Splintered Memory (20 page)

Claire rolled her eyes
at her.

“Anyway
, as I was reading them, I came across one that said please speak to me. I don’t want to lose both my best friends. I was intrigued by it, and I wondered what that kid must have done to lose two best friends. Although for some reason,” Charlie said as Claire sat forward on her stool; “I was sure the message had been written by a boy.”

“I honestly don’t know why I thought that
,” Charlie said; “but the more I looked at it, the more familiar that something about the handwriting became. Yet the more I tried to focus on the familiarity of it, the further away that feeling of familiarity seemed to go.”

Claire stared at her.

“I’d gotten so used to my doctor’s telling me not to force my memories,” Charlie said; “that I stopped obsessing over the familiarity and carried on reading the chain of messages that followed. The one below it read…”

“
You haven’t lost me, but I can’t speak to you,” Claire said once again interrupting Charlie.

Charlie nodded
appreciatively, and then she smiled at Claire and said; “nice memory!”

“Thanks
,” Claire said inclining her head as Charlie gave her a silent round of applause. “Although I’m not sure that I can remember the other messages verbatim, but weirdly I can picture the desk you’re talking about. It was in the far left hand corner of Mrs Penwood’s class. Matt used to sit in it, and Rich sat in front of him in their English class. In our English class it was originally your desk and I sat in the one in front, but then you got moved for passing notes so I sat in it.”

Charlie nodded and smiled
fondly at the memory.

“I used to read the message
s that Matt wrote, and then pass them to you in a note by asking to borrow something from Rach. She always sat one desk behind you from the front because she couldn’t see the board from the back. Then you’d write what I should reply,” Claire said as the stream of memories came back to her.

Charlie laughed out loud
and said; “yep. I remember that you told Rach when we were at middle school that she either got better glasses or we couldn’t be friends with her anymore, as you weren’t prepared to be associated with anyone that might be classified by any boy as a geek.”

Claire
burst out laughing and said; “I was such a bitch! How did I have any friends aside from you?”

“Beats me
,” Charlie said still laughing.

“Okay
,” Claire said; “so you were reading the messages.”

“Yes. So I read your reply
, and the ones that followed it, and I was intrigued as to what must’ve been happening. Why couldn’t they speak to each other? What had happened? Also who was the third best friend? I kind of got the distinct impression that there was a bit of a love triangle going on? Yet every time my mind raised questions, another part of my mind seemed to be trying to tell me that I already knew the answers. So I tried to concentrate on what the answers were,” she said; “but everything seemed to just keep moving further and further away from me.”

“That must have been so frustrating
,” Claire said.

“You think
?” Charlie asked rhetorically, and then smiling she continued; “after I finished reading the messages I was feeling irritable, so I decided to go for a walk in the school grounds. I quickly stuck labels on the desks that I thought were still okay, and then I put a note on the teacher’s desk telling my dad where I’d gone.”

Charlie took another sip of her wine and said; “I walked round the school grounds and I tried to clear my mind and take in some fresh air, but then out of nowhere I heard a screech and I saw an image of a car skidding in front of me. Everything around me started to spin and I could hear, or at least I could remember hearing a man’s voice. He was telling me that I’d been in an accident, but that I was okay and that they’d have me out of the car in no time. I remembered grabbing hold of his hand – unable to see his face, and begging him to stay with me, but then everything went dark.”

Claire looked horrified.

Charlie took yet another sip of wine, looking down at the same time at her discarded salad and pushing the plate away from her. She could feel Claire’s eyes on her.

“The next thing I knew my dad was at my side holding my hand and helping me up off the floor. He looked worried and he asked me what had happen
ed. I wasn’t really sure though so I lied. I said that I must’ve fainted, and I tried to laugh it off. He took me home and I went straight up to my room. I lay on my bed and tried to focus on the memory that I’d had of my accident, you know to see if I could remember anything else,” Charlie said.

Claire
leant across the table, clearly riveted by what Charlie was telling her.

“
Nothing came back,” she said. “So to distract myself, and probably partly out of boredom I suppose. I got up and went over to my desk, and I began to scribble down the messages that I’d read on the desk at school that had seemed so familiar to me.”

“You remembered them
?” Claire asked.

“Never been anything wrong with my short term memory
,” Charlie said rolling her eyes at Claire.

“Oh, sorry
,” Claire said smiling awkwardly again.

“What was weird was that as I wrote the responses – the messages that
you’d written, I had a memory of watching you write them. This threw me at first, but then I got excited by it and so I kept reading and re-reading the messages. I thought that maybe they were the trigger that I’d been looking for since I’d woken up,” Charlie said; “but nothing else came back to me, and so feeling disheartened again I gave up and went to bed.”

“And
,” Claire said encouraging Charlie to continue.

“
The next morning I felt less optimistic, and I reminded myself that it was possible that what had happened in the school grounds was completely unrelated to the messages that I’d read on the desk. It was likely that they’d been written by people that I didn’t know,” Charlie said; “so I gave up on them, and tried instead to focus on the memory that I’d had of the crash.”

She took a sip of wine again and said; “b
its of that memory were becoming clearer. The paramedics face for instance, I could see it now whereas I hadn’t been able to before. I also remembered telling him that I was pregnant, and I remembered asking him if the baby would be okay. I remembered telling him that Matt was a doctor at Selly Oak A&E, and I remembered asking if that was the hospital that we’d be going to.”

“Could you remember right up until you lost consciousness
?” Claire asked.

