Upon A Dark Night

complications, but you’ve been declared fit to move now.’

‘Move where?’

‘This is a private hospital. We took you in as an emergency and now we need the bed for another patient.’

They wanted the bed for somebody who would pay for it. She’d been so preoccupied with her problem that she’d forgotten she was literally penniless.

‘We’re going to have to pass you on to Avon Social Services. They’ll take care of you until your memory comes back. Probably find you some spare clothes, or give you money to get some.’

On charity. She hated this. She’d hoped another night would restore her memory. ‘Can’t I stay here?’

She was collected later the same morning by a social worker called Imogen who drove a little green Citroen Special with a striped roof. Imogen was pale and tall with frizzy blonde hair and six bead necklaces. Her accent was as county as a shire hall. ‘I say, you were jolly fortunate landing up there,’ she said, as they drove out of the hospital gates. ‘The Hinton is the clinic to get yourself into, if you’re in need of treatment, that is. I don’t like to think what it would have cost if you hadn’t been an emergency. What’s your name, by the way?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Still muzzy?’

‘Very.’

‘I’ll have to call you something. Let’s invent a name. What do you fancy? Do you object to Rose?’

The choice of name was instructive. Obviously from the quick impression Imogen had got, she had decided that this nameless woman wasn’t a Candida or a Jocelyn. Something more humble was wanted.

‘Call me anything you like. Where are you taking me?’

‘To the office, first. You’ll need money and clothes. Then to a hostel, till you get yourself straight in the head. They told me you cracked a couple of ribs. Is that painful? Should I be taking the corners extra carefully?’

‘It’s all right’

The doctor hadn’t strapped up the damaged rib-cage. Apparently if your breathing isn’t uncomfortable, the condition cures itself. The adjacent ribs act as splints. Her sides were sore, but she had worse to worry over.

‘I’m an absurdly cautious driver, actually,’ Imogen claimed. ‘Do you live in Bath, Rose?’

Rose. She would have to get used to it now. She didn’t feel like a flower.

‘I couldn’t say.’

She thought it unlikely that she lived in Bath, considering it made no connection in her mind. Probably she was just a visitor. But then she could think of no other place she knew.

They drove past a signpost to Cold Ashton, and she told herself it was the sort of name you couldn’t possibly forget.

‘Ring any bells?’ asked Imogen. ‘I saw you looking at the sign.’

‘No.’

‘The way we’re going, down the A46, you’ll get a super view of the city as we come down the hill. With any luck, some little valve will click in your head and you’ll get your memory back.’

The panorama of Bath from above Swainswick, the stone terraces picked out sharply by the mid-morning sun, failed to make any impression. No little valve clicked in her head.

Imogen continued to offer encouragement. ‘There’s always a chance some old chum will recognise you. If this goes on for much longer, we can put your picture in the local paper and see if anyone comes forward.’

She said quickly, ‘I don’t think I’d like that.’

‘Shy, are we?’

‘Anyone could say they knew me. How would I know if they were speaking the truth?’

‘What are you worried about? Some chap trying his luck? You’d know your own boyfriend, wouldn’t you?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘Stone the crows!’ said Imogen. ‘You do have problems.’

They drove down the rest of the road and into the city in silence.

At the office in Manvers Street, Rose – she really was making an effort to respond to the name – was handed twenty-five pounds and asked to sign a receipt. She was also given a second-hand shirt and jeans. She changed right away. Imogen put the old clothes into a plastic bin-liner and dumped them in a cupboard.

She thought about asking to keep her tatty old things regardless of the state they were in. Seeing them dumped in the sack was like being deprived of even more of herself.

In the end she told herself they were too damaged to wear and what were clothes for if you didn’t use them? She didn’t make an issue of it.

Then Imogen drove her to a women’s hostel in Bathwick Street called Harmer House, a seedy place painted inside in institutional green and white. She was to share a room with another woman who was out.

‘How long do I stay here?’

‘Until you get your memory back – or someone claims you.’

Like lost property.

Imogen consoled her. ‘It shouldn’t be long, they said. Chin up, Rose. It could happen to anyone. At least you’ve got some sleeping quarters tonight. Somewhere to count sheep. You’re luckier than some.’

Two

The bed across the room was unmade and strewn with orange peel and chocolate-wrappings. Not promising, the new inmate thought, but it did underline one thing: you were expected to feed yourself in this place. Imogen the social worker had shown her the poky communal kitchen in the basement. If she could remember what she liked to eat and how to cook it, that would be some progress. Surely if anything could jump-start a girl’s memory, it was shopping.

So she went out in search of a shop. It would be pot-luck, because Bath was unknown to her. Or was it? She may have lived here some time. She had to get into her head the possibility that her amnesia was blocking out her ability to recognise any of it.

A strange place can be intimidating. Mercifully this was not. Viewing it through a stranger’s eyes, Rose liked what she saw, disarmed by the appeal of a city that had altered little in two hundred years, not merely the occasional building, but street after street of handsome Georgian terraces in the mellow local stone. She strolled through cobbled passages and down flights of steps into quiet residential areas just as elegant as the main streets; formal, yet weathered and welcoming. At intervals she looked through gaps between the buildings and saw the backdrop of hills lushly covered in trees.

An unfamiliar city. Unfamiliar people, too. She didn’t let that trouble her. She preferred the people unfamiliar. What if she did live here and suddenly met someone who knew her? That was what she ought to be hoping for – some chance meeting that would tell her who she was. But if she had a choice, she wanted to find out in a less confrontational way. She dreaded coming face to face with some stranger who knew more about her than she did herself, someone who expected to be recognised, who wouldn’t understand why she acted dumb. Her situation was making her behave like a fugitive. Stupid.

So she was wary of asking the way to the nearest food shop. By chance she came across Marks and Spencer when she was moving through side streets, trying to avoid the crowds. She discovered a side entrance to the store. A homeless man was sleeping outside under a filthy blanket, watched by his sad-eyed dog. Her pity was mixed with some apprehension about her own prospects.

Hesitating just inside the door of the shop, feeling exposed in the artificial light, she found she was in the food section, where she wanted to be. To run out now would be ridiculous. She picked up a basket and collected a pack of sandwiches, some freshly squeezed orange juice, a mushroom quiche, salad things and teabags and paid for them at the checkout. The woman gave her a tired smile that reassured, for it was the first look she’d had in days that wasn’t trying to assess her physical and mental state. Carrying her bag of food, she followed the signs upstairs to the women’s wear floor to look for underwear and tights. She blew fifteen pounds in one quick spree. Well, no one had told her to make the money last. Outside in the street she dropped some coins into the homeless