Forget to Remember (23 page)

Carol laughed. “That I’ll be happy to
do.”

***

She spent the afternoon walking around
Rotherfield, dropping into several retail establishments and
visiting the ancient Church of St. Denys. The most notable thing
about the churchyard, other than the stone church, itself, which
still appeared to be in good condition, was an old tree in front of
the church building with branches spreading out at odd angles
propped up by a number of logs. Somebody at the pub said the legend
was if the tree died the church and village of Rotherfield would
cease to exist.

At one end of the church property was an
iron gate that rotated in an arc inside an elongated semicircular
frame, so it had two closed positions. A person going through had
to move it one way or the other. As Carol was about to enter, a man
approached from the other side. It was obvious they both couldn’t
go through in opposite directions at the same time, so she waited
for him, but he motioned for her to go first.

She went through the gate and smiled at him.
“What is this called?”

“It’s a kissing gate. Would you like me to
demonstrate why?”

“No thanks. Does it have a practical
use?”

“To keep livestock from getting through it.
Although, I guess this one’s outlived its usefulness.”

That was true. There were no animals outside
the churchyard, only buildings and a parking lot.

Carol returned to the Queens Arms and
chatted with Lydia, who told her she hadn’t been able to find any
information on a teacher who walked the End-to-end. Carol thanked
her and called Rigo from her room. She had talked to him several
times, focusing on the sights she’d seen in London, not telling him
about her modeling job, because she wasn’t sure how he’d react.

Now she told him she was in Rotherfield and
described the quaint village. She asked him for Aiko’s last
name.

“Hang on. I bookmarked the site—in case we
needed more information from it. Here it is. Her name is Aiko
Murakawa. Why?”

Carol explained that Aiko might be Cynthia,
not her, and Cynthia might have been using the name Aiko in
England.

“That’s confusing. Looking at the video
again, which I am at the moment, I still say Aiko is you. Assuming
it’s Cynthia, why would she be using a false name in England?”

“Why is the grass so green here? I’ll let
you know when I find out—if I find out.”

They talked for a few more minutes. Rigo
ended the call by telling her to be careful, as he always did.
Carol realized there was something unspoken between them, but she
preferred to leave it that way for the moment. She was lonely,
especially now she had left Sean and Melanie behind. They hadn’t
exactly been her buddies, but at least they’d become familiar to
her. In Rotherfield she didn’t know anyone.

She went downstairs at seven to eat dinner.
This time she allowed herself a full pint of lager. There were more
people in the pub than there had been earlier, and the place was
noisier. She felt self-conscious, sitting alone, and decided not to
tarry long. She had purchased several bargain-priced paperback
mysteries during her afternoon walk, since, unlike London, there
didn’t appear to be any nightlife here except for the pub. She
would read herself to sleep with one of them.

“Aiko!”

Carol was startled to hear that name,
especially since it was obviously directed at her. She looked up to
see a woman in her thirties wearing sensibly short hair and
glasses, standing beside her table with a surprised expression.
When Carol didn’t immediately answer, the woman said, “What are you
doing here?”

Carol’s immediate reaction was to correct
the mistake, but in the same instant, she realized she needed to
talk to this woman. She attempted a smile. “Hi. Can you sit down
for a minute?”

“I’m with friends, but…” The woman sat in
the chair opposite Carol. “When did you get back?”

Carol felt very awkward. “First, I’m not
actually Aiko.”

“Look, I know you have security issues, but
this is bloody nonsense. It’s me, Louise, remember? I taught in the
room beside yours for two years.”

“I’m sorry, Louise. I’ll try again.” Carol
had to work through her embarrassment. “I’d better explain. I…I
have amnesia. I don’t remember anything that happened before a few
weeks ago.”

Louise looked at her with disbelief but then
her look softened. “You poor dear. But you went to the States. If
you have amnesia, how did you find your way back here?”

“It’s a long story. Before I get into it,
let me ask you one question. Did you and Aiko…did you and I walk
the End-to-end together a couple of years ago?”

