7. Left Alone

Time breeds thoughts.

Since our return from the lake Joseph has avoided being in my company. There is a shyness to him that is in stark contrast to the confidence that I have seen when he addressed the Doctors and when he is speaking to clients over the telephone. He has revealed too much of himself and now he is retreating.

I fear that he is afraid we will grow too close...

Left alone I am once again in the position to contemplate how different my life has become. My last clear memory is of London, working in the Coffee Shop while I finish my degree in Literature. I remember being in a relationship with Ian and wondering how to end it, living with two friends who I don't even know if I still have contact with.

I remember being unsure of my next step in life but being perfectly poised for an adventure. Had Samuel been that adventure? From photos around the house I have been able to find a visual aid of this man I loved but, like everything else since I woke, his face means nothing to me. No jolt of attraction, no urge to know him better.

That jolt, that fizz of anticipation... I feel for my husband. And at the moment I think that feeling anything for Joseph is a dangerous game.

But my life is a game, I am merely the player who has not been given a script for the part she is trying to play.

And I am playing it all wrong.

6. Something New

Joseph is full of surprises.

He has taken me to a lake, a place he would visit to procrastinate as a child, a place I have never been before. He is confident that I never came with Samuel and it was not a place I would have sought out alone. I love the steady ripple of the water and the scent of the surrounding trees.

But what I love more is that I am making a new memory. I am able to enjoy my surroundings without being painfully conscious that something is missing. I smile for what feels like a lifetime and Joseph must find it infectious as he grins in return. As we walk around the perimeter he talks and I take a bizarre amount of pleasure in it. We skirt around the difficult subjects and talk only of things that we may not have spoken of before. I learn of his childhood and I laugh at his anecdotes.

Too soon we are returning to the car and the silence falls between us once more. As he has done most of the talking I feel that it is my turn to say something, anything.

"Joseph, if my memories don't return..." He interrupts me.

"They will."

"But if they don't, I wouldn't want you to feel stuck with me. What I mean is, I would understand if the arrangement we have..." He interrupts me once more, this time surprising me silent.

"Why would I get rid of you when I finally find myself enjoying having you as my wife?"


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5. To Teach

I am a teacher.

Somewhere between the age of twenty two and thirty I gained enough knowledge to be considered wise enough to pass on my findings to others. I became a confident, inspirational woman that my students adore. Joseph has collected cards and gifts that have been sent to wish me well in my recovery.

My recovery... while my bones heal and my bruises fade I still am filled with this overwhelming blackness. Being in the house, even for these a few days, has provided me with very little insight and there has been a significant lack of memories which I hoped would come flooding back in familiar surroundings.

Tomorrow Joseph has suggest that we spend the day together, he has set some time aside for us to finally talk. I get the distinct impression that talking nor time is something we usually spend doing together.

He is still a stranger and even though I do not know him I find that I want to.

Can he teach me of myself?

4. Revelations

A marriage of convenience.

I married a man to secure a home and a lifestyle that I had become accustomed to. I don't know myself all at! How have I changed so much in such a short space of time. Our conversation last night has left me reeling in confusion.

"You are in love with my brother." He spoke in a matter of fact manner but I could tell from the steel of his eyes that this was not a topic that he wished to discuss. But I don't know your brother!

"Yet I married you?"

"Indeed." His gaze made me feel suddenly hot all over, the flush reaching my cheeks. Something passed between us leaving him startled enough to leave the table and the room claiming he had work to do.

Today curiousity has surged me forward to seek information from our housekeeper who has been very eager to help me fill in the gaps. Joseph had been telling the truth. I had moved to Inverness, uprooted my life, to be with his brother. A man who had left me the moment something better had come along. Without a place to live, knowing I could never love or trust another man again, I had been taken in by Joseph.

The marriage had been for outside appearences. Joseph, having no inclination or time for romance, had needed a wife to give his legal firm the impression that he was settling down. I had needed the ruse of moving on. While I feel slightly appalled by the whole calculating mess, what I don't understand is how I managed to find a man that I considered 'more' than the one who slept down the hall.

Even through the time that I can recall us spending together, the brief hours of the last few days, I already knew that I could be easily drawn to him.

