Forgotten: a truly gripping psychological thriller (3 page)

I was more interested in studying the architecture than the people, and trying to keep my bearings. It’s funny, ‘disorientated’ means not being able to locate the east but I’d found it with a vengeance. I couldn’t think of an appropriate word for my feelings of being in someone else’s life. Except it’s now my life. I might be in unfamiliar territory both emotionally and physically but it’s all mine. I’m in control. The buildings around me reinforced this feeling of being on a new planet with their gently sloping roofs, imperial yellow tiles and mythical guardians. It was almost a relief to be accosted by an art student who wanted me to have a look at the work done by her class at college. She led me through the suffocating heat, down a flight of steps into a blissfully fan-cooled room where she made a big show of making sure I was comfortable. Her work was wonderful, all done in traditional styles, and she took the time to explain the classical background to each piece. She had a collection of four coloured paintings, done on silk, which represented the seasons. If I’d had room in my rucksack I’d have bought them like a shot. Then it hit me that I don’t actually have anywhere to hang them at home, I don’t even have a home. That part of my life, the security, is gone. Biting down hard on my self-pity, I moved the student on to the next piece. Instantly I saw the disappointment in her eyes, she had probably read my hesitation as an indication that I was interested. I felt a little guilty but I can’t spend months buying things I don’t need from people I feel sorry for, especially as I only need the slightest opportunity to feel so sorry for myself. I can’t believe it’s only my second day and I’ve been tempted to sink into self-indulgent misery. That’s not what this trip is about. Christ! It’s not what the past few months have been about either. I gave myself a good mental slapping as I stepped back into the sun.

One funny thing happened in the garden in the Forbidden City. It’s one of the most famous tourist destinations in the world and a young woman wanted a photo with me!! She was very polite about it, making a big thing of asking where I was from and how I liked China. She was probably in her early twenties but she was dressed like a child in a pink dress, white socks and clunky black shoes. Her short haircut looked like a mother’s special and her whole manner was one of a shy child showing off to her parents. Her father took the picture and tried to communicate with me. His face looked tired and old but he moved like someone in his thirties – probably all that Tai Chi in the park!

I’d planned to climb up Tiananmen Gate on my way out but, after four hours of exploring I was shattered and I’d seen enough bridges, roofs, doorways, gateways and concubines’ rooms to last a life time. It was interesting to take a roundabout route to the exit which took me down some backstreets. The paint work wasn’t as fresh and the brickwork was crumbling in places. At one point I saw a cleaner’s cart propped against the entrance to one of the buildings. The lopsided cart looked so old and disused that it gave the whole courtyard a sense of being abandoned. Good photo opportunity. Another good picture would have been the view from the exit looking back over Tiananmen Square. Looking through Tiananmen Gate the view is bisected by a flagpole flying the Chinese Flag, this cuts through the ‘Monument to the People’s Heroes’ which, in turn divides Mao’s Mausoleum in two. I’m sure there’s some profound symbolism in this but I was too tired to work it out. Instead I just pointed and snapped knowing the final result wouldn’t really reflect what I could see.

I’m now sitting on my bed after a quick pizza in the Pizza Hut clone across the street. I know what I said about local food but I think I was being hopelessly optimistic. I ordered only pizza and this seemed to cause some amusement among the other diners. I think I must have offended some law of etiquette which states that, in a restaurant, a person has to order more than one type of food per course. I looked around to confirm my suspicions and every table seemed to contain plates of pizza, salads, pasta and ice-cream. It still seems a bit harsh to be smirked at by people who order and eat dessert before the main course and struggle with a knife and fork. Still haven’t aired my skills with chopsticks – that should cause a few real laughs.

I need to stop thinking of my room as some sort of safety net, I can’t measure my days by how far I’ve managed to venture from the hotel. If I carry on thinking like that I might as well never have left the hospital. My room is just somewhere to sleep and there’s a huge country out there waiting to be explored.

