Hypnotized

ous I was.

Of course, she invited him to join us, but to my immense relief, he declined her offer. I could not possibly have sat and watched her flirt with him for another minute. Bidding us goodnight, he went to his dinner.

As we walked to our booth, Cookie turned to me with bright eyes. ‘Sorry to barge in on your tender scene.’

‘There was nothing to barge in on,’ I denied.

She gave me a guarded look. ‘That’s all right then. Still, he is rather dishy for an NOCD.’

‘NOCD?’ I asked, puzzled.

She gave me a funny look as if she had just realized that it was going to be a difficult night. ‘Not Our Class, Darling,’ she explained with a patronizing smile.

10

Olivia

I woke up early the next morning and lay on my bed. My mobile phone was blinking. I picked it up—a message from Ivana.

Hello, darling. Should I send Watson to pick you up today?

I put the phone back on the bedside and listened. The flat was very silent and still. And it was warm. It was never warm at Marlborough Hall. I stretched luxuriously. It was nice to be back at my own flat. Since being discharged from hospital this was the first time I had spent a night here and I realized that it was probably the best sleep I had had since I could remember. No dreams. No nightmares.

I curled up into the warmth of my sheets and thought about the night before. It was the first time I had gone out on my own. No Daddy, no Ivana, and not even the driver to babysit me. I just called a taxi and went out on my own. It had felt good. And while out I had bumped into Dr. Kane. I hugged the pillow tightly thinking about that look Cookie had interrupted.

Of course, the rest of the night had disintegrated into intolerable boredom, but still nothing could take the glow away from my unexpected brush with Dr. Kane. Cookie spent the whole night talking about people I could not remember and hadn’t the least clue about. Every time I shook my head and confessed that I did not remember someone, which was all night, she would raise her voice significantly, as if I was not suffering from amnesia but was stone deaf. ‘Oh, but you must remember Pip or Bobo or...’

‘I don’t remember any of it. I’m sorry,’ I said when we parted.

Cookie made a moue with her mouth. ‘Think nothing of it. It’ll all come back, I’m sure.’ And then we parted without agreeing to ever see each other again.

I rolled out of bed and went into the bathroom. I stood in front of the looking glass. My hair was disheveled. I ran my fingers through it and replayed a very special secret: Dr. Kane telling me I have beautiful hair. I never considered my hair beautiful. It was so flyaway that if I did not use half a can of hairspray or tie it back in a ponytail it was always in my face. But he thought it looked like spun gold.

And later he had stared at my mouth. I looked at my mouth, still swollen from sleep, and suddenly I was no longer standing in my bathroom, but somewhere else. Somewhere I did not recognize. It was not like an old photograph, flat, leached of color and fading, but crystal clear, vibrant and real.

I was back in the past—I was remembering!

I saw myself sitting in a plush, red velvet and gilt Louis the XIV armchair, naked but for a pair of shiny black stiletto boots. My hair was long and worn differently and I was wearing false eyelashes. The vision hung in front of me shimmering like a lost city, but so real I could almost reach out and touch it. My heart was racing in my chest. I had remembered a little piece from the past, but it was another piece of the jigsaw.

And then the thought: How could it happen that I was sitting on a red velvet chair naked but for a pair of boots? I ran from the bathroom to my wardrobe to where all my shoes were kept. Some were still in boxes and I opened them all in a rush. But they were just normal shoes, the kind I usually wore. There were no shiny black stiletto boots. I sat back on my heels, confused. Was it really a memory or a figment of my imagination? But it was so real. Had I become confused with the hypnosis? I knelt in front of the open wardrobe. I felt numb and empty. The image of me naked on the red and gilt chair floated into my mind. It was a different me. In a different room. But it was me.

I didn’t want to give it up. It was mine. I was ready for my past to return.

I wanted to call Dr. Kane and tell him about the vision, but it was a Saturday and his offices would be closed. Perhaps it was a good thing. I remembered Ivana warning me to be on guard for false memories.

Was it a false memory? False.

I stood up and ran to my make-up drawer. I rifled feverishly through the neatly ordered cosmetics in there. I knew it was there. It had to be. And I froze. I found it: a shiver looking for a spine to run up.

A pair of 100% mink false eyelashes.

I opened the purple velour box, ran my thumb along the feathery edge, and I knew. The name of this version was Girl You Crazy and I had worn these before. When I was sitting on the red velvet chair. The memory was not false. It was real. What happened to the shiny boots?

I closed my eyes and tried to force the vision back, but the curtain had tumbled down. All the solidity, sound, taste and smell were gone from the vision. It had become just another memory in my head. I felt strangely bereft and a tear rolled down my face. It burned like acid. Beneath the calm and the resignation I was still vanquished and raw. I swallowed hard. I shouldn’t cry. Ivana would be so disappointed if she knew that I was indulging in self-pity and hysteria on my first day away from my family.

I remembered the neurosurgeon saying, ‘It’s all still there. It’s not a question of storage, simply one of access. With time… It could come back. Perhaps not all. Most. At least some.’

I wiped my tears away with my hands. Then I went to use the bathroom. After I was dressed I opened the fridge and smiled. Ivana had had it stocked with everything I could possibly want. Milk, orange juice, eggs, bacon, thick slices of good ham, homemade pancakes, bottles of Oxford marmalade and jams bursting with chunky berries. I sat down to a bowl of cereal. I chewed slowly and…relished my solitary state.