‘Second,’ said Linda.
‘Oh yes, second impressions. For you anyway.’
‘One thousand and second,’ said Gary.
‘Okay. Well, I’m – this is weird – I am in recruitment,’ said Linda, ‘and Gary is in computers – internet and all that.’
‘Right.’ I nodded neutrally. ‘Not data-recovery by any chance, is it?’
‘Ha! No, though I know a few people who do specialize in that. They’ll just say you should have backed your brain up on a memory stick. No, I work for myself, designing websites, developing new ideas for the net, you know.’
‘Wow! What sort of ideas?’
‘Okay, well, I might as well tell you about our big project, then.’
‘Our big project?’
‘Yeah, you and me have been developing this together. We’re developing a site that will completely revolutionize how we consume news.’
‘How’s that?’
‘This is going to be the future of current affairs.’ I noticed a sudden degree of zealous self-belief in Gary. ‘See, currently all news is top down. Some fascist corporation decides what’s the most important story, sends some lackey to report it, who then serves up all the Murdoch lies to the trusting public.’
Linda was nodding supportively.
‘The internet allows you to turn that model on its head. Imagine millions of readers writing up whatever they might have just witnessed around the globe, uploading their own photos and video footage and text. Millions more readers are searching and clicking on stories that interest them, and hey presto! The story with the most hits becomes the main item of news on the world’s most democratic and unbiased news outlet!’
‘It’s ever so funny,’ added Linda. ‘Front page yesterday was a transsexual doing it with a couple of midgets, ha ha ha …’
‘Yeah, obviously, we’re still working on the filters and all that. But YouNews is the future, you said so yourself. You can search by region, subject, protest movement, whatever.’
‘You must check it out,’ said Linda. ‘I’ve learned how to upload stories. I put up a lovely bit of video yesterday: this cute kitten being surprised by a cuckoo clock!’
‘No, Linda, that’s not news! That’s not what the site is for!’
‘So, no reporters or editors?’ I observed.
‘Exactly! No hacks filing their expenses from around the world, no expensive studios or equipment, and no press barons protecting their political allies or paymasters.’
I thought about this for a moment, and then pinpointed what made me uneasy about the whole idea.
‘But how do you know it’s true?’
‘True?’
‘Yes, a story that some member of the public has uploaded. How do you know they haven’t just made it up?’
‘Well, if they’ve made it up,’ explained Gary, ‘then you always said that other members of the public will say so in the comment thread and it will lose credibility. Or they can re-edit it themselves – it’s like Wikipedia, but for current affairs. You’re really into it, believe me! You and me – we’re going to take on the world!’
My feelings about Gary’s website echoed a deeper worry I had had ever since my brain had first pressed Control+Alt+Delete. How could I know whether anything was true? I was still fighting a tiny voice in my head that questioned whether my name was really ‘Vaughan’, that I was in fact a teacher and that my marriage was really over.
Eventually we reached the address where I had been living right up until my fugue. I learned that between moving out of my family home and taking up a residency on the fourth floor of King Edward’s Hospital, I had sofa-surfed between a number of temporary addresses, most recently housesitting near my old neighbourhood for a rich family who were in New York for three months.
‘Wow, what an amazing house. And I had it all to myself?’
‘Yeah – but you didn’t like it. It made you, like, really tense being responsible for all the fancy furniture and that. You were always like “Gary, don’t smoke dope indoors! Gary, stop borrowing his clothes! Gary, don’t piss on the herb garden!” Yeah, it seemed to make you a bit uptight, if you don’t mind me saying …’
When I had disappeared, I had left my clothes and my belongings there, which were now in boxes round at Gary and Linda’s.
‘Yeah, there was some pretty hard-core porn in amongst all your stuff.’
‘Really?’ said a shocked Linda.
‘No,’ I said with a smile, already better at recognizing Gary’s wind-ups than his wife was.
The family were apparently now back home, probably still picking the fag ends out of their tropical fish tank, so this private mansion was no longer an option for me.
