well have been kissing a distant aunt.
‘Wait,’ she said. He paused in the doorway. She cleared her throat. ‘My mother. What’s her name?’
‘Angela. Angela Wright.’
‘And my father?’
‘Your father’s name is Tony.’
And with that he was gone, shutting the door and taking Molokai with him. Claire barely had the energy to change into her nightdress, but despite her exhaustion, sleep wouldn’t come. She closed her eyes under her beige covers and concentrated on the sound of rain hitting the windowsill, repeating her parents’ names quietly to herself and hoping to remember something, anything, about them. The events of the day played over and over in her mind until she heard the phone ring, and then Paul’s voice. A minute later there was a knock on her bedroom door.
‘Someone just called from the hospital,’ Paul said. ‘Your father is awake.’
The human mind … what a fragile thing it was. One minute your life had meaning. You had a past, a present and a future that was anticipated and planned for. You went to work, saved money, paid into your pension. You got married, travelled the world, fell in love, had babies, pizza every Saturday and takeaway Chinese every Friday night. And then, just like that, without any warning or indication, your mind could turn its back on you, leaving you in a void. Knowing who you are, where you are in life, all gone like an early morning fog. Without that knowledge, what was left?
One day at the hospital, Claire had overheard the nurses chatting over their cups of coffee. If you could be anyone else for one day, who would you be, they mused as they took careful sips of their flat whites. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, to live someone else’s life for a day, to be them, to feel like them? A movie star, perhaps, or a famous singer. A cattle drover in Australia. To live a life as far removed from yours as possible, wouldn’t that be something? That was how Claire felt – like she was living someone else’s life. But it wasn’t wonderful. She felt like she was drowning and no one was there to save her.
With a start she woke up and for a moment didn’t know where or who she was. The strange room, the luxurious bed, the expensive furniture – none of it looked familiar. And then she remembered – she was home.
Sitting up, she rubbed her eyes. Spotting a silk robe draped casually over an armchair, she threw it on and stepped out of bed. She crossed the room in small, tentative steps and pulled the curtains open. The rain of the night before was gone. All she could see was the blue of the skies and the green of the trees. She wished she was outside, walking in the park, window shopping or having a coffee in one of the many cafés lining the nearby streets. She didn’t want to be in the alien house that was supposed to feel like home but didn’t.
Glancing at the clock, she noticed it was only nine in the morning. Another three hours until Paul drove her to the hospital to meet her father. How was she going to fill the time? A part of her wanted to fast-forward these three hours, while another part of her, a shy and retreating part, wanted to hide. It’ll be okay, she told herself. I might not remember him but he is my father. He loves me. We love each other. Last night when the hospital had called, she’d wanted to rush to her father’s side right away. But she had to wait. There were no visiting hours in the middle of the night.
She could hear a soft whimpering outside. Molokai, she thought. And she was correct – the dog leapt into her arms, whining happily, as soon as she opened the bedroom door. She ran her hand through his fur and was rewarded by a thousand kisses. ‘Look at you, you’re all muddy. Have you been out for a walk? No, not on the bed.’
Miraculously, the dog obeyed. Accompanied by Molokai, she set out to explore. There was an en-suite bathroom in her bedroom. She marvelled at the size of it – it was twice as big as her hospital room. All marble and granite, it was decorated in the same colour scheme as the bedroom. Absentmindedly stroking a cotton towel, she wondered whether she had picked out this colour.
There were two bathroom sinks next to each other. Did she once share this room with her husband? For a few seconds, as she peered at her reflection in a hexagonal mirror above the sinks, she thought about her marriage. There was so much she didn’t know.
The freestanding bathtub in the middle of the room – for it was a room in its own right – looked so tempting, she wanted to climb straight in and feel the water on her body. But for now, the shower would do. She undressed behind a waterfall of crystal-like beads and eagerly turned the shower taps. For ten minutes she stood under cascades of warm water, while Molokai patiently waited outside the glass door.
Afterwards, while the dog bounced around like an overexcited toddler, she sat in front of a tall mirror in her bedroom. One after another she opened five bottles of perfume, spraying a little bit of each on her wrists and neck and regretting it instantly. The smell was overwhelming and made her gag.
The house was quiet. No cars driving past, no voices from the park. She didn’t know where Paul was. His car wasn’t in the driveway. Tying the cord of her robe together, she left the room. There were three other doors on this floor and, holding her breath, she opened each one. Two of the rooms contained no personal touches and seemed unoccupied. The last of the three clearly belonged to Paul. It was untidy, with clothes all over the floor. The room looked like Paul – masculine brown wood and dark furniture. She stood in the doorway, feeling like a child locked in an unfamiliar house with no way out. It was unsettling and more than a little scary.
She didn’t want to snoop on Paul. It felt too much like encroaching on the private life of a stranger. She shut the door to his bedroom and walked down the marble staircase. Although she remembered the majestic living room from the night before, it still took her breath away. Suddenly she felt confused, like she was lost in the woods and didn’t know what direction to take. Everything in this house seemed alien and she couldn’t believe this was where she lived. Shivering, she walked into the kitchen. Just like she expected, it was spacious, with what she assumed must be all the latest appliances. In the fridge, she found a dozen sandwiches similar to the ones she’d had the night before. Reaching for a ham sandwich, she ate it as quickly as she could and then looked through cupboards. In amazement she stared at fruit she didn’t recognise, delicate crystal glasses, porcelain plates and every flavour of tea imaginable. She found some cat food and refilled the cat’s bowl, wondering whether it was hiding somewhere, too nervous to come out.
Her strength restored, she explored further, walking from the kitchen to the dining room to another guest room. They had a sauna, a swimming pool and an air hockey table in the basement. Finally, she spotted an old-fashioned piano in the drawing room. Tired now, she slid into a chair in front of it and ran her fingers over the keys. The most beautiful sounds escaped from under her fingertips and she paused for a moment, lifting her hands and staring at them as if she had never seen them before. Then she resumed playing. It wasn’t Swan Lake or any of the music she’d heard in the hospital but a melody she didn’t recognise.
‘What do you think, Molokai? Did you know I could play the piano?’ she asked the dog, who wagged his long tail in response.
As Claire contemplated this newly discovered ability, somewhere inside the house a phone rang. She stopped playing and stood up, nervously clutching her hands to her chest. What was she to do? Did she answer the phone? Or let it go to voicemail? Slightly unsteady on her feet, she walked towards the sound and watched the phone like it was an explosive device about to go off. Eventually it stopped ringing and Paul’s voice could be heard asking to leave a message. ‘Claire, it’s me, Gaby. Call