I am so confused. So bewildered. How can I continue with this life when already my old self is making changes to it that might alter it forever?

Would it have been Joseph that I would have fallen for if I had met him first? Would he have felt differently if I had not been the silly afterthought of one of his brother's dalliances?

Would he have loved me?

3. Empty Frames

Twenty four hours have felt like a life time.

Since entering the house I have been awed by its simple beauty and elegance. Is this really my house? My taste? I remember and long for the clutter and comfort of my parent's house. The warmth of books and the peaceful flutter of dust particles dancing in the afternoon light.

I fear that this house will be cold to me no matter what the temperature.

Photographs are littered throughout the rooms, the wedding ones,.. our wedding ones make me feel the most uncomfortable. Smiles filled with love and warmth are a far cry from the uneasy tension of our current relationship. I have been honoured with the master bedroom, I know not where Joseph sleeps.

Joseph. I roll his name around in my mind and from my tongue in the empty rooms but nothing, other than that brief electrical surge of his hand on my arm, can be recalled from my damaged memories. Through the day I was left under the supervision of a house keeper, another stranger, who thankfully talks at me in a way that relaxes the apprehension in my shoulders.

I have so many questions but I almost fear the answers so keep them to myself. Who is this battered and bruised woman I find in my reflection? I almost panic when I don't even recognise my own, older, face. I know at some point I will need to start moving forward with this life I have been thrown into. I only wish I knew how.

As with the previous night my husband has requested that we eat together. I have heard him return from work but he has not sort me out. Leaving the whitewash of the bathroom I find him stood in the bedroom doorway. Each time I see him I am startled to observe how beautiful he is. He walks with me to the dining room.

We sit, we eat, the conversation does not progress further than the weather. Then I shock him with my question.

"When did I fall in love with you?"

He shocks me in turn with his answer...

"I wasn't aware that you ever had."

2. Silence

Nothing is familiar.

This morning I watched him pack up the things that he had brought for me in the suitcase that he had carried them in.  I watched frozen by the window, knowing that when he had completed his task I would be forced to leave with him. Each item I had touched I felt him waiting for a glimmer of a memory, any recognition that I remembered them as my things. My things... It feels ludicrous to call them that when, to me, I have never seen them in my life.

We haven't spoken other than the perfunctory greetings and enquiries as to my health. Did we have great conversations? Did we laugh together? I feel the strain of silence and the intrusion of his person in the room.

This is my husband. This tall man with his blonde hair and serious expression. Each day he comes wearing a suit, the jacket missing but the waistcoat always fitted and fastened. I have no idea of his profession, why he is always dressed so smartly. I don't know him! I want to scream it through the window and down to the street below.

But I can't... it would break the silence.

Lost in thought I jumped when he touched my arm. Touched me for the first time, startling us both. Had I always felt electricity at his touch or was what I felt merely confusion mixed with the fear of my new circumstances? Had his eyes always been so blue as they held my own?

That first touch had been hours ago and he had gone out of his way to avoid repeating it since. The hours had been spent travelling, him driving, while I dosed and contemplated the trip to the highlands of Scotland when I had lived my whole life at the other end of the British Isle.

As we neared our destination I hid in the pretense of sleep until I was forced to open my eyes at his words.

"Ally... we're home."

Home.

1. Waking Up

Amnesia.

They say that is what I have, along with the broken bones and permanent headache... Amnesia. Apparently, when my coach hit the tarmac the wrong way up my head hit something in turn. Out of the thirty four passengers only nineteen survived. I am one of the lucky ones.

But I don't feel lucky.

I am grateful to be alive but I have woken up into a life I do not know, in a year my mind has not reached and with people making claims on me when I do not recall their faces.

I know who I am or rather I know who I was but there is a gap, eight years are merely blackness.

Eight years, three of them spent married to a man who is currently a stranger. The stranger who at this moment sits in this room of cleaniness and monitors and can barely look in my direction as when our eyes meet all he gets in return is an expression of weariness.

I close my eyes, trying to delay the moment when they deem me fit to leave and recover at home.

Home. With a stranger. Without myself for protection...