Darren Shan - Procession of the dead

I thought about it. "A year ago, I got off a train in a city and went to live with a man who said he was my uncle. I joined his business." I chose my words carefully. She might know more than she was letting on, but I didn't think so. And if she didn't know about The Cardinal and my education in the ways of crime and death, so much the better. "I've been there ever since. I can remember everything from that day but nothing before. Little," I amended. "For a long while, I didn't know anything was wrong. When I realized I was missing a past, I found an old train ticket and followed it here. That's all I can tell you. For now."

"Amnesia?" she asked.

"I think so. Delusion too. I'm not sure who I was here, but I'm pretty certain Martin Robinson bore little in common with Capac Raimi, the man I was in the city. Was I a bad man, Dee? Was I involved in shady deals?"

"No!" She was startled. "God, no. Nothing like that."

"You're sure?"

"Certain." She began rocking gently, composing herself. It always helped her think better if she was rocking. "You weren't born in this house but you grew up here. This was the family home, the Robinson castle. Your parents treated you like a young prince, but they reared you to be polite and compassionate. You were a cute kid.

"You're eight months older than me but we were in the same classes at school and our parents were good friends. You used to make fun of my hair and clothes-my mother had terrible taste, buying outfits you wouldn't put on a doll-while I'd mock your buckteeth."

"I had buckteeth?" Not remembering my childhood, I had assumed I'd always looked this way. It hadn't crossed my mind that I must have changed dramatically over the years, like anybody else.

"Not really," she said. "A bit protuberant, but you were very self-conscious. A few Bugs Bunny jokes usually had you in tears. We went through that preteen phase where we wanted nothing to do with each other. I hung out with the girls, you with the boys. We hardly saw each other for three or four years. At fourteen we discovered each other again and were soon going steady. We got engaged when we were seventeen."

She shrugged and rocked a little faster. "Crazy, I guess, but we were in love and wanted to prove it would last forever. At least we didn't rush off and marry. We agreed to wait until after college. We were going to different colleges and you told me years later that you expected us to split within a couple of months. That's why you proposed-you didn't think you'd actually have to go through with it."

"No," I laughed. "I couldn't have been that shallow."

"Oh, you were." She laughed too. "But we didn't split. We dated a couple of other people on the sly but neither of us felt comfortable doing that, and every time we met we fell in love again. So, figuring it really was true love and there was no cure for it, we tied the knot a couple of months after graduation and became Mr. and Mrs.Robinson." She made a face. "That was the only bad bit, being Mrs. Robinson. They even noted it in the paper when they printed our wedding picture, saying you'd better be careful if you ever saw Dustin Hoffman hanging around."

I tried to recall our wedding day, picturing Dee in her dress, imagining a sunny sky and the joy I must have felt. But nothing came back to me. "I bet our parents were happy," I said.

She sighed and I knew it was bad news. "Your father died when you were eleven." It should have been a huge blow, but since I could remember nothing of him, it meant little. "That was when you began taking tennis seriously."

"Tennis?" I said eagerly.

"You were great. Your father taught you while he was alive. When he died, you threw yourself into it. He used to say you'd be bigger than Borg and you were determined to prove him right. You considered going pro but in the end you chose to concentrate on your studies. You didn't want to bank on a career where the best peaked by their early twenties. You kept playing, but for fun. You won a lot of amateur contests over the years."

That explained my performance back in the city. "And my mother?" I asked.

"She died when you were at college. During your second year. Her heart. She'd had problems for years. That's one of the reasons we married so soon-you had a house for us to move into and you were all alone in the world. Can't you remember any thing about them?"

I shook my head. "Just names. Mother. Father. Ideas. Not people. So we moved in here and lived happily together?"

"Yes. We'd argue sometimes, about the roof-it was thatched-and the stove and getting new windows and doors. It needed lots of work but you were reluctant to make changes. You were sentimental and wanted to keep everything the way it was." She sipped at her tea. "I stayed here after you… went. At first because I didn't want to be disloyal. Later because I grew to love the place. It grows on you. You told me it would, that one day I'd be as loath to alter things as you were. I scoffed but you were right.

"We both worked in town," she went on. "Walked most days, cycled if we were lazy. We didn't have a car. Neither of us ever learned to drive. I always hated cars, and you… well, your father died in a car crash. I loved our walks, early in the morning, back again in the evening at the end of a busy day."

"What did we work at?" I asked.

"I worked in a travel agent's. You were a teacher."

I blinked slowly. From Mr. Chips to Al Capone? That was some trip. I could see now why I kept picturing loads of kids, but I had problems imagining myself as a teacher. Then again, I had been patient and understanding with Conchita. "What did I teach?" I asked.

"Physical education. You could have taught at a university if you'd wanted, but you preferred younger pupils. Less stress, no campus politics. We remained like that for years, happy, not moving, not changing. We hoped for children of our own, barrels of them, but we weren't in any rush. We'd married young and wanted some time by ourselves before we started a family. We were talking seriously about them when…" Her face clouded over and she coughed.

"We were going to build an extension-this place is too small for more than three people. We'd started checking out contractors and were on the verge of… then you…" She'd been avoiding this part as long as she could. She'd shied away every time she'd come close, refusing to deal with it until the last possible moment. That time had arrived. There could be no more skipping over my disappearance. It was painful, obviously, but I had to know how The Cardinal had gotten his paws on me. "Do you really want me to go on?" she croaked.

"Yes. I have to know, Dee. Everything."

"You can't remember on your own?" She looked at me, pleading to be spared. "Think, Martin. You must be able to remember. Something this important…" I shook my head hopelessly. "Very well." She sighed, resigned. "Like I say, we used to walk to town nearly every day. In the winter we'd wrap ourselves up in furs and walk in like a couple of Eskimos. It wasn't winter that day but it was cold, so we wore light furs. Kissed goodbye when we parted, like we always did. I headed for my office and you went to school. You had a gymnastics class in the third period. You liked gym, especially the vaults…" Her voice cracked and tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. "Please, Martin, don't make me go on."

"You must." I squeezed her hands, trying to be a comforting husband. "You've come too far to stop. It'll only be waiting for us if you do. Let's get it out of the way, once and for all."

She took a breath, blew her nose, wiped the tears away and went on without a pause to the finale. "You liked to show off in the gym. At the end of most lessons you'd give the kids a display, go through your tumbling routines-you copied them from the silent comedies we loved to watch-and thrill them with your prowess on the bars and ropes. You'd always end on the vaulting horse. You'd take a long run, turn in the air, land on it with your hands and push yourself off. The kids always wanted to try but you wouldn't let them-it was too dangerous.