Remember Me? (5 page)

There’s a general intake of breath. Someone whispers, “Oh my God.”

I’m holding a huge, shiny, diamond solitaire ring. The type you get in movies. The type you see on navy-blue velvet in jewelers’ windows with no price tag. At last I tear my gaze away and see that both nurses are riveted too.

“Hey!” Nicole suddenly exclaims. “There’s something else. Hold out your hand, Lexi….” She tips up the bag and taps the corner. There’s a moment’s stillness—then out onto my palm falls a plain gold band.

There’s a kind of rushing in my ears as I stare down at it.

“You must be married!” Nicole says brightly.

No. No way. Surely I’d
know
if I was married? Surely I’d sense it deep down, amnesia or no amnesia. I turn the ring over in my clumsy fingers, feeling hot and cold all over.

“She is.” The second nurse nods. “You are. Don’t you remember, love?”

I shake my head dumbly.

“You don’t remember your wedding?” Nicole looks agog. “You don’t remember anything about your husband?”

“No.” I look up suddenly with horror. “I didn’t marry Loser Dave, did I?”

“I don’t know!” Nicole gives a giggle and claps her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry. You just looked so appalled. D’you know what his name is?” She looks at the other nurse, who shakes her head.

“Sorry. I’ve been on the other ward. But I know there’s a husband.”

“Look, the ring’s engraved!” Nicole exclaims, taking it from me. “‘A.S. and E.G. June 3, 2005.’ Coming up on their two-year anniversary.” She hands it back. “Is that you?”

I’m breathing fast. It’s true. It’s carved here in solid gold.

“I’m A.S.,” I say at last. “
A
for Alexia. But I have no idea who E.G. is.”

The
E
from my phone, I suddenly realize. That must have been him texting me. My husband.

“I think I need some cold water….” Feeling giddy, I totter into the bathroom, splash water on my face, then lean forward across the cold enamel basin and stare at my bashed-up, familiar-unfamiliar reflection. I feel like I’m about to have a meltdown. Is someone still playing a gigantic prank on me? Am I hallucinating?

I’m twenty-eight, I have perfect white teeth, a Louis Vuitton bag, a card saying “director,” and a husband.

How the hell did all
that
happen?

Chapter 4

Edward. Ethan. Errol.

It’s an hour later and I’m still in a state of shock. I keep looking in disbelief at my wedding ring resting on the bedside cabinet. I, Lexi Smart, have a husband. I don’t feel
old
enough to have a husband.

Elliott. Eamonn. Egbert.

Please, God, not Egbert.

I’ve ransacked the Louis Vuitton bag. I’ve looked all the way through the diary. I’ve skimmed through all my stored mobile numbers. But I still haven’t found out what
E
stands for. You’d think I’d remember my own husband’s name. You’d think it would be engraved in my psyche.

When the door opens, I stiffen, almost expecting it to be him. But it’s Mum again, looking pink and harassed.

“Those traffic wardens have
no
hearts. I was only twenty minutes at the vet, and—”

“Mum, I’ve got amnesia.” I cut her off in a rush. “I’ve lost my memory. I’ve lost a whole chunk of my life. I’m really…freaked out.”

“Oh. Yes, the nurse mentioned it.” Her gaze briefly meets mine, then flicks away again. Mum’s not the greatest at eye contact; she never has been. I used to get quite frustrated by it when I was younger, but now I just see it as one of those Mum things. Like the way she won’t learn the names of TV programs properly, even after you’ve told her five hundred times it’s not
The Simpsons Family
.

Now she’s sitting down and peeling off her waistcoat. “I know
exactly
how you feel,” she begins. “My memory gets worse every day. In fact, the other day—”

“Mum…” I inhale deeply, trying to stay calm. “You don’t know how I feel. This isn’t like forgetting where you put something. I’ve lost three years of my life! I don’t know anything about myself in 2007. I don’t look the same, none of my things are the same, and I found these rings which apparently belong to me, and I just have to know something…” My voice is jumping about with apprehension. “Mum…am I really
married
?”

“Of course you’re married!” Mum appears surprised that I need to ask. “Eric will be here any minute. I told you that earlier.”

“Eric’s my husband?” I stare at her. “I thought Eric was a dog.”

“A
dog
?” Mum raises her eyebrows. “Goodness, darling! You
did
get a bump on the head!”

Eric
. I’m rolling the name around my head experimentally.
My husband, Eric.

