PART ONE
Hospital
CHAPTER ONE
My name is Iris and I am thirty-five years old. My husband is called Marcus. I was born in Suffolk, England. I work at the London Research Institute. It is Wednesday, the first of May. This is what I have just been told.
CHAPTER TWO
Waking is like wading through deep water. I am half within my body and half without. I look down at this body I inhabit – it is dressed in a crumpled blue cotton gown. Pain, which starts in my head with a drilling sensation, spreads.
As my eyes adjust to the light, the room before me becomes clear: a single bed, a chair, a closed window. A tube attached to my hand wires me to a machine. The room is still, silent, save the machine’s heartbeat.
I hear a man’s voice as he appears from the hallway:
“Iris?”
His voice sounds as though it comes from a great distance, above the water’s surface as I’m drowning below. In a swift movement, he sweeps a hand across his head.
“Iris?”
I open my mouth to speak, only no sound comes. Then a jumbled mix of consonants and vowels with no recognisable pattern escapes. My mind reels and twists, trying to form the words I want to say.
I try again.
He moves towards me and sits beside the bed. He edges the chair closer. He is tall, with dishevelled hair, sunken cheeks, amber eyes. Tentatively, he reaches his hand to my face, moving hair from my eyes.
I grasp the mattress.
“It’s me,” – a pause of several seconds – “Marcus. Your husband.”
My mind tremors, as though he has flicked a switch in my brain and my vision shifts. I have no recollection of him, or me, or anything that has come before this moment.
I tell myself, Don’t panic, don’t panic.
I manage to gasp out a word on repeat, “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”
I don’t know what it is I am apologising for.
I dig my nails into the palms of my hands forming tiny crescents. I look down at them. They are thin, parched and papery. But sitting there, on my fourth finger, is a band of lighter skin, untouched by the sun.
The man called Marcus, in his dark suit, stands over me now. His shoulders seem cowed beneath a great weight. He leans closer, peering into my face. “How do you feel, Iris?”
The room is hot, oppressively hot, and I want to get up out of this bed and open the window to let in fresh air.
“You’re safe now,” he says. He reaches out and holds my hand. His is cold and clammy. I do not feel safe. I feel a rising nausea at this touch, and I wish I were alone.
I find the words now and the voice to speak them. I tell him my head hurts; I am in pain, tired, confused.
The man called Marcus listens. “Do you remember anything, Iris?” he asks.
“No.” I shake my head and my voice rises. “Nothing. Why don’t I?”
My eyes meet his and he holds my gaze: “Your name is Iris. You are thirty-five years old…”
I look at the needle inserted into the back of my hand. I start to pull the drip from my skin. A second monitor wires me to the machine. Marcus places his hand on my shoulder, gripping too tightly. I try to push him away.
He is standing over me now and I am struggling to get up.
“PLUTO,” the man says, urgently. “We need you now.”
Two doctors appear in white coats. They murmur to each other and scrutinise something on the machine beside the bed.
“I can’t remember anything,” I tell them in the hope that they will have answers. My voice wavers. “Why can’t I remember anything?”
I just catch Marcus’ hissed words to them. “We didn’t expect this.”
I am shaking now, trembling, as I realise fully, for the first time, that I know nothing of who I am. My breathing is heavy and shallow, my chest heaving. I look at the catheter in my hand. I want to tear it out, to be free of this encumbrance. I start to pull at the tape securing it, exposing puckered red skin beneath.
Marcus places his hand on my shoulder again, in an attempt to stop me, but I push back.
The doctors are standing over me now and I notice one of them does not look human. I am filled with a cold dread. “W-what are you?” I stammer. I wish I could remember how I got here, any frame of reference. I start to hyperventilate, tears rising.
“Breathe, Iris. You’ll be fine as long as you don’t panic,” the first doctor tells me. His voice is familiar, but I cannot make out his features, my vision blurring with tears.
I try to get out of the bed, when a voice commands, “Hold her still.”
There is movement across the room. Hands restrain me with an iron grip. Someone reaches for a syringe on the trolley. I am struggling still, despite all strength having drained from my body. Marcus pins my arms to the bed with practised force. His face a grimace, he stands over me. I feel the metallic tip of the syringe as it pierces the exposed flesh of my arm. I hear myself cry out. Then, with a sharp, sudden sting, my body slackens.
