One Small Act of Kindness

  ‘He did seem a bit . . . odd about me not remembering things,’ she said carefully. Would you feel like that, if all you’d chatted about was darts and ducks?

  ‘Well, I owe him a drink, for bringing Jason home from the club.’ Libby groaned and ran her hand through her hair; Alice noted a few silver threads glinting in the blonde. ‘I love Jason, but not when he drinks. I just hope he didn’t leave his card behind the bar again. Urgh!’ She stared around the stripped-back room and her shoulders sagged. ‘So much to do . . .’

  ‘You’ll tell me, won’t you, if there’s anything I can help with?’ Alice said. She realised she’d feel sorry to leave the Swan before Libby’s transformation could take place.

  Libby smiled. ‘All I want you to do is to be by that phone when Gethin calls to come and get you. And maybe help me do a couple more testers?’

  There was a whole box of them. Alice hadn’t even known there were that many shades of grey.

  But Gethin didn’t call on Saturday afternoon. Or Saturday night. Or first thing on Sunday.

  While Alice was sitting in the office on Sunday afternoon, typing up a database of old guest details for Libby, she heard a familiar voice in reception. Two familiar voices.

  ‘Look who’s back!’ Libby ushered Luke into the office. He was holding a flamboyant metallic bottle bag as if it might explode, and Libby widened her eyes meaningfully at his leather jacket. She looked delighted to have an in-joke.

  ‘Hello again,’ said Alice politely, although her stomach fluttered. ‘Did you win a raffle?’

  ‘No. Thank-you present.’ He glanced sideways at Libby. ‘Libby rang me and I was in the area, and she wouldn’t take no for an answer. You shouldn’t have,’ he added. ‘Really not necessary.’

  ‘You deserve a crate for Friday night.’ She squeezed his arm. ‘We’ll have to IOU you the other bottles till we’re up and running.’

  ‘No problem,’ he said gruffly. He seemed awkward, particularly next to Libby’s easy warmth. ‘Tell Jase not to make a habit of it.’

  ‘Believe me, he won’t. He’s only just regaining the power of speech. I’ve left him upstairs with the—’ She put a hand to her mouth, as if she’d just remembered why Jason might need supervision. ‘Oh, nuts. Hang on. I just need to go and . . .’

  Libby dashed back up the stairs and Alice and Luke were left alone. The silence stretched out, tightening the air between them. Alice hurried to fill it.

  ‘And thanks for taking me home.’ Should she have given him a present too? ‘Bit of a wild goose chase in the end.’

  Luke shook his head. ‘Please. Don’t mention it. Gethin rung yet?’

  ‘Nope. But then a watched phone never rings, does it?’ Alice eyed Lord Bob, squashed asleep in a chair too small for him. His back paw was nearly stuffed in his ear, and his rear end was overflowing the edge in a mass of velvety rolls. He’d missed his morning walk, since Margaret was fussing over Jason, and Libby was rushed off her feet, but he didn’t seem unduly concerned.

  ‘Maybe you should take the dog for a walk,’ Luke suggested, reading her mind. ‘Leave the phone.’

  ‘Yes, he needs a walk. It can be my act of kindness for the day.’ Alice hunted for her shoes. Not her shoes, she reminded herself, Libby’s shoes. Her shoes were behind that locked door, in that strange house. What sort of shoes did she have? Heels? Converse? Doc Martens?

  She had a sudden flash of a pair of deep green metallic heels. Green, with gold soles. The feeling of buying them flooded her mind: a bubbling, Friday-night, indulgent excitement. They were glamorous, attention-seeking party shoes. She remembered twirling round in the shop and thinking, Yes. The assistant saying, ‘They’re so you.’

  Luke was looking at her. She blinked. Memories were starting to slip back into place now: bright chunks of experience, slightly over-bright but reassuring.

  ‘Your act of kindness?’ he prompted her.

  ‘Oh. Um, I’ve been trying to do a random act of kindness every day,’ she went on. ‘There was a board in the hospital – little things you can do to make the world better for everyone. Walking Bob’s an easy one to do. Come on, Bob.’

