Fractured (16 page)

‘Tell me,’ he urged.

And so, in the dwindling afternoon light and by the flickering flames of the fire, I started at the beginning, from the night of the accident, and didn’t stop until I had reached the end.

We were the last two customers to leave the coffee shop. We realised we had overstayed our welcome when the owner had stopped being subtle about it and had swept the floor, upended the chairs on the vacant tables and switched off almost all the lights.

I apologised for keeping them, while Jimmy lifted my coat from the rack and held it out for me to slip on. He settled the jacket upon my shoulders, and somehow it just seemed natural for his arm to remain there as he guided me towards the door.

‘My car’s just around the corner, I’ll drop you back home before your father sends out a search party.’

The cold December air bit sharply against us in a gust of wind as we walked along the quiet streets, but I didn’t seem to feel the cold, not with his body walking in sync so closely beside mine. I knew I was in dangerous territory here. A door had opened sometime that afternoon and I’d walked blithely through it without a backward glance. But now I could see that before adding any further complications to the equation, I first needed to resolve the thousand or so unanswered questions that were standing in my way. Although, damn it, it felt so good, so
right
to be walking like this by Jimmy’s side. How could I not have seen this before?

The drive back to my house took only five minutes and when we pulled up to the kerb, I noticed the instant responding twitch of the curtain in the front room.

I gave a small laugh in disbelief.

‘Can you believe my dad is actually peeking out through the curtains to check up on me? This is just like being a teenager all over again.’

He ducked his head and leaned across me to view the front of my house through the passenger window. I caught the light fragrance of his aftershave, and the clean smell of shampoo, before he straightened back up. I breathed in the tantalising combination more deeply, as though to commit it to memory.

What was I doing here? I had no right to be thinking these thoughts. Jimmy and I had never been romantically involved, not once, not ever, for there had always been Matt. And there still
was
Matt, I had to remind myself. I wasn’t free to be thinking this way.

‘I guess I should get inside.’

‘Before your dad comes out with a shotgun?’

I gave a small giggle at the image.

‘Yes, that’s right. And also Matt will be calling soon from Germany, so…’ My voice trailed away. It was the worst thing I could have said. The warm air between us immediately froze at my words and the bristle that ran through Jimmy was almost palpable.

‘Of course.’ And with those two words, the fledgling thing that had fluttered to life between us was shot down dead.

I asked him to join us for dinner but wasn’t surprised when he declined. He did walk me to the front door though, taking my arm as the path was even then beginning to ice over. But it was the guiding hand of a friend and nothing more. I couldn’t believe a mood could change so instantly and it made me question my own perception of the rest of the afternoon. Had there really been anything new there at all, or had I merely imagined I could feel something more than just an old and treasured friendship?

He took the door key from my fingers and slid it into the lock, but before he rotated it, I placed my hand on his arm to stall him.

‘Are we still all right for tomorrow? Because I can go on my own, you know. No problem.’

His eyes gave nothing away.

‘Of course it’s still OK. Why wouldn’t it be?’

Because I’d gone and ruined the moment by conjuring up between us the one obstacle that had always been in our way. The obstacle that I was now engaged to.

‘No reason. It’s just… Well, it doesn’t seem a great way for you to spend your day off: escorting your newly deranged friend around London.’

He pulled me against him then and enveloped me in a brief hard hug; all friendship – nothing else.

‘Not newly deranged,’ he contradicted and then, clearly unable to resist, ‘You’ve pretty much been this way ever since I’ve known you!’

He released me then, and turned the key in the lock all in one smooth movement. Giving me a gentle nudge he propelled me into the warm hall.

‘And I told you before, I think it’s a really good idea. I’m sure it’s going to help. Now go inside in the warm and I’ll see you in the morning.’

The arguments I thought I’d have to put forward to convince my dad it was a good idea for me to return to London the next day proved to be unnecessary once he knew that Jimmy would be accompanying me. It did make me wonder if he’d have held the same opinion if I had chosen a different travelling companion. Even so, as I waited for Jimmy to collect me the following morning, my father was still clucking around like the proverbial old mother hen.

