Читать книгу: «Could It Be Magic?»

Chapter One

As dreams went, it was a scary one. I snuggled deeper into my pillow, preparing to drift back to sleep, to try and recapture the feeling I’d had with the handsome stranger. But some alien scent or sound roused me, tugging at my consciousness. I opened one bleary eye and turned to look at the bedside clock. It wasn’t there. What was there was a stark Formica cabinet topped with a plastic water jug standing next to a white plastic beaker complete with drinking straw.

Pushing myself up on one elbow, I discovered that a needle had been taped in place on the back of my left hand. It appeared to be attached to a clear bag of fluid, which dripped into my veins via a thin line. I stared at it for a few seconds, then peered round at the small windowless side room. Apart from the cabinet and the bed, there were various monitors bleeping rhythmically against the wall. Wires led from them towards the bed. Running my hands over the starched white hospital gown in which I found myself, I located the sticky ends of the monitors—they were attached to my chest and sides.

I sat bolt upright and immediately wished I hadn’t as stinging pain fizzed across my back and shoulder. Gingerly, I fingered the gauzy material at the back of my neck and across my left shoulder. Bandages. My mind turned back to the lightning strike. It hadn’t been a dream then. For a moment I sat quite still, trying to regain a clear memory of what had happened: the handsome stranger in the storm, the two dogs cowering behind the car, the rain pelting relentlessly down. And what of Frankie? Who was looking after her now?

I lived alone in my basement flat on the outskirts of Epsom. My parents lived miles away, buried in a quiet hamlet in Somerset—a village consisting of a handful of cottages, a pub and a post office/general store—the sort you could drive through and never notice was there. No one would know to tell them I’d been hurt, or that Frankie was all alone somewhere.

Touching my fingers to the top of my head, which felt tender and tingly, I tried to recall if I’d had any sort of identification on my person when the lightning had struck. My handbag had been in my car, left in a different spot to the one where the stranger’s car had been parked. I’d had nothing in my coat pockets except a couple of tissues and a dog biscuit. Not much there to give any clues about my identity.

Letting my gaze wander round the whitewashed room, my eyes alighted on a card, partially hidden by the water jug on the bedside cabinet. It had a child’s drawing on the front, of a woman surrounded by small children, the heads out of all proportion to the stick-like bodies, the hair bright blue and standing up on end. I flicked it open and read the scrawled message inside.

Dear Mummy. Hope you get better soon, lots of love from Sophie, Nicole, Toby and Teddy xxxx.

I wondered vaguely how clean the room was if the previous occupant’s belongings were still here, and I had just placed the card back on the side table and leaned back against the pillows when the door opened and a nurse came in carrying a chart. She smiled when she saw me awake and sitting up.

‘How are you feeling this morning, Mrs Richardson? You’ve had everyone really worried about you, you know.’

I frowned and drew my head back slightly to look up at her. ‘You must have your patients mixed up, nurse. I’m not Mrs anyone. It’s Miss—Miss Jessica Taylor.’

The nurse, who was by now leaning over me ready to thrust a hand-held computerised thermometer into my left ear, straightened up and stared at me oddly. ‘Do you remember what happened to you, dear?’ She pulled up one of my eyelids and peered into first one eye, then the other. Apparently satisfied, she stood back to scrutinise my features, waiting for an answer.

I nodded but my throat felt dry. It was as if she hadn’t heard me tell her I wasn’t this Mrs Richardson person. ‘I was struck by lightning.’

‘That’s right, dear, and you’re in hospital. But do you remember what you were doing when it happened; who you were with, for example?’

It seemed like a trick question somehow, combined with the speculative look she gave me as she asked it. I didn’t see what business it was of hers anyway, so I shrugged evasively, feeling the painful twinge of burned flesh under the bandage.

‘I was with someone.’

‘Who?’

‘Why is it important, who I was with?’

The answer was almost immediate, although I didn’t realise its significance straight away, for at that moment the door opened again, and a group of excited children burst in.

I was so surprised that I sat open-mouthed as they bounded towards me, en masse, shrieking, ‘Mummy, you’re awake!’, and ‘Mum, we’ve really missed you!’ One of the older girls thrust some flowers into my hands. The younger of the two smiled and kissed me. A small boy was shouting, ‘Let me see her! I can’t see!’ until the older girl picked him up and deposited him at the foot of my bed. I glanced towards the door where another small boy stood silently, his eyes wide and his bottom lip quivering.

