The Memory Game

Eighteen

Against all expectations, I felt that my analysis was making me less judgemental than I had been. Instead of brooding about Martha and about Chrissie, or conducting a sterile debate about it all in my mind, I could talk to Alex about it. He wasn’t shocked by the things I was telling him and he wasn’t pruriently interested and although he could be critical of me, scathing indeed, I never had to apologise to him. When it came down to it, I believed that he was on my side. I trusted him. Well, who else could I trust?

The day after returning to London, I arrived at Alex’s house with bundles of Christmas shopping, like a traveller passing through. I leant the bags against the couch. Occasionally, as I talked, I ran my fingers along their rumpled plastic, a sensation of normality. I needed it. When I told him about Martha and my father, I almost thought he might laugh, it seemed so excessive and sleazy and pathetic. But he didn’t and he didn’t offer any stupid sympathy. And when I described the encounter with Chrissie, I thought he might be irritated by this new example of my amateur detective work. I was a bit apologetic and defensive as I repeated what she had said about all the awfulness with Alan and Natalie and I was surprised when Alex only nodded with interest.

‘I’m not going to be able to dissuade you from this sleuthing, am I?’ There was a note of exasperation, but it was okay.

‘It’s not sleuthing, Alex. It’s just pottering around, really. I have this feeling I’m looking for something. I just don’t know exactly what it is.’

‘Yes.’ Alex sounded pensive. ‘I just wonder if you might be looking in the wrong place.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘You intrigue me, Jane. You have the technique of a magician. When you point me in one direction, I feel it’s a sleight-of-hand and the important thing is happening somewhere else.’

‘That all sounds too clever for me.’

‘You’re deceiving yourself as well, of course. Something is looming ahead and you both want and don’t want to find it.’

‘What do you mean, Alex? Do you think I’m on the right track?’

There was another of Alex’s long pauses. I could feel my own breathing and my heart like a ball bouncing inside my chest. Something was coming. When he spoke it was with great deliberation.

‘What I feel, Jane, is that you are on the right track in the sense that I think there is something definite to be found. But you’re looking for it in the wrong place. You’re going to talk to people who are never going to be able to solve your problem. Where you should really be looking is in there.’

I felt Alex’s cool hand on my brow and I almost jumped away from the couch. It wasn’t the first time he had ever touched me, but it felt startlingly intimate. Surely he had missed my point.

‘Alex, I’m not denying that your therapy is important and helpful. But when I’m talking to people, then, in my confused and pathetic way, I’m looking for something specific. I’m trying to find something that’s out there, the truth about something that actually happened.’

‘Do you think I’m saying any different, Jane?’

‘What are you talking about? Are you saying that I already know the answer? That I know who killed Natalie?’

‘Know is a complicated word.’

I felt a sudden crawling sensation on my skin. ‘Are you accusing me of something?’

Alex laughed soothingly. ‘No, Jane, of course not.’

‘But if I knew, well, then I’d… er, know, wouldn’t I? I would remember.’

‘Would you? Wait a second.’

Alex got up and left the room and then returned with a battered yellow folder and a ring-bound notebook. ‘Let me take the initiative for a moment,’ he said as he sat down again. ‘I want to ask you a series of questions about yourself.’

‘Am I being tested for something?’

‘Don’t think about that. Just answer. Only if you want to, but I think it will be a help.’

‘All right.’

‘I’m going to ask quite a few questions. You can be as brief as you like with your answers. Just yes or no, if you want. Okay?’ Alex clicked his pen and began. After each answer he scribbled a brief note.

‘Are you scared of the dark, Jane?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you been having bad dreams?’

‘I think so. I’m not very good at remembering them.’

‘Do you ever worry about your body? Are there bits about it that you don’t like?’

‘Yes, of course, but only in the way everybody does.’

This was fun. It reminded me of the personality tests I find irresistible in magazines.

‘Have you ever suffered from gynaecological problems?’

‘I used to get cystitis a lot. I don’t know if that counts.’

‘Headaches? Arthritis?’

‘Not arthritis, but I get headaches quite a lot. I used to suffer from migraines. I got one every Friday after dinner for years. Unless we were going out somewhere. Then it would come on Saturday night instead.’

‘Have you ever avoided looking in mirrors?’

‘Yes, well see answer given above on subject of body.’

‘Have you ever wanted to change your name?’

‘Are you serious? I did change it. I’ve recently toyed with the idea of changing it back, but it’s a bit late now. All those labels and standing orders that would need alteration.’

‘Do you ever wear what might seem like an inappropriate amount of clothing?’

‘I suffer from quite bad circulation so I do sometimes feel cold even when it’s sunny. So, yes, I suppose I do. Is that a crime?’

‘Do you have any phobias?’

‘No. I don’t mind heights, I rather like spiders. Confined spaces are cosy. Now you mention it, I do have an irrational hatred of breakfast cereal and spent much of my boys’ childhood trying to keep it out of the house. And I don’t like Mother’s Day or ploughman’s lunches or anything else that was invented by advertising people.’

‘Any eating disorders?’

‘No.’

‘Ever had a problem with drink or drugs?’

‘No problem at all.’

‘Have you ever obsessively stayed away from them?’

‘Not really. I cut down a bit on drinking in the days before I took finals and that sort of thing. I could never really be bothered with drugs. It was the paraphernalia and the culture that went with them. And I was a bit scared of being arrested. I don’t think I was puritanical about it.’

‘Any examples of compulsive behaviour?’

‘Oh, loads.’

‘Have you ever had a wish to be invisible?’

‘If I did, it was granted for large parts of my marriage. Sorry. The honest answer is that the temptation has never presented itself even as a fantasy.’

‘Have you ever suffered from depression?’

‘Yes.’

‘Low self-esteem?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Do you ever cry for no reason at all?’

‘That’s almost a philosophical question, but roughly speaking I would say yes to that.’

‘Any suicidal impulses or thoughts?’

‘Not seriously.’

‘Did you ever feel a need to be spotlessly good, or to be the opposite, terribly bad?’