‘And you don’t recognize that either? That is really amazing! So is there anything you can remember?’
‘Actually, there is this scene that keeps coming back to me. I have this vague memory of really laughing with a girl when I was younger. And we’re sheltering under a canopy or something but still getting wet, and we don’t mind. But I can’t remember who she was or what she looked like or where we were. I just remember being really, really happy.’
Gary and Linda looked at one another but said nothing. We turned into a residential street just off Clapham Common. Rows of mid-size Victorian houses were interspersed with a few ugly 1950s blocks, where post-war builders had done a poor job of disguising which house numbers had been removed by the Luftwaffe. On the corner was number 27, which looked like the best house in the street, with dormer windows at the top and a little turret which gazed out over the London skyline.
‘Recognize this?’
‘Don’t tell me – it’s where I was born? Ah, but there’s no blue plaque.’
‘No – have another go.’
‘Did I stay here as well?’
‘Er, well, yeah, in a manner of speaking …’
At that moment the front door opened and a striking redhead stepped out into the autumn sunshine and dropped a bag into the wheelie bin.
‘Wow! Who is that?’ I whispered. ‘She is gorgeous!’
The woman stopped to remove a couple of dead geranium heads from the window box, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and paused as if to check the weather.
‘Was she living there when I was? Should we go and say hello?’
‘Blimey, Vaughan, you’ve gone bright red!’ said Linda. ‘Gary, we probably shouldn’t hang about. We don’t want her to see us here.’
He was already putting the car in gear and pulling away.
‘Hang on, you haven’t explained anything … Where are we? Who is that beautiful woman?’
‘That, Vaughan, was the house you lived in for twenty years,’ said my tour guide. ‘And that was Madeleine. That was the woman you’re about to divorce.’
Chapter 5
AS YOU CAME in the front door, the first thing you saw was a baby-gate across the foot of the stairs and a brand-new stroller folded up by the coat hooks. There were plastic safety covers over the electrical sockets and in the lounge was a big Thomas the Tank Engine rug with primary-coloured bricks stacked up against the wall.
‘Sorry, are you expecting another baby, or will this one be your first?’
‘No, it’s just the two of us at the moment,’ confirmed Gary. ‘It’s just that Linda likes buying all the stuff, you know.’
‘I always loved your home, Vaughan,’ enthused Linda, ‘brimming with children’s toys and everything. I said to Gary that I wanted our place to be just like that.’
‘Right. Well, it’s good to be prepared, I suppose …’
‘You see, this isn’t a house,’ she said meaningfully. ‘It’s a home.’
‘And it isn’t a house,’ added Gary, ‘because it’s a flat.’
Linda proudly showed me into the room where I would be staying. In the corner was a brand-new cot, surrounded by musical mobiles with rotating light patterns. Cartoon teddy-bear wallpaper was softly lit by the low-wattage light from a Disney
lampshade. Linda lovingly adjusted one of the soft toys, which looked settled in for a long wait. The extended sofa bed that had been made up for me rather spoiled the nursery atmosphere; it jutted out towards the primary-colour baby gym and the padded changing mat.
This was where my new life would begin – in a room with a nightlight and a baby monitor so that Linda could hear if I started crying. On the ceiling I noticed a poster with letters of the alphabet constructed out of contorted farmyard animals. The curtains featured rabbits parachuting off the edge of the moon. There seemed to be an unspoken presumption that this baby would be heavily into hallucinogenic drugs.
‘Isn’t this a lovely room?’ she said proudly. ‘Obviously you’ll have to move out when Baby comes …’ she said.
‘The baby,’ came Gary’s voice from down the hall.
Inside a low wardrobe hung a range of men’s second-hand clothes. These had either been collected for Baby when he grew up and reached middle-age, or were all the jackets and jeans that had belonged to me before my fugue. I had gone for the default casual-smart look of jeans, shirts and sweaters, as lazily favoured by millions of middle-class men from Seattle to Sydney. There were a few frayed-looking suits which had presumably been my teaching uniform, and some uninspiring ties that seemed doomed to be worn at half mast.
