After we’ve dried off, we settle down in front of the fire in the living room and my father tells me about the funerals. Simple affairs, he says, the ashes scattered together from Brighton pier into the sea. A heartbreaking day. They tossed flowers into the waves, pink and purple gerbera daisies. Some yellow like the warmest sunlight. They will take me there, he promises, to say a proper goodbye. We’ll take more flowers. Once I’m stronger. Once I’m ready.
He produces a simple gold band from his pocket and sets it down on the table. ‘My wedding ring,’ I say, picking it up, slipping it over my shaky finger. But I am quick to take it off again; it is strange to wear something to which I don’t feel connected, though I get the briefest flash of what I think must have been my wedding day: Andrew in church, me walking towards him. My father takes the ring from me and I watch as he puts it on the mantelpiece.
‘We’ll just leave it here, and when you’re ready, you can take it back.’ He reassures me that soon enough the hallucinations will stop, that I will return to normal. I will feel better, he says. I will be able to move on. ‘Now, Chloe, lie back on the couch. That’s it, feet up.’
My mother is fussing around us, covering me with a blanket. My eyes are heavy, my head sore. I don’t feel present. I am drifting again.
‘Close your eyes and listen to my voice. I’m going to take you back. I want you to tell me what you can remember … Sorry, what did you say?’ Is he talking to me? Did I say something? ‘Yes, of course, Evelyn.’ He’s speaking to my mother. ‘She’s nearly asleep. Just stop your fussing and give me some space to put this right.’
That night I suffer a fitful sleep, my body fighting against the recurring dream. In it I am running through bushes, trees rising above me, searching a dense forest for Joshua. It is dark, approaching dusk, and at first I can’t find him. A thorn catches at my head, tears through the skin. Rain washes into my eyes. And then all of a sudden he is there before me, lying on the ground blanketed in a layer of wet, sticky leaves. Moments from death. Blood covering his face. I see my car, crushed against a tree, as if I am reliving the accident at a distance, watching from afar as my son bleeds out into the rotting forest floor.
All night long I see the same thing, every time I close my eyes. It is the same dream as last night, but this time, when I wake up, something is different. It is as if I have brought the dream back with me over the threshold between sleep and wakefulness. I can still feel the chill on my skin, smell the rain. I can feel the tiny lacerations across my face and remember the way I sustained them when I fell into the undergrowth. Tonight it is as if what I see in my dreams is real.
I throw off the sheets, my head hazy, heavy like a hangover. Goose pimples shiver in waves across my body as I edge back the curtain and peek outside. Darkness stares back at me, interrupted by a street lamp near the distant church. The fog rolls along in the glowing cone of light like whitecaps breaking against a rocky shore.
I press a palm against the cold glass and streams of condensation rush away like liquid falling stars. Make a wish, I think, but what would I wish for if I could? My old life? Strange to wish for something I can’t even describe. I have no idea what it was like; how it used to feel. Should I wish for a marriage to a man who my father tells me was a failure, who even before the accident I had decided to leave? I wonder if I should wish to become the person I used to be before the accident, but what’s the good of that? She might have chosen to kill her son. I’m not sure I want to be her.
I grab an old robe of my mother’s and wrap it around my body, slip my feet into a pair of her slippers. My leg feels better today, a little less sore than it did, as I creep downstairs.
I move past the front door, feel the draught as it sneaks through the frame, brushing at my bare ankles. I press down on the handle to my father’s study, trying not to make a sound. As I am hit by the musty smell of old books, a memory jolts back to me, of sitting at my father’s desk. School work on a winter’s day, snow on the ground, a crow cawing. How things come back to you. How information can be triggered by just a smell.
I sit down in his chair, the leather cold against the back of my legs. The desk is old, like a captain’s desk from an imperial ship. There is a monolithic statue to the side, glass, engraved with my father’s name along the bottom. I read the inscription: The Roberta Award of Excellence. Next to it sits a picture of the four of us, the award in my father’s hand. It seems familiar, although I’m not sure why. I stare at myself in the photo, my hair lighter, my face full and body curvy. I look along the bottom of the statue, find a date: just six months ago. My whole world has changed so quickly.
