The Man Who Forgot His Wife (12 page)

‘I suppose you would …’

‘But now I discover my marriage failed and I’ve been sleeping on people’s sofas and have spent all my money on divorce lawyers.’

She didn’t quite know what to say to that. Instead her eyes welled up and then she began quietly crying. I so wanted to kiss her at that point; just to put my arms around my wife and press my lips against her – that would have been the most wonderful thing in the whole world. I hovered there for a moment and finally leaned across and gently rubbed her arm.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Er – comforting you?’

‘Well, don’t!’

Instead the dog went across and licked her hand, which was acceptable from Woody, but probably not from me.

‘I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news,’ I mumbled eventually. ‘I just had to tell you face to face.’

In the difficult silence I became aware of the low steady gurgle of the dishwasher. It sounded like my insides felt. It was then that
I
spotted a photo on the fridge. ‘Are these our children? Is this what they look like?’ The girl had a big, open-hearted smile for the camera, while the boy was doing his best to look cool. What was so striking was how the two children seemed like miniature versions of their parents. Dillie looked just like her mother and Jamie looked just like me.

‘Wow! They’re beautiful,’ I said. And she nodded and stood to share the moment with me.

‘That was in France. Dillie’s a bit taller than that now. Jamie hates having his photo taken.’

It was a surreal moment. The mother couldn’t help but be proud of her children as she showed their father what they looked like. Maddy put her tongue out slightly as she lovingly straightened the photo on the fridge, and in that moment I wanted to float up to the ceiling. All the emptiness I had felt since 22 October was filled with an overwhelming certainty. Just that tiny gesture, that sweet movement of her mouth, made me feel whole, yet light-headed; vigorous and fully charged and, at last, completely alive.

‘Beautiful,’ I said again. ‘Really beautiful.’

On the walk home the whole world seemed different. Those first few fireworks exploding in the sky were all for my benefit. I wanted to tell passing strangers that I had just met this wonderful girl; I held a newsagent’s door open for a young mother with a buggy. Then my walk broke into a jog, and in the end I ran all the way back to the flat and I was panting but still elated when I found Gary in his kitchen with the insides of a laptop spread across the table.

‘Gary! Something incredible has happened! I think I’ve fallen in love!’

‘Wow! That’s great news, man! What’s her name?’

‘Maddy. Madeleine. I’ve just met my wife and she is something else, isn’t she?’

Gary groaned and tossed down his tiny screwdriver.

‘Yeah, she is
something else
, Vaughan – she is your ex-wife. You split up, remember?’

‘No.’

‘You can’t have fallen in love with Maddy, you stupid nutter – you’re in the middle of divorcing her!’

‘I know – we already have that in common. She’s got this gorgeous little nose that turns up at the end and her eyes, they’re this beautiful hazel brown—’

‘Vaughan, listen, mate, this must be related to your condition.’ He indicated the computer circuit boards scattered on the pine table. ‘Your hard drive has wiped and this is like an emotional memory coming back or some shit, I don’t know. Just don’t do anything stupid – it’ll soon fade.’

‘No, it’s not going to fade, Gary. This is for ever, I’m absolutely certain of it! It feels as if all my life I’ve been waiting for that special someone and I’ve finally met Miss Right.’

‘Okay. Except that all your adult life you’ve been married to her and finally decided she was Miss Wrong.’

‘All right, I know we’re getting divorced and that. But every relationship has to overcome a few obstacles – look at Romeo and Juliet.’

‘Yeah, they both die … You don’t love her, you’re just going through a phase.’

‘No way. I know for an absolute certainty that this is for ever. I feel like I should get a tattoo. Like a big heart on my forearm, with “MADDY” on it.’

‘Yeah, right, great idea! Or you could tattoo “IDIOT!” across your forehead. You’re delirious. Come on, let’s get some food inside you. I’ll make you a sandwich.’

Gary sat me down at the kitchen table while I told him about the train memory. He confirmed the story. ‘Oh yeah, she was always doing shit like that.’ He laughed. ‘Like when that posh bloke blocked in her car at the pub and was really rude and refused to come out and move it for her.’

