‘Thanks, yes, I get the general idea,’ I snapped. ‘It’s the one where you relive the event over and over.’ I flounced back in the seat, not interested in helping him out. Not interested in having this conversation. Why were we talking about this?
Inside me, a reasonable, rational voice was pointing out that we were having this conversation because I have done something bad, not him.
He thinks he is trying to help you, Margot.
I did not want to be helped. I did not want to be helped in the worst way.
‘Well, yes. And no. Most people relive the events. But sometimes, according to our good friend Greta, when someone is in an unbearably traumatic situation, especially a young person, and there is absolutely no escape for them, they stay sane by cutting their ties to what’s happening to them; they cease to engage with reality and devise a new reality of their own. The mind can only stand so much bad news.’
‘So then what happens?’
He thought for a moment. ‘It depends. Sometimes they simply choose to forget who they are and what happened to them. It’s called dissociative amnesia.’
‘You can do that?’
‘Yes, you can do that. But there’s always a price. You’ll always be fractured, a thing in pieces, with no continuum. You’ll never be whole.’
‘Perhaps wholeness is overrated. We are all different people at different times, a variety of competing ego states,’ I replied. ‘The Greek philosophers were right. No one’s ever really themselves – they are a reflection of their Platonic ideal.’
‘I am not interested in discussing Greek philosophers with you, Margot,’ he said sternly. ‘They are beside the point.’
I sighed. ‘So, what else happens apart from amnesia?’
‘Fugues,’ he said. ‘There can be fugue states. When you wake up somewhere and hours, days, weeks have passed and you can’t account for where you’ve been or what you’ve done.’
I did not reply. I was more troubled than I had ever been.
‘They happen, apparently, in response to triggers.’
‘Triggers.’
‘Yes, triggers. Things that make you remember the original trauma. Which, in your case, is very interesting. Because Bethan is writing letters now, which she did not do before, or at least if she has, you have never contacted anyone about it as far as we know. And Bethan appears out of your fugue states. Somehow, something has triggered her. Deep inside you, in the Bethan Avery part, you know much more about what’s happened to Katie Browne than you realize with your conscious mind.’
I still did not reply.
‘And,’ he said, turning to me, now actively trying to catch my gaze, ‘this girl’s life may depend on this knowledge, so I need you to try and work with us on this.’
I let him catch my gaze.
‘What’s this us?’ I said, with conscious cruelty. ‘You want me to work on this because you’ll get a fucking paper out of it and pay the mortgage, Martin. That’s what you want. That’s why you’ve been so much in evidence.’
There was a long second of molten silence between us.
His face was white, set. I had cut him, it seemed.
‘Margot, listen to me. I understand that you do not want to have this conversation. I understand that you’re running, and that you’ve been running all of your adult life, and that you believe, in your heart of hearts, that if you ever stop, you’ll die.’
‘I…’
‘You have made escaping what happened to you, consigning it to oblivion, your life’s great work. You have laboured and slaved to do it. You have made tremendous sacrifices in every aspect of your relationships so that you never have to be Bethan Avery again. And you have so very nearly succeeded.’ His hand nearest me moved, and then stilled, and I realized that he wanted to reach out, to touch me.
I glared at the offending limb.
‘But the goal is impossible, Margot. You can’t escape who you really are…’
Panic engulfed me. He understood nothing.
I had no idea who I really was, if I was not Margot.
Then hard on the heels of panic: fury.
I threw open the Range Rover door, hard enough to feel the joints creak. He was calling after me, ‘Margot, Margot,’ as I stormed towards the door of the cottage.
There was movement through the net curtain, as I banged on the door knocker sharply and stood back.
It did not take nearly so long for her to reach the door this time. Her fearlessness had gone, and her face through the crack was pale, the tiny creases of age in her lips compressed together, rumpling her skin.
‘Do you know me?’ I demanded.
No reply. I realized that she must have heard Martin calling my name, and that that name has unlocked something inside her, something feral and desperate that I would never have anticipated when I first met her.
‘I am asking you if you know me!’ I shouted at her, tears springing up within me. ‘Am I your daughter? Am I? AM I?’
Her eyes widened, her mouth compressed even further, but left a glint of yellow teeth – a snarl of fear, or perhaps agony. She was a perfect picture of pain.
‘How dare you! Get off my property this instant, before I call the police, do you hear me? How dare you!’
Then Martin was there, and he had hold of me, trying to pull me backwards while I fought and shrieked in his arms.
‘Am I your daughter? Am I your daughter?’
‘NO!’ she shouted, as though this single word contained all of her being. The door swung wide and I thought that she was going to launch herself at me in the perfection of her rage. ‘I don’t know who you are! And if I ever see you again, I’ll kill you!’ The white bun had fallen loose, the strands framing her furious face.
It was as if she had struck the blow already. I felt suddenly empty, slack, drained of blood.
‘I am so, so sorry,’ said Martin to her, dragging me back as I became limp in his arms. ‘Terribly sorry.’
I had ceased resisting him, and let him lead me back to the car and strap me in. There was only white noise in my head. Her resounding ‘NO!’ – her rejection – had blown all other sounds away.
She did not leave her door until we pulled away and she finally slammed it shut.
‘We need to get out of here before the police come. It’ll complicate things,’ he said, driving as quickly as he dared out of the drive. In the house opposite the cottage, a younger woman ran out on to her step, no doubt drawn by the shouting. With a slicing hand and a command she ushered back a small cloud of children who wanted to follow her, and in the rear-view mirror she hurried across the road, heading for Flora Bellamy’s house (Flora who is Margot’s mother, but not my mother), her face full of obvious concern. Halfway across she stopped, watching us go for an instant, before carrying on to Flora’s door.
My shame and horror were absolute.
As was my utter bewilderment.
‘This is impossible,’ I said earnestly. ‘Martin, this is a mistake.’
‘Oh, it was that all right,’ he replied. His eyes flicked up to the rear-view mirror and away again.
‘This… this can’t be happening. It can’t be real. Look, I have no memory of that woman. You’ve got the wrong…’
‘The Margot Bellamy that lived there had your National Insurance number, date of birth, your schools…’ He sighed, as though considering, and then seemed to calm down. ‘It’s Margot’s house. But you’re not Margot. That’s why you don’t remember Flora.’
He pulled over, outside the post office, and I was trembling now.
‘Listen-’ he said.
‘No, you listen. Do you seriously believe that for one moment, for one solitary second, that I would keep up some kind of fraud, keep up this pretence, if I thought Katie Browne’s life depended on it?’