Remember Me?

Chapter 18

On the way back, I sit in silence for a long, long while. I’m clutching the blue folder tightly on my lap as if it might try to run away. The fields are whizzing past outside. Jon glances at me every now and then but doesn’t speak.

I’m going around and around it all in my head, trying to digest everything I’ve just learned. I feel like I’ve done a degree in Lexi Smart, in the space of half an hour.

“I still can’t believe my dad left us in trouble like that,” I say at last. “With no warning or anything.”

“Oh no?” Jon sounds noncommittal.

Kicking off my shoes, I draw my feet up onto the seat and rest my chin on my knees, gazing out at the road. “You know, everyone loved my dad. He was so good-looking, and fun, and sparky, and he loved us. Even though he fucked up a few times, he really did love us. He used to call us his three girls.”

“His three girls.” Jon’s voice is drier than ever. “A dog-obsessive in denial, a teenage extortionist, and a screwed-up amnesiac. And all of them in debt. Good work, Michael. Nicely done.”

I shoot him a look. “You don’t think much of my dad, do you?”

“I think he had a good time and left the pieces for all of you to deal with,” says Jon. “I think he was a selfish prick. But hey, I never met the guy.” Abruptly he signals and pulls into another lane. His hands are gripping the wheel tightly, I suddenly notice. He seems almost angry.

“At least I get myself a bit more.” I chew on my thumbnail. “Did I ever talk to you about it? The funeral?”

“Once or twice.” Jon gives me a wry smile.

“Oh, right.” I color. “All the time. I must have bored you to death.”

“Don’t be stupid.” He takes a hand off the wheel and squeezes mine briefly. “One day, really early on, when we were still just friends, it all came out. The whole story. How that day changed your life. How you took on your family’s debt, booked a cosmetic dentistry appointment the next day, went on a crash diet, decided to change everything about yourself. Then you went on TV and everything became even more extreme. You rocketed up the career ladder, you met Eric, and he seemed like the answer. He was solid, rich, stable. A million miles away from…” He breaks off into silence.

“My dad,” I say eventually.

“I’m no psychologist. But I would guess.”

There’s silence. I watch a small plane heading higher and higher into the sky, leaving a double trail of white smoke.

“You know, when I woke up, I thought I’d landed the dream life,” I say slowly. “I thought I was Cinderella. I was better than Cinderella. I thought I must be the happiest girl in the world…” I break off as Jon shakes his head.

“You were living your whole life under a strain. You went too far too soon; you didn’t know how to handle it; you made mistakes.” He hesitates. “You alienated your friends. You found that the hardest of all.”

“But I don’t understand,” I say helplessly. “I don’t understand why I became a bitch.”

“You didn’t mean to. Lexi, give yourself a break. You were thrust into this boss position. You had a big department to run, you wanted to impress senior management, not be accused of favoritism…and you floundered. You did some things the wrong way. Then you felt trapped. You’d built up this tough persona. It was part of your success.”

“The Cobra,” I say, wincing. I still can’t believe I got nicknamed after a snake.

“The Cobra.” He nods, a smile pushing at his mouth again. “You know, that was the TV producers’ idea. That wasn’t you. Although they had something-you are pretty cobra-like when it comes to business.”

“No, I’m not!” I lift my head in horror.

“In a good way.” He grins.

A good way? How can you be like a cobra in a good way?

We drive on for a while without speaking, golden fields sprawling into the distance on either side of us. At length Jon turns on the radio. The Eagles are playing “Hotel California” and as we zip along, sunlight glinting off the windshield, I suddenly feel like we could be in another country. Another life.

“You once said to me, if you could go back in time and do everything differently, you would.” Jon’s voice is softer than before. “With everything. Yourself…your job…Eric…Everything looks different when the gloss is gone.”

I feel a sudden sting at the mention of Eric. Jon’s talking like everything’s in the past-but this is now. I’m married. Nor do I like what he’s implying.

“Look, I’m not some shallow gold-digger, okay?” I say hotly. “I must have loved Eric. I wouldn’t just marry a guy because of the gloss.”

