The Memory Book Read Free

And the end of the road isn’t as near as I thought it was.
    I stop for a moment, feeling the rain driving into my head, tiny cold needles of icy water. I turn around. My mum isn’t behind me: she hasn’t followed me. I thought she might, but she hasn’t. The street is empty. Did I reach the end of the road and turn around already? I am not sure. Which direction was I walking in? Am I going to or from, and to where? The houses on either side of the road look exactly the same. I stand very still. I left my home less than two minutes ago, and now I am not sure where it is. A car drives past me, spraying freezing water on to my legs. I didn’t bring my phone, and anyway I can’t always remember how to use it any more. I’ve lost numbers. Although I look at them and know they are numbers, I’ve forgotten which ones are which, and which order they come in. But I can still walk, so I begin to walk in the direction that the car that soaked me was going. Perhaps it’s a sign. I will know my house when I see it because the curtains are bright-red silk and the light shining through them makes them glow. Remember that: I have red glowing curtains at the front of my house that one of my neighbours said made me look ‘loose’. I will remember the red glowing curtains. I’ll be home really soon. Everything will be fine.
    The appointment at the hospital hadn’t exactly gone well. Greg had wanted to come but I told him to go and finish the conservatory he was building. I told him that nothing the doctor said would make our mortgage need to be paid any the less, or mean that we don’t have to keep feeding the children. It hurt him that I hadn’t wanted him there, but he didn’t realise that I couldn’t cope with trying to guess what the look on his face meant at the same time as guessing what I felt myself. I knew if I took Mum she would just say everything in her head, which is better. It’s better than hearing really terrible news and wondering if your husband is sorry that he ever set eyes on you, that of all the people in the world he could have chosen, he chose you. So I wasn’t in the best frame of mind – pun intended – when the doctor sat me down to go through the next round of test results. The tests they had given me because everything was happening much faster than they’d thought it would.
    I can’t remember the doctor’s name because it’s very long with a great many syllables, which I think is funny. I mentioned this as Mum and I sat there waiting for him to finish looking at the notes on his screen and deliver the bad news, but no one else was amused. There’s a time and a place for gallows humour, it seems.
    The rain is driving down faster now, and heavier; I wished I’d flounced off with my coat. After a while all the roads round here start to look the same: 1930s semis, in row after row,either side of the street. I’m looking for curtains, aren’t I? What colour?
    I turn a corner and see a little row of shops, and I stop. I’ve come out for a coffee, then? This is where I come on a Saturday morning with Greg and Esther for a pain au chocolat and a coffee. It’s dark, though, and cold and wet. And I don’t seem to have a coat on, and I check my hand, which is empty of Esther’s, and for a moment I hold on tight to my chest, worrying that I’ve forgotten her. But I didn’t have her when I started. If I’d had her when I started, I’d be carrying her monkey, which she always insists on taking out but never wants to carry herself. So I’ve come here for coffee. I’m having some me time. That’s nice.
    I head across the road, grateful for the rush of warm air that greets me as I enter the café. People look up at me as I walk in through the door. I suppose I must look quite a sight with my hair plastered to my face.
    I wait at the counter, belatedly realising that I am shivering. I must have forgotten my coat. I wish I could remember why I came out for coffee. Am I meeting someone? Is it