‘What did she do?’

‘Well, when she finally did squeeze her car through, she stopped and got out and then scratched a huge message on his bonnet with her key.’

‘What did it say?’

‘
Please be nicer
.’

I laughed out loud.

‘I think it’s important to say “please” in these situations,’ added Gary.

‘Absolutely. Maddy’s great, isn’t she?’

Gary put down his plate. ‘Look, Vaughan, there are millions of girls out there. If you’re looking for someone who might be interested in making a future with you, I’d say the very last woman in the whole country you should go after is the woman who has tried being married to you for fifteen years and decided she can’t stand the sight of you.’

‘It’s not like that. You don’t know Maddy like I do—’

‘No – I know her
better
. It’s not going to happen, Vaughan. You’ve got to move on.’

I sulkily pushed away my untouched sandwich. ‘So what exactly are you doing to this laptop?’ I asked after a while. I think he was grateful to me for finally changing the subject.

‘Oh, I’m just putting in more RAM.’

‘What’s that?’

‘RAM? Well, that stands for, er … Random Access … well, it’s a technical term, I shouldn’t worry about it. Listen, I’ve had a brilliant idea for how you can find out more about your past …’

Chapter 9

Dear All,

As you may be aware, I recently experienced an extreme form of amnesia that has completely wiped all my personal memories. This means that I cannot recall anything that happened to me before 22 October this year. However, with your help I am hoping I can reconstruct my own personal history from the fragments that you yourselves can remember.

It would be greatly appreciated if you could take a moment to look at this Wikipedia page that I have begun, and then add in any extra details you remember, or edit anything that you feel may be incorrect. For example, I have already put in the basic fact that I attended the University of Bangor. But if you were there with me, you might add in the names of tutors I had, or clubs I joined or particular anecdotes that you feel are worth recalling. My hope is that this online document will grow to become a complete account of my life before my amnesia; and this in turn might help me regain the actual memories of these events.

Many thanks,

Vaughan

WITH HIS ZEALOUS
belief in the power of user-generated content, Gary had come up with an initiative to establish a detailed account of my life to date. My appeal went out via email, Facebook and, for what it was worth, the features pages of YouNews. I had been desperate for a way to restore ownership of my personal story; I wanted to learn the history of my own Dark Ages, to swot up on the dates and key events and understand how it all fitted together.

‘Half-knowledge is a dangerous thing,’ Gary had sagely quoted at me.

‘Who said that?’

‘I dunno. Alexander somebody … Aha ha ha!’

So here was the Facebook/LinkedIn/Friends Reunited profile taken to a new level. I was going to have my own memoir collaboratively written online. Uniquely, I would not be the editor of my own life story; I didn’t even get a couple of sessions with the ghost-writer. The old manuscript had been lost, so now it would be completely rewritten, this time from the witnesses’ point of view. I barely existed in the first person yet: my life story was all ‘you’ or ‘he’. I wondered how this perspective might affect the reader’s sympathies. It would be like the United States having its history rewritten from scratch by Britain, Mexico, Japan, the Native Americans and Iraq.

‘It’s an interesting idea,’ said Dr Lewington, as I proudly told her how my personal memories were going to be compiled by others. It was now three weeks since I had had the fugue and this was my first appointment back at the hospital. ‘Though you should continue to keep a separate record of your own memories. Are you writing them down?’

‘Yes, I have a little notepad by my bed. With lots of blank pages.’

‘And how are you feeling in yourself? Because I can still refer you to a psychiatrist or a counsellor if you feel that would be at all helpful.’

‘No, I’m fed up talking about it, to be honest. People think I’m mad enough as it is, without me seeing a psychiatrist.’

‘There’s no stigma attached. What you have experienced is very traumatic – it is a form of mental illness.’

‘I’m fine, really. Things are looking up. I think I’ve fallen in love …’

‘Well, that’s wonderful news. Because I seem to remember you were getting divorced.’

‘Yup, that’s her. She still wants to get divorced, but I was hoping she might marry me again after that.’