“At first you thought Eric was the real deal,” Jon agrees. “He’s charming, he ticks the boxes…In fact, he’s like one of the intelligent systems from our lofts. Put him on ‘Husband’ setting and away he goes.”

“Stop it.”

“He’s state-of-the-art. He has a range of mood settings; he’s touch sensitive…”

“Stop it.” I’m trying not to laugh. I lean forward and turn the radio up higher, as though to block Jon out. A moment later I’ve worked out what I want to say, and turn it down again.

“Okay, look. Maybe we did have an affair. In the past. But that doesn’t mean…Maybe I want to make my marriage work this time around.”

“You can’t make it work.” Jon doesn’t miss a beat. “Eric doesn’t love you.”

Why does he have to be such a bloody know-it-all?

“Yes, he does.” I fold my arms. “He told me so. In fact, it was really romantic, if you want to know.”

“Oh yeah?” Jon doesn’t sound remotely fazed. “What’d he say?”

“He said he fell in love with my beautiful mouth and my long legs and the way I swing my briefcase.” I can’t help coloring with self-consciousness. I’ve always remembered Eric saying that, in fact I memorized it on the spot.

“That’s a crock of shit.” Jon doesn’t even turn.

“It’s not a crock of shit!” I retort indignantly. “It’s romantic!”

“Oh, really? So would he love you if you didn’t swing your briefcase?”

I’m momentarily stumped. “I…don’t know. That’s not the point.”

“How can it not be the point? It’s exactly the point. Would he love you if your legs weren’t long?”

“I don’t know!” I say crossly. “Shut up! It was a lovely, beautiful moment.”

“It was bullshit.”

“Okay.” I jut out my chin. “So what do you love about me?”

“I don’t know. The essence of you. I can’t turn it into a list,” he says, almost scathingly.

There’s a long pause. I’m staring straight ahead, my arms still folded tightly. Jon’s focused on the road, as though he’s already forgotten the conversation. We’re getting nearer London now, and the traffic is thickening up around us.

“Okay,” he says finally, as we draw to a halt in a queue of cars. “I like the way you squeak in your sleep.”

“I squeak in my sleep?” I say disbelievingly.

“Like a chipmunk.”

“I thought I was supposed to be a cobra,” I retort. “Make up your mind.”

“Cobra by day.” He nods. “Chipmunk by night.”

I’m trying to keep my mouth straight and firm, but a smile is edging out.

As we crawl along the dual carriageway, my phone beeps with a text and I pull it out.

“It’s Eric,” I say after reading it. “He’s arrived safely in Manchester. He’s scoping out some possible new sites for a few days.”

“Uh-huh. I know.” Jon swings around a roundabout.

We’re into the outskirts of the city now. The air seems grayer and a spot of rain suddenly hits me on the cheek. I shiver, and Jon puts the roof of the Mercedes back up. His face is set as he negotiates the lanes of the dual carriageway.

“You know, Eric could have paid off your dad’s debt in his sleep,” he suddenly says, his voice matter-of-fact. “But he left you to it. Never even mentioned it.”

I feel at a loss. I don’t know how to reply to that; I don’t know what to think.

“It’s his money,” I say at last. “Why should he? And anyway, I don’t need anyone’s help.”

“I know. I offered. You wouldn’t take anything. You’re pretty stubborn.” He reaches a big junction, draws up behind a bus, and turns to look at me. “I don’t know what you’re planning now.”

“Now?”

“The rest of today.” He shrugs. “If Eric’s away.”

Deep within me, something starts stirring. A gentle pulsing, which I don’t want to admit to. Even to myself.

“Well.” I try to sound businesslike. “I wasn’t planning anything. Just go home, have some supper, read through this folder…” I force myself to leave a natural pause before I add, “Why?”

“Nothing.” Jon leaves a pause too, and frowns ahead at the road before he adds casually, “It’s just there’s some stuff of yours at my flat. You might want to pick it up.”

“Okay.” I shrug noncommittally.

“Okay.” He swings the car around and we travel the rest of the way in silence.

Jon lives in the most beautiful flat I’ve ever seen.

