Splintered Memory (29 page)

She’d
assumed that Charlie must’ve had a fight with Matt, a stupid spat that they’d have forgotten the next day, and she’d been doing shots of tequila with a group of guys. Shortly after this, Claire had seen Charlie leaving the party with a guy that she hadn’t recognised. Guessing that her best friend’s actions were tequila induced, she’d grabbed hold of Charlie and had dragged her home.

Claire
had known that Charlie would never have forgiven herself if she’d gone home with another man. She simply wouldn’t have been able to deal with the guilt of having cheated on Matt. It therefore came as little surprise to her the following morning when Charlie, who’d been nursing a massive hangover, swore off tequila for the rest of her life.

She
had felt guilty as she’d sat in the private members club watching Charlie getting drunk, watching the leering lecherous Doug make his moves just as Adam had warned Claire that he would, and as she’d also gotten drunk she’d started to have second thoughts about her plan and she’d tried to get rid of Doug. The problem by this time though, was that with the mix of cocaine and alcohol that had been in Charlie’s system she’d no longer been willing to listen to reason.

Back at the house Claire had become side tracked by Adam
, and she’d only remembered that she’d been supposed to be keeping Doug away from Charlie when it was too late. They’d both gone into Charlie’s bedroom and the door had been shut, but the following day Charlie had been both hungover and mortified.

Adam had gotten rid of Doug, and had
then gone home for the day to sleep off his hangover. Claire had managed to tidy the flat before Charlie had returned home, bringing with her two large lattes and muffins, and they’d then sat together under a blanket and put on a romantic movie to watch. Yet as the film had been coming to an end and Claire had been starting to feel better, she’d turned and seen that Charlie had been crying.

In the weeks that
had followed, Claire had noticed that Charlie had been working longer and longer hours. When she had got her to come for a drink, she’d stuck to wine and she’d drunk modestly. Yet even when she’d been in she wasn’t happy, and Claire had often heard her crying.

Claire had tried to confront Charlie about things and suggest that maybe she should get back in touch with Matt, but Charlie had completely lost it with her. They’d argued, and Charlie had stormed out of the flat. When she’d come back and Claire had asked her where she’d been, Charlie had announced that she’d been to see a divorce lawyer and some estate agents. She’d said that she’d found a place in London Bridge, and that she’d be moving out
within the month.

She’d said it was because it was closer to work, but Claire had known it was so that she could be alone. She’d known that Charlie was changing, and she was becoming unrecognisable.

Initially Claire had been hurt, but she’d realised that Charlie had lashed out at her because she was the only person she had left in her life to lash out at. Foolishly, it hadn’t been up until that point that Claire had realised just how much her best friend had lost as a result of her accident.

Before their argument she’d only quantified Charlie’s loss in terms of Matt and her marriage, but she’d lost
much more than that. Charlie had stopped speaking to anyone from Cheddar aside from Claire. She’d moved away from all of her and Matt’s old university friends, and from her friends from where she’d worked since uni.

Charlie’s
social life in London revolved around Claire and her friends, and Claire had realised that she ought to have known that Charlie would never have been comfortable with this. She’d lived her entire life, up until the accident at least, at the centre of one group of friends.

Claire
had finally seen that it was time to put their friendship on the line for the sake of Charlie’s happiness. The risk had become worth it, she’d already started to lose Charlie and their friendship. She had to tell Matt about Charlie’s memory, and damn the potential consequences of her doing so.

***

Adam had tried to talk Claire out of going to Birmingham since the moment she’d told him that’s what she was planning to do, but Claire had known in her bones that it was the right thing to do. That said, as she drove Adam’s car up to Birmingham she felt an increasing sense of doubt and nervousness rising within her.

She knew that she didn’t have a good relationship with Matt, and telling him something that was likely to have a detrimental effect on his life wasn’t going to be easy. She
also knew that she had to avoid being callous or cold, but that said she knew that she couldn’t plan a conversation with Matt. He had a tendency of rubbing her up the wrong way, and she had a tendency of reacting to that by trying to deliberately score cheap points with hurtful comments. Their friendship had always been this way.

Claire called at the house first
, but there was no one home. She was only grateful that Emily hadn’t been in, and she wasn’t sure what she’d have said to her if she had been. As she walked to the hospital, she really wasn’t sure if her coming to see Matt was such a good idea after all.

“Can I help you?” The young woman behind the reception desk asked Claire as she leant on the desk to ask for some assistance.

“Yes. Can you tell me where I might find Matthew Grayson?” Claire asked politely.

“Do you mean Dr Grayson
?” The receptionist asked, looking almost reproachfully at Claire for not having asked for him in an appropriate manner.

“Yes, Dr Grayson. Is he working today
?” Claire asked.

“Yes
,” the receptionist said simply.

“Can I speak with him
?” Claire asked already starting to feel a little irritated with this woman.

“What’s it in regards to?” The receptionist asked.

“It’s a personal matter,” Claire said.

“I’ll page him for you
,” the receptionist said; “but you might just have to wait a few minutes.”

“Okay
. Well I’ll just wait over there then,” Claire said pointing at the nearest set of blue plastic chairs. The receptionist nodded, indicating that this was an acceptable place for her to wait.

Claire sat
down on the uncomfortable blue chairs to wait for Matt, and as she waited she felt anxious and she began fiddling with her fingertips and nails.

She saw
Matt walk over to the reception desk and speak to the receptionist, before turning to look at her. Claire found it strange to see him in his doctor’s coat. A doctor was just such a grownup job she thought almost smiling, and even though she was well aware that they were all grownups she still found it much easier to picture them all as teenagers.

