The Man Who Forgot His Wife (3 page)

‘Could we get something in the newspaper?’ I kept suggesting to the ward sister. ‘A sort of “Do you know this man?” feature next to my photo?’ Despite her general air of never having enough time or appreciation, she eventually agreed that this might be a good idea, and I sat in her tiny office while she nervously rang the news desk at the
London Evening Standard
. She explained my situation, but I only heard her side of the conversation, as she covered the mouthpiece and relayed their questions about me.

‘They want to know if you are really brilliant at the piano or anything like that?’

‘Well – I don’t know … I can’t remember. Maybe I should speak to them?’

‘He doesn’t know.’ Another pause. ‘Are you, like, an incredible linguist or a maths genius or anything?’

‘I don’t think so. I can only do the easy puzzles in Bernard’s Sudoku book … Should I speak to them?’

‘Er, he can do easy Sudoku puzzles. Does that help at all?’

Apparently the paper didn’t have the staff to send anyone round to the hospital, but said they might run the story if we sent over all the details with an up-to-date photo. The next day in the centre pages there was a huge double spread headed ‘Who’s the Mystery Man?’ Beneath it was a picture of a well-groomed young man standing beside Pippa Middleton at a charity polo match. I went through the paper twice, but there was nothing about me. It trans pired that they had been intending to run my story, but then the scoop about the mystery companion of Prince William’s sister-in-law had broken, and the editor had ruled that they couldn’t have two ‘mystery man’ stories in the same edition. The journalist who had taken our initial call was now on holiday, so the potential story
was
now assigned to another reporter. ‘Tell me,’ she asked, ‘are you, like, really brilliant at the piano or anything?’

I found it hard to sleep at night, and sometimes slipped away to the dark and empty Day Room, which boasted a great view of the hypnotic London skyline. It was on the fourth night, staring out at the million tiny lights of the city, that it hit me that this was my life now; that this syndrome wasn’t some temporary blip. Someone was called to investigate the loud thumping noise coming from the tenth floor. It was there that one of the orderlies found me, banging my head against the glass over and over again. ‘Hey, mate, don’t do that!’ he said. ‘You’ll break the glass.’

Sometimes I would pass a few hours in the television room. It was on one of these visits that I discovered
Mr & Mrs
, which had been reinvented featuring celebrities and their good-looking spouses. This programme became something of an obsession with me. I just loved how these couples could remember so much about one another, and I laughed along with every marital faux-pas and basked in the couples’ easy familiarity.

‘Ah, found you!’ declared Bernard in his unmistakable high-pitched nasal whine, just as the second half of the programme was about to begin. ‘Look, I got a couple of books for you from the newsagent’s in the lobby:
How to Improve Your Memory in Just Fifteen Minutes a Day
! I don’t know why we didn’t think of this ages ago!’

‘That’s very kind of you, Bernard, but I’m guessing that’s more for general forgetfulness than retrograde amnesia.’

‘Well, it’s all degrees of the same thing, isn’t it?’

‘Er, no.’

‘Believe me, I know what you’re going through because I can never remember where I’ve put my keys.’

‘See, I don’t suffer from that, actually. I can remember
everything
I’ve done since coming to this hospital. But I just can’t remember a single thing about my life before that day.’

‘Yes, yes, I see what you’re saying. So you might need to do more than fifteen minutes a day,’ he conceded, opening the book at random. ‘
When you are introduced to a new person for the first time … try repeating their name out loud to lodge it in your memory. So instead of just “Hello” you say “Hello, Simon”
. Well, you could try doing that for a start!’

‘Yeah, but you see, I don’t think that’s going to unlock the first forty years of my life …’

‘Scissors is the other one. I can never remember where I left the scissors. Sometimes I think they must be deliberately avoiding me! Ooh, this is a good one: “
If you have problems remembering telephone numbers, try making associations. For example, if a friend’s number is 2012 1066, then just remember it by thinking, London Olympics and the Battle of Hastings
.”’

‘Okay – great. If that particular number comes up, I’ll definitely remember it like that.’

‘You see!’ said Bernard, gratified that he’d been such a help. ‘And it’s only fifteen minutes a day. Ooh,
All-Star Mr & Mrs
!’ I’d love to go on that programme. You know, like, if I was famous … and had a wife.’