It means nothing to me. It’s not a name I feel either way about.

I love you, Eric.

With my body I thee worship, Eric.

I wait for some sort of reaction in my body. Surely I should respond? Surely all my love cells should be waking up? But I feel totally blank and nothing-y.

“He had a very important meeting this morning. But otherwise he’s been here with you night and day.”

“Right.” I digest this. “So…so what’s he like?”

“He’s
very
nice,” says Mum, as though she’s talking about a sponge cake.

“Is he…” I stop.

I can’t ask if he’s good-looking. That would be really shallow. And what if she avoids the question and says he has a wonderful sense of humor?

What if he’s obese?

Oh God. What if I got to know his beautiful inner soul as we exchanged messages over the Internet, only now I’ve forgotten all about that and I’ll have to pretend his looks don’t matter to me?

We lapse into silence and I find myself eyeing up Mum’s dress—Laura Ashley, circa 1975. Frills come in and out of fashion, but somehow she doesn’t notice. She still wears the same clothes she wore when she first met my dad, and the same long flicky hair, the same frosted lipstick. It’s like she thinks she’s still in her twenties.

Not that I would ever mention this to her. We’ve never been into cozy mother-daughter chats. I once tried to confide in her, when I split up with my first boyfriend. Big mistake. She didn’t sympathize, or hug me, or even really listen. Instead she got all pink and defensive and sharp with me, as if I was deliberately trying to wound her by talking about relationships. I felt like I was negotiating a land-mine site, treading on sensitive bits of her life I didn’t even realize existed.

So I gave up and called Fi instead.

“Did you manage to order those sofa covers for me, Lexi?” Mum interrupts my thoughts. “Off the Internet,” she adds at my blank look. “You were going to do it last week.”

Did she listen to
anything
I said?

“Mum, I don’t know,” I say, slowly and clearly. “I don’t remember anything about the last three years.”

“Sorry, darling.” Mum hits her head. “I’m being stupid.”

“I don’t know what I was doing last week, or last year…or even who my own husband is.” I spread my arms. “To be honest, it’s pretty scary.”

“Of course. Absolutely.” Mum is nodding, a distant look in her eyes, as though she’s processing my words. “The thing is, darling, I don’t remember the name of the Web site. So if you
did
happen to recall—”

“I’ll let you know, okay?” I can’t help snapping. “If my memory returns, the first thing I’ll do is call you about your sofa covers. Jesus!”

“There’s no need to raise your voice, Lexi!” she says, opening her eyes wide.

Okay. So in 2007 Mum still officially drives me up the wall. Surely I’m supposed to have grown out of being irritated by my mother? Automatically I start picking at my thumbnail. Then I stop. Twenty-eight-year-old Lexi doesn’t shred her nails.

“So, what does he do?” I return to the subject of my so-called husband. I still can’t really believe he’s real.

“Who, Eric?”

“Yes! Of course Eric!”

“He sells property,” Mum says, as though I ought to know. “He’s rather good at it, actually.”

I’ve married a real-estate agent called Eric.

How?

Why?

“Do we live in my flat?”

“Your flat?” Mum looks bemused. “Darling, you sold your flat a long time ago. You have a marital home now!”

“I
sold
it?” I feel a pang. “But I’ve only just bought it!”

I love my flat. It’s in Balham and is tiny but cozy, with blue-painted window frames which I did myself, and a lovely squashy velvet sofa, and piles of colorful cushions everywhere, and fairy lights around the mirror. Fi and Carolyn helped me move in two months ago, and we spray-painted the bathroom silver, and then spray-painted our jeans silver too.

And now it’s all gone. I live in a marital home. With my marital husband.

For the millionth time I look at the wedding ring and diamond solitaire. Then I automatically shoot a glance at Mum’s hand. She still wears Dad’s ring, despite the way he’s behaved toward her over the years—

Dad. Dad’s funeral.

It’s like a hand has gripped hold of my stomach, tight.

“Mum…” I venture cautiously. “I’m really sorry I missed Dad’s funeral. Did it…you know, go all right?”

“You didn’t miss it, darling.” She peers at me as though I’m crazy. “You were there.”

“Oh.” I stare at her, confused. “Right. Of course. I just don’t remember anything about it.”

Heaving a massive sigh, I lean back on my pillows. I don’t remember my own wedding and I don’t remember my dad’s funeral. Two of the most important events in my life, and I feel like I’ve missed out on them. “So, how was it?”

