House of Shadows

by Pamela Hartshorne

  There is a long pause.

  ‘All what?’ I say at last, looking from one to the other. ‘What have I done?’

  Jasper forces a smile. ‘Nothing. Everybody’s upset. We’ve been very worried about you, Kate, you must understand that.’

  ‘Why do you keep calling me Kate?’ In spite of myself, my voice is shaking. ‘It’s not my name.’

  Fiona presses her lips so tightly together that they almost disappear, but she has herself under control once more. She lifts her head, exchanges a glance with Jasper. ‘You’re confused,’ she says coldly. ‘The doctors said you would be for a while. Thank heavens we didn’t bring Felix in,’ she adds to Jasper. ‘It would have been hard enough for him to see his mother in this state without her refusing to recognize him as well!’

  There is a tight band around my head, digging cruel fingers into my brain, and exhaustion crashes over me. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, too tired to argue, and I’m relieved when the nurse comes in and says they must leave me to rest.

  A clinical psychologist comes to assess me. He is a stocky man with a receding hairline and shrewd eyes behind his glasses. He introduces himself as Oliver Raine, and says I can call him Oliver. He asks if I remember him as he sits down in one of the visitors’ chairs.

  ‘I don’t remember anything,’ I say, plucking fretfully at the sheet. There’s a thumping behind my right eye, a counterbalance to the nagging pain in my left leg. I have had my daily physiotherapy session earlier and I am aching and uncomfortable, and increasingly frustrated about my inability to remember my own name. It is infuriating and I can’t get past the conviction that the Vavasours are keeping my son from me.

  Remember, remember, you’ve got to remember. The words tick endlessly, fruitlessly, around in my head.

  ‘Have I met you before?’ I ask Oliver, and he nods.

  ‘I came to see you when you were first moved here, but I’m not surprised that you’ve forgotten. Some short-term memory impairment is quite normal following a brain injury like yours, and it can take some time to recover.’

  ‘How long?’ The sense of urgency is exhausting me, but the more I try to recall what it is I have to do, the blanker my mind becomes. ‘It’s awful,’ I tell him, embarrassed by the tremble in my voice. ‘I don’t even know my own name.’

  ‘We only realize how much we rely on our memory to function normally when we lose it.’ Oliver’s expression is sympathetic. ‘The brain is very complex, and when things go wrong the consequences can be profound, as I’m sure the doctors treating you have already explained. In your case, you remember how to use the television remote and speak English, but nothing about yourself. You’ve got a memory retrieval problem. It’s as if your brain is a library where all sorts of useful information is stored, and it’s been shoogled up and scattered by the injury to your brain. So where before you could go straight to the shelf which had the information you wanted, now you can’t find anything.’

  ‘I can’t even see the shelves,’ I say morosely.

  ‘But you are starting to remember again, aren’t you? The nurses tell me that you recognize them now.’

  ‘That’s true.’ I haven’t thought of that as a positive sign before. ‘And I remember Dr Ramnaya, and that Fiona and Jasper have been to see me.’

  Oliver nods his encouragement. ‘So your memory is working on storing new information, it just can’t get at anything that was stored before your accident.’

  My accident. I finger the wedding ring that looks so odd on my hand. ‘Oliver,’ I say abruptly. ‘What happened to me?’

  ‘Hasn’t anybody told you?’ He sits back in his chair, steepling his fingers as he regards me with a thoughtful expression.

  ‘Not really. A fall, they said.’

  ‘You fell from the roof of Askerby Hall.’

  A rushing in my ears. My stomach tilts as if I’m standing on the edge of a vertiginous drop, horror grabs at my throat, and then I’m tumbling into an abyss, my heavy skirts hampering my fall, making me twist and lurch awkwardly.

  I suck in a stuttery breath and will my thundering heart to calm as I press my palms into the hospital blanket. I am safe, I tell myself. I am not falling.

  ‘What . . . what was I doing on the roof?’

  ‘Nobody knows.’

  I think about the Vavasours, Fiona pressing her fingers to her forehead. Haven’t we been patient enough with her?

  ‘They think I jumped, don’t they?’

  ‘Did you?’

