Lost

He turns around several times trying to decide where to put his briefcase. Then he takes a notepad and pulls up a chair, sitting with his knees touching the bed. Finally settled, he looks at me and says nothing—as though I've asked him to come because there's something on my mind.

This is what I hate about shrinks. The way they create silences and have you questioning your sanity. This wasn't my idea. I can remember my name. I know where I live. I know where I put the car keys and parked the car. I'm tickety-boo.

“How are you feeling?”

“Some bastard shot me.”

Without warning his left arm jerks and trembles. Self-consciously, he holds it down.

“How's the Parkinson's?”

“I've stopped ordering soup at restaurants.”

“Very wise. Julianne?”

“She's great.”

“And the girls?”

“They're growing up.”

Swapping small talk and family stories has never been a feature of our relationship. Usually, I invite myself around to Joe's place for dinner, drink his wine, flirt with his wife and shamelessly milk him for ideas about unsolved cases. Joe knows this, of course—not because he's so bloody clever but because I'm so transparent.

I like him. He's a privately educated, middle-class pseud but that's OK. And I like Julianne, his wife, who for some reason thinks she can marry me off again because my track record shouldn't be held against me.

“I take it you met my boss.”

“The Chief Superintendent.”

“What did you make of him?”

Joe shrugs. “He seems very professional.”

“Come on, Prof, you can do better than that. Tell me what you really think.”

Joe makes a little “Tsh” sound like a cymbal. He knows I'm challenging him.

Clearing his throat, he glances at his hands. “The Chief Superintendent is a well-spoken career police officer, who is self-conscious about his double chins and colors his hair. He is asthmatic. He wears Calvin Klein aftershave. He is married with three daughters, who have him so tightly wrapped around their little fingers he should be dipped in silver and engraved. They are vegetarians and won't let him eat meat at home so he eats meals at the station canteen. He reads P. D. James novels and likes to think of himself as Adam Dalgleish, although he doesn't write poetry and he's not particularly perceptive. And he has a very irritating habit of lecturing rather than listening to people.”

I let out a low, admiring whistle. “Have you been stalking this guy?”

Joe suddenly looks embarrassed. Some people would make it sound like a party trick but he always seems genuinely surprised that he knows even half this stuff. And it's not like he plucks details out of the air. I could ask him to justify every statement and he'd rattle off the answers. He will have seen Campbell's asthma puffer, recognized his aftershave, watched him eat and seen the photographs of his children . . .

This is what frightens me about Joe. It's as if he can crack open someone's head and read the contents like tea leaves. You don't want to get too close to someone like that because one day they might hold up a mirror and let you see what the world sees.

Joe is thumbing through my medical notes, looking at the results of the CT and MRI scans. He closes the folder. “So what happened?”

“A rifle, a bullet, usual story.”

“What's the first thing you do recall?”

“Waking up in here.”

“And the last thing?”

I don't answer him. I've been wracking my brain for two days—ever since I woke up—and all I can come up with is pizza.

“How do you feel now?”

“Frustrated. Angry.”

“Because you can't remember?”

“Nobody knows what I was doing on the river. It wasn't a police operation. I acted alone. I'm not a maverick. I don't go off half-cocked like some punk kid with ‘Born to Lose' tattooed on my chest . . . They're treating me like a criminal.”

“The doctors?”

“The police.”

“You could be reacting to not being able to remember. You feel excluded. You think everyone knows the secret except you.”

“You think I'm paranoid.”

“It's a common symptom of amnesia. You think people are holding out on you.”

Yeah, well that doesn't explain Keebal. He's visited me three times already, making false charges and outrageous claims. The more I refuse to talk, the harder he bullies.

Joe rolls his pen over his knuckles. “I once had a patient, thirty-five years old, with no history of neurological or psychiatric disorders. He slipped on an icy pavement and hit his head. He didn't lose consciousness or anything like that. He bounced straight up onto his feet and kept walking—”

“Is there a point to this story?”

“He didn't remember falling over. And he no longer knew where he was going. He had totally forgotten what happened in the previous twelve hours, yet he knew his name and recognized his wife and kids. It's called transient global amnesia. Minutes, hours or days disappear. Self-identification is still possible and sufferers behave normally otherwise but they can't remember a particular event or a missing period of time.”

“But the memories come back, right?”

“Not always.”

“What happened to your patient?”