Five days to go, and for the first time in ages, no morning exercises. Freedom from Julie should have left me feeling released. Instead, I felt lethargic. I dragged myself to the kitchen table and ate some toast. I couldn’t even muster the willpower to feel bad about slacking off.
IT WAS almost as if I missed her. As if the promise of Julie had bounced me out of bed these last few mornings. And now that she was gone, all motivation had fled my body.
All I could do was focus on getting through the day; getting the dominoes done. I gave up on breakfast, binning the last of the flavourless toast. Despite my listlessness, things had to be done. Decisions made.
For one thing, I’d need to deal with the issue of supplies—namely food. My future self needed to get through his first few days on his own without any intrusions into his crucial formative period. So I needed to sort out my deliveries. I’d have to ring the supermarket, something I’d never done before, and organise a new delivery person, at least until Mr Lester returned. I thought briefly that this would all be easier with the internet on, then found the number, set it down on the table and reached for the apartment’s old landline handset.
As I did so, it started to ring.
I snapped my hand away from it as if it were a live thing. It was so long since the phone had rung, I’d almost forgotten the sound now crashing around the quiet apartment. Julie. It had to be. No one else had any reason to call. And she’d said it wasn’t over.
The phone rang on. I stood my ground. It could scream all it wanted, but it couldn’t make me answer. At last—after an eternity—the ringing stopped. Then, with barely a pause to let me gather my thoughts, it started up again. She was determined, if nothing else. And if her story was true, and I really was her lost love, why wouldn’t she be?
I couldn’t deny that part of me was drawn to the idea that it might be true. And not just because she was so attractive. Given the last twenty-four hours, I could probably add resourceful and determined as well. I shut my eyes, and for a moment I surrendered to the fantasy that she knew me—really knew me—and could be trusted completely.
It would be such a perfect solution to my condition. Julie would know all my hopes and dreams. All my work and plans. We would build a life together, and when the forgetting struck that life would still be there, and I could just fall back into it. It would be like pressing soft clay into a hard mould. Everything that I used to try and push myself beyond the forgetting—the exercises, the dominoes, the journal—she could be all of that and more.
If it was all true. And if she could be trusted.
The phone stopped ringing, then started up again. I opened my eyes and looked at it. I had to concentrate on evidence, and not on what I wanted to be true. The stakes were too high to fall for that mistake. There was no new evidence here. She had said it wasn’t over, and now she had tried again.
I pulled the phone out of its socket. The ring cut off, mid-peal. Done. Hopefully now she’d start to realise how pointless her efforts were: that I would defend myself against her.
I pushed all my wishful thinking away and got on with the work. Soon enough, I was engrossed in the job and the hours passed quickly. I started to attack the remaining unpopulated area of floor. This called for some creative decision-making, the perfect thing to take my mind off—
Rat-tat-tat!
The room echoed with the knock. Her knock. Panic gripped my insides. Idiot! I should have foreseen this possibility. I couldn’t let her in, that much was clear. The memory of being trapped in my own room yesterday when she refused to leave still burned in my brain.
Rat-tat-tat-tat.
‘Hey.’ Julie’s voice carried through into the room, as dangerous as a siren’s call. ‘It’s me.’
I went to answer, just to tell her I knew she was lying and to order her away, but my voice caught in my throat.
Julie’s voice broke the silence. ‘Come on, open up. I want to apologise for yesterday. It was wrong to spring it all on you. I owe you an explanation.’
My mouth clamped shut. A pulse ran through my jaw, grinding my teeth together. I stared at the door in a stupid panic, unmoving and wordless. Maybe it was better this way. If I didn’t speak, then we wouldn’t be able to communicate. She wouldn’t be able to talk me into opening the door, and then to letting her into the apartment. Give her an inch and she’d take a mile.
‘Look, I’ve got your grocery order out here,’ she said. ‘It’s Tuesday, in case you’ve forgotten. You’ll have to come out and get it eventually or it’ll spoil.’
