s because you couldn’t stand the torment of being the undetected murderer of homeless vagrants whose bodies are stored in freezer cabinets in your basement.’

  ‘That’s a lovely thought. Thank you.’

  ‘It’s possible. Or perhaps you’re a terrorist.’

  ‘Well, let’s hope not, eh?’

  ‘A drug dealer. On the run from the Chinese triads!’

  I resolved to say nothing in the hope that the speculation might peter out.

  ‘A pimp … A compulsive arsonist …’

  There were some headphones somewhere. I looked under my bedside table for a way to block out the list of appalling crimes that might have precipitated my breakdown, most notably ‘paedophile’, ‘vivisectionist’ and ‘banker’.

  I dismissed Bernard’s speculation as completely ridiculous, and then later that afternoon felt a flush of fear and guilt as I was informed that there were two policemen waiting for me in the ward sister’s office. In fact, they had not come to arrest me for war crimes against the people of Bosnia, as Bernard suggested. It turned out that they had come with a large file of ‘Missing Persons’ which they now went through very slowly, staring carefully at each photo before looking studiously at me.

  ‘Well, that one’s clearly not me,’ I found myself interjecting, desperate to see if I was on any of the later pages.

  ‘We have to give due consideration to every single file, sir.’

  ‘Yes, but I’m not that fat. Or black. Or a woman.’

  They looked at me suspiciously to see if I might have attempted to cover up my African, feminine features and then reluctantly turned the page.

  ‘Hmmm, what do you think?’ said the officer, looking between my face and the photo of a wizened old pensioner.

  ‘He’s about eighty!’ I objected.

  ‘A lot of these people look older than they actually are, sir – they might have been on drugs or living on the street. How long have you had that beard?’

  ‘Er, well – since before I can remember …’

  ‘Just roughly speaking. A month, a year, ten years?’

&n
bsp; ‘I don’t know! Like the nurse said, I am suffering from retrograde amnesia, so my mind is a blank about everything prior to last Tuesday.’

  They looked at each other, gently shook their heads in exasperation, then continued looking for any similarities between my appearance and the photos of a teenage girl, a Sikh, and a Jack Russell terrier, which at least they conceded had been put in the wrong file.

  The fact that no one had reported me missing seemed to tell a story of its own. There had been no urgent reports on the news, no tearful appeals from a loving family, no full-page adverts in the newspaper for this dearly missed husband, father or work colleague. Had I been this lonely before my fugue, I wondered; had that been the stress that provoked my mental Etch-a-Sketch into shaking the screen clear to start again?

  Whatever my past, all I could think about was being rescued from this desert island in a city of eight million people. I wanted to build a big fire on the beach, put a message in a bottle, spell out giant letters for passing aircraft.

  ‘Could we get something in the newspaper?’ I kept suggesting to the ward sister. ‘A sort of “Do you know this man?” feature next to my photo?’ Despite her general air of never having enough time or appreciation, she eventually agreed that this might be a good idea, and I sat in her tiny office while she nervously rang the news desk at the London Evening Standard. She explained my situation, but I only heard her side of the conversation, as she covered the mouthpiece and relayed their questions about me.

  ‘They want to know if you are really brilliant at the piano or anything like that?’

  ‘Well – I don’t know … I can’t remember. Maybe I should speak to them?’

  ‘He doesn’t know.’ Another pause. ‘Are you, like, an incredible linguist or a maths genius or anything?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I can only do the easy puzzles in Bernard’s Sudoku book … Should I speak to them?’

  ‘Er, he can do easy Sudoku puzzles. Does that help at all?’

  Apparently the paper didn’t have the staff to send anyone round to the hospital, but said they might run the story if we sent over all the details with an up-to-date photo. The next day in the centre pages there was a huge double spread headed ‘Who’s the Mystery Man?’ Beneath it was a picture of a well-groomed young man standing beside Pippa Middleton at a charity polo match. I went through the paper twice, but there was nothing about me. It trans pired that they had been intending to run my story, but then the scoop about the mystery companion of Prince William’s sister-in-law had broken, and the editor had ruled that they couldn’t have two ‘mystery man’ stories in the same edition. The journalist who had taken our initial call was now on holiday, so the potential story was now assigned to another reporter. ‘Tell me,’ she asked, ‘are you, like, really brilliant at the piano or anything?’

  I found it hard to sleep at night, and sometimes slipped away to the dark and empty Day Room, which boasted a great view of the hypnotic London skyline. It was on the fourth night, staring out at the million tiny lights of the city, that it hit me that this was my life now; that this syndrome wasn’t some temporary blip. Someone was called to investigate the loud thumping noise coming from the tenth floor. It was there that one of the orderlies found me, banging my head against the glass over and over again. ‘Hey, mate, don’t do that!’ he said. ‘You’ll break the glass.’

  Sometimes I would pass a few hours in the television room. It was on one of these visits that I discovered Mr & Mrs, which had been reinvented featuring celebrities and their good-looking spouses. This programme became something of an obsession with me. I just loved how these couples could remember so much about one another, and I laughed along with every marital faux-pas and basked in the couples’ easy familiarity.

  ‘Ah, found you!’ declared Bernard in his unmistakable high-pitched nasal whine, just as the second half of the programme was about to begin. ‘Look, I got a couple of books for you from the newsagent’s in the lobby: How to Improve Your Memory in Just Fifteen Minutes a Day! I don’t know why we didn’t think of this ages ago!’

