‘Jules!’ I lean forward, peering at the screen, ‘Is that me?’ A pale figure in a strapless dress, long white hair glowing under the spotlight.
‘Christ, I’d almost nodded off.’ Jules wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and fizzes open her Lucozade.
‘Is it me?’ I ask again. It’s hard to tell without colour but, despite the grainy image, I can see the dress is the same style as my green one. ‘That’s my choker!’
‘It’s you,’ Jules says. ‘I’ll rewind it.’
‘Play it in slow motion.’ I’m determined not to miss anything. The tape whirrs backwards before playing once more. I’m standing at the bar waving a note. A man slips in the space next to me. I turn my head, lips mouthing words I cannot hear. Neither of us smiles.
‘That must be Ewan! It looks like I know him, doesn’t it?’
‘It’s impossible to tell.’ Jules is frowning as she studies the screen.
‘Wait. Pause it.’
Playing the tape again we’re joined by a third person at the bar. Light hair, about the same size as me. She speaks, waving her arms for effect. She looks worried and pulls my arm. I break free. Put my hands on her chest and push her. She grabs me again and leads me away from the bar, and before I disappear out of the sight of the camera I say something else to the man as I leave.
‘Is that Chrissy?’ I ask although instinct tells me it is. Why would we be arguing though? We never did before.
‘Yes.’
‘And the man. Do you recognise him?’ I can’t stop staring at the before-all-of-this me. My heart cracking that I can’t warn her somehow of what is to come.
My question is met with a painful pause, until eventually the silence seems to buckle under the weight of just one word.
‘No.’
Tearing my eyes away from the grainy image I turn to look at Jules. It’s freezing but sweat sheens her skin.
‘Honest,’ she says, but she can’t meet my eye and there’s a catch to her voice.
She’s lying.
25
‘Carl.’ I shout again up the stairs.
Frustration simmers in my veins. I’ve found the footage I need but I still can’t identify Ewan. I wouldn’t even have been able to identify me and Chrissy if it weren’t for my dress. My choker.
‘It might not even be him,’ says Jules. ‘It could be some random you’ve got chatting to.’
It is him. I’m certain. The jacket. More formal than the other men in their T-shirts and jeans. Recognition nips at my skin with sharp teeth.
‘You done?’ Carl fills the room once again with his hulking frame.
‘Can you print out a photo of him?’ I point to the monitor.
‘What do you think this is, fucking CSI? We’re hardly state of the art ’ere, darlin’.’
If I don’t have something to take away the whole day has been a waste of time. I unlock my phone.
‘No photos.’ Carl stands in front of the desk. ‘I’m doing you a favour. You’ve seen what you wanted. Time to shift your arses.’
With a last, lingering look at the screen, I trudge back upstairs, and we’re ushered outside into the bitter cold.
‘Are you sure you didn’t recognise him?’ I ask Jules.
‘Positive.’ She’s fishing in her bag for something, and even if she looked up I wouldn’t be able to read her.
‘Shall we get the bus?’ I’m lost without my car.
‘I’ve a few things to do. You’ll be okay getting home?’
The thought of being out on my own is terrifying but she’s already given up most of her weekend for me. It hardly seems fair to ask her to stay.
‘I’ll be fine,’ I say and my nerves knot inside my stomach as I watch her walk away, mobile glued to her ear.
The app on my phone tells me that with Sunday service there isn’t another bus for ninety minutes. It’s too cold to hang around the bus station. Usually I’d plump for Starbucks, on the market square, but the staff might recognise me and think I’m ignoring them. It saddens me to think I might always feel this embarrassment. Dr Saunders warned me that the majority of sufferers of acquired prosopagnosia develop social anxiety and depression. He said it’s important not to avoid social situations as that further reduces self-confidence, but it’s difficult to mix when I feel set apart from everyone else. At the theme park Dad and I had spent ages in the House of Mirrors. I’d found it disconcerting that the mirror-Dad had morphed into someone too short, too tall, too fat, too thin. His features distorted until he looked like someone else entirely. He had roared with laughter at our reflections; still, it unsettled me, this different image I was presented with. Uncertain, I’d kept throwing sideward glances his way, seeking reassurance that he was still the same person. Still my dad. That’s how it feels now. I’m stuck in a House of Mirrors but, no matter how many sideward glances I throw, I’m never reassured.
