Her Perfect Lies

The freestanding bathtub in the middle of the room – for it was a room in its own right – looked so tempting, she wanted to climb straight in and feel the water on her body. But for now, the shower would do. She undressed behind a waterfall of crystal-like beads and eagerly turned the shower taps. For ten minutes she stood under cascades of warm water, while Molokai patiently waited outside the glass door.

Afterwards, while the dog bounced around like an overexcited toddler, she sat in front of a tall mirror in her bedroom. One after another she opened five bottles of perfume, spraying a little bit of each on her wrists and neck and regretting it instantly. The smell was overwhelming and made her gag.

The house was quiet. No cars driving past, no voices from the park. She didn’t know where Paul was. His car wasn’t in the driveway. Tying the cord of her robe together, she left the room. There were three other doors on this floor and, holding her breath, she opened each one. Two of the rooms contained no personal touches and seemed unoccupied. The last of the three clearly belonged to Paul. It was untidy, with clothes all over the floor. The room looked like Paul – masculine brown wood and dark furniture. She stood in the doorway, feeling like a child locked in an unfamiliar house with no way out. It was unsettling and more than a little scary.

She didn’t want to snoop on Paul. It felt too much like encroaching on the private life of a stranger. She shut the door to his bedroom and walked down the marble staircase. Although she remembered the majestic living room from the night before, it still took her breath away. Suddenly she felt confused, like she was lost in the woods and didn’t know what direction to take. Everything in this house seemed alien and she couldn’t believe this was where she lived. Shivering, she walked into the kitchen. Just like she expected, it was spacious, with what she assumed must be all the latest appliances. In the fridge, she found a dozen sandwiches similar to the ones she’d had the night before. Reaching for a ham sandwich, she ate it as quickly as she could and then looked through cupboards. In amazement she stared at fruit she didn’t recognise, delicate crystal glasses, porcelain plates and every flavour of tea imaginable. She found some cat food and refilled the cat’s bowl, wondering whether it was hiding somewhere, too nervous to come out.

Her strength restored, she explored further, walking from the kitchen to the dining room to another guest room. They had a sauna, a swimming pool and an air hockey table in the basement. Finally, she spotted an old-fashioned piano in the drawing room. Tired now, she slid into a chair in front of it and ran her fingers over the keys. The most beautiful sounds escaped from under her fingertips and she paused for a moment, lifting her hands and staring at them as if she had never seen them before. Then she resumed playing. It wasn’t Swan Lake or any of the music she’d heard in the hospital but a melody she didn’t recognise.

‘What do you think, Molokai? Did you know I could play the piano?’ she asked the dog, who wagged his long tail in response.

As Claire contemplated this newly discovered ability, somewhere inside the house a phone rang. She stopped playing and stood up, nervously clutching her hands to her chest. What was she to do? Did she answer the phone? Or let it go to voicemail? Slightly unsteady on her feet, she walked towards the sound and watched the phone like it was an explosive device about to go off. Eventually it stopped ringing and Paul’s voice could be heard asking to leave a message. ‘Claire, it’s me, Gaby. Call me back as soon as you get this. I need to see you.’

When the person on the other end hung up, Claire returned upstairs. She felt safer there. There were no phones she could see, no unfathomable voices coming through the speakers.

Back in her bedroom, she opened the wardrobe. Walking inside – yes, the wardrobe was big enough to walk inside it – she examined rows of designer clothes, shoes and underwear. It was like being in a department store. She went through every drawer, rummaged through dresses and looked behind shoe racks. Who needed what seemed like a hundred pairs of shoes? And all these clothes … most of them looked like they had never been worn.

Suddenly, Molokai leapt off the bed and growled. Seconds later she heard the doorbell. Unsure of what to do, she froze with a shoe in her hand. Molokai ran through the door and soon his excited barking could be heard from downstairs. She followed on legs that seemed to have turned to jelly.

From behind the front door, she heard a woman’s voice. ‘Hello, anyone there?’

‘One second,’ said Claire, throwing a quick glance in the mirror and wondering whether she was dressed appropriately for a visitor. Through a gap in the curtains she could see a delivery truck parked on the opposite side of the road. Concluding it was just a courier and breathing out in relief, she fiddled with the lock. It was complex and she couldn’t open it. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t have the keys for this door,’ she called out. ‘Are you delivering something? Can you leave it outside, please?’

