Page 47 of The Day Shelley Woodhouse Woke Up
‘I don’t remember anything,’ I say. ‘Nothing more than I remembered before. I just know that everything I think just happened actually happened seven years ago.’
He nods his head in acknowledgement.
‘How can that happen?’ I ask.
‘Shelley, your brain has suffered a huge trauma. And it’s a complex organ, there’s so much about it that we still don’t know or understand. It might be that it’s shielding you from your recent memories because it thinks they might be harmful to you…’
‘More harmful than my husband trying to kill me?’
He tilts his head slightly to the side. All his movements are small and considered. His clothes free of creases and his shoes shiny. How does he work with all these broken people, when he’s so together himself?
‘I don’t know,’ he says, uncrossing and recrossing his legs. ‘It’s just a theory. Look, Shelley, have you heard the terms retrograde and anterograde amnesia?’
I shake my head.
‘Retrograde amnesia is when you can’t remember incidents that happened before the trauma that caused it. So in this case, you can’t remember the last seven years. That’s quite extreme, but not unheard of. But in addition to that, when you first woke up, you were displaying signs of anterograde amnesia, which is the ability to form new memories. Me and the nurses and doctors and your friends were telling you things about your lifeand you just refused to accept them. Every time I met you, you had no recollection of meeting me before. You got very agitated, and you asked us all, several times, to stop telling you things. To let you come back to your memories in your own time. We agreed to give you a week and see where things stood.’
It’s so much to take in, but I don’t stop to digest it. I go straight in with the questions. ‘How far into that week are we?’
‘Four days.’
‘And I haven’t recovered my memories, but now I know there are huge gaps to be filled. What if I never get them back? Is that possible? Could I never know what happened in those seven years?’
I know my voice is getting panicky, and he makes a motion with both of his hands to indicate that I should calm down.
‘That is a possibility,’ he says.
It hits me then, hard and fast. This injury he keeps talking about, this trauma. If it wasn’t caused by David pushing me down the stairs, what was it caused by? ‘Could you tell me what happened to me?’ I ask.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, how did I end up here, in hospital, in a coma, again?’
‘Ah.’ He pauses, and scenarios flash up in front of me. David, again? Another attack, something worse? Or a stranger, this time? ‘You were in a car accident.’
A car accident. I let it settle. ‘Was anyone else hurt?’
‘I don’t know, I’m afraid. I can find out for you. But, listen… You’ve had a shock, Shelley, and you need to focus on adjusting to it, which is going to take some time. Try not to let anything else get to you, all right?’
I nod, unsure what to say. I don’t choose what does and doesn’t get to me. Does anyone?
‘Now,’ he says, his expression shifting to one of apology, ‘I have to go, I’m afraid. I have appointments and I can’t pushthem back any further. But I’ll come and see you again, when you’ve had a bit more time to digest this. And in the meantime, is there anyone I can call who you’d like to discuss these past years with?’
I want Dee. He says he’ll ask one of the nurses to call her. And then we’re up and walking back to my ward, my bed, and I feel hollowed out and scared. For the rest of the day, I drift in and out of sleep, waking when Jamie comes round to do his checks, but never for long. I miss lunch but I’m awake for dinner, which is a fish pie I don’t remember ordering. There’s a skin forming on the top of the mashed potato and the inside is bland and tasteless, but I eat it anyway, because everyone keeps telling me I need to get my strength up. I guess it’s all caught up with me, and today my body has had enough. When I’ve eaten as much as I can, I push the plate to the far side of my tray table, take a few sips of water, and go back to sleep.
The next time I wake, Matt’s sitting quietly in the chair next to my bed. He flashes me a gentle smile when our eyes meet, and I hope he hasn’t been sitting there long, hope I haven’t been snoring or dribbling. And then I remember, about the lost years, and realise none of that really matters.
‘I thought it was 2017,’ I say, my voice a croak.
He stands up, pours me a glass of water from the jug on my tray, and slides it closer to me. ‘I know,’ he says.
I wasn’t expecting that. It must be clear to read on my face, because he goes on.
‘One of the nurses told me. She said they were trying to let you piece things together for yourself.’
I think of all the people who were somehow complicit in this. Nurses, doctors, Hamza, Physio Fern. But him? He isn’t part of the medical team. I get it, and I understand why he’d do as they asked him to, but it still feels like a bit of a betrayal. ‘I don’t know anything,’ I say.
‘What do you mean?’