  No! The voice is loud in my head. I don’t remember, but I know. ‘No, I wouldn’t leave my son!’ My mouth works shamefully, and it is a struggle to keep my voice steady. ‘Why won’t they let me see him?’

  ‘He’s fine,’ says Oliver. ‘He’s safe, he’s well.’ He pauses. ‘Lady Vavasour says you don’t recognize his picture.’

  ‘Because it’s not my son.’ I press my fists to my temples. I can sense my child in the murky shadows of my mind. He’s just there, but when I try to reach for him, to pull him free and see his face, it sends his image drifting further into the distance. ‘Where is he? Why can’t I remember?’ I ask despairingly.

  ‘Perhaps you’re trying too hard.’ Oliver shifts in his chair and leans forward. ‘Let’s try something. Close your eyes.’

  I’m glad of the chance to hide the sheen of tears. Behind my eyelids I see a blurry pattern of light. ‘Are you going to hypnotize me?’

  ‘Nothing so elaborate,’ says Oliver. ‘I just want you to think about whether you know what it means to be happy.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say without hesitation.

  ‘Can you imagine yourself feeling happy?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say again, more slowly, delighted as the blur behind my eyelids clears and an unmistakable picture forms in my mind.

  ‘Good.’ Oliver’s voice is low and tranquil. ‘When you think about yourself being happy, what are you doing?’

  ‘I’m riding my mare.’ I can feel the bunch and slide of the horse’s powerful muscles, smell the leather of the saddle and the reins in my gloved hands.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘On the moors.’ My eyes are closed, but I can picture it so clearly it must be a memory. The sky over the moorland is a vast blue arch, broken only by a few blotches of clouds, as if dabbed there by an indifferent painter. The air is crisp and clear, and laced with the sweet smell of the heather where the skylarks dart. I can hear the thud of my mare’s hooves on the dusty track, the plaintive bleat of a sheep in the distance.

  ‘Is there anyone with you?’ Oliver’s voice seems to come from another world.

  ‘Yes.’ In my mind, the breeze snatches at my hat as we gallop and I lift a hand to hold it to my head, laughing as I turn to— but the image vanishes, swallowed up in the blank, black emptiness of my memory, and my throat closes with despair. I need to know who was there beside me. It was someone I love, someone who laughed with me. I am sure of it.

  I put a hand over my mouth to stop it wobbling.

  ‘I can’t remember,’ I say.

  ‘But you remember something, don’t you?’ Oliver is encouraging. ‘That’s good. Askerby is right on the edge of the moors, so that makes sense. The Vavasours never mentioned anything about you riding, but I know they have quite a stable there, and perhaps when you get home, the horses will trigger your memory.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ I say dolefully. I am desolate at the loss of my companion, if only in my memory. It makes me realize how lonely I am. The only people who have been to see me are the Vavasours. Don’t I have any friends? Any family of my own?

  ‘Who am I?’ I ask Oliver.

  He studies me over his steepled fingers. ‘It may not feel right to you at the moment, but your name is Kate. You’re thirty-three. You married Michael Vavasour in London, and you have a son, Felix, who’s four. Since Michael’s death, you and Felix have been living with the Vavasours at Askerby Hall.’

  ‘What about my own family? Do I have parents? Brothers and sisters?’

&nbs
p; As far as I know, you’re an only child. Your parents are both alive,’ Oliver tells me. ‘They’re aid workers, and I understand they’re in Somalia at the moment. They’re working in a very remote part of the country, and may not even know about your accident yet. Lord Vavasour has been making efforts to contact them, but it’s not easy.’

  It doesn’t sound as if I am close to my parents, but how can I know?

  I wish I could tell Oliver that’s not really what I want to know, anyway. I want to ask him what I’m like. Am I kind? Am I generous? Am I bitter or needy or sweet or strong? But what can he say? He doesn’t know me.

  Apparently I am the kind of person who would jump off a roof and not even have the decency to kill herself. Memory shimmers then, of a voice while I was lying in the dark: It would have been better if she’d died.

  And another: You were supposed to die.

  But they might not be real memories. I might have made them up. I can’t be sure.

