In A Dark, Dark Wood Part 17

And because I am afraid they are here for me.

20.

THE BRAIN DOESN'T remember well. It tells stories. It fills in the gaps, and implants those fantasies as memories.

I have to try to get the facts.

But I don't know if I'm remembering what happened, or what I want to have happened. I am a writer. I'm a professional liar. It's hard to know when to stop, you know? You see a gap in the narrative, you want to fill it with a reason, a motive, a plausible explanation.

And the harder I push, the more the facts dissolve beneath my fingers ...

I know that I woke with a jump. I don't know what time it was, but it was still dark. Beside me Nina was sitting up in bed, her dark eyes wide and glittering.

'Did you hear that?' she whispered.

I nodded. Footsteps on the landing. A door opening very softly.

My heart was beating in my throat as I pushed back the duvet and grabbed my dressing gown. I remembered the kitchen door swung wide, the footsteps in the snow.

We should have checked the rest of the house.

At the door I stood listening for a second, and then opened it with infinite caution. Clare and Flo were standing outside, their eyes wide, faces bleached pale with fear. Flo was holding the gun.

'Did you hear something?' I whispered, as low as I could. Clare gave a single, sharp nod, and pointed to the stairs, her finger stabbing downwards. I listened hard, trying to still my shaky breathing and thudding heart. There was a scratching sound, and then a clear, definite thunk, as of a door being softly closed. There was someone down there.

'Tom?' I mouthed. But even as I did, his door opened a crack and his face peered out.

'Did you ... that sound?' he whispered. Clare gave a grim nod.

This time it was no open door. No wind. This time we could all hear it: clear footsteps as someone made their way through the tiled kitchen, across the parquet floor of the hallway, and then the soft, definite creak of a foot on the first of the stairs.

Somehow we had drawn together into a little knot I felt someone's hand scrabbling for mine. Flo was at the centre, the gun raised, though its muzzle was shaking badly. I put my free hand out to steady it.

There was another creak on the stairs and an indrawn breath from all of us, then a figure rounded the newel post half-way up, silhouetted against the plate-gla.s.s window that overlooked the forest.

It was a man a tall man. He was dressed in some kind of dark hoodie, and I couldn't see his face. He was looking down at his phone, the screen glowing ghost-white in the darkness.

'f.u.c.k off and leave us alone!' Flo screamed, and the gun went off.

There was a deafening, catastrophic bang, and the sound of shattering gla.s.s, and the gun kicked like a horse. I remember that and I remember that people fell over.

I remember that I looked up to see it didn't make sense the huge plate-gla.s.s window shattered the gla.s.s spattered outwards onto the snow, clattering onto the wooden stairs.

I remember the man on the stairs gave one choking exclamation more of shock than of pain and then he fell all of a heap, thudding slowly down the stairs like a stuntman in a film.

I don't know who turned on the lights. But they flooded the tall hallway with a brightness that made me wince and cover my eyes and I saw.

I saw the pale frosted stairs splashed with blood, and the shattered window, and the long, slow smear of gore where the man's body had slithered down to the ground floor.

'Oh my G.o.d,' Flo whimpered. 'The gun- the gun was loaded!'

When the nurse comes back, I am crying.

'What happened?' I manage. 'Someone is dead please tell me, please tell me who's dead!'

'I can't tell you, love.' She looks genuinely sorry. 'I wish I could, but I can't. But I've brought Dr Miller here to take a look at you.'

'Good morning, Leonora,' he says, coming across to the bed. His voice is soft, pitying. I want to punch him and his f.u.c.king compa.s.sion. 'I'm sorry we're a bit tearful today.'

'Someone is dead,' I say very clearly, trying to keep my breath even, keep myself from gulping and sobbing. 'Someone is dead, and no one will tell me who. And the police are sitting outside. Why?'

'Let's not worry about that at the moment-'

'I am worried!' I shout. Heads in the corridor turn. The doctor puts out a soothing hand, patting my leg beneath the blanket in a way that makes me want to shrug and shudder. I am bruised. I am hurt. I am wearing a hospital gown that's open at the back and I've lost my dignity along with everything else. Do not f.u.c.king touch me, you patronising a.r.s.ehole. I want to go home.

'Look,' he says, 'I understand that you're upset, and the police will hopefully have some answers for you, but I'd like to examine you, ensure that you're up to speaking to them, and I can only do that if you're calm. Do you understand, Leonora?'