Okay, it’s in a daggy street in Hammersmith. And you have to ignore the graffiti on the wall opposite. But the house is big and pale brick, with massive old arched windows, and it turns out that the flat runs into the next-door building too, so it’s a million times wider than it seems from the outside.

“This is…amazing.”

I’m standing, looking around his workspace, almost speechless. The ceiling is high and the walls are white and there’s a tall, sloped desk covered in paper, next to a workstation bearing a massive Apple Mac. In the corner is a drawing easel, and opposite is an entire wall covered in books, with an old-fashioned library ladder on wheels.

“This whole row of houses was built as artists’ studios.” Jon’s eyes are gleaming as he walks around, picking up about ten old coffee cups and disappearing with them into a tiny kitchen.

The sun has come out again and is glinting through the arched windows onto the reclaimed floorboards. Discarded pieces of paper are on the floor, covered in lines, drawings, sketches. Plonked in the middle of all the work is a bottle of tequila next to a packet of almonds.

I look up to see Jon standing in the kitchen doorway, watching me soundlessly. He ruffles his hair as though to break some mood, and says, “Your stuff’s through here.”

I walk where he’s pointing, through an archway into a cozy sitting room. It’s furnished with big blue cotton sofas and a massive leather bean bag and an old TV balanced on a chair. Behind the sofa are battered wooden shelves, haphazardly filled with books and magazines and plants and…

“That’s my mug.” I stare at a hand-painted red pottery mug that Fi once gave me for my birthday, sitting on the shelves like it belongs there.

“Yeah.” Jon nods. “That’s what I mean. You left stuff here.” He picks it up and hands it to me.

“And…my sweater!” There’s an old ribbed polo neck draped over one of the sofas. I’ve had it forever, since I was about sixteen. How come-

I look around in disbelief as more things spring into my vision, like a Magic Eye. That furry fake-wolf throw that I always used to wrap around myself. Old college photos in their beaded frames. My pink retro toaster?

“You used to come here and eat toast.” Jon follows my astonished gaze. “You used to cram it in like you were starving.”

I’m suddenly seeing the other side of me; the side I thought had disappeared forever. For the first time since I woke up in hospital I feel like I’m at home. There’s even a string of fairy lights draped around the plant in the corner; the same fairy lights I had in my little flat in Balham.

All this time, all my stuff was here. Suddenly I have a memory of Eric’s words, that first time I asked him about Jon. You’d trust Jon with your life.

Maybe that’s what I did. Trusted him with my life.

“Do you remember anything?” Jon sounds casual, but I can sense the hope underneath.

“No.” I shake my head. “Just the stuff that came from my life before…” I break off as I notice a beaded frame I don’t recognize. I move closer to see the picture-and feel a tiny jolt. It’s a photo of me. And Jon. We’re sitting on a tree trunk and his arms are around me and I’m wearing old jeans and sneakers. My hair is streaming down my back; my head is tossed back. I’m laughing as though I’m the happiest girl there ever was.

It was real. It was really real.

My head is prickling as I stare at our faces, bleached by the sunshine. All this time, he had proof.

“You could have shown me this,” I say almost accusingly. “This photo. You could have brought it along the first time we met.”

“Would you have believed me?” He sits on the arm of the sofa. “Would you have wanted to believe me?”

I’m halted. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I would have explained it away, rationalized it, clung to my perfect husband, my dream life.

Trying to lighten the atmosphere, I walk over to a table cluttered with old novels belonging to me and a bowl of seeds.

“Sunflower seeds.” I grab a handful. “I love sunflower seeds.”

“I know you do.” Jon has the oddest, most unfathomable expression on his face.

“What?” I look at him in surprise, seeds halfway to my mouth. “What’s wrong? Are these okay?”

“They’re fine. There was something…” He breaks off and smiles, as though to himself. “No. It doesn’t matter. Forget it.”

“What?” I frown, bewildered. “Something from our relationship? You have to tell me. Go on.”

“It’s nothing.” He shrugs. “It was stupid. We just had this…tradition. The first time we had sex you’d been munching on sunflower seeds. You planted one in a yogurt pot and I took it home. It was like our own private joke. Then we started doing it every time. As a memento. We called them our children.”