‘Claire, it’s me, Gaby,’ she heard in reply. ‘Can I come in?’

Claire recognised the voice from the answer machine. To her surprise, a key turned and the door opened.

A stunning brunette was standing in the doorway. She looked like she had just walked off a movie set. There was a hint of something foreign about her – the Mediterranean tinge to her skin, the deep caramel to her eyes. A leather skirt hugged her slim hips. There was a bouquet of flowers in her hands.

‘Oh my God, look at you!’ she exclaimed, drawing Claire into a hug and almost crushing the flowers. Claire struggled but only for a second – resistance seemed pointless. ‘It’s so good to see you! You have no idea how worried we were.’

Claire extricated herself from the embrace, mumbling, ‘It’s good to see you, too.’ She didn’t know what else to say. Unlike Claire, Molokai seemed to know exactly who the woman was. A chewed dog toy – a plastic duck with its head missing – miraculously appeared in his mouth and he presented it to the visitor. His tail was wagging.

The brunette ignored the decapitated duck but gave Molokai a distracted stroke. ‘These are for you,’ she said. Her eyes twinkled as she shoved the flowers into Claire’s hands. ‘They’re orchids.’

Intimidated by the woman and the flowers, Claire wished she had brushed her hair instead of dousing herself in all that perfume. I must smell like a bouquet of flowers myself, she thought. But the woman didn’t seem to mind.

‘You don’t remember me, do you?’ The brunette shook her head with disapproval, as if talking to a child who was struggling with her homework. ‘It’s me, Gaby. Your best friend.’

As Claire stood in the doorway gawking, Gaby made her way into the dining room. She seemed to know her way around Claire’s house much better than Claire did.

‘You have the key to the house?’ Claire asked to break the silence.

‘Of course I do. You and I are like sisters. I went to school with Paul. That’s how we met.’

While Claire arranged the flowers in a vase she had found, Gaby walked into the kitchen and poured two glasses of red wine. A sudden thought occurred to Claire. Didn’t a person tell their best friends everything? If that was the case, Gaby would have all the answers she was so desperately searching for.

Gaby handed Claire her wine. Taking a careful sip, Claire put her glass down.

‘You don’t like it?’ asked Gaby. ‘It’s your favourite.’

Claire found it hard to believe. Her taste buds seemed unacquainted with the sharpness of the wine. She was desperate for a sip of water to get rid of the bitter taste but didn’t want Gaby to think less of her. She felt a little intimidated by her old self, who would have enjoyed the wine and known what to say to this beautiful stranger.

In the first week at the hospital, many people dropped in to see her, faces and conversations she could hardly remember now, so confused and drugged up she had been back then. Little by little, however, the stream of visitors dwindled, before finally disappearing altogether. There was only so much one-sided conversation even a good friend could take. Only so much small talk with someone who did nothing but sit in her bed, staring into space, not knowing what to say, not knowing who she was.

What if she couldn’t live up to the person she had once been? And how could she, if she remembered nothing about her? ‘I’m not sure I’m allowed wine. I’m on all sorts of medication.’ She pushed the glass away.

‘I’m sorry I haven’t been to see you in hospital. I’ve been away for work. My first time in Japan, what a fascinating place …’ Gaby spoke fast, and her cheeks looked flushed. ‘Yesterday we went to that amazing Thai place you love. What is it called?’ She looked at Claire expectantly. ‘Oh yes. Thai Basil. Tina, Ruth and Betty were there. We were talking about you. Let me tell you, I was absolutely beside myself when I heard. I wanted to cut my trip short, of course, but there was still so much to do. And I thought, you’re already in hospital. Paul and your mum are there. There’s nothing I can do.’

‘My mum wasn’t there.’

Gaby’s eyebrows shot up in surprise but she didn’t comment. Instead, she told Claire all about Nijo Castle (‘I’ve never seen anything like it!) and Mount Fuji (‘We went on the most amazing boat.’ A boat on the mountain? Claire wanted to know. But apparently there was the most amazing lake there, too.). Finally, Gaby lowered her voice and said, ‘I’m sorry about your dad.’