Linda had kindly prepared everything for my stay and there was even a new toothbrush still in its packet.
‘This is the bathroom, Vaughan – I thought you might fancy a bath. You have to pull that lever there if you want to use the shower—’
‘Do you think she looked sad?’
‘Who?’
‘Maddy? I thought she looked a little sad …’
‘Er, no, she looked pretty much how she usually looks to me … Dirty laundry goes in there, and I’ll show you how to use the washing machine.’
‘Maybe she was suddenly just a bit cold – the wind was quite cold, wasn’t it?’
‘Er, yeah, that could be it.’
The thought of a relaxing bath was appealing after a week or so in hospital and so a few minutes later I was taking off my clothes in the private space of virtual strangers. I felt like the intruder in a family bathroom. There was all her make-up and there were his razors; around me were other people’s lotions and towels. I still wanted to ask them so much more; I felt like I’d just had the barest glimpse of who I was before the mirror was steaming over. When did things go wrong with Maddy? Did I move out? Did she kick me out? Did one of us have an affair?
The bath was foamy and scented and I lay there for so long that the hot water needed topping up again. I submerged my aching head under the suds, letting my senses deaden to the outside world. Now I could hear only my own heartbeat. That’s all there is really: your own heartbeat, and your own eyes looking out at everything.
I slowly came up for air and looked at the ceiling. This was the most relaxed I could remember feeling. My head felt completely empty. A tiny spider was hiding in a crevice by the window. And then it happened. From nowhere and with no mental association or logical thought process, I recovered my first memory. It was just as if I were actually there, living it in real time, feeling the emotions, the sounds, even the weather – the whole episode fell into my head all at once.
Maddy and I are walking up a grassy hill hand in hand, nimbly hopping over cowpats and rabbit holes, until we stand at the summit and feel the wind and sun on our faces before indulging in another quick kiss.
‘So where do we go from here?’ I say, looking down towards the sea.
‘I dunno. Move in together, maybe ten years of domestic bliss until I discover you’ve been having an affair with your assistant.’
‘My assistant? Why not my secretary?’
‘That’s the big surprise. Your assistant is a man.’
‘Yes, I am a repressed homosexual. That’s why I find you so attractive …’
‘Ten years! God, we’ll be nearly thirty. How ancient is that?’
‘I’m planning to look quite distinguished as I grow older. Like that man on the Grecian 2000 advert, with “just a touch of grey hair” at the side.’
‘And your voice badly re-dubbed by a British actor.’
‘Definitely.’
Without really thinking about where we are going, we continue on to the next hill, the backpacks and camping gear doing little to slow us down as we march optimistically across the Irish countryside. This is our first holiday together – it is sunny, we have a brand-new tent – what can possibly go wrong?
‘Oh, no! I don’t believe it!’ exclaims Maddy, sounding genuinely alarmed.
‘What? What is it?’
‘I forgot to send off that postcard to Great-auntie Brenda. Again!’
‘What, the racist one?’
‘It’s not racist. It’s just an affectionate Irish stereotype.’
The postcard to Great-auntie Brenda features a smiling cartoon leprechaun drinking a pint of Guinness and bears the caption ‘Top o’ the mornin’ to yers!!’ I suggest that it might be of questionable taste, but Maddy stands firmly by her selection of a suitable postcard for her very elderly widowed great-aunt.
‘I thought she’d like it. She has gnomes.’
‘She has gnomes?’
‘You know, in her garden.’
‘Well, obviously in her garden. I didn’t think they were infesting her hair.’
