Close to Me Page 14

  ‘Oh, I assumed you were the counsellor . . .’ I say, covering my mouth with my hand as I chew my third biscuit.

  ‘I am,’ he says, turning his head to show me a white scar which runs from behind his ear up into his hairline. ‘Skiing accident, wasn’t wearing a helmet when I collided with a tree, had to have an emergency operation to remove a clot. I couldn’t walk for six months. I was a driving instructor who couldn’t drive, so I retrained.’

  ‘Wow, that’s incredible,’ I say, swallowing. ‘I never would have known.’

  ‘That’s the point, Jo. Our injuries fade, become almost invisible to everyone but ourselves. That’s why we need to find somewhere like this, where people understand what it’s really like.’

  He walks towards the bantering lads who’ve taken to throwing biscuits at one another, his scar more noticeable now he’s pointed it out to me, and a limp I hadn’t picked up on either.

  ‘Matt’s great, isn’t he?’ someone says behind me.

  The voice is familiar from her story to the group, the words spoken slowly and deliberately, a slight slurring of one into another, although I can’t match a face to them until I turn around. Then I place her immediately; the bubbly blonde who dived into a swimming pool at the shallow end, shattering several vertebrae as well as her skull.

  ‘Yes, he seems very capable,’ I reply, glancing again at Matt. ‘I hadn’t realised he was a victim too.’

  ‘You wouldn’t know except for that scar, would you?’ She looks over to Matt, who turns and smiles in our direction. ‘He’s amazing really.’ She adjusts herself to lean against the kitchen worktop, balancing her crutches beside her.

  ‘And you,’ I say, then looking around the room I add, ‘All of you.’

  ‘You liked us, then?’ she asks, sipping her tea. ‘You’ll come back?’

  ‘Maybe,’ I reply, asking myself the same question and finding the answer to be different from what I’d imagined. I’m glad I came, a couple of hours’ distraction from my own difficulties, a sense of perspective gained perhaps, as well as some independence, but I think I’ve already decided it’s not for me. I have too much else that requires my attention, but maybe one day, if I still need it. The thought is at once discouraging, the hope that my memory will quickly return evaporating with the realisation these things can take a long time. ‘Hopefully I won’t need to,’ I say, then looking up from my tea and still mid-thought, I realise how tactless I must sound. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean—’

  ‘It’s frustrating at first, you imagine everything will snap back into place,’ she says, apparently unfazed by my comment, or the slurring of her words as she struggles to form them correctly. She’d told the group, me in particular, that it gets much worse when she’s tired. ‘I used to think I’d wake up one day . . .’ she pauses to place her cup neatly on the saucer ‘. . . and everything would be like it was before, but it takes time.’ She cleans her top teeth with her tongue, mindful I suppose, of the bright shade of lipstick transferring to them, as it has the white cup. ‘You have to be patient,’ she says. ‘I think I’ve remembered everything, then something happens and I get another bit back, another piece of the puzzle.’

  ‘You suffered memory loss too?’

  ‘Three months for me,’ she replies. ‘I thought it was Christmas Day and it was almost Easter.’ She laughs, her smile infectious.

  They’d been in South Africa, she’d told us all, although I’m sure everyone except me had heard the story before. Her repatriation had been a terrible ordeal, which had apparently cost the insurance company ‘gawd knows how much!’

  ‘But your memory did come back?’ I ask. ‘In time?’

  ‘Mostly, but you can’t force it, you have to wait for the triggers.’ I must look confused because she explains how a song, a place, a smell, a chance remark, can suddenly remind you of something. ‘Those are the things that trigger real memories. Force them and you won’t know if you’re reinventing the past,’ she says, licking her pink lips again. ‘At least, that’s what I think.’ She laughs to herself. ‘My husband showed me a photo of the hotel in Jo’burg where I’d had the accident. I hadn’t a clue, not a clue! Then he took me back there and I remembered it all.’ She leans on one of her crutches and snaps her fingers. ‘Just like that!’

  I want to hug her for being the first person to actually give me some hope. I need to push away the images from my past and rely on the facts as I know them, instead of tormenting myself with what may or may not have happened.

