Forgotten: a truly gripping psychological thriller (8 page)

‘I’ll see you in the morning,’ she said to Ekachai with a weak smile. ‘Let’s hope it does some good.’

***

For the first time since she’d woken up in the hospital bed Kai could remember a dream. Or at least the shapes from a dream. There had been a man, tall and fair-haired, and a boat trip in the sun. He was somehow familiar and strange at the same time, like a mix of two people. All she could fix on firmly was his smile and the gentle lapping of water on the side of the boat. It was all very hazy but she woke with an unfamiliar feeling of well-being and pleasant anticipation. Suddenly she had high hopes for the hypnotherapy as though, now she’d re-established contact with her subconscious, grabbing it by the throat and shaking it was well within her capabilities.

Ekachai kept his word and arrived just after her breakfast things had been cleared by an ever-smiling nurse. She had showered and dressed before breakfast but he waited patiently while she combed her hair. The mirror still told her that she looked a little vacant but she was buoyant on fresh hope, fuelled by the fact that the scar above her eye wasn’t as sore-looking as last time she’d examined her reflection this closely. She was healing, slowly but, with a sudden shiver, she remembered the word ‘damaged’ in the journal – was she beyond repair?

Ekachai smiled up at her as she re-entered the room as though he approved of her appearance. He stood up, allowing her to pass, letting her take the lead and take her time – no pressure. Kai took two steps towards the door and paused. Could she really do this? This room was all that she knew and leaving it was surprisingly difficult despite her excitement and anticipation. She had a sudden urge to grab the door frame and stay with the familiar and the comfortable. Desperately she scanned the room looking for an excuse to procrastinate, a chair out of position or a crease in the bed cover. Nothing seemed out of place so she began rehearsing excuses in her mind, many small reasons why this was suddenly such a bad idea. It was too soon. It wouldn’t work. She was frightened.

Ekachai was a model of tolerance. He stepped through the door and then paused, leaning his back against the wall of the corridor and smiling his encouragement. She could sense him willing her on and finally she broke out of the room like a swimmer surfacing after a length under water – even her breathing sounded like she’d just performed some amazing physical feat. She grinned back at the doctor and a silent understanding passed between them. She’d just taken an important step towards her recovery. She willed herself not to look back at her bed.

Despite her anticipation, she had to admit to herself that the world outside her room was a disappointment. The grey corridor seemed to run the length of the building with doors off at regular intervals like an art student’s first attempt at perspective. The paintwork was scuffed and chipped and the dark line where the walls met the floor was grimy and greasy looking. Obviously, whoever mopped the floor only managed a cursory lick of damp cloth in the difficult-to-reach, and difficult-to-complain about, areas. They walked in silence and Kai became aware of other people around her, other patients. From one open door she heard a radio, a song that sounded vaguely familiar; through another she saw an old man lying motionless on top of his bed covers. She tried to absorb both, to add them to her paltry collection of memories, just so that she had something to think about that was outside her room.

Halfway along the corridor Ekachai stopped at the double metal doors of a lift. Kai’s heartbeat picked up as Ekachai stabbed the call button with an authoritative thrust of his index finger and her tension grew as the numbers above the doors crawled down towards them. She counted in her head,
six
,
five
,
four
… There was no way she was going to be able to get in the lift – the idea was horrifying to her but she had no idea why that should be. She’d expected to feel only relief when she left the confines of her room. The indicator light was on three, only one more floor to go. She could hear her breath rasping as she fought for air, each inhalation more laboured than the last.

‘Can we take the stairs please?’ she asked, hoping Ekachi wouldn’t notice the panic in her voice as she silently begged him to say yes.

He studied her expression. ‘Are you frightened of small places?’ he asked, his voice warm with concern.

‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘I just don’t want to get in there.’

She saw him consider for a few seconds then he filed the information away in his head and took her arm just above the elbow.

‘This way.’

Her relief was disproportionate to the event. As they continued along the corridor she felt sweat cooling on her face and neck and her breathing steadied to a normal rate. Ekachai was still holding her arm and she gently eased herself away so that she was walking unaided. He glanced at her curiously and she knew he’d file that one away too. Kai started to listen to the faint whispers of doubt tickling her newly regained sub-conscious, whispers that hinted at uncertainty and fear. Somehow they knew that she was dealing with more than amnesia and that her reactions had some deeper cause but her subconscious was not about to fill her in on the details. She knew that information would only be gained through hard work.

