Then and Always (12 page)

What I hadn’t expected after such a display of tenderness was for him to draw back and for his tone to turn so quickly to one of censure.

“Rachel, I have to ask, what the hell were you thinking of, setting off alone from the station and walking down that deserted road? Didn’t you realize the stupid risks you were taking?”

I blinked up at him slowly, caught off guard by the sudden switch in his mood.

“Why didn’t you phone me to pick you up, or get a cab, or just wait with the other passengers?”

He was looking at me intently. Clearly expecting some coherent reply. I had none.

“I’m sorry …,” I offered lamely. “I don’t remember anything except …” Except everything that
really
happened: the dinner, the ride back to my hotel, and then the disastrous visit to the cemetery.

“Except?” he prompted hopefully.

“Except waking up here.” Even in my dream I was smart enough not to keep on insisting that
my
reality appeared to be completely different from everyone else’s.

“And it’s not just about losing the ring, don’t think that—though thank God we had it well insured.”

The ring? Was that what was concerning him, losing the engagement ring? Jeez, Dream Matt was certainly all about the money.

“You could have been seriously hurt, it could have been so much worse than just cuts and grazes and a bump on the head. When I think of what that guy could have done to you …”

He seemed to be waiting for me to say something, so I nodded slowly as though considering the harm I had apparently narrowly escaped.

“When we got that call, when you cried out for help … well, I’ve never felt so useless in my entire life. Thank God Jimmy was there—and it’s not often you’ll hear me saying that!”

I gave a watery smile in response. Then curiosity to learn more took over.

“Why, what did he do?”

“Took charge. I guess it’s his policeman’s training to act like that in an emergency. We were all about to go charging off God-knows-where to find you, but he was the one who kept calm and cool and called his police station. He figured
you were probably at the railway station or somewhere nearby and got several cars out looking for you before we had even got out of the car park. A squad car found you by the church only ten or fifteen minutes after your call, and you were off in the ambulance before we were even halfway there. I guess it pays to have a copper on hand in a crisis.”

So Jimmy had saved me once again. I guess I could see why, in a dream, I had once more cast Jimmy in the role of hero. It was, after all, how he’d lost his life.

“Not that his behavior afterwards was very professional, though.”

My ears pricked up at that comment.

“Why, what happened then?”

“Well, he really lost it while we were at the hospital waiting for you to be assessed, when we didn’t know how seriously you’d been hurt. He started yelling at me about how could I be so irresponsible; how I never should have left you to travel alone at night. I particularly liked the bit about how I didn’t deserve to have you if I couldn’t look after you properly.” He rubbed his hand ruefully over his handsome chin. “And then he took a swing at me!”

I sat up sharply. “He did?”

Mistaking my total astonishment for loving concern, he patted my arm in reassurance.

“Don’t worry, he didn’t do any damage; Phil had a hold of his arm before he even made contact. Damn unprofessional of him, though, even if he was off duty. I
could
make an official complaint …” He saw the look in my eyes and continued quickly, “I won’t, of course. I realize it was all just heat-of-the-moment stuff. Don’t worry, I’m not going to get old PC Plod in trouble. And I guess it
is
understandable, feeling as he did about you all those years ago.”

There it was again. Even in my dream I couldn’t seem to get away from someone trying to convince me that Jimmy had been deeply in love with me.

“I think he must have forgotten how strong-willed you can be. And independent. After all, you haven’t been in touch with him for quite a while now, have you?”

I wanted to say,
Well, no, not without the aid of a Ouija board
. But settled instead for a less controversial, “No, not really … we kind of lost touch.”

I was really quite glad when the nurse came in at that point, wheeling a laden trolley of pharmaceuticals. She tactfully reminded Matt that visiting hours were long over, and he took the hint, kissing me lightly on the forehead and leaving with the promise to return the next day.