  The drive home is much less eventful. I allow my mind to drift, at first turning over the blonde woman’s advice about recovering lost memories, how I mustn’t force them, and then ignoring it again as I scratch at the past, one memory in particular feeling tantalisingly close.

  His face is turned from me as I trace the curve of his naked back with my fingertips, my body filled with desire as I touch his skin. Then he turns over, his face still obscured in shadow.

  I drive on, concentrating on the road ahead, but he’s still there, watching me.

  His hair is thick and dark as it falls over his eyes, his features undefined except for the generous mouth; wide and welcoming, a smile spreading across it as he leans in closer . . .

  I hardly notice my drive up the hill, my mind filled with questions. Could I really have found solace elsewhere? Even contemplated leaving my marriage? I thought I knew myself; a wife, a mother. Faithful, reliable. Defined. The dissonance between the life I thought I was living and the one I am now faced with is impossible to comprehend. Rob and I are so different with one another, detached, wary. Something must have happened to break the trust between us, something terrible enough to wipe away everything we had previously shared and replace it with this distrust and deceit.

  December – Last Year

  ‘Rob, Fin, is that you?’ I rush down the stairs in time to see them come through the front door, both of them loaded up with bags and boxes which they drop at their feet. Rob back-heels the door, shutting out the filthy night. The wind is wailing around the barn, trying to find a way in, the rain battering the roof and hurling itself at the windows. The storms have been with us all week and show no sign of abating.

  ‘Hey, Mum,’ Fin says, accepting my hug.

  ‘Let me see you,’ I reply, holding him at arm’s length. ‘You’re so thin!’ He’s wearing the parka I bought him for university, but filling out the shoulders much less than when we dropped him off, his cheeks hollowed out too. ‘You need to eat more, look after yourself.’

  ‘That’s what I told him,’ Rob says, dragging a bulging bin bag past us. ‘This is all his washing; where do you want it?’

  ‘Take it straight through to the utility room, please,’ I reply, still looking at Fin, who is staring down at his trainers, the laces undone. ‘Please don’t lose any more weight, Fin,’ I tell him.

  ‘I’m fine, Mum,’ he says, looking up at me and smiling. ‘Honestly, I’m fine.’

  I smile too, but the memory of Fin’s tiny arms and legs, so thin you could almost circle them with one hand, still haunt me. He was only nine, picked on by older boys at school for reasons he never properly divulged, his response to throw away his packed lunch each day and pick at his dinner in the evening.

  ‘Christmas tree looks nice in there,’ he says, pointing towards the den.

  Rob shouts through to Fin from the kitchen, ‘I told you, she’s gone completely over the top this year – three trees!’

  ‘Where are the other two?’ asks Fin, looking around him.

  I take him into the sitting room to admire the tall evergreen to the right of the fireplace which fills the room with the sharp scent of pine needles, then I pull back the curtains to reveal a potted fir tree on the patio, smothered in lights. I’ve spent days preparing for his return, filling the food cupboards and fridge with his favourites, decorating the house with not just the trees, but every other Christmas ornament I can sneak past Rob. The drop-in centre has had to manage without me, because my boy is
coming home. And now he’s here, at last, but my excitement is tempered by my misgivings. I had a gut feeling something was wrong which has only been confirmed further by his diminished appearance.

  ‘House looks nice,’ he says. ‘What’s for dinner?’

  ‘Your favourite of course.’ I hug him again, but this time he pulls away. ‘Can’t believe you’re home; a whole month!’ I say, noticing something in his eyes, something withheld. I think he’s going to change his mind, share the thought, but then he closes his mouth and walks out, his tread light and quick on the stairs.

  ‘Have a look at Dad’s new study, and Sash’s room,’ I call up, but he closes his bedroom door behind him.

  I stand there for a moment, looking up the empty stairs, before I walk past the piles of Fin’s belongings dumped in the hall and join Rob in the kitchen. ‘Does he seem okay to you?’ I ask, competing with the noise my husband is creating as he roots around in a drawer.

  ‘Fin?’ Rob asks.