Damn, she was right. My legs freed up enough to move, and I made it over to the door.
The knock came again, louder this time, and I could almost feel it quiver through me physically, from my feet welded to the floor all the way to the rigid neck at the top of my spine.
‘I know you’re in there, Robbie.’ Her voice sounded frustrated. ‘Please open up.’
Absolutely not. I didn’t trust her around me. I didn’t trust myself around her much, either. Eventually she would have to give up and go away.
‘Are you seriously doing this?’ Now her voice bore an edge of annoyance. ‘Are you actually going to just cower in there in silence?’
I crossed my arms on my chest. Not cowering at all.
Rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat. ‘Robbie?’ Despair was replacing frustration.
I reached out to the door. Maybe part of me still wanted to see her. Despite everything. What would it feel like to just give in? I didn’t have to ask. I knew exactly how it would feel. As sweet as a kiss. I planted my palm against the door, my weight holding it there, safely away from the locks.
‘Okay, fine,’ came Julie’s voice. ‘I’m talking to the door. I’ll just stand here and talk to the bloody door. Like an idiot. Hope your neighbours don’t mind.’
A pause followed. Maybe seeing whether I would have mercy on her.
She sighed. I could barely hear it through the door. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t just tell you the truth about everything. Or about anything. But I had no choice.’
I wished I could see her. Whatever emotion was on her face, whatever thoughts were visible in those eyes, they were lost to me. I stood my ground, listening to a voice through the door.
Like an idiot.
‘I’d lost you, the third time it happened,’ she continued. ‘The forgetting.’
She used my term for it. The forgetting. Was that evidence of our past together? Or just evidence that she’d read my journal, or the letter?
‘You were left out on your own. That was how we were separated. It took months before I finally tracked you down and found you living here, all alone. I was so excited. I knew it must’ve been hard on you, being lost and alone. But I didn’t realise how hard. It hadn’t occurred to me how you’d react when I just appeared out of nowhere. I threw myself at you, so happy and stupid.’
I turned my back to the door and slumped against it. My weight slid down its smooth surface until I was left with my butt on the floor. Maybe I’d been wrong to not believe her.
‘You threw me out,’ she went on. ‘You were scared and angry. You didn’t want anything to do with me. You even…’ Her voice trailed off. ‘Anyway, I should have been smarter about it. You didn’t want to know me, so I had to try a different approach.’
I shook my head, rolling it back against the door. Every answer she gave just opened up a dozen more questions I didn’t have the strength to ask. I just sat there, silent and pathetic.
‘I’m sorry for lying to you. But I’d tried the truth. This isn’t the first time I’ve been left hammering on this door. When the last forgetting happened, I knew that you’d forget my face, and that I could use that opportunity.’ Her voice quickened. ‘I knew there would still be a piece of you in there that would remember us together, if only we’d give it a chance. And there is. I saw how you looked at me. I felt how you kissed me, Robbie.’
I shut my eyes tight against her words. I’d felt it too.
‘Don’t leave me without choices, Robbie.’ Her voice dropped and I needed to strain to hear her words. ‘I know you’re lost and alone, but you are my responsibility. That’s what we agreed. Us. Together. Don’t leave me with no other option.’
No other option apart from what?
‘You do believe me, don’t you?’ she said. ‘I’ve got all the photos of us on my phone. I can show you, if you just open up.’
A pause, and then Julie hammered on the door again. The shudders quivered down the wood and into my shoulders.
The hammering stopped abruptly. Maybe she’d worked out that my body was pressed up against the door.
‘Robbie?’
After a moment, the door shifted behind my back. A subtle movement, as if Julie had seated herself down on the opposite side, directly behind me. So there we sat, back to back, facing out in opposite directions. Little more than a couple of inches of timber between us.
I could feel time passing, measured through the beat of blood pulsing through my neck. But I didn’t want to move. This was as close as I could be to her and still feel safe.