  ‘That’s very kind of you, Bernard, but I’m guessing that’s more for general forgetfulness than retrograde amnesia.’

  ‘Well, it’s all degrees of the same thing, isn’t it?’

  ‘Er, no.’

  ‘Believe me, I know what you’re going through because I can never remember where I’ve put my keys.’

  ‘See, I don’t suffer from that, actually. I can remember everything I’ve done since coming to this hospital. But I just can’t remember a single thing about my life before that day.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I see what you’re saying. So you might need to do more than fifteen minutes a day,’ he conceded, opening the book at random. ‘When you are introduced to a new person for the first time … try repeating their name out loud to lodge it in your memory. So instead of just “Hello” you say “Hello, Simon”. Well, you could try doing that for a start!’

  ‘Yeah, but you see, I don’t think that’s going to unlock the first forty years of my life …’

  ‘Scissors is the other one. I can never remember where I left the scissors. Sometimes I think they must be deliberately avoiding me! Ooh, this is a good one: “If you have problems remembering telephone numbers, try making associations. For example, if a friend’s number is 2012 1066, then just remember it by thinking, London Olympics and the Battle of Hastings.”’

  ‘Okay – great. If that particular number comes up, I’ll definitely remember it like that.’

  ‘You see!’ said Bernard, gratified that he’d been such a help. ‘And it’s only fifteen minutes a day. Ooh, All-Star Mr & Mrs!’ I’d love to go on that programme. You know, like, if I was famous … and had a wife.’

  When my favourite TV show was over for another day, I announced I was heading back to my bed, but Bernard jumped up ‘to keep me company’, triumphantly revealing the other book he had bought on the ground floor. He had decided that one way to trigger a memory of my own identity might be to read out every single male name in the worryingly thick tome entitled Name Your Baby. Part of me wanted to scream in frustration, but I knew that in his uniquely unhelpful way, Bernard was only trying to be helpful.

  During the course of that long afternoon it became clear why Name Your Baby has never been a huge hit as an audiobook. Sure there are lots of characters, but none of them is ever particularly developed. ‘Aaron’, for example, has a walk-on part right at the beginning but then we never hear from him again. The same was true with ‘Abdullah’, who also failed to offer up any clues as to whether that might be the sort of name my parents had given me.

  ‘I’m not sure you should lie down like that,’ said Bernard. ‘You’re still really concentrating, aren’t you?’

  ‘Definitely. I’m just closing my eyes so I can be sure there’s nothing else to distract me …’

  I eventually woke up to the alliterative poetry of ‘Francis? Frank? Frankie? Franklin?’ Even though Bernard had been going for several hours, he still declared every name with extraordinary gusto and optimism. I had just had the same dream I’d experienced a couple of times now: a snapshot of a moment sharing laughter with a woman. I couldn’t remember a face or a name, but she seemed to love me as I loved her. The sensation was pure happiness, the only colour in a black-and-white world, and I was crushed when I awoke to the huge void that was my life right now. Had it not been for the gripping narrative of Bernard’s book, I might have allowed myself to be quite depressed.

  ‘Gabriel? Gael? Galvin? Ganesh?’

  ‘Hmmm,’ I thought, ‘I don’t think I look much like a “Ganesh”. I haven’t got four arms and the head of an elephant, for a start.’ Maybe I could ask him to stop now; perhaps claim that after several hours of intense concentration I was tiring a little.

  ‘Gareth? Garfield? Garrison?’ An unspecified electronic buzz was coming from the ward reception desk. ‘Garth? Garvin? Gary?’

  And then something extraordinary happened. On hear
ing the word ‘Gary’, I just heard myself mumble ‘07700 …’

  ‘What was that?’ said Bernard.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, sitting up. ‘It just came out when you said “Gary”.’

  ‘Is that it? Is that you? Are you Gary?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Say it again.’

  ‘Gary!’

  ‘07700 …’ There was more. ‘900 … 913.’

  It was like an involuntary spasm; there was no context or meaning to it – it just felt natural that those numbers followed that name.

  ‘That’s a telephone number!’ said Bernard excitedly, writing it down.

  ‘Yeah, but whose?’

  Bernard looked at me as if I was being particularly stupid. ‘I mean, someone called Gary, probably, but I wonder who he is?’

  We had discovered a fragment of DNA from my past life. Bernard had successfully shown the way to my hinterland. I’d been sceptical and negative and he had proved me wrong. I might have actually congratulated him on his tenacity and initiative if I hadn’t noticed that these very qualities had caused him to reach for his mobile phone and start dialling.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I screamed.

  ‘Ringing Gary. Was it “913” at the end?’

  ‘No, don’t! I’m not ready! We should talk to the doctor! You’re not allowed to use that in here—’

  ‘It’s ringing!’ and he threw the handset over to me.

  Slowly I raised it to my ear. ‘There’s no one there. It’s probably just a random number. I can’t believe I’m even listening to this …’ Then a distant electronic crackle. And after a whole week, the first faint sound heard by rescue teams digging in the rubble.

  ‘Hello?’ said a male voice, on a weak, distorted signal.

  ‘Um … hello? Is that … er, Gary, by any chance?’ I stammered.

  ‘Yeah. Vaughan! Is that you? Where the hell have you been? It’s like you suddenly disappeared off the face of the earth!’