Mark does tell me, though, what exactly it is that has happened to my brain. He says, in simple laymen terms, for some reason my warehouse of memories has shut down, the door is locked tight, for want of a better word. They’re all in there and intact but they’re hidden behind this hermetically sealed door and, unfortunately, I appear to have lost the ability to unlock said door. Or maybe, as he put it, for whatever reason I just don’t want to.
I felt like telling him, if I could open it I would, but for some reason I held my tongue.
I’ve tried, believe me. I’ve raked through my mind until my head starts to pound and my eyes blur, and I can’t take it anymore. But every single time I come up dry.
Dr Woods popped back in as he said he would. He really is a great doctor. He didn’t stay long, though, as there really wasn’t anything to say because the tests with Mark had identified nothing.
He did let me know the DNA swab the police took from me didn’t show up any results in their I.D. system. You see, Dr Woods informed the police about me on the day I arrived, and the next day a female police officer came to see me. She took my fingerprints and a DNA mouth swab to see if I would show up on their files to help identify me. The fingerprints came back the next day with no results but I was really hoping the DNA would. Well, to be honest, I was pinning all my hopes on it. I did my best to hide my disappointment from Dr Woods when he told me, but I think he knew.
The press have also been notified about my ‘story’, so that’s been running in the paper and it’s also been on the local news.
It hasn’t been big news, though, because on the day I was found, there was a bus crash and a lot of people died, so that kind of overshadowed my story, which of course it should. But I am praying that someone will see my picture and recognise me.
Fen comes at dinner time. He’s snuck in a McDonalds meal for us both. We eat together and he tells me about his day and the waves he caught this morning – he went surfing before work which he does nearly every day. Apparently his day was pretty standard. You see, as he puts it, nothing has yet trumped finding me on the beach, which is a good thing, he assures me, as he’d be pretty busy with two amnesiac’s to visit. My response – ‘Ha, bloody ha’.
I like Fen. He’s easy to talk to, he makes me laugh and he takes my mind off all of this. He gives me a sense of normality which is exactly what I need right now.
He’s also taken to calling me Pommie. Apparently I don’t sound Australian. No one could seem to place my accent, but concluded that if anything I sound English which, if I’m from England, makes things even more confusing as to why I ended up on a beach here in Australia. Obviously I don’t know my name, and Dr Woods had said it would be a good idea to give myself one, help to start me off with some form of identity. I refused. I told him the only name I want is the one I had and, when I remember that, I’ll let him know. No one knew what to call me, so Fen started calling me Pommie and it stuck.
So here I am all alone now. Fen left not long after we finished our dinner as he’s going out with friends. I’m sat in the dark after another long day of tests, still no better off, staring out the window whilst the lights from the city glitter down below.
I feel so alone, so completely and utterly alone. And I don’t mean physically. There could be a hundred people in this room and I’d still feel alone. This kind of solitude comes from deep inside and I have no way to fill it.
How can I not know who I am? How could I have forgotten everything about myself?
I need to remember. Something. Anything.
But what if I can’t – what then?
I’m just praying someone comes for me. There has to be someone out there who knows me, knows who I am, where I come from. I can’t just have appeared out of thin air. And all I need is one person, just one person to tell me who I am.
And if no one comes, then . . . well, honestly, I try not to think about that because the thought scares the hell out of me.
I look into the window, my reflection gazing back at me. I feel like I’m looking at a stranger. Almost as if I’ve accidentally landed in this body that doesn’t really belong to me, and the owner's going to turn up any minute and take it back.
I move closer to the glass. “Who are you?” I whisper to my reflection, my breath steaming up the glass. My eyes stare knowingly back at me as though they hold the answers to everything but refuse to tell.
I bang my fist frustratedly against my head, my eyes suddenly hot with tears. I withdraw from the window, get up from the chair and climb into bed, pulling the covers over me. I curl myself up into a tight ball as the loneliness presses into me silently, devastatingly, and I let the tears flow like I have done every night for the last six nights.
You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.
CS Lewis
Chapter 20
James
It’s been six weeks. Well, forty-three days to be exact, forty-three excruciatingly long days since she vanished from right before my eyes. Funny, six weeks is actually longer than I had her in my life. It’s crazy how I can be so in love with someone I’ve only known for such a small amount of time. And I know to some it might seem impetuous and foolhardy, but I didn’t stand a chance. How could I not love her? She’s amazing and beautiful, and quirky, and different, and . . . well you get the picture.
She saved me and I don’t just mean on the night of my accident.
My life was pretty crap and I was fast heading down the road to Shitsville until the moment I saw her, then everything changed, it all just clicked right back into place. I started to feel normal again, like I used to before dad died, and I knew everything would be okay from there on out as long as she was around.