I turn on the computer and wait in the cool glare of the blue light. As I stare at my blurred reflection in the screen, I remember seeing myself in glass like this, a kitchen cupboard maybe, as I stand at a cooker warming up milk. A tartan settee somewhere in the background; the sound of a baby’s cries. Me as a mother? My old home? It must be, but it remains heartbreakingly out of reach, just smoke from a previous life, a cloud.
A request for a password pops onto the screen. I try our names, lower and upper case and different combinations, but none work. I try the four numbers from the outside gate but that doesn’t work either. I would try dates and birthdays if only I could remember them. When is my birthday? When was Joshua’s?
‘What are you doing?’ His voice startles me. I peer over the screen to see my father standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame. He is dressed in a blue dressing gown with a red quilted trim, his hair all over the place, fresh from sleep. It is as if I have stumbled into the private life of a stranger, caught in a place I have no right to be.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say as I push myself to my feet. ‘I couldn’t sleep. I thought I’d mess about on the internet.’
‘Well, I’m afraid this computer isn’t for messing about with.’
I nod, a hot flush of embarrassment spreading across my cheeks. Seeing him reminds me of the night before, a night that ended without a clear memory. What was that tablet he gave me? Did he start a therapy session just before I slept? It’s a blur.
‘I suppose you don’t remember the day you managed to delete nearly all of my files?’ he asks me.
‘Really?’
‘Yes. I lost a lot of work. You opened up an email, something to do with Pokémon if I remember correctly. It must have been a virus. I went ballistic,’ he says, his eyes sheepish. The hairs prickle on the back on my neck, a memory I can’t quite place. Just how furious was he? ‘But I learned a valuable lesson about backing up my work.’
‘I won’t try to use it again. I’m sorry.’ I attempt to leave, a sudden urge to get out of the room. I step forward, but so too does my father, blocking my path with his oversized frame. He rests his hand on the chair. I have no choice but to remain where I am. He motions to the computer.
‘Did you manage to get into it?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘I didn’t know your password.’
He swivels me around, his fingers digging into my clavicles. The left one throbs. He edges me back into the seat.
‘I’m disappointed, Chloe,’ he says, pushing the chair forward, trapping me as the arms line up alongside the desk. He leans over my shoulder and reaches one pointed finger towards the keyboard. His beard tickles the side of my face, sends a shiver across my skin. ‘You should have been able to guess the most important thing to me in the world.’ I watch as he taps in the word FAMILY. ‘There you go. But please, don’t go rooting around in the documents. There are many confidential files in there, and it wouldn’t be right for the patients under my care.’ He gives me a pat on the shoulder, sending a bolt of pain down into my arm. The damp air is getting to the aches and pains that have set in since the accident. ‘And whatever you do,’ he adds with a wink, ‘please don’t open any emails.’
As he disappears into the kitchen, I open up Google. What am I hoping to find? Something about me, or something about the people lost to me? Something about the man who might have been responsible for killing my child? I start by typing my own name.
I get a mixture of results, most of which seem to spring from Facebook. There are a few people with the name Chloe Daniels, but I can’t find any profile belonging to me. So instead I type in my sister’s name, assuming she will have a profile and also that we would be friends. I search the list. No Chloe Daniels. But I do find my profile. My name is Chloe Jameson. Even the name I thought I had doesn’t really belong to me. Something as simple as that and they kept it from me. But why wouldn’t they tell me my married name?
And there is a picture: me with Joshua, exposed shoulders shiny against a blue sky. The intense blue gives me the impression I might have been on holiday when it was taken. It is recent, I think, judging by the fact that Joshua looks to be around eight years old, the age I know he was when he died.
I can’t see much else on my profile because it seems I was a private person, most of it closed to strangers. I can’t see my friends list, and only a handful of historical updates are visible. There are a few pictures of me, though, some with Joshua when he was younger; some of Andrew too. He looks fresh-faced, not at all like the drinker my father described. And we don’t look like we were falling apart either. There is a picture dated only eight months ago, and we are together, smiling, and close. It is hard to imagine how behind those faces there are problems so severe that I wanted to leave my marriage. Leave him. Terrible enough that either of us would even consider taking our own lives.
