The Memory Game Read online

  ‘I’m not going to be able to dissuade you from this sleuthing, am I?’ There was a note of exasperation, but it was okay.

  ‘It’s not sleuthing, Alex. It’s just pottering around, really. I have this feeling I’m looking for something. I just don’t know exactly what it is.’

  ‘Yes.’ Alex sounded pensive. ‘I just wonder if you might be looking in the wrong place.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘You intrigue me, Jane. You have the technique of a magician. When you point me in one direction, I feel it’s a sleight-of-hand and the important thing is happening somewhere else.’

  ‘That all sounds too clever for me.’

  ‘You’re deceiving yourself as well, of course. Something is looming ahead and you both want and don’t want to find it.’

  ‘What do you mean, Alex? Do you think I’m on the right track?’

  There was another of Alex’s long pauses. I could feel my own breathing and my heart like a ball bouncing inside my chest. Something was coming. When he spoke it was with great deliberation.

  ‘What I feel, Jane, is that you are on the right track in the sense that I think there is something definite to be found. But you’re looking for it in the wrong place. You’re going to talk to people who are never going to be able to solve your problem. Where you should really be looking is in there.’

  I felt Alex’s cool hand on my brow and I almost jumped away from the couch. It wasn’t the first time he had ever touched me, but it felt startlingly intimate. Surely he had missed my point.

  ‘Alex, I’m not denying that your therapy is important and helpful. But when I’m talking to people, then, in my confused and pathetic way, I’m looking for something specific. I’m trying to find something that’s out there, the truth about something that actually happened.’

  ‘Do you think I’m saying any different, Jane?’

  ‘What are you talking about? Are you saying that I already know the answer? That I know who killed Natalie?’

  ‘Know is a complicated word.’

  I felt a sudden crawling sensation on my skin. ‘Are you accusing me of something?’

  Alex laughed soothingly. ‘No, Jane, of course not.’

  ‘But if I knew, well, then I’d… er, know, wouldn’t I? I would remember.’

  ‘Would you? Wait a second.’

  Alex got up and left the room and then returned with a battered yellow folder and a ring-bound notebook. ‘Let me take the initiative for a moment,’ he said as he sat down again. ‘I want to ask you a series of questions about yourself.’

  ‘Am I being tested for something?’

  ‘Don’t think about that. Just answer. Only if you want to, but I think it will be a help.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘I’m going to ask quite a few questions. You can be as brief as you like with your answers. Just yes or no, if you want. Okay?’ Alex clicked his pen and began. After each answer he scribbled a brief note.

  ‘Are you scared of the dark, Jane?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you been having bad dreams?’

  ‘I think so. I’m not very good at remembering them.’

  ‘Do you ever worry about your body? Are there bits about it that you don’t like?’

  ‘Yes, of course, but only in the way everybody does.’

  This was fun. It reminded me of the personality tests I find irresistible in magazines.

  ‘Have you ever suffered from gynaecological problems?’

  ‘I used to get cystitis a lot. I don’t know if that counts.’

  ‘Headaches? Arthritis?’

  ‘Not arthritis, but I get headaches quite a lot. I used to suffer from migraines. I got one every Friday after dinner for years. Unless we were going out somewhere. Then it would come on Saturday night instead.’

  ‘Have you ever avoided looking in mirrors?’

  ‘Yes, well see answer given above on subject of body.’

  ‘Have you ever wanted to change your name?’

  ‘Are you serious? I did change it. I’ve recently toyed with the idea of changing it back, but it’s a bit late now. All those labels and standing orders that would need alteration.’

  ‘Do you ever wear what might seem like an inappropriate amount of clothing?’

  ‘I suffer from quite bad circulation so I do sometimes feel cold even when it’s sunny. So, yes, I suppose I do. Is that a crime?’

  ‘Do you have any phobias?’

  ‘No. I don’t mind heights, I rather like spiders. Confined spaces are cosy. Now you mention it, I do have an irrational hatred of breakfast cereal and spent much of my boys’ childhood trying to keep it out of the house. And I don’t like Mother’s Day or ploughman’s lunches or anything else that was invented by advertising people.’

  ‘Any eating disorders?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ever had a problem with drink or drugs?’

  ‘No problem at all.’

  ‘Have you ever obsessively stayed away from them?’

  ‘Not really. I cut down a bit on drinking in the days before I took finals and that sort of thing. I could never really be bothered with drugs. It was the paraphernalia and the culture that went with them. And I was a bit scared of being arrested. I don’t think I was puritanical about it.’

  ‘Any examples of compulsive behaviour?’

  ‘Oh, loads.’

  ‘Have you ever had a wish to be invisible?’

  ‘If I did, it was granted for large parts of my marriage. Sorry. The honest answer is that the temptation has never presented itself even as a fantasy.’

  ‘Have you ever suffered from depression?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Low self-esteem?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘Do you ever cry for no reason at all?’

  ‘That’s almost a philosophical question, but roughly speaking I would say yes to that.’

  ‘Any suicidal impulses or thoughts?’

