A Trick of the Mind (11 page)

He was looking at me intently through his blue eyes, as if seeking reassurance. It must be terrifying to be so lost, without memories to help you navigate.

‘So that’s when I rang you, when I realised you were the one – if anyone – who would be there for me.’

The sun sinking outside shone directly through the window, colouring everything amber.

‘Retrograde amnesia, they called it,’ he went on. ‘I can remember, you see, bits and pieces before and after my accident. And I can form new memories. But there are bits around
the accident that have gone. Just gone. So when you came, I didn’t remember you! But it’s OK because they reminded me. And I thought, I have a beautiful girlfriend to get better for.
Nothing’s going to stop me performing the way I used to for her!’ He twinkled.

It was warm and quiet beside his bed, and it occurred to me how very isolated from the outside world we were, how cocooned in this ward from my real life. There seemed no point in worrying any
longer about what part I had in his accident. I was here now. I had to follow it through.

I thought of Fay, my yoga teacher, telling us to stay in the moment.

‘I do remember now that we had planned a weekend sailing in Southwold when all that stuff happened in the pub. That it was going to be our first full weekend together. I think. Is that
right?’

All that mattered was here, now. I wouldn’t think either about what I had done, or about where this was taking me. I would just do whatever I could to help him.

‘You’re the biggest incentive I have to get up and get going,’ he said. ‘But I can see it’s a pretty big ask for you to be patient with me. For you to wait while I
learn to walk again, when you’re so busy with – you see, I’ve forgotten. What’s your work again?’

‘I’m a painter,’ I told him, ‘an artist. And a primary school teacher.’ The New York commission seemed a superficial and paltry thing next to what Patrick was
having to confront, so I didn’t mention it.

‘I have to teach on Mondays and Fridays. But I wouldn’t put anything before your walking,’ I said. ‘I
will
be here for you.’

‘Pull the curtains round my bed,’ he said. I did as he asked.

‘Come closer.’

It was as though I had been hypnotised.

‘I need you,’ he said. ‘I’ve been starved of touch in here all this time.’

How long, I wondered, did he think he’d been here? It was only four days. Poor man, to be so confused.

‘Here, closer again. Next to me.’

‘Won’t it hurt you? Is it allowed?’

‘It’ll be fine.’

And I was doing as he asked.

I lay down on the hospital bed, leaving a gap of just centimetres between his body and mine. This man I barely knew looked at me, as if he was reminding himself of who I was, examining me from
the top of my head and every millimetre of my face, my eyes, my nose, and then his eyes came to a stop at my lips.

He didn’t move.

This
was
the right thing to do. I’d heard somewhere that if a person was deluded, say, with dementia, it’s much better to play along than to shatter their fantasy.

I was applying this notion to this man, since I no longer had the faintest idea what else I could do.

I ignored other thoughts that were pushing against my consciousness. Vague jumbled anxieties about who the woman he believed I was might be, my commission, the plans I had for May’s house,
how they had all seemed to be coming together.

I told myself I’d set everything straight as soon as I got all the facts sorted.

So for now I didn’t say anything.

And I convinced myself I was doing the right thing.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I stayed with Patrick until the sun outside the window turned a fiery blood red, colouring everything. I would have liked to paint Patrick’s face in this light, half of
it in shade, the rest tinted gold.

Patrick murmured to me as I lay next to him, relating to me more details about what he had been doing that Friday evening when our paths were about to fatefully cross.

‘What I do remember,’ he said softly, his face just inches from mine so I could feel his breath on my cheek, surprisingly sweet-smelling, reminding me of the sugared almonds Aunty
May sometimes gave us, ‘is that we were on our way down to Southwold and we’d stopped for a drink in that pub in Blythburgh. I do remember that.’

I didn’t speak. I wasn’t going to lie. I would just let him relate to me what he thought had happened.

