Michael Ridpath: Amnesia

‘You don’t have a French accent.’

‘No. I’m perfectly bilingual. My parents moved to Vietnam when I was small and then to Hong Kong. They split up three years ago; my mother is still there but my father moved back to Vietnam. I was sent to boarding school in England and then St Andrews University. I don’t know whether I am French or English or what I am.’

‘In that case your surname would be Trickett-Smith like your grandfather?’

‘Just Smith. My father dropped the Trickett. He dropped just about everything. He left England and became a hippie in the sixties. He still is one, really. Rupert Trickett-Smith isn’t a cool name for a hippie.’

‘I suppose not,’ said the old man. ‘I’m sorry about your parents splitting up.’

Clémence shrugged. She looked away, studying the orange rubbish bin in the corner of the kitchen. Despite her ostentatious lack of interest, he sensed she actually wanted to say more, and he was tempted to ask her, but it was none of his business.

He put the bacon and eggs back in the fridge, poured himself a bowl of cereal and sat down to eat. He wanted to find out more about her, and searched for a safer subject. ‘What are you studying at St Andrews?’

‘French mostly. Some English Literature, some Philosophy. But I think I am going to do my honours in French.’

‘I read history at university,’ the old man said.

Clémence was buttering her toast and looked up sharply. ‘The doctor said you studied medicine.’

‘Yes,’ said the old man, frowning. He grinned. ‘Who knows?’

Clémence bit into her toast. They ate in silence.

‘You know I’d like to take you up on your offer to help me recall my life,’ said the old man. ‘We can go up to the study after breakfast, if you like.’

‘Actually, I’ve got an idea about that,’ said Clémence. ‘Wait a sec.’

She disappeared from the kitchen and the old man heard her running up the stairs to her bedroom. She reappeared a minute later carrying a thin hardback book.

‘Do you recognize this?’ she asked him.

He read the title. Death At Wyvis by Angus Culzie. ‘No.’

‘Do you know who Angus Culzie is?’

The old man paused and thought. Nothing. Somehow he thought he should know who Angus Culzie was, but nothing. It was so frustrating. ‘I’ve no idea. Except that this cottage is called Culzie, isn’t it? It must be a pen name. Either that or it’s an amazing coincidence.’

‘Well, this book is all about you,’ Clémence said.

‘About me?’ The old man stared at the book, confusion boiling up inside him. ‘How can that be? Who is Angus Culzie? How does he know about me? Are you sure?’

‘All good questions, Alastair. But I thought we could read the book together. Then perhaps you will remember.’

‘What about the death in the title? What’s that? I mean, it happens here, does it? The death.’

‘I don’t know, I presume so,’ said Clémence. ‘Let’s read the book and find out.’

‘Have you read it?’

‘Only the first chapter. It’s definitely about you, but for some reason you are called Angus not Alastair. My grandfather Stephen is in it. And Madeleine. And Sophie.’

The old man’s confusion turned to panic. Fear. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

‘What don’t you know?’ said Clémence. ‘Are you afraid of the truth?’

‘Yes,’ replied the old man, honestly. ‘Yes, I am.’

‘And do you know what that truth is?’ asked Clémence. She was watching him closely, with those big blue eyes.

‘No, I don’t. I’m not sure I want to.’

Clémence tossed the book down between them. ‘Well, it’s entirely up to you. But if you don’t want to find out who you really are, I will leave now. It’s clear you can look after yourself and you don’t need me.’

The old man stared at the book, and then at Clémence. Her expression was firm. She meant what she said.

There was something bad in that book, he knew it. But he had to face up to it. At the age of eighty-three he couldn’t pretend to himself that he could start a new life with a blank slate.

He needed to find out who he really was. And, whoever that man turned out to be, to learn to live with him.

And he really didn’t want Clémence to leave him.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Let’s read it.’

They carried their coffee into the cosy sitting room. The old man sat in the armchair and Clémence lit the fire. She picked up the book and it seemed to him that she skipped over the first couple of pages. But then she began to read.

Northern France, August 1935

I watched the fields of Picardy pass by the train window. I was fascinated; the countryside might be flat but it wasn’t dull, at least not to my eyes. The long, straight little roads lined with plane trees, the occasional glimpse of oxen in the fields, the field patterns themselves — ordered, rectangular, often hedgeless — all proclaimed that I was not looking at England’s green and pleasant land. It was the first time I had been abroad, and I was excited.

I glanced back into the compartment at my two travelling companions, whose eyes were focused on their books rather than the scenery. Both of them were much better travelled than me: Stephen Trickett-Smith had a mother who lived a debauched life in Antibes, one which she was eager to share with her nineteen-year-old son, and Nathan Giannelli was American, so his existence in the carriage testified to travel over much larger distances than merely the English Channel.

We made an odd trio. The trip had been planned three months earlier, during Trinity term of our first year at Oxford. Stephen was in my rooms, polishing off a bottle of hock while I was dipping in and out of F.W. Maitland’s book on the Domesday Book, when Nathan barged in.

Nathan Giannelli was a Rhodes Scholar from Pennsylvania, who had made friends with me in our first term. He was small and dark, with neat features and quick brown eyes; his family owned an oil company. Nathan made much of his wealth, although he lacked the polish and the expensive clothes of some of his compatriots at Oxford. He was energetic and intelligent and unlike some other first-year undergraduates, I was willing to take his American friendliness at face value, rather than a sign of superficiality.

‘Hey, Angus, do you have any plans over the summer?’

‘Not really,’ I said. ‘I’ll go home to Yorkshire, I suppose. See my mother.’

‘Would you like to come with me to Paris?’ Nathan waved a letter in front of my face. ‘My Uncle Alden has invited me there for a couple of weeks, and asked me to bring one or two friends. I figured you might like to come along.’

I was surprised by the invitation, but intrigued. ‘That’s kind of you to think of me, Nathan. But I’m not sure I can scrape the finances together.’

‘Of course you can! All you need to cover is the train fare — Uncle Alden will pay for everything else. He’s loaded, and generous. You’ll like him. He may be my uncle, but he’s actually only ten years older than me, and he acts much younger.’

I had always wanted to travel to Europe, and Paris in particular. Frankly, this might be my best opportunity, especially if I had somewhere to stay for free, and Nathan would be an amusing travelling companion. I would beg or steal the train fare, somehow. ‘All right. Yes. Thanks very much, Nathan.’

Nathan turned to Stephen, who had been watching all this with mild amusement. ‘What about you, Trickett-Smith? Will you come?’ Nathan seemed nervous as he asked the question.

As well he might. Stephen Trickett-Smith was not only one of the wealthiest undergraduates in college, he had also attended the country’s most prestigious public school. He was tall, with floppy fair hair, a long aquiline nose, and wide, thin lips. He had an arrogant, lazy charm, which bewitched women. And men.