Never forget you, p.11
Never Forget You, page 11
The only things left in the bag were a small packet of tissues, a lip balm, a silver keyring with three keys on it and a tube of hand cream. They could have belonged to anybody. ‘Thank you,’ Alice said quietly as she handed the bag back to the police officer.
‘We’ve finished with this now,’ PC Wilson said, smiling. ‘You can hang on to it.’ She then reached into her pocket and produced a small clear plastic bag with blue stripes and writing on it. Inside lay a birthday card or something similar. ‘This was also inside. I wanted to see your reaction to the other contents before I showed you.’ She handed over what Alice realised was an evidence bag.
‘It’s … It’s an invitation – for a wedding this Saturday. In Kent.’ Simple and classy, snowy white card with gold foil lettering. Alice read the front three times, but the names inscribed there meant nothing to her. She then turned it over to see what was on the back. ‘There’s no RSVP, no contact information …’
‘There might have been a separate card and envelope for that,’ PC Wilson said.
Alice nodded dumbly, warring against the disappointment threatening to lay on her chest like a lead weight. She reached for the silver bee necklace instinctively. It lay deeper than the neckline of her borrowed blouse, and she wasn’t about to go rummaging, so she made do with feeling for the bump of metal under the fabric. Just that was enough to provide some comfort, a sense of anchoring herself, so she didn’t get swept away on this tide of new information, none of which really told her what she wanted to know, and only added further questions to the queue inside her head.
PC Wilson gestured towards the invitation. ‘There’s some writing on the back. I don’t suppose it means anything to you?’
Through the plastic, Alice managed to read a few scrawled words: Rehearsal – 6.30 p.m. 24th Feb. Going? Was this her handwriting? She had no idea if it was or if it wasn’t.
‘No … it doesn’t mean anything to me,’ she said sadly. It was as if the door to all other memories before this week was bolted shut as tight as a bank safe. ‘Can I keep this?’
PC Wilson nodded and rose from her seat. ‘And, of course, if anything does come back to you, let me know.’
‘Yes, I will,’ Alice replied. ‘Thank you.’
While Ben showed the police officer to the door, Alice stared at the invitation. This was something, she had to remember that. It might not be a name or an address, but if this wedding invitation had been in her bag, it meant some people somewhere wanted her to share a special day in their life with her.
Now all she had to do was find them.
Chapter Twenty-One
Nine months before the wedding.
I DIDN’T KNOW anything about contemporary dance, but I soon learned Justin was a big name in that world. He’d acquired funding a few years earlier to renovate an old fire station near Euston as a home for the company. The building held not only rehearsal studios but a small theatre, and The Fire Station, as it was now known, had become something of a creative hub.
Justin had decided to do an ‘intimate’ preview of the four-dance programme he’d been working on, a chance for both press and fellow artists to get a sneak peek at his new work and create a buzz about it a couple of weeks before a ten-day run at Sadler’s Wells.
The only snag was that the performance was a month away and Haru was rehearsing to a rough piano track that Felix had recorded, which wasn’t ideal, but I wasn’t due to record the violin track for another week or so. However, since I was now living full time at Justin’s flat, he heard me rehearsing the piece frequently, and it had only served to highlight to him the difference between the two versions. The violin had a different emotional tone, he’d explained, something that Haru would need to adjust to when he danced. As a result, he asked me to come and play at a rehearsal one Friday afternoon.
I arrived at The Fire Station clutching Octavia to me. The building had a beautiful red-brick Victorian frontage and had been extended at various times over the decades, resulting in a complicated layout. Justin led me up a flight of stairs and through a dizzying succession of corridors before opening the door to a large and airy rehearsal space. I took my shoes off to protect the sprung beechwood floor and nodded a greeting to Haru, who was warming up on the other side of the room.
‘It’s just the three of us going to be here,’ Justin said, rubbing my back with the flat of his palm. ‘You’ll be fine.’
I nodded, hoping he was right, but my stomach quivered uncontrollably.
I started to play, but while I was hitting all the right notes and keeping tempo, it sounded scratchy and harsh. Justin must have heard the difference, too, because halfway through the second attempt, he held up his hand. Haru had just ended a spectacular turning jump by rolling on the floor, and he hauled himself up, breathing hard. I brought my violin down from my chin.
‘Sorry,’ I said quietly. ‘I’m nervous.’
Justin merely smiled and walked over to me. He led me to the corner of the studio, put his hands on my shoulders and turned me to face the wall. ‘Pretend we’re not here,’ he said, but then, as I began to play, he stayed close to me, keeping his hand on my back as a point of contact.
Standing facing the corner, feeling his warm palm through my blouse, the universe shrank down to just the two of us. I began the piece again, and this time I did it the way it was meant to be played, with soaring highs and lows, the notes woven together with emotion.
When I finished, Justin kissed me on the forehead. ‘There. I told you that you could do it.’
On the final run-through, I managed to turn around and watch Haru. When it ended, Justin walked over and hugged me. ‘That was astounding! The best time yet!’
‘I couldn’t have done it without you, without your encouragement.’