“We planted sunflowers?” I wrinkle my brow with interest. That rings a tiny bell.

“Uh-huh.” Jon nods, like he wants to change the subject. “Let me get you a drink.”

“So where are they?” I say as he pours out two glasses of wine. “Did you keep any of them?” I’m looking around the room for signs of seedlings in yogurt pots.

“It doesn’t matter.” He hands me a glass.

“Did you throw them away?”

“No, I didn’t throw them away.” He heads over to a CD player and puts on some low music, but I won’t be put off.

“Where are they, then?” A challenging note creeps into my voice. “We must have had sex a few times, if everything you say is true. So there should be a few sunflower plants.”

Jon takes a sip of his wine. Then without saying a word he turns on his heel and gestures for me to walk along a small corridor. We head through a sparsely decorated bedroom. There he pushes open double doors to a wide, decked balcony. And I catch my breath.

There’s a wall of sunflowers all the way around. From huge yellow monsters reaching up to the sky, down to young flowers, tethered to canes, down to spindly green shoots in tiny pots, just starting to open. Everywhere I look, I can see sunflowers.

This was it. This was us. From the very beginning to the latest scrappy seedling in a pot. My throat is suddenly tight as I gaze around at the sea of green and yellow. I had no idea.

“So, how long ago…I mean…” I jerk my head at the tiniest seedling, in a tiny painted pot, propped up with sticks. “Since we last…”

“Six weeks ago. The day before the crash.” Jon pauses, an unreadable expression on his face. “I’m kind of looking after that one.”

“Was that the last time I saw you before…” I bite my lip.

There’s a beat of silence, then Jon nods. “That’s the last time we were together.”

I sit down and gulp at my wine, feeling totally overwhelmed. There’s a whole story here. A whole relationship. Growing and thickening and turning into something so strong I was going to leave Eric.

“What about…the first time?” I say eventually. “How did it all start?”

“It was that weekend Eric was away. I was over and we were chatting. We were out on the balcony, drinking wine. Kind of like we are now.” Jon gestures around. “And then halfway through the afternoon we fell silent. And we knew.”

He lifts his dark eyes to mine and I feel a lurch, deep inside. He gets up and starts walking toward me. “We both knew it was inevitable,” he says softly.

I’m transfixed. Gently he removes the wineglass from my hand and takes hold of both my hands.

“Lexi…” He brings my hands up to his mouth, closing his eyes, gently kissing them. “I knew…” His voice is muffled against my skin. “You’d come back. I knew you’d come back to me.”

“Stop it!” I whip my hands away, my heart thudding in distress. “You don’t…you don’t know anything!”

“What’s wrong?” Jon looks as shell-shocked as though I’d hit him.

I almost don’t know what’s wrong myself. I want him so badly; my entire body’s telling me to go for it. But I can’t.

“What’s wrong is…I’m freaked.”

“By what?” He looks dumbfounded.

“By all this!” I gesture at the sunflowers. “It’s too much. You’re presenting me with this…this fully fledged relationship. But for me, it’s just the beginning.” I take a deep gulp of wine, trying to keep my cool. “I’m too many steps behind. It’s too unbalanced.”

“We’ll balance it,” he says quickly. “We’ll work it out. I’ll go back to the beginning too.”

“You can’t go back to the beginning!” I thrust my hands hopelessly through my hair. “Jon, you’re a guy who’s attractive and witty and cool. And I really like you. But I don’t love you. How could I? I haven’t done all this. I don’t remember all this.”

“I don’t expect you to love me-”

“Yes, you do. You do! You expect me to be her.”

“You are her.” There’s a sudden streak of anger in his voice. “Don’t give me this bullshit. You’re the girl I love. Believe it, Lexi.”

“I don’t know!” My voice rises in agitation. “I don’t know if I am, okay? Am I her? Am I me?”

To my horror, tears are streaming down my face; I have no idea where they came from. I turn away and wipe my face, gulping, unable to stop the torrent.

I want to be her, I want to be the girl laughing on the tree trunk. But I’m not.