As I lay on the starchy hospital sheets, waiting for the pills I’d swallowed to take effect, I pondered on the curiously complex scenario my subconscious had created. All the facts and characters were present but the details and events were twisted into such a bizarre parallel reality. It was my life but not as I knew it, for here it was all so much better: Jimmy was still alive, my Dad wasn’t sick—and neither was I, apparently—and Matt and I were engaged to be married. It was almost a shame to wake up.

And I didn’t. Well, that’s to say I slept and when I opened my eyes it was a new day, but still the dream continued. That’s when the voice first started up, telling me something was really wrong here, when this dream, or whatever it was, continued in my waking state. Throughout a morning spent undergoing countless medical tests, the pleasurable euphoria of living in a dream began to quickly dissipate when my real life failed to return. I even resorted to the old trick of pinching
myself hard, a real old Chinese-burn-style pinch, while waiting outside the room for a second MRI scan. Nothing happened, except that I gave myself a very nasty red mark on my forearm. Even then, I only stopped squeezing my own flesh when I caught the pitying glance from the nurse who had wheeled me down for this latest test. Clearly news of the delusional new patient was widespread and all comments directed at me were in the softly spoken singsong tones usually reserved for those under five or the imbecilic.

Between the blood tests, the scans, and the X-rays, I started to get really scared. I felt like a prisoner in Neverland; it might be a nice place to come for a visit, but I really, really wanted to go “home” now, however bad things might be there. One of the worst moments came when I caught sight of my reflection in the small square mirror positioned above the basin in my room. A nurse had come running at my cry, and I could tell she was at a loss to know what to do when she saw me running my fingers frantically over the smooth unblemished skin of my cheek. And who could blame her; what was the poor woman supposed to say when I rounded on her, crying, “My scar! Where’s it gone? What have you people done with my scar?”

I just about held myself together until the afternoon, when I was due to meet again with the consultant. The nurse who came to collect me with a wheelchair looked disappointed to see my untouched lunch. Fear and confusion had robbed me of my appetite—well, that and the appalling culinary offerings of the hospital kitchens.

When they wheeled me into the doctor’s consultation room, I was pleased to see my (newly-restored-to-good-health) father waiting for me.

“Good afternoon, Rachel. Are you feeling a little better today?” The doctor’s voice was kind and solicitous. Clearly he was expecting an answer in the affirmative.

I shook my head slowly, unable to speak as hot tears began to course down my cheeks. My father reached across from his chair and took my hand. Tactfully choosing to ignore my distress, the doctor continued.

“Well, I have good news, young lady. We have done just about every test imaginable, and I’m happy to report there is no serious or permanent damage resulting from your little escapade.” He turned in his chair to indicate an illuminated X-ray of a skull, presumably mine, on a lit panel behind him. “Everything looks completely normal. No injuries to the brain or cranium whatsoever.”

“Thank God,” breathed my father in fervent relief.

“But it’s all wrong!” I cried out, ashamed at how pathetic I sounded.

“Oh no, Rachel, I can assure you the tests are all conclusive. We repeated several of them, just to be sure. They most definitely are not wrong.”

“Not the tests,” I contradicted as calmly as I could—I didn’t want to be sedated before I could make them understand. “If you say the tests are right, then I suppose I have to believe you. Why would you lie to me about that? But everything else is wrong!”

“Hush, hush, Rachel.”

I could tell from his tone that I was scaring my dad again. Hell, I was scaring me again, but I had to get through to them this time.

I drew a deep shuddering breath and tried to continue in a less hysterical tone.

“I know this sounds crazy to you but please just hear me
out. I don’t know what is happening here, but none of this is real—at least not to me. In my life—in my
real
life, my father is sick, very, very sick, and I think I am too.”

The tone the doctor used was mild and placating.

“So you believe you have cancer as well, is that it?”

He was making me really angry now. I truly did not like this man.

“No, not cancer. I have something wrong with my brain.” Strangely enough no one butted in to refute that one. “It’s all due to the accident …”

“When you were mugged?” asked Dad.

“No, the car accident at the restaurant, the one where Jimmy died and I got hurt.”

