The Man Who Forgot His Wife (5 page)

‘
You
might do that—’

‘I’m not licking ketchup off your blouse, love – that’s crossing the line. Vaughan, mate – you got sauce on your shirt there …’

‘Gary,’ I said quietly, ‘I think I want to go back to the hospital.’

I found myself squinting at the bright sunshine as we stepped out of the dingy pub. Gary lit a cigarette and offered me one.

‘No, thanks.’

‘No? You normally smoke like a fucking beagle.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah, you tried everything to give up – gum, patches, reading that book by that smug bloke, but you were completely addicted.’

‘Right.’ I nodded, watching him inhale with no desire or craving whatsoever. ‘Until I forgot I was.’

So far Gary had told me that I was a chain-smoking teacher, in a sink school, whose marriage was on the rocks. Normally one would discover this about oneself over a period of decades.

‘Are you all right, mate? You look kinda weird.’

‘Can I just go back to the hospital, please?’

‘Listen, you can’t stay there for ever. You know, you can always shack up at my place. You stayed for a while when things started to go a bit wrong on the marriage front.’

‘When things started to go a bit wrong?’

‘Yeah.’ He chuckled incredulously at the memory of it. ‘You turned up at my place with this blood-soaked bandage on your hand, saying that was it – the marriage was over.’

Then the penny dropped. ‘Oh, I get it!’ I laughed. ‘This is another one of your stupid jokes, isn’t it? Maddy and I aren’t separated at all, are we?’

Gary winced as he took a deep toke of his cigarette, as if it was the strongest skunk on the market.

‘No joke, mate. You and Maddy can’t stand each other no more. Oh, and that’s the other reason you can’t stay in the hospital. You’re divorcing her on Thursday.’

‘I’m divorcing her on Thursday!?’

‘Oh, hang on, no, I’ve got that wrong—’

‘What? So it
is
a joke?’

‘It’s not Thursday. It’s Friday. When’s the second of November? That’s Friday, isn’t it? Yeah, you’re divorcing her on Friday. Is there a snack machine at the hospital?’

Chapter 4

GOOGLE IMAGES HAD
revealed that there was more than one person in the world called ‘Madeleine Vaughan’. Now I could see why the marriage hadn’t worked out. She was either nine years old, a Labradoodle puppy or a very tanned porn actress.

That night I had gone upstairs to spend some time on the computer terminal ‘provided by the Friends of Teddy’s’, which for a moment I had thought must be a pre-school children’s TV show. The only time you could get on it was late at night, but this added to the shady sense of espionage I felt. ‘Maybe my wife had kept her maiden name,’ I thought, in which case it was just a question of scrolling through every picture on the internet tagged with any version of her name and seeing if any of them looked remotely likely.

Researching details about myself had been no easier. Facebook wouldn’t let me log in; it seemed to be really strict about the level of personal information it demanded. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t asked Gary what my first name actually was. But with the little knowledge I had so far and a bit of detective work, it had eventually been possible to track a man down who quite possibly could have
been
me. I found a secondary school in the exact location Gary had described and there on a list of staff members at ‘Wandle Academy’ was ‘Jack Vaughan–History’. It was either an unusual double-barrelled name, confirmation of my subject area or a description of my personal status.

Without pausing to reflect on what I felt about my full name, I continued my investigation, narrowing the search by adding ‘teacher’ and ‘uk’, and found that there were a couple of references to ‘Jack Vaughan’ at an education conference in Kettering at which I’d spoken a year earlier. On the school website I scanned photographs of students and other members of staff – people I must have known. Then in one rather low-quality photo I finally spotted myself, grinning inanely on the edge of a staff group shot. So I did exist before 22 October! I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. I felt as if some identity thief had been freely walking around pretending to be me: teaching history, talking at conferences, alienating my wife.

It was nearly dawn by the time I forced myself to stop. I spent the following morning trying to catch up on my sleep, attempting to ignore Bernard whispering, ‘Vaughan? Vaughan? With all your memory problems, you’ve probably forgotten it’s quite rude to keep your curtains closed all morning.’ It turned out that those were to be my last few hours in the hospital.

Suddenly the curtain around my bed was pulled back and there stood Gary with a smartly dressed blonde woman who looked younger than us.

