The Returned Dead. Rafe Kronos
He was clasping and unclasping his hands again and there was a sheen of sweat on his forehead.
I didn’t believe him but I saw no point in showing it, not yet. We’d see how things developed before I took that step. Besides, I was thinking about how good it might be to have all one’s memories wiped out, to start with a clean sheet. If only it could be done. If.
“I can see it must have been terrible,” I told him, “But surely you were able to remember some things? You say you knew the room was a hospital room and presumably you also knew how to feed yourself, shave, read, write, tie your shoe laces, turn the lights on and off, those sorts of thing? Surely you could remember those things?”
“Yes, yes, all those little things, all the little things that come automatically. You don’t have to remember anything to do them, you just do them, that’s all,” he said impatiently. “But I couldn’t remember anything important. Nothing about me as me; nothing about me as Roddy Baxendale. I felt completely lost because I was unable to remember anything about myself, to recall my life before I woke up in that hospital. I had no past, nothing. I wasn’t me, I wasn’t anyone. You’ve no idea what that’s like. Not being able to remember anything is terrible, just terrible.”
“Without my memories I wouldn’t exist.” I tried to remember who had said that: Freud? Proust? Or was it Memo the Memory Man? But were they right? Memories could destroy. Sometimes it would be better to have no memories.
“OK, that was then, that was all some years back,” I said, “but now you are Roderick Baxendale and from what you say you have a beautiful wife and you’re very rich. Have I got that right?”
“Yes. No. Yes, I’m Baxendale. That’s who Debby and other people have told me I am; they’ve taught me to be Baxendale. They’ve taught me that I was born forty-seven years ago and then, about eight years back, I suffered a severe viral illness. I had an infection of my brain that destroyed my memory and I was in a coma for nearly six months.”
“But you came out of the coma, right? That was when you woke up in this hospital?”
“This private hospital, yes,” he said. Now why did he say that? Was it just another way of telling me how rich he was, that he didn’t need the NHS?
“Eventually I came out of the coma. And once I was out of hospital Debby and others helped me rebuild, reconstruct my past. They filled my mind with all the things I’d done, things I would have been able to remember if the coma hadn’t wiped them out. I suppose you could say they’ve taught me my own history; they’ve helped me to recreate my lost past. They’ve rebuilt my memory for me. And I’ve lived my life, Baxendale’s life, since I came out of that hospital; I’ve lived it for over seven years.”
He gave a tight little smile that somehow made him look both nervous and pleased at the same time. “What you have to understand is it’s a good life, a very good one. I mean I really like being me; you have to understand that I have a great life. I like being Roddy Baxendale. I have a gorgeous wife, three houses, good cars, I fly business class, all that stuff. I have everything I could want. Except, now….”
After a few moments silence he sighed and seemed to shrink in on himself.
“But now,” he tried to speak, stopped and then gasped in air, “Look, Mr Dawson, since the hospital everything has been fine except that, well, very recently I’ve begun to realise I’m Jack Rankin: the dead Jack Rankin. But I’m not dead and I am Jack Rankin and I’m Roddy Baxendale at the same time. Can you imagine how that feels? How can it be? Christ, it’s a hell of a situation. It’s driving me mad. I’m desperate. That’s why I’ve come to you, I need your help. I need you to find out what’s been happening to me. I’ve got to know.”
I thought about all this for a minute or two and said, “Look, why don’t I get us some coffee while we talk. How do you take it?”
“White, one sugar.” He suddenly grimaced, angry. “No! No! I mean black, no sugar.”
“Is that Roddy and Jack?” I asked.
“Yes. At moments like this I suddenly remember how I used to take my coffee: black. White with one sugar’s how I – Roddy -- take it now.”
“Confusing for you,” I said, struggling to keep any trace of doubt from my voice.
“Confusing? Of course it’s confusing, of course it is; you have no idea how bloody confusing it is. It’s like there are two of me, both of them inside my body, both inside my mind, both at the same time.” He grimaced, “I can’t go on like this, I just can’t.”
I went over to my coffee machine and set it going. I wasn’t using it just for refreshment: the machine was a useful investigative tool. These days many of my clients respond positively to the smell of fresh coffee in the room. It unconsciously reminds them of being in Costa or Starbucks and it helps them to relax. Pavlov would be proud of me.
When the machine had delivered its brew I poured him his coffee and held up the mug, “Which is it to be?”
“Black,” he said very definitely. He was showing me he was Jack Rankin.
As I handed him the coffee I asked, “And what does Debby say about all this?” It was a test, I wanted to see what his face would show when part of his mind was focussed on taking the mug.
His expression went blank for a moment then the muscles seemed to writhe beneath the skin.
“I’ve…I’ve not told her. She doesn’t know. This all started after she left.”
“Left?”
Had his wife walked out on him? Was this some sort of bizarre stunt to get her back? Was he hoping I could arrange a reconciliation with his runaway wife? His next words killed that idea.
“She’s at our house in Italy, been there for over a month. We’ve got the builders in: someone needs to be there, it’s her turn. I did it last summer.”
We sipped our coffee in silence. I gazed at him and wondered about his preposterous tale. Perhaps after all he was mad, though he seemed sane enough – even if his tale wasn’t.
I decided I wouldn’t get anywhere until I learned more.
“So, are you saying that you began to remember you were – that you are -- Jack Rankin after she went away to Italy?”
“Yes, it was about a fortnight after. But it only happened – began to happen -- when something triggered it, when someone near me spoke my name.” He took a deep breath and seemed to be bracing himself. “I was in a shop trying to decide which shirt to buy and a woman behind me said, ‘For God’s sake get a move on, Jack, we haven’t got all day.’ I just swung round: I thought she was talking to me. It was instinctive, automatic: I was reacting to my name.”
“And?”
“Of course she wasn’t talking to me. She was talking to a young kid who was dawdling along behind her, staring around, miles away.” His eyes became unfocussed as he imagined himself back in the shop.
“So what happened then?”
He wetted his lips and for a few seconds he seemed to have trouble speaking. “Well, at that moment it felt, well, it felt weird, totally unnerving. There were suddenly two of us; I suppose it felt as if someone else was inside my head with me.” He gave a gasp as if again suddenly feeling the shock of the moment. “It was completely disconcerting. It was if my mind was wrestling with itself. I didn’t know what was happening to me.” He bit his lower lip. “Anyway, after I had recovered a bit I went and found a pub. I bought myself a drink, sat down and tried to work out why I’d reacted that way to being addressed – or thinking I was being addressed -- as