It doesn’t matter to me who she is, or where she comes from, I just want her.
I know it might not make sense. Nothing about this whole situation makes any sense, but it doesn’t change how I feel, and right now I just need her back here with me. I’m kind of finding it hard to breathe without her.
It’s the not knowing that’s driving me insane, not knowing where she is, if she’s okay . . . if she’s ever coming back.
The thought of never seeing her again makes my head feel like it’s going to implode, so I try not to think about it. I have to stay positive. She said she’d find a way back to me, so I just have to hold onto that.
I will see her again.
When she first disappeared, I didn’t know what to do – what I could do. I just stood there in the kitchen, paralysed, eyes transfixed on the spot where she’d been. I literally couldn’t breathe. It was like someone had a tight grip on my lungs and was expelling every bit of air from them. I felt powerless. There wasn’t a single fucking thing I could do. Every instinct was telling me I should look for her, tear the streets up searching, but I’m guessing where Lucyna’s gone is not somewhere I have ready access to.
All I’ve done since is to try to keep myself busy with anything and everything, pretending to the outside world all is okay so I don’t have to think about how much I miss her. Trust me, it’s easier said than done. It’s the night time that gets me. When I’m alone. That’s when I feel it. When I feel all sore and empty inside.
I’ve had to lie to everyone about where she is. I said she’s gone to visit her family and I suppose in a weird sort of way it’s true – and, really, what else could I say, that she’s a heavenly being and was taken back to Heaven?
Hmm . . . I think not. I’d probably end up been committed.
A couple of times I’ve woken up in the middle of the night, panicked, thinking it was all a dream, she was a dream, but my heart beats her name too loudly for her to have never been in it. She made me feel alive again and I’m not ready to let go of that just yet, or maybe ever.
And even though, once again, I wish I could hide here in my bed all day, I know I can’t. I have another day I have to get through, a business to run.
I push myself up, swing my good leg over the side of the bed, and drag my potted leg over to join it. My feet touch the oak floor. Bloody hell that’s cold. I should really get a carpet put in here, but Lucyna did say she liked the feel of the cold beneath her feet. She said it made her feel alive. Now I know her, I know exactly what she meant.
With a sigh I reach over and turn the radio on the alarm clock on, anything to fill up this silence. It springs to life with exactly what I didn’t need.
‘Show me the meaning of being lonely,
Is this the feeling I need to walk with?
Tell me why I can’t be there where you are,
There’s something missin’ in my heart.’
Fucking Backstreet Boys.
I grab the clock, yanking the plug out of the socket and hurl it across the room. It smashes against the wall, shattering to pieces. And once again the room is silenced to deafening. I hobble over to the bathroom, slamming the door loudly behind me.
The shower does nothing to make me feel better. It’s nothing but a bloody chore at the moment. I’m perched precariously on the side of the bath, pot covered with a plastic bin bag, trying not to get it wet. I swear the minute it’s off, I'm getting a long, hot shower.
When I’ve finished, I clamber out of the bath, wrap a towel around my waist, rip the bag from my leg, and wipe the condensation from the mirror above the sink with my hand.
Jesus, I look like shit.
I reach for my toothbrush and, without warning an image of her appears in my mind. I close my eyes and try desperately to hold onto it. It’s not clear. I can’t see her as I used to. She’s starting to fray around the edges. I rest my forehead against the cool glass, hoping in some way that will make it clearer. It doesn’t. And it’s too late; she’s gone.
What if I forget what she looks like? What if one day I just wake up and I can’t see her anymore?
The loss slams into me hard.
I feel so completely and utterly alone, and I have to hold my breath just to stop myself freaking out, because this is a different kind of loneliness. It hurts so much that my heart actually aches with physical pain.
Come on, James, focus. It’s just another day. You’ve done forty-three so far, what’s another?
I take a deep breath, pull back from the mirror and set about brushing my teeth.
When I’m done, I open the door leading straight into my bedroom, the steam following me out and . . . “Jesus Christ!” I yell, jumping in shock. There’s a woman stood by my bed and she’s definitely no woman I know.
“Not quite,” she smiles lightly.
“Who the hell are you?”
“Isabel. You’ve no need to be alarmed, James.” She lifts a calming hand. “I’m here to help you.”
“Help?” I say agitated and confused. “What makes you think I need help?”
“Lucyna,” she says.
“Lucyna? What about her? Is she okay? Where is she?” And the words just keep on tumbling out of my mouth.
She holds up a firm hand, cutting me off. “Lucyna’s fine – well sort of.”
Fear grips a tight hold of my stomach. “Sort of? Sort of!” My voice is starting to sound slightly unhinged. “What’s that supposed to mean?’”