“No, that was Janet—Janet Hudgins. She also
teaches at the school. She’ll want to see you. She’s been worried
sick about you. You haven’t responded to her e-mails. I think she’s
at her cottage tonight. I’ll call her right now.”

Louise hauled a cell phone out of her purse
and called a number. “Hello, Janet? Louise. You’ll never guess who
I ran into at the Queens Arms…Aiko…I have no idea. She’s apparently
lost her mind. She can’t even remember you or me…All right, I’ll
send her over.”

Louise disconnected. “I have to get back to
my party, but Janet wants you to go to her cottage right now. Since
you can’t remember anything, I’m going to give you specific
directions on how to get there.”

CHAPTER 29

Louise’s directions were very precise. Carol
was standing in front of the cottage within five minutes. The sun
had set, but she could see with the aid of a couple of outside
lights, including the light beside the front door, that the cottage
was made of brick with a new dark brown door and matching trim. The
steeply sloping roof was slate. It looked familiar. Something
stirred inside her. A memory, perhaps? No, it couldn’t be.

She was on the verge of finding out things
about Cynthia. But, somehow, she and Cynthia had merged and become
the same person. She knew that couldn’t be true. Maybe she
was
losing her mind. She was afraid of what was happening,
but she couldn’t stop it. She went up to the door and rang the
bell.

The door was opened almost immediately, and
a tomboyish woman with short hair like Louise’s swept Aiko into her
arms. They hugged for what seemed like an eternity while Janet
said, “You poor dear. What has happened to you?”

Carol couldn’t say anything.

Janet finally broke off the hug. “Come in
and tell me everything.”

She dragged Carol into the small house. In
the hands of an irresistible force, Carol didn’t try to resist.
Janet led her to a glass-enclosed room at the back that looked out
onto a garden, sat her down in a padded chair, and poured her a
glass of wine. Janet, who’d already been enjoying a glass, sat
opposite her.

Janet had the look of an athlete. She was
trim but not skinny, and her movements showed a hidden strength.
Carol could easily believe she walked the End-to-end. Her brown
hair was lighter than Carol’s, and she had freckles that suggested
her light skin was at odds with the sun. She also had a ready smile
and an attentive look on her face.

Carol took a sip of wine and burst into
tears. She didn’t know where to start. Janet waited patiently.
“Take your time.”

“I have amnesia. I’m using the name Carol,
but it isn’t my real name.”

“All right, amnesia explains a lot. Keep
going.”

“I don’t think I’m Aiko or Cynthia.”

“Same girl. Why not?”

Faced with a good listener, the story
erupted from Carol in a flood of words. She started from when she
was found unconscious in the Dumpster and covered all the major
events since then. Janet didn’t interrupt. Occasionally, she gave
verbal nods such as ‘uh huh,’ encouraging Carol to go on with her
story. When Carol came right up to the present moment, she
collapsed in her chair, exhausted.

Janet stood and refilled Carol’s glass. Then
she sat down again and thought for a moment. “Wow. You’ve been
through a lot. No wonder you’re confused. We’ll get to the issue of
your identity in a moment. First, let me tell you what I know about
what happened to Aiko, as she wanted to be called here, before she
went back to the States.

“I met Aiko two years ago when I was in
London on holiday, through a mutual friend. Her boyfriend, Jacques,
had just been killed in an auto accident, and she was at loose
ends. I had finished teaching the summer term and had always wanted
to walk the End-to-end, but I had never found the right partner to
do it with. Aiko was young and in good shape. She had nothing tying
her to London and didn’t want to go back to the States for reasons
I’ll get to, so we did it together.”

“You walked nine hundred miles
together?”

“Yes, although the route we followed wasn’t
quite that far. We walked north to south for the rest of the
summer, starting at John O’Groats in Northern Scotland, until I had
to return here for the autumn term. We walked some more during
school breaks, but we didn’t finish until the Christmas break.
Fortunately, we were walking the southern part of the route in
Cornwall by then, which tends to be a bit warmer than the rest of
the UK, but we still got cold upon occasion.”

“I would love to do that.” Carol caught
herself. “Sorry. Go on.”