“Eventually, over the next
few days I could,” Charlie said. “I could remember from the point where I saw the car in front of me swerve, or whatever it did across my lane. I could remember my car rolling over, and me being trapped inside it upside down. I could remember the pain, and how scared I felt. I remembered holding the paramedics hand, and I could remember telling him that the pain in my chest was getting worse. I remembered thinking that they couldn’t get me out, and that I was going to die in the car. Finally I remembered thinking about Matt holding our baby, but then everything went dark.”

Claire didn’t say anything.
She wasn’t really sure what to say.

“
I was feeling okay though,” Charlie said more brightly. “The memory I was having was a little scary, but I was remembering something. So it made me feel more positive that eventually I’d be able to remember more things.”

Charlie squeezed
her hand, and Claire smiled back at her knowing that she was worrying about her. It was typical Charlie she thought, always being kind and looking out for everyone else.

“
The following morning after I’d recalled the whole accident, I was sat in the kitchen eating some toast when I suddenly got an image of Matt’s face. It was a younger version though than the one I’d known in Birmingham after my accident. Yet as I was trying to focus in on this memory, Mrs Taylor came round to speak to my mum. My mum was still getting ready, and so Mrs Taylor sat in the kitchen making polite chit chat with me. Well that is until she said; “I’m glad you seem happy here Charlie. I think it’s made it easier for both Matt and Rich to get on with their lives without you around.”

“What a bitch
,” Claire said sounding highly disgruntled.

“Well that’s kind of what I thought
,” Charlie said smiling. “To be honest I’d gotten so used to people being nice to me, the comment came as a bit of shock. I also found myself retaliating in kind. I said to her that I understood why it was easier on Matt – my husband, but I didn’t really see what difference it could or should have made to Rich.”

“Nice
,” Claire said nodding appreciatively.

Charlie smiled and continued. “She then said to me though; I understand what you mean, but there was a time when everyone here thought it would be you and my son that would tie the knot and live happily ever after. I think my Rich still holds a small candle for you. Well the old you at least.”

“What a complete cow,” Claire said.

“Well yes, but also no. If she hadn’t said that
, then I don’t think I’d have stormed out of the kitchen and headed towards the school. I also don’t think that I’d have been thinking about the concept of me having ever been with Rich, which interestingly no one up until that point had ever mentioned to me. No one, and Claire seriously by this time I’d had a lot of accounts of my life told to me. Including versions given to me by Rich, Matt, and Bex. Yet none of them had ever mentioned that I’d been with anyone other than Matt!”

“Well obviously Bex would never tell you that
,” Claire said grinning; “I think she’s managed to convince herself that you were never with him.”

Charlie smiled
and said; “yeah that’s probably true. Anyway I walked towards school and just kept thinking about what Mrs Taylor had said, and as I walked I started to piece things together. I did know those messages. The three best friends were me, Matt, and Rich. I was the one that couldn’t talk to Matt, and Matt was the one who thought he was losing two best friends.”

“Charlie, I didn’t lose my memory. So this is when you got your
memory back?” Claire asked.

“Well it felt like it was coming back,
” Charlie said; “but I still wasn’t convinced that I’d found the trigger.”

Claire smiled as she watched Charlie make quotation mark signs with her fingers again when she said trigger.

“But I knew that I needed to get back to school. I also felt,” Charlie said; “although at that point I couldn’t have told you why, like I wanted to go to the games shed.”

“Of course you did!” Claire said laughing. “So your memory had come back?”

“It was obviously well on the way,” Charlie said returning Claire’s smile somewhat sheepishly.

“The games shed was your trigger
,” Claire said trying to contain her laughter. “God, I think you’re going to need a slightly different version of this story when you tell Matt.”

C
harlie didn’t respond to Claire’s comment, and Claire noticed that she busied herself by emptying the last drop of wine from the bottle into her glass and trying to get the attention of the waiter.

“What
?” Claire asked.

“Nothing, that’s it memory back
,” she said. “You want more wine right?”

“I suppose
,” Claire said; “but I’d rather you finish your story. I’m sorry about the Matt comment, it was insensitive.”

The waiter noticed Charlie holding up the empty bottle
of wine and came over to collect it, understanding that they wished for a replacement. As he walked away, Charlie looked at Claire again.

“The shed wasn’t my trigger,
” she said; “but it helped find it.”

“Okay
,” Claire said unsure of what had caused the change in Charlie’s demeanour.

“When I got to the shed I didn’t really know what I was looking for, if anything. I didn’t understand what had driven me to go there in the first place. To be honest I was completely distracted. I just kept thinking about Matt and Rich, and I was trying to do some kind of mental attractiveness comparison between the two of them.”

“Matt’s always been hotter,” Claire said without really thinking which made Charlie smile.

“I went inside and kind of ambled around, but as I was about to leave wondering what I was even doing there. I had the most graphic memory of being in there with
Rich. It was so graphic in fact that it felt like I was re-living it. I could feel the tension and the awkwardness, and I could all but feel Rich’s touch on my skin. I could remember the fumbling and the not knowing of what to do or what felt right. I remembered the anticipation and the exhilaration, but the strangest thing was that I also remembered feeling guilty the whole time. Not liking this memory, I left and walked to your house.”

“My house
,” Claire said curiously.

“Yeah, but the weird thing was that I didn’t go to the front door like I should’ve done. I walked round to the back of your house instead, and when I saw the tree in your garden I remembered that we all used to climb it to get in and out of your bedroom. I honestly still have no idea why I walked round the back
of your house rather than just going to the front door like a normal person, but I knew as soon as I saw the tree that it was my trigger. I just knew,” Charlie said.