by Hugh Breakey
ABOUT THE BOOK
The Beautiful Fall is a cinematic, page-turning romance. Both an intriguing puzzle and a compulsively readable love story, it will sweep you away.
Every 179 days Robbie forgets everything. He knows this because last time it happened he wrote himself a letter explaining it. The disorientation. The fear. The bizarre circumstances imposed by the rare neurological condition he lives with.
To survive the forgetting—to cope with his recurring loss of identity—Robbie leads a solitary, regimented life. Lives alone. Speaks to no one if he can avoid it. Works to complete a strange herculean task set for him by his former self.
And then, with twelve days left before his next forgetting, Julie invades his life. Young, beautiful—the only woman he can ever remember meeting.
As the hour draws near, Robbie is forced to confront the fact that his past is very different from how he had imagined it. And when Julie reveals her own terrible secret, he must find a way to come to terms with the truth about himself.
CONTENTS
COVER PAGE
ABOUT THE BOOK
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
DAY TWELVE
DAY ELEVEN
DAY TEN
DAY NINE
DAY EIGHT
DAY SEVEN
DAY SIX
DAY FIVE
DAY FOUR
DAY THREE
DAY TWO
DAY ONE
DAY ZERO
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COPYRIGHT PAGE
For Kylie
Read this now. Right now. Don’t even think of going near that door until you know what’s going on.
Your name is Robert Penfold. Age 31. The apartment you’re standing in is your home: 116 Dornoch Terrace, Brisbane, Australia.
(If you’re not in the apartment, you need to get there right away. Don’t speak to anyone. This is for your own safety. Look for a street sign to find out where you are. There’s a map in your back pocket. Follow it home. Your apartment is on the fifth floor, number 509. Whatever you do, don’t ask for help.)
The reason you don’t remember anything is because you have recurring amnesia. The forgetting, I call it, which means you do too.
It strikes at regular intervals: the last time was close to six months ago, and it was me standing where you are now. So believe me when I say I know you’re scared.
It’s OK, though. You’re safe here. Your home has everything you need. There’s food in the fridge. Clothes in the wardrobe. And information everywhere, about who you are and what you’ve done.
When you’re ready, go to the kitchen. There’s a cardboard box with all our paperwork and documents. The brown envelope in there contains a letter like the one you’re reading now. It’s the one I read when I woke up, written back when we first moved to this apartment.
There’s also a manila folder where you’ll find the report from our doctor, Doctor Varma. It’s pretty dense, with all the talk of arterioles, limbic systems and episodic memory. The short version is: we had our first episode about two years ago. Apart from a few fragments from our early childhood, we lost all our memories. Everyone thought it was a one-off thing, maybe a stroke. Then, 179 days later, the forgetting struck again. And then it happened again, another 179 days later.
Periodic, Doctor Varma called it. A type of migraine recurring with (so far, at least) unusually precise frequency. I know you’re thinking (because it’s what I was thinking)—aren’t migraines all terrible pain and devastating headaches? But the pain is just a symptom. The migraine itself happens when blood vessels inside the brain spasm and cut off the blood flow. If they take out the blood running to your visual centres, you get weird flashes and lights. If they take out your motor centres, half your body can feel paralysed. But I—you—got something much less common. There’s a couple of little blood vessels, or maybe just a single solitary one, right in the middle of your head, running to your memory centres. And every so often—periodically—it trembles, clenches: the tiniest thing. And everything falls.
The doctor said we shouldn’t be that surprised. Memory’s far more fragile than people think.
The bad news is there’s no cure. The good news is that these things come and go. I made it twenty-nine years without an episode. For all we know the forgetting might never strike again. Or it may carry on for the next ten years.
Since you’re reading this, I guess things haven’t improved yet. If the timing is the same as previous episodes, then the forgetting will have struck exactly 157 days after the day I wrote this, making it Sunday, 25 September.
You are about to have a very bad few days. Without memory, everything can seem meaningless. You’ll be filled with despair: I was.
But we’re actually lucky. Most people with recurring amnesia don’t have this long between episodes. Sometimes they have a few hours, or a few minutes. We have almost six months between each forgetting. Enough time to come up with plans, work on them and see them through. Just like a normal person.
You’ll see what I’ve done when you look through the apartment. When I first woke up and read the letter, I felt like I had no history at all. You’ll see that you’ve done something special. A project planned by my past, achieved by my present, and passed on to you, my future. That’s why I can talk about ‘us’—because we’re one and the same person. Through the work we go on. We endure, no matter what the forgetting does to us.
The letter that set me the task said I was doing something no one else had done. Like a kind of record, I suppose. To be honest, I don’t really care about records. But I hope you’ll be able to see the beauty in what I’ve done, and know that it came from your hands: our hands.
OK: some practicalities. Make sure you spend these first few days at home—preferably a week or more. Get your bearings. Go through the records. There’s a mementoes box as well, full of treasures from our distant past.
