Fractured(38)

‘I’m sorry, dear, you can’t use your mobile in here.’

Rudely I ignored her, swivelling my body away from her and putting a finger in my free ear, the better to hear what was being said at the other end of the line.

‘Really, I’m going to have to ask you to hang up. I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until you get outside.’

I gave her a look and something in my eyes must have told her to drop it.

‘You have reached the offices of Dr James Whittaker,’ a tinny voice announced in my ear. ‘I’m afraid there is no one here to take your call. Our hours are…’ I flung the phone down on the mattress in frustration.

The nurse eyed me warily as I frantically sought for pen and paper among the stranger’s handbag debris on the bed.

‘Look, I really need you to do me a favour,’ I urged, ripping a back page from a diary and scribbling hurriedly upon it. ‘This is the name and number of a doctor in London who has been treating me for… well, it doesn’t matter. It’s just he’ll know who I am. Can you get Dr Tulloch to call him and he’ll be able to confirm everything about my headaches and… and, well, all the other symptoms.’ I thrust the paper towards her and she hesitated for a second before taking it and placing it in the pocket of her uniform.

‘You will remember, won’t you? It’s very very important.’

Her look of annoyance at catching me using a mobile had been replaced by one of saddened compassion. I think I preferred her angry face.

‘Ask him to ring me at my father’s when he’s got through to Dr Whittaker. Any time – day or night. It doesn’t matter. Everything will all make sense then.’

She was still looking incredibly sorry for me as she placed Matt’s flowers slowly down on the bed, as though on a graveside, and left the room.

When my father came to collect me a little while later, I decided not to tell him about finding the doctor’s number on the mobile phone. It would all make sense soon enough, once the hospital were able to confirm that everything I had told them was true. There was no need to endure another unsolicited explanation of how ‘this was all part of the amnesia’.

Of course, I hadn’t yet figured out how confirming my medical history could answer any of the other glaring anomalies that surrounded me. Little things: like people being back from the dead, cured of illnesses, and let’s not forget the unexpected addition of a fiancé. Mentally I threw these problems to one side as though they were wafts of confetti. I wouldn’t allow my racing thoughts to get sidetracked. Dr Whittaker first: the rest would all fall into place after that.


Our old house looked the same. That’s to say the same as it had five years ago, which was conversely not the same as it had been when I’d stood before it a few days earlier. The iron railings and wooden shutters had disappeared, as if they never were. The front door and window frames had regained their unkempt look and could now all do with a fresh coat of paint. Likewise the state of the garden had suffered an obvious decline. It all looked wonderful.

The first surprise came only seconds after opening the front door. I stepped across the threshold, closely following my father, and then took a sharp step backwards as a bolt of something long and black streaked across the hall and into the lounge.

‘What the hell was that?’

‘It was only Kizzy. We must have startled her.’

She hadn’t been the only one.

‘And Kizzy would be?’

‘Our cat. Well, my cat now, I guess, since you left home.’

I took a second to absorb this surprising information. My childhood had been remarkably bereft of pets, aside from the odd goldfish or two, and it was peculiar to learn that my father now owned one.

‘You bought her for me when you left for university. So I wouldn’t be so lonely, you said.’

Well, that had been quite nice of me.

I followed him slowly down the corridor taking in this new revelation. I had gone to university. And as I walked into the shabbily familiar lounge there, proudly displayed on the wall, was the evidence of that. My own face stared back at me from the large gilt-framed photograph. Swathed in gown and wearing a mortar board, there was no mistaking the look of pride in those eyes as I held in my hands a fancily engraved scroll. Absurdly I felt my eyes begin to prickle with tears. I had graduated. I had gone to university, gained a diploma and achieved my dreams. For the first time I actually questioned why I was so driven to tear down a world that might actually be far better than the one in which I really lived.

‘Cup of tea?’ questioned my dad, already halfway towards the kitchen to put on the kettle. He came from a generation where no problem was so huge that it couldn’t be solved by simply pouring hot water onto a bag of tea leaves. I called out my response, but instead of sitting down to rest in one of the well-worn but comfortable-looking armchairs, I found myself wandering restlessly around the room, searching for… I’m not sure what I was searching for: was it definitive proof that this whole world around me was false, or was it to find evidence to prove that, unbelievably, it might actually all be real?