My eyes flicker open, registering the pained look on my father’s face looming above me. I have woken up screaming. I could hear myself in the final moments, when day and night are truly blurred, that moment when you are neither awake nor sleeping. His wrinkles are etched as deep as geographical fault lines, his voice shrill and urgent. The rain continues its assault against the window, streaming down the glass in the same way as the sweat runs across my face. Church bells chime to mark the start of another new day, the first of a new month. December: the last month of the year. Another juncture draws to a close.
‘Chloe,’ he says, hands pulling at my floppy body. He draws me in close to him. ‘It was just a dream. You’re all right now.’ He strokes my wet hair away from my face and presses me into the soft flesh of his chest. My wounded head throbs at his touch. The scent of his deodorant is strong, his skin freshly showered.
‘He was drowning,’ I say as I try to escape his grasp. Our eyes meet; his are glassy in the pale light, his pupils black and bulbous as a seal’s. ‘He was drowning and I couldn’t save him.’
‘Who was drowning?’ my father asks as he looks to my mother, just arriving at the door to my bedroom.
‘I don’t know. A boy. Oh God, I couldn’t save him.’
‘Oh Chloe, it was just a bad dream,’ he says again, squeezing me tighter still. ‘Look at you, you poor thing.’ He smoothes his hand over the curve of my head. ‘You’re shaking.’
I scramble from his grip and push the sheets aside. Despite the weather, I am burning up. I can hear the sound of Jess moving around outside my room. My mother looks out into the corridor, ushers her away.
‘I can’t breathe,’ I say, hurrying to the window. I throw it open, gasp for breath, the cold air a shock to my lungs.
Then my father is at my back, a hand rubbing at my shoulder. ‘Dreams are nothing for us to be alarmed about, Chloe.’ He shoos my mother away, and although she seems reluctant at first, she does as she is told. ‘But you must rest, Chloe. You need to take your time, like Dr Gleeson told us, especially with that head wound. Don’t rush to get up.’ He edges me back towards the bed, plumps the pillows as I sit. I allow him to cover me and tuck the sheets in tight. ‘Try to get some sleep.’
After my father’s sessions, my dreams are always vivid. Last night it was a boy, faceless, drowning in the shadow of Brighton pier. I watched as he ran down the beach, ducking under the rafters. I was edging towards the water, scared to go in, desperate to save him yet powerless to do so. A couple of nights ago it was a car chase, me trying desperately to reach the car in front. I didn’t see the boy’s face that time either. I only saw his body, in the moments before I woke. He was lying on a forest floor, covered in blood.
By the time I get downstairs, my parents have both gone out. I feel so jealous of their freedom, the ability to come and go as they please. I glance out of the window to see both of their cars missing. And just on the edge of the driveway Ben is kneeling alongside a bush, trimming back the dead branches. He is young I think, certainly no more than thirty, but his face is well wrinkled, weathered by the elements and a life outside. He smokes a lot, badly made roll-ups which he has to light over and over as they dangle from his mouth. I turn away, go to find Jess, who is in the kitchen, nursing a cup of tea.
‘Morning,’ she says, smiling. ‘Are you OK?’
It is such a simple question, but one I feel overwhelmingly incapable of answering. Am I OK? I have no idea. I can barely tell her who I am or what I’m doing here. I feel like a cardboard cut-out of my previous self.
‘Not sure.’ She smiles and motions to a chair. I take a seat. ‘It’s all still a bit confusing.’
Out of the three of them, Jess has been the most relaxed with me since I came home. On the first day as I stood in the hallway, unsure how to act in surroundings I didn’t recognise, I slipped off my jacket with Jess’s help and then with some discomfort managed to wriggle out of my trainers. I reached down, held them up. ‘Where should I put these?’ I asked.
For a second she appeared puzzled, as if my question didn’t make sense. Then she took them from me, tossed them underneath the round table that stood in the middle of the large hallway. ‘Don’t act like a guest,’ she said, a sad smile crossing her lips. I didn’t know how to tell her that a guest was exactly what I felt like. I was here in a house and a life that didn’t feel like mine. What else was I supposed to do?
‘Of course it’s confusing,’ she says. ‘You can’t expect to wake up from a coma and just slip straight back into your old life.’ Even the word shakes me. Coma. It’s just four short letters but seems infinitely huge. ‘You’ll get there. You just have to give it time.’ She looks away, almost embarrassed. ‘That’s what Dad says, anyway.’
‘It all just feels so alien. I wish I could get outside, go for a walk at least. That way maybe I would recognise something. I can’t stand being cooped up in this house.’
She stands up, sets down her cup of tea. ‘Well nobody is here to stop you. Why don’t we go out together?’
‘Dad said I shouldn’t, remember?’