  ‘Not seriously.’

  ‘Did you ever feel a need to be spotlessly good, or to be the opposite, terribly bad?’

  ‘I know what you mean. I recognise the feeling.’

  ‘Have you ever felt that you’re a victim?’

  ‘Only in my weaker moments. I hope that I’ve never seriously thought of myself as a victim.’

  ‘Have you ever had a feeling of having possession of a secret? Perhaps with an urge to tell it and a feeling that nobody would believe it if you did?’

  ‘I’m not sure I understand the question. I don’t think so.’

  ‘Have you ever taken dangerous risks?’

  ‘No. I sometimes wish I had.’

  ‘Have you ever felt an incapacity for taking risks?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you ever daydream?’

  ‘What did you say? I was miles away. Sorry. Joking. Sometimes, maybe.’

  ‘Do you feel you’ve ever blocked out a period of your life, especially when you were young?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s hard to say. Obviously there are lots of things I don’t remember.’

  ‘Do you ever worry about being noisy? I mean in experiences such as sex or in social situations or even in the lavatory.’

  ‘This is getting personal, isn’t it? All right, I’m not embarrassed, I’ll answer. To take them in order. I think I’m quite sexually uninhibited, so I suppose I groan and scream. I’m irritated by people who bray and guffaw at dinner parties and I probably come across as quite restrained in public. I probably attempt to be fairly quiet on the lavatory when there are other people in the vicinity. Don’t most people?’

  ‘Have you ever felt that sex is dirty?’

  ‘No, not intrinsically.’

  ‘Have you ever disliked being touched?’

  ‘Do you mean sexually?’

  ‘Not necessarily.’

  ‘I sometimes dislike it when men paw me but in an unfair sort of way it all depends on the man. There have been occasions when I ha
ven’t wanted sex, and then I’ve said so.’

  ‘What about by a gynaecologist?’

  ‘I used to dislike being examined by a male gynaecologist. When I was, oh, in my latish twenties, Claud found me a wonderful woman and I’ve been with her ever since. I’ve no problem at all with Sylvia.’

  ‘Are you repelled by particular sex acts?’

  ‘I suppose there are one or two that I don’t especially like.’

  ‘Are there any you are strongly attracted to?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘Have you ever been compulsively promiscuous?’

  ‘No. That might have been fun for a bit and I imagine that college would have been the opportunity to experiment a bit with that but I was involved with Claud quite quickly.’

  ‘Have you ever been compulsively asexual?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you ever preoccupied with thoughts about sex?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean by preoccupied. I think about it now and then.’

  ‘Do you have an impulse to be highly in control of your emotions?’

  ‘I don’t like to be emotionally uncontrolled.’

  ‘Do you feel a need to control situations?’

  ‘Sometimes I try to.’

  ‘Do you obsessively try to control things that aren’t important?’

  ‘I can be madly neat or organised sometimes. Compared with Claud I was a real slut.’

  ‘Do you find it difficult to be happy?’

  ‘I have felt that about myself.’

  ‘Do you find it difficult to relax?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you find it difficult to work?’

  ‘Lately it’s been a bit of a problem.’

  ‘Do you ever feel you’re crazy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you ever invented fantasy worlds? Or fantasy relationships?’

  ‘Not since I was a girl.’

  ‘Have you ever felt that you were real and everything else was a sham?’

  ‘I know what you mean but I can’t honestly say that I have. I’ve always been a bit too boringly rational. I probably felt it when I was little, the way everybody does.’

  ‘Or vice versa?’

  ‘You mean that I was a sham? That’s more likely. I still sometimes have the sense that everybody else is a real grown-up and I’m just pretending to be one and that I’m still really a child.’

  ‘Are you afraid to succeed?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘Do any kinds of food or tastes frighten or disgust you?’

  ‘No, but I will make the secret confession that deep down I’ve never really cared for sprouts or cauliflower.’

  ‘Do you ever feel a sense of doom?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Now Alex didn’t speak for a long time but wrote furiously on his notepad, occasionally flicking the pages back. After a painful few minutes he closed it.

  ‘How did I do? Did I pass?’

  When Alex replied, he was more serious than I’d ever heard him before.

  ‘It has been said that if you answer positively to more than half a dozen or so of the questions I put to you, then this may be evidence of a submerged trauma.’

  ‘What do you mean “submerged”?’

  ‘An event, or a series of events, that you have made yourself forget.’

  ‘Come on, Alex, the things in that list of questions could apply to anybody. Who on earth wouldn’t say yes to some of them?’

  ‘Don’t try to brush this off, Jane. You’ve gone along with this very conscientiously until now. The questions are carefully constructed to uncover symptoms of anxiety which may be evidence of something deeper. I’m not making a diagnosis but it’s something we ought to think about. Tell me, Jane, you’ve been putting yourself back into the landscape from where Natalie disappeared. You’ve been doing it with great commitment. I’m very impressed. But tell me, what does that landscape make you feel? Does it give you any feeling of dread? Do you feel that there is something there? Something hidden?’