Matt didn’t exactly
look pleased to see her as he walked over to where she was sat, and she told herself to be polite.

“Claire
,” he said sounding a little cold.

“Matt, or is it Dr Grayson here
?” She asked trying to lighten the atmosphere between them.

“Matt’s fine
,” he said; “but why are you here?”

“It’s about Charlie
,” Claire said. Yet she knew as soon as she’d said that that she shouldn’t have opened with that statement. She saw Matt’s face go ghostly white.

“She’s okay
,” Claire said quickly and feeling pleased when some of the colour returned to his face. “I just need to talk to you about her that’s all. Is there somewhere we can go?” She asked.

Matt looked a little confused, but
he nodded. He then led her down a corridor away from the reception area. At the bottom of the corridor they turned right, and then they went down another long corridor. Claire hated hospitals. She hated the way that they were a maze of long white corridors with plastic floors and fluorescent lighting.

As they neared the bottom of
yet another long corridor, Matt walked into an office and Claire saw from the name on the front of the door that it was his. Matt sat down at his desk, and he indicated for Claire to sit down opposite him. She closed the door, walked over to his desk, and sat down in the seat that he’d indicated to.

They looked at each other for what felt like an age
, before Matt finally broke the silence and said; “you said that you wanted to speak to me about Charlie.”

Claire nodded and said; “yeah
I do. But firstly I just want to say that I know we don’t have the best relationship, and I know that you don’t exactly like me.”

Matt made a derisive sound as
though he’d just pushed air through his nose.

Claire ignored it and told herself to stay calm. “Anyway I hope that you know that in spite of that, and all of our differences of opinions and whatever, I love Charlie to pieces. She’s my best friend, and I’d never do anything to hurt her
,” Claire said pausing to take a deep breath. She knew that she was talking far too quickly, and that she was running her words together.

Matt didn’t say anything, but he carried on looking at Claire as though
he was unsure of where she was going with this conversation.

“I wanted to tell you this months ago, and I
very nearly did tell you at the wedding,” she said as he sat further forward and leant his elbows on his desk and looked at her with clear misgivings.

“Charlie
… Charlie,” Claire tried to say again. But she just couldn’t bring herself to say it.

“Is divorcing me
,” Matt said at the same time as opening his desk drawer and taking out some papers. He then threw them down on his desk.

Claire looked at the
papers in front of her feeling more than a little sidetracked. She’d known that Charlie had been to see a divorce lawyer, but she hadn’t realised that things had progressed this far. What was Charlie doing she thought?

“As you can see,
” he said tartly; “this is information I already know. If you’re here to rush me to sign them, you can tell her that I’m having them looked at. I’ll sign them in my own time.”

“No,
I’m not here about this. I knew that she’d been to see a divorce lawyer,” Claire said honestly; “but I didn’t know that she was this serious about it.”

Matt didn’t speak, but instead he picked up the papers and put them back in his drawer.

“Matt,” Claire said making him look up at her. “I know why she’s doing this.”

“Let me
guess,” he said tonelessly; “she’s seeing someone new. So she wants to formally end a marriage and a life that she can’t remember anything of.”

“No. She’s not seeing anyone
,” Claire said; “and the thing is, she can remember.”

Claire
was annoyed at herself for the way that she was doing this. It wasn’t the way that she’d planned to tell him, and she knew that she wasn’t exactly been tactful in her approach.

Matt looked at
her disbelievingly and asked scathingly; “what can she remember?”

“Everything
,” Claire said pausing and waiting for a reaction from Matt.

When he said nothing she continued; “she came to Londo
n about seven months after she left you. She’d been living back at home in Cheddar, surrounded by stuff from our past, and when she came to see me she had her memory back. I was as shocked as what you are now, but she remembers everything. She asked if she could live with me, and she told me that she already had some job interviews lined up. Matt, she’s working as a solicitor again and everything.”

Matt looked shocked. “Why didn’t anyone tell me? Why didn’t her parents, my parents, or even you tell me before now? Why didn’t Charlie tell me
?” He asked sounding genuinely hurt.

“She
’s sworn everyone that knows to secrecy, and to be honest I’m not sure your parents know! I wanted to tell you, but Charlie begged me not to. Also I think you saw for yourself how she reacted when she saw me talking to you at Rich and Bex’s wedding,” Claire said.

“But why wouldn’t she tell me
?” He asked looking as hurt now as he sounded, and Claire saw that his eyes were filling with tears.

“She came to tell you
, almost as soon as it happened. Harry drove her straight up here to speak to her doctors, and when they gave her the all clear she went straight to the house to look for you,” Claire said hoping that he could figure out the rest of what had happened so that she wouldn’t have to tell him.

“So what she just got
to the house and changed her mind? Thought sod it, he’s only my husband. I’ve only spent half my life with him, he doesn’t need to know?” He asked angrily.

“They thought you were out
,” Claire said; “so they waited outside in the car. You know what Charlie’s like, she wasn’t just going to let herself in and shock you when you came home from work. But the thing is. You weren’t at work. You were in, and when you left the house you weren’t alone. You were with…” but Matt interrupted her knowing what she was about to say.

“Emily
,” he said.

Claire
thought that he was doing well now to keep his tears at bay, and she said almost sympathetically; “yeah. Charlie and her dad watched you kiss her, and head off smiling and holding hands. Charlie decided not to tell you at that point. She hasn’t said this to me, but I think she feels guilty for all the pain that she caused you in the six months after the accident. She didn’t want to hurt you again. So when it looked to her like you’d moved on with your life, she decided to let you be.”