staring at Claire with her mouth open. She was the one who looked alarmed.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Claire. ‘I don’t know what came over me. I’m so sorry.’
She longed to put her head on the woman’s chest and cry her heart out. There was something maternal about her.
‘Oh no, Miss. Don’t be sorry. You have panic attack. You not well. I know you have memory problem. Mr Paul tell me. But I know how to make you feel better. You come and sit. I make you something.’ The woman sounded foreign. Claire could hardly understand her.
Nina led Claire to a chair and, after making sure she was comfortable, proceeded to the kitchen. Claire heard the fridge door open and close, the sound of a knife on a cutting board and then a loud noise of a kitchen appliance, perhaps a juicer or a blender. Relieved and a little embarrassed, she put her head into her hands and tried to slow her breathing but her heart was racing and she felt dizzy and nauseous.
Five minutes later, Nina emerged with a glass of juice. ‘Your favourite. Apple, watermelon, kale, ginger. It will make you good as new.’
To make Nina happy, Claire took a sip, her hand shaking so badly, the glass rattled against her teeth. She forced her voice to sound normal. ‘So, Nina, where are you from?’
‘Scotland.’
‘You don’t sound like you’re from Scotland.’
‘Well, I am. But before then, Russia. I left to escape cold.’
‘You went to Scotland to escape the cold?’
‘Nowhere as cold as Russia,’ explained Nina. ‘Not even Scotland. We have snow nine months a year.’
Nina wiped the table, while Claire carried her empty glass to the sink and started washing it. ‘No, no, I do that,’ said Nina, rushing to Claire’s side and wrestling the glass from her as if she was afraid she would instantly lose her job if Claire as much as lifted a finger.
‘I don’t mind helping,’ said Claire.
Nina looked at her like she couldn’t believe her ears. ‘You sit, relax. I’m very sorry for your accident. You not yourself, Miss.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You even look different. Expression in your eyes, it change.’
Intrigued, Claire asked, ‘What was I like before?’
‘Honestly? You walk around like world owe you favour. This is first time you speak to me.’
‘How long have you worked here?’ It occurred to Claire she didn’t like the sound of her old self very much. What kind of person didn’t speak to someone who cleaned and cooked for her?
‘I am with you and Mr Paul three years now. Since you move into house.’ Nina’s cheeks jiggled as she dried the glass with a tea towel. Her face was plump, like she had eaten too many Russian blinis. ‘So it is true? You not remember anything?’
Since she’d woken up in hospital, Claire had seen this reaction many times. It was a mix of pity and curiosity. She wanted none of it. She cleared her throat and asked, ‘Nina, did you ever meet my mother?’
‘Of course I meet her. She come every week.’
Claire stared into space, lost for words. ‘What is she like?’ she muttered.
‘You not know what your mother is like?’
Claire looked at the stain on the floor where Nina had spilled a bit of juice. ‘She went away for a while. I haven’t seen her since the accident. And since I don’t remember anything …’
‘I cannot believe your mother go away at time like this. She loves you so. You always complain she crowd you, call you too often. Every time you sick, she move in. You hate it.’
‘She sounds lovely,’ whispered Claire.
‘Your mother is beautiful gentle person. Always nice words to say to me. Even let me borrow her dress.’ Sitting next to Claire, Nina added, ‘The only one she not like is Mr Paul. Do not worry. When your mother come back, she make everything better.’
‘Wait, what did you say?’
‘When?’
‘About my mother and Paul?’
‘They no get along. I always see them argue.’
‘Argue about what?’ exclaimed Claire.
But Nina didn’t seem to hear. She was chattering away, while her mop never stopped moving. ‘I think it is matter of mind. Your brain protects you from traumatic memories. But if strong mind, you can overcome.’
‘You mean, like mind over matter? If I try hard enough, I’ll get my memory back?’
‘Exactly.’
Claire wondered if perhaps Nina was right and all she had to do was force herself to remember. In vain she probed the void inside her head. No matter how traumatic the memories, she wanted them back. Every single one.
Nina stopped in the middle of the kitchen, put her mop down and said, ‘What you want for dinner, Miss Claire? I go to market. I cook.’
‘Anything, Nina. I don’t mind. And thank you.’
While she waited for Nina to return from the market, she opened her walk-in wardrobe and examined row after row of designer clothes in awe. She tried on a gorgeous Dior dress and a high-heeled pair of Jimmy Choo shoes. The dress made her look sophisticated, glamorous like a movie star, messy hair notwithstanding. This beautiful house and expensive clothes, was it really her life? She felt like an impostor as she posed in front of the mirror.
Then again, what did she know about herself?
Judging by the photos Paul had shown her and the Amazon jungle of flowers in her hospital room, she was a woman who had many friends. She was popular, social and liked to entertain. She was a woman who danced for a living. That required discipline and determination. She must have been hardworking and dedicated. She was a woman who wouldn’t even speak to her housekeeper, as if she was beneath her.
Shuddering, Claire turned away from the mirror.
To take her mind off her dark thoughts, she decided to search her room. Her chest of drawers was filled to the brim with personal belongings. Old envelopes, cinema tickets, coins, all clues to who she was, all in disarray. The drawers were at odds with the rest of the house – like an island of chaos in her otherwise perfect universe. She rifled through various items that had once defined her life but no longer meant anything to her. There were dozens of old programmes featuring Claire in a white tutu, graceful like a swan and just as delicate. ‘Claire Wright as Cinderella’, she read. ‘Claire Wright as Sugar Plum Fairy’. She spent a long time looking through each programme, touching the photos, feeling them through her fingertips.
And then, under the old cinema tickets, under the brochures and the programmes, she came across a brown envelope. Intrigued, she peered inside at what seemed like an official document. One by one she pulled the papers out of the envelope and spread them on her bed. ‘Divorce on the ground that the marriage has broken down irretrievably,’ the papers said. Claire read it a couple of times, her brain refusing to process what it saw at first. Did she and Paul file for divorce? Although the names on the documents confirmed it, she didn’t want to believe it.
So Gaby had told her the truth. They did have issues. But why would Paul lie to her? Why would he say they were happy together when clearly they weren’t?
Claire shoved the papers under her bed as far as they would go and sat on the floor, her back against the wall. The silence was deafening. She felt the dizziness again, the darkness closing in on her, the scream rising in her chest. She didn’t want to be alone. What she needed was to hear a friendly voice, to talk to someone who cared. She forced herself to get up and change back into her casual clothes, then she walked downstairs and called her father. He didn’t answer