In the moments after they leave, the silence is suffocating. Every day is the same: the quietness of a strange house, the emptiness I feel inside. In those first few moments alone I feel a deep-rooted sensation of panic, worrying about what I am going to do until they come back and provide me with a purpose, a place in the world. Because despite my fears, they’re all I have. Until they come back it’s just me, and I have no idea who that is.
They have told me a few things about my life, but it’s like having a jigsaw with most of the pieces missing. The knowledge I have about myself is so limited and vague. I know that my name is Chloe and that I’m thirty-two years old. That before the accident I worked as a lawyer. I had a house of my own, not too far away from here. But I don’t have any details that would give life and colour to these facts. I was happy, they tell me. My life was good. But it all feels flat and fake, like a Band-Aid over wounded skin. I need to pull it off, look at the scar that runs across the left side of my scalp where Dr Gleeson excavated an epidural haematoma. It’s sensitive to the slightest thing. I’ve taken to wearing a woolly hat at all times, but I’m not so detached from reality that I can’t appreciate how ridiculous I must look to the people with whom I share this house.
At first I refused to come home with them. My parents. My family. It seemed odd, I thought, to go to a house with people I didn’t know. When we were alone, I confessed to Dr Gleeson, the neurosurgeon who stopped the bleed in my brain, that I thought they might be imposters, that perhaps they were there to take advantage of my amnesia. They smelt funny to me, and still do; apparently a heightened sense of smell is a side effect of the surgery. A scalpel in the brain can really affect the senses. He just laughed, rested a slender hand on mine and told me not to worry, and now here I sit, in the kitchen of the house in which they tell me I was raised.
I hear the handle of the back door, turn to see Ben, the man who cares for the estate kicking off his boots as he enters the house. I smile, and he just about manages to return the gesture. He seems nervous around me, can only really look at me when there’s a distance.
‘Looks cold out today,’ I say as he moves from the kitchen to a small utility room at the side. I hear him clattering about, searching for something maybe. He appears moments later with a set of keys. ‘There’s been a frost, hasn’t there?’
I often try to speak to him this way, meaningless chatter, passing the time. He’s polite, but I can tell he doesn’t feel comfortable around me. He glances at my head a lot, thinking about the damage underneath my hat.
‘Ground’s frozen solid,’ he says, slipping his feet back into the muddy boots.
‘Are you heading to the stables?’ I ask, eyeing up the keys.
‘Yes.’ He motions to the door. ‘They need mucking out.’ Seconds later he is gone.
After Ben leaves I move to the fridge and glance at the list that my father made for me in the earliest days after leaving the hospital. I was like a zombie then, narcotised and unused to the medication. I am still taking corticosteroids, antibiotics and antiepileptics: reduce the swelling, prevent infection, minimise the risk of seizures. But I can’t concentrate long enough to work out my new regimen, so the list tells me the tasks I have to do daily.
Number one is a reminder to perform my exercises. They are simple enough: arm raises and leg movements designed to restore my muscles and strength. We also have a huge inflatable ball that I sit on and rock about. Apparently it’s good for core strength. Next on the list is medication. Just like in the hospital, my tablets are laid out for me in a small pot on the side, but I know I’m not supposed to take the next set until my mother gets home. They like to make sure I’m getting it right. The third item is food. I open the fridge door, and find a plate of sandwiches wrapped tight under cling film.
I pull one out and take a bite, but despite my steroid medication, which is supposed to increase my appetite, I never really feel hungry. The only craving I have is to get out of the house, rediscover my own life. Stuck inside this place, with its high ceilings and draughty doorways, makes me feel like I am still in a coma. So after I finish my sandwich, I do what I do every day: I slip my arms into the sleeves of one of my mother’s overcoats, and slide my feet into her shoes. I take the keys and open the front door, and with the aid of the walking stick that the physiotherapist made me bring home I walk to the end of the driveway. It’s tiring and difficult, and each time I do it I have to return to bed afterwards, to sleep for an hour. But I make myself do it while Ben is at the rear of the house, to feel the damp air cold against my skin, the wet atmosphere as it wraps around my body. I do it because it’s all I have.
I’ve been walking up to the gate every day for a week now, ever since the day my father first refused to take me back to my own home. The one I used to live in in my previous life. I don’t know where it is yet, or what it’s like, but I’m sure just seeing it would help other details return to me. He told me I wasn’t ready. He told me I was too ill. I asked him to show me a picture of it, to tell me something about it, but still he wouldn’t talk. I looked at my mother, begged for her to relent. She stared down at the floor, quiet under his watchful eye.
‘You’re not ready yet, Chloe. I will let you know when you are. This is what I do for a living. I know best when it comes to these things.’ That was all he said.
So I decided to leave, my mind made up. That was when I found the gate locked. That was when I realised I couldn’t leave even if I wanted to. So here I am again at the edge of my parents’ land, my hands gripping the damp wood of the gate. This is as far as I can go thanks to an unbroken perimeter fence. I glance up the road into the thick white air. I can’t see anything, but I know there is a village out there; a hairdresser’s, a garage, houses full of people and lives. Surely there has to be. I rattle the gate, test it as I do each day. But it is locked with a code. Something else I don’t know. Something else they won’t tell me.
Standing here unable to leave, I feel as if they are trying to keep me prisoner.