The doctor looked across in confusion at my father, who was shaking his head as though trying to see a solution through a fog.

“Are you aware of the accident Rachel is talking about?”

“Well, yes,” replied my father hesitantly, and I almost cried out in relief that he wasn’t going to tell me that I’d imagined that too. “A car
did
crash through the window of a restaurant where Rachel and her friends were sitting. It must have been, oh, I don’t know, about five years ago or thereabouts, just before they all went off to university.”

“And people were seriously hurt? Was Rachel injured?”

“I think the driver of the car was badly hurt, but Rachel and her friends managed to get away from the window just in time. Rachel was one of the people to come off worse; she fell while running from the window and was knocked unconscious for a minute or two, and of course there was also Jimmy—he had quite a nasty cut on his head.”

“But no one died?” prompted the doctor.

“No one died,” confirmed my dad.

“But Rachel
did
hit her head?”

“She did. She had mild concussion.”

“And five years later she is mugged and sustains a second injury to her head …”

The doctor made a church steeple with his fingertips as he paused to assimilate all he had been told. “I do believe it is all beginning to make sense now.”

It was? Not to me it wasn’t.

Dr. Tulloch leaned across the table, a benign smile upon his face. Unconsciously my father and I leaned toward him to hear his conclusion.

“Rachel, I believe I now understand what is causing your problems. It seems clear to me that you are suffering from a rather severe case of amnesia.”

If he was expecting his diagnosis to be met with whoops of joy, he was sadly mistaken.

Amnesia? I didn’t think so. In fact I knew it wasn’t that. For a start, wasn’t amnesia when you forgot things? Well, if so, that clearly
wasn’t
what I was suffering from. My trouble was remembering things that apparently weren’t real—not forgetting them! Yet when I challenged him on that one, he had a medical explanation.

“There are many, many different types of amnesia. It is far more complex than just the bang-on-the-head-who-am-I? stuff you see in the movies.”

“I see,” said my dad, and I swiveled sharply in my chair to look at him. Was he really buying into this? Did this answer really make sense to him?

“And how long will this amnesia last, Doctor?”

“I don’t have amnesia.”

“Well, that depends, it can really vary quite considerably: a
day or two, a few weeks. In some cases a full recovery from amnesia can take many months.”

“I don’t have amnesia.”

“And with Rachel’s type of amnesia, where she believes she is remembering something which hasn’t actually happened … well, that is rather … unusual, shall we say, so it is hard to say how long it will last. I would like to make arrangements for her to see a specialist in this field.”

My father then asked the question I had been most afraid to hear voiced aloud.

“Could her amnesia be permanent?”

There was a long silence. I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath to hear Dr. Tulloch’s response until I began to feel dizzy from lack of oxygen.

“There is that possibility, although it is far too early to say for sure,” he replied in gentle tones. “The specialist will be able to give you a clearer idea on that.”

He got to his feet then and shook my father’s hand, our consultation clearly at a close. As my father pushed the wheelchair from the room, I took one last look back at the white-haired doctor, who was already shuffling my test results and case notes into a neat pile. His eyes met mine.

“I don’t have amnesia.”

ON THE DOCTOR’S
advice, I was to be discharged from hospital the following morning. The specialist appointment would take some time to set up, and it was thought I would recover more speedily in my own home. I felt that was highly unlikely, as the last time I saw my own home in Great Bishopsford there were clearly other people living in it. However, I
was
anxious to get out of hospital, if only to prove to everyone that I wasn’t suffering from some weirdly interesting medical condition and that I was, in fact, telling the truth. I wasn’t going to be able to prove anything from a hospital bed.

“Who knows,” said Dad hopefully, “once you’re back home you might find everything just clicks back into place.”

He looked so optimistic I didn’t have the heart to point out yet again the facts I knew to be true.

“Maybe,” I offered. “Although even in your world I don’t live with you anymore, do I? So don’t go expecting it all to come rushing back, eh?”

He looked anguished, as though I’d deliberately tried to hurt him with my words.