‘My dad’s awake. He’s going to be okay. Paul is taking me to the hospital to see him later.’ Impatiently she looked at the clock. Another two hours to go. ‘Have you met him? What is he like?’

‘Paul?’

‘My dad.’

‘I’ve met him a few times. I thought he was quite the flirt.’

‘He was?’ asked Claire, wondering if Gaby was making things up, embellishing to make her stories more exciting. She seemed just the type to do something like that.

‘All completely innocent, of course.’

‘Of course.’

‘He seemed besotted with your mother. I remember wondering if I would ever meet anyone who loved me that much. The guys I meet …’ She shook her head. ‘Never mind. So, are you telling me you don’t remember—’ Gaby leaned forward and lowered her voice to a whisper ‘—anything? Not even your birthday party last month? Come on, no one could forget that night.’

Dejectedly Claire shook her head. ‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘No, I don’t.’

‘Wow,’ Gaby whispered, staring at Claire like an entomologist studying a particularly rare beetle. ‘What does it feel like?’

‘It just feels …’ Claire thought about it. ‘It feels blank.’

‘Sometimes I wish I could forget my life.’ Gaby seemed lost in thought for a moment, then shrugged. ‘Enough about me. You have to promise you are looking after yourself. It must be so terrible. I can’t even imagine.’

Now it was Claire’s turn to shrug. ‘Tell me something about me. A story to jog my memory.’

‘How about some photographs? Let me have your phone.’ Gaby grabbed Claire’s phone and pressed a few buttons. ‘Here is your Facebook page. You must have thousands of photos up there.’

She scrolled through pictures, telling Claire funny anecdotes about all the people in them. Claire had spent hours in the hospital staring at the photos. But it was one thing looking at faces of strangers and quite another listening to Gaby bringing these strangers to live. ‘This is Tiffany,’ Gaby was saying. ‘You went to ballet school together.’ Tiffany was wearing a tight-fitting business suit, as if she had just stepped out of a job interview, but her posture, her body, the way she carried herself betrayed a dancer.

‘She’s beautiful.’

‘You call her the cow behind her back. And sometimes even to her face.’ Another photo popped up. ‘And this is Kevin. He tried to kiss you at your birthday last year. And when you turned him down, he kissed three other people just to prove it didn’t mean anything.’

‘Three other women?’

‘Not all of them women.’ There must have been shock on her face because Gaby laughed and added, ‘Dancers, what can I say?’ She had a good laugh, loud and infectious. It lit up her face and made her eyes twinkle. Suddenly Claire felt like a ray of light had illuminated her otherwise dark universe. She had a friend. She was no longer alone.

When a photo of a blonde woman in her fifties appeared, Claire exclaimed, ‘That’s Mum!’

‘You remember?’

‘I just knew.’ But she didn’t know how she knew. She pondered it for a moment, wondering if it was a memory or just intuition. Her mother was looking straight at Claire from the screen, her light hair pulled away from her face, her arms around the man Claire had spent hours watching at the hospital.

‘This is her with your dad at a barbecue a few years ago.’

Angela looked tiny next to Tony. She seemed lost in his embrace, and he hovered over her, holding her close as if he wanted the whole world to know she was his.

Claire couldn’t stop looking at her mother. She was so beautiful, her eyes so kind, her features delicate. Suddenly she found herself unable to speak or smile at Gaby or think of anything else. Tears filled her eyes and she didn’t know why. To change the subject, she asked, ‘What about me and Paul? Are we happy?’

Gaby seemed thrown off balance by her question. She emptied half her wine glass before she replied, ‘If you need to ask, the answer is probably no.’

‘We’re not happy?’ As if Paul’s cold smile and distant eyes hadn’t already alerted Claire that something was wrong.

‘Let’s just say, you have some issues.’

‘What kind of issues?’

‘It’s not my place to tell you.’

‘If you won’t tell me, no one else will.’

Gaby stepped from foot to foot, as if she wanted to be anywhere but here, having this conversation with Claire. ‘Maybe that’s for the best. I have to run, anyway. I’m always late, to everything. How do I look?’