The nurse must have seen my shocked expression for she lifted the small boy back down off the bed and chivvied the children towards the door.

‘Mummy is still tired,’ she said firmly when one of the girls tried to protest. ‘I think you should wait in the playroom until Daddy has finished talking to the doctor. You can come and see her again later.’

The nurse closed the door firmly behind them and turned to face me.

‘You don’t remember, do you?’

I shook my head in confusion. ‘There’s been a mistake. They’re not mine, honestly!’

‘It is quite common for people to lose their short-term memories temporarily after a lightning strike,’ she explained as she smoothly checked my pulse and blood pressure. I watched her jot her findings onto the chart, her face coming closer, minty breath warm on my skin as she peered into my eyes again.

‘I’ll fetch Dr Shakir. He can examine you better now you’re awake, and he’ll explain what has happened to you. I think he’s talking to your husband right now.’ She smiled encouragingly at me. ‘Don’t worry, Mrs Richardson, everything will turn out all right.’

‘I’m not Mrs Richardson,’ I said again to her retreating back, but this time my voice held less conviction. As the door closed behind her I went to rub my hands over my eyes, forgetting the drip, and the movement caused a fresh burst of pain in my left shoulder. Carefully, I lowered my left arm down beside me then gingerly held my right hand out in front of me and stared at it. The hand was slim, with beautifully manicured nails. I felt a spurt of panic somewhere deep inside me. This somehow didn’t look like my hand, with its broken nails where my fingertips tapped away daily at my computer keyboard. And where was the small scar that I’d picked up the time I’d cut myself on a tin of Frankie’s dog food?

Tears prickled behind my eyes and I blinked them back, determined not to cry, but I had never felt so helpless and confused.

How could they have made such a mistake? It wasn’t possible that I had a husband and four children I couldn’t remember. I couldn’t have forgotten something like that! This simply had to be a bad dream after all—a very real-seeming dream that would evaporate when I awoke.

I could feel the hands that didn’t seem to belong to me shaking, and I tucked the right one alongside the left—firmly under the fold of the sheets. Soon, I told myself sternly, I would wake up and laugh about this nightmare. I’d wonder why I had been so afraid and I’d tell myself how silly I’d been to let it worry me.

Screwing my eyes up tightly, I willed myself to wake up, but when I opened them I was still in the same place and my shoulder still smarted painfully. A little voice deep inside me whispered that something terrible had happened to me, and I shook my head, refusing to believe that this could possibly be happening.

I heard the door open again, but I sank back down between the hospital sheets and closed my eyes. I didn’t think I had the strength to go on with this nightmare. My body hurt and I wanted to go home. Home to my little one-bedroom flat in Epsom, where I could curl up on the sofa with Frankie’s head on my lap and watch TV in my pyjamas, or call my parents and friends and tell them about what had happened to me while I indulged myself by eating spoonfuls of my favourite pistachio ice cream straight from the tub.

Cool fingers stroked my forehead. The sensation was somehow familiar, yet I couldn’t recall anyone ever doing that to me before.

‘Lauren? Lauren, sweetheart, are you awake?’

Clenching my eyelids tightly together, I remained obstinately silent. If this was a husband, father to those children, I wanted none of it.

Another voice filled the room, an Indian accent, firm and in control.

‘Mr Richardson, if you would excuse me for just one moment. I need a few words with your wife.’

The fingers found my hand and squeezed it. ‘I’ll be right outside the door, sweetheart.’

I waited until the door clicked shut before opening my eyes. A tall Asian doctor was gazing down at me, a reassuring smile fixed in place on his friendly face. ‘Good morning, Mrs Richardson.’ His eyes flicked down to the notes in his hand. ‘Er—Lauren. The nurse tells me you are experiencing some memory loss?’

‘My memory is fine,’ I answered somewhat belligerently. ‘It’s just that you’ve got me muddled up with someone else.’

The doctor shook his head, still smiling sadly. ‘I know this must be upsetting for you, Lauren, but I’m afraid that is not the case. There is a good man out there who assures me that you are his wife, and four young children who have been waiting since yesterday for you to wake up. In some cases a high-voltage injury can cause clouded mental status. It’s known medically as the Pat Effect, but don’t worry, it’s usually temporary.’

