The woman who ran from her memory.

Jenny

17/07/88

Very close to the house where I live there is a long, winding road. I could not tell you what it is called, although my bike and I use it most days to reach the countryside. It seems to be a road to nothingness, a beautiful nothingness, since its only destination is a wild and hilly landscape which no one else ever seems to visit. There are no shops or cars. The road peters out and becomes more of a path, so I suppose people went there once, a long time ago perhaps, or at least before my memory disappeared.

This must be why I do not know the name of the road. It is possible, of course, that the road is nameless. That is not unheard of. Not everything has a name. I myself am not in possession of a name, and I do not even think that this is anything to do with the loss of my memory. I had always assumed I had a name until the day it was unexpectedly requested of me. It then dawned on me that I was in fact nameless. For a few moments I floundered, confused and thoroughly put out by such a sudden realisation. My name, it seemed, had literally escaped me. Plunging around in the dark for some clue as to my own identity, I reached out for half-formed words, finding to my horror that all rang false and uneasy in my mind.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m afraid I do not have one.” (For some reason I felt the need to apologise to this man for whom surely my lack of title would be of no loss at all.)

On hearing this, my companion looked equally confused, but seemed to come round to the idea after some persuasion on my part. You see, I have arrived at the conclusion that being without a name is not necessarily a disadvantage. Legally, I do not exist, and I have come to see this as an infinitely useful quality, although it certainly takes some getting used to. I confess that at first I did believe I had stumbled upon yet another of the unfortunate consequences of having lost my memory, and it was only after some time that the epiphany occurred. Nothing had ever suggested that I had, or had had, a name, and so naturally it would be ridiculous to assume its existence simply because the naming of human beings is common practice. These days I am well accustomed to the idea, although I have found it to be less of a rarity than expected. On several occasions I have met people who, like me, live their lives namelessly, so I think it must have been a trend when I was born, to let the child go unnamed, since we are all of a similar age. I have not, however, investigated the matter any further than this, for that would perhaps defeat the point of that kind of minimalism which my mother (whoever she may be) sought as the essence of my being.

But I shall return to the road in question (whose intrigue, you may reckon, is barely significant if it is merely that she and I may possibly share a single characteristic). There is only one house and only one inhabitant, who I met this afternoon in the most distressing of circumstances. My poor bike had suffered a malfunction of some sort and the gears were refusing to work properly, clacking and whirring with alarming enthusiasm, but only a good few minutes after any command from me. Apollo (the name is inscribed on her side in a bold font, and so it seems respectful that I should refer to her in the manner called for by her creator, to whom I am immensely grateful) had never failed to perform perfectly. Before coming to my senses I felt very annoyed. I was stranded, without any means of transportation and completely at a loss as to what to do next. I am sure Apollo sensed my irritation, and I regret this now, as I soon realised how utterly irrational it was. True, my progress along the road had slowed considerably following my dismount, but what did slowness matter when I had nowhere to be? I was without task, destination or appointment, and was unfairly channelling negative energies towards the same companion who had always served me so loyally and acquiescently. We continued, I on foot and she at walking pace, until we reached this grand old house. I decided to ring the bell and inquire as to whether the owner had much knowledge of bikes and might be willing to help us in our plight. You may be wondering why I was so poorly educated in the maintenance of bikes, and I would reply that I suspect I was not in the time before I lost my memory. I do intend to re-learn such things, but it is something I have not yet got around to, although I admit I ought to, as I now realise my bike is as deserving of it as I am in need of it.

Sam

17/07/88

Jenny came to the door today. She wanted help with her bike. She didn't recognise me, of course. She never does these days. I don't know what happened to her, and she doesn't either, so I didn't ask. She was a bit of an eccentric when I knew her before, and now she comes off even stranger with her memory loss. It sort of suits her. She was so removed from the real world even back then that her bumbling around in her own little world makes little difference to her daily life, except for us. She doesn't know me any more and that makes me act strange, because I know her and all she wants from me is a stranger's aid in some normal thing, as though we didn't have a past or any of the wonderful memories. I invited her in. I couldn't help but stare at her, watching for any sign of realisation as to the house she'd stepped in to, the house where she'd stay for days at a time before cycling off again on her old bike. The house full of all the odd trinkets she'd given me as presents. The kitchen where I gave her a cup of tea was full of them for Gods sake. The weird figurines she'd made out of wires. The little postcards she'd designed and painted with rizlas from photographs of us together. They're on the fridge, loads of them, and she didn't even glance at them. She was animated, talking very fast and full of concern for her bike. She asked again after my knowledge of bikes.

“Oh yes, the bike. I'll take a look for you. No problem. I'll just go and get my tools.”