When my favourite TV show was over for another day, I announced I was heading back to my bed, but Bernard jumped up ‘to keep me company’, triumphantly revealing the other book he had bought on the ground floor. He had decided that one way to trigger a memory of my own identity might be to read out every single male name in the worryingly thick tome entitled
Name Your Baby
. Part of me wanted to scream in frustration, but I knew that in his uniquely unhelpful way, Bernard was only trying to be helpful.

During the course of that long afternoon it became clear why
Name Your Baby
has never been a huge hit as an audiobook. Sure
there
are lots of characters, but none of them is ever particularly developed. ‘Aaron’, for example, has a walk-on part right at the beginning but then we never hear from him again. The same was true with ‘Abdullah’, who also failed to offer up any clues as to whether that might be the sort of name my parents had given me.

‘I’m not sure you should lie down like that,’ said Bernard. ‘You’re still really concentrating, aren’t you?’

‘Definitely. I’m just closing my eyes so I can be sure there’s nothing else to distract me …’

I eventually woke up to the alliterative poetry of ‘Francis? Frank? Frankie? Franklin?’ Even though Bernard had been going for several hours, he still declared every name with extraordinary gusto and optimism. I had just had the same dream I’d experienced a couple of times now: a snapshot of a moment sharing laughter with a woman. I couldn’t remember a face or a name, but she seemed to love me as I loved her. The sensation was pure happiness, the only colour in a black-and-white world, and I was crushed when I awoke to the huge void that was my life right now. Had it not been for the gripping narrative of Bernard’s book, I might have allowed myself to be quite depressed.

‘Gabriel? Gael? Galvin? Ganesh?’

‘Hmmm,’ I thought, ‘I don’t think I look much like a “Ganesh”. I haven’t got four arms and the head of an elephant, for a start.’ Maybe I could ask him to stop now; perhaps claim that after several hours of intense concentration I was tiring a little.

‘Gareth? Garfield? Garrison?’ An unspecified electronic buzz was coming from the ward reception desk. ‘Garth? Garvin? Gary?’

And then something extraordinary happened. On hearing the word ‘Gary’, I just heard myself mumble ‘07700 …’

‘What was that?’ said Bernard.

‘I don’t know,’ I said, sitting up. ‘It just came out when you said “Gary”.’

‘Is that it? Is that you? Are you
Gary
?’

‘I don’t think so. Say it again.’

‘Gary!’

‘07700 …’ There was more. ‘900 … 913.’

It was like an involuntary spasm; there was no context or meaning to it – it just felt natural that those numbers followed that name.

‘That’s a telephone number!’ said Bernard excitedly, writing it down.

‘Yeah, but whose?’

Bernard looked at me as if I was being particularly stupid. ‘I mean, someone called Gary, probably, but I wonder who he is?’

We had discovered a fragment of DNA from my past life. Bernard had successfully shown the way to my hinterland. I’d been sceptical and negative and he had proved me wrong. I might have actually congratulated him on his tenacity and initiative if I hadn’t noticed that these very qualities had caused him to reach for his mobile phone and start dialling.

‘What are you doing?’ I screamed.

‘Ringing Gary. Was it “913” at the end?’

‘No, don’t! I’m not ready! We should talk to the doctor! You’re not allowed to use that in here—’

‘It’s ringing!’ and he threw the handset over to me.

Slowly I raised it to my ear. ‘There’s no one there. It’s probably just a random number. I can’t believe I’m even listening to this …’ Then a distant electronic crackle. And after a whole week, the first faint sound heard by rescue teams digging in the rubble.

‘Hello?’ said a male voice, on a weak, distorted signal.

‘Um … hello? Is that … er, Gary, by any chance?’ I stammered.

‘Yeah. Vaughan! Is that you? Where the hell have you been? It’s like you suddenly disappeared off the face of the earth!’

In a panic I dropped the call and threw the handset back to Bernard.

‘Did you recognize his voice?’

‘Er, no. No, I … It’s probably just some random bloke,’ I stammered. But the stranger was ringing straight back. And soon they were having quite an animated chat about me.

‘Not any more,’ said Bernard. ‘I think
I
’m his best friend now …’

Chapter 3

GARY HUGGED ME
meaningfully while I just stood there, enduring the physical contact like some teenage boy cuddled by his aunt at Christmas.