Claire assured Gaby she looked fine, better than fine. But what she wanted to do instead was ask her friend not to go because for an hour in her grim morning she had laughter and joy. Gaby almost made her forget that she had forgotten her whole life. And for a brief moment with Gaby she felt hopeful. ‘Will you come back to see me?’

‘Of course.’

When the door closed behind her friend, Claire went up to her room. Climbing into bed and hugging Molokai, she reached for her mobile phone. It was as if her fingers once again had a life of their own. They knew exactly what numbers to press to unlock the phone. She looked through every photo until she came across the one she was looking for. Stroking her mother’s beautiful face with her fingertips, she struggled not to cry. Her mother was smiling at her as if telling her everything was going to be okay.

Claire loaded her contact list, hoping to find her mother’s number. And there it was, listed under Angela, ten digits that just a few short weeks ago she had probably known by heart. She stared at the number, blinking rapidly, reading it out loud, rolling every syllable off her tongue, hoping it would trigger a shadow of recollection, a glimmer of hazy remembrance.

Her whole body trembling, she pressed the call button. The phone rang and rang.

* * *

As Claire followed her husband across the hospital car park and through the front entrance, she realised she was petrified of the real world. She had spent a morning in that world and felt out of place, an outsider looking in. But at the hospital she was at home. As if this was where she belonged. Others had childhood memories, heartwarming and sweet, sometimes bitter, but always there to remind them that once there had been a different life, a different journey. They had memories of weddings, anniversaries and holidays by the sea. All Claire had was this place, with its closet-sized rooms, grim corridors and overworked staff. Nothing had changed here since the day before. It was still grey, shabby and depressing. So why did it feel so infinitely comforting to be walking down the familiar corridor?

No one expected her to be herself here, she realised. No one expected her to be anything. She could just be. Wake up in the morning, eat her meals, wrinkling her face in disgust, have her meds. She didn’t have to make decisions because they were made for her, by the doctors and the nurses. And that was what she missed when she stayed inside her beautiful mansion wearing her designer clothes, living someone else’s dream life but feeling like a prisoner.

She wished she could go back to her old room and remain like before, confined within her small world where nothing threatened her peace. She wished she could sit by the window, watching the oak tree outside, longing for a different life but not forced to go out there and live it. Could she stay with her father instead of going back to the alien house with a husband who treated her like a stranger? Of course, her father was a stranger to her, too. But she’d spent so long watching him, studying his face for clues, memorising his every feature, she felt she could open her mouth and recount every little detail of his life. His life was on the tip of her tongue, at the edge of her subconscious.

On the drive to the hospital, she had asked Paul what her father was like. ‘He’s not the friendliest man in the world. I don’t think he likes me much,’ he’d said. ‘But he’s your father. He loves you.’ His answer wasn’t what she wanted to hear, and it didn’t match the inner picture of her dad she had painstakingly created over long hours of watching and thinking, so she put Paul’s words to the back of her mind, to that place where her other memories were hiding.

But now, as she was about to face the man who had known her since the day she was born, the man she remembered nothing about other than the shape of his nose and the curve of his mouth, she wondered why her husband would say something like that. Didn’t Paul and her dad spend time together, discussing football and weather over a pint of beer? Were there no family barbecues, Christmases and birthdays where sausages sizzled on the grill and intoxicated confidences were exchanged late into the night? Or maybe Paul not getting along with Tony was completely natural. Fathers didn’t always like to share their little girls with their husbands. And husbands were often intimidated by their fathers-in-law.

As she turned the handle and pushed the door to her father’s room, she tried to calm her beating heart. She didn’t want the nurses at the reception area to hear it but how could they not? The thumping in her chest was deafening. It was like church bells ringing in her ears.

Her mind was filled with snippets of imaginary conversations with her father. Would she know what to say? Would he know what to say? Would they be able to pick up where they had left off, even though she couldn’t remember anything? Her relationship with her father, was it instinctive? Was it in her blood, in his blood? Did it transcend crashing cars and lost memories? She didn’t want small talk with her father. She wanted him to tell her who she was.

The door wouldn’t give in. She pushed and pushed.

‘Here, let me help,’ said Paul, pulling the door lightly, making her feel silly and a little light-headed. ‘Good luck. I’ll wait here for you.’

