Upon a Dark Night Read Free

anyone comes forward.’
    She said quickly, ‘I don’t think I’d like that.’
    ‘Shy, are we?’
    ‘Anyone could say they knew me. How would I know if they were speaking the truth?’
    ‘What are you worried about? Some chap trying his luck? You’d know your own boyfriend, wouldn’t you?’
    ‘I’ve no idea.’
    ‘Stone the crows!’ said Imogen. ‘You do have problems.’
    They drove down the rest of the road and into the city in silence.
    At the office in Manvers Street, Rose - she really was making an effort to respond to the name - was handed twenty-five pounds and asked to sign a receipt. She was also given a second-hand shirt and jeans. She changed right away. Imogen put the old clothes into a plastic bin-liner and dumped them in a cupboard.
    She thought about asking to keep her tatty old things regardless of the state they were in. Seeing them dumped in the sack was like being deprived of even more of herself.
    In the end she told herself they were too damaged to wear and what were clothes for if you didn’t use them? She didn’t make an issue of it.
    Then Imogen drove her to a women’s hostel in Bathwick Street called Harmer House, a seedy place painted inside in institutional green and white. She was to share a room with another woman who was out.
    ‘How long do I stay here?’
    ‘Until you get your memory back - or someone claims you.’
    Like lost property.
    Imogen consoled her. ‘It shouldn’t be long, they said. Chin up, Rose. It could happen to anyone. At least you’ve got some sleeping quarters tonight. Somewhere to count sheep. You’re luckier than some.’

Two
    The bed across the room was unmade and strewn with orange peel and chocolate-wrappings. Not promising, the new inmate thought, but it did underline one thing: you were expected to feed yourself in this place. Imogen the social worker had shown her the poky communal kitchen in the basement. If she could remember what she liked to eat and how to cook it, that would be some progress. Surely if anything could jump-start a girl’s memory, it was shopping.
    So she went out in search of a shop. It would be pot-luck, because Bath was unknown to her. Or was it? She may have lived here some time. She had to get into her head the possibility that her amnesia was blocking out her ability to recognise any of it.
    A strange place can be intimidating. Mercifully this was not. Viewing it through a stranger’s eyes, Rose liked what she saw, disarmed by the appeal of a city that had altered little in two hundred years, not merely the occasional building, but street after street of handsome Georgian terraces in the mellow local stone. She strolled through cobbled passages and down flights of steps into quiet residential areas just as elegant as the main streets; formal, yet weathered and welcoming. At intervals she looked through gaps between the buildings and saw the backdrop of hills lushly covered in trees.
    An unfamiliar city. Unfamiliar people, too. She didn’t let that trouble her. She preferred the people unfamiliar. What if she did live here and suddenly met someone who knew her? That was what she ought to be hoping for - some chance meeting that would tell her who she was. But if she had a choice, she wanted to find out in a less confrontational way. She dreaded coming face to face with some stranger who knew more about her than she did herself, someone who expected to be recognised, who wouldn’t understand why she acted dumb. Her situation was making her behave like a fugitive. Stupid.
    So she was wary of asking the way to the nearest food shop. By chance she came across Marks and Spencer when she was moving through side streets, trying to avoid the crowds. She discovered a side entrance to the store. A homeless man was sleeping outside under a filthy blanket, watched by his sad-eyed dog. Her pity was mixed with some apprehension about her own prospects.
    Hesitating just inside the door of the shop, feeling exposed in the artificial