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Chapter 6

Daniel

Stamford

1^st January 2018, 7.31 a.m.

Following my vision, I pushed my concerns for professional boundaries out of the way and messaged Will, saying something new, something big had happened. He responded within a few minutes telling me he would call later. I could barely contain my excitement, and fear, as Katie and I spent the morning looking into the French town I had seen, the name flashing past my eyes whenever I closed them. A place called Auvers-sur-Oise. It was a small town, unremarkable aside from the fact that it was a popular destination for landscape painters. Amateurs had been going for hundreds of years to paint the view. The pictures of the town online didn’t look familiar, they didn’t coax anything else out of the blank space in my mind. We even did a Google Earth Street View, and still there was nothing about Auvers-sur-Oise that I recognized.

Though, seeing the name so clearly in my mind had to mean something; the image was too powerful to not be part of my past, part of the man I once was. I messaged Mum, asking her to come over, and waited for her to reply. Katie and I looked at Auvers for clues for hours, speaking of little else, until my head hurt so badly I needed to lie down. No matter what we tried, no more memories came back to me.

When I woke, Katie was packing her bag. Her eyes were puffy and red. She had received a call from the hospital as her father had taken a turn and she was advised to come down as soon as she could. I started to get a bag ready too, but she told me she would drive by herself. I protested but she told me it would be good for her to spend time alone with him.

She left just after two o’clock and as I watched her drive away towards the A1, I couldn’t help but feel guilty. I should have been driving her, I should be holding her hand as she copes with the forthcoming loss of her father. But I understood, she had to do this alone. I didn’t know her father, it would be wrong for me to be there. So, home by myself all I could do was wait until Will called.

It was just after four, as he’d promised, when he called and in our brief chat I told him what happened at Rachael and Sean’s. He asked me what specifically was happening in that moment and I mentioned the smell of fireworks and the song that was playing in the background that triggered the montage of broken images.

‘Yes. Sounds and smells can play a huge role in recalling memory. Especially smells.’

‘But I’ve smelt fireworks before?’

‘Perhaps the combination of both was what triggered the memories. Perhaps, Daniel, this is the progress we’ve been waiting for.’

‘Do you think?’

‘Before we get excited, talk to your mother. Tell her the things you saw and mention the French town you recalled. All of what you experienced might not be true. But some could be, and if so, that’s promising.’

Mum finally replied, apologizing for the delay, telling me she was out with friends for the day and she would be over in half an hour. I needed confirmation from her of what I had seen so that I could get a sense of what proportion was true and what was confabulation. I didn’t want to get my hopes up until I had that conversation. But, Will’s final words, ‘that’s promising’, made it impossible not to. By the time Mum had arrived I had paced around my lounge so much I was sure the carpets had worn thin. I didn’t ask how she was, or make her a drink before launching into what I experienced. As I motored on, she only spoke to ask me to slow down.

‘Sorry. I’m trying to keep calm.’

‘I understand.’

‘Mum, is any of what I’ve just said true? Is any of it actually from my memory?’

‘Yes, some. Your dad’s voice for a start. How you described it is exactly how I would.’

‘What about the digging? The sense of being high on a building?’

‘I don’t know about those things, they sound like something we might have done on a trip somewhere? The building could be a castle we visited perhaps? Nothing springs to mind but I’ll check when I get home.’

‘Check?’

‘My holiday scrapbooks. When we went away each year I kept a scrapbook of the holidays. Something to look back on.’

‘You’ve kept holiday scrapbooks? For how long?’

‘Every trip we’ve ever taken.’

‘Including holidays before my accident?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why haven’t you shown me? They could have triggered something years ago! You know I used to ask about pictures all the time. You always said you never took any.’ I couldn’t keep the anger from my voice.

‘I thought about showing you, many times. But I didn’t want you to be upset reading about things you couldn’t remember. Every time you see a picture of you from your childhood, I see how much it hurts you. Our holidays with your father were magical times, Daniel. Some of the best. I didn’t want to rub them in your face.’

I understood her logic, but I couldn’t stop my annoyance. In the early days when things were bad Mum had been there on the countless nights I cried myself to sleep. She had held my hand when I had my many panic attacks. She had stayed patient when my frustration spilt over as rage and I broke things in her home. Despite it being a symptom of a head injury, I still felt ashamed of how I was all those years ago.