I nod my head, mutely, and then turn my face to the wall while he examines the dressing on my head, checks my pulse and blood pressure against the readings on the machine. I close my eyes, let the indignities fade away. I answer his questions.

My name is Leonora Shaw.

I'm twenty-six.

Today is ... Here I have to be helped, but the nurse prompts me. It's Sunday. I have not even been here twelve hours. In which case, it's 16th November. I think this counts as disorientation rather than memory loss.

Cameron is prime minister.

No, I have no nausea. My vision is fine, thanks.

Yes, I am having trouble recovering some memories. There are some things that you shouldn't have to remember.

'Well, you seem to be doing remarkably well,' Dr Miller says at last. He hangs his stethoscope round his neck and puts his little torch back in his top pocket. 'All the observations overnight are fine, and your scan is very rea.s.suring. The memory trouble is concerning me a little bit it's quite typical to lose the few minutes before a collision but it sounds like you're having trouble a little bit further back than that, is that right?'

I nod reluctantly, thinking of the patchy, staccato blasts of images that invaded my head throughout the night: the trees, the blood, the swinging headlights.

'Well, you may find it starts coming back. Not all causes of memory trouble-' He avoids the word 'amnesia', I have noticed '-are down to physical trauma. Some are more ... stress-related.'

For the first time in a little while I look up, meet his eyes directly. 'What do you mean?'

'Well, this is not my speciality you understand I work with the physical head trauma. But sometimes ... sometimes the brain suppresses events that we're not quite ready to deal with. I suppose it's a ... coping mechanism, if you will.'

'What kind of events?' My voice is hard. He smiles. His hand is back on my leg again. I resist the urge to flinch.

'You've had a difficult time, Leonora. Now, is there anyone we can call? Anyone you would like to be with you? Your mother has been informed, I understand, but she's in Australia, is that right?'

'That's right.'

'Any other relations? Boyfriend? Partner?'

'No. Please ...' I swallow, but there is no sense in putting this off any longer. The agony of not knowing is becoming more painful. 'Please, I'd like to see the police now.'

'Hmm.' He stands, looks at his chart. 'I'm not convinced you're up to it, Leonora. We've already told them you're not fit to answer questions.'

'I'd like to see the police.'

They are the only people who will give me answers. I have to see them. I stare at him, while he pretends to study the chart in front of him, making up his mind.

At last he lets out a breath, a long, frustrated half-sigh and shoves the chart into the holder at the foot of the bed.

'Very well. Nurse MacIntyre will stay. They're only to have half an hour at the most, Nurse, and I don't want anything too stressful. If Miss Shaw starts to find the interview difficult ...'

'Understood,' the nurse says briskly.

Dr Miller puts out his hand, and I shake it, trying not to look at the scratches and blood on my arm.

He turns to go.

'Oh wait, sorry,' I blurt out, as he reaches the door. 'Can I have a shower first?' I want to see the police, but I don't want to face them like this.

'A bath,' Dr Miller says, and gives a short nod. 'You've got a dressing on your forehead which I'd prefer you not to disturb. If you keep your head above water, yes you can have a bath.'

And he turns to go.

It takes a long time to unhook everything from the machine. There are sensors, needles, and the huge incontinence pad between my legs which makes me hot and cold with shame as I swing my legs to the floor, feeling its bulk. Did I wet myself in the night? There's no sharp smell of urine but I can't be sure.

The nurse gives me her arm as I stand, and although I want to push her away, I find I'm pathetically grateful for it, and I lean on her harder than I want to admit as I hobble painfully to the bathroom.

Inside the light flickers on automatically and the nurse runs a bath, then helps me with the tapes of my gown.

'I can do the rest myself,' I say, cringing at the thought of undressing in front of even a professional stranger, but she shakes her head.

'I can't let you get into the tub without a hand, I'm sorry. If you slip ...' She doesn't finish, but I know what she's saying: another bang on top of what's already happened to my head.

I nod, step out of the hideous adult nappy (the nurse whisks it away before I can worry about whether it's soiled or not) and then I let the gown fall to the floor, s.h.i.+vering in my nakedness even though the room is sweatingly hot.

I smell, I realise to my shame. I smell of fear and sweat and blood.

The nurse holds my hand as I step unsteadily into the bath, catching onto the grab rails as I lower myself into the scalding water.

'Too hot?' the nurse says quickly, as I let out a little gasp, but I shake my head. It's not too hot. Nothing could be too hot. If I could sterilise myself with boiling water, I would.

At last I'm lying back in the water, s.h.i.+vering with the effort.

