April 2006

Alex was in a hospital room.  It was possible that he’d just woken up, but it was also possible that he’d been up for hours and just didn’t remember.  He also didn’t remember whose idea it had been to take him to the hospital in the first place.  Virgil and Bradley must have convinced Pinder somehow.  Maybe they’d done it while he wasn’t there.

He hoped Denny was OK.  Was today meant to be one of his days for visiting Denny?  No- it was alright.  He’d told Jonathan and Octavia that he was going to Amsterdam for two weeks.  In fact, was that where this was?  He supposed he wouldn’t know until somebody came back into the room and he listened to their accent.

Someone had probably come into the room already.  He just didn’t remember it.  He didn’t remember anything.  Why didn’t he remember anything?  How had he got here?

*

Why don’t you treat me as I treat you?  I don’t think I can do everything.  I know you’re better at some things than I am.  Pinder had said that.  Or at least Alex thought it had been Pinder.  It sounded like the sort of thing he’d say.  He can’t be bothered talking to a lot of stupid animals.  He doesn’t have time to explain basic human decency to you.

Alex kept panicking and thinking, I don’t remember anything, but that wasn’t true.  He remembered Pinder and Denny.  He remembered breaking his leg.  He remembered his family, and his flatmates at Pallas House.  What he didn’t remember was what had happened five minutes ago.

Denny had had gaps in his memory.  He’d called them “blackouts.”  They’d scared him, and now Alex knew why.  How could you work out anything about the world around you when there was so much information missing?  How could you work out anything about yourself when you didn’t know how you’d got where you were?

*

“Head injury,” the doctor said, but Alex couldn’t concentrate.  He wished he could remember how he’d got to the hospital.  He wished he could remember what Pinder had told him before they’d got here.  Maybe he’d given him a cover story to use, and here he was forgetting all about it.  What if he gave the wrong answer to one of the doctor’s questions and gave them all the information they needed to throw Pinder and the others in jail?

*

Outside the room, there was a voice shouting.  “How do you justify treating me like this?  I’m a human being, for God’s sake!”

Alex looked to his right… and the relief was incredible, because that was Roxanne, sitting beside him.  Roxanne.  She was looking at the door leading out into the corridor, in the direction the voice had come from, and she was chewing her lip and wringing her hands.  That didn’t dampen Alex’s spirits, but it did make him reach out to pat her arm and say, “It’s OK.”

The words were almost automatic.  There was a lot to be said for muscle memory.

Roxanne smiled back at him, a little abashed.  Maybe they’d been having a conversation a minute or two earlier, before the shouting started.  Maybe it would cheer her up if they continued it now.

Outside, the voice continued, “Just because you’ve got medical degrees doesn’t mean you know my own son better than I do!  He’s got other problems!  I don’t see how you can’t see that!”

Roxanne leaned in and nodded towards the doorway.  “I wonder how much trouble you have to cause before they kick you out of the hospital?”

Alex hummed.  “I believe that’s down to the discretion of the nurses.  They’re tough but fair.”

“Yeah.  Remember when I took you to get your leg re-set?”

Alex did remember that- two days after she’d found him on her doorstep, Roxanne had practically frogmarched him to the hospital- but he didn’t remember what had kicked off all the fuss outside.  Maybe it was better that he didn’t.  “I still think you could have done that yourself.”

“If you were a golden retriever, maybe.”  She looked at the doorway again.  The noise seemed to be fading into the distance- maybe they really had kicked her out of the hospital.  “Anyway, like I said, don’t worry.  You’re over eighteen, so they can’t actually make you go home with her if you don’t want to.”

“If you say it, I believe it,” said Alex, taking hold of her hand.

*

Had Mariam’s hair always looked like that?  So black that the light shone blue when it hit it?

Alex shook his head.  “I’m sorry, Mariam- I’ve completely forgotten what I was saying.”  He assumed he’d been saying something, and not staring into the distance for the last half-hour.

Mariam’s brow creased.  “Is it that bad?  The short-term memory thing?”

“I’m afraid so.  But the doctors say it will probably get better with time.”  For a moment, he’d considered leaving ‘probably’ out of that sentence, but then he’d looked at Mariam’s face and changed his mind.  She deserved the facts.

“You were saying that you wanted to find out the names of the people who held Bradley down on the ground until the police got there.  So you could write and thank them.”

Alex smiled.  “Oh good.  I haven’t forgotten my manners.”

He hadn’t really been expecting Mariam to smile back.  “He’s off awaiting trial somewhere in South London.  So is the guy who pulled me in the river.  They said his name was Greg?”  She glanced sideways at him. 

Alex thought about it, then shook his head.  “I don’t remember a Greg.  He must have been new.”

“Same guy who made those comments about my arms back in February.”  She seemed to wind herself tighter, drawing in and tensing up.  “You were right.  He was working with Shaun.”

There wasn’t much satisfaction in having been right when you knew you should have explained it better in the first place.  “How are your arms?”

“Not too bad.”  Mariam pulled back her sleeves and raised her forearms up so that Alex could see them.  You could still see the marks, if you knew where to look, but most of it had healed.  “I’ll be able to wear T-shirts this summer without people screaming.”

“I’m glad,” said Alex.  He couldn’t imagine anybody screaming when they saw Mariam, scars or no scars.

He drifted again for a moment, about to forget how this conversation had even started, but them something occurred to him.  It was her accent that had made him think of it.  “Mariam?  When you’re going back to Bradford, do you ever go through Chester?”

She raised her eyebrows.  “Chester?  That’s about fifty miles out of our way.”

“Oh.”  That said everything you needed to know about Alex’s knowledge of geography.  “That’s a shame.”

“Why?”

“There’s a Roman wall there.  I took my little sister to see it once.”

For a moment, Mariam just smiled a thin smile, not sure of what to say.  “Well… we can go there one day.  If you like.”

Alex nodded.  “I think I would.  I think that would be a great idea.”