object sandwiched between my lips, my teeth, pushing past my tongue and sliding down my throat. My body seems strangely unfamiliar, as though it might belong to someone else, but everything is accounted for, all the way down to my feet and toes. I can feel all ten of them and it brings such a sense of relief. I am all here in body and mind, I just need someone to switch me back on.
I wonder what I look like, whether someone has brushed my hair or cleaned my face. I’m not a vain person, I would rather be heard but not seen, preferably not noticed at all. I’m nothing special, I’m not like her. I’m more of a shadow really. A dirty little smudge.
Although I am frightened, some primal instinct tells me that I will get through this. I will be OK, because I have to be. And because I always am.
I hear a door open and the sound of footsteps coming towards the bed. I can see the shadows of movement shuffling behind my veiled vision. There are two of them. I smell their cheap perfume and hairspray. They are talking, but I can’t quite make out the words, not yet. For now, it is just noise, like a foreign film with no subtitles. One of them takes my left arm from beneath the sheet. It is a curious sensation, like when you pretend your limbs are floppy as a child. I flinch internally at the feel of her fingertips on my skin. I do not like to be touched by strangers. I do not like to be touched by anyone, not even him, not any more.
She wraps something around my upper left arm and I conclude it is a tourniquet as it tightens on my flesh. She gently puts my arm back down and walks around to the other side. The second nurse, I presume that’s who they are, stands at the end of my bed. I hear the sound of paper being manipulated by inquisitive fingers and I imagine that she is either reading a novel or my hospital file down there. The sounds sharpen themselves.
‘Last one to hand over, then you can skedaddle. What happened to this one?’ asks the woman closest to me.
‘Came in late last night. Some sort of accident,’ replies the other, she is moving as she speaks. ‘Let’s get some daylight in here, shall we, see if we can’t cheer things up a bit?’ I hear the scratchy sound of curtains being reluctantly drawn back and find myself enveloped in a brighter shade of gloom. Then, without warning, something sharp stabs my arm. It is an alien sensation and the pain pulls me inside of myself. I feel something cool swim beneath my skin, snaking into my body until it becomes a part of me. Their voices bring me back.
‘Have they called the next of kin?’ asks the older-sounding one.
‘There’s a husband. Tried several times, straight to voicemail,’ replies the other. ‘You’d think he’d have noticed his wife was missing on Christmas Day.’
Christmas Day.
I scan my library of memories, but too many of the shelves are empty. I don’t remember anything about Christmas. We normally spend it with my family.
Why is nobody with me?
I notice that my mouth feels terribly dry and I can taste stale blood. I’d give anything for some water and wonder how I can get their attention. I focus all of myself on my mouth, on forming a shape and making a dent, however tiny, in the deafening silence, but nothing comes. I am a ghost trapped inside myself.
‘Right, well, I’m off home, if you’re happy?’
‘See you later, say hi to Jeff.’
The door swings open and I can hear a radio in the distance. The sound of a familiar voice reaches my ears.
‘She works on Coffee Morning, by the way, they found her work pass in her bag when they brought her in,’ says the nurse who is leaving.
‘Does she now? Never heard of her.’
I can hear you!
The door swings shut, the silence returns and then I am gone, I am not there any more, I am silently screaming in the darkness that has swallowed me.
What has happened to me?
Despite my internal cries, on the outside I am voiceless and perfectly still. In real life I’m paid to talk on the radio but now I am silenced, now I am nothing. The darkness churns my thoughts until the sound of the door opening again makes everything stop. I presume that the second nurse is leaving me too and I want to shout out, to beg her to stay, to explain I’m just a little lost down the rabbit hole and need some help finding my way back. But she is not leaving. Someone else has entered the room. I can smell him, I can hear him crying and I sense his overwhelming terror at the sight of me.
‘I’m so sorry, Amber. I’m here now.’
He holds my hand a little too tightly. I am the one who has lost myself, he lost me years ago and now I will not be found. The remaining nurse departs, to give us space or privacy or perhaps just because she can sense the situation is too uncomfortable, that something is not as it should be. I don’t want her to go, I don’t want her to leave me alone with him, but I don’t know why.
‘Can you hear me? Please wake up,’ he says, over and over.
My mind recoils from the sound of his voice. The vice tightens around my skull once more, as though a thousand fingers are pushing at my temples. I can’t remember what happened to me, but I know, with unwavering certainty, that this man, my husband, had something to do with it.
Monday, 19th December 2016 – Afternoon
I was grateful at first, when Matthew said I could take the rest of the day off. The team had already scattered for lunch, which meant I could avoid any questions or fake concern. It’s only now, as I make my way along Oxford Street, like a salmon swimming against a tide of tourists and shoppers, that I realise he did it for himself; no man wants to sit and stare at a woman’s tear-stained face, knowing that he’s responsible.
Despite being a December afternoon, the sky is bright blue, the sun pushing its way through the scattered unborn clouds to create the illusion of a nice day against a backdrop of haze and doubt. I just need to stop and think, so I do. Right in the middle of the crowded street to the annoyance of everyone else.
‘Amber?’
I look up at the smiling face of a tall man standing right in front of me. At first, nothing comes, but then a flicker of recognition, followed by a flood of memories: Edward.
‘Hi, how are you?’ I manage.
‘I’m great. It’s so good to see you.’
He kisses me on the cheek. I shouldn’t care what I look like, but I wrap my arms around myself as though I’m trying to hide. I notice he looks almost exactly the same. He’s hardly aged at all, despite the ten years it must have been since I last saw him. He’s tanned, as though he’s just come back from somewhere hot, flecks of blond in his brown hair, no hint of grey. He looks so healthy, clean, still uncommonly comfortable in his own bronzed skin. His clothes look new, expensive and I expect the suit beneath the long woollen coat is handmade. The world was always too small for him.
‘Are you OK?’ he asks.
I remember that I’ve been crying, I must look awful. ‘Yes. Well, no. Just had a bit of bad news, that’s all.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
I nod while he waits for a conversation I don’t know how to have. All I can seem to remember is how badly I hurt him. I never really explained why I couldn’t see him any more, I just left his flat one morning, ignored his calls and completely cut him off. He was studying in London, we both were. I still lived at home so I stayed at his flat as often as I could, until it was over, then I never went back.
A woman texting as she walks collides into me. She shakes her head as though it is my fault she wasn’t looking where she was going. The jolt shakes some words from their hiding place.
‘Are