‘Ta da!’ exclaimed Gary. ‘Vaughan – meet the missus!’

The woman beside him gave me a nervous smile and attempted a rather girlie wave. ‘Hello, Vaughan. Remember me?’

‘Erm … no, I don’t, sorry. Are you Maddy? Madeleine?’ My voice was shaking having had her sprung on me like this. But if I had felt any anger towards her before 22 October, that emotion wasn’t suddenly rediscovered by seeing her again. My wife was
just
a complete stranger – a woman towards whom I felt no particular hostility, nor, indeed, any attraction.

‘Not
your
missus, you senile bastard,
my
missus! This is Linda!’

I felt the back of my head hit the pillow. Gary turned to her. ‘See, I told you, didn’t I? Like I said, he’s forgotten bloody everything. So he won’t remember that embarrassing affair the two of you had in Lanzarote.’

She giggled and gave him a playful slap on the arm. ‘Honestly, Gary! What are you like! Don’t worry, Vaughan – we didn’t! I … am … Linda. Gary’s … wife,’ she explained extra slowly, as if speaking to a foreigner in a coma. She came forward to kiss me, but then diverted to a handshake when she saw the surprise on my face. ‘Gary’s explained what happened, and we’re going to take you back home and look after you, aren’t we, Gaz?’

Linda had already rung the ward to make her offer earlier that morning and apparently the hospital staff had embraced the notion of returning me to normal life. Of course it had been a big decision. The various medics who had been monitoring me had all given their professional opinions on my fragile psychological and physical state and whether a change of location might impede my progress. Then they balanced that against how much the hospital needed my bed and said, ‘How quickly can he leave?’

With Gary and his wife having convinced the hospital of their credentials as close friends and suitable carers, Dr Lewington formally presented me with a leaving present. ‘I’m afraid there is no guarantee that your memory will not wipe itself all over again, leaving you stranded and lost as before. So I want you to wear this identity tag around your neck at all times; it has emergency contact details for this hospital.’

‘And it’s metal,’ added Gary. ‘So even if your body was, like, horribly burned, we’d still know it was you.’

I had a series of future appointments scheduled, which I was rather tactlessly told not to forget, and then I was allowed a little time to gather up the rest of my possessions. Apart from the
clothes
I had arrived in, these totalled half a packet of tissues, some mints and Bernard’s
Improve Your Memory
book.

‘Do pop over and say hello when you’re back for your checkups,’ said Bernard, a little forlornly.

‘Of course I will, Bernard. If you’re not out of here by then!’

‘Have you got the same thing as Mr Memory Man here?’ Gary asked him.

‘No. I’ve got a brain tumour!’ he said brightly.

‘Oh,’ said Linda. ‘I’m very sorry to hear that.’

‘Oh, I don’t let a silly old tumour get me down. I say anything that rhymes with “humour” can’t be all that bad.’

‘Right,’ reflected Gary. ‘Well, that seems like a very sound medical diagnosis. Makes me feel a lot better about that dose I had that rhymes with “Snap”!’ And Linda giggled and slapped him on the arm again.

Linda was not the spouse I would have cast for Gary. If he had taken the trouble the day before to mention that he was married, I think I would have expected some spiky-haired punk chick with piercings in uncomfortable-looking places, or perhaps an old hippy with hennaed hair and a big purple velvet skirt. Linda was not only conventional, but surprisingly young and posh, and glowed with the vigorous good health and self-confidence that came from generations of healthy diets and skiing holidays.

‘Actually, we do have some rather big news since we last saw you,’ said Linda, standing by the lift and smiling knowingly at her husband, who frowned slightly that she was going down this path. ‘You know we’ve been trying for a baby …’

‘No?’

‘Oh. No, of course not. Well, the wonderful thing is – it’s happened! We’re going to be a proper family!’

She said this as if it was the cue for me to scream in excitement, and when I merely gave my polite congratulations she looked a little put out. As we travelled down in the lift she began to provide anecdotes and accounts of past episodes as if to prove that I really
did
know them very well. Apparently I had been Gary’s best man at their recent wedding; I had played football with Gary every Tuesday night for years; I had even been on holiday with them, and Gary chipped in with the detail of how I had memorably fallen off the side of a fishing boat as he had pulled a huge tuna on board.