Don’t go outside until you’re ready. A year ago, after the third forgetting, the police found us out on the streets, lost and wandering. Any repeat of that and Doctor Varma says the government will have to put us in a home—because it has a ‘duty of care’—and if that happened we might never get out. So stay safe at home. Take as much time as you need. A grocery delivery comes every Tuesday. It’s all organised, and it’s paid for out of our pension along with the rent and utilities. Just smile and nod and sign the receipt they give you. You’ll be fine.
Whatever you do, never let anyone know your condition. Keep to yourself to keep your self. That’s what my letter said, and you’ll see it was right. Memories are like armour—without them, you have no control, nothing to hold your shape. You’ll become whatever anyone tells you to be. That’s why you have to be on your guard from the very first moments.
Our life may be solitary, but at least it’s our life, and not someone else’s. It’s all anyone gets. Keeping it—that’s the real fight.
Robert Penfold, 21 April
Day Twelve
Twelve days to go. So much work to do—now more than ever. I’d set my alarm for 6.00 a.m. but the reason for the early start, the accident yesterday, was also what made me want to stay in bed. I dreaded having to face the enormity of what had happened. Take things one step at a time, I told myself. You don’t have to deal with it straight away. Just work through the morning routine.
I PULLED myself to my feet. My workout proceeded like any other day, except that I kept my eyes averted from the archway between the kitchen and the livingroom—and the wreckage lying there. I focused on the exercises, pushing myself harder than normal through the reps. The burn in my muscles took my mind off anything else.
But when I started my stretch-down a
nd my pulse stopped hammering in my ears, my thoughts went straight back to yesterday’s accident. How many hours did I lose? Have I got enough time left to fix it?
I couldn’t face up to it, despite the sense of urgency. I dawdled through my shower and breakfast. Did some tidying; cleaned the toilet. It doesn’t count as procrastination if you’re being productive.
Finally the jobs ran out and I slumped down at the kitchen table. Fine. Now I’m officially procrastinating.
I could feel the minutes crawling by. Twelve days. The sum total of all I had left. About two hundred waking hours which was—a scribble on the nearby notepad—around twelve thousand minutes. Minus the three I’d just spent doodling.
‘Delivery,’ a voice called, with a sharp rat-tat-tat on the apartment door.
I sat up straight. Tuesday: grocery delivery day. Perfect. I’d have to go through the livingroom archway to get to the apartment door. The problem of facing up to the wreckage had been taken out of my hands.
As I rose from the chair, it struck me that the voice was different: it wasn’t Mr Lester, who usually brought the groceries. Then I remembered about his holiday, the cruise he’d organised for his wife’s sixtieth. He’d been going on about it for weeks but, with the accident yesterday, it had fallen off my radar. Somehow Mr Lester had failed to mention that the new delivery person might be a young woman.
It was months since someone new had crossed my threshold. I ran my hand through my hair and realised how long and scruffy it had grown. I set my shoulders and took the central path through the livingroom to the door, trying to avoid looking at the chaos on my left.
‘Delivery,’ the voice called again. Rat-tat-tat.
Deep breath. Shoulders back. All I had to do was act normal. Remember to breathe. I slipped the chain off its latch. With one final wish that at least she wouldn’t be pretty, I swung the door inward.
I peered out into the dimly lit hallway. Green eyes shone out of the shadows, matching the flicker of two earrings and a jewelled piercing above her lip. She had jet black hair, cropped short with a fringe falling over one side of her forehead.
Dammit. She’d look good wearing a sack.
I could tell because she was wearing a sack. Her uniform top, in the familiar blue of the delivery company, looked at least three sizes too big. Perhaps the company didn’t have any uniforms for someone of her slim build.
A white earbud sat in one ear, the other hanging loose over her shoulder. Tinny music squeaked from it. My heart thumped against my chest. I hadn’t been this close to a woman under fifty in months, much less an attractive one.
‘Robert, right?’
I was staring.
‘Robert Penfold?’ Wide eyes looked up at mine, thin dark eyebrows arching. She flashed a polite, tight-lipped smile.
I tried to nod, and for a crazy moment it felt like I’d forgotten how to do that as well—as if an amateur puppeteer was making a hash of tilting my head.
But she seemed satisfied. ‘Julie.’ She held out her hand. ‘Hi.’
I stuck out my hand, and her delicate fingers folded around it. Did I have a memory of touching a young woman? Maybe once. A shop assistant’s fingers grazing my palm as she took my money.
I swallowed. The trick was just to plough through. No way they were paying her enough to deal with my awkwardness.
‘Come in…’ Hell. I’d been so busy taking in everything else that I’d already forgotten her name.
‘Julie.’
‘Julie, right. Sorry.’ Julie-Julie-Julie. I pressed the name on to my mind. If I could keep it in my head until she left, I could write it down. Then it would be fixed, ready for next time.
Julie produced the chock of wood the deliverers always had handy and wedged the door open. She loaded herself up with groceries from the trolley. I stepped back, making room for her to enter.
‘Careful with the, um…’ I smiled weakly. ‘Well, you’ll see.’
Julie stopped short. A central path ran straight through the middle of the room, like the parting of a strange sea. On each side, an ocean of dominoes covered the entire floor and stretched up several thin bridges to raised platforms: rectangular wooden boards fixed to the wall with metal brackets.
‘Hmph.’ Julie looked the dominoes up and down, side to side.