  At the sound of his name and ‘walk’, Bob performed a graceful backwards slide off the chair and ambled over, wafting his tail from side to side. It didn’t wag like a normal dog, Alice thought, stroking his head. It was more like a royal wave.

  Luke looked concerned. ‘Are you sure you’re up to handling him? Your ribs . . .’

  ‘Are on the mend. I’ve got good painkillers. He’s no bother for me. I don’t know why everyone makes such a fuss. Anyway,’ she added, looking up, ‘you can drag him out of bins if need be. You’re coming with me, aren’t you? For a walk?’

  He returned her gaze, not hiding from the question in it.

  That was why he’d come, Alice knew. The present from Libby was a lucky excuse. He’d really come back to find out if Gethin had called. To check if she was all right. Why? What was there to worry about?

  Or did he want to see her? Her skin prickled with something else she couldn’t put her finger on, but it wasn’t a memory. It was fresh. Uncertainty.

  Then Luke gave his quick, slightly unwilling smile. ‘Of course. What else is there to do in Longhampton on a Sunday except go for a walk?’

  They didn’t talk much, as they followed Bob’s swaying rear view down the footpath behind the hotel, avoiding the frothy heads of the cow parsley reaching out of the tall hedge. The morning was soft with May sun, the warmth just beginning to spread through the air, and the gentle roll of the countryside was soothing in its soft greens and golds, dotted with sheep.

  It felt good to be outside. Not listening out for the telephone was a weight off her shoulders too, Alice realised. The rhythm of walking was a good substitute for conversation; although she felt comfortable with Luke, she couldn’t think of a natural way to begin a conversation about such a weird situation, yet it didn’t seem to matter that they weren’t talking.

  Eventually, after he’d heaved Lord Bob over a stile (Bob gazing serenely into space all the while as if it wasn’t happening to him), Luke started, ‘So what does it feel like, to lose your memory?’

  Alice didn’t answer at once. She wanted to give him a proper response. ‘I’m not sure it’s a specific feeling. It’s more . . . an awareness of being in the moment the whole time. You can’t refer back to anything; you can only deal with what’s there. What you actually know. I mean, you know there has to be something behind you, but it’s no help. You have to trust a lot more, because you don’t have any points of reference.’

  She glanced at him shyly. ‘The more I think about it, the scarier it is, really. It could have turned out so differently. Libby and Jason, and your mum – they’re decent people. I’m lucky.’

  Luke didn’t reply. She wondered if she’d put her foot in it.

  ‘It’s not so bad now my memory’s coming back,’ she went on. ‘But the first few days, when I didn’t even know my own name, that was scary. I felt . . . I felt as if everyone I met knew more about me than I did. I couldn’t actually think about it too much because it made me panicky. I’m pretty sure they gave me medication to stop me thinking about it too much.’

  She shivered, remembering. Two weeks ago. It felt like a lot longer. ‘Ha!’ she said aloud.

  Luke turned his head. ‘What?’

  ‘That was a memory.’ Alice grinned. ‘A brand-new one.’

  He smiled too, and Alice could believe they’d had long chats; something clicked with him, letting the words stream out without effort. ‘So . . .’ He pulled a long stem of buttercups out of the hedge. ‘When you say long-term memories . . . ?’

  ‘Well, how much of being seven can you remember? Some things are coming back, but it’s not like I can check with Mum or Dad, is it? I suppose I won’t know until I can’t remember something. But it’s weird – I ke
ep getting random flashbacks. Like my memory’s resending emails by mistake while it reboots itself.’

  ‘Like what? Those ducks at the pub? I can’t believe you can’t remember the ducks. They drove me insane and I was only there for a few weeks.’ He said it artlessly, but Alice wondered if it was loaded in some way, to test whether she could remember their conversations, maybe.

  ‘No, nothing recent.’ Alice probed into her mind, trying to pinpoint a time: the green shoes, say. When had she had money to spend on shoes like that? Five years ago? Later? ‘The consultant thinks that I might never get the accident memories back. That might be a trauma reaction, as much as a physical injury. They can’t always tell the difference, medically.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yep. It’d have been bad enough – the shock, I mean. There were two cars – Libby says everyone was amazed I wasn’t more badly injured.’