‘You aren’t coming in?’

‘I’ll give you two some privacy. In the meantime, I’ll speak to his doctor.’

A part of Claire was relieved she was about to face her father alone. She felt a little less nervous meeting him unobserved. She didn’t want their relationship to be judged by an outsider, even if that outsider was her husband. She wanted to be alone with her dad, to find her own way back to him, to let him find his own way back to her.

On tiptoes she walked in, sliding her feet as if she were on stage, performing a pas de deux she hadn’t yet mastered. She paused in the doorway, watching the man on the bed just like she had so many times over the past two weeks. Only this time everything was different. This time he was awake.

She wondered if she would always remember this moment. Everything in her life was about to change. Or, rather, a little bit of her old life was about to come back.

From where she stood she couldn’t quite tell whether he was sleeping. Not a part of him moved and his breathing was calm. Without the ventilator inhaling life into her father’s lungs, the room seemed quiet and lifeless. Tony was tall and broad-shouldered, a bear of a man, but he appeared frail, propped up on his pillows and leaning to one side. He didn’t seem to hear her. She took a few steps forward.

He looked like an old man laid out on a white sheet, his stubble making his face look grey, his eyelids trembling like butterfly’s wings. Her heart pricked with pity.

‘Dad,’ she called out softly. She sounded high pitched and unsure of herself. Was she being presumptuous, calling him that? It didn’t feel unnatural. Quite the opposite, the word slipped out easily, on reflex. Yes, she didn’t know anything about him, but he wasn’t a stranger. He was blood. Shaking a little, her legs unresponsive as if they were filled with cotton wool, she crossed the room and perched on the edge of his bed.

He didn’t stir. His eyes were closed. Just like all those other endless days in the hospital, she studied him in silence, trying to memorise the features that she had known since birth but that were completely unfamiliar to her. A straight nose, bushy eyebrows, wide cheekbones, a mop of grey hair that needed a comb.

Suddenly, unlike all those other times she had sat here, he moved his arms in his sleep. Claire got up, her cheeks burning. She needed to cool down, feel cold water on her face. Slowly and uncertainly, as if she was learning how to walk, she made her way to the bathroom attached to his hospital room and leaned on the sink, watching her face in the mirror.

‘Good afternoon. How are we feeling today?’ came a loud voice. Claire peeked through the creak in the door and saw a doctor leaning over Tony. He wore a white coat over his business suit. There was a cold smile on his face, a smile of someone who was paid to care but didn’t.

‘Never better,’ croaked Tony. He sounded hoarse, like he was recovering from a bad cold.

‘That’s good to hear. If it’s alright with you, I am going to ask you a few questions, just to see if your memory has been affected. Take your time to answer. There’s no rush. And don’t worry if you can’t remember something. It’s completely normal in your condition. Can we start with your name?’

‘Wright. Tony Wright.’

‘Very good, Tony.’ A machine gun fire of questions followed – what was his address, his date of birth, his occupation, his marital status, how long had he lived at his address, how long had he held his driver’s license, did he have any children, any pets, what did he enjoy doing. Her father responded in a lifeless voice but without any hesitation.

And finally, ‘Do you know what happened on the day of the accident?’

Tony spoke through gritted teeth. ‘I was in the car. That’s the last thing I remember.’

‘I expect the police will want to speak to you later today. They’ve been waiting for you to wake up.’

From the bathroom, Claire heard the bed creak. ‘Why?’ asked Tony.

‘There’s been a serious accident. Two people got hurt.’

‘Two people? I crashed into the motorway divider. No one else was involved.’

‘Your daughter Claire was with you.’

A few seconds ticked by before Tony answered. ‘That’s not true. I was alone in the car.’

Claire wished she could see her father’s face but from where she was hiding, it was impossible. Was his memory affected, just like hers? Was he confused, just like her?

‘Don’t worry, the police are treating it as an accident. I will tell them you don’t remember. You’ve been through a lot and—’

‘I remember perfectly well, Doctor. There was no one in the car with me.’ His voice rose as if he was angry. At the doctor? At the never-ending questions? Claire felt sorry for her father. What he needed was a rest, not an interrogation.