the door closed behind her friend, Claire went up to her room. Climbing into bed and hugging Molokai, she reached for her mobile phone. It was as if her fingers once again had a life of their own. They knew exactly what numbers to press to unlock the phone. She looked through every photo until she came across the one she was looking for. Stroking her mother’s beautiful face with her fingertips, she struggled not to cry. Her mother was smiling at her as if telling her everything was going to be okay.
Claire loaded her contact list, hoping to find her mother’s number. And there it was, listed under Angela, ten digits that just a few short weeks ago she had probably known by heart. She stared at the number, blinking rapidly, reading it out loud, rolling every syllable off her tongue, hoping it would trigger a shadow of recollection, a glimmer of hazy remembrance.
Her whole body trembling, she pressed the call button. The phone rang and rang.
* * *
As Claire followed her husband across the hospital car park and through the front entrance, she realised she was petrified of the real world. She had spent a morning in that world and felt out of place, an outsider looking in. But at the hospital she was at home. As if this was where she belonged. Others had childhood memories, heartwarming and sweet, sometimes bitter, but always there to remind them that once there had been a different life, a different journey. They had memories of weddings, anniversaries and holidays by the sea. All Claire had was this place, with its closet-sized rooms, grim corridors and overworked staff. Nothing had changed here since the day before. It was still grey, shabby and depressing. So why did it feel so infinitely comforting to be walking down the familiar corridor?
No one expected her to be herself here, she realised. No one expected her to be anything. She could just be. Wake up in the morning, eat her meals, wrinkling her face in disgust, have her meds. She didn’t have to make decisions because they were made for her, by the doctors and the nurses. And that was what she missed when she stayed inside her beautiful mansion wearing her designer clothes, living someone else’s dream life but feeling like a prisoner.
She wished she could go back to her old room and remain like before, confined within her small world where nothing threatened her peace. She wished she could sit by the window, watching the oak tree outside, longing for a different life but not forced to go out there and live it. Could she stay with her father instead of going back to the alien house with a husband who treated her like a stranger? Of course, her father was a stranger to her, too. But she’d spent so long watching him, studying his face for clues, memorising his every feature, she felt she could open her mouth and recount every little detail of his life. His life was on the tip of her tongue, at the edge of her subconscious.
On the drive to the hospital, she had asked Paul what her father was like. ‘He’s not the friendliest man in the world. I don’t think he likes me much,’ he’d said. ‘But he’s your father. He loves you.’ His answer wasn’t what she wanted to hear, and it didn’t match the inner picture of her dad she had painstakingly created over long hours of watching and thinking, so she put Paul’s words to the back of her mind, to that place where her other memories were hiding.
But now, as she was about to face the man who had known her since the day she was born, the man she remembered nothing about other than the shape of his nose and the curve of his mouth, she wondered why her husband would say something like that. Didn’t Paul and her dad spend time together, discussing football and weather over a pint of beer? Were there no family barbecues, Christmases and birthdays where sausages sizzled on the grill and intoxicated confidences were exchanged late into the night? Or maybe Paul not getting along with Tony was completely natural. Fathers didn’t always like to share their little girls with their husbands. And husbands were often intimidated by their fathers-in-law.
As she turned the handle and pushed the door to her father’s room, she tried to calm her beating heart. She didn’t want the nurses at the reception area to hear it but how could they not? The thumping in her chest was deafening. It was like church bells ringing in her ears.
Her mind was filled with snippets of imaginary conversations with her father. Would she know what to say? Would he know what to say? Would they be able to pick up where they had left off, even though she couldn’t remember anything? Her relationship with her father, was it instinctive? Was it in her blood, in his blood? Did it transcend crashing cars and lost memories? She didn’t want small talk with her father. She wanted him to tell her who she was.
The door wouldn’t give in. She pushed and pushed.
‘Here, let me help,’ said Paul, pulling the door lightly, making her feel silly and a little light-headed. ‘Good luck. I’ll wait here for you.’
‘You aren’t coming in?’
‘I’ll give you two some privacy. In the meantime, I’ll speak to his doctor.’
A part of Claire was relieved she was about to face her father alone. She felt a little less nervous meeting him unobserved. She didn’t want their relationship to be judged by an outsider, even if that outsider was her husband. She wanted to be alone with her dad, to find her own way back to him, to let him find his own way back to her.
On tiptoes she walked in, sliding her feet as if she were on stage, performing a pas de deux she hadn’t yet mastered. She paused in the doorway, watching the man on the bed just like she had so many times over the past two weeks. Only this time everything was different. This time he was awake.
She wondered if she would always remember this moment. Everything in her life was about to change. Or, rather, a little bit of her old life was about to come back.
From where she stood she couldn’t quite tell whether he was sleeping. Not a part of him moved and his breathing was calm. Without the ventilator inhaling life into her father’s lungs, the room seemed quiet and lifeless. Tony was tall and broad-shouldered, a bear of a man, but he appeared frail, propped up on his pillows and leaning to one side. He didn’t seem to hear her. She took a few steps forward.
He looked like an old man laid out on a white sheet, his stubble making his face look grey, his eyelids trembling like butterfly’s wings. Her heart pricked with pity.
‘Dad,’ she called out softly. She sounded high pitched and unsure of herself. Was she being presumptuous, calling him that? It didn’t feel unnatural. Quite the opposite, the word slipped out easily, on reflex. Yes, she didn’t know anything about him, but he wasn’t a stranger. He was blood. Shaking a little, her legs unresponsive as if they were filled with cotton wool, she crossed the room and perched on the edge of his bed.
He didn’t stir. His eyes were closed. Just like all those other endless days in the hospital, she studied him in silence, trying to memorise the features that she had known since birth but that were completely unfamiliar to her. A straight nose, bushy eyebrows, wide cheekbones, a mop of grey hair that needed a comb.
Suddenly, unlike all those other times she had sat here, he moved his arms in his sleep. Claire got up, her cheeks burning. She needed to cool down, feel cold water on her face. Slowly and uncertainly, as if she was learning how to walk, she made her way to the bathroom attached to his hospital room and leaned on the sink, watching her face in the mirror.
‘Good afternoon. How are we feeling today?’ came a loud voice. Claire peeked through the creak in the door and saw a doctor leaning over Tony. He wore a white coat over his business suit. There was a cold smile on his face, a smile of someone who was paid to care but didn’t.
‘Never better,’ croaked Tony. He sounded hoarse, like he was recovering from a bad cold.
‘That’s good to hear. If it’s alright with you, I am going to ask you a few questions, just to see if your memory has been affected. Take your time to answer. There’s no rush. And don’t worry if you can’t remember something. It’s completely normal in your condition. Can we start with your name?’
‘Wright. Tony Wright.’
‘Very good, Tony.’ A machine gun fire of questions followed – what was his address, his date of birth, his occupation, his marital status, how