Winter

by Raven Taylor

  Last night I had avoided looking in the mirror that hung on the wall above the sink for fear of seeing what it was that made everyone stop momentarily and have to shake themselves when first meeting me. It had happened again when I came to the hospital. The staff seemed effected by my appearance in the same way that you and the Inspector had been. Well, I couldn’t put it off forever, it was time to see what was so terrible.

  Leaving the water running in the sink I looked up and brushed the hair away from my face. Then I jumped at my own reflection. I wasn’t hideously ugly as I had feared, far from it, but there was something unusual about me. The first thing that struck me was the eyes. Where they really that dark? Iris’ that were completely black so it was impossible to tell them from the pupils. Staring into them was like gazing into two obsidian pools of sorrow. They were so large and soft and filled with pain and tragedy. Dear God. What had happened to me out there that would leave my eyes brimming with such obvious suffering? My skin was perfect, not a blemish or a line to be seen but it was completely white, not a hint of colour as though it had never known the touch of the sun. Then there was my hair. Beautiful hair that was as black as my eyes and fell perfectly straight down over my shoulders. Over all the impression was striking and unusual. No wonder the sight of me took people by surprise.

  Then I remembered something and I turned my back on the mirror and pulled the hospital gown down from my shoulders. I wanted to get a look at the scars you and the Inspector had talked about. I looked back into the mirror and there I saw two long crescent shaped marks that ran around the curves of my shoulder blades, each a mirror image of the other. How strange. Frowning, I covered them up again and returned to bed.

  Around noon I abandoned hope that anyone was coming with any news for me and I gave in to sleep. I was tangled in the midst of some dream when I was woken by someone shaking me gently and the brief images that had been flitting through my mind, images of a man in a top hat and a long black cloak leering at me, quickly dispersed. As the dream evaporated it left behind a lingering sense of cold dread that did not leave even as I opened my eyes to look into the face of the nurse.

  “You have a visitor.” she told me enthusiastically and I struggled to sit up and see who it could be. Had they managed to find someone who knew who I was? Was I about to get some answers?

  The nurse stepped aside and I saw you, Caroline, standing behind her. I thought that you looked as nervous and uncertain as ever as you clasped the flowers in front of you as if waiting for permission to step forward. I couldn’t believe you had come. I know you had said she would but people say things sometimes that they don’t mean or they realise it is a stupid idea when they actually stop to think about it. Yet here you were again, on Christmas day, you had taken time away from your family to come and see me. It was more than anyone else had done. The police had not sent anyone yet to check on me.

  “Merry Christmas Caroline,” I said and your smile widened as you finally came forward and pulled up a chair.

  “Merry Christmas Winter,” you said warmly, you looked flustered and out of breath, with pink cheeks and messy hair, as though you had been hurrying all the way here. Your blue eyes shone from below the fall of your fringe. It struck me that you were a pretty woman for your age, there was a certain naivety about your expressions that suggested you hadn’t seen much of the world. I guessed it was probably this sweet and inexperienced quality that had led you into such a controlling marriage. It had probably led you into many other dangerous situations also, such as picking me up off the side of the road and driving me all the way to the police station. Eternally grateful as I was I still recognised your actions of the previous night as reckless and stupid. I could have been anyone. Lucky for you I was not dangerous (or was I? Hadn’t they speculated about the possibility of me being an escaped mental patient?) Such a shame that good people all too easily become victims purely because they tried to see the good in everything and everyone.

  “I brought flowers,” you announced, “Nothing special, the only places open today are petrol stations.”

  I smiled and wondered if anyone had ever brought me flowers before.

  “How are they treating you?” you asked.

  “Fine,” I said, “Last night a doctors asked a lot of questions that I couldn’t answer, then they said there was no obvious signs that anything was physically wrong with me. They looked at those scars on my shoulders and said they could not think of any medical procedure that would have caused them but that they looked deliberate being that they are identical to one another. They think maybe someone did it to me a long time ago but I don’t remember.”

  “Oh honey,” you said and sighed, “I wish there was something I could do to help you.”

  “You’ve already helped me, you know that, you saved my life last night, I’ll be forever grateful.”

  You lowered your eyes and your cheeks, that had been slowly returning to a normal colour, suddenly flushed red again.

  I went on to ask you about your sister and your family reunion and from there you talked and talked. I was glad of this because I myself had little to say. What could someone with no memory possibly have to talk about? I liked how happy you seemed when you talked about your sister and your brother in law and their daughter so I just let you talk. In a way it was comforting to hear about normal life going on outside of my own personal hell.

  After you had finished talking you looked at me long and hard, an intense look of concentration on your face.

  “You really can’t remember anything? Nothing at all?”

