I try to deconstruct the passage of time over the past couple of weeks, but each day has stretched inexorably before me, one hour bleeding into the next, time warping until I have lost any sense of where one day ends and another begins.
Stephen pulls me back into his arms, rests his head on top of mine. ‘I can only imagine how difficult this must be for you, my love. But we’ll get there. Your memory will come back eventually.’
He kisses my head, and I try to take solace in his encouragement, while somewhere inside me, a little girl stands lost in a forest, no clue how to find her way out.
LIVVY
BRISTOL
Livvy stood on the doorstep of the Georgian townhouse where her sister owned the first-floor flat and wrapped a hand around the back of her bare neck. She felt exposed, shorn, as though she had stepped into the hairdresser’s one version of herself and stepped out someone different, someone she didn’t quite recognise.
For the duration of the haircut, Livvy had stared at her own reflection, observing the transformation taking place. She had watched as the hairdresser pivoted around her, scissor blades moving quickly, snipping at the line of her jaw. When, finally, the cutting and blow-drying had ended, Livvy had looked at herself in the mirror, the effect disorienting, as though she were staring at a portrait of herself in which the painter had taken liberties with her appearance.
There was no denying that the hairdresser had performed a meticulous facsimile. Apart from the difference in colour, her hair looked exactly like the woman’s in the photograph. And yet, even as she gazed at herself, Livvy could not assess whether it was a style that actually suited her.
Livvy pressed a finger to the brass doorbell of her sister’s flat. The intercom crackled and then there was Bea’s voice, checking it was Livvy, buzzing her in.
Climbing the stairs, Livvy was aware of a gentle thrumming in her chest.
Bea’s front door was already open when Livvy reached the landing. Bea stood in the doorway with Leo in her arms, and Livvy saw it immediately: shock spreading across her sister’s face like marbling ink in water.
‘What have you done to your hair?’
‘I’ve had it cut.’
‘I can see that. But . . . why?’
Livvy forced a shrug from her shoulders. ‘I just thought it was time for a change.’
Bea stood back from the doorway and ushered Livvy inside. As she passed, Livvy took Leo from her sister’s arms, kissed the top of his head, carried him through to the sitting room where floor-to-ceiling windows flooded the room with afternoon sunshine. Sitting down on the pale blue sofa with Leo on her lap, Livvy felt Bea’s eyes hot on her face.
‘Why didn’t you tell me that’s where you were going?’
‘I didn’t want you to talk me out of it.’ Leo wriggled out of Livvy’s lap and she put him down on the thick sheepskin rug that Bea rolled out whenever Leo came to visit, placed cushions around him lest he topple to one side.
‘This was Dominic’s idea, wasn’t it?’
‘Of course not. I just wanted to try something different.’
‘So Dominic had nothing to do with it? He didn’t even suggest it?’
Heat seeped into Livvy’s cheeks. ‘For goodness’ sake, I’ve had the same hairstyle for thirty years. I just thought it was time for a change.’ She could feel Bea’s eyes on her, felt naked beneath her sister’s scrutiny.
‘There seems to be a lot of change going on in your life at the moment.’
Livvy held out a plastic figurine to Leo, watched him drop it into his yellow toy truck. ‘That’s a good thing, isn’t it? I don’t want to be someone who gets stuck in a rut.’
‘Sure. But it seems that you’re taking on quite a lot at the moment: the move, giving up your job, your appearance—’
‘It’s only a haircut.’
Bea paused. ‘It’s not just the haircut though, is it? You hardly spend time with anyone except Dominic and Leo these days.’
‘What’s wrong with that? They’re my family.’
‘But that doesn’t mean you have to stop seeing everyone else in your life.’
‘I’m not. Stop exaggerating.’
‘I’m not criticising you. I’m worried about you.’ Bea took in a deep breath. ‘I wasn’t sure when to tell you this, but I’ve been doing a bit of digging.’ She hesitated. ‘I spoke to one of Dominic’s ex-girlfriends.’
Livvy felt blindsided. ‘What?’
Bea sat down on the edge of the armchair, leant forward, fingers interlaced, like a teacher in a classroom about to tell a carpet-time story. ‘I googled some of the places he’s worked before. And then I emailed some of the people he used to work with.’
The explanation floundered in Livvy’s head. ‘Please tell me you’re joking.’
‘I just felt . . . Everything between you and Dominic happened so quickly, and we barely know anything about him—’
‘What are you talking about? I know everything about him.’
‘Do you?’ Bea looked at her, and it was as if the two of them were teetering on a tightrope, arms outstretched, waiting to see if one of them might fall. ‘What do you know about an ex-girlfriend of his called Daisy?’
‘He doesn’t have an ex-girlfriend called Daisy.’
Bea raised her eyebrows, the air charged with friction. ‘He does. They broke up six weeks before you met him at that conference.’
A cold trickle of air tiptoed along Livvy’s spine. ‘That’s rubbish. Dominic had been single for over a year when we met.’
On the rug beside them, Leo bashed a wooden stick against a toy xylophone.
‘Not according to Daisy. She worked with him on a house extension, in Bishopston. Did you know about that project?’
Livvy nodded. ‘It was the job he’d just finished when we met. But that doesn’t mean—’
‘Just hear me out.’ Bea held up her palms, face out, and it reminded Livvy of Imogen performing the same gesture the first time she’d turned up on Livvy’s doorstep eight weeks ago. ‘Daisy was one of the architects on the project. They started dating, and she really liked him. She thought he was charming, sophisticated, different from other men she’d met. Attentive was the word she used. “He always made me feel like the most important person in the room.” Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?’
Livvy was aware of her heart beginning to drum. ‘So? Are you criticising Dominic for being attentive? For god’s sake, Bea, I know you’ve never liked him, but this is extreme—’
‘I haven’t finished.’ Bea’s voice – usually so calm and diplomatic – was dogged, determined. ‘Daisy said that a few weeks after they started dating, things got a bit weird.’
‘In what way?’ The question sprang from Livvy’s lips in spite of herself.
‘She said it got very intense, very quickly.’ Bea trained her eyes on Livvy’s face, and Livvy looked away, handed Leo a plastic horse he couldn’t reach. ‘Within a fortnight Dominic had told her he loved her, and Daisy felt it was all moving too fast, that she couldn’t keep pace with the strength of his feelings. She said that for a while she just got swept up in it all. A part of her felt guilty that she didn’t feel as strongly as Dominic did, when on paper he seemed to be perfect. So she just went along with it, and assumed her feelings would eventually catch up with his. But she said she just couldn’t silence a niggle in the back of her head.’