“Thank you, sir, I'm ever so grateful. If we see to her quickly the resentment might be, you know, subdued. I think she's angry. All that clacking. It hurts my ears and she doesn't want to punish me, not really, she just feels neglected with the lack of care recently... I can't do it myself, you see, I don't know how. She needs some love that's focused and skilled and I just can't do it. It's a horrible predicament.”

She grinned enthusiastically, her eyes flicking up towards the door, waiting for me to get on with it, get the tools and go see to that bloody bike. I left her sipping tea in the kitchen and went down to the garage. That's where I took a few moments to breathe in that dusty silence, taking it all in. That she'd come here and was asking for things and didn't have a clue whose house she was in. So her memory had taken everything away but ardent love for a creaky old bike. She was behaving warmly towards me, but it struck me as cold because it was only out of politeness, which is impersonal. I went back into the kitchen still on that lonely cloud of apprehension, having forgotten about the tools, and pointed at the painting behind her to the left. She was the artist.

“What do you think of that painting over there?”

I watched her stand up and take a good viewing spot in the middle of the room, and I was staring at her profile, her unblinking eyes and full, slightly parted lips as she stared thoughtfully at it.

“I think I dreamed of this place,” she murmured. “The colours are my old friends.”

She couldn't look away. Her whole body had frozen and she looked so beautiful and tragic standing like that, searching the depths of this misty shard of memory. I wondered if she felt herself 'swimming' into it, as she once told me was her path to engagement with paintings. Maybe there were other old pairs of life-spectacles waiting somewhere inside her to be needed again, preserved and floating, rootless. I hoped that she would find them glinting out of the big black hole which had sucked up her past, that she might haul them out, curiously, and find surprising length and detail. As I willed in strength for her search from my far off vantage point, I knew she was doing it herself, regardless of me, and that was as much an indicator of non-blankness as I could have wished for right then. It was a scene so still and silent and yet entirely vigorous, fused with energy and claws. I went to stand behind her and I listened to her breathing. Deep, measured breaths they were, concentrated on their task. When I took hold of her wrists she didn't pull away.

“Can we go in?” she asked me.

The painting was of a woman looking out from her window over a village. It was a village we'd stayed in in the south of France, and it was all distorted, Picasso-esque, the woman's face a marvellous shape of edges and vibrant colours. The fresh, subtle greens of the landscape she'd turned to harsh madness. The woman's face was calm. The woman was her, and she stared now at the self she'd painted and planted back in time. Then she climbed in and I was left there all alone in my kitchen with her half-drunk cup of tea.

Soon she reappeared in the undergrowth around the church. She bobbed up smiling, looking for me. She caught my eye and laughed. She was loving this. Exploring herself. Anyone would, I suppose. A window to the past, she was looking back at me from a window she'd created and we'd both remembered.

A few days after Jenny came to the house my curiosity became overwhelming and I looked through her box of things. It had been in the attic for all those months, untouched. The night it happened I shut it away in the dark, like she'd done to herself, and decided never to look at it again. Delving into her private space once she could no longer share any part of herself with me would have been too close to a glimpse of heaven from the ugly pits of hell.

I'd seen her cycling past plenty of times since then, but she hardly ever saw me following with my gaze from the garden or the kitchen window, and if she did I only got a smile or a wave at best. Her coming to the door and giving me words like that, so oblivious and essential before me... it was surreal. I'd wondered how it would be to talk to her again in her new state, and I'd never imagined it would be so normal, nor that sudden closeness would send us a million miles apart.

I already knew what was in the box, of course, since it was me who packed it. That's why it became important to look through it again, because I knew it contained pieces of writing she'd done. The rest of her things were fairly inconsequential, though still heart-breaking to re-discover. There was her silk scarf, which still smelt vaguely of her underneath the dust and damp. Then there were pens and paper and paints and a couple of volumes of poetry by some Russian woman whose name I don't remember.

Jenny

17/07/87

The weather was so wonderful today! I woke up full of that summer glow, ready to breathe in the scent of grass and fresh bread from the bakery downstairs. Sam is still asleep, even now, and I have been painting. I have never painted in this style before. I don't really have my own style so I go along with whichever inspiration seems appropriate at the time. When I am alone the style is harder on the eye, I think. It is not a relaxed painting. I have filled it with anxiety and solitude, and yet it is the contemplation of summertime peace, before anyone is up, and all is right with the world. Each time I paused it was to swim through what I was painting, making my way slowly from the window, where I am stranding now, down to the street, past the stalls of fruit and veg until I reach the church. In the graveyard I see myself. I am laughing. I am looking at the observer. I have not painted myself there but I am there nevertheless, weaving in and out of the gravestones like a tiny child. As a child I take in the sight of Sam asleep between our musky sheets and I know I am making my escape, because otherwise he'll make one, and it'll be too soon. I'll wake up in my bed and I won't have a painting to jump into so I've got to be prepared. Sweet-smelling, timeless looks of love are so short they cannot keep on coming. They're bound to run out soon.