  I shook my head, “I wish I could. It‘s funny, it’s not like my mind is a total blank. I remember how to talk, for example, and I recognise things around me, such as I know this is a hospital, that this is a bed and those are flowers, it seems to just be things specific to me that I can’t recall. The doctors say this type of amnesia is usually the brains way of dealing with a traumatic event.”

  I saw you wince and you looked at me sadly.

  “They say I could start to remember at any second, but then they also say there has been cases of people who never remember and those people have to rebuild their lives from scratch.” It was a frightening prospect, to think I might never learn who I was or where I had come from.

  “Well,” you said, brightening a little, “Some detective work wouldn’t hurt. You can tell a lot from people just by talking to them. Little things you aren’t even aware of can say a lot about a person.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ok,” you began, taking a moment to collect your thoughts, “First thing I notice about you is that you speak very well, very politely, but your accent is somewhat generic. That it makes it hard to place you. If you had an accent like mine I would know instantly that you were local to this part of Scotland, but the non specific way you talk suggests to me the possibility that you have travelled around a lot from an early age, never staying in one place long enough to pick up it’s local dialect. That or you've had very little exposure to the world at all.”

  “Go on,” I said, encouraged by your sharp observations, the things you picked up on where things I would never even have given thought to.

  “Well,” again you paused to think, “The next thing is your skin. Skin that white has not had much exposure to the sun, or daylight in general I wouldn’t imagine. From there you need to think of why you might have went to such lengths to stay out of the light. Was is it by choice or where you maybe held somewhere, kept in darkness for a long time.”

  I cowered back against the pillows at the thought of me being imprisoned in some dark chamber. Seeing my frightened look you laughed lightly and said, “I’m sorry. I read too many crime novels. I’m just getting carried away with myself. Look at you, your perfect skin, your perfect hair, you‘ve been well looked after, loved.”

  Your expression had grown distant and wistful and you were gazing at the flowers by my bedside. The low winter sun glanced through the glass and fell on you
r light hair and highlighted the fine lines around your eyes and at the corners of your mouth. Once you would have been beautiful, before the weight of the world and age had crushed you.

  "I'm going to give you something Winter," you said suddenly, fishing around in your bag and emerging with a battered looking notebook, "I bought this because I had a notion a while back that I might try and write a novel. Like most of my brilliant ideas nothing ever came of it and this book has been sitting untouched in my bag for months. I want you to have it and I want you to write in it, anything at all that comes into your head because you never know what might prove useful when trying to figure out who you are."

  "You are so so perceptive Caroline," I said, "And caring."

  "It's been drummed into me, I guess," you laughed, "Since leaving my husband I've been training to be a councillor, my tutor says I ma am very good at tuning into people, whatever that means."

  Again there was that far away look that stole over your face, as if you were lost somewhere in your memories.

  “I really should be going,” you said, breaking from your thoughts, “My sister will be needing a hand with the dinner. She already thinks I’m barmy coming here to see you, getting myself involved in things that are none of my business.”

  “Thank you,” I said as you stood up, “Thank you for everything.”

  I wanted to ask you if you would be back but I didn’t want you to feel under pressure. Yet, as if reading my mind, you turned as you left and said, “I’ll see you again soon Winter, take care of yourself.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  In contrast to the sluggish apathy of the previous day, my second morning in the hospital was a whirlwind of activity. Now that Christmas Day was over they could start my case moving, the world outside was no doubt overdosed on too much food and cheer but in here things were at last starting to happen, steps were being taken to shed some light onto my situation. First thing in the morning I was introduced to a detective who I was told had now been assigned to my case. Tipton was his name and he was a sallow faced, distant man who left me wondering when he had lost the passion for his job. I was taken into an office where we could talk and he sat across from me and proceeded to ask me all of the same questions that I had already been asked a thousand times over. He delivered them in a monotone voice and unlike the inspector in the police station we had visited he did not grow frustrated with my inability to answer he just nodded each time I said ‘I don’t know’ and made notes in a book bound in black leather. Detective Tipton finished his questioning and then informed me that so far they had checked all hospital records, missing person reports, immigration records and had turned up nothing.

  “So, the Next thing we need to do is take your fingerprints,” he said dryly, “For the national database, we’ll check them against all known felons, see if that gets us anywhere. The press have already got wind of this story too, you know how people talk, but that’s good. We’re going to photograph you and release the pictures, see if anybody recognises you.”

  The detective took out an inky block and I felt like a criminal as he proceeded to press each of my fingers into it. As he looked at the paper with my resulting prints he frowned deeply and without a word he took he my hand and looked closely at my finger tips, "bizarre," he muttered as he returned to his notebook without revealing his findings to me.

  “Your’s is a very rare case,” said the detective as he handed me back over to the hospital staff, “Not entirely unheard of though. These things do happen from time to time and they are usually resolved. Someone will see your picture and come forward.”