  ‘Yes, of course, Fin,’ I tell him, opening the oven to check on the roast beef. ‘What are you looking for?’ He holds up his beer bottle. ‘Top drawer, where it always is,’ I say, pointing to the correct drawer.

  ‘He’s fine,’ Rob says, rummaging noisily through the jumble of cutlery and utensils until he finds the bottle opener. ‘Hungover probably.’ There’s a hiss as he levers the metal top away from the bottle. ‘Typical student.’ He takes a swig and then asks me, as he has done every day since Sunday, whether I’ve heard anything from Sash today.

  ‘Nope, nothing,’ I reply, closing the oven and turning the temperature down a little. ‘It’s starting to annoy me now; it’s like she doesn’t even consider how this makes us feel.’

  Rob sighs. ‘She’s stubborn.’

  ‘Wonder where she gets that from?’ I ask, raising my eyebrows at him. ‘You don’t think she’ll keep this up over Christmas, do you?’ The awful prospect only just occurring to me.

  Rob pulls out a stool from beneath the kitchen island and sits down, his beer in front of him, the bottle twisting in his long fingers. ‘I’ve tried, Jo. It’s up to her now.’

  It’s true, Rob has reached out to her, but every one of his texts has been ignored, every call rejected. The moment Rob grabbed at Thomas’s lapel he lost her, and so did I. I’ve had the odd word of reply to my numerous messages, but nothing in her short responses gives me any hope. She doesn’t want to see her father, that much is clear.

  ‘Did you say anything to Fin?’ I ask Rob as I lean against the worktop, the oven gloves still in my hand.

  ‘No, I thought I’d wait.’ He lifts his beer to his lips, then pauses and adds, ‘There’s still two weeks until Christmas; lots can happen between now and then.’

  I go into the utility room, distractedly pulling fetid clothes from the torn bin bag filled with Fin’s dirty washing, fingertip searching the pockets of jeans and joggers for forgotten earphones or coins, sorting the mouldering piles of clothing, bedding and towels into darks and lights. But the worry of losing Sash, not only for Christmas but maybe beyond, preoccupies me, so when I look down at the piles they are still muddled. I don’t even notice Rob standing behind me, his emptied beer bottle in his hand.

  ‘You want the recycling bin?’ I ask, standing up to let him through.

  Rob tosses the glass bottle into the bin where it clatters noisily to the bottom. ‘I’ll sort the situation with Sash,’ he says. ‘Whatever it takes. I’ll even apologise to Thomas if I have to. I promise.’

  I hold him then, and he kisses me on the mouth, a kiss that tells me he means what he says. He’s always been the fixer, the one to sort everything out when I panicked over disasters yet to materialise.

  ‘We can’t let Thomas cause a permanent rift,’ I reply. ‘Whatever we have to do it will be worth it,’ I tell him.

  The damp spores from the piles of dirty washing fill the confined space and the dull thud of Fin’s music drifts down through the ceiling as Rob holds me tight, promising me again he will sort everything out, whatever it takes.

  10

  Five Days After The Fall

  The landline is ringing as I walk through the front door, the shrill sound resonating in the empty hallway. I suppose I should be mindful of the fact that it’s almost certainly Rob demanding to know where I’ve been, but it seems to take me longer these days to move from one task to another, my mind still filled with my time at the support group.

  Rob’s tone is abrupt when I eventually pick up. ‘You’re not dead, then!’

  I drop my keys on to the hall table and transfer the phone to my other ear. ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve been out of my mind, Jo. Sash isn’t answering her phone either. I tracked your mobile to home, but—’

  ‘You tracked my phone?’

  ‘Yes, our mobiles are paired so we can track them, don’t you remember?’

  I tell him I don’t and he dismisses my questions with matter-of-fact and somewhat terse replies about how we’d paired them in case either of us ever lost a phone or had it stolen.

  ‘I was worried, Jo. You’ve been missing for hours.’

  ‘I went outside,’ I reply, the story formulating as I speak. ‘To my car.’

  ‘To your car? I told you not to drive!’

  ‘No, you’re not listening.’ I close the front door, which is still wide open, the wind taking it and bending it back on creaking hinges. ‘I didn’t drive, I just started up the engine to make sure the battery wasn’t flat.’ It surprises me how easily the unprepared lie comes.