‘And then there was this git who was insulting me. Wasn’t there? And I was stressed at the end of a long week. I’d been working my arse off. I knew it probably didn’t
sound stressful to you, an artist – second-guessing the markets, building the portfolio, keeping my eye on the competitors. But by God it can wear you down. I was so looking forward to our
weekend by the sea. Getting away from it all. Sailing. Chilling. A couple of rounds of golf. And those guys, the big bloke with the thick neck and his sidekick Mikey, they were laying into me about
something. It was the old drink talking but I decided the sensible thing to do would be to leave. Scott gave me a lift to the road. You were going to come on later. I said I’d walk from
there. I don’t know why. It was dumb of course, much further than I realised, in my inebriated haze, but I didn’t want to drive over the limit and thought I’d go back for the car
the next day. And then. Smack!’

‘What happened? Do you remember anything?’

‘I remember an almighty thump, then . . . no, nothing. Lights, yes, that’s right, there were lights that flared up, white, then everything went black. A pain in my knee, spreading to
my lower leg, a searing, as if I’d been burnt alive, and the red tail-lights of a blue car disappearing into the night.’

‘It was blue?’

‘Silvery blue. I remember the colour because it was just light still, and I remember getting a glimpse of it. A small car, like a Corsa, a Micra maybe.’

My car was blue. Silvery blue. A Nissan Micra.

‘How hard was the impact? Did it throw you in the air?’

‘Things are a blank, then, until the ambulance came. I remember being lifted into the back but then I must have blacked out again, because the next thing I knew I was in the hospital,
tubes coming out all over the place, the hideous smell of nitrous oxide. And this appalling, indescribable pain. I tried to move my leg, Ellie, to wriggle my toes. I remember an intense itch on my
shin, and it took me some time to realise there was nothing to scratch. Just . . . a gap. So fucking weird. How can a vacuum itch?’

I wondered whether he would hear the banging of my heart. I didn’t need to know any more, but I had to, I had to work out where my responsibility began and where it ended.

‘Ellie,’ he said. He reached his hand out to me, took mine, and I felt how large his hands were, how much strength there was in them.

I couldn’t bear to think I’d damaged – maimed – this perfectly healthy man, that I was the one responsible for his losing his lower leg! It was too huge to take in. If
I’d done this then I wasn’t safe to drive! I ought to give up my licence – it would be taken from me anyway when the police knew what I’d done, before they did whatever else
they did to prosecute a hit-and-runner.

I couldn’t look at him as I spoke.

‘Your life’s been ruined. You won’t be able to work any more, will you? To sail, play golf, all those things you’ve been mentioning.’

The ward was dissolving now behind a veil of tears.

He spoke in a whisper.

‘Hey, don’t cry! We can get through this together.’

‘But I’m . . .’

‘Look. I’m not going to let this beat me. Every setback is a challenge, that’s what I’ve always believed. Every problem is really a learning opportunity.’

When at last the tears began to dry up I looked at him. He’d kept my hand in his and now he squeezed it tightly. His was warm and dry. Comforting. I didn’t want him to let go.

‘What are you going to do? You should get some kind of compensation, shouldn’t you?’ What kind of coward was I? I should confess. Now. But the words wouldn’t come.

Patrick was looking at me, his head tilted on the side of the pillow. He licked his dry lips and he said, ‘No. I don’t have to say anything. It’s up to me. It isn’t up to
anyone else in the world. I’ve decided to ask the police not to pursue this. My choice.’

He was gazing as if right into me or even right out the other side, as if he was far away and thinking of something quite distant from here and now.

‘Why, Patrick? Surely you should get them to find whoever did this ghastly thing to you?’

‘I don’t have faith in the cops,’ he said, dropping my hand, turning his face from me. ‘To be honest I’d rather not have them involved any more. What’s
happened, has happened.’

I wanted to press him. Why wouldn’t he want to find the culprit, claim compensation? And wasn’t there a duty to report it, to prevent whoever did this from doing it to anyone else?
If he decided to, I could – would have to – face the consequences even if it meant losing all I’d been working towards. But he went on.

‘It’s my decision. The ambulance guys informed the police when I was found, and they must have put it out on the radio, but I told the police when they came here to fire daft
questions at me to drop it. How could I remember the colour of the car, I asked them.’

‘But you said you saw it, it was blue?’

