Stranger at the Wedding

by Jack G. Hills

  The thought made Rachel think back to the call from Anita and her crazy idea that she’d seen Tom in Oxford. There’d been talk at work that she drank too much, perhaps that had been the reason she’d rung… she was drunk, sozzled, inebriated and hallucinating. At least that would explain the call and the fact that she’d not heard from her since.

  “Look…” She said, with a confident reassurance that was now tinged with a mothering gentleness that harkened back to a time before she’d married Tom. “…if we play our cards right, we can have it all and no one will be any the wiser… we’ll be home scot- free.”

  ~~~~~

  My Dearest Donald,

  I don’t know if our letters will overlap but I couldn’t wait a moment longer to write to you. Your last letter, which was posted marked Witney, took me a little by surprise. I wasn’t shocked mind you, just taken aback by your outpourings as you’ve never been so forward and emotional before. Don’t get me wrong I liked what you told me and have had similar feelings myself, although you’ll think me boring when I tell you that you would be the first. Just as a matter of interest, you didn’t say if the doctor had started you on any new medication. I only ask as I know father has always said that some drugs can have strange side effects.

  Anyway, I have some important news for you. Yesterday I had a couple of hours spare … yes I know it shocked me too. I really didn’t appreciate just how much work Mrs Henderson actually did until I dismissed her but that’s not a complaint, I wouldn’t swap what I’m doing now for all the tea in China… So, I thought I deserved a break and went for a walk up to the hotel and looked in on my old work colleagues. I’ve sort of lost touch with them over the last few weeks and we did promise each other to make the effort but on the few occasions any on them have called at the house I’ve always been out shopping or in the garden and haven’t heard the front door bell... oh that reminds me, I was wondering if when you come home, you could rig up some sort of garden extension to the bell or something because it is so hard to hear when there is a visitor at the front door, especially if you happen to be up near the greenhouse… Sorry now I’m rambling.

  So, I got a couple of hours free and went up to the hotel. Not much has changed but then I didn’t think it would. They’ve been busy though, as Mr Fitzgerald has started a promotion, like they do at the supermarket down in Inverness… if you stay for two nights the hotel gives you another night free!

  I got updated on all the gossip by Irene, who I don’t know if you met her but we worked together on the reception desk… well she’s been promoted to manageress now, personally I think she’ll be excellent in the job, whereas I’m not sure I would have been as dedicated as she obviously is. In fact, she must have remembered that I’d asked her about your card and so she did a little digging of her own on our behalf… and low and behold she found out that the code on the card was an old one used by their sister hotel down in Cornwall, in a place called Padstow. The address is on the leaflet you have… it’s called the Atlantic View Hotel… That’s where your card came from. As soon as she’d told me I ran all the way back home, as I thought you would want to know as soon as possible.

  Everyone keeps asking about you and how you are getting on? They always want to know if you’ve remembered anything and when are you coming home? You seem to have made a good impression on everyone I meet.

  I hope the new information helps, because the sooner we find out who you are, the sooner you can come back. Take care and write soon.

  Love you,

  Martha XX

  With the letter clutched tightly in his hand, Donald dropped down with a bump onto one of the hard chairs that queued up outside Dr Atkinson’s room.

  He’d read Martha’s short letter again on the way to the consultation but he still couldn’t quite believe what she’d written. The tone of her letter had certainly been different and he’d no idea what she meant about the contents of his previous letter, as he’d thought it all quite boring and mundane.

  But her news about the card and the fact that any clues to his past might yet be found in Cornwall had completely bowled him over. Now he knew where he had to go if he was to find the answers to his past, but that realisation, rather than assuage his doubts, had merely heightened his anxiety about who he really was.

  Perhaps Samantha had been right… maybe he had just picked up the card outside the Back Isle Hotel. Then again he might have stayed at the hotel in Padstow… he might even have worked there. Whatever the answer, he now knew it lay in Cornwall and that’s where he had to go.

  However, there was something altogether more important contained within the letter… something that made him want to stop where he was and end his search right there and that was Martha’s confirmed belief that he would surely return to Cromarty to be with her. She talked of the town and her home, as if it were his home. She mentioned the people who were important in her life, as though they were his friends too… friends whom he could have known all his life?

  It was then, as he’d read the letter again that the paranoia had come knocking on the door to his mind. The amnesiac’s dark friend planted another idea into his head… one that he’d not had before. What if Martha had known him all along? What if he’d actually lived and worked in the town before whatever fate had befallen him? Perhaps his life after the hospital had all been one big lie, lived according to some weird, grand plan of collusion between them all. What if his life and Martha was some huge cover up and maybe… just maybe Martha’s kind words of love were nothing more than a trick, played out to ensure that he never remembered what had happened to him or who he really was?

  Perhaps they were trying to cover up some darker secret…

  Now he knew there was only one way forward. Whatever doubts remained in his head, he knew that he had to find out the truth about himself and his past, because without his memory he would never be able to trust himself or Martha… and if he couldn’t trust her then he didn’t wish to live. For without Martha he feared the dark voice in his head would slowly but inexorably take over his life and he too would end up in a straightjacket, with a constant companion, just like Samantha.

