don’t, really. I can’t. I can’t imagine them, or picture what they look like. It’s like they don’t even exist.’
He looked disappointed. ‘Is that what you think?’ he said. ‘That your life is ruined?’
‘Yes,’ I said after a few moments. ‘Yes. That’s what I think.’ He was silent. ‘Isn’t it?’
I don’t know what I expected him to do, or say. I suppose part of me wanted him to tell me how wrong I am, to try and convince me that my life is worth living. But he didn’t. He just looked straight at me. I noticed how striking his eyes are. Blue, flecked with grey.
‘I’m sorry, Christine,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. But I’m doing everything I can, and I think I can help you. I really do. You have to believe that.’
‘I do,’ I said. ‘I do.’
He put his hand on top of mine, where it lay on the desk between us. It felt heavy. Warm. He squeezed my fingers, and for a second I felt embarrassed, for him, and also for me, but then I looked into his face, at the expression of sadness I saw there, and realized that his action was that of a young man comforting an older woman. Nothing more.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I need to use the bathroom.’
When I returned he had poured coffee and we sat on opposite sides of the desk, sipping at our drinks. He seemed reluctant to make eye contact, instead leafing through the papers on his desk, shuffling awkwardly. At first I thought he was embarrassed about squeezing my hand, but then he looked up and said, ‘Christine. I wanted to ask you something. Two things, really.’ I nodded. ‘First, I’ve decided to write up your case. It’s pretty unusual in the field, and I think it would be really beneficial to get the details out there in the wider scientific community. Do you mind?’
I looked at the journals, stacked in haphazard piles on the shelves around the office. Is this how he intended to further his career, or make it more secure?
He smiled. ‘Good. Thank you. Now, I have a question. More of a sort of idea, really. Something I’d like to try. Would you mind?’
‘What were you thinking?’ I said. I felt nervous, but relieved he was finally about to tell me what was on his mind.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘according to your files, after you and Ben were married you continued to live together in the house in east London that you shared.’ He paused. Out of nowhere came a voice that must have been my mother’s.
‘It’s quite near where you live now.’ I began to understand what he might be suggesting. ‘I thought we could leave now and visit it on the way home. What do you think?’
What did I think? I didn’t know. It was an almost unanswerable question. I knew it was a sensible thing to do, that it might help me in some undefinable way that neither of us could yet understand, but still I was reluctant. It was as if my past suddenly felt dangerous. A place it might be unwise to visit.
‘I’m not sure,’ I said.
‘You lived there for a number of years,’ he said.
‘I know, but—’
‘We can just go and look at it. We don’t have to go inside.’
‘Go inside?’ I said. ‘How—?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ve written to the couple who live there now. We’ve spoken on the phone. They said that if it might help they’d be more than happy to let you have a look round.’
I was surprised by this. ‘Really?’ I said.
He looked slightly away — quickly, but enough for it to register as embarrassment. I wondered what he might be hiding. ‘Yes,’ he said, and then, ‘I don’t go to this much trouble for all my patients.’ I said nothing. He smiled. ‘I really think it might help, Christine.’
What else could I do?
On the way there I had intended to write in my journal, but the journey was not long and I had barely finished reading the last entry when we parked outside a house. I closed the book and looked up. The house was similar to the one we’d left that morning — the one that I had to remind myself I live in now — with its red brick and painted woodwork and the same bay window and well-tended garden. If anything this house looked bigger, and a window in the roof suggested a loft conversion that we did not have. I found it hard to understand why we’d left this place to move what must be only a couple of miles away to an almost identical house. After a moment I realized: memories. Memories of a better time, before my accident, when we were happy, living a normal life. Ben would have had them, even if I did not.
I felt suddenly positive that the house would reveal things to me. Reveal my past.
‘I want to go in,’ I said.
I pause, there. I want to write the rest, but it is important — too important to be rushed — and Ben will be home very soon. He is late already; the sky is dark, the street echoing to the sounds of slammed doors as people arrive home from work. Cars slow outside the house — soon one of them will be Ben’s. It is better if I finish now, if I put my book away, hide it safely in the wardrobe.
I will continue later.
I was replacing the lid of the shoebox when I heard Ben’s key in the lock. He called out when he came into the house, and I told him I would be down in a moment. Though I have no reason to pretend I have not been looking in the wardrobe, I closed its door softly, then went to see my husband.
The evening was fractured. My journal called to me. As we ate I wondered if I could write in it before washing up; as I washed up I wondered if I should feign a headache and write when I finished. But then, after I had tidied the kitchen, Ben said he had a little work to do and went into his office. I sighed, relieved, and told him I would go to bed.
That’s where I am now. I can hear Ben — the tap tap tap of his keyboard — and I admit the sound is comforting. I have read what I wrote before Ben got home and can now once again picture myself as I was this afternoon: sitting outside a house in which I once lived. I can take up my story.
It happened in the kitchen.
A woman — Amanda — had answered the doorbell’s insistent buzz, greeting Dr Nash with a handshake and me with a look that hovered between pity and fascination. ‘You must be Christine,’ she said, tilting her head to one side and holding out her manicured hand. ‘Do come in!’
She closed the door behind us. She was wearing a cream blouse, gold jewellery. She introduced herself and said, ‘Stay as long as you like, OK? As long as you need.’
I nodded, and looked around. We were standing in a bright, carpeted hallway. The sun streamed through the glass panels in the window to pick out a vase of red tulips that sat on a side table. The silence was long and uncomfortable. ‘It’s a lovely house,’ Amanda said eventually, and for a moment I felt as if Dr Nash and I were prospective purchasers and she an estate agent keen to negotiate a deal. ‘We bought it about ten years ago. We just adore it. It’s so bright. Do you want to go through into the living room?’
We followed her into the lounge. The room was sparse, tasteful. I felt nothing, not even a dull sense of familiarity; it could have been any room in any house in any city.
‘Thank you so much for letting us look round,’ said Dr Nash.
‘Oh, nonsense!’ she said, with a peculiar snort. I imagined her riding horses, or arranging flowers.
‘Have you done a lot of decorating since you were here?’ he said.
‘Oh, some,’ she said. ‘Bits and pieces.’