The leprechaun is not looking any less cheerful for having been stuffed into the side pocket of Madeleine’s rucksack for three days. She has already written a short upbeat message on the back, lovingly completed the address and affixed a specially purchased Irish stamp. Just that last detail of actually putting the card in a postbox keeps eluding her. And when Maddy gets back to England and unpacks her bag, there is the leprechaun, still wishing her the top o’ the mornin’. She resolves to stick an English stamp over the Irish one in the hope that Great-auntie Brenda won’t notice, or has not yet found out about Ireland gaining independence in 1921. She gives it to me to post when I am going out that evening, and I place it carefully in my inside jacket pocket. It is several months later that I find it there, and wonder how I might possibly tell my girlfriend that I have forgotten to send off the vaguely racist postcard to the legendary Great-auntie Brenda.
Maddy and I have hitched and walked through west Cork and now gaze down on a huge stretch of sand known as Barleycove. Hills on either side lead down to a perfect beach with steep, grassy dunes behind. A shallow stream sweeps around to a tidal saltwater lake; occasional white bungalows speckle the hills and the hazy horizon is punctured by the tiny outline of the Fastnet lighthouse.
‘Why don’t we camp here for the night?’ I suggest enthusiastically. ‘We could have a swim and make a fire out of driftwood and have a back-to-nature barbecue with those economy sausages and the Pot Noodle?’
‘But the lady in the pub said there was going to be a storm, remember? We could go back to Crookhaven. That pub had a few rooms upstairs.’
‘Come on – it’s blazing sunshine. This is the perfect spot. This is what it’s all about!’ and I am already taking off my backpack.
Six hours later, we are awoken by the tent’s top sheet coming loose in the gale and flapping aggressively above us. Now the rain drums even more noisily against the canvas sound box in which we’re supposed to be sleeping as water trickles down the tentpole, forming a puddle at our feet. Despite the foolhardy decision to ignore the local prophet, the night-time storm has actually made us even cosier inside; it is exciting and romantic to be thrown together in this contrived crisis.
‘I told you to take no notice of that woman in the pub.’
‘You were right. Everyone knows it never rains in Ireland. Famous for its desert-like conditions. That’s how Bob Geldof developed his interest in droughts.’
Another violent gust of wind makes the tent shudder and then the guy ropes break free on one side, the poles fall inwards and the roof collapses on top of us. I swear loudly, sounding momentaril
y scared, which prompts shrieks of laughter from Maddy, who is still enjoying the effects of a bottle of white wine shared as the sun went down.
Now I attempt to right the tentpoles from inside, but the gale pulls the tent flat again, as a stream of water flows on to our things. Maddy laughs all over again, then sticks her head out of the tent to see what she can see.
‘Maybe you should go out and try to fix it from the outside?’ she suggests.
‘Why me?’
‘Well, because I don’t want to get my T-shirt wet – whereas you can go out there like that.’
‘But I’m completely naked!’
‘Yeah, well, there’s not going to be anyone out there on a night like this, is there?’ she points out. ‘Go on, I’ll have a towel ready for when you come back in!’
And so my pale, naked frame steps out into the night to do battle against the wind and rain as Maddy zips the door closed behind me. It is then, from inside the tent, that Maddy hears an elderly-sounding Irish man non chalantly ask me if I am ‘all right there’.
‘Oh, hello, er, yes, thank you very much. Our tent blew over in the storm …’
‘Ah, well, I saw that you’d camped down here,’ the old man muses from the shelter of a golfing umbrella, ‘so I thought I’d better check you hadn’t blown away, like.’
I can just hear Maddy giggling inside the tent – she had obviously seen him coming and deliberately set me up.
‘Not yet!’ I quip, and my fake laughter goes on far too long.
‘There’s a barn up the lane. I’d say you could always move up there if you want.’
‘Thank you, that’s very kind.’
‘But you don’t want to be prancing about in this weather stark-bollock-naked. You’ll catch your death of cold.’
I hear another snort of laughter as I stand there in the driving rain, trying to make casual chit-chat with a local farmer while cupping my hands over my genitals.
‘Oh, this? Well, I didn’t want to get my clothes wet, you see. But good advice – I’ll get back inside right now. Thanks for checking on us!’
The Man Who Forgot His Wife Page 5