‘Yes, but Dad’s not here.’ She flashes me a wink. ‘Anyway, I’ll be with you. I’ll make sure you’re all right.’
We slip on our coats and leave the house. The day is crisp and chilly, moisture clinging to my limp curls and woolly hat. We walk side by side up the driveway, able only to see a short distance ahead, not even as far as the treeline. And just up ahead I see Ben pushing a wheelbarrow. He has never seen me out of the house before.
‘Don’t tell him anything about this, OK?’ Jess tells him as we pass. I sense him stop just behind us, the crunch of the gravel as he sets the wheelbarrow down on the ground. He is at least six feet tall and broad shouldered. His blond hair is damp with fog.
‘She’s not supposed to go out,’ he says to my sister. ‘Dr Daniels says she’s not well.’
Jess turns with her hands on her hips. ‘So are you going to try to stop us? You’re the groundsman, not the guardsman.’
Ben looks nervous, fiddles his hands into his pockets. ‘It’s for her own good, Jess. That’s what he says.’
‘You can always tell him what we’ve done. After all, he’s very interested in the truth, isn’t he?’ Ben takes a step back at that. Briefly his gaze flickers to me, but his eyes soon settle on his feet. Jess moves in close to me, links her arms through mine. ‘Come on, Chloe. Let’s go.’
And as we walk away I glance back over my shoulder to see him watching us as we leave. When he sees me staring he picks up the wheelbarrow and turns away. ‘What was all that about?’ I ask Jess as we arrive at the gate.
‘Nothing. Don’t worry about it,’ she tells me. But it feels as if there is more to that exchange than Jess wants me to understand.
When we arrive at the gate, I watch as she taps in the code, try to memorise the numbers. I say them over and over in my head. Then with a quiet beep the gate opens, we move through and she locks it behind her. That is all it took. Four numbers. We are out of the house, walking along the road towards Rusperford village.
As we walk, she tells me about her chemistry degree, about explosive lab experiments and how she wants to become a forensic toxicologist. A boy she is seeing and planning on dumping when she returns to university after Christmas. But I’m not really listening; instead I am looking around at the trees, the road, waiting for something to come into view. I’m enlivened by this liberation, my pain lessened and my spirits raised. I notice the church and the graveyard on my right, a cenotaph in the grounds just peeping through the mist. My world is growing. Across the road there is a hotel, the only visible part the sign at the start of the driveway. Have I been there in the past? I think maybe I have. I point to it.
‘We used to come here sometimes at Christmas,’ Jess tells me. ‘Back when things between Mum and Dad were easier than they are now.’ I gaze at the hotel peeping at me through the mist. It is still only a sense of knowledge I have, an idea without proof. An illusion almost, like fog, there one minute and gone the next. I can’t tell her anything about the hotel, like the decoration inside, or some funny anecdote about how Dad nearly choked on a sprout. I don’t know anything specific, or even understand what she means about things with Mum and Dad. But I can feel my past in ways I couldn’t before. We continue the walk in silence, my eyes hungry for more.
As we near the centre of the village, I realise that we drove this way from the hospital, but still it feels like the first time I am seeing it in years. There’s a used-car garage and a hairdressing salon ahead. A small village green with a duck pond, a layer of mist clinging to the surface. We follow the road as it runs along the edge of the woods, and although I have been walking for less than ten minutes, with Jess’s arm for support, the reality of my injuries begins to supersede my enthusiasm; I can feel my leg beginning to hurt, the headache growing underneath my woolly hat. I didn’t bring the walking stick: a test for myself that I appear to have failed.
I stop for breath, hold on to a gate that leads to a small park. It feels as if my lungs might explode as I gaze across the wet grass towards the swings. Clouds form as I gasp for breath, drawing damp air into my lungs. Moisture clings to tree branches like jewels encrusted on spindly boughs. I notice some kind of wooden hut alongside the playground, a slide and a bench too.
And for a moment as I stand there, a clear thought comes to me, a vision of myself sitting on a park bench similar to the one in front of me. I am waiting for something, somebody perhaps. My nervous hands are so fidgety I have to trap them under my legs. It is summer, the scent of roses drifting by on a warm breeze. But Jess loops her arm through mine again, and just as fast as it came, the vision is gone.
‘We used to come here as kids,’ she tells me. I ignore her at first, searching the space before me for something that resembles the vision in my mind. Is it actually a memory? If so, from when? From where? ‘Don’t you remember?’ she urges.
‘Not properly. I have all these thoughts going round in my head, things I can’t explain. I just wish I could remember something that would help me. Something solid.’
‘Maybe I can help,’ she says, shrugging her shoulders. ‘That is, if you feel you can talk to me. You used to be able to. We used to be close.’