Reluctantly, I looked with her. It was every bit as bad as I’d imagined. On one side of the room the dominoes stood neatly on end where they had been so carefully placed. On the other they lay toppled over, thousands of them, like a forest levelled by a meteor strike. If I had to guess—and I really didn’t want to guess—about fifteen thousand dominoes had fallen.
At least all my raised platforms were untouched. The stepped ramps to each platform were only wide enough for a single line of dominoes. I’d been able to snatch a handful of those linking dominoes and halt the spread of the damage, but I couldn’t contain the damage on the ground. The collapse there spiralled out in every direction. Days of work destroyed. Days I did not have left.
Beside me, Julie looked this way and that. ‘Neat.’ Her eyes flashed towards mine, and it felt like she was seeing me for the first time. Actually taking an interest.
A little tug of pride warmed my chest. Then another pang: of regret that she hadn’t been able to see the work the day before, with all its thousands of tiles still standing poised, ready to unleash at a touch on its hair-trigger, charged with life and energy.
Julie pointed towards a group of collapsed dominoes at the centre of the wreckage. ‘I like the whirling patterns.’
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘But that’s what caused all the destruction. Once that part went, I couldn’t stop it.’
‘Oh.’ Her eyebrows arched. ‘Oops.’
‘Yeah. Oops.’
‘Just through here with the bags?’ Julie turned and motioned towards the kitchen. I nodded, and she left me standing alone in the room, a flicker of hope in my heart. Yesterday, all I could see was the days of work ruined. But the delivery woman had seen the work still standing, and was impressed. Maybe things weren’t so bad after all.
‘Cold bags on the table?’ Julie’s voice carried from the kitchen.
‘Thank you. I’ll grab the rest.’
On the trip back to the kitchen, I had to step around her. Our eyes met for a moment. She really was beautiful.
Her polite smile returned and she stepped away to let me pass.
Back in the livingroom, I found Julie looking at the dominoes again. In one hand she held a small bunch of papers; the other twirled the cord running from her earbud, coiling it along her finger. ‘So you accidentally bumped them and they just…?’
‘Yeah.’ I nodded. ‘Those spirals are the worst. The damage corkscrews out in all directions. It’s impossible to stop.’
‘Hmph.’ Her finger paused its coiling. ‘You need a way of containing the damage. Like firebreaks, you know? Some kind of barrier thin enough to fit in the gaps.’
‘It would interfere with the patterns.’
‘Hmph.’ She shrugged. ‘This one’s for you to sign.’ She handed over papers and a pen. Once I’d returned them to her, she gave me a shiny blue card. ‘That’s our info, with the number to call if there’s any problems.’ Under the company logo, Julie’s details stood out in dark blue lettering. I ran my thumb along the smooth surface with a sense of satisfaction. Documentation: tangible. This was going straight in the records box. And now I wouldn’t need to write her name down as soon as she left.
‘Any problems, my number’s on the back,’ Julie said. ‘Don’t call the old number, he’s on holidays.’ She pushed the loose earbud into her free ear. ‘See you next time.’ Her voice was louder as she spoke over the music in her ears.
‘Next Tuesday.’ I nodded.
Almost out the door, she stopped as if struck by a thought. ‘Can I just ask?’ Her fingers pointed at my work with a neat flick. ‘Why dominoes?’
‘Well,’ I stumbled, ‘because they’re there, I guess.’ Stupid answer.
>
But Julie seemed satisfied. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Like Everest.’ A quick nod and she was gone.
I shut the door behind her. With the security chain and deadlock snapped home, I was safe at last from pretty women and disturbing questions.
Why dominoes?
Standing in the middle of weeks of ruined work, it felt like a reasonable question. The answer I’d given was partly true, but normally when people say it about climbing mountains, they mean they’re out there somewhere on the horizon. My own particular mountain—a stack of heavy cartons filled with boxes of dominoes—had been left for me, piled up in the centre of my livingroom. A bit harder to ignore.
Early on, I’d started work on the project for the reason set out in the letter: to have some kind of mission that spanned the forgettings. My past self had handed me the task, and all the required materials and tools, leaving the design and assembly to me. And then, when the final hour arrived, it would be my future self who would see what we had achieved, who would witness its final wonderful fall. In this way, we would show that we still had a life and could achieve things. Maybe even things no one else ever had.
The forgetting might take our memories, but our choices, plans and work could still control our lives.
Why exactly my past self had chosen dominoes for this purpose, I didn’t know. It made sense for the work to be done alone and in private. The letter had hammered home that lesson: For someone with our condition, solitude is the best defence. Keep to yourself to keep your self. But still…why not card towers or a scale model of the Taj Mahal made of matchsticks, or poetry? And why not something more productive, or less costly? These thousands of dominoes—83,790 of them, by my count—couldn’t have come cheap. I didn’t know. Maybe someday I would.
Anyway, none of that explained why I felt physically sick at the thought it wouldn’t be finished on time. Not the weight of expectations from the mountain in my livingroom. Not the need for projects that extended past the forgetting’s assaults on my mind. Not even the investment of so much of my very short life into all I’d done so far.