  “So Donald, Ingrid tells me you had a fun time in town? You took her punting by all accounts and had your ear pierced?” Dr Atkinson asked, as Donald sat down in front of her desk.

  “Yes, I think we had a good time.” Donald replied honestly. Unwittingly he rubbed the lobe of his ear that was still slightly red from where the metal stud had been punched through his delicate skin. In his hand, the crumpled letter poked out between his fingers like a felon trying to escape the bars of their cell.

  Neither Donald’s vacant look, his monotone voice nor the crumpled letter escaped the doctor’s keen professional eye. If the decision had been hers alone, the patients would never communicate with their families whilst they were staying at the clinic undergoing treatment, as it only took an unguarded word written or spoken in anger or love, to set a patient’s treatment back weeks… sometimes months. This time she guessed it had been something written in the letter and again she cursed the clinic’s board of management for overriding her professional judgement.

  “You don’t sound as sure as Ingrid? I’ve heard about nothing else since you got back and if you had half as good a time as she did, then I feel disappointed not to have been invited myself… but you, you only think you had a good time?” She lobbed the ball back over the consulting room net, waited and watched.

  “It’s not that I didn’t have a good time… I did and that in itself was part of the problem, well not even a problem doctor, it’s more a dilemma. You see the reason for going into town yesterday was to check out the Bankside Hotel and see if they could tell me anything about my card or even myself… and when I drew a complete blank I came away depressed and wondering if I would ever remember anything about my previous life or who I really was. Then Ingrid gave me one of her no nonsense impressions of life and I guess that put my pathetic woes into perspective. It was as t
hough some great weight had been lifted from my shoulders and we just had fun… I didn’t think I’d ever feel like that and it was all because I suddenly realised that whether I found out the truth or not didn’t matter to who I am right now.”

  “So what put the cat amongst the pigeons?” The doctor asked astutely.

  “This happened. This letter.” Donald handed Martha’s letter to Dr Atkinson and waited for her reaction.

  “So how does this change what you felt yesterday?” She replied, handing the letter back. Her response wasn’t quite what Donald had in mind, he’d been hoping for a more sympathetic approach, one that might offer him some guidance.

  “It changes everything doctor… didn’t you read it? Martha has found out that the card came from the Atlantic View Hotel, which means I must have been there at some point… maybe I even worked there, who knows?”

  “But that’s good news surely?”

  “Well yes and then maybe no. Martha now thinks of Cromarty as my home. She’s expecting me to return ‘home’ when all this…” Donald waved his arms above his head as if he was trying to capture the air in the room and bottle it. “…is done. Irrespective of who I am, she wants me back and she loves me. But that’s not the worst of it… I love her, so why am I still here? Why am I even considering going down to Cornwall? Why is it important? That’s my quandary.” Donald stopped short of mentioning the darker, depressing voice that had placed its own doubts into his head. The sight of Samantha being dragged from the Ambleside Clinic kicking and screaming her torrents of abuse had left an indelible picture in his mind and one that he didn’t want to replicate.

  “Ahh so you now feel that finding out about your past might destroy your future with Martha, is that it?”

  “Yes but after reading the letter I know I can’t give up, even if I wanted to, because there’d always be that nagging doubt in here.” Donald prodded his temple repeatedly to emphasise his point.

  “You’re thinking that not finding out might be worse than knowing who you are or what you are? No doubt you’re wondering what might happen next week or next year, when you suddenly remember your past but by then you might have a family with Martha and you might not want to remember.” Dr Atkinson hit the nail on squarely on the head.

  “I am, yes and that’s the problem, for now I’m thinking I can’t go back without finding more out but I’m scared of what I might find… what happens if the new lead proves fruitless? That’s the question I’ve been struggling with since reading Martha’s letter and just when I think I’ve come to the right decision, I have another change of heart… another…” Donald stopped abruptly before he went further and inadvertently mentioned the voice in his head, causing Dr Atkinson to look up from her notes. She wasn’t sure what she’d missed but there was something.

  “There is an alternative that may help.” Dr Atkinson said, after a moment or two of reflective silence. “We could try another hypnotherapy session and use the new information about this Atlantic View Hotel to try and prise open the door to your previous memory.” Donald’s blank reaction to the proposal wasn’t exactly what Dr Atkinson had hoped for but then her experience told her that patients never knew what was in their best interests.

  Certain that they’d gone far enough and sure in her own mind that Donald was holding something back, the doctor called a premature end to the session. She’d learnt long ago that if her treatment was going to prove effective, then the patient had to be in the right frame of mind and today she knew Donald’s mind was elsewhere.

  “So Donald, before we move onto the next stage, I’d like your permission to speak with Martha’s father.” Donald didn’t need to speak, his face asked the obvious question. “I’d like to seek his advice Donald… obviously Martha wants you to return and live there but that doesn’t mean Dr Monroe would be happy with such an arrangement.”

  They pencilled in the hypnotherapy session for the following week and whilst Donald had been keen to move forward more quickly, Dr Atkinson stressed the need to proceed at a slower pace.

