Splintered Memory (17 page)

He
had been walking nowhere to begin with, but as he lifted up his head to try and shake himself from his emotional turmoil that he was feeling he recognised instantly where his feet had carried him. He was outside Rich and Bex’s house.

It seemed that j
ust as when he’d been a kid and his feet had always found their way to Rich’s parents house, as an adult he’d maintained the same ability and he could still always find his way to Rich’s when he needed to.

Rich
was shocked to find him at his door as he opened it, and he asked; “don’t you normally work Saturdays?”

“I need to come in
,” Matt replied.

“If this is about last night,
” he said as he opened the door wider for Matt to come in; “then yeah maybe I could’ve been more sensitive about the whole Charlie thing.”

“Is Bex home
?” Matt asked walking straight down the hallway and into the kitchen.

“No, she’s out shopping
,” Rich answered. Walking into the kitchen and standing on the opposite side of the breakfast counter from where Matt was stood, and eyeing his best friend with scrutiny.

“I’ve fucked up
,” Matt said not looking directly at Rich.

Rich didn’t respond, but he continued to scrutinise his best friends face. 

“I slept with Emily,” Matt said still not looking at Rich.

Rich again didn’t respond, and Matt found his temper rising at his best friends seeming indifference to what he was telling him. He looked up at Rich and said; “I slept with someone else, someone other than Charlie. Aren’t you shocked, angry, disappointed
even? Aren’t you going to say something?” He asked angrily.

Rich still looked indifferent as he
said; “you’re not going to want to hear what I’ve got to say.”

“What’s that supposed to mean
?” Matt retorted angrily shocked at Rich’s reaction to his confession. “I can take it. Call me a twat, a fool, a shit husband. I can take it, and it’s what I deserve.”

“I don’t thin
k you’re any of those things,” Rich said.

Matt felt like he
’d just been hit in the face with a cricket bat.

“How long has it been since you
last had sex?” Rich asked, and then catching Matt’s eyes started to laugh. “Okay, I’ll re-phrase that as clearly that came out wrong. Obviously it wasn’t that long ago, but what I meant was that you and Charlie haven’t been you and Charlie since before her accident. You may have been living together, but you haven’t been
living
together as man and wife. And all I mean is that a man can only go so long you know?”

“But its Charlie
,” Matt said imploringly; “it’s me and Charlie.”

“But it isn’t though is it? S
he’s not
your
Charlie,” Rich said; “and you two haven’t been you and Charlie since she came home.”

“You’ve ch
anged your tune,” Matt said suspiciously.

“Oh come on man
. I’m getting married and my fiancée and your missus are friends. I don’t think Charlie’s the same as she was before, but the girls want to believe that she is. I think Bex is scared to death that if this ever happened to her, that I wouldn’t be able to take it. I think she’s terrified that I’d leave her. She needs to believe that you and Charlie can make it,” Rich said almost ashamedly.

“Would you leave her
?” Matt asked.

It took a couple of seconds for Rich to reply, but when he did he looked deeply ashamed. “Yeah,
” he said; “yeah, I think I would.”

Matt looked into Rich’s face
, and he felt shocked.

Rich looked back at him and said;
“I don’t know how you’ve coped. I feel for Charlie and everything of course I do, but I just don’t recognise her or know her anymore.”

Matt couldn’t believe where this was coming from, and he couldn’t take his eyes off Rich’s.

“I’ve known her for as long as you have, and I’ve shared certain things with her in the past you know? But seeing her like this, unable to remember nicknames and jokes from our past! It’s just too hard, it’s too damn depressing. And seeing you with her is just fucking awful. The way you look at her. It’s no wonder Bex is messed up over it,” he said.

“Wha
t do you mean how I look at her?” Matt asked feeling a little choked up.

Rich shook his head with a half laugh half sign
and said; “you’re either looking at her like she’s just broken your heart and your begging her to realise and fix it, or you’re just staring at her unseeingly. Smiling to be polite, or nodding at things that she’s saying to you, but you’re clearly wishing you’re somewhere – hell I don’t know, anywhere else at all.”

Matt didn’t say anything
. He was genuinely a little amazed that Rich had been so perceptive of his interaction with Charlie.

“Look
, if you want me to tell you that you’re a twat or something? Then fine, you’re a twat. You’ve cheated on my first and your only love,” Rich said with a quick flick upwards of his eyebrows.

They both knew that it normally riled M
att when Rich referred to Charlie as his first love. Yet Matt couldn’t even be bothered to roll his eyes at Rich for the comment today, instead he just sat down heavily on the stool which was beside him and put his head in his arms.

“I also slept with Charlie
,” he said into the counter unable to bring himself to look back up at Rich.

“A
t the same time,” Rich said sounding shocked but equally impressed.

Matt laughed
as he looked up and saw Rich’s face. He just couldn’t help himself, but as he did he felt the more familiar feeling of guilt return.

“No
,” he said. “Emily last night and Charlie this morning, but both of them were accidents and huge mistakes,” he said despairingly as he put his head back in his arms.

“Not
bad
mistakes though?” Rich asked trying to make light of the situation, but Matt didn’t answer and there was silence between them for a whole minute.

“Okay let’s hear it
,” Rich said; “although it’s not that I’m all that surprised. Emily’s legs have been open to you for ages, but go on why did you sleep with her? You haven’t shown an interest before now, and she’s been on the scene for a while?”

“You’d pissed me off, and I was drunk. Oh I don’t know,
” he said; “if I’m honest, she was just sort of there.”

H
e saw Rich look at him sceptically, but he said; “and Charlie?”