“Oh, it all went off as well as these things ever do…” Mum’s looking twitchy, the way she always is when the subject of Dad comes up.

“Were many people there?”

A pained expression comes to her face.

“Let’s not
dwell
on it, darling. It was years ago.” She gets up as though to remove herself from my questioning. “Now, have you had any lunch? I didn’t have time to eat
anything,
just a snatch of a boiled egg and toast. I’ll go and find something for us both. And make sure you eat properly, Lexi,” she adds. “None of this no-carbs obsession. A potato won’t kill you.”

No carbs? Is that how I got this shape? I glance down at my unfamiliar toned legs. It has to be said, they look as if they don’t know what a potato
is
.

“I’ve changed in appearance quite a lot, haven’t I?” I can’t help saying, a bit self-consciously. “My hair…my teeth…”

“I suppose you are different.” She peers at me vaguely. “It’s been so gradual, I haven’t really noticed.”

For God’s sake. How can you not even notice when your daughter turns from a manky, overweight Snaggletooth into a thin, tanned, groomed person?

“I won’t be long.” Mum picks up her embroidered shoulder bag. “And Amy should be here any moment.”

“Amy’s here?” My spirits lift as I visualize my little sister in her pink fleecy vest and flower-embroidered jeans and those cute sneakers that light up when she dances.

“She was just buying some chocolate downstairs.” Mum opens the door. “She loves those mint Kit Kats.”

The door closes behind her and I stare at it. They’ve invented
mint
Kit Kats?

2007 really is a different world.

Amy’s not my half sister or stepsister, like most people assume. She’s my full, one-hundred-percent sister. But people get confused because: 1. There’s thirteen years between us. 2. My mum and dad had split up before she was born.

Maybe “split up” is too strong. I’m not sure what went on exactly—all I know is, my dad was never around much when I was growing up. The official reason was that his business was based abroad. The
real
reason was that he was a feckless chancer. I was only eight when I heard him described like that by one of my aunts at a Christmas party. When they saw me they got flustered and changed the subject, so I figured
feckless
was some really terrible swear word. It’s always stuck in my mind.
Feckless
.

The first time he left home, I was seven. Mum said he’d gone on a business trip to America, so when Melissa at school said she’d seen him in the co-op with a woman in red jeans, I told her she was a fat liar. He came back home a few weeks later, looking tired—from the jet lag, he said. When I pestered him for a souvenir, he produced a pack of Wrigley’s gum. I called it my American gum and showed everyone at school—until Melissa pointed out the co-op price sticker. I never told Dad I knew the truth, or Mum. I’d kind of known all along that he wasn’t in America.

A couple of years later he disappeared again, for a few months this time. Then he started up a property business in Spain, which went bust. Then he got involved in some dodgy pyramid scheme and tried to get all our friends involved. Somewhere along the line he became an alcoholic…then he moved in for a bit with some Spanish woman…. But Mum kept taking him back. Then, at last, about three years ago, he moved to Portugal for good, apparently to get away from the tax man.

Mum had various other “gentlemen friends” over the years, but she and Dad never divorced—never really let go of each other at all. And, evidently, on one of his jovial, the-drinks-are-on-me-darlings Christmas visits, she and he must have…

Well. I don’t exactly want to picture it. We got Amy, that’s the point. And she’s the most adorable little thing, always playing on her disco dance mat and wanting to plait my hair a million times over.

The room is quiet and dim since Mum left. I pour myself a glass of water and sip it slowly. My thoughts are all cloudy, like a bomb site after the blast. I feel like a forensics expert, picking through the different strands, trying to work out the full picture.

There’s a faint knocking at the door and I look up. “Hello? Come in!”

“Hi, Lexi?”

An unfamiliar girl of about fifteen has edged into the room. She’s tall and skinny, with jeans falling off her midriff, a pierced navel, spiky blue-streaked hair, and about six coats of mascara. I have no idea who she is. As she sees me, she grimaces.

“Your face still looks fucked up.”

“Oh,” I say, taken aback. The girl’s eyes narrow as she surveys me.

“Lexi…it’s me. You do know it’s me, don’t you?”

“Right!” I make an apologetic face. “Look, I’m really sorry, but I’ve had this accident and I’m having some problems with my memory. I mean, I’m sure we have met—”

“Lexi?” She sounds incredulous; almost hurt. “It’s me! It’s
Amy
.”