CHAPTER THREE
It is Wednesday, the first of May. My life before this date is a blank.
My name is Iris and I am thirty-five years old. I was born in Suffolk, England. I work at the London Research Institute. I know only these facts. Marcus is my husband. Or so I have been told.
CHAPTER FOUR
This is the next time I recall awakening, although in fitful dreams I was only half submerged in sleep. Am I awake now? I do not trust myself to know.
I open my eyes and observe the object seated opposite, upright in the chair. Two eyes, two ears, one nose: a porcelain face. Blue, glass eyes punctured by a black hole: a blank space in the place where life would have been, had it been human.
The mouth gapes, as though frozen mid-conversation. The head, tilted sideways, exposes its mind beneath. Tentacles of plastic synapses snap and wrap themselves around the threads that bind the rubber tissue of the prefrontal lobe.
A rising feeling; something akin to fear.
My eyes trace the smooth silk of skin across its face, which looks almost human, to the metallic hinge of a shoulder and the iron rods of the ribcage, to the place in between, where a beating human heart would be. Friend or foe? A question mark.
It is strangely familiar. And then I start to think: am I like this? Am I looking at my mirror image? I raise my hand to my head to check for a dividing seam, dig my nails into my wrist to look for blood beneath. I press my palm against my chest to feel for a beating heart.
Seated opposite me, it looks watchful, though not yet waking. For now, it remains dormant.
A glass screen runs across the length of the room, separating us. I feel safe for a while. But then I wonder, is it to keep the machine out, or me in?
There is an image illuminated on a glass tablet beside the bed: it reveals a couple. I cannot remember it being there before. The man who calls himself my husband is the man in the photograph. The woman next to him, I assume, is me. She looks young, brunette, tanned skin. She looks happy. I want to cry. The colours – the sea, the white sand – are bright, luminous against the dull, drab room. The image moves: the man turns towards the woman and smiles as he takes her in his arms; she throws her head backwards, laughing; birds scatter in the sky; the sea bristles.
I tear my eyes away.
The metallic clock on the wall ticks, loudly, as it measures out portions of the day. Wind rattles the window. Outside, birds swing mechanically through the infinite sky. I lie in the centre of the room feeling exposed and convinced that someone is watching. Possibly I hear a whispering just outside the door.
A sudden rush of air: the door opens. I am certain I hear a whispering now, but whoever it is remains just out of sight. From here, I have a view of the corridor with more sealed doors, and one – ajar – just within sight – reveals a bed, a chair, a closed window, like mine. Designed for the same purpose, but what purpose is that?
I study the stainless-steel shine of clinical surfaces in my room, chemical-infused spotlessness, wash-off linoleum floor. Is it a hospital, this institution? Or something else?
“So,” the man called Marcus says as he appears in the doorway like a conjuring trick. “How
are you feeling?”
It is two minutes past one. He has arrived carrying coral-coloured flowers. His face smiles, but his eyes do not.
“Iris,” he says my name into the void, as though just the act of saying it means something. His voice reverberates around the concrete walls and glass panels. His eyes shift about the room. He holds out the flowers. “Alchymist roses. Your favourite.”
I search for some recollection of this, but it is as though there is a locked door in my mind.
“Do you remember?” he asks with child-like hope.
I shake my head, my heartbeat quickening as my mind trips up: why can’t I remember? When I speak, my voice is a cracked sound, as though it has been out of use for days. “What happened?” Despite the tepid room, there is a chill in my bones so deep-rooted that I cannot fathom its source. It is as though I have never felt warmth. As though I have just arrived in this moment, this body. My breath catches in my chest. Who am I? Who is he?
He avoids my gaze.
He drags the chrome legs of the chair across the linoleum floor, positioning it at arm’s length from the bed, and sits. Upright in the chair, arms rigidly by his sides, he keeps his distance. “What do roses make you think of?” he asks, gently.
He is holding the flowers out to me still. He waits. Finally, I take them. They are heavy; just budding, their life so newly curtailed.
I lift the petals to my nose and inhale deeply. I am all present moment, grasping to make sense of