  What do I feel about myself? My eyes drift to the window. I know I yearn to be outside, that I work stubbornly through the pain of the physiotherapy because I long to walk again, to leave this place that feels so wrong. I think of that moment of happiness I remembered, riding over the moorland, breathing lungfuls of sweet air, laughing. There was someone beside me, someone I loved, I know that, someone who loved me. Was it Michael? I turn the wedding ring on my finger. It doesn’t feel right, but Oliver tells me that my name is Kate, that my son is safe, that my husband is dead. I should believe him. Why would he lie to me? Why would any of them lie to me?

  ‘Do you want to try closing your eyes again?’ Oliver asks gently, and I nod.

  I lean back against the pillows and shut my eyes, watch the kaleidoscope of lights revolve blurrily behind my lids.

  ‘Don’t think about it,’ he says. ‘Just tell me the first thing you remember.’

  I open my mouth to tell him about waking up in hospital when, unbidden, a different image swims to the surface.

  ‘My mother,’ I say slowly, without opening my eyes. ‘I remember my mother. It’s not really a proper memory. It’s more of an impression.’ Desperation. Fear. Lowered voices in the hall below. Madness: the word jagged in the air.

  ‘I was very small,’ I say. ‘Four, perhaps. Maybe five. My mother was in a dark room. It was very hot, and her hands were tied to the bedposts. She was screaming and pulling at the ties, begging me to save her.’

  I falter, remembering my distress. Of all the things I need to recall, why does it have to be this? The babe had died, I remember that. My brother. I remember scrabbling frantically at the ties that bound my mother to the bed, and how she screamed and screamed. Her mouth was wide open, her eyes staring, her skin sheened with sweat.

  Disquieted, I open my eyes. ‘She had just had a baby. Why would she have been screaming for help? She kept saying that they wanted to kill her.’ I shiver, remembering the anguish in her voice, the horror in her eyes.

  ‘It sounds as if she might have been suffering from post-partum psychosis,’ says Oliver, tapping his fingers thoughtfully under his bottom lip.

  ‘What, and they tied her to a bed? What kind of treatment is that?’

  ‘You were only small. Perhaps she wasn’t really tied down.’

  ‘She was! I remember it really clearly!’ I look at my hands as if I can still feel my little fingers tugging urgently at the knots of linen.

  ‘Memory is a very complex process,’ Oliver says carefully. ‘We don’t really understand how it works. We might think we remember an event in great detail, but numerous studies have demonstrated that even the clearest memory is often largely invention. We conflate memories of different occasions, and subconsciously edit our behaviour. We take scenes from a book we’ve read or a movie we’ve seen and unwittingly incorporate them into our memories. So when you remember your mother being tied to a bed, for instance, it might be that you remember her being hurt in some way, and you’ve bound that up with a memory of struggling to undo a knot on another occasion. It’s unlikely that she really was tied to a bed.’

  He stops and studies my face. ‘Or perhaps you’re projecting your own feelings of helplessness about being injured,’ he suggests. ‘You might feel trapped in this bed just as you’re imagining your mother being trapped. Do you think that might be possible?’

  I scowl. ‘So what you’re saying is that even if I do manage to remember something, I can’t trust my own memory? I might as well make it all up!’

  ‘It’s not that bad,’ he says, smiling. ‘Think of your memory as a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it will become. You don’t need to remember every detail of every day, after all, even if you could. All you want at first is to recognize people and places and events. We all need a sense of the past in order to operate properly – we need to know who we are, and why we think and act the way we do. Memories give us a context,’ he says. ‘In a very real way, they make us who we are.

  ‘You need to remember, Kate,’ he says, ‘but be prepared. As you’ve already discovered, not all memories are good ones, and there may be some things you’ll wish had stayed forgotten.’

  You were supposed to die. Perhaps Oliver is right. Perhaps it’s better not to remember everything.

  They say it’s April. I can’t tell from the blank rectangle of sky which is all that I can see through the window. I spend long hours looking at the light and longing to breathe fresh air. I hate the feeling of being confined. It makes me breathless and panicky, and the memory of my mother tied to the bed squirms darkly at the back of my mind. Only the thought that she is strong enough to go from terrified madness to working in Somalia stops me from screaming myself. If she can survive that, then I can survive lying here, my head aching with the effort of battering at the blankness inside it.