‘That’s because we’re a great team,’ he said, then lowered his voice so only I could hear. ‘You and I were always meant to be.’
Once again, I was tempted to pinch myself. Had I slipped into an alternate reality, one where it was possible for someone like Justin to adore me this way?
‘Now I’ve seen you on stage with Haru,’ Justin said thoughtfully, ‘I wonder … It added so much depth to the piece to have you there too. Do you think …? Would you be able to …?’ He raised his eyebrows, and the quiver in my stomach returned. I had a horrible feeling I knew what he was about to ask. ‘Do you think you’d be able to play it live?’
There it was. Exactly what I’d been dreading.
The worst thing was that I knew he was right. I’d sensed the energy flowing between Haru and me as we performed in unison. It would be better than playing a track.
‘Six months ago, you wouldn’t have believed you could play in front of a huge crowd in Covent Garden,’ he reminded me gently. ‘You’re stronger than you think you are. It might be time to push yourself once again, the way you did that first morning when you headed up to London with your violin.’
‘The day we met,’ I replied quietly, the significance not lost on me.
‘I know you’re scared, but we have another month before the preview. I really think you can do this.’
I wanted to believe him. In fact, I did believe him – or at least, I believed that he had unwavering faith in me. The only problem was that I wasn’t so sure I had it in myself. ‘It took me half an hour before I could play properly in front of you and Haru. How am I going to play in front of a whole audience?’
‘The theatre here only holds three hundred, max.’
Three hundred. A shiver shot through me. Even though that was tiny compared to some performance venues, it was as if I could suddenly sense the audience in the studio with us, row upon row of phantom bodies, all with piercing bright eyes.
‘Justin … You know I would do anything for you, but …’ I swallowed and tried to still my stomach. ‘Are you sure this is a good idea? What if I freeze? What if I vomit right there on stage? I’ll ruin your big moment. I don’t want to do that to you.’
Justin took my violin from me and laid it and the bow reverently on top of the upright piano in the corner of the room, then he returned and held my hands in his, looked deep into my eyes. ‘This isn’t just about me – it’s about you. I think you owe it to yourself to try.’
There was such adoration in his eyes. I felt so loved, so special. My heart cracked a little. I squeezed his hands, hard. ‘I want to. For you.’
Haru walked over to us, throwing a hoodie on over his dance clothes. ‘Why not add in a safety net?’
Justin frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, I’ve performed with live musicians before where there was also a track in the background. You could get Lili to play along with it.’
I saw Justin wince at the use of my nickname. He preferred my full name, said it was much more elegant, and always introduced me that way, but ‘Lili’ was what I’d called myself when I’d first met Haru and Felix, so that’s what they continued to call me.
‘It’s not what I’d envisioned,’ Justin said, rubbing his chin.
‘It would take so much of the pressure off,’ I replied. ‘Can we try it, at least? I’d rather do that than back out and let you down completely.’
Justin thought for a minute or so, and then he said, ‘Of course, my angel. I want to do whatever makes you happy, whatever is best for you.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
Now.
‘IT’S A PITY people don’t do their wedding invitations properly any more,’ Norina grumbled to Alice as Ben showed PC Wilson to the door. ‘In my day, the parents of the bride would have had their names at the top of the invitation. None of this “Together with their families, so-and-so and so-and-so invite you to their wedding”. At least then we’d have surnames to put with the bride and groom’s first names.’
Alice nodded. If there’d been more to the invitation, it had been lost. It would have to be enough. ‘What’s today’s date?’ she asked, her gaze flicking down to the crumpled piece of card in her hands.
‘The twenty-first,’ Norina answered as Ben walked back into the room.
A tiny flicker of hope ignited inside her. ‘This says the wedding is on the twenty-sixth. In five days’ time, people who might know me will be gathered together in a certain place at a certain time. It could be the answer to everything!’
‘What’s the name of the venue again? It was a stately home or something, wasn’t it?’ Ben asked.
Alice read the gold-leafed words out to him, even though she was pretty sure she could have recited the invitation blindfolded at that point. ‘Hadsborough Castle.’
He pulled his phone out of his jeans pocket and typed the name into Google. A couple of seconds later, he was on the website. He held his thumb above the phone number on the contact page. ‘Shall I call them? They might be able to give us more information.’
She nodded, but when she heard the muffled ring tone, and he offered her the phone, she backed away. Her stomach had just rolled violently, and it was taking all her concentration to keep its contents in place. Ben frowned and held the phone up to his ear. Alice hardly heard what he said. She had to sit down in one of the armchairs near the fireplace and put her head close to her knees.
‘Are you okay?’ Norina asked.
Alice tried to nod without moving her head too much. A few deep breaths later, she was able to sit up again. She noticed Ben was off the phone, and her heart sank. A call that short couldn’t be good news.
‘Nothing,’ he said, scowling.
‘The wedding isn’t taking place there?’ Norina asked.
‘No, it is. But they couldn’t – wouldn’t – tell me anything else because of data protection.’