  There’s silence then he says, ‘You can’t have been outside for the last two hours.’

  ‘I took a pill,’ I reply. ‘Must have knocked me out.’ I walk quickly up the stairs to our bedroom, the home phone to my ear.

  ‘Are you feeling unwell?’ Rob asks. ‘You sound out of breath.’

  ‘I’m fine except for you and your constant questions!’

  I hang up and throw myself on the bed, reaching for my mobile phone on the bedside cabinet, deleting all his messages with a jabbing motion of my finger as I berate myself for forgetting to take it with me. Perhaps it’s a symptom of my brain injury, this forgetfulness, but it’s more that the replacement phone feels meaningless to me, as if it isn’t mine. I stare at the blank notifications screen, then click on the Find My Friends app, the first time I can recall seeing it, let alone using it to trace Rob’s whereabouts. The landline rings again and I snatch it up and shout, ‘Go away, Rob!’

  ‘Mum, it’s me.’ There’s a pause, then Sash asks, ‘Is everything okay?’

  ‘Of course it is.’ I sit up on the bed. ‘Your father’s been stalking me; that’s all. Hang on . . .’ I throw a couple of painkillers back with some dust-filmed water and pick up the phone again. ‘Sorry about that, you okay?’

  ‘Stalking you?’ Sash laughs, but she sounds hesitant, and I’m distracted too, looking at my mobile again. The app is still trying to locate Rob’s mobile, then it notifies me the Wi-Fi signal has been lost; unreliable as always in the barn.

  ‘Mum? You still there? I rang to ask you how the support group went.’

  ‘It was good, definitely worth going.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘No but.’

  ‘Look, Mum . . .’ There’s another long pause. ‘If it’s Dad’s opinion you’re worrying about, then don’t. I won’t say anything.’

  And there it is, the thing I first noticed the day I came home from the hospital. Rob and Sash are different with one another, there’s a gulf between them that wasn’t there before, something unspoken and wrong. They still have that bond, excluding at times, but since my fall I’ve noticed small but significant changes in their relationship. Rob was so cross when she let slip about Fin leaving university, his temper quick, as though it had been there all along, waiting to resurface at the slightest provocation. Sash’s mistake was a genuine one, but that did little to quell his obvious anger. And she did accuse him of ‘pulling the strings, telling us what we can
and can’t say’.

  ‘Is there a problem between you and your dad?’ I ask her, sitting up straighter on the bed, trying to ignore my headache so I can concentrate on her reply. ‘Something you’re not telling me?’

  Sash hesitates for so long I wonder if she’s still there, but I can hear her breathing, slow and steady. ‘No, of course not,’ she says. ‘Why do you ask that?’

  ‘Sash, please. If there’s something I should know . . .’

  Again, she pauses before she replies, ‘I’m sorry, Mum. I promised Dad.’

  ‘Promised him what?’

  ‘I’m at work, Mum. This isn’t a great time.’

  I lean back against the pillows, my head pounding. I should let her go, but I can’t. ‘I’d like you to tell me now, Sash.’

  I think she’s going to use work as her excuse again, but then she replies, her words rushed out so I need to rewind them in my head to gather the full meaning, ‘Dad told Fin and me we’re not to tell you anything that’s happened since your memory loss, he said he’ll tell you when the time is right, when you’re strong enough, he said the last year was so awful that . . .’ She stops abruptly.

  ‘What, Sash? Tell me!’

  ‘Mum, I can’t. This isn’t fair, Dad means well. I’m sure he does.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Maybe I got it wrong, maybe I misunderstood.’ She hesitates again.

  ‘I mean it, Sash. You need to tell me. I have a right to know.’

  ‘Okay, but only if you promise not to tell Dad.’

  I tell her of course I won’t, then she clears her throat and says, ‘I’m only telling you this because I want you to get better as soon as you can and because I don’t agree with him, you do have a right to know.’

  ‘Are you saying your father doesn’t want me to get better?’

  ‘No, of course not. It’s just . . .’

  ‘What did he say to you Sash, tell me!’