* * *
Buying a coffee is something so small, so normal. But I have to brace myself to push open the door to an independent coffee shop, the bell announcing my arrival as I step inside this ordinary world where I feel anything but ordinary. It’s packed. Tub chairs full of shoppers weary from their exertions. Multicoloured plastic bags adorned with ‘SALE’ crammed under their tables.
Taking a deep breath of cappuccino and freshly baked rolls, I try and calm myself, sensing eyes on me. I tell myself I’m paranoid, but my gaze is pulled left by a loud tutting sound and blood roars in my ears, along with the sound of hissing machines heating milk, frothing cappuccinos. A face stares at me, and my heart stutters. Is it him? A sharp nod of the head tells me he is tutting because I am still holding the door open, a blast of icy air against the back of my neck. In my panic I let the door crash shut, and there’s a split-second lull in the hum of conversation as almost everyone turns my way. Behind me, the door is pushed open again and a young mum, swinging ginger ponytail, manoeuvres her pram over the small step, and I am forced forward so she can close the door behind her. Sound swells around me. The walls are edging in, the sense of being trapped overwhelming, but as I look over my shoulder, out of the window at the throng of shoppers, it seems more terrifying out there than it does in here. ‘If you act like a victim people will treat you like a victim,’ Iris said all those years ago, and at the time I’d thought her cruel and heartless, but today her words resonate with me in a way they couldn’t when I was twelve. Pulling back my shoulders, belying a confidence I don’t feel, I join the queue, my toes tapping with nerves inside my boots as I wait. My eyes constantly scanning the crowd. Apart from the girl in the crimson coat and the man wearing army fatigues, it’s like a uniform almost – black winter coats, black boots, black trainers, blue jeans – an army fighting the elements, the harsh winter weather winning the war.
A hand on my shoulder. ‘It’s your turn,’ says the woman, rocking the pram, as inside snowsuit-covered legs angrily kick off a blanket.
‘Sorry.’ I stutter out my order, a toffee latte and, as an afterthought, I add a piece of rocky road. Normal. I can do normal. I give my name for the drink and after I’ve paid I carry my plate to a table already occupied by a family of four. Mum and dad, and two small boys roughly the same size. The woman smiles as I sit and raises her eyebrows slightly, as though waiting for me to speak. I glance at her children again. They could be twins for all I know and perhaps she’s waiting for a comment about how identical they are. Miserably I pick a lump of pink marshmallow from my cake and pop it into my mouth. It feels like cotton wool clogging my throat as I swallow.
Grateful to hear ‘Alison’ yelled from the counter, I fetch my drink, taking a sip as I carry it back to my seat. The coffee burns its way down my throat. I try to relax, but it’s hard not to watch the men in trainers, one scrolling through his phone, the other reading a paper.
I pull my phone from my bag to stop myself from staring. There’s a text from Ben telling me he needs to talk, and I phone him, but the call diverts to answer service. There’s another tex
t, from Matt, and my thumb hovers over his name, second-guessing what he might say. Whether he enjoyed our breakfast as much as I did.
I’m having a clear out. Do you want the green glasses?
His message brings a sharp, cruel, moment of realisation.
It’s over.
We bought those glasses on our honeymoon in Marrakesh. In our apartment we filled them with bubbling champagne and toasted a future that looked as bright as the blazing sun. Matt hooked open the doors of the balcony and we lay, naked limbs entwined, watching the sky turn from cornflower to lavender, until we dozed, wrapped in dusk and dreams, waking so late we missed dinner. Now he wants to discard the glasses, as though they are nothing, as though I am nothing. Something shifted lately, I had thought: the late-night phone chats, the Terry’s Chocolate Oranges. My black-and-white thinking had whispered he wanted me back, but pity is grey and cold and lonely. I wonder whether my condition is the last straw. Is it too hard to have a relationship with someone who couldn’t pick you out of a line up? Can’t follow movies. Ignores friends and family if seeing them out of context? It shouldn’t be, should it? Not if it’s love? If.
