The Forgetting(18)

Since I got home yesterday, Stephen has been trying to help reconstruct my sense of identity. It is only three days since the crash and yet already there is a clearly delineated before and after, a then and now. A past I cannot remember and a present that feels out of reach. It is as though my life has been fractured in two and I have no way of knowing whether they will ever fuse together again.

I have learnt that I used to be a librarian in a university library but was made redundant last year and have not been able to find another job since. Stephen told me that I was ‘brilliant’ at my job: ‘One day soon you’ll be able to remember the speech your boss gave at your leaving party.’ He reassured me that it isn’t my fault I haven’t yet found another role, that cuts to local services and financial pressures in academia mean that good opportunities are rare. I asked him what I’ve been doing since – how I’ve been filling my days – and he replied that I always seemed to be busy doing something, though it wasn’t clear exactly what. He told me about my love of cooking, about our shared passion for independent cinema, and about how, most weekends, we head to Hampstead Heath or venture outside London for a long walk. He told me about the galleries we love – the V&A my favourite, Tate Britain his – and the classical concerts we regularly attend at Wigmore Hall, the Southbank Centre, the Barbican. And all the time he talked – with every question he answered, every new piece of information he offered – I felt as though I was drifting further away from myself.

On the bookshelf next to me are tucked the leaflets the doctor gave me at the hospital. Picking one up, I read the first page, learn that memory loss can have a number of different causes, from head injuries and fever to shock and post-traumatic stress. I discover that people with post-concussion amnesia need to be patient during the recovery phase and expect a range of additional symptoms, from mood swings and anxiety to sleep disturbances, fatigue and difficulty concentrating.

Closing the leaflet, I tuck it back into the bookshelf because I know it can’t give me the answer to the only question I really need: the question of when I will start remembering again.

Before he left this morning, Stephen asked what I was planning to do today, and I didn’t know how to answer. With no reference as to how I usually fill my days, the prospect of the empty hours ahead was like being given the script to a play only to find the pages blank. I told him I might go for a walk, try to reacclimatise myself to the neighbourhood. But he shook his head, the now-familiar furrow of concern forming a deep ridge across his forehead. ‘It’s still early days, my love. I know your short-term memory has been fine so far, but we just don’t know how reliable it is, and I’d be so worried that you might get lost. I know it’ll be boring, stuck inside all day, but I’ll get home as early as I can. Please just rest up.’

Getting up from the chair, I stretch my arms above my head, pace from one end of the room to the other like a caged tiger. The watch on my wrist tells me it is just past three o’clock. Stephen has been gone for seven hours already. He has told me he is rarely home before eight, and the next five hours stretch before me like an interminable yawn.

Yesterday, I asked Stephen whether he could show me some photo albums of our life together, and he told me that he will fetch them down from the loft at the weekend, agreed it would be good for me to see them. But I am overcome by a sudden impatience to look at them now, do not want to wait another four days. Heading up the stairs, I pull a chair from the spare room, place it underneath the loft hatch, hear Stephen’s voice echoing in my ear: The loft ladder’s pretty treacherous – I need to get someone to come and fix it – so don’t venture up there if I’m not here. I reassure myself that I will be careful, that I need to do this. I cannot just sit around and wait for my memories to return; I have to attempt to coax them back.

With one hand on the back of the chair, I place a foot flat on its seat, check it’s sturdy, feel the muscles in my thigh tighten as I lift myself off the ground. Bringing my other foot onto it, I wobble for a moment, and my heart skips as I fling one arm out to the side to steady myself, keep the other firmly attached to the chair’s wooden frame. Regaining my balance, I tentatively bring myself to full height, exhale a sigh of relief that I have got this far. Reaching a hand above my head, I look up to where a silver hasp and staple latch sits across the loft hatch, and it is then that I notice it: a small brass padlock hooked through the metal hoop. Releasing my hand from the back of the chair and extending my arm above my head, I tug at it, but it is fixed, the shackle locked tightly in its body, refusing to pull free.

My head begins to spin, as though filled with an eddying rush of air. I grab for the back of the chair, but my vision is blurred, hazy, and my hand flails uselessly. A voice in my head tells me that I shouldn’t be up here, standing on chairs, trying to get into lofts when I am only one day out of hospital. The muscles in my legs feel weak and I have a vision of falling, tumbling down the stairs, landing in a slump at the bottom and nobody finding me until Stephen gets home, hours from now. My head reels and I force myself to keep my eyes open, know that if they are closed there will be nothing to anchor me to the material world. My hand manages to find the back of the chair and I seize hold of it, fingers aching with the strength of my grasp. My heart thuds and I order myself to breathe steadily, in and then out, know that I need to sit down but cannot risk climbing off the chair, do not trust my legs to make the necessary moves without stumbling.