Fractured(40)

‘That’s lucky then. I’d hate to see what she’d do if she didn’t like me.’

He laughed hollowly, but as he gathered up our dirty cups and prepared to leave the room, I could see he was still puzzled by the cat’s inexplicable reaction to me.

Sometime later that afternoon he knocked on the door of my old bedroom with yet another cup of tea. I’d had gone there initially to find something warmer to put on than the silk suit I’d left the hospital in, but had become completely sidetracked by going through the contents of my old wardrobe and chest of drawers. Beside me on the floor lay piles of old magazines, clothes and mementoes.

My father picked a precarious path through the debris and laid down the steaming mug on the bedside table.

‘I guess I wasn’t too hot on throwing stuff out when I left home.’

‘You could say that. Still, it might come in handy now. Jog your memory a little.’

I swept a hand across the random collection on the floor. ‘Most of this stuff is from ages ago. I knew it all already.’

And though I knew it pained him, I had to let him know how I was really feeling. ‘I haven’t changed what I believe, Dad. I know you’re desperately hoping I’m suddenly going to have a huge revelation, and start remembering stuff, but I really don’t believe that’s going to happen. You see, I haven’t forgotten anything. There are no blanks in my memory. None at all. I can detail the last five years for you moment by moment. It’s just a different five years.’

The mixture of pity and love in his eyes forced me to stop there. I wasn’t helping either my own case or his to understand it any better.

‘Let’s just see what the specialist has to say, Rachel. How about that?’

I nodded slowly. I had to let him hold on to that for a little while longer. He still believed in the omnipotence of a medical ‘specialist’ almost as strongly as he did in the curative powers of tea.

Before leaving me to pack away the residue of my youth, he stopped at the doorway.

‘By the way, I reckon I’ve figured out what must have spooked the cat earlier on.’

I looked up from a huge pile of magazines destined for the recycling bin.

‘Yes, I’ve been thinking about it all day, as it was just so strange. Then I realised it must have been your smell.’

‘Well that’s nice, Dad.’

‘No, I don’t mean like that, but you probably smell of the hospital; you know, antiseptic, medical kind of smell. That was what must have made her act so crazy. She’ll be fine with you now, you’ll see.’

I wanted to believe him, I really did, but to me it looked far more like the cat had simply been defending her territory from someone she had never seen before in her life.


By the morning there had still been no phone call from the hospital. In fact the only call at all had been one from Matt telephoning from his hotel room in Germany. I tried to hide the disappointment in my tone when I realised it wasn’t Dr Tulloch on the line but instead my newly acquired fiancé. Fortunately Matt didn’t seem inclined to chat, and the whole conversation was over and done with in under ten minutes.

‘How’s Matt?’ enquired my father when I had hung up, and something in his tone snagged my attention and made me look up.

‘He’s fine. Pretty busy with work, I guess.’ Working on pure instinct I leapt in feet first with the next question.

‘You don’t like Matt much, do you?’

He fumbled with the newspaper he was flicking through, and I think he took a fraction too long before replying.

‘Of course I do. What nonsense. Why ever would you think that?’

‘I don’t know, something in your tone, in your eyes…’ I trailed off.

He met my enquiry full on.

‘Even if I did… have doubts, I would never say anything when he is clearly the one you want to be with. And you’ve been together for a very long time now.’

‘Not in my world we haven’t. We broke up shortly after the… Well, shortly after leaving school.’

My words seem to ignite a strange look of curiosity.

‘Interesting, that: that your amnesia has manufactured a world where Matt isn’t your fiancé at all. I wonder what that could all be about?’

And clearly thinking he was onto something with this line of thought, he continued, ‘And tell me, are you and Jimmy an item in this “other” life of yours?’

I gave a sigh. Did no one listen to what I was saying?

‘No, hardly, Dad. Not with him being dead and all.’

There was a strange and pregnant silence between us. Our eyes met and held for a long moment before we both decided it was wisest to drop the subject.