Now.
ALICE SAT ON the edge of the bed, the duvet wrapped around her shoulders. She was wearing brushed cotton pyjamas from a bag of clothes that one of Norina’s friends had been going to give to the charity shop but had given to her instead. Not everything had fitted, but there was enough basic clothing – jeans, jumpers, and tops. She’d also discovered a new pack of underwear in the bag, along with some basic toiletries, which she’d suspected Norina had bought from somewhere in town while she and Ben had been at the hospital.
The blind was up, and Alice stared out of the window into the night. She’d tried to sleep but, despite her exhaustion, she’d only managed a few fitful hours before opening her eyes, feeling fully awake again.
A security light illuminated the narrow drive that ran between the row of cottages and the iron railings overlooking the loch, throwing bright rippling reflections onto the water, but beyond that … Nothing. Here, at the beginning of the Highlands, there was little light pollution, so the night was complete. Even the hills on the other side of the water had been swallowed by the darkness. Sometimes she thought she could discern their shapes,but then the blackness shifted, and she wasn’t sure if it was just her mind playing tricks on her.
She glanced across at where her jeans, jumper and underwear sat neatly folded on the chair in the corner. This was what her life was now … a few sparse details, the rest of the picture lost. All she had was a small pile of clothes and a borrowed name.
Alice.She rolled the word around her mind. It was as if it was almost right but not quite, like a pair of shoes, no matter how comfortable, that belonged to someone else.
She turned her attention back to something more concrete, the clothes she’d been wearing that day. She’d examined them carefully when she’d got undressed. They were good quality. She’d recognised the designer brands instantly. How? She shook her head, still wondering why she remembered those names when her own was lost to her.
Who am I?
This was the question that had not only roused her from her sleep but prevented her from sinking back into it. It was as if, now the shock of the day had worn off, she was starting to come to grips with the implication of what was happening to her.
She was so grateful to Ben – her rescuer – and Norina for jumping to the aid of a stranger so quickly, even to little Willow for brightening her evening, but when she thought of them, they seemed so solid, so certain of their identities and their places in the world. Whereas she felt … unconnected. Set adrift. In her more outlandish mental wanderings, she wondered if she might simply evaporate. After all, there was nothing much to anchor her to reality.
Willow’s serious face as she’d talked about the purple bedroom being for girls came into her mind, and at first, her mood lifted, but then there was a sudden drop, like a roller coaster pitching downwards after a slow and suspenseful climb.
Do I have children? Are they missing me, wondering where I was when it was time to tuck them into bed this evening? Is there a husband or a partner frantically searching for me?
When she’d had a shower earlier that evening, she’d checked her abdomen, looking for any tell-tale scars. There hadn’t been any evidence of a C-section, but of course that didn’t rule children out.
She looked down at her finger. It was too dark to see properly, so she reached over and turned on the bedside light. There was a faint silvery mark at the base of her left ring finger, and when she touched the spot, it was smoother than the surrounding skin. The more she examined the mark, the more certain she became it had been left by a wedding band or possibly an engagement ring.
Had it been stolen or lost, as her bag and phone had been? There might have been a deeper dent in her flesh if it had recently been removed, but how long would it take for something like that to fade? Only minutes, she suspected. Hours at the most. Which didn’t help her much. She could have been married five years ago or engaged yesterday, and there was no way to tell which.
The only other piece of jewellery she wore was a silver pendant – a small silver bee on a chain that she’d discovered during the dizzying rounds of hospital tests. She touched it gently. It was pretty but somehow seemed out of step with her other belongings.
However, she was too tired to ponder that, so she turned the light off and went back to staring at the loch. At first, it was utter darkness, but as she sat and patiently waited, the small details she’d noticed earlier came slowly back into focus, shades of grey against the blackness of the night.
Now that the truth of her situation was finally hitting her, she’d expected she’d feel more emotional, but she was oddly calm. How could you grieve for a life you never even remembered you’d had? She just knew it was missing, felt the gaping hole inside of her. But it didn’t ache. It was just … empty. The only thing that niggled was one word the doctor had said at the hospital.
Trauma.
She lay down on the bed, spread the duvet out over herself and stared at the ceiling, making a show of enticing her body into sleep, even though she doubted it would cooperate. If there was anything keeping her awake more than the million and one questions circuiting her head, it was the answers to those questions – answers she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
Chapter Thirteen
Now.
‘AH, THERE YOU are,’ Norina said to Ben as he walked into the kitchen at the B&B for his breakfast. ‘Can you look at the sink in room eight this morning? It’s not draining again.’
He sighed. Having plunged it the previous weekend, he’d hoped it would have been sorted. ‘Will do.’
The guests occupying that room didn’t leave until after eleven. When Ben got around to checking the sink, he found Alice in the room, making swift work of changing the sheets and pillowcases. ‘Hi,’ he said when he saw her. ‘Just here to do a bit of light plumbing. I’m under orders.’
Alice smiled as she plumped a pillow and placed it back on the bed. ‘She’s a force to be reckoned with, your aunt, isn’t she?’
He let out a gruff laugh. ‘She is that.’
He did some preliminary checks on the sink – definitely blocked again – and was just about to get going when Willow burst through the door. ‘There you are!’ she said. ‘Can we go on a fairy walk? Please?’
Alice shot him a quizzical look. ‘A fairy walk?’
‘Why don’t you fill Alice in?’ Ben said to Willow.