He perched on the edge of the bed and looked at me with dark eyes full of sympathy, and something else I couldn’t quite detect.

‘Lightning is a formidable force, Lauren, and you are on strong painkillers, which could be causing some of your confusion.’

I watched apprehensively as he opened a notebook and scanned its pages. His obvious belief that I was this Lauren Richardson person had me wondering what else he was going to tell me.

‘When you were brought in yesterday with burns to your back, shoulder and top of your scalp, I did a little research on the effects of lightning strikes. Yours is the first case I’ve seen personally, and I hope you will be interested to hear some of my findings.’

He glanced at me and I nodded, realising that the underlying gleam in his eyes was professional curiosity. Before I’d had time to draw breath, he plunged ahead with a deluge of information.

‘Apparently, lightning travels at astonishing speeds of between 160 and 1600 kilometres per second on its downward track to the ground. Or, in your case, on its way to you, Lauren,’ he told me with undisguised awe. ‘On its return stroke it can reach an amazing 140,000 kilometres per second, and the enormous spark heats the surrounding air explosively, creating the sonic boom we hear as thunder.’

I found myself thinking that he must have made an exceptional—if rather geeky—medical student with his enthusiasm for knowledge, but the facts were sobering when I remembered that the lightning had actually hit me at those speeds.

‘In some cases this spark can generate a temperature of thirty thousand degrees centigrade, Lauren—about six times hotter than the surface of the sun!’ he finished with a flourish.

The look he then bestowed on me was one of thinly disguised fascination, as if, after discovering and recounting how powerful lightning was, he was surprised to find I was still breathing.

‘So, you’re telling me I’m lucky to be alive,’ I commented quietly, watching his eyes for confirmation.

Dr Shakir inclined his head with a small dip that I took to be affirmative.

‘Although the scorching to your head appears superficial and the burns to your back and shoulder will heal without skin grafts, we must be careful about infection, which is why you have an antibiotic dressing on your shoulder,’ he explained. Pulling his notes together he raised his eyes briefly to mine.

I looked at him suspiciously. ‘What are you trying to tell me?’

‘The shock of the lightning bolt stopped your heart for a while. You went into cardiac arrest. We had to shock you again to bring you back. Once we’d got you back with us we concentrated on rehydrating you. That’s just normal saline in the intravenous drip you have there. Then we dressed the burns. After that it was just a case of waiting for you to wake up.’

‘To see if I was brain damaged,’ I said, shaken that I had actually needed to be resuscitated, and again watching for his reaction.

‘I would like to schedule you for a head MRI scan,’ Dr Shakir continued smoothly, ignoring my comment and studiously avoiding my gaze. ‘But in the meantime you will have to trust me that you are the mother of those children and the wife of Mr Richardson.’

I looked at him sceptically. He was hiding something, I was sure, but there didn’t seem much else to say. I glanced towards the door and remembered with a sick feeling deep in my stomach the family that was out there waiting to visit me.

‘Please, I’m very tired,’ I pleaded, fighting down the panic that was rising in my chest. ‘Could I rest before I see…anyone?’

The doctor paused as if considering my request, then nodded briefly and left. I lay back against the pillows as the door closed behind him, sifting through my memory for any clue to this unknown family of mine, while the heart and blood-pressure monitors bleeped rhythmically beside me. The frustrating thing was that, despite everything the doctor had told me, my memories seemed perfectly intact—they just weren’t the ones it seemed I was supposed to be remembering.

After half an hour of alternately dozing and agonising over my predicament, I heard my supposed husband at the door asking to be let back in. Part of me was curious to see if he still thought I was his wife. I rather hoped he’d take one look at me and declare that he’d made a terrible mistake, but something deep inside told me it was a vain hope.

To stall for time, I brushed my hair carefully with a brush I was told belonged to me (even though I’d never seen it before in my life), then I sat up rigidly in the narrow bed and waited apprehensively for the stranger to come in.

The man who came towards me was slim and tall, maybe a bit over six foot. He had reddish, slightly wavy hair and freckled skin. He was wearing a black polo-neck shirt under a tweedy jacket, but he didn’t look professor-like in it. I wondered vaguely what he did for a living and it occurred to me that it was strange I was supposed to have picked this man for a husband, when red-headed men had never appealed to me in the least.