  They were all so certain. Everyone kept telling me that I would be recognised, that someone out there was looking for me, that I would start to remember things soon, but somehow I did not believe them; I tried hard to share their hope but I could not.

  After the visit from the detective I was introduced to my social worker, an ageing, starchy figure called Denise. I took an instant dislike to her. She was old and her features were harsh. She had a long bony nose that looked like a crow’s beak and tiny, piercing eyes that stared out from behind her glasses without the slightest bit of warmth. She was dressed in a tweed suit that was so stiff it barely moved when she did and her silver hair was pulled back in a tight bun. I began to feel nervous and self conscious all over again and I found it hard to communicate with her as she briskly went over the arrangements she had made for me.

  “Now, you’re well enough to leave the hospital, no need for actual medical treatment so I’m told, but under the circumstances you’ll understand that we can’t just let you go, that would not help anyone. You’re being transferred to a specialist unit, Greenleaf Hospital, it’s not too far from here, it’s the best place for you. You’ll be safe there, they have good doctors who can help with your amnesia.”

  “Will I be able to see Caroline?” I asked hopefully, desperate for the one person who had shown me real kindness since all of this has started.

  Denise thumbed back through the pages of my notes, “Caroline, ah yes, the lady who found you. She has expressed an interest in being kept updated with your progress. Yes, we’ll let her know where you’ll be, if she wants to make arrangements to visit she can.”

  Snow was falling heavily as we made the journey to Greenleaf Hospital and the car seemed to crawl though the roads were empty.

  When we came around the bend and were confronted with the hospital I shuddered. It looked like a prison with it’s grey walls and high fences that surrounded the grounds. There was a lot of pain and suffering about the place, I felt it almost as soon as we passed through the gates. This was a place for people who were confused and lost. People who’s minds no longer worked well enough for them to be out in society. A place for people like me.

  Fur trees lined the road that led up to the main building and they stooped under the weight of the snow that clung to their boughs. It was hard to tell what the gardens might be like under all that snow.

  Once we were parked on the icy tarmac I was led through the front door to a small reception area. There were more nurses here, just like the ones from where we had just come. There was a large Christmas tree standing in the corner shedding needles on the tiled floor and giving off a strong smell of pine that wasn’t quite powerful enough to overcome the cloying smell of disinfectant. I felt a vague kind of sorrow as I looked around the sterile, uninviting environment. My heart filled with an empty kind of yearning. Yearning for what? Home? I paused. Why did I suddenly smell cigarette smoke and catch the briefest glimpse of a shadowy figure sitting in a high backed arm chair? Denise, who, with one of the nurses, was about to begin my tour of the place looked at me and asked, “Are you alright, Winter?”

  “It’s just…”I frowned and tried to grasp onto the memory but it had gone, “Nothing.”

  It was a large facility and it surprised me that there could be enough unstable people to fill such a place.

  “Most of our residents are here through choice,” the nurse explained as I was shown the various public rooms and facilities, “We aren’t a facility for people who have been committed. We are not what people might call 'a nut house' so there will be no 'one flew over the cuckoos nest' type of thing here. We aim to provide a safe place for people who are suffering from emotional and mental problems to rest and recover, we treat all kinds of illness from depression to eating disorders and of course the more unusual cases such as yourself.”

  As I was briefly shown one of the ‘reading rooms’, a bland little area littered with battered and mismatched chairs and a bookcase of tattered volumes, I noticed one of the residents sitting by the window, making no effort to hide that fact that she was staring at me. She was an odd looking individual with lots of tattoos and a green Mohawk. She raised her hand and waved at me and I gave her a polite nod before I was led away without the chance for introductions.

  Finally I was taken to my room. Like the rest of the place it was sterile and uninviting yet when they left me I felt gl
ad to be alone. The furniture was kept to a minimum. There was a small bed and a desk with a chair. I still had with me the battered lined notebook that you had given me and I set this down in the centre of the desk. When I looked out of the small window, the window that did not open, I could see the compact grounds and the road we had drove along beyond the walls. In the distance, between the buildings, I could just see the sea. With a sigh I lay down on the bed and as I rested my head on the thin pillow I was suddenly overwhelmed by the image of a huge four poster bed in a red room. It only burned before my closed eyes for a fleeting moment yet the picture my mind threw forward was immensely detailed; there where piles of fluffy pillows and cushions stacked one on top of the other other against the red and gold headboard. The top blanket was a luxurious looking red velvet and the drapes which clung to the intricately carved posts were light gold and patterned with dancing figures in medieval dress. Behind the bed the walls were dressed in fine red fabric with a shimmering floral design and an old tapestry hung above the head board. For one glorious moment I was falling into that welcoming bed, being cushioned by it's softness, the pillows cradling my tired head, the many blankets a comforting weight hugging my body. It lasted but a second before I was back in the stale smelling room lying on the hard mattress with my head on a pillow that was barely there.