  I suddenly felt cold, lying there on the couch, as I always do when I lie still for an extended period of time, even in a well heated house such as Alex’s. It was my bad circulation again.

  ‘Yes, it scares me. What is it that interests you about it, Alex?’

  ‘I’ve always tried to follow your lead, Jane. I asked you about Natalie’s disappearance and you gave me a landscape. I want to send you into that landscape and see what you find. Does that seem worth trying?’

  ‘Yes, all right.’

  So we went through our familiar ritual. I felt pleased with Alex’s approval, as if I was becoming his star pupil. He talked softly to me. My body relaxed, I closed my eyes and placed myself back there beside the Col. Session by session, this was becoming easier and the world in which I found myself was each time more vivid.

  I was sitting down, my back resting on the dry mossy stone at the foot of Cree’s Top, the river on my left flowing away, the last screwed up pieces of paper floating round the curve, the elms on the edge of the woods to my right.

  Without any prompting I was able to stand up and turn round. The river was now on my right flowing towards me and away behind me, the elms and the woods were on my left. Now I was looking at the path winding up the slope of Cree’s Top. There were thick bushes by its side, and it occasionally disappeared from view as it snaked its way up the slope, but I could see almost all of it. It was all more vivid than before. The leaves were greener and more defined against the sunlight from above. As I moved my head round I could focus on any part of my surroundings and move in on them, on to the small stones on the path that had been pushed to the sides by the passage of feet that had also worn the ground down, exposing larger stones and the roots of trees. Almost without an impulse on my part I started to step forward along the path. Looking down, I saw my feet wearing black gym shoes of a kind I hadn’t owned since I was at school. I was now well along the path and moving up the hill and away from where I had been sitting. When I turned to my right, I was looking down the slope at the river. When I turned to my left, I was looking into the woods towards the Stead. Suddenly all became dark. I looked up and a heavy black cloud was passing overhead. The air turned cold, a shiver passed through me and I turned and ran down the hill. I carefully sat myself in my original position, the stone crusty against my spine.

  I described to Alex what had happened.

  ‘Why didn’t you go on?’

  ‘I was afraid.’

  ‘Big girls don’t need to be afraid.’

  Nineteen

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘May I speak to Jane Martello, please.’

  ‘Yes, what is it?’

  I wasn’t in a good mood. This would be the fourth time in one morning that someone from the council had rung me about changes to the hostel. The next day, the committee was going to meet to give the go-ahead — or not — to the revised budget for a building that had already been so cut back, compromised and revised that I hardly wanted my name attached to it any more.

  ‘Jane, this is Caspar, Caspar Holt.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It wasn’t necessary, but thank you for your postcard.’

  It was the philosopher. I sat down, and breathed deeply.

  ‘Oh, yes, well, I wanted to apologise for my behaviour that evening.’

  ‘In the circumstances, I think that you behaved with aplomb. I wondered if you’d like to meet?’

  Oh God, a date.

  ‘Um, fine, I mean, when did you have in mind?’

  ‘How about now?’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Well, in half an hour, then.’

  I needed to sort out the final details for the next day’s committee meeting, I needed to go to the office, I desperately needed to wash my hair. It wasn’t a good day; it was my day for a rush and a sour bad mood.

  ‘Give me an hour. Where shall we meet?’

  ‘Number thirteen, Lincoln’s Inn Fields. I’ll mee
t you outside.’

  I didn’t manage to sort out the committee details or phone the office. But I did wash my hair.

  He was standing outside wearing the same bulky tweed coat he had worn at the ICA. He was engrossed in a paperback book so I was able to observe him before he saw me. His hair was ash-blond, long, curly and swept back off his forehead. He had round wire-framed glasses.

  ‘Sir John Soane’s Museum,’ I said to him. ‘Is this where you usually take girls on their first date?’

  He looked up in surprise.

  ‘Yes, it probably explains my luck with women. But it’s free and it’s like walking around inside a man’s brain.’

  ‘Is that good?’

  He put his hand lightly on my shoulder as we went through the front door, and into the strange interior, the space extending into the upper floors and down into the basement. He steered me into a room that was painted a dark rusty red. There were strange objects, architectural fragments, archaic instruments, eccentric works of art on every surface.

  ‘Look at that,’ said Caspar, pointing out something shapeless. ‘That’s a fungus from Sumatra.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Actually, it’s a sponge.’

  We walked on through improbably tiny corridors giving on to sudden even more improbable vistas, up and down, everything lined with a baffling array of objects.

  ‘Each room is like a separate part of the mind that planned it,’ he said. I noticed his hands were splashed with red paint at the knuckles, and his shirt collar was frayed.

  ‘Like a man’s brain, perhaps,’ I said.

  He smiled. ‘You mean compartmentalised. Full of objects. Maybe. Maybe you’re right. It’s not a woman’s house, is it? I come here sometimes at lunchtime. I marvel at how a lifetime can be packed into a house. It’s such an introverted place, don’t you think? And extroverted as well, of course.’

  ‘Is this your standard lecture?’ I asked.