My father walks back through with two cups of tea. He hands me one, then pulls up a chair and sits down next to me. ‘What woke you?’ he asks. ‘The cold? More bad dreams?’
‘I guess a bit of both.’ I shiver as a draught winds in through the old window behind me, the curtains swaying as it brushes them aside. ‘Why is it so cold in here?’
‘Heating kicks in just after six thirty. Nobody is usually up at this time.’ I look down at the computer, see that it isn’t yet five o’clock. ‘Care to tell me what was in your dream?’
‘The usual stuff.’ He folds his arms, waits for me to explain. ‘The accident. I saw Joshua, lying on the ground. I couldn’t help him.’
He takes a long breath. ‘Perhaps that’s my fault for telling you the details of what happened. Your mind has started working overtime, trying to piece together the facts. But don’t worry about these dreams, Chloe. They’ll pass. It is just the mind’s way of trying to process everything you are learning. This is why we kept some of the details from you at first. It’s a hard process of acceptance that you are going through.’ He nods at the computer. ‘Did you find anything interesting?’
Although I don’t really trust him, don’t know if I should be talking to him, he remains one of the only links I have to my past. Telling him might help me recall something important. ‘I guess I’m looking for answers, trying to work out who I am. Or at least who I was.’
‘You’re the same person you were before, Chloe.’ He nods his head. ‘And did you find what you were looking for?’ He peers over at the screen. ‘Facebook? I didn’t even know you had a profile.’
‘Apparently I did. Chloe Jameson.’ He doesn’t react to that. ‘I don’t know the password, though, so I can’t really see what I used to put on there. I’m just looking at some of the pictures, seeing if there’s anything I can remember.’
‘And?’
‘Not much really.’
‘Well, take your time. We’ll get there.’
I look at the picture of me with Andrew, and then at my father. ‘I’m not sure that I’ll ever feel normal again. Normal for me was being married, being a mum. I can’t go back to doing either of those things. I don’t know what I’m supposed to be aiming for.’
‘Life, Chloe. Work. The same as we all do.’
Something about his response gives me a surge of bravery. ‘And what is my life like, Dad? Who are my friends? Why hasn’t anyone got in contact with me from my past? What job do I do? I can’t answer any of this, and you and Mum aren’t exactly forthcoming. Being here just makes me more and more confused.’ I can feel myself getting worked up. I know that somewhere in that Facebook profile there are answers, information that could fill in the blanks, yet it remains painfully out of reach.
‘I told you about your job.’ He pauses. ‘You worked for the charity Fresh Starts. After your experiences with Andrew, you wanted to do something constructive. It’s a rehabilitation charity. For alcoholics.’ He drains his cup, sets it on the tray. ‘But don’t put undue pressure on yourself. I remind you again, it’s all about time. In time I promise you’ll feel better. But it’s early for me. I think I’ll get a bit more rest before I start the day. Don’t tire yourself, eh?’ He stands up, kisses the top of my head. But then he notices the picture of me with Joshua on the screen. Wrinkles form around his eyes as he smiles. ‘What a lovely picture that is.’
I’m still smarting that as soon as I challenge him he makes to leave. But in this moment I can almost believe he is just a father trying to help a daughter he loves. ‘I don’t know where it was taken.’
‘Well I can help with that,’ he says cheerfully, as if this knowledge is such a simple thing. ‘It’s Brighton beach.’ He points to a structure in the background, black lines that criss-cross each other and appear to stick right out of the water. ‘That’s the West Pier, the one that burnt down. We’ve got a picture of it in the hallway. The place where you are sitting is probably only a few minutes from your house.’ He pats my arm and walks away.
A memory comes to me as I gaze at the photo. I see Joshua near the water’s edge, smiling, a front tooth missing. Look what I found, Mummy, he says. Next he’s in the sea, the gentle waves lapping at his ankles. He’s pointing to something, a starfish, the edges blurry as I peer into the water. I wait for the turn in events, for him to head into the sea, to start struggling in the waves like he does in my dreams. But it doesn’t come. This memory is just me with Joshua, something good. A happy memory.
‘Dad, before you go.’ He turns, one hand on the door frame. ‘Do you think it could have been Ben out there last night?’