I’m going to be really adventurous tomorrow and get some jobs done. It’s important for me to work out for myself how to do things, no more being told how to behave and what to do. I need to find a post office and I must book a train ticket to my next stop. I think I’ll go to Xi’an the
long way, via Datong and the mountains.

III

It made no sense. Why was she writing about the hospital? How could she have known about the hospital before she ended up here? Who the hell was she, some sort of psychic? Kai tried to steady her breathing, taking deep even breaths and sighing ‘shit!’ on every exhalation. What the hell was going on here? She had hoped that the journal would answer some of her questions but it just made things worse, and it was bloody spooky.

Unless.

Unless the hospital she referred to was in the past. This might not be the first time she’d ended up in hospital. It might just be some wild coincidence. That would make sense, in a way, but was such a coincidence likely?

She wanted to read on, to try to solve the mystery not only of her own identity but of the confusion about the hospital. Kai squeezed her eyes shut and massaged her temples. The incipient headache was a welcome excuse to back away from the rising panic she felt from having lost so much of her life and from the bewilderment the journal had sparked. Coincidence was the only plausible explanation. There was nothing supernatural about the diary, but there was so much detail locked inside: places she should know, a friend who she should be able to turn to now, when she really needed help. Instead she had the security of a room in a hospital in a strange country, a concerned doctor and an account of a journey that she could remember nothing about.

And she knew self-pity was pointless. She had to focus on getting well, moving forward and finding herself. If only she had a better idea of who she really was.

Kai. It was a pleasant sounding name. She said it aloud a few times, trying it on for size. It felt okay. It was not her name but it would do for now.

‘Okay, Kai it is,’ she breathed. ‘Just wish I knew who the fuck Kai is.’

She glanced at the clock somebody had placed thoughtfully on her bedside table. It was mid-morning. Another day stretched ahead of her like the blank pages at the back of the journal. She scanned the room looking for something to focus her thoughts, to give her a point of contact with the present but there was nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to cling to. It could have been a room in any hospital in any city in the world. The expanse of grey walls was only broken by the two doors, one to the bathroom and one to the great unknown – the corridor. The single window was partially covered by a plain white roller blind which, she’d discovered two days ago, hid a view of very little. Her chair, she noticed that she thought of everything in the room as
hers
, was green vinyl over foam cushions and pale wood – intended to be more practical than comfortable. How had her world become so small?

Kai glanced down at the open diary. She’d only been reading for half an hour but she felt exhausted by the effort. Tired and struggling with a depression that threatened to shift easily from a vague cloudiness to a black void, she dragged the pillow out from behind her back and pulled it behind her head as she slid down the bed.

Even her sleep was free from memories.

***

She sensed a presence in the room even before she was fully awake. The doctor smiled down at her as he pulled the chair closer to the bed.

‘Sleeping again? We will have to make sure we find you some entertainment.’

‘Just get me out of here, I’ll find my own. I can do without the type of entertainment you left me last time.’

He looked at her, his head cocked on one side, expecting an explanation without having to ask for one.

Kai leaned over to her bedside cabinet, grabbed the book and threw it down on the covers. ‘What the hell was this supposed to do?’ As soon as she spoke she could hear the accusation in her voice. What exactly did she think the doctor had done? It wasn’t his fault, Kai knew that, but she had trouble reining in her anger, wanting it to spill over and swamp the room in fiery, lava-like spite. With a huge effort she managed to calm her erratic thoughts and face Ekachai with some semblance of composure.

She hauled herself up into a sitting position and studied his face. His expression was kind and he didn’t seem overly worried about the state of her physical health; she knew it was her state of mind that bothered him and she’d probably just given him more cause for concern.

‘What is the problem with this diary?’ he asked, his eyes flicking to the book as though it might suddenly rear up and add to Kai’s accusations.

‘It makes no sense. I don’t understand what’s going on here.’ Her voice broke on ‘here’ and she felt traitor tears battering the defences behind her eyes.

