Michael Ridpath - Amnesia

It was easy to hop over the wall into the garden: it looked as if we were taking a route that others had followed before. The villa loomed a bluish white in front of us. Several of the windows were broken and a couple were open. We climbed in. The place was a ruin: plaster had fallen from the ceiling and another decade of dust had accumulated. We looked out from the salon at the bay, now moonlit again. Then Sophie led me down to the opium den.

‘I’ve got my pipe,’ I whispered. ‘But Golden Virginia isn’t quite the same, is it?’

Sophie didn’t answer. She reached out and pulled me to her. We kissed.

‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ I said.

‘Quite sure. Aren’t you?’

The moonlight streamed through the window of the den. I knew this was a moment I would remember for ever.

‘I’m sure.’

Afterwards, as we lay on one of the oriental divans in the den and I was running a single finger over Sophie’s naked body, pale and striped in the moonlight, she smiled up at me.

‘I have a request. It’s a completely unfair request. But I hope you will agree to it. I think you might.’

‘What is it?’

‘Promise me we won’t do this again?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean never again.’ She touched my chest. ‘I wanted to do this so badly, ever since I saw you when you arrived yesterday. It seemed, I don’t know, inevitable. But I don’t want to ruin my marriage. I don’t want to hurt my children. I don’t even want to lose Stephen.’ She hesitated. ‘I’m still a Catholic, although obviously not a very good one. I don’t want to sin irrevocably. Leaving Stephen would be irrevocable.’

‘I see,’ I said. And I did, sort of. Although the sinning Catholic bit confused me.

‘It’s dreadful of me,’ Sophie said. ‘And it’s very unfair on you. It’s as if I’m using you. Except—’

‘Except what?’

‘Except I don’t feel that I am. Somehow I think you understand me.’

And I did. I wanted her all to myself, of course I did, but I wanted her to be happy, or at least no more unhappy than she had to be. Years ago I would have leaped at this chance, pleaded, cajoled, pestered her to leave Stephen so she could be mine.

But now?

I had had this night. I didn’t want to ruin her life, my life, Stephen’s life, their children’s lives.

‘I understand,’ I said. ‘I promise.’

Sophie smiled. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Quite sure.’

‘And you’re not going to run away tomorrow morning?’

‘No,’ I shook my head. ‘I’m not going to run away.’

‘And you’re not going to beat up Stephen over breakfast?’

‘I won’t do that either.’

Her smile broadened. I felt myself stir. She reached up to me.

‘Come here.’

Tuesday 16 March 1999, Wyvis

The old man watched Clémence shutting the book.

‘What are you smiling at?’ she demanded.

‘It turns out I’m a war hero,’ the old man said. ‘I had absolutely no idea. One of those great British escapees who would run away from anywhere for their country.’

‘Do you remember Capri at all?’

The old man nodded. ‘I do. I can almost see Nathan. And Tony. And I know what the Villa Damecuta looked like.’

‘And the Villa Fersen? Do you remember Sophie in the Villa Fersen?’

‘I do,’ said the old man. He smiled again. That was an evening worth remembering.

‘You know that was my grandpa’s wife you were shagging?’

Anger blazed in Clémence’s big eyes. The pleasure evaporated. If she was angry about that, how much angrier would she be when she discovered that he had killed Sophie in the boathouse? The memory that had struck him as he walked by it the day before had been frighteningly vivid. It must be real. And it must be recorded in a book with the title Death At Wyvis.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It must be difficult for you to learn all this.’

‘It is,’ said Clémence. She glanced at the book closed on her lap. ‘But I’m glad we are reading it. These are things about my family that I want to know, that they should have told me.’

‘Does the next chapter take place at Wyvis?’

Clémence opened the book and flicked forward a couple of pages from where she had saved her place. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We’re getting near the end.’

The old man nodded.

‘Do you remember what happens next?’ she asked.

‘We’ll see,’ he said, with a sigh. She was staring hard at him, those large blue eyes painfully focused. Despite her anger, the old man liked Clémence. Perhaps it was because she looked a bit like Sophie — those four little freckles on the end of her nose — perhaps it was her youth, her kindness in helping him. He didn’t want to hurt her. To anger her more. But that was unavoidable if she was to read the rest of the book to him. And that was something they both needed to do.

He was alone in the world. She was the only person in his new life whom he knew, or whom he could remember knowing. He didn’t want to lose her.

A memory struck him. ‘I took you for a ride on a camel.’

‘A camel?’ Clémence frowned. ‘I remember that. I was only little.’

‘Very little,’ said the old man. ‘It was in Morocco, wasn’t it? By a beach.’

‘Essaouira,’ said Clémence. ‘We used to go there sometimes when we lived in Marrakech. You came with us once. We played on the beach. I remember that.’

‘And a man came with a camel. You wanted a ride. So we rode on it together. It was very high up for such a little girl. You were very brave.’

‘There were a lot of camel rides in Morocco, not surprisingly,’ Clémence said. ‘I remember we dug a big long ditch together, to channel the water when the tide came in. Or went out.’

‘Your father was there,’ said the old man. ‘Rupert. And maybe your mother, but I can’t remember her.’

‘Tall. Very long dark hair, down to her bum. I loved my mother’s hair,’ said Clémence. ‘But she cut it off three years ago. When Patrick moved in. Now she looks like a banker’s wife.’

‘You can’t be a hippie all your life.’

‘I suppose not,’ said Clémence. ‘It’s good you are remembering things that are not in the book.’

‘Yes. But I can’t remember why I was there. On holiday, I suppose?’

‘I would have been about five,’ Clémence said. ‘So that’s 1984.’

‘When I was living in Australia. I still have no memory of that, apart from the eagles and the Mundaring library. Do I know your parents? I must do, if I went out to see them.’

‘I rang my dad earlier this morning, but he didn’t want to talk to you,’ said Clémence. ‘Or about you. Neither did my grandpa.’

Her words hurt the old man. Just when he was fumbling towards some sort of normal past life, more signs popped up that his old friends didn’t like him. Didn’t want to have anything to do with him. And that they had good reason.

He was alone.

A thought flitted at the edge of his consciousness, like a bat glimpsed at dusk. ‘I have something to discuss with your grandfather. Something important, something I need to show him.’ He frowned and then struck his forehead three times. This was so frustrating! ‘Madeleine will be here this afternoon, you say?’

‘Yes. I don’t know when. She’ll know more about your life than you and me combined.’

‘Yes,’ said the old man.

‘You’re scared, aren’t you?’ said Clémence. There was still anger in her voice, but it was tempered with kindness.

‘I’m scared of the unknown. Or rather, I know there are bad things still to uncover in my life, I just don’t know exactly what they are.’