Climbing the stairs turned out to be hard enough. On reaching the first landing she had to stop for breath, legs shaking, a heavy pulse pounding in her temples.

‘Take your time,’ Ekachai said kindly as she leaned against the wall. ‘You have been inactive for some time now.’

‘I feel like a bloody cripple,’ Kai spat back at him and forced herself up the next flight of stairs without using the handrail, hating her unresponsive body. She was relieved when, instead of continuing upwards, Ekachai led her through a door at the top of the stairs into a corridor that was totally different from the one below. Instead of grimy tiles she found herself walking on carpet, thin and scuffed but still carpet, and the walls were not pale, dull grey but a soothing lemon shade.

‘As you can see,’ Ekachai began sounding like a tour guide beginning a lecture, ‘We like to create a pleasant atmosphere for our more… troubled patients.’

Kai heard ‘damaged’ in his hesitation and smiled at his attempt at tact.

‘You mean you want to keep the psychos calm?’

‘I mean that we want the people who come here to feel that they are comfortable,’ he chided and she detected irritation in his voice. Again she thought
he’s out of his depth here
and promised herself that she would try to co-operate – he was only trying to help her.

Ekachai paused in front of a plain wooden door with no name plate to hint at the nature of the occupant of the room. A single knock brought the invitation ‘Come in’ and Ekachai propelled her forward with a gentle hand in the small of her back, allowing her no room to turn and run.

Kai almost laughed in surprise when she saw the owner of the voice. Instead of the older, male doctor of her imagination a young woman was smiling a welcome. More surprising still, the woman wasn’t Thai, well, not completely. Her short hair was dark but not black and her skin was golden but it looked tanned rather than naturally dark.

‘You look surprised.’ Her American accent threw Kai further off balance. ‘Not quite what you were expecting? Sorry. I get this reaction a lot.’

Disarmed by the woman’s smile Kai didn’t know how to respond until Ekachai rescued her.

‘Doctor Thomas is American. She wished to spend time in our country after qualifying in the United States.’

‘My mom’s Thai,’ the woman added, ‘and it’s Ellen.’ She held out her hand and Kai took it uncertainly, still feeling a little cheated. If Ekachai had told her that the doctor was a woman she would probably have been more willing and less frightened, but she couldn’t work out why that should be the case.

‘Shall we sit down?’ the doctor gestured to an armchair which looked about fifty times more comfortable than the one in Kai’s room and pulled her own chair closer as Kai sat down.

‘I don’t know what Doctor Ekachai has told you but I’m here to try to help you recover some of your memories. There’s no need to be worried because you’ll be in total control the whole time. Nothing will happen that you don’t want. Okay?’

Kai shrugged and shook her head. ‘Sorry if I seem a bit out of it. I don’t know what to expect. And, yes, I am a bit nervous.’
Terrified more
like
, she thought.

Ellen’s deep brown eyes studied her own, flicking backwards and forwards as though she were able to read Kai’s thoughts. Kai didn’t enjoy the scrutiny but she sensed that to look away would be like admitting defeat before she’d even started.

‘Okay,’ the doctor sighed, ‘can I ask you a few questions before we get started?’

Kai smiled. ‘You can try but I can’t be sure that I’ll know the answers. I’m not very good with answers at the moment.’

‘How old are you?’

‘I feel ancient this morning. Dr Ekachai thinks I’m in my mid-thirties and I suppose that’s about right. I think I’m probably older than you but younger than him. I don’t understand how I’ve worked that out though.’

‘That’s fine,’ Ellen reassured her. ‘How long have you been in hospital here?’

‘About two weeks. The doctor told me,’ she admitted.

‘How do you feel about the fact that you can’t remember much about your past?’

Ellen wasn’t taking notes and her previous questions had sounded like polite interest. This question was unexpected and seemed to warrant a reaction rather than a considered response. ‘Mostly I feel angry, like I’ve been cheated. Sometimes it’s just frustrating but at times it sends me wild, like I want to smash up my room or punch someone.’