'Can I ... I'd like to be alone, p-please,' I say, awkwardly. The nurse sucks in her breath and I can see her about to refuse, and suddenly I can't bear it any more I can't bear their scrutiny, and their kindness, and their constant watch. 'Please,' I say, more roughly than I meant. 'For G.o.d's sake, I won't drown in six inches of water.'

'All right,' she says, though there is reluctance in her tone. 'But don't even think about trying to get out you're to pull the cord and I'll come in and help you.'

'All right.' I don't want to admit defeat, but I know in my heart that I would not be safe getting out of that bath myself.

The nurse goes, leaving the door just a crack ajar, and I close my eyes and sink into the steaming water, shutting out her watchful presence outside the door, shutting out the hospital smells and sounds and the buzz of the fluorescent light.

As I lie in the bath I run my hands down all the cuts and sc.r.a.pes and bruises, feeling the small clots and scabs soften and dissolve beneath my palms, and I try to remember what set me running through the woods, with blood on my hands. I try to remember. But I'm not sure if I can bear the truth.

After the nurse has helped me out, I towel myself gently dry, looking at my familiar body with its unfamiliar tracing of cuts and st.i.tches. There are slashes on my s.h.i.+ns. They are deep, ragged scratches across the front of the bone, as if I'd run through brambles or barbed wire. There are cuts on my feet and hands, from running barefoot over gla.s.s, from s.h.i.+elding my face from flying debris.

Finally I walk across to the mirror and swipe away the steam, and I see myself for the first time since the accident.

I've never been the kind to turn people's heads not like Clare, whose beauty is hard to ignore, or Nina, who's spectacular in a lean, Amazonian kind of way but I was never a freak. Now, as I peer at myself in the steam-bleeding mirror, I realise that if I saw myself on the street I would turn away, out of pity or horror.

The huge dressing at my hairline doesn't help it looks as if my brains are being barely held in place and nor do the smaller cuts and scratches dappled across my cheekbones and forehead, but they're not the worst. The worst is my eyes two dark, bronze-coloured s.h.i.+ners that blossom out from the bridge of my nose, leaching in blackened circles beneath my lower lids, before they fade to yellow across my cheekbones. The right one is spectacular, the left one less so. I look like I've been punched in the face, repeatedly. But I am alive, and someone is not.

It is that thought that makes me pull on the hospital gown, lace up the ties, and shuffle out to face the world.

'Admiring your s.h.i.+ners?' The nurse gives a comfortable laugh. 'Don't worry, they've done all the scans, you've no basilar fracture. You just got a bang to the face. Or two.'

'B-basilar?'

'Type of skull fracture. It can be very nasty. But they've ruled it out, so don't fret. Black eyes aren't uncommon following a car crash but they'll clear up in a few days.'

'I'm ready,' I say. 'For the police.'

'Are you sure you're up to it, hen? You don't have to.'

'I'm up to it,' I say firmly.

I'm back in bed, sitting up with a cup of what the nurse claimed was coffee but unless the head trauma has damaged my taste perception is not, when there is a knock on the door.

I look up sharply, my heart thudding. Outside, smiling through the wire-hatched gla.s.s pane in the door, there is a policewoman. She's in her forties, maybe, and she is incredibly striking, with the kind of sculpted looks you might see on a catwalk. It feels shockingly incongruous, but I don't know why. Why shouldn't police officers have the face of David Bowie's wife?

'C-come in,' I say. Don't stammer. f.u.c.k.

'h.e.l.lo.' She opens the door and comes into the room, still smiling. She has the slender, greyhound frame of a long-distance runner. 'I'm Detective Constable Lamarr.' Her voice is warm and her vowels are plum-coloured. 'How are you feeling today?'

'Better, thank you.' Better? Better than what? I'm in hospital, in a gown with no back and two black eyes. I'm not sure how much worse it could get.

Then I correct myself: I've been unhooked from the machine and they've removed the nappy. Apparently I can be trusted to pee by myself. This is, indeed, better.

'I've spoken to your doctors, they tell me you may be up to a few questions, but if it's too much we can stop, just say. Is that all right?'

I nod and she says, 'Last night ... Can you tell me what you remember?'

'Nothing. I remember nothing.' It comes out harder and terser than I meant. To my horror I feel a lump in my throat and I swallow fiercely. I will not cry! I'm a grown woman, for f.u.c.k's sake, not some child who's sc.r.a.ped her knee in the playground, wailing for her daddy.