‘Well, Gary didn’t actually pull it on board. The man we’d chartered the trip from took over for the last bit, but it was very funny,’ added Linda.

‘No,
I
caught the fish,’ interjected Gary with an edge of irritation in his voice.

‘Yes, you hooked it, but the man hauled it on to the deck at the end and this huge fish flapping about made you jump backwards into the sea, Vaughan – it was very funny!’

‘No, you’re getting mixed up,’ insisted Gary. ‘He helped that American lady, but I pulled my own fish out of the sea – back me up here, Vaughan – oh no, you can’t, can you?’

‘Well, it doesn’t matter whether the man helped Gary a little bit—’ said Linda.

‘Though he didn’t—’

‘The point is that you fell in the sea and the man had to pull you on to the boat.’

‘Unlike the fish, which I did myself.’

‘I’m sorry, I don’t remember any of it,’ I mumbled. ‘I just feel like I’m being incredibly rude, you know? It’s like I was the best man at your wedding but now I don’t even know what Gary and I have in common. I mean, what did we used to talk about? I don’t know.’

They thought about this for a moment.

‘I don’t think you ever had an actual conversation,’ said Linda. ‘You just compared apps on your iPhones.’

Beside me in the back of Gary and Linda’s family car was an immaculate new baby seat strapped into position, but with the label still attached. ‘So when exactly is it due?’

‘In about nine months’ time,’ sighed Gary.

‘No, it’s less than that,’ corrected Linda. ‘But we want to make sure everything is perfect for Baby.’

‘
The
baby,’ corrected Gary.

‘It’s just this seat was on a discount, and it’s one of the safest ones for Baby.’

‘
The
baby …’

It was a sunny, windy day as we drove out of the hospital car park. The leaves were still on the trees, but looked as though they wouldn’t hold out for much longer. I had presumed that we would be going straight back to Gary and Linda’s flat, but they clearly had other plans.

‘Okay, groovy people, we are welcoming you to aboard on Gary and Linda’s famous Magicking Mystery Tour!’ announced my driver, doing his best impression of a German tour guide, or maybe it was a Dutch MTV presenter: the accent tended to wander slightly. ‘On this evening’s super-hip sightsee trip, we will be point out some of most famous landmarks of Vaughan’s life, which is pretty cool, yah?’ Linda was laughing at his mid-Atlantic, Swiss/Scandinavian/American accent. ‘And we will be give a bit of history surround some of fascinating locations we passing will be.’ Now he just sounded like Yoda.

We were still some distance from any significant personal landmarks, but Gary did point out a pub we’d popped into about ten years ago, and then a sports shop where he’d bought some trainers, though he was pretty sure I hadn’t been with him. He had given up on the comedy foreign accent, though the concept of the tour guide was still just clinging on. ‘If you look out of the left-hand window you can see a branch of the celebrated restaurant chain McDonald’s, which is where your parents and tutors always hoped you might work if you realized your full potential. Tragically, it was never to be, and you became a history teacher instead. And coming up on our right here is the first school you ever taught at! There – spark any distant memories?’

I looked at the large Victorian building, recently refurbished with fountains, electric gates and CCTV.

‘It says “Luxury Flats”.’

‘Yeah, well, they closed the school down once you joined, didn’t they?’

‘Oh, Gary – you are rude sometimes! It wasn’t your fault they closed it down, Vaughan. It was something to do with education cuts, which I’m actually
against
because I think children are the future.’

From there we crossed the river and Gary pointed out a couple more pubs we had frequented. Churches, gyms and health-food shops were passed without comment. Gary and Linda were surprised that I recognized some roads and not others; it seemed that a generic knowledge of London’s main streets and bridges had survived, but nothing that was particular to my own personal experience. After a picturesque dual carriageway and graffiti-covered underpass, we pulled up outside a huge modern comprehensive.

‘This is where I teach?’

‘Wow – it’s worked! You remember it, you clever bastard!’

‘No – you just said my school was in Wandsworth and so I found Wandle Academy on the internet.’

‘Oh. Well, anyway, guess what? This is where you teach! Not exactly fucking Hogwarts, is it?’

The concrete edifice did look a bit shabby and foreboding. The entrance was strewn with litter and, as if to symbolize the growth of young minds, a couple of young silver birch saplings had been planted near the entrance, and then snapped off before they’d barely started.