‘Ben Riley, the man who works for me?’ I nod. ‘Chloe, I told you there was nobody there.’ I go to protest but he interrupts. ‘And anyway, what would he want with you?’
I’m not sure what to tell him. I certainly don’t want to tell him what Jess told me, and suggesting that Ben keeps staring at me, or perhaps even wanted to approach me in the house isn’t a possibility. ‘Well if not Ben, what about Damien? Do you think he knows where I am?’
My father edges forward. I see his jaw lock, his lips tighten, and he brings a hand up to stroke his beard. ‘Why would he possibly try to approach you?’
‘It’s just that last night, I was so sure somebody was in the graveyard.’ He starts to protest so I continue quickly. ‘They spoke to me, Dad. I keep thinking about it, and I’m sure I recognised the voice.’
‘And you thought it was Ben?’ Anger simmers.
‘No but … I’m not sure. But if it wasn’t him then maybe it was Damien Treadstone. Maybe he tried to help me on the night of the crash, and that’s why I knew the voice.’
He takes a shaky breath. I am making him nervous. ‘If he’d tried to help you, Chloe, he would have called the police. You were found in the driver’s seat of your car. You were unconscious, probably from the very moment of impact. I told you, what happened last night was almost certainly part of a hallucination.’
‘Then why did it feel so real?’ But it isn’t just the voice. It’s the dreams too, the sensation of being outside in the woods, my certainty that at some point I wasn’t in my car on the night I crashed. Last night I dreamed of a car crumpled against a tree, me running through the forest looking for Joshua. It all felt so real, so much more than a dream; it felt like a memory.
‘OK, let’s assume you’re correct. Tell me why on earth he would come here looking for you.’
‘Maybe he wants to convince me that he wasn’t there at the time of the crash. That’s what he told the police, isn’t it?’
He shakes his head, looks away from me towards the window and the dark mist of the lingering night. ‘Don’t you remember that Dr Gleeson told us to expect hallucinations like these?’ I can’t remember any such discussion. ‘There was nobody there in the graveyard. Don’t you think I or your mother would have heard something if there was?’ His voice softens. ‘You wouldn’t be the first person to see something that wasn’t there after a bleed in the brain.’
‘But I didn’t just see him. I heard his voice.’
‘Well, I’m no neurosurgeon, but if you can experience visual hallucinations, why not auditory?’ He approaches, tapping the edge of the desk with his finger. ‘Time, Chloe. Like I said. And plenty of sleep. You have to take things easy.’
I nod to reassure him. He gives me an appreciative smile and slips from the room. I watch as he ascends the stairs, his head low and shoulders curved in on themselves. He looks a hundred years old, the way he walks away from me.
After I hear his bedroom door close I turn to the keyboard, tap the name into the search box. There are plenty of Damien Treadstones in the search results, but the second image to be displayed is of a scared-looking man, no doubt the same police mug shot that DC Barclay showed me. I click on the link, wait for it to load.
The image comes into view: a brush of stubble, deep shadow rising into the pits of his cheeks, heavy eyebrows, dark circles under his eyes. His hair is a mess. I imagine him being dragged from bed as an officer reads him his rights, another cuffing his wrists. This time something about him seems familiar, although I’m not sure what.
But Treadstone didn’t make it to bed that night. I read how he was picked up in Brighton city centre a couple of hours after the crash, mud on his trousers, his car and keys lost. He had been drinking, was over the limit. He had no alibi that could prove his innocence. I continue to read, steel myself for the details: how I was found unconscious, how it was a race to get me to hospital, drifting in and out of life, how my son was found …
But I can’t do it. I’m not ready for a retelling. I don’t want the gory details, or to face the reality of being truly alone just yet. I shut down the computer and stand up to leave. Then, as I push back the chair I knock into a pile of magazines, sending them tumbling to the floor. I lean down to pick them up, shuffling them back into order.
And there on the desk, hidden beneath periodicals and printed articles, I see an envelope sticking out. It is addressed to me, a house in Brighton, the letter torn open and crumpled and without doubt already read. I pull it out, see the details emerging before me, feel my breath as it catches in my chest.
It is a summons to appear in court. It is from Damien Treadstone’s lawyer. They are calling me as a witness for his defence.