‘You have got your medication with you?’

I tapped the Gucci bag swung over my shoulder.

‘And you’ll call me if you feel sick or… anything? You have your phone, right, and money and…’

‘Relax, Dad. I’m only going for one night. I’ll be back tomorrow and hopefully I’ll have some answers at long last.’

He still looked doubtful, so I reached up to hug him. ‘Don’t worry about me so much.’ I smelt his aftershave then, and it suddenly reminded me of something. ‘And stop checking up on me all night long. You must be exhausted by morning – I’ve lost count of the number of times you keep coming in.’

Jimmy’s car pulled up outside, and I was bending to pick up the small soft bag I had at my feet, so I missed the initial look of confusion on my father’s face.

‘Rachel, I haven’t been in your room at night to check up on you. Not even once. You must have been dreaming.’

The journey to London confirmed that Jimmy had also reached a decision in the intervening hours between last night and that morning. Back once more was the warm-hearted, teasing, platonic friend I had known all my life – or at least the bit that had led up to my eighteenth year. The man who had held my hand in the coffee shop, while I stumbled through the story of what my life had become since that time, had completely disappeared.

And if I was disappointed at having let that person slip through my fingers, at least I still had my old friend Jimmy back in my life, and compared to a week or so earlier, that was a vast improvement.

‘So where do you want us to head to first? Have you given it any thought?’

I pulled a folded piece of paper from my bag.

‘I guess it makes sense to go here first. The other places are all across on the other side of town.’

The paper fluttered in my hand from a light draught from the open window.

‘I have the address, but I’ve no idea where it is exactly. Dad had to write it down for me.’

Jimmy’s eyes flickered away from the road for an instant and glanced down at the scrap of lined paper.

‘And that would be…?’

I gave a deep sigh and looked at the words on the sheet before me that meant absolutely nothing to me.

‘It’s where I live’ – I paused, as though in court – ‘allegedly.’

I tried to appear relaxed, but as the motorway ate up mile after mile I began to get more and more nervous. Going into London, to where I lived and worked, was my last hope of reclaiming my real life. But it was only now that I stopped to contemplate what exactly I would find when I got there. There were keys in my bag which I didn’t recognise. Presumably they would fit the door of the address my father had given me that morning. But what of my other home, the flat I lived in above the launderette? What would everyone say when that too proved to be mine? Filled with belongings and paraphernalia from another life entirely. Could they both exist side by side? How could that even be possible?

A word began to whisper in my mind. A word much more scary and unknown than the dreaded amnesia one:
schizophrenia
. Couldn’t that take the form of multiple personalities? All at once I was convinced I had read an article quite recently about that very subject. Could that be what I was suffering from? Was I actually mentally ill?

To silence the voice, I grabbed on to any random thought to fill the silence.

‘Jimmy, I never thought to ask before now: are you married?’

Our car swerved slightly in its lane, earning an angry beep from the lorry behind us.

‘Married? Er, no. Where did that come from? Don’t you think you would know by now if I was?’

I shrugged. ‘Not necessarily. I didn’t know
I
was engaged.’

‘Point taken.’

A further mile clicked onto the clock on the dashboard before I pursued it again. ‘So, is there anyone on the scene?’

He laughed softly under his breath but said nothing, which only piqued my curiosity more.

‘Girlfriend? Lover? Boyfriend?’

‘No, no and definitely no, thank you very much.’

‘Why not?’

‘What are you asking me? Why aren’t I gay?’

I gave his arm a gentle nudge. ‘You know what I’m asking. Why is there no one? You’re a great guy. You’d make a terrific partner for someone. How come you’re alone?’

For the first time he looked uncomfortable and it surprised me that I had ventured too far into forbidden territory. There was a time when nowhere was out of bounds. But perhaps it was all different now.

‘The job, for one: long hours, weird shifts. It doesn’t help a relationship. Or maybe I just prefer it this way.’

