Michael Ridpath: Amnesia

He hadn’t. ‘We’re on the A9, aren’t we?’ he said.

‘I hope so,’ said Clémence.

‘Yes, that’s Ben Wyvis.’

‘Your cottage is on the other side of that, by Loch Glass.’

‘I see it. On the map, it looks like it’s in the middle of nowhere.’

‘It does, doesn’t it? Is that coming our way?’

Behind the mountain, large dark clouds were gathering.

‘I think it is.’

Great, thought Clémence. She wasn’t a confident driver, and navigating narrow mountain roads in a storm with a grouchy old man beside her didn’t sound like much fun.

They were on the north side of the Moray Firth now, on the Black Isle, the peninsula of rich farmland between the Moray and the Cromarty firths: low rolling hills, fields of green and brown, scattered whitewashed buildings with grey roofs.

‘So what do you know about yourself?’ Clémence asked.

‘Nothing,’ said the old man. ‘Absolutely nothing.’

‘Oh come on,’ said Clémence. ‘You must know something. We have to start somewhere. Did you speak to Aunt Madeleine?’

‘No,’ said the old man. Clémence waited.

The old man sighed. ‘She told the nurses I was born in 1916, grew up in Yorkshire, went to Oxford University, became a GP back in Yorkshire, and then I emigrated to Western Australia in the nineteen sixties. I got married and then divorced. No children. And then for some reason I came back here last year and rented a cottage at this place called Wyvis. Why I suddenly did that I have no idea.’

‘Sometimes people want to go back to their roots, don’t they?’

‘Yes, but I never lived in Scotland! Or at least I assume I didn’t. I don’t know, do I? I don’t know anything!’

The frustration burned in his voice.

‘But you remember Yorkshire?’

‘Yes,’ said the old man. ‘Or at least the Yorkshire of my childhood.’

‘Well?’

‘Well what?’

‘How was that? The Yorkshire of your childhood? Where did you live?’

The old man looked at Clémence sharply. ‘You don’t know what it’s like, do you? You’re just a child. You can’t possibly know what it’s like — to have forgotten everything.’ The bitterness oozed from his voice. ‘I don’t see how they think you can help me. This is just a waste of time.’

Clémence realized that unless she did something about the old man’s attitude soon, the next week was going to be a nightmare. They were passing a turn-off to a small village. She swerved off the main road and followed a narrow lane for fifty yards, until she came to a gate, where she pulled over. Two shaggy red cows with long sharp horns looked up to study the car from beneath unkempt fringes.

‘Hey! What are you doing?’

Clémence switched the engine off and turned towards the old man.

She kept her voice calm but firm. ‘Dr Cunningham. You’re quite right, I can have no idea what it’s like to be you. But remember what the doctor at the hospital said? It would be easy for all of us to give up on you. You spend the rest of your life in a hospital bed, watching Countdown on TV, without knowing who you really are. You forget how to walk, how to look after yourself, and everyone loses interest in your life. You lose interest in your life. So at some point it stops and everyone just gets on without you. Do you want that?’

The old man had raised his bushy eyebrows. Now he lowered them. But he didn’t answer her question.

‘Because if you do, I can take you back to the hospital right now. But if you don’t...’ She smiled, and softened her voice. ‘I’ll help you. I’ll help you get better. I’ll help you remember.’

The old man glared at her.

‘Now. Shall I take you back to hospital?’

For a moment Clémence thought the old man was going to say yes. Then he closed his eyes. He sighed. ‘No,’ he whispered.

‘Say that again. Louder.’

‘No,’ the old man repeated, looking at Clémence. There was anger in his eyes, but there was also need. He did need her help.

‘So when I get back on the main road and ask you questions about your life, you will have a go at answering them?’

The old man nodded slowly. ‘All right. I will.’

Clémence examined his face to check whether he meant what he said. He seemed sincere.

‘OK. Let’s go.’ She executed a five-point turn in the lane, and within a minute they were back on the main road heading north.

‘All right. So tell me about Yorkshire.’

The old man said nothing. Frustrated, Clémence took her eyes off the road to shoot him a quick glance. But he seemed preoccupied, thinking. She decided to let him.

Eventually, he spoke. ‘We lived in a little town called Pateley Bridge on the River Nidd. My father was a doctor there. We had a grey stone house with ivy growing up the outside to my bedroom window. I can remember that clearly. I can remember my little sister Joyce.’ He paused, but this time Clémence sensed not reluctance, but pleasure at the memory. ‘I can remember her giggle; she used to giggle constantly. I loved to make her laugh. I used to do impressions of her friends, or the teachers at the school. Even politicians on the wireless. I could do a good Ramsay MacDonald, I remember.’

‘Go on.’

‘What?’

‘Go on. Do your Ramsay MacDonald.’

The old man hesitated and then cleared his throat. He spoke in prim, clipped Scottish tones: ‘“My friends, we are beginning a contest which will be one of the most historical in the story of our country.”’

‘Very good!’

‘How do you know? Do you even know who Ramsay MacDonald was?’

‘I certainly do,’ said Clémence. ‘Prime minister before the war. Labour? No, Liberal.’

‘Labour and then the National Government. Bit of a twit, quite frankly. Born working class, did his best to die a toff.’

‘Do you know who the current prime minister is?’ Clémence asked.

‘I do, as a matter of fact, but only because the doctors told me. Some chap called Tony Blair. But I do remember the one before him, or maybe it was two before him. Margaret Thatcher. And James Callaghan before her, and Harold Wilson and Edward Heath.’

‘Not bad,’ said Clémence.

‘And I know who won the 1966 election in Australia. Harold Holt for the Liberals beat Arthur Calwell for Labor. Now isn’t it strange that I can remember that, but I can’t remember the name of my own wife?’

‘Yeah. That’s seriously weird.’

‘The wiring in my brain is a complete mess. I need a good electrician. Do you think you’re a good electrician, Clémence?’

‘An expert,’ she said, knowing she wasn’t.

They drove on. Then he smiled. ‘There is so much I remember of my childhood. I have been going over it all in my mind in bed in the hospital. I went away to boarding school. I played rugger, I was good at it, I played centre three-quarter for the first XV. Then...’

He sighed. ‘Then it just disappears. The doctors think I might have had a concussion at school, which is when the wiring in my brain first became damaged. Who knows? I certainly don’t.’

‘We’ll get it back,’ said Clémence.

The old man frowned. ‘I hope so,’ he said. ‘I really hope so.’

They drove on, the light grey of the sky darkening. Soon rain was splattering the windscreen.

‘This last week has been very odd,’ said the old man, staring straight ahead at the rain. ‘Without memories, you don’t know who you are. I have to accept who other people say I am. They say I’m a doctor. I know medical things, I know that the metacarpals are fixed to the distal carpal bones, so I must be a doctor. They say I have spent much of my life in Australia. I know that the Mundaring librarian is called Jeanette, so I must have lived in Australia.’