  ‘Two cars?’ Luke’s voice was concerned and she realised he’d stopped walking. He touched her arm. ‘Seriously, you could have been killed, Alice.’

  She stopped too. Her arm tingled where his fingertips met her skin. After a second, Luke moved his fingers and she wondered if he’d felt the tingle too. They stared at each other and the silence was so intense Alice could hear sheep in a field beyond the next hedge.

  ‘You look as if you want me to say something,’ she blurted out, and Luke seemed about to speak, but then he stopped and shook his head.

  ‘I just want . . . I just hope your memory comes back.’ He kept his dark brown eyes on hers, reading her face. ‘It must be . . . Well, I can’t imagine what it must be like.’

  ‘It’s like losing yourself,’ said Alice simply, and something answered in Luke’s eyes, though he didn’t speak.

  The moment was broken by Lord Bob tugging on his extendable lead, heading towards a hole in the hedge.

  ‘Poor sod,’ said Luke, as the hound duly wedged himself in the hole, leaving half his solid body sticking out in the path, tail curved over his back in blissful contemplation. ‘He must get pretty bored up there, fussing about the hotel all day. No, let him have a sniff. We’re not in a rush, are we?’

  ‘No,’ said Alice. She felt better for the exercise; the clean air and sunshine made her feel fresher. I should ask about Gethin, she thought, while I’m talking to the one person who knows him.

  She ignored the sense that she was revising her own boyfriend for a test.

  ‘How long did you say I’d been with . . . with Gethin?’

  Luke looked blank. ‘Um, I don’t know exactly. A year? Bit longer?’

  ‘Because I’ve got no memory of him. I must be missing the last eighteen months or so.’

  ‘You hadn’t been at the pub that long. I remember Tony telling me how quickly you’d picked everything up.’

  ‘Not very flattering, is it? That I can’t even remember what he looks like?’

  Luke made a friendly ‘huh’ noise without turning round. He was watching Bob, who was still with concentration, all his focus in his huge basset nose, detecting and processing the complex bouquet of smells in the earth like an expert wine taster.

  ‘You don’t know why I was heading for the hotel, do you?’ It was easier to ask Luke a direct question when he wasn’t looking at her.

  ‘We weren’t planning to meet there, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking that!’ Alice blushed. ‘That hadn’t even . . . crossed my mind.’

  ‘Good.’ The smile again. Quick but guarded. ‘Come on, Bob, that’s enough.’

  Bob backed out without a murmur and set off down the hill again. They were almost at the woods now; Alice had done this walk once before with Libby – down to the woods, which in turn led into the town’s park, where there was a coffee stand that served doughnuts. Nice doughnuts. If you were Bob, free doughnuts.

  ‘And there’s no reason you know of that Gethin hasn’t tried to find me?’ she asked. She hadn’t wanted to ask in front of Libby; something about Libby’s eagerness for a happy ending made her too embarrassed to reveal her murkier, middle-of-the-night worries.

  ‘Not that I’m aware of.’

  ‘It’s just that . . . two weeks?’ It was spilling out now. ‘And it’s not even like I’m that far away. I assumed I’d come from London or something. How many hospitals are there round here?’

  ‘Sorry, Alice. I don’t know why he didn’t find you. Maybe you rowed?’

  ‘Did we row a lot?’

  ‘Don’t all couples row?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  He sighed. ‘We didn’t talk about Gethin in detail. There were always a million and one other things to talk about.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Alice remembered that Libby had mentioned Luke’s wedding. Two years ago. Oh. Maybe he’d opened up to her about his marriage and she’d forgotten. Maybe that was why he was so keen to find out what she remembered. Her heart sank.

  Luke ran a hand through his hair and it flopped back onto his forehead. ‘You and Gethin were . . . You said he was a nice bloke. Sensitive. You had some mates that weren’t so happy with their blokes, asked us our opinions on that, once or twice. One mate whose boyfriend was a bit possessive, like. Not sure we were great agony aunts, to be honest.’

  ‘Oh.’ Alice wasn’t sure how that made her feel. Pleased? Relieved? Guilty? More friends who hadn’t come to find her.