“We stayed in B&Bs and saw the country.
We slogged through Scotland’s rain, looked for Nessie on the north
shore of Loch Ness, hiked the moors, and got lost in Bristol. We
didn’t see any pirates in Penzance, but I’ve got a sweatshirt from
Land’s End that gives the records for doing the distance for
walking, running, bicycling, flying, crawling, and every other way
you can think of. We had a wonderful time.”

“You must have gotten to know each other
very well.”

Janet smiled an infectious smile. “Of
course, we learned a lot about each other. Aiko told me all about
her parents and her brother who tried to kill her.”

“Michael tried to kill her?” Carol was
shocked into giving Janet her full attention.

“Yes, but her parents didn’t believe her.
She came to England to get away from him. That’s also why she
changed her name from Cynthia to Aiko.”

“The three of them died in a plane crash.”
Carol softly repeated what she had said before while telling Janet
about her meeting with Mrs. Horton. Michael was dead so Cynthia
didn’t have to hide anymore.

“You’re getting ahead of my story. One of
the things I learned about Aiko was that she was excellent at math
and had been teaching in the U.S. I asked if she wanted to teach
math at the secondary school where I taught. I helped her get a job
there.

“Her name was a bit of a sticky wicket
because she didn’t want to go on the national records as Cynthia
Sakai. She was afraid her brother would follow her here and kill
her if he found her. We pulled some strings and got her name
legally changed to Aiko Murakawa.

“We taught together for two years. In
August, when she heard about her parents and brother being
killed—it was broadcast on the BBC because of the status of her
parents—she flew back to the States. I haven’t had so much as an
e-mail from her. I didn’t have a phone number or any other way to
get in touch with her. I was worried about her. And now, a few
weeks later, you appear on my doorstep.”

“But I’m not Cynthia—or Aiko.”

“Ah. Remember, girl, you have amnesia.
Here’s a test. Aiko had a game she used when she was teaching her
students binary. I’m an English teacher, and I could never quite
figure it out.”

Janet did a quick look around and picked up
some knickknacks from a shelf. She arranged them in four rows of
seven, five, three, and one. “On your turn you remove one or more
from a single row. If you remove the last one you win.”

“You start.”

Carol said it automatically, without
thinking. She won the game. Janet had a smug look on her face.
Carol didn’t say anything. Janet suggested they play again. Carol
demurred.

“Look, yes, I know how to play this game. I
admit it. I beat a scam artist at it. But that doesn’t mean I’m
Cynthia Aiko.”

“All right, here’s the acid test. Aiko has a
scar on her abdomen where her brother slashed her with a
knife.”

Carol stared at her. No, this couldn’t be
true. She wasn’t Aiko. She wasn’t Cynthia. Why would Mrs. Horton
lie to her? Why would her own grandmother disown her? Carol slowly
unzipped her jeans and pulled them down, revealing the scar, about
three inches long, something like an appendicitis scar but too far
to the left, too jagged, and slanting upward.

Janet took one look at it and nodded.
“That’s it. Welcome back to the land of the living, Aiko—or
Cynthia, if that’s what you prefer.”

Carol still couldn’t grasp it. “I’m Cynthia?
But Mrs. Horton—my grandmother—told me I wasn’t Cynthia.”

Janet came over, sat in the chair with
Carol, and held her close.”

Carol was sniffling. “Why did Michael try to
kill me?”

“You said he was always somewhat unbalanced
and paranoid. You suspected he thought you were trying to cheat him
out of his inheritance. He attacked you in bed one night in the
dark when your parents were on a trip. You fought him off, but he
wounded you. He claimed an intruder attacked you.”

“It was Michael all right. I could identify
the smell of his aftershave anywhere. It stunk.”

Janet pulled her head away from Carol and
stared at her. “You remembered?”

Yes. She remembered the smell of Michael’s
aftershave. A small thing, perhaps, but enough to know she was
Cynthia. She was allergic to the junk he used. If he walked into a
room, she’d recognize him by his odor. She was definitely Cynthia.
An enormous weight had been lifted from her shoulders, but it would
take her a while to adjust to this knowledge.

Cynthia hugged Janet. “Thank you for
restoring my identity.”