I don’t know how long we sat there. It may have been minutes or hours. Then she spoke. ‘Well, starving you out wasn’t really my plan. I’ll unload your food out here and leave it for you. I’m going to leave my licence here too, in case this is all a bit hard to believe. I faked the name on the business card, but my licence has my real name. You’ll see.’ There was a pause, and then her voice came through softly. Barely audible. ‘Don’t keep your back against the wall too long, babe. You never know what some crazy bitch might resort to doing.’
A series of soft bumps and rustles followed, and I got the sense she’d given up at last.
I rocked my head back against the door, feeling wrung out. I let the minutes trickle past. Silence. Surely she must have gone now. I pulled myself up from the floor, snapped back the locks, and opened the door.
Coast clear. My groceries sat in a neat pile beside the door. There was a pale green plastic card on top. Julie’s licence. She looked different in the photo. Long red hair tumbled about her shoulders, framing her face. The colour, the pixie cut, were new. She’d darkened her eyebrows and lashes too. Under the photo her name was laid out in black and white. Julie Penfold, I read. Penfold. And beneath it, a Melbourne address.
Evidence.
I tried to think it all through as I put the groceries away. Her story was making more sense now. It did seem possible I’d been so angry with her for leaving me on my own that I’d refused to reunite with her. The licence showed not only that we shared a surname, but also that she’d originally lived in Melbourne. And that wasn’t all. Her final words had rung with confidence, as if she had options that she hadn’t used yet. They’d almost sounded like a threat.
That was a worrying thought. What if she was my wife—and that wasn’t a good thing? She might have all sorts of legal powers over me, especially in the period just after the forgetting. What if she arrived outside my door that day with her lawyer by her side? If I called the police, who would they believe? The hysterical guy with no memory? Or his loving wife, doing her best to help her poor confused husband?
I shivered, my skin prickling into goosebumps under my shirt. Even if everything she’d said were true—especially if everything she said were true—then she was a stranger to me. Everything I’d seen of her so far was part of a ruse. Apart from her willingness to lie, I knew nothing about her for certain. Yet she held enormous power over me.
No more cowering behind doors. I had to act. I had to fix this.
‘How were we separated?’
‘Robbie. Hi.’ The smile in her voice was audible even over the telephone line. ‘I’m glad you called.’
‘You said we were apart when it happened.’
‘Can’t we do this face to face?’
‘No. Right now. I want to hear it.’ I didn’t want to give her time to make up a story.
She sighed. ‘Okay, well, this was back before we realised about the timing, so we didn’t know when it would strike. I would never have left you for a moment if we’d known.’
I nodded to myself. That was possible, at least. It would have been the third forgetting when we were separated. That was the one where the pattern became clear. ‘But why didn’t you come find me as soon as you found out? It doesn’t make sense.’
‘I was out of touch. Away in the country.’
‘I was off helping someone. Ironic, given how my own life was about to explode.’
‘Who were you helping?’
‘Jacinta. Jazi.’ A sigh. ‘I’d been doing well at AA. Over a year dry, and I was a sponsor, if you can believe that. You thought I looked too young to be an alcoholic; Jazi wasn’t even twenty. I went on a trip with her to help her sort her life out. After the forgetting happened, it took ages for them to contact me. Then once I finally got back, finding where you were in the hospital system turned out to be bureaucratic hell.’ I could hear her shudder. ‘By the time I’d tracked down where you were, you’d been working it all out without me. It was hard for you. I think the horror of those first hours when you were lost and alone affected you. And maybe you blamed me for us being separated. I can’t argue with that. I blame myself.’
‘You’re my wife. Wouldn’t you have had some legal right to make me come back or something?’
‘I did see a lawyer. But the problem was your doctor. We’d been upfront about my drinking problems, and she didn’t think I was reliable enough. Without Doctor Varma on my side, there was nothing I could do.’ Her voice became more urgent. ‘But, Robbie, you have to remember we didn’t know about the date. I would never for a moment have left you if we’d known. Not for Jazi. Not for anything. That’s why I’m being smarter now. To make up for us not being smarter then.’