  She glanced over at Luke again; his face wasn’t giving much away, and the atmosphere between them had shifted.

  ‘I’m sorry I have to ask,’ she said, ‘but you’re the only person so far who can tell me who I really am. Until I remember.’

  Luke let out a long breath that turned into a groan. ‘It’s not healthy for other people to tell you what you’re like. I should know. I guess my reputation’s gone before me at home?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘I think you do. As Libby’ll find out when she tries to launch her boutique bolthole, Longhampton’s a place where things aren’t allowed to change much.’ Alice had the sense that Luke’s observant eyes were seeing more of her mind than he was letting on. It was unsettling. ‘But anyway – coffee? I can see a stand down there.’

  ‘Coffee would be great,’ said Alice.

  They walked down towards the park and took one of the paths round the flower beds to the mobile coffee stand, where Luke ordered two lattes, and Bob helped himself to the water. They were chatting about the park, Luke giving her a surprisingly detailed potted history of the town, when she saw him casually add a sachet of sugar to one cup, and two more to the other. He stirred them, replaced the lids and handed her the two-sugar latte. Something about the gesture felt startlingly intimate.

  ‘That’s how I have my coffee?’ she asked, staring at the cup.

  Luke nodded. ‘Yes. Isn’t it?’

  ‘It is.’ But she’d had to have a couple of coffees at the hotel to remember. How many coffees have we had together? she wanted to ask. Why did you remember?

  ‘Alice, I work in security,’ he said, seeing her expression. ‘I notice things. Tell me a phone number and I can’t forget it. My brain hangs on to stuff. We were the last ones in the bar every night; we often had a coffee while you were cashing up.’

  ‘Fine,’ she said, and waited for the image: over-bright, end-of-the-evening bar, the smell of a coffee machine, cashing up . . . Nothing came.

  Then Bob let out a full-throated bellow and she jumped, spilling froth onto her hand.

  A volley of smaller, yappier barks issued from across a couple of flower beds. Right on the other side of the park were a pair of dog walkers, each wrestling four dogs, two in each hand. Alice couldn’t see the smaller dogs giving out the loudest yaps, as they were hidden behind the splashy bedding, but the two golden retrievers and the collie were making their feelings known to Bob.

  ‘Poor Bob,
he always gets blamed for this,’ she said, as Luke put himself between Bob and the dog walkers. ‘Just because he’s got the loudest voice.’

  ‘Bark,’ said Luke. ‘The loudest bark. Treat him like a dog and he’ll behave like a dog. He’s never going to cut it as a small human being. It’s not fair on anyone, that.’

  ‘Is that profound?’ Alice raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Nope,’ said Luke. ‘I just say what I see. People are what they are, and so are dogs. When you work with security dogs, you don’t treat them like they’re Sherlock Holmes. Come on, let’s head back. Give me Bob’s lead – my act of kindness,’ he added, ‘so you can drink your coffee.’

  Alice managed a smile. He listens, she thought, logging it in her private mental notebook. Luke listens, and notices. He knew more than he was letting on.

  He juggled his own coffee, Bob’s lead and his change with impressive control. ‘I bet there’ll be a message waiting for you.’

  ‘Fingers crossed.’ She raised a hand to the dog-walking couple, as did Luke, and followed him back up the path. An hour ago, she wanted a message more than anything. Now, she wasn’t quite so sure.

  Chapter Fifteen

  By the start of the builders’ second week in residence at the Swan Hotel, the change was so drastic that when Margaret had gone up to give her opinion on Libby’s paint testers, she’d only been able to stand it for two minutes before bursting into tears.

  Admittedly, it was a bombsite: Marek’s builders had ripped out eight en suites, steamed off more than thirty years’ worth of wallpaper, removed the chipped skirting boards and generally stripped the rooms right back. Libby thought it actually had rather a chic deconstructed style now – you could see the honest thick floorboards and solid walls.

  Margaret saw it rather differently. As her brave face crumpled, Libby realised, too late, that her mother-in-law was seeing over thirty years’ work down the drain. She could have kicked herself. Margaret’s improved mood, when she’d had Alice to look after, had fooled Libby into thinking she was more recovered than she really was.