‘Mum, I’m stronger now. I’m okay with it now. I can handle that there are some things I cannot control. Things I may never know. You’re right, back then it would have caused more harm than good. But not now. I think it will help. I’d like to read about me as a kid.’

‘Then we’ll find an evening and we’ll do it together.’

‘Thanks, Mum. What about the French town? Does that mean anything?’

‘Maybe, I’ll have to check. We often drove to the south of France for our holidays, often stopping in small French towns along the way – time to soak up the culture, your dad would say. It’s possible we visited Auvers. Again, it’ll be in the scrapbooks if we did. We’ll know soon enough. Whenever you’re ready.’

I had mixed feelings about what we had discussed. Part of me was excited to know if it was real, that it wasn’t made up, my brain wasn’t playing a cruel trick on me. Another part felt hollow as I ticked off what I could take from the flashes. I saw my dad and learnt of a French town but as for the other things, I was none the wiser as to what they meant.

‘Mum, what do I do now?’

‘I guess you carry on. Find more songs from the same time-period and wait for more memories to come.’

‘Do you think they will?’

‘I think that over the past year you have remembered more and more. And who knows, maybe it’s like a snowball rolling down a hill. Now it’s started it will pick up speed and grow bigger and become unstoppable.’

‘I hope so, Mum.’

‘Me too,’ she said, but with some hesitation.

Sensing that I needed time alone to process what was happening, Mum made her excuses to leave, promising me she would dig out the scrapbooks and have them ready for when I came over next. I joked it would probably be tomorrow, half meaning it.

After Mum left I tried to call Katie a few times but her phone went straight to voicemail. At just after 11 p.m. my phone rang.

‘Katie? Are you okay?’

‘Yes, sorry, it’s been a rough day.’

I wanted to ask if her father was all right, but I already knew the answer.

‘Can I do anything?’

‘No. I’m going to have to stay here for a while.’

‘I understand. Shall I come down?’

‘No, it’s okay.’ She sounded exhausted.

‘Katie, please. I want to be there for you.’

‘I just …’ She hesitated, and I could hear in her voice that she needed me there.

‘Let me be there, I want to be.’

‘Thank you,’ she said conceding. Her voice tired, the edges of her words wrapped in sadness.

‘I’ll get a few things together now.’

‘No, there is no point tonight. Come tomorrow.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, it will give me something to look forward to.’

‘Okay, Katie, I’ll come first thing. Is he comfortable?’

‘Yes.’ She stopped, catching her breath, unable to finish her sentence. ‘He knew it was New Year’s after all. And I didn’t come and see him.’

‘Don’t, you did what you thought was best for him. He knows that.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Darling, you can’t beat yourself up over it. He knows how much you love him. Focus on that.’

‘Thanks, love. I can’t stay on the phone long. Cheer me up, what did Will and your mum say?’

‘That doesn’t matter right now, you’re the one that we should be focusing on at the moment.’

‘It does to me, please.’

I took a breath. ‘Mum told me that some of it’s real.’

‘That’s fantastic! And Will?’ she replied, her voice tired but still I could hear her smile in her words.

‘He said that the fact it was more than one memory was really promising.’

‘Oh, Dan, I’m so happy for you. I needed to hear that.’

In the background I heard another voice speaking to Katie, a male one. I couldn’t make out what was said but she let out a tired sigh.

‘I’ve got to go; Dad is awake.’

‘Of course, go. I’ll be here. Call me whenever you want, okay?’

‘Okay. I love you.’

‘I love you too. If you want me there before tomorrow morning, I can come.’

‘I know, thank you.’

‘Bye, Katie.’

‘Bye.’

The line went dead and I stopped to think about Katie for a moment. I couldn’t imagine keeping it together if I was by my mum’s side as she died. Katie was a stronger person than I was. And I wished I was with her with my arm around her, keeping her upright when she was ready to fall. Tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough. Thinking about her in a dark, quiet hospital room, the only sound being the machines keeping her dying father alive, I felt embarrassed that my past mattered so much. Putting my phone on loud in case she called me in the night, I sat in front of the television watching nothing until I fell into a fitful sleep.