‘Vaughan! I was so worried about you. I love you, man!’

‘You love me?’ I stammered. ‘So am I your …? Are we, like,
homosexuals
?’

The meaningful embrace ended very suddenly as Gary glanced across at Bernard. ‘No, I don’t love you like
that
. I mean I love you like a brother, you know …’

‘You’re my brother?’

‘No, not literally your brother – I mean we’re like brothers, you and me. Gazoody-baby!’

‘What?’

‘Gazoody-baby! That’s what we used to say, isn’t it? Gazooooooody-baby! Remember?’ and he gave me a little playful punch on the arm which actually hurt slightly.

This was my visitor being reserved and unassuming after he’d been given a little talk by the doctor. She had warned him on the phone that I was unlikely to know who he was, and might react
nervously
if he was too presumptuous or over-familiar. It was good that he had taken so much of this on board. Despite the solitude I’d felt up to this point, the sudden friendliness of this stranger felt inappropriate. Some primal defence mechanism kicked in; clearly early hunter-gatherers had learned that total strangers were only this friendly when trying to get you to come to an Alpha Course meeting.

‘Look, I know this is going to sound a bit rude, but I’m afraid I really don’t know who you are. Until you called me “Vaughan” I didn’t even know that was my Christian name.’

‘Actually it’s your surname. That’s just what everybody calls you.’

‘See? I didn’t know that! I don’t know anything. Do I have a mother, for example? I don’t know.’

The man paused and placed his hand on my shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, mate. Your old mum kicked the bucket about five years ago.’

‘Oh, okay.’ I shrugged. ‘Well, I don’t remember her anyway …’

And he laughed as if I was making a joke.

‘Yeah, the nurse said you’ve lost your memory or something? She’s hot, isn’t she? Has she seen you naked?’

‘Er, no.’

‘Well, that’s probably just as well. Do you want to go and get a pint or two? I really fancy a pickled gherkin.’

And then I found myself emitting an unexpected laugh. It was the first time I had laughed since Day Zero, and my visitor hadn’t even been trying to be funny. Just the randomness of his thought processes felt comical and refreshing. My own personality had been a mystery to me when I walked into the hospital; the various darkened rooms just needed the right people to open the doors to show me the way around. Bernard had lit up my irritable, slightly intolerant side; Gary had shown me what made me laugh.

‘So, Vaughan, put some clothes on, for Christ’s sake, ’cos you can’t go to the pub in your fucking pyjamas!’

‘He’s not allowed to leave the hospital!’ interjected Bernard,
looking
a little put out by this interloper’s arrival. ‘In fact, the doctor said she wanted to be here when you two first met.’

‘Yeah, but I got fed up of waiting, didn’t I? I’ve been sitting out there twenty minutes. I don’t need an appointment to see my best friend!’

I tried not to look too smugly towards Bernard at this description of myself. After a week in an institution, my friend’s disregard for rules was infectious and part of me was tempted to jump at this opportunity for a trip into the outside world. I might have remained in two minds, had Bernard not explicitly forbidden me to leave the ward.

Walking out of the hospital with Gary felt both exhilarating and terrifying. I had almost forgotten what fresh air smelt like and here was someone who knew all the secrets of my past life. I jumped slightly at the noise of a passing motorbike and felt intimidated by the other hurrying pedestrians, who all seemed to be so sure about where they were going.

Gary was a tall, spindly man about my age who dressed in the clothes of someone twenty years younger. He wore a leather motor cycle jacket, though it turned out there was no motorbike. His sideburns came slightly too low for someone whose hairline was creeping that far back, and he exuded an air of easy confidence and a powerful reek of nicotine. But although I was a little thrown by his overly casual manner, it was refreshing to be talked to as if I was normal. It made me like him – this was my friend ‘Gary’. I had a friend and we were off to the pub together.

‘So we might as well get this out of the way …’ he said, looking a little awkward as we got to the street corner ‘… but you do remember you owe me two grand?’

‘Do I? Sorry, I don’t have any money … I … if you could just hang on a bit?’ and then I caught the glint in his eye and he burst out laughing.

‘Ha ha ha – yeah, ’s all right!’ He laughed. ‘I’m just pissing with you!’