Upon a Dark Night Read Free Page A

light, she found she was in the food section, where she wanted to be. To run out now would be ridiculous. She picked up a basket and collected a pack of sandwiches, some freshly squeezed orange juice, a mushroom quiche, salad things and teabags and paid for them at the checkout. The woman gave her a tired smile that reassured, for it was the first look she’d had in days that wasn’t trying to assess her physical and mental state. Carrying her bag of food, she followed the signs upstairs to the women’s wear floor to look for underwear and tights. She blew fifteen pounds in one quick spree. Well, no one had told her to make the money last. Outside in the street she dropped some coins into the homeless man’s cap.
    She saw someone selling the local daily, the Bath Chronicle. She bought one and looked for a place to read it, eventually choosing a spare bench on the shady side of the paved square beside the Abbey. She took out a sandwich and opened the paper.
    This wasn’t only about orientating herself in a strange place. If - as her injuries suggested - she had been in some sort of accident, it might have been reported in the local press.
    She leafed through the pages. The story hadn’t made today’s edition, anyway.
    Trying not to be disappointed, she put aside the paper and started another sandwich. People steadily crossed the yard carrying things that gave them a reason for being there - shopping, briefcases, musical instruments, library books, city maps or rucksacks, going about their lives in a way that made her envious. Seated here, watching them come and go, secure in their lives, Rose knew she was about to be overwhelmed by a tidal wave of self-pity. She had nowhere to go except that hostel.
    Shape up, she told herself. It was stupid to let negative thoughts take over. Hadn’t everyone said her memory would soon be restored? They’d come across amnesia before. It wasn’t all that uncommon.
    Even so, she couldn’t suppress these panicky feelings of what might be revealed about her hidden life. Who could say what responsibilities she had, what personal problems, difficult relationships, unwanted secrets? In some ways it might be better to remain ignorant. No, she reminded herself firmly, nothing is worse than ignorance. It cut her off from the life she had made her own, from family, friends, job, possessions.
    Lady, be positive, she lectured herself. Work at this. Get your brain into gear. You are not without clues.
    All right. What do I know? I’ve looked in the mirror. Age, probably twenty-seven, twenty-eight. Is that honest? Say around thirty, then. Clothes, casual, but not cheap. The shoes are quality trainers and reasonably new. The belt is real leather. The discarded jeans were by Levi-Strauss. My hair - dark brown and natural, fashionably short, trimmed close at the sides and back - has obviously been cut by someone who knows what to do with a pair of scissors. As for my face, well, they said at the hospital that I wasn’t wearing make-up when I was brought in, but it doesn’t look neglected to me. You don’t get eyebrows as finely shaped as these without some work with the tweezers. My skin looks and feels well treated, smooth to the touch, as if used to a moisturiser. The hands? Well, several of my fingernails were damaged in the accident - though I did my best to repair them with scissors and nail-file borrowed from one of the nurses - but the others are in good shape. They haven’t been chewed down, or neglected. I’m interested to find that I don’t paint my fingernails or toenails, and that in itself must say something about me.
    No jewellery, apparently- unless someone took it off me. There isn’t the faintest mark of a wedding ring. Is there?
    Rose felt the finger again. This was the horror of amnesia, not being certain of something as fundamental as knowing if she was married.
    The injuries told some kind of story, too. Her legs were bruised and cut in a couple of places, apparently from