he said at last, sitting back and licking a moustache of froth off his top lip with his tongue.
‘You brush up quite well yourself,’ I replied with a smile.
We sat in silence for a moment, contemplating each other over our glasses.
‘I’d really like to get to know you better.’ He blurted it out as if he’d been unable to prevent his thoughts escaping him.
I must have looked rather apprehensive about the unexpected remark, because he grinned widely and took my hand in his.
‘I mean, I’ll tell you something about my life, and you can tell me something about yourself.’
‘You start then,’ I said, trying not to show that it felt as though his touch was setting my hand on fire.
‘Okay. Well, for a start I’m not married,’ he said, answering the question I’d been itching to know. ‘I was engaged to a girl for a while a year or so ago, but she ran off with a friend of mine.’ He took a swig of his lager and looked me in the eye. ‘Your turn.’
‘I lived with a guy for a while, but it didn’t work out. I moved out and got a place of my own two years ago. I live alone now, apart from Frankie of course.’
‘My elderly father lives with me,’ he said. ‘He’s an old rogue, but his heart’s in the right place. You’d like him.’
‘I’m sure I would.’ I yawned suddenly and clamped my hand over my mouth, embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry. It’s been a long day, especially after what happened…’
‘Come on,’ he said, downing his pint and pulling me to my feet. ‘I shouldn’t have asked you out this evening, especially as you struggled in to work today. You would have been perfectly within your rights to have stayed in bed all day.’
I longed to tell him that bed was the last place I wanted to be. That was the place where I was thrown into a bizarre alternate world, but that information wasn’t something I thought would go down particularly well on our first date.
He walked me to my car, and I apologised again for having to leave almost before our evening had begun.
‘I’ll ring again in a few days, when you’ve had a chance to recover properly,’ he said, giving me a chaste peck on the cheek. ‘Go on, get yourself home. What you need is a good night’s sleep.’
It was gone ten o’clock when I clambered at last into bed and snuggled down with Frankie on the floor beside me in her basket. I was so tired, I didn’t even have time to fret about what might lie ahead of me. My last thought was that the nightmare might all be over by now. Perhaps the lightning had, after all, induced hallucinatory dreams, and that being the case, maybe I would never have to be Lauren again.
As it turned out, there was no such luck.
I felt myself being shaken awake by Dr Shakir, who was standing over me looking extremely concerned.
‘How do you feel, Lauren?’ he asked as I opened my eyes.
‘Fine,’ I replied groggily. My head felt as if I was waking from the deepest of sleeps, my eyes were having difficulty opening, and I was sure my lids were puffed up like a pig’s.
‘We have been worried about you. Do you remember who you are?’
I contemplated for the briefest of seconds telling him that I was Jessica Taylor, but decided against it almost immediately. What was happening to me was the result of no medical condition Dr Shakir would ever have encountered. There seemed no point in doing anything other than playing along with this strange game in which I found myself once again.
‘I’m Lauren Richardson,’ I said. ‘I’m married with four children.’
‘Lauren, sweetheart!’ came a voice from the other side of the room. ‘You’ve got your memory back!’
I turned my head to see Grant advancing on me, eyes bright. ‘We—the doctors and I—thought you’d gone into a coma! We thought we were losing you all over again.’ And, to my horror, my husband gathered me in his arms and began to sob uncontrollably.
Dr Shakir snapped his fingers at Nurse Sally. ‘Fetch Mr Richardson a cup of hot sweet tea, would you, nurse?’
‘Grant,’ I said from somewhere beneath his shirt, ‘you’re suffocating me.’
‘Don’t do that again, my love,’ he said, releasing me, but taking hold of both my hands as he perched on the edge of the bedside chair. ‘I couldn’t bear it if you left us.’
I stared with some embarrassment into the tear-stained face of this man who was gazing at me with such love. I told myself to think him as if he were the husband of a good friend. I knew that if I were an onlooker and not the object of his love I might have been moved by his obvious devotion. The knowledge quelled my instinctive feelings of alarm and I found a small spark of compassion. Grant was not a strong man.
‘I’ve only been asleep,’ I told him gently. ‘I’ve felt so tired since this all happened.’
His eyes darted to Dr Shakir, who shook his dark head as if my condition was a new one on him.
‘The nurses have been trying to rouse you since seven o’clock this morning, Lauren,’ Dr Shakir said. ‘In the end I was called, because they feared you had fallen into a coma. We ran tests, but although they showed your metabolism had slowed considerably, your vital signs have remained steady. We simply couldn’t wake you up.’
‘I think,’ I said slowly, realising that my worst fears had been justified. ‘That I might be needing a lot of sleep from now on. I’m sure there’s no need to worry about me, though.’
‘Lauren!’ Grant exclaimed, undisguised exasperation overlying his earlier tone of abject misery. ‘They’ve been trying to wake you for the last three hours. That’s not normal, sweetheart.’
‘Wouldn’t you rather have me back for a few hours a day than not at all?’ I asked him shortly.
Grant looked affronted, but I ploughed on regardless.
‘What I’m trying to tell you is that if you let me wake when I’m ready, I’ll probably recover a lot quicker.’
Grant nodded eventually and went out into the corridor. I heard him calling the children and I closed my eyes again, mentally preparing myself to try to be suitably motherly to his children.
‘Lauren,’ Dr Shakir’s voice murmured softly. ‘Is there something you aren’t telling us?’
‘Like what?’ I asked, frightened suddenly that he knew my secret.
‘I don’t know. Maybe your memory has returned more than you are willing to admit?’
‘Why should I say I don’t remember things if it’s not true?’ I asked. I was unsure what he was getting at, but he was looking at me strangely, and I didn’t like it.
‘You have a very demanding home life,’ he said with a shrug. ‘Everyone seems to depend on you. It can’t be easy to cope with four children under the age of eight, especially as one of your twins has special needs.’
I stared back at him, relieved that he thought I was shamming. It was a lot better than the prospect of him discovering the truth. I had no intention of spending the rest of my days in a laboratory, being hooked up to monitors while I slept, and having my life examined in minute detail. I decided to act as if affronted by his comment.
‘If you’re insinuating that I’m delaying my recovery on purpose, then I can assure you, you couldn’t be further from the truth.’
‘You haven’t seemed too eager to see your children since you’ve been in hospital,’ he pointed out. ‘No one’s blaming you, Lauren, everyone deserves a rest sometimes.’
‘Perhaps I should share my secret for a peaceful life with other harassed