‘Okay.’
‘Okay, you’ll come back to me?’ The rush of hopefulness in her voice was almost unbearable.
‘Okay, I believe you. That you were my wife.’
She paused. ‘So what now? Can I come over?’
‘Not here.’ I wouldn’t be trapped in my own home like I was yesterday.
‘I could take you out to dinner tonight, then. How about that? I know a place.’
‘No, not today, not tonight.’ I didn’t want to give her any strategic advantage. ‘Tomorrow.’
‘In the morning then. First thing. Breakfast’.
I hesitated. Early morning seemed wrong. Too intimate, too…domestic. To my mind, the only people who had breakfast together were…
Married people.
‘We’re on a clock, Robbie,’ she said. ‘I don’t think you want this still unresolved come Sunday.’
‘Okay. Not over here, though. You said you lived locally. You pointed out your apartment.’
‘Yes.’
‘Was it true? Or just part of the act?’
She sighed. ‘It’s true.’
‘I’ll come to you.’
She gave me the street address and some directions.
‘Eight a.m.,’ she said. ‘See you for breakfast.’
I bit down on my lip. Was I just falling further into another trap?
‘Do you want this sorted out or not?’ She sounded as if she’d read the doubt from my silence. And why wouldn’t she? This was my wife. She would know my mannerisms better than anyone. Better than me.
‘More than anything.’
‘Then tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow.’ I hung up the phone. Exhaustion washed over me, though it was only early afternoon. But I refused to let it slow me down. I prepared for tomorrow’s trip as best I could, packing my backpack with everything I could think of. But I could hardly wrap my head around it. I paused and stood there, looking at the little wooden elephant in my hand. Looking beyond it.
I’d been married.
No. Wrong. She’d spoken in the present tense. I was married. I was married to Julie. I’d known, met, touched, kissed, courted, caressed, fallen for, loved, argued, proposed, laughed, married, yelled, carried, apologised, commiserated, shared…and left her. In that order, or pretty close. I’d done all of those things with her. By her. To her. Against her. And I’d forgotten, re-met and rejected her, and then forgotten again.
I had history.
Part of me wanted to feel pride in it. To have once won the affections of a woman as beautiful and determined as Julie. But I may as well have been learning the achievements of a stranger. I felt no connection to the man who had married her.
Too bad. I stuffed the last of the mementoes in the backpack and buckled it up. There was enough time left in the day to get in some more hours on the dominoes.
Work went slowly. Today my focus was on the floor, and over the course of the afternoon, almost five thousand new tiles spanned out. I raided the bed again, emptying another two large cartons. I had to rework some of the dominoes I’d already laid down on some of the earlier platforms, to get the overall timing of the collapse to flow through to the newer platforms and bridges.
This was the first platform Julie and I had put up, on the afternoon of her birthday. Except it wasn’t, of course. Her birthday. That claim had obviously been part of the whole ruse. I’m new here. It’s my birthday. No wonder she’d sucked me in. It was all part of her plan…
I stopped work and put the dominoes down. It wasn’t the birthday that first changed things between us. That happened earlier. The fire; her reaction to it.
I felt my back straighten. Surely not.
Julie hadn’t been scared at first. When the alarm went off, she was the one who realised it was the fire alarm and prompted me to gather up my things. The moment replayed over and over in my mind’s eye. I’d just complimented her on her idea about the barriers. She smiled and said something, her words all but drowned out by the alarm. Not completely drowned out, though. I could still recall something of them.
‘When I need to, I have a very strat—’
I could recall her lips moving around the last words as those eyes sparkled with intelligence.
Strategic mind.
My stomach tightened, and my mouth became thick with liquid. She had faked her fear to pull us together. Who does that? Who even thinks to do that?
And I had agreed to meet up with her tomorrow. What had I got myself into?