‘Right. As I say, the offer of a psychiatrist is always there if you need it …’

At the end of our session Dr Lewington asked to see my online biography, and I found myself feeling a little nervous as she clicked on the link. It had not been live for even twenty-four hours, and I worried that one or two people might take advantage of this situation to settle old scores or exercise some ancient grudge. But I had not anticipated the viciousness of the treatment I had received in those first twenty-four hours. No one had written a single word about me.

Over the next day or so I kept returning to the document and clicking on ‘Refresh’, but my life story just read ‘
This neurology-related article is a stub. Please help Wikipedia by expanding it
.’ I could tell from checking the article history that quite a few people had opened the page, but no one had taken the trouble to write anything. Gary had been on Facebook and mentioned that everyone I knew had found time to update their own status and upload new photos of themselves.

Not even Maddy had responded to my round-robin email and I worried about how she was dealing with the bombshell that her own husband had forgotten their entire marriage. But then Linda took a phone call from Maddy; apparently she wanted to meet up with me for a coffee ‘and have a serious talk’.

‘Ha, that’s almost like a date, isn’t it?’ I suggested optimistically.

‘Um, I don’t think so, Vaughan. I think she wants to talk about where the two of you go from here.’

‘No, I hear what you’re saying. It’s just two adults meeting up to discuss a very difficult situation.’

A few minutes later I came out of my room to ask Linda’s advice.

‘What do you think – is this shirt too bright? Would this one be better?’

‘It doesn’t matter, Vaughan – they’re both fine.’

‘What about these shoes? Too formal?’

I had been through all my old clothes, but I reckoned that Maddy must have seen me in those. And Gary’s shirts somehow combined looking as if the washing instructions had been consistently ignored with looking like they had never been washed at all.

‘Have I got time to go out and buy a new outfit?’

‘It doesn’t matter what you wear, Vaughan. Just be yourself.’

‘Fine. Just be myself. So, er, what is “myself”, exactly?’

I was ridiculously early to the café and chose a seat outside so I’d be able to see her coming. I sat down with a book, and re-read the same line about twenty times. She had chosen a café in Covent Garden and the piazza was so busy I kept momentarily mistaking other people for Madeleine. Finally she approached and I stood up, but there was no big smile or exaggerated wave from her when she spotted me. I went to give her a peck on the cheek, but she didn’t move towards me at all and so I was forced to pretend I was leaning over to pull out her chair.

‘Hi! Great to see you! You look nice …’

‘Shall we get on with it?’ she said, playing it rather cool, I thought.

Today she was wearing her hair down, and I decided that she wasn’t so much a redhead as a strawberry blonde. I asked her what sort of coffee she wanted; she requested a double espresso and insisted on handing over the exact amount in loose change.

‘Hey, double espresso! Same as me!’ I said, with enthusiasm, wondering what that might taste like.

‘No, you always have a cappuccino.’

With her already knowing me so well, there was less of the exploratory trivia that I would have liked to warm up with.

‘Anyway, listen, I talked to my lawyer and I think it’s actually good that the final hearing got postponed.’

‘Oh, great!’ I said, trying not to wince at the strength of my black coffee.

‘Yes – he said that if the hearing had gone ahead and it was then discovered that you were not in a fit state to be in court, then the whole divorce might have been invalidated. Far better to get divorced when we know it would be a cast-iron
decree nisi
.’

‘Oh.’ I sighed. ‘I see.’

In the distance a street performer was juggling or balancing on a unicycle, or possibly both, and his bombastic self-commentary was punctuated with occasional ripples of applause.

‘See, I told him about your amnesia and he says you have to get medical attestation that you have the mental capacity to give instruction. Do you need to write that down?’

‘No, I can remember that.’

‘So you need to see a psychiatrist or neurologist or whatever as soon as possible so that we can finalize the divorce.’

She had already crushed the tiny part of me that had hoped she might be just a little bit flirty. We were only able to sit outside because of the large metallic mushrooms that appeared to have sprouted between the tables, but even these huge heaters struggled to revive the summer in the face of the plummeting temperature.

‘So have you seen a psychiatrist yet?’

‘I’m not mad. Why does everyone think I need a psychiatrist?’