The Returned Dead. Rafe Kronos
which wife? If the dead Felicity had also come back to life it wasn’t going to help.
“Your wife? Which wife? Debby? Or Felicity?”
“Debby, of course I mean Debby.” His voice became warmer, “Debby: I love her. She’s very beautiful, astonishingly so and I love her deeply. We’re very close, very, we really are.”
Was he boasting? Was he hinting that they had a wonderful sex life? He certainly seemed eager to convince me Debby was important to him. If I took his case I’d need to meet her. That might be interesting.
“So how long have you and Debby been married?”
“Almost twelve years.”
Wonderful: this just made things even more complicated. I considered it for a moment.
“So that means you were married to Debby while you were married to Felicity or perhaps the other way round, depending on who you married first. Either way, it sounds like you were a bigamist.”
“Well, yes, I mean no. Not really, no.”
We were still getting nowhere. I stared down at my desk and waited. It seemed the best thing to do.
After a few minutes he spoke, “Look, I know it all sounds complicated.”
Damn right it does, I thought.
“I’ll try to explain what happened. Tell me, have you ever woken up in the morning and, just for a moment, you had no idea where you were?”
I nodded, it had happened, especially after a night on the sauce, not that I’d had many of those recently. But in the past it had happened quite a lot; too often in fact. It was one reason I’d almost given up alcohol. Besides, I had learned that the booze didn’t take away the things that haunt me. Nowadays when I woke up I always knew where I was – though that didn’t make things much better.
“Right, Mr Dawson. You know what it’s like. You wake up and for a moment or two you have no idea where you are or how you got there. Right? That’s what happened to me. I woke up one day and I didn’t know where I was. Only in my case the feeling, the feeling of not knowing, didn’t go away. I didn’t know where I was or -- and this is what made it much worse -- who I was.” A nerve at the side of his mouth flickered like a faulty neon tube.
He took a deep breath and his next words came out in a rush, “Look, what happened was this. Nearly eight years ago I woke up in a room I didn’t recognise. Well, I knew it was a hospital room; that much I knew, but I didn’t know where it was or why I was there. After a while a nurse came in. That’s the first thing I remember after waking up: this nurse opening the door and coming over to my bed.”
He paused and he shook his head, as if he was still unable to accept what had happened to him. “She looked down at me then she asked me how I was feeling today. And she called me Roddy. The way she spoke made it sound as if we knew each other well, that this was part of our normal routine.”
His eyes widened; perhaps he was recalling his shock. “You have to believe this: I had no idea who she was or what I was doing there. No idea at all. I know it sounds weird but that’s how it was.”
“And she called you Roddy? Did you recognise your name?”
“No. I didn’t. No.” He shook his head vigorously. “No, I didn’t know Roddy was my name. I didn’t know because that was the exact moment, the terrible, terrible moment, when I realised that I didn’t know who I was. That was when I realised I didn’t even know my own name. My God, I didn’t even know my own name.”
He shook his head again as if trying to shake off the memory. “Can you understand that? I couldn’t even remember my own name -- my own name; it was terrible. I felt completely helpless, lost, vulnerable. It was a terrifying feeling, horrible, frightening.”
His face was tense and he was clenching and unclenching his hands.
“So what did you do?”
He gave a bitter little smile, a mere twitch of the lips. “What do people always do when they regain consciousness like that? What do they always say?”
I shrugged.
“I said, ‘Where am I?’ What else could I say but ‘Where am I?”
I wasn’t sure if he expected me to smile at this so I just gave a quick non-committal nod, “And this nurse, she told you where you were?”
“No, she just smiled at me as if I was joking.” He paused and his features tightened. “So I asked her again and she laughed, actually laughed. Then I got angry, really angry; I remember shouting at her. Then a doctor appeared, he tried to calm me but I kept asking where I was, why I was there. I was scared, I wanted to know. Then, after a minute or so, he took hold of my arm and gave me an injection. The next thing I remember was everything going black, it was like my mind was filling with darkness – and silence -- as if the world was fading away. The injection put me out, completely out.” He grimaced, “and I’ve no idea how long they kept me under after that.”
“When he injected you, you didn’t try to resist?”
“Couldn’t. I was too weak, I could hardly move my arms.”
Yet he’d had enough strength to yell at the nurse – if he was to be believed. If, if.
“And then?”
He must have sensed my doubt; but he’d have to be made of wood if he didn’t.
“Look, I know this sounds crazy but just let me finish. Next time I came round Debby was there -- though I didn’t know she was Debby then. No, there was just this gorgeous, dark haired woman there, sitting by my bed and gazing at me. When she saw I was conscious she reached out and took my hand and smiled at me. Such a beautiful smile, you’ve no idea. Then she leaned over and stroked my hair and she whispered something to me.”
“Whispered what?”
He looked uncertain. “That’s just it. I can’t remember. I mean I’ve tried often enough but I just can’t remember.”
“Have you asked Debby?”
“Of course I’ve asked her, of course I have.” The question had annoyed him; that was interesting.
“What does she say?”
“She says she can’t remember but it must have been something like ‘welcome back’ or ‘thank God you’re back,’ something like that.”
“And then?”
He shook his head again as if he was still trying to clear away something that was troubling him.
“Well, a couple of weeks later she took me home -- we live out near Neston.”
He might as well have said “we’re rich,” I thought. Part of Neston, out on the Wirral Peninsular, was as full of money as a honey comb is full of honey. He was still talking.
“What you have to understand is that at that point my mind was still pretty much a complete blank: my memory had gone. I was physically much stronger by then, I was able to walk, all that sort of thing, but I still couldn’t remember who I was, what I’d done before, where I lived. I couldn’t remember anything. By then Debby had explained she was my wife, that I was Roddy Baxendale, that I’d been terribly ill, that the illness had affected my memory. But despite what she told me about myself I still couldn’t remember anything.”
He looked at me. I hid my scepticism and signalled him to continue.
“It was bad, really bad at first. When we got home I couldn’t even find