I felt there was more to be asked here, more that he wasn’t saying, but perhaps this wasn’t the time, so I let the subject drop, to his obvious relief.

By then we were winding through the back streets of London, and it took us longer than we had thought to locate the address we were seeking. Eventually, after several wrong turns, we pulled up in front of an ornately porticoed converted Victorian building.

‘Here we are,’ announced Jimmy, swinging the car into a vacant parking bay in the small courtyard at the front of the building. ‘Home.’

‘Not mine,’ I muttered bleakly, but nevertheless reached for the handle and got out of the car. I stood for a moment in the cold morning air, looking up at the totally unfamiliar building. There was nothing whatsoever about it that looked even remotely familiar.

‘Come on then, let’s go check it out.’ He reached out his hand, and with obvious reluctance I allowed him to lead me towards the building’s stone steps.

I thought we were going to be stymied at the first hurdle, for as we neared the entrance we could see that the building had a security door with a keypad entry system to gain access. I halted halfway up the three shallow steps.

‘That’s that then,’ I proclaimed, and knew the relief in my voice was obvious.

‘Not so fast,’ Jimmy urged, continuing to pull me towards the door. At that precise moment a blue-uniformed nurse appeared on the inside of the glass entrance, clearly hurrying to exit the building. As she opened the door, Jimmy hurried up the steps to catch it before it closed behind her. The nurse eyed him suspiciously for a moment, then saw me and clearly decided not to challenge our entry.

‘Thank you,’ said Jimmy as we passed the nurse on the threshold.

Automatically I too voiced our gratitude, ‘Yes, thanks.’

She was through the doorway and already descending the stone steps before she called out cheerfully over her shoulder.

‘No problem, Rachel.’

We were both silent in the lift as it ascended. And the tension followed us out when the doors slid open on the fifth floor. The corridor spread before us, leading both to the left and the right.

‘Which way?’ asked Jimmy.

‘How should I know?’ I snapped back.

He walked back to me then, kinder and more patient than I probably deserved.

‘I know this is hard, Rachel. I really do. But we knew you’d have to face something like this. Don’t give up on it all just yet.’

He was right, of course he was. But I had
so
wanted this all not to be true.

My key opened the door to the flat: of course it did. We wandered through the rooms, like prospective buyers, not really knowing where we were going. When I opened what I thought was the door to the bedroom and ended up walking into the airing cupboard, we thankfully both found our temporarily lost sense of humour. In the airing cupboard… Isn’t that always the last place you look for it?

I felt a little like a burglar, rummaging through drawers and closets looking for something of value. I recognised very little, but then every so often I would stumble across an item of clothing, or a piece of jewellery, and my pulse would quicken when I recognised it as one of mine. The passport and tax papers all neatly filed in a metal storage box only served to hammer home even more evidential nails in the coffin. I definitely lived here.

And that would have been far from a tragedy to accept in any other set of circumstances; for the flat was extremely nice, very tastefully decorated and about four times the size of my home above the launderette. Even so, my accommodation upgrade gave me no pleasure at all. If this
was
my home – and how could I refute it when surrounded by such unshakeable evidence – then what possible grounds did that leave me for continuing to insist that this life was not mine?

While I was ransacking the bedroom, Jimmy had made his way to the kitchen, coming out a few minutes later with two steaming mugs of coffee.

‘Black, I’m afraid,’ he apologised, handing me one of the mugs. ‘You’re out of milk. Actually you’re pretty much out of everything; the cupboards are quite bare. I’m guessing you must eat out a lot.’

That sounded logical and it would certainly fit the lifestyle I imagined Matt would have.

Holding onto the mug very carefully, I lowered myself onto a cream leather sofa. I cautiously shifted my weight, anxious not to spill any hot drink on the expensive-looking surface. I was an extremely nervous visitor in my own home.

‘How can I afford all of this?’ it suddenly occurred to me to ask. ‘I know what London prices are like. This place must cost a bomb, surely my new job doesn’t pay that well.’