Ellen nodded as though she understood perfectly. ‘Is this a common feeling, this anger?’

Kai thought for a minute. Looking back over the past few days, anger had seemed like her strongest emotion. She was depressed but that felt more like a lack of emotion than a feeling of sadness or hopelessness – a kind of emptiness. She thought about how often she’d snapped at Ekachai over nothing, the times she’d felt like throwing her meal tray at the wall or smashing the window just to get some fresh air.

‘Probably,’ she admitted.

‘And is this anger directed inwards or outwards?’

Kai looked at Ekachai and he smiled his encouragement.

‘Outwards I suppose. It’s usually towards other people or inanimate objects.’

‘But you don’t feel angry with yourself? Is it like someone has done this to you and now you want to punish them?’

Kai nodded slowly. ‘I suppose so. I just don’t feel especially rational sometimes.’

She expected the doctor to reassure her, to tell her that everyone with amnesia feels like this, she wanted to be told that she was normal but instead Ellen continued to study her with an intensity that was becoming uncomfortable. Kai looked again to Ekachai for support but he’d obviously abdicated responsibility for her for a while. He was sitting on the edge of Dr Thomas’s desk, his hands knotted between his thighs, studying the two women. Trying to control the panic, Kai turned back to Ellen and was relieved when the doctor smiled at her.

‘Okay, how about we try to get you to relax?’

‘Sounds good,’ Kai admitted. ‘It’s not something I’ve felt much recently.’

Ellen stood up and reached for something on her desk, hidden behind Ekachai. ‘Here, hold this.’

It was a glass prism, angular and cold. Kai turned it over in her hands, enjoying the feel of its smooth surfaces and the way it caught the light and split it into its component colours, throwing rainbow shadows on to the walls and ceiling. She ran her thumbs along its planes, enjoying its coolness.

‘Now close your eyes.’

Kai did as she was instructed, still holding the piece of glass, warming it between her palms.

‘Try to imagine the prism. Can you still see it?’

Kai tried to picture it as she felt it. All she got was a series of white and blue blobs floating in blackness. She tried to focus, to force them into a coherent shape but they swirled their defiance and refused to coalesce. Opening her eyes, she looked at the piece of glass again and then at Ellen.

‘Sorry, all I’m getting is a load of patterns.’

Ellen leaned forward and removed the prism from Kai’s hand.

‘Try again,’ she urged. Kai closed her eyes for a second time and let the patterns play themselves out. Just as she was about to give up she saw a shape forming and slowly, steadily a fixed image grew in her mind.

‘Yes, I think I’ve got it,’ she whispered, afraid to disturb the fragile image by speaking too loudly or too soon.

‘Okay,’ Ellen whispered and Kai felt the weight of the glass gently placed back into her hands. ‘Hold that image.’

Silence.

‘Now,’ Ellen began again, ‘your tension is like the prism, hard and sharp but you have the power to dissolve it. Can you do that? The power is like a wave of light from your mind, eating the glass away like a sugar cube dissolving in water.’

She tried to concentrate on destroying the barrier, sending rays of consciousness out like darts of lightning. Nothing. It still hung there in the darkness taunting her with its beauty. She took a deep gulp of air and tried again, gently this time, realising that a violent onslaught was counterproductive and this time Kai could see it, the prism, melting in a blue light. As it melted, she felt her body relaxing into the chair, light, almost weightless.

‘Good,’ Ellen’s voice seemed to come from inside her own head. ‘Now, tell me what you did this morning.’

Kai obediently described her breakfast and her walk to Dr Thomas’s office.

‘Good. What did you do yesterday morning?’

It was easy, yesterday was clear in her mind. She told Ellen about her conversation with Ekachai and her meeting with Mark.

‘Okay Kai, now think back to when you were asleep for a long time. Do you remember that?’

‘Dark, it was really dark, like I was floating in warm water.’ Kai heard herself say. ‘Then light. Then I was here.’

‘Can you go back into the dark?’

Kai tried. Images surfaced, first impressions of the hospital; the faces looking down at her, the feel of the cotton sheets of her bed, and the prism. Slowly she tried again to dissolve the glass and, as it disappeared she was in the darkness, conscious of nothing but Ellen’s voice.