‘Did I? I keep getting so confused. Anyway, how could I explain what had happened when I was only just coming round? I said look, it was an accident, and I choose to leave it at that and
concentrate on recovering. What’s done’s done. I want to move forward. Take action and you get results, dwell on negatives and they simply multiply and obliterate your way ahead.
I’m not interested in going over and over what might or might not have happened. I want to grasp the future by the short and curlies! I’m going to learn to use a prosthetic. I want to
move forward.’

He sounded so sure, so convinced. Then he spoke again.

‘Ellie,’ he said, stroking my cheek with the back of a finger. ‘I would understand if you didn’t want to stay with me now I’m so changed. We haven’t known
each other all that long. I would understand if you wanted out.’

‘No, Patrick. I wouldn’t just abandon you. But I’m going to have to go now. They won’t let me stay . . .’

His beguiling blue eyes locked onto mine, the dimples deepened in his cheeks as he smiled gently up at me. His teeth were even and white.

I had no references, no way of knowing how to deal with this.

The raw, skinless, floaty feeling came over me. I needed a ritual, I needed a voice to tell me to do something.
Look back three times and it’ll be OK. Tap the bed three times and it
will turn out to be someone else who did this to him.

He was speaking again.

‘I’ll need help, learning to walk again – if that’s possible, and if it isn’t, I’ll need someone to push the wheelchair for me, just until . . . until I learn
to do it myself. I won’t be able to drive again. If it’s too much to ask of you, I’d prefer you just said so. So I know where I stand.’

I couldn’t help myself, I placed my hand on top of his where it lay on the blanket. He smiled up at me.

‘I’m here for you,’ I said. ‘You know I am.’

‘How could I ever have forgotten you?’ he said. ‘Remind me what kind of painting you do?’

I told him they were river paintings, semi abstract, with many different layers.

‘I can help you too, of course. I probably already told you that. I’ve got hundreds of clients who are always looking for art for their offices.’

‘Really?’

‘Sure.’

‘But, don’t you . . . isn’t there anyone else?’

He pulled his hand from under mine then, his lips turning down, stared away from me and my heart rate sped up again. I was afraid I’d offended him.

‘I don’t want to think about anyone else right now. There’s only so much I can cope with at the moment. I only want to think about you, Ellie, your lovely gentle face, your
sweet voice, your wild dark hair, like a scruffy angel’s. Your intense – what are they? Black? Brown? Green? No, hazel. Your intense hazel eyes. Your funny crooked smile. I can hardly
bear the thought of the night apart from you.’

‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘I’ll come back tomorrow, I promise.’

I pulled back, turned my head.

‘I must go.’ I had left Pepper in the car; I could see him from here. My car was out there, Pepper’s little face was in the back. I’d left him far too long.

‘You’ll come back, won’t you?’ he said. ‘Tomorrow?’

‘Of course.’

‘Come soon. Bring me fruit, please, something fresh?’

‘I’ll bring you anything you like, you only have to ask.’

He was gazing at me, and I realised I was trembling, though I had no idea whether it was with desire for Patrick, or terror at where I was heading.

‘Kiss me goodbye then.’

I couldn’t – it was, surely, crossing a line.

But there I was. I was leaning over him and pressing my lips against his cheek, and he was moving his face so our lips were touching and we lingered like this, poised, lips against each other,
not moving, just sensing.

The oddest thing happened as we stayed like this for I don’t know how long.

It was as if the world just fell away.

As if there was no one and nothing else, no time passing, no world turning. Just our two mouths, and a kind of buzzing in my ears, and an emptiness that was soft and perfect. A translucent
moment, in this treacly light, as if we were trapped in a perfect piece of amber.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

On my way out I stopped to ask the health care worker at the desk if anyone else had been in to see Patrick.

‘He’s asked me to get in touch with a few relatives and friends,’ I said, ‘but I don’t want to bother those who have already been.’

Each untruth I let pass led to another. Lying – or at least, glossing over the truth – was an easy thing, after all.

‘There were a couple of blokes, mates of his,’ he said. ‘Came in yesterday, brought him some bits and pieces. And the police have been in. But he asked them to drop the
investigation, for some reason. It’s up to him of course. None of our business. He’s been mainly asking for you. You’re Ellie, aren’t you? His girlfriend?’