I think of the pictures from the family albums, the sight of us together in sibling unity, juxtaposed against the alien feel of her touch when she brushes against my skin. If we used to be close, that was in a different life. I was a different person then.
‘I don’t think I can, Jess. It’s hard to open up to people I…’ I stop myself, not wanting to offend her when she has been so good as to go against my father’s instructions and bring me out.
‘That you don’t know?’ Embarrassed, I nod, relieved that she appears to understand and that she isn’t angry or upset. ‘The thing is, Chloe, although you can’t remember me, I remember you. Maybe some of the things you want to talk about are things we have already discussed. Maybe there is a history we share that could help shed some light on who you were…’ She pauses, her turn to feel awkward about what she’s just said. I notice her cheeks flush bright pink. ‘I mean are. Who you are, Chloe.’
She fiddles at the handle of the gate, scratching at the paint with the edge of her nail. Even she knows the old me has gone. I used to think that there was a clear distinction between life and death: either you were here or you weren’t. Now I know that you can be alive and still feel completely detached from the world.
‘Anyway, I could help, I’m sure of it. You just have to be prepared to give me a chance.’
I look up. Could she be right? ‘Really? So we were close?’ It’s hard to imagine all that shared history is lost to me. But maybe if I can find the courage to speak to Jess, open up to her now that we are alone, she might be able to help me discover something of the woman I used to be. The woman I still am?
‘We used to trust each other, Chloe, talk about the stuff we wouldn’t talk to anybody else about. At least before you left home.’ She smiles, hops up onto the gate. It rattles under her weight. It’s the only thing that breaks the silence. ‘The sort of things we would have kept from Dad.’
‘OK,’ I say, glancing over at the play equipment. ‘I feel like he’s keeping something from me. Like something happened before the crash and he is trying to stop me from remembering it. Do you have any idea why I feel that way?’
She shakes her head. ‘I was thinking more along the lines of telling you that you used to waste hours watching Friends repeats, or that you used to eat a whole tub of ice cream in one go. Or even the fact that Ben once tried to kiss you. That sort of thing.’
‘Once tried to what?’
She sniggers at my shock. ‘Why do you think he stares at you all the time? He’s always had a thing about you. He used to help you tack up your horse, and one time when you were alone in the stables he got the wrong impression.’
‘Oh my God.’ I think of all the times I have caught him staring, and I realise those desires must still exist. All those times I have tried to make polite conversation; does he think I’m still interested? Was I ever interested?
‘I know; he’s like a gypsy or something. As if you’d have been interested. Anyway, you never said anything to Dad about it because you felt bad that he might lose his job, so don’t worry about Ben. He won’t drop us in it with Dad. If he did, we could tell him what happened.’
‘Still that doesn’t explain why I feel this way about Dad, though.’ I’m anxious to say the next part aloud. I take a deep breath. ‘He scares me a bit, Jess. I keep having these dreams, always the same thing. I sure they have something to do with the crash, but when I tell Dad about them, he just brushes it off. I keep dreaming about a boy. At first I was chasing him in a car, then he was lost out at sea. Another time I dreamed he was being buried alive.’ That was before I left the hospital. ‘I feel like something awful happened that I can’t explain.’
‘It did, Chloe. You lost your memory. That’s the awful thing.’ She hops down from the gate, loops her arm through mine again.
‘I think it’s something more than that.’ I lick at my cold, chapped lips. ‘Jess, please tell me. I didn’t hurt anybody in the accident, did I? I didn’t run somebody over?’
She is silent for a moment, and I’m sure I see a dampening of her eyes. She reaches out, strokes my face. She might be over a decade younger than me, but in that moment it feels as if she is much older. ‘Don’t you think we would have told you if something like that had happened?’
‘Not if Dad told you not to. Please be honest with me. If you know something, tell me the truth.’
‘Chloe, it was just a terrible accident, that’s all. It was raining, and the place you crashed is notoriously dangerous.’
I feel so stupid in this moment, so helpless and naive. It seems that when you can’t trust yourself, you can’t trust anybody. ‘I guess so.’
‘Dad’s difficult, yes, but he would have told you if something like that had happened, don’t you think? Now come on, I don’t want to tire you out. Let’s get you home. Ben’s probably missing you.’ I nudge her in the arm and she laughs again. ‘I’ll put the kettle on and we can curl up and watch some of those Friends repeats you love so much.’
We move off, Jess’s arm through mine, her grip tight enough that it helps take the weight from my damaged leg. If I come out again, I must bring my stick, I think.
Halfway back to the house, I see a young woman walking towards us, moving fast, pushing a buggy. I look down to see a small blonde-haired boy kicking about inside it, like the boy from my dream. And as she passes us, I can’t help but stare, as if that little boy is everything I’ve ever wanted in the world.