As he approached, I realised with a sinking heart that the charade was still on. He bent to kiss me, but I turned my head away and he straightened quickly, his face flushing slightly.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said firmly as he pulled out a chair and sat down next to the bed. ‘But I have no memory of you.’

He stared at me, and I could see he appeared to be fighting some internal battle. After a moment he seemed to come to a decision.

‘Dr Shakir told me you’ve lost your memory, sweetheart. I was hoping he’d got it wrong.’ He sighed deeply, then forced an uncertain smile and held out his hand formally to shake mine. ‘I’m Grant,’ he told me. ‘Grant Richardson. I’m thirty-seven years old, and we’ve been married for ten years.’

His grip on my fingers was cool and steady, but somehow the smile seemed unsure. I suppose it was a lot to come to terms with, finding his wife had lost all memory of him and their life together. I knew I was certainly finding the whole situation bizarre, and my heart went out to this stranger. If I was struggling to get my head round what was happening, what must it be like for him?

I didn’t know what to do. I could hardly say, ‘I’m Jessica, nice to meet you’, so I looked away from him to a point halfway along the wall to where a trolley stood stacked with medical supplies, and said nothing while he continued to hold on to my hand.

‘Have you got any questions for me?’ he asked gently. ‘Isn’t there lots you want to know?’

I had questions all right, but they were more along the lines of ‘What the bloody hell is happening to me?’ than the sort he would be expecting me to ask.

‘Lauren?’

Sighing, I realised that I was going to have to play along, if for no other reason than in the hope of getting some answers to this nightmare. I withdrew my hand firmly, then asked, ‘How old am I then?’

My voice sounded petulant and sulky even to my own ears, and his smile wavered momentarily as the depth of the problem came home to him. I shook my head and he sighed and ran his tongue over his lips, somewhat fearfully.

‘You’re thirty-five, Lauren. We married when you were twenty-five and I was twenty-seven. We were—still are, very much in love.’

‘When’s my birthday?’

‘The nineteenth of June.’

‘No, it’s not,’ I told him firmly. ‘I was born on the twenty-ninth of April. I wouldn’t have forgotten a date as ingrained in me as that!’

Grant avoided my eyes and shrugged. ‘It’s only a small detail, sweetheart.’

‘Okay, then,’ I said, taking a deep breath and trying to pull myself together. ‘How old are these children of ours?’

‘Sophie’s eight, Nicole is six, and the twins are just four.’

We sat in silence while I contemplated the hideous possibility that I was the mother of four children. I’d had very little to do with children in the past. My job as a legal secretary was with a small law firm, where I did far more than just typing up reports, legal papers and documents onto the computer. I also assisted one of the solicitors by researching areas of law for cases he was working on, took dictation and transcribed records, proofread letters and legal documents and, more interestingly, attended court, police stations and client meetings to take notes.

Aspiring to become a solicitor myself in the near future, I had been about to embark on a law degree and didn’t have much time to myself, let alone to consider marriage or children.

The memory brought me up short. Perhaps it was time to tell the truth. ‘It’s not that I’ve lost my memory,’ I tried to explain to the man beside me. ‘I have memories—it’s just that they’re different from the ones you say I should have.’

‘We should ask Dr Shakir about it.’ Grant eyed me suspiciously. ‘There may be some medical condition that has sparked unreal memories in you.’

I remembered the notes I had transcribed the last time I had been in the office, realising that I could recall them almost word for word. I pictured my boss’s diary, where I had entered the times and dates of his appointments with clients and his court appearances for the following week. I could even remember what I’d had for supper on Friday evening after getting in late from work.

‘My memories are real to me,’ I told him.

Grant shook his head tiredly. ‘I don’t know, Lauren. This is hard for me to take in too. I’ve been awake all night, waiting for you to come round. And the children are missing you, they’re really confused…’

He broke off, giving me a sideways glance, and I noticed him anxiously twisting the wedding ring on his finger. I looked down at my own left hand, which because of the pain in my shoulder had been tucked under the covers. While he watched, I peeled away a corner of the white hospital tape that was holding the drip in place, exposing my ring finger. I gasped. A thin gold band gleamed back at me.