I sit down at the table while he dries his hands on a tea towel. When he looks up at me, his expression is sad. ‘Chloe, I want to say how sorry I am about everything. I mean, really, I can’t imagine what you must be going through.’
‘Thank you.’
He shifts awkwardly, puts his hands in his pockets. I point to the briefcase that he set down next to the kitchen door. I don’t want to linger on the past now, the possibility that what happened was not only my fault, but intentional.
‘Did you want to leave something for my father?’
‘Yes. He needs to review a set of notes ready for a departmental meeting tomorrow. He asked me to drop them off. He obviously didn’t realise he’d have to go into work. Will he be back soon?’
‘I’ve no idea.’ I think of his anger this morning, not sure I even want him to come home. ‘Do you want to call him?’ He nods, reaches for his phone. ‘You might as well use the house phone. You won’t get any reception out here.’
I stay in the kitchen while he makes the call. After a few minutes he comes back in from the hallway.
‘He’ll be home soon,’ he says. ‘He asked me to wait with you. I’m sorry, but I mentioned that you had slipped over outside, and … well…’ He knows he has dropped me in it. ‘I think he felt guilty that he went to work and left you here alone.’
‘You don’t have to stay if you have other things to do,’ I say. ‘I’m fine.’
He lets go of a heavy breath. ‘You’ve had surgery for a bleed. Your father’s right, if you hit your head when you fell, then—’
‘Really, I’ll be fine.’
But he shakes his head, pulls off his scarf, touches my arm briefly with gentle reassurance. ‘I’m more than happy to stay.’ He nods towards the kettle. ‘I take mine with milk and one sugar.’
I boil the kettle and set out the mugs. It sparks a reminder of another kitchen, making tea for somebody else. Who was it there with me? Andrew, in our old house, while things were still good between us?
Dr Thurwell—Guy—must notice the difficulty I have with my coordination, because when the kettle clicks off, he gets to it first, helps me finish the job. I am grateful for the quiet, easy assistance, and we sit together at the kitchen table, where he tells me what he can about the risk assessment. He says that he knew it was a waste of time from the moment I spoke to him.
‘I just knew immediately you weren’t the kind of woman to crash a car on purpose. I was aware that you had fought your way back when all the odds were against you. I knew you weren’t someone who would just give up.’
His words bring such relief that I can barely articulate it. But then a few minutes later my father calls, asks to speak to Guy. He is needed back at the hospital after all. He tells him to leave the notes on his desk and return as soon as possible.
I open the door to the study and we step inside, that familiar smell in the air, everything old and troubled by dust. I can feel it in my throat. Guy gazes around at the books, the piles of papers. He casts a look over the desk as he sets down the brown file, notices my father’s Roberta award.
‘I always used to wonder what people did with these after they took them home.’ He picks up the glass trophy, then puts it back down as he notices the picture of me with my sister and parents next to it. ‘Wow, look at you here,’ he says as he picks up the frame, holds it with a smile. ‘What a great photo.’
I reach across, take it from him, set it face down on the desk. I don’t want him to see me like that. I don’t want him to think of me now as a shadow, a lesser version of someone else. He looks embarrassed.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say.
‘No,’ he says, hands up. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s just a lovely photo, that’s all.’ My hand is still on the frame, but he reaches towards it, momentarily rests his hand on mine. He wants to look again. ‘May I?’
I let go of it and glance away as he gazes upon the face of the woman I used to be. After a moment he sets it back upright in the place it was before. ‘It’s a lovely photo,’ he says. ‘Don’t worry. You’ll get back to normal soon.’
‘I hope that’s true.’
‘Of course you will. Your father will help you. He’s an expert when it comes to memory. If anybody can help you, it’s him.’
I sit on the edge of the desk. He is still looking down at the photo. ‘An expert in memory?’
‘Yes,’ Guy says, surprised, as if I should have known. ‘That’s his speciality, if you like. Experimental psychiatry. In particular, memory and its formation. That’s why he won this Roberta award a few months ago. He wrote a paper about the creation of false memories and how you could use them in the clinical setting to ease the burden of past traumas. He proposed that if you could provide somebody with an alternative history, just a few subtle changes, then the trauma would cease to be so debilitating. That actually the patient would learn to believe in the memory construct and eventually be able to leave the trauma behind.’ He lets go of a breath. ‘Amazing stuff.’