At last I manage to get a grip on myself and turn around. Jon is standing in exactly the same place as he was before, a bleakness on his face that makes my heart constrict.

“I look around at these sunflowers.” I swallow hard. “And the photos. And all my things here. And I can see that it happened. But it looks like a wonderful romance between two people I don’t know.”

“It’s you,” says Jon in a quiet voice. “It’s me. You know both of us.”

“I know it in my head. But I don’t feel it. I don’t know it.” I clench a fist on my chest, feeling the tears rising again. “If I could just remember one thing. If there was one memory, one thread…” I trail off in silence. Jon is gazing at the sunflowers as though rapt by every petal.

“So, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying…I don’t know! I don’t know. I need time…I need…” I break off helplessly.

Spots of rain are starting to fall on the balcony. A breeze gusts past and the sunflowers sway against each other as though they’re nodding.

At last Jon breaks the silence. “A lift home?” He lifts his eyes to meet mine-and there’s no anger anymore.

“Yes.” I wipe my eyes and push my hair back. “Please.”

It only takes fifteen minutes to reach home. We don’t chat. I sit holding on to the blue folder and Jon changes gear, his jaw set. He pulls the Mercedes into my parking space, and for a moment neither of us moves. Rain is thundering against the roof by now and there’s a sudden crash of lightning.

“You’ll have to run straight in,” Jon says, and I nod.

“How will you get back?”

“I’ll be fine.” He hands me my keys, avoiding my eye. “Good luck with that.” He nods at the folder. “I mean it.”

“Thanks.” I run a hand over the cardboard, biting my lip. “Although I don’t know how I’m going to get to Simon Johnson to talk about it. I’ve been demoted. I’ve lost all my credibility. He won’t be interested.”

“You’ll do it.”

“If I can get in to speak to him, it’ll be fine. But I know I’ll be fobbed off. They have no time for me anymore.” I sigh and reach for the car door. The rain is totally sheeting down, but I can’t sit here all night.

“Lexi…”

I feel a flurry of nerves at Jon’s tone.

“Let’s…talk,” I say hurriedly. “Sometime.”

“Okay.” He holds my gaze for a moment. “Sometime. It’s a deal.” He gets out, lifting his hands ineffectually against the rain. “I’m going to find a cab. Go on, run.” He hesitates, then drops a kiss on my cheek and strides away.

I pelt through the rain to the entrance, nearly dropping the precious folder, then stand under the portico, gathering the papers together, feeling a fresh spasm of hope as I remember the details. Although what I said was true. If I can’t see Simon Johnson it will all be for nothing.

And all of a sudden I sag as the reality of my situation hits home. I don’t know what I’ve been thinking. Whatever I have in this folder, he’s never going to give me another chance, is he? I’m not the Cobra anymore. I’m not Lexi the talented whiz kid. I’m the memorily challenged, embarrassment-to-the-firm, total fuckup. Simon Johnson won’t even give me five minutes, let alone a full hearing.

I’m not in the mood for the lift. To the obvious astonishment of the doorman, I head for the stairwell and trudge up the gleaming steel-and-glass stairs that not a single resident of this block ever uses. Once inside, I put on the remote-control fire and try to hunker up on the cream sofa. But the cushions are all shiny and awkward, and I’m afraid of my rain-damp head leaving a stain on the fabric, so in the end I get up and head to the kitchen to make a cup of tea.

After all the adrenaline of the day I’m leaden with disappointment. So I learned a few things about myself. So what? I got totally carried away, with Jon, with the deal, with everything. This whole day has been a pipe dream. I’m never going to save the Flooring department. Simon’s never going to usher me into his office and ask me what I think, let alone pitch a deal. Never in a million years. Not unless…

Not unless…

No.

I couldn’t. Could I?

I’m frozen in a disbelieving excitement, thinking through the implications, with Simon Johnson’s voice running through my head like a soundtrack.

If you recovered your memory, Lexi, then things would be different.

If I recovered my memory, then things would be different.

The kettle is coming to the boil, but I don’t even notice. As though in a dream, I pull out my mobile phone and direct dial.

“Fi,” I say as soon as it’s answered. “Don’t say anything. Listen.”