‘I think I need some fresh air,’ Alice whispered, just about finding her voice again, and she rose and headed through the kitchen to the small walled garden that lay to the back of the house, causing the security light over the back door to come on. She stopped at the little pond near the edge of the lawn, its surface covered with swirling patterns of ice, and reached for the tiny charm at the end of her necklace, pulling it free from her blouse. Even though she didn’t remember anything about how she’d come to own this pendant, as her fingers explored the bumps and protrusions of the bee’s body and wings, it felt familiar. Comforting.
Ben came out and stood beside her. ‘Sorry.’
She frowned and hugged one arm around her middle while her other hand closed around the pendant. ‘Don’t be. It’s not your fault there are data protection laws. And thank you – for stepping in and talking to them. I don’t know what came over me.’
Trauma. The word the doctor had said scooted through her head again. She batted it away. She didn’t want to be that person.
She stared at the variations in the ice, white where it was thickest, darkest black where it was paper-thin. This was what trying to reconnect with her life felt like. There was a barrier preventing her from getting back to it. Sometimes it seemed dense and impenetrable, other times so flimsy she was sure she could make a hairline crack and spill herself back into it, but each time she tried, she discovered she was wrong.
She shivered, feeling the cold of the February evening right down to her core, but she didn’t make a move to go back inside. It was cooling and calming her fractured thoughts, giving her a chance to sift through them, to actually turn the different possibilities over and examine them carefully. Finally, one certainty planted itself in the forefront of her consciousness.
‘I have to go,’ she said, looking up at Ben.
‘Norina will understand if you’d rather miss out on a noisy family dinner after all this. We can get you something to take back to the cott—’
‘No, I mean I have to go … to the wedding.’
Ben’s mouth hung open. ‘But that’s … It must be five hundred miles away.’
‘It’s the only way. There’s no data protection law that will stop me turning up in person. Somebody there must recognise me. I wouldn’t have the invite otherwise!’
‘It’s too much of a risk! You could be heading off on a wild goose chase, no closer to home than you are at the moment, and what if you get confused again, lose your way … At least here you’re safe.’
She dipped her head, aware he might be right. But still … She couldn’t let this idea go. ‘PC Wilson said she thought I was from London. The wedding’s in Kent. That’s right next door!’
A strange expression crossed his features, and he looked away. ‘What about the memory clinic in Glasgow … The appointment letter might arrive any day now. Wouldn’t it be better to wait and get an all-clear from the doctor before you go anywhere?’
Why was he arguing with her? Up until now, he’d been nothing but helpful. She didn’t get it. ‘But if I find my family, I can go to a hospital near them. There must be other units like that in the country, other doctors who can help with this. I have to try, Ben. It’s my only hope. I have to find the bus times, see if I can get a train from Glasgow—’
‘No.’
Alice stopped speaking. The word had come out of him hard and fast, a knee-jerk reaction. He seemed surprised at the force of his own conviction. ‘No?’ she echoed.
‘I mean, I don’t think you should. Let’s get a hold of PC Wilson, tell her what we know and let her look into it. The wedding venue will give her information they won’t reveal to us. And the London police might come up with a missing persons report, and then none of this will be necessary.’
‘But what if she can’t find anything in the next few days? What if there is no report? I’ll have lost my chance.’
‘Alice … Don’t be stupid … Don’t—’
She dropped her hands and glared at him. The expression on Ben’s face changed, as if something she’d said or done had completely floored him, but her anger had gained momentum by that point, and not much was going to stop it.
‘Don’t you dare tell me that I’m being stupid! You have no idea what it’s like to be in this situation. None! And don’t you dare tell me what I can or can’t do! It’s none of your business.’ She turned and strode in the direction of the house. ‘And don’t call me “Alice”!’ she yelled over her shoulder. ‘It’s not my name.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
Eight months before the wedding.
WHEN I RECORDED Felix’s sublime modern violin piece, he ushered me into a little booth and went to listen somewhere I couldn’t see him, which helped. There was an engineer behind a big glass screen, but he was much more interested in the knobs and sliders on his sound desk than he was me. It took me a while to warm up and play properly, but we eventually laid the track down, and I was actually very proud of the piece we created together.
The plan for me to stand on stage while the track played remained, and I’d been practising playing along with it. I’d become much more confident performing in front of Haru and even Felix, but I knew it was a big jump to face an audience again. However, maybe Justin was right – I needed to believe him without question, he said, not sabotage myself with my own wayward thoughts.
On the night of the preview, I tucked my nerves aside, knowing that Justin must be feeling a hundred times more anxious than I was. He’d been quiet all day. Reviews of his previous show had been mixed, and I knew he was hoping this performance would silence the naysayers for good.
I emerged from the dressing room adjacent to our bedroom, putting on a pair of earrings whilst searching for my bag. He was standing by the window, hands in his suit pockets, looking blankly out across the road. He turned when he heard me come in. ‘Hmm …’ His brows drew even more tightly together as he looked at my cocktail dress. ‘I’m not sure about that one. How about the long one we got you the other week?’
I paused. ‘Are you sure it won’t be too formal?’
Justin shook his head, so a few minutes later, I emerged from the dressing room again.
‘Much better,’ he said, smiling. ‘Now, what are we going to do about that hair?’