Ekachai picked up the diary, allowing it to fall open across one of his palms, scanning the page he’d found. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Read it,’ Kai snapped. ‘Read the first two pages.’

He thumbed quickly to the front of the book and slowly scanned the pages keeping his eyes focussed on the words. Kai watched as his eyes slowly crossed each line then returned to the margin. It took him a few minutes and Kai suspected her close scrutiny made him read more slowly to make sure he missed nothing.

Eventually he raised his eyes to hers and frowned. ‘I have told you that I do not read English well. I am not sure what is worrying you. You have been in hospital before? Is that why you feel confused?’

Kai sighed, ‘I suppose so. I didn’t get it at first. It felt like she– I– was writing about
now
, this hospital– I just–’

‘But that is impossible,’ Ekachai interrupted. ‘You could not have known about this hospital. The book clearly refers to some past incident.’

‘Do you think so?’ Kai asked, examining his face for any signs that he might be lying to her or laughing at her.

‘I think so. I think you just panicked because the situation you are in is so strange.’

It was logical. The diary couldn’t refer to this place. She was just confused by the whole situation. She’d been driving herself crazy thinking about what it all meant and now the meaning was so obvious. She’d been in hospital before. Where and why might be buried in the diary somewhere. It was in the past: it wasn’t now, it wasn’t here.

‘I’m sorry the diary didn’t help,’ Ekachai said, placing the book gently on the bed and stuffing his hands into the pockets of his spotless white coat as he leaned back in the chair.

‘It just confused me. I’ll give it another try later but it gives me a headache if I read for too long. If this
is
mine then I’ve been to China, had a great time in Beijing and it looks like I’m heading for Xi’an. It’s funny, I know what China means, and Beijing seems right as the capital. I’m not sure where Xi’an is though. I suppose I’ll find out if I keep reading.’

‘Now you’re awake and I have spoken to you quite a lot it sounds like you might be from England. Does that seem likely? Your diary starts in London and your accent does not sound like any American or Australian I have spoken to.’

She shrugged. ‘It feels right. England? London? They both sound familiar but I’m not completely sure that they have any connection with my life. At the moment when I try to remember anything I just feel a sense of panic because there’s nothing there, so I rush back to the present. That’s why I was so frightened when I thought that this might really be the past. It’s almost like I want to be here, now, because it’s all that feels real. Does that make any sense? Do other people with amnesia feel like this?’

Ekachai raised his eyebrows in sympathy. ‘Unfortunately I have little experience with this kind of illness. I only know that in most cases it is temporary. I hope, in your case, it will not last too long – I also would like to know who you are.’

He stood up as though he was about to leave but then seemed to change his mind. ‘Perhaps now you are ready to see this,’ he said, reaching into the pocket of the striped shirt that he was wearing under his white coat. ‘Perhaps it will help to convince you that this is very much the present.’

Kai expected some kind of medical apparatus, a thermometer or a watch, so she was surprised when he unfolded a piece of paper and presented it to her. It was a cutting from a newspaper, written in English, from the top of a page so she could see that the date was early December. She’d already ascertained today’s date from one of the nurses so she knew that the paper was only about ten days old. Already its colour was turning creamy and some of the creases were threatening to become tears. She handled it carefully, unwilling to cause any damage.

Woman found in Mysterious Circumstances

Doctors at
San Kamphaeng
Hospital in Chiang Mai
are puzzled by the identity of a woman who was admitted on Wednesday. She was discovered unconscious and suffering from head injuries, cuts and a high fever at the base of a cliff near Mae La-Na by a local villager. Police have been unable to discover the identity of the woman as she had no documentation among her possessions. The mystery woman has been unconscious since she was found despite the best efforts of doctors to revive her. She is described as being of medium height, blonde hair, light brown eyes and possibly European or American. She was wearing light green trousers and a white T-shirt when she was brought to the hospital.

If anyone has any information regarding this woman please contact Chiang Mai police on 774-2257.