Matt looked at Rich guilty and said embarrassedly;
“she caught me unawares this morning. I was tired and I’d just gotten out of the shower. I tried to resist her but…”

“It’s Charlie
,” Rich finished for him. “Was it good?”

“
Always is,” Matt said with a smile.

“I remember,” Rich said. To which Matt did his best not to scowl at him.

“And Emily,” Rich said.

Matt flushed scarlet.

“Filthy?” Rich asked reacting to Matt’s embarrassment.

“It was her first time
,” Matt said looking imploringly at his best friend for words of wisdom.

“So shit then
?” Rich asked neither sympathetically nor wisely.

“No, just
…”Matt began to say, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to go on.

“Just
?” Rich asked not letting him off the hook.

“
It was good,” Matt said sounding like he wished that wasn’t the answer.

“
Are you going to tell Charlie?” Rich asked; “or just keep seeing Emily on the sly?”

“Neither
,” Matt said sounding shocked. “What kind of husband would I be if I admitted to my wife – who has amnesia, that I’ve done this to her? I’m the one person that she’s been reliant upon since she’s woken up, and she’s trusted me without any reason to. How can I possibly tell her that I’ve cheated on her? And how can I keep seeing Emily? I work with her and I’m married to Charlie!”

“Want a beer
?” Rich asked.

He was about to say that it was too early
when he thought better of it and said; “yeah, why not.”

Matt stayed at Rich’s drinking beer until Bex came home and started yelling at Rich, at which point he made a hasty retreat and headed home. As he walked back he took out his phone, and he saw that he had two missed calls and two messages. The missed calls were from Charlie, and the texts were from Emily. She wanted to see him, but he hit delete to both messages. He couldn’t worry about her now. He needed to think about what he was going to say to Charlie when he got in.

He reached the front door, but as he was about to put his key into the lock he paused. He didn’t know why, but he suddenly felt momentarily scared to go inside. A feeling of uncertainty had overwhelmed him, and for some reason his mind had gone back to a very old memory. He was back in Charlie’s bedroom in Cheddar. He was sat on her window ledge, and he could remember thinking that even in that hideous blue dress that she had on he could love her forever.

He shook the memory from his head and opened the door. He walked straight through the living room into the kitchen, where he threw his keys onto the table, and he headed over to the fridge.

For no reason in particular he glanced across at the blackboard by the back door. He didn’t know why he glanced across at it, as it hadn’t been written on in months. Leaving messages on this had been something that he’d done with the old Charlie, and he wasn’t even sure that he’d told the new Charlie what they’d used the blackboard for. Yet as he thought this, he saw Charlie’s familiar scrawl on it.

I couldn’t fit everything on the board
, so it’s in the letter by the kettle.

Matt
turned and looked at the envelope that was resting against their kettle, and he walked over to it and picked it up.

He wasn’t sure what to expect
as he opened it, but he knew that it wasn’t going to be good and he knew that he only had himself to blame. He’d walked out on her after they’d had sex, and then he’d ignored her calls. He was guessing that she was too embarrassed to face him, and the letter was going to say that she was spending the night elsewhere
.
He wondered if she’d gone to stay with Rach and Ben, and he wondered if he should give Ben a call.

Matt,

I can’t stay and be somebody that I’m not anymore, so I’m going to live with my parent’s for a while.

I wanted you to know t
hat I really did try to remember. I tried for me, but I also tried for you because I wanted to be the same person that you’d lost.

You deserve the chance to move on with your life, and I’m sorry that I haven’t let you before now. I shouldn’t have compelled you to play the dutiful husband. It was perhaps cruel of me, and it hasn’t helped either of us.

I’m sorry that I did that, and I’m sorry that I can’t remember.

Charlotte.

Matt felt like his heart had just been brutally ripped from his chest, and that all the oxygen had been drained from his lungs. He’d honestly believed that he hadn’t wanted this Charlie. He’d thought that she was a second rate, lacklustre, impersonator, and that his life would be better off without her. Yet as he was stood faced with the prospect of never seeing Charlie again, he felt as though the walls were closing in on him. He was now totally alone, but what was worse was that he knew that he’d brought it on himself.

He
looked at the letter again, and he noticed that she’d signed off Charlotte. Charlie really was gone he thought, she’d never have signed off a note or letter to him that way, but as the feeling of loss began to consume him he felt the need to take control of the situation. Unsure of how to do this, or even what was required in order to do this, he decided as a stop gap that he’d drink.

Matt
walked over to the freezer and took out a bottle of vodka. He poured himself a large glass and dispatched it in one. It had little effect so he followed it with a few more, and when the effects of the vodka finally began to take hold he took out his phone and dialled the first number to mind.

“Hi
,” Emily said.

***

Matt had taken advantage of Emily’s feelings for him, but he didn’t care. When he was with her, in fact when he was with any woman in a sexual way, he was able to block out thoughts of Charlie and momentarily suppress the hurt that he felt all of the time.

He
didn’t like the man that he’d become, but he also didn’t know what to do about it. He knew that those around him were either too concerned or too disgusted with his current behaviour to confront him about it, and he was grateful for that. He knew that it was common knowledge that he’d been sleeping Emily, but then it was also no secret that he’d slept with half of the female staff at the hospital in the months following his abandonment by Charlie.

He’d known at school and at uni that girls had found him attractive, and he’d never had to make any effort to get their attention, but he’d only had eyes for Charlie. So he’d never realised that as a doctor – a good looking doctor, he was able to get pretty much any woman that he wanted.