‘That sounds like science fiction,’ I tell him, still trying to process what he’s said.
He laughs. ‘Yes, only it’s not. It’s a proven fact. The mind does it all the time. Like when you lose your keys and you’re so certain that you put them in one place, and then they turn up somewhere else entirely. The mind is malleable, Chloe. Open to suggestion. Your father hypothesised that by creating false memories under hypnosis, you could get a person not only to believe in something that had never happened, but also to forget something that actually had.’
‘What?’ A cold shiver runs down my arms. ‘Hypnosis?’
‘I know. He’s quite a remarkable man. Anyway,’ he says, ‘I really should be getting back.’
He picks up his briefcase and heads towards the door. The hall clock shows he has been here for nearly an hour. He steps outside underneath the wisteria that clings wet and barren to the frame of the porch. The sound of falling rain intensifies; water pools in muddy puddles on the driveway.
‘Listen, Chloe, your father said that your mother should be home soon anyway. You just get yourself back inside. It’s freezing out here. But you need to give me the code to get out.’
I do as he asks then watch as he follows the driveway, pulling up his collar to protect his neck from the rain. After a while he turns back to face me, smiling, before he disappears into the fog. Seconds later the red lights of his car are disappearing into the distance. The chill is so strong it stings my eyes.
I close the door and walk to the living room, stare at the mess on the floor. I have never asked myself what exactly it is my father does at work. But memory specialist? Is it possible that he is using me as part of some strange treatment plan I know nothing about? I have to start taking charge of the things that are going on around me. I have to grow to be more than a remnant of the person I once was.
I start by picking through the broken china to find my wedding ring. I want it back, that connection to the old me, that woman in the photograph who was beautiful and radiant and who impressed people just by the sight of her. When I can’t find it, I grab the letter from the mantelpiece and go to the phone to call Damien Treadstone’s lawyer. I want to warn him that his client was here at the house, get it on record before my father organises another therapy session, tries to convince me it was all a hallucination.
I find it difficult to control the thoughts going round in my head as I stare at my old address on the letterhead. I can’t remember the place that I used to call home. Can barely even picture it save for a few sporadic flashbacks. Why can’t I remember the old me? My son? My husband? My life?
I dial the solicitor’s number. A secretary picks up, tells me that Treadstone’s lawyer is at lunch, unavailable. I leave a message asking him to call me back, giving her the number written on the base of the phone. Even as I hang up, I know he won’t, and I wonder how bad it will look when this effort at contact is raised in court.
I gaze at my reflection in the hallway mirror. I notice a fresh drip of blood on my cheek, so I grab a tissue, push it up against the wound. The phone begins to ring. I snatch up the receiver.
‘Hello?’ I say.
‘Is that Chloe?’ A woman’s voice. Nobody I recognise. ‘I’m Alison, and I’d love to talk with you for a moment if you have time.’
Alison? Do I have a friend with that name? Does this voice belong to a person from my past? Nothing comes to mind.
‘Are you calling me from the lawyer’s office?’
She laughs. ‘No, Chloe. I’m calling you from the Argus. I want to interview you for a piece we are running about you and Damien Treadstone, get your version of events regarding what happened that night.’ I glance across at the magazine rack and see an old newspaper lying there, The Argus printed across the top. ‘I thought you’d want to tell your side of the story. After all, it’s only fair we give you the opportunity to speak to us before we write about your accident. Plus it’s quite something for you to be called as a witness for the defense, when really you’re the victim in all this.’
I hang up, or at least I try to. I don’t know if it’s the blood loss or shock, but I miss the telephone base and feel my legs go weak. My eyes fuzz over like they’re suddenly filled with water. A trickle of blood creeps down my death-pale face. I’m going to faint, I think as I reach for the table. Seconds later I hit the deck, the last thing I see the bloody tissue scrunched up in a ball on the parquet floor.