  I concentrate on getting stronger. I set my teeth at the pain and make myself do every exercise Mary, my physiotherapist, prescribes. She sets me goals. First I have to stand using a Zimmer frame, and then using crutches. My ambitions are limited to getting from the bed to the chair, and then from the chair to the bathroom. When I ask how long it will be before I can ride again, Mary tuts. ‘One step at a time,’ she says. ‘We need to get you walking properly first.’

  Every goal seems insurmountable at first, but Dr Ramnaya is pleased with my progress. ‘Carry on like this and we’ll be able to let you go home soon,’ she says after a month has passed.

  Which would be better news if I could remember where home was.

  More Vavasours arrive, taking it in turns to visit. Strangers who tell me that I know them well. My sister-in-law. Michael’s cousin. His aunt Joanna, with a strong resemblance to Jasper, down to the nervous tic under the eye and the suggestion of weakness around the mouth.

  Michael’s sister is called Philippa. She is moody and resentful, but her barbed conversation is a welcome change from the relentless cheeriness of the nurses. She’s in her late twenties, I’d say, but when I ask her what she does, she just shrugs. ‘Not much.’

  It turns out that I have married into a wealthy family. The Vavasours own large tracts of the North Yorkshire moors. I live at Askerby Hall, a fine example of an Elizabethan house that is open to the public between Easter and the end of October. Visitors pay handsomely to gawp at its dramatic long gallery and moulded ceilings. They shuffle through the beautifully preserved rooms with their panelled walls and portraits and marvel that this is a house that has belonged to the same family for over four hundred years.

  ‘The house is gorgeous,’ one of the nurses tells me. ‘I used to dream about living there and being a grand lady.’ She winks at me. She is a bosomy woman with curly hair and a round, good-humoured face. I know all the nurses now and Sandra is one of my favourites. She adores my parents-in-law (‘They are so lovely, aren’t they?’) and treats them like visiting royalty. I half expect her to curtsey whenever they are in the room.

  Fiona and Jasper respond with a graciousness born of centuries of privilege. Something
about the way they smile and take Sandra’s wide-eyed admiration as their due sets my teeth on edge. I wonder if I always felt that way about them. They visit me regularly, but there is no warmth in the way Fiona presses her cool cheek against mine, and although they are always correct, I don’t sense any affection. They are doing their duty, but they don’t care.

  According to Sandra, Askerby Hall is so unspoilt and such a perfect example of a grand Tudor house that it is often used as a location for historical dramas. ‘Last year, they had a whole lot of Americans came over from Hollywood making a movie. One of them comedy horror films,’ she explains, popping a thermometer in my mouth and straightening my sheets with her quick hands. ‘Not my kind of thing,’ she says, ‘but I’ll go and see it when it comes out, just to see Askerby.’

  The gardens at Askerby are famous, too. There is a knot garden and a maze and a beautiful walled area. There is woodland and parkland and a river, where various events and activities are organized to draw in the public: adventure playgrounds and hawking displays and re-enactments. ‘We had a season ticket when the kids were little,’ Sandra says as she whips out the thermometer and makes a note on the chart that sits on the end of my bed. ‘They loved it. We couldn’t get our Dave off the rope ladders.

  ‘You’re ever so lucky,’ she goes on, and then looks at me lying in my hospital bed, my leg in a cast, a bandage around my head, my face still battered. ‘Well, maybe not right now,’ she amends with her comfortable laugh, ‘but just wait until you get home! Once you clap eyes on Askerby again, you’ll never want to leave.’

  Chapter Three

  Michael’s cousin, George, comes to see me two or three times. George manages the vast Askerby estate. He’s a surprisingly shy, solid man with what I am already recognizing as the Vavasour good looks: a clear-cut jaw, guinea-gold hair and eyes that are a distinctive dark shade of blue.

  George doesn’t do small talk, and he has trouble meeting my eyes. It’s obvious that the hospital and my injuries make him uneasy. The silences are painful until I realize that all I need to do is to ask him about the estate and his expression lightens. He can talk for hours about sheep or shooting, about dips and animal feeds and raising pheasants. He doesn’t like the town. He’s not actually wearing muddy wellies, but you can tell that he would be more comfortable if he was. He loves Askerby, that is clear.