  “You’ve come this far Donald, a few more weeks won’t make any difference either way. The hotel in Padstow will still be there… but a wrong turn now could throw your recovery and future completely off course.”

  As Donald wandered off down the corridor, Dr Atkinson’s experienced eyes watched him from the doorway of her consulting room. She understood that there was still more work to be done before he left the clinic. Irrespective of what her conversation with Dr Monroe might reveal about his possible future, she knew that if there was a link between her patient and the Atlantic View Hotel, it would be better if she could find the link first, rather than Donald blundering into the truth and having his past suddenly appear like a bolt out of the blue.

  Her plan, if it could be called that, was simple and straightforward. She’d put the call in to Dr Monroe and carry on with the rest of her planned consultations, whilst her secretary would investigate the hotel, the town of Padstow and the owners of the hotel… basically, anything from a missing person or a lost dog that might throw some light on Donald’s predicament.

  “So you’re going to give it one more go, aren’t you?” Ingrid asked, as she ran the comb through her long wet hair.

  She’d only moments earlier stepped from the shower and was now sat naked on the stool in front of the dressing table. Her towel lay on the bed in a crumpled heap, where she’d tossed it after opening the door to Donald. She’d not slipped the towel from her damp body to be provocative and even if she had, she saw from the look in his eyes that his mind was elsewhere… she’d wasn’t even sure that he’d noticed she was naked.

  Donald, oblivious to Ingrid’s state of undress had plonked himself down on the edge of the bed and disinterestedly picked up a corner of the wet towel and played with the fabric for a few moments, as his brain struggled to catch up with the rest of his body. He’d been so engrossed in mulling over his meeting with Dr Atkinson, that he’d not really taken any notice of Ingrid. All he’d been thinking about, when he’d walked into his friend’s room had been Dr Monroe and how he’d react… would Martha’s father welcome him back or would he tell Dr Atkinson to keep Donald locked away somewhere secure?

  The dampness of the towel acted like a bucket of cold water and snapped Donald from his daydreaming. Leaving the bed and the wet patch created by the towel, his eyes sought out Ingrid and found her sat at her dressing table. She looked quite different from behind without her impish pigtails, which had been replaced by strands of freshly washed hair that clung to her unblemished back… it was funny he thought, but she didn’t appear as exciting or alluring without her hair platted in its usual style.

  Somehow she looked quite ordinary, like any other girl… well any other girl except Martha. Donald blushed uncontrollably, as he looked at Ingrid’s naked back and the top of her small, firm bottom and pictured Martha’s face in the mirror. He wanted it to be Martha sat there naked in front of him and as he watched the reflection in the dressing table mirror run the brush through her hair, he realised that he suddenly found the thought of Martha sat naked in front of him quite provocative and definitely arousing…

  “Donald? I asked you a question.” Ingrid asked, as she spun innocently around on the stool with her hands clasped behind her head, holding the brush and one half of her long hair. She wasn’t inhibited by her nakedness and she certainly hadn’t done it to flaunt her body, she just saw no reason to hide the beauty that God had given her… and anyway Donald had seen her naked before and just as Alexandros of Antioch had looked upon his own Venus, Ingrid knew that Donald viewed her as nothing more than an inert marble sculpture… and there was no reason to be embarrassed around such a work of art.

  “So… are you? You know going to give it another go?” Ingrid asked with just a little more annoyance than before. Sometimes, she wondered why she bothered, but then she remembered… she loved him like she’d never loved anyone before.

  “Yes… I guess… it seems th
e right thing to do.” He sucked his eyes back into their sockets and like two big gobstoppers they plopped back causing his eyelids to blink furiously. Trying to bleach the sordid thoughts he’d just had from his mind he lay back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling in order to avert his eyes from Ingrid’s beautiful body.

  As he stared upwards, his mind was cleared of everything except the quandary of wondering what to do next. Had other patients felt like he did he wondered? Surely they must have, he couldn’t have been the first person to have completely lost his memory and then struggled with the aftermath of such a momentous loss or accepting the fact that they might never recover it.

  He closed his eyes and with the whirring sound of the hairdryer buzzing around his head, he drifted back to the beach at Cromarty and wondered what Martha was doing right at that moment.

  He’d already decided not to reply immediately to her letter because he didn’t know what to say. Perhaps after he’d had the next hypnotherapy session, he’d be more focused and in a better frame of mind.

  As he drifted further away under the hypnotic sound of the dryer, he imagined himself laying on the beach on a glorious summer’s day. Above, the sky was free of clouds and its soft blue hues warmed his body and made him wriggle slightly. Martha was there and the beach was deserted. Slowly she peeled away the clothes that she’d been gardening in, until finally she stood over him, naked except for the lustful grin, which he’d never seen before. He reached up to touch her, to feel for himself… to check she was real and immediately he felt the soft touch of her body, her flesh and her breasts. They were smaller than he’d imagined they’d be, but they were firm and stood proud away from her body. Slowly he ran his hands all over her body, which writhed in enjoyment at his touch. His own body reacted to her movements and grew larger, fighting the clothes that tried to contain his excitement and keep him under control.