* * *
I’ve deliberated so long over what to reply to Matt that it’s almost time for the bus, and I think I’ll nip to the loo before I leave. Stepping out of the toilet cubicle I am stopped in my tracks. Unprepared. At home the mirrors are covered, but here I am faced with my reflection. Tentatively I step forward. My fingers hovering in front of the glass. I trace the lips that tremble with the effort of not crying, the eyes that are wide and glistening with tears. Leaning forward, my forehead rests against the forehead of the mirror-me that shouldn’t look like someone else entirely but somehow does. I feel a wrenching pain in my chest. Despairingly I think I will never get used to this.
The door swings open, and I straighten up, my face has morphed into someone else again. My knees feel weak as I steady myself against the basin for support. The girl stands next to me and snaps open a compact, brushes powder over her nose blotting the shine, something I used to do at least three times a day, and there’s something about the way she stands back, her mouth curving into a smile as she appraises her appearance, that breaks my heart. Tearing my gaze away I pump soap into my hands and rub them together and, when the girl shuts herself in a cubicle, I slam my palms against the mirror and smear oily, green soap all over the glass, as though I can make myself disappear. Only when I am nothing but a ghostly smudge do I allow my arms to drop back down to my sides. In the periphery I can still see the reflection of the cubicle doors, but I am gone, and it is as though I have never existed at all, and I find this thought strangely comforting.
* * *
Back at the table I shrug on my coat and wind my scarf around my neck. Outside, dusk is gathering. The family has gone, under the seats where the children sat, a scattering of splintered crisps.
It isn’t until I pick up my cup to drain the last dregs of my now-cold latte I notice it. The black X that now crosses out ‘Alison’. The single word that has been written in its place, and that word is enough to cause the cup to slip through my fingers, caramel-coloured liquid pooling on the floor. Going mad-going mad-going mad. I must be mistaken. I can’t tear my eyes away from the cup as it rolls. Desperately hoping that once it stills I will see that, of course, my name is still there. My mind playing a trick on me. But it isn’t. The cup wedges against the table leg, and it’s still there. That word. I bolt for the door, snagging a table, the sharp corner digging into my hip, tea sloshing onto a saucer. I stumble, my hand automatically grabbing the arm of the person whose drink I have spilled, but the second I have gained my balance, I’m weaving towards the exit again. I don’t stop to apologise, to offer to mop up or replace the tea that is now dripping onto the floor. Panic shimmers dark at the edge of my vision. The voice of the past whispering its cold, sour breath into my ear.
Sarah
Sarah, written in thick black letters on my cup.
Sarah
And suddenly everything that’s happened doesn’t feel quite so random anymore, because I can count on one hand the number of people who know that Sarah is my birth name. Alison came later. Much later. After everything that happened when my family moved away to try and escape both the past and ourselves. As I rush out of the café I steal a glance back over my shoulder, scanning the sea of faces, desperate for a glimmer of recognition, a clue as to who is persecuting me, but everyone’s a stranger.
Sarah.
Except they can’t be.
26
Ali. I’ll still call you Ali. It’s almost impossible to think of you as Sarah, and by the look of shock and panic on your face I think that over the years you’ve almost convinced yourself you are not her. You are someone else. Someone good. But that’s a lie you tell yourself so you can sleep at night. How many things you’ve blocked out. How our minds try to protect us from the things we cannot cope with, but the reality is always there, under the surface of half-truths that are as brittle and easily broken as you.
