The Forgetting(27)
‘Yes, I’m fine.’ My voice feels strange in my mouth and I realise that I have spoken to no one other than Stephen and the police officers since leaving the hospital.
We smile at one another and then look away, fall into a silence which may or may not be comfortable, I cannot tell. The woman watches her son, and I watch with her as he scoops piles of sand into his digger, dumps them behind him, creating a hole on one side, a mound on the other.
‘He’s very sweet. How old is he?’ My words take me by surprise, as if they have chosen to leave my lips without prior consultation.
‘Just turned three, last month. He certainly has his moments. Have you got kids?’
I shake my head, my chest swelling with a feeling I cannot put a name to.
‘It’s a lovely park, isn’t it?’ The woman looks around, checks on her son before turning back to me. ‘I’m Zahira.’ Her voice is gentle, and she places the flat of her palm on her chest as she introduces herself, her manicured nails crisp against her white t-shirt. She is about the same age as me, perhaps a few years younger, dark hair sitting in sleek, straight lines just below her shoulders. Her eyes are watchful, intelligent, her skin flawless. A thin black pencil line shapes the top of her eyes, a light sheen of blusher across her cheeks. She is objectively beautiful, and next to her I am acutely aware of my own shabbiness: my face free of make-up, pasty with sleeplessness, shadows hanging beneath my eyes like crescent bruises.
‘I’m Anna. Anna Bradshaw.’ I state my full name as if to affirm my identity and yet there is something uncanny in it, as though I have not yet earned the right to say it out loud. ‘It’s only the second time I’ve been here but, yes, I really like it.’ Even as I speak, it strikes me as probably untrue. Stephen and I have lived in our house for over a year: I imagine we must have walked through this park many times.
‘Mama! Look!’
We both turn our heads to where Zahira’s son is pointing to the mound of sand he has created, a twig stuck in the top. ‘I made a castle!’
‘Well done, little bear. What are you going to build next?’
The boy places a finger on his chin, gazes up at the sky, thinks for a few seconds before responding. ‘A choo-choo train!’
Zahira laughs. ‘Okay, I’ll come and have a look when you’re done.’ She turns back to me, leans against the arm of the bench. ‘So have you not lived around here long?’
I think about her question, realise there are two possible answers: the factual and the experiential. ‘I’ve lived here for over a year, but I had an accident recently and lost my memory so I don’t remember anything about it.’ It is barely a chapter of my story and yet I feel as though I am standing at the top of a cliff as a strong wind threatens to force me over the edge.
‘God, I’m so sorry. That sounds awful. Are you okay?’ She glances towards her son, then looks back at me.
I am about to nod, offer a platitudinal response, but then something shifts inside me, and the confusion about all that has happened suddenly feels unwieldy. Before I have time to consider it, the story is spilling from my lips, as though it knows the way and has no need for me to guide it. And even while I am telling this woman about the events of the past six days – about the crash and the concussion, the amnesia and the hospital, Stephen and the house and the life I do not remember – a voice in my head is telling me I am being absurd, unburdening myself to a complete stranger. And yet I do not stop, cannot stop, this need to confide so great that I have no power against it.
When I finish, I feel exhausted, spent. The telling has taken no more than a few minutes and yet I feel as though I have reached the end of a marathon. But there is also a sense of relief, like plunging into the sea on a hot summer’s day.
‘God, you’ve really been through the mill. I’m so sorry.’
It’s only seeing the story reflected in someone else’s eyes that I appreciate just how shocking it is.
‘You must feel so . . . unsettled. Are you getting any help?’
Without any warning, tears prick my eyes, and I blink them away. ‘The doctor at the hospital has put me on a waiting list for therapy, but he said it could be a while before I get an appointment.’ I know it’s ridiculous, disclosing all this to a woman I don’t even know, and yet I want to keep talking to her.
Zahira rolls her eyes. ‘That’s so typical. You need help now, not in six months’ time. What about the rest of your family? Are they able to rally round?’
The question snags, like a plaster tugging on bare skin. ‘I don’t know about the rest of my family. I can’t remember anything about them.’
‘But your husband must have told you?’
I shake my head, do not know how to explain the strangeness of the past few days. Time seems to have taken on a different dimension: some moments it has felt like weeks since I arrived home from the hospital, at others it seems mere hours. I don’t know how to convey the fragility of everything around me, as though my connection to the present is a single thread of cotton that could snap at any moment should I test it too hard. And yet Zahira’s question niggles at something, like a scab I have been wary of picking.
‘Look, I’m not a doctor, but I’d have thought the most important thing for you right now is to be surrounded by family and friends. As much as anything, it must be hard for your husband, dealing with all this on his own. And you must want to know about the other people in your life?’