There was a moment when you pelted into my table, lost your footing and grabbed my arm to stop yourself falling, I thought it was all over. No matter how much research I’ve done into your condition, it’s unfathomable to me that you could be so close and not recognise me, but you didn’t. You genuinely have no clue who anyone is, and I felt a pang of sympathy for you as I realised just how frightening and uncertain the world looks to you right now. How vulnerable and scared you must feel. That was before you released your grip and sped away without an apology. Without offering to clear up the mess you had created.
That’s you all over, isn’t it?
I watch as you fling open the door and hare out into the street, frantically looking left and right. Seeking comfort from faces who shift and change every time you look away. I bite the last of my toasted teacake, melted butter oozing down my chin. You turn left. I wipe my greasy fingers on a napkin. Thanking the lady behind the counter – I still remember my manners – I hurry out into the street and follow you.
27
There’s a sense of hysteria in the last hour before the shops close, wallets, thick with the first payday since Christmas, shoppers desperate to bag that last bargain, or perhaps it is only me who is hysterical as I fight my way through the shifting sea of people.
Sarah. It’s been so long since I was called by that name I’d almost forgotten who I was, but the two syllables stroke me with their familiar fingers as the past slams into me. My cheeks are stinging with cold and tears and I’m not sure if I’m crying for who I am now or who I was then. The whoosh of traffic sloshing past on the wet road has muted to nothing more than a whisper, while the voice in my head screams my lost name over and over. Sarah, Sarah. Sarah. Except I’m not her, I’m not. I’m Ali. But as I catch sight of my reflection in a shop window I don’t look like Ali. I don’t look like Sarah. I don’t know who I am anymore. The pressure inside my head mounts and a shard of memory drives itself into my consciousness. Shouting. Screaming. I know. I know what you did. Crying. Begging. Please. Hands on me. Pain. Blackness. You deserve everything you get. And the hope that Saturday night was an accident, or even a random attack by a stranger, turns to ashes. You have blood on your hands. Oh God, what have I done? What have I done again?
I turn left into the pedestrianised part of town. A busker strums his guitar. At his feet, his rolled-up sleeping bag glistens with rain. A few bronzed coins in his sodden cap. ‘Will you still love me tomorrow?’ The lyrics stop me in my tracks. My dad loved that song. Crooning it to Mum, his arms wrapped round her waist as she washed-up after Sunday lunch, soapy suds up to her elbows, the kitchen smelling of roast beef. Did she still love him after what he did? It pains me that I’ll never know. All around me shoppers stream, sidestepping the busker, swinging carrier bags and avoiding eye contact with him. I fumble for my purse and pull out a ten-pound note. Hesitantly, I hold it out, not wanting to place it in the cap, where it will be tossed in the wind along wi
th my memories and my pain. He stretches out his hand. His eyes meet mine. Will you still love me tomorrow? Our fingers touch and something passes between us. A question? An understanding? Automatically I back away. Suddenly aware this could be him. Ewan. The man who hurt me. Who thinks he knows me.
Sarah.
I spin and thrust myself into the centre of the crowd, as though, if I stand shoulder to shoulder with them, I will not be any different. As though I will not be utterly lost and utterly alone. As if I pretend enough, I can be like them and sometimes pretending is enough. It has to be. I’ve been doing it for years, but it’s all beginning to fall apart. Just like I am falling apart after the almost impossible task of stitching myself back together.
I’m only ten minutes from the bus station when I become aware of them through the hustle and the bustle. The footsteps matching mine step for step. I turn a slow 360. My eyes raking through the charcoal gloom. Why does everyone cloak themselves in darkness in the winter? Black coats. Black boots. Black trainers. So many black trainers. Pounding the pavement, marching towards me, an army of shoes, and I can’t tell the difference, who’s good. Who’s bad. Who was following me. As I spin, features rearrange. I’m shaking, shaking, shaking, like I shook my Etch A Sketch all those years ago. Images falling away, to be replaced by something new, something different. Nothing ever looking exactly the same. A tidal wave of panic crashes down on me, adrenaline flowing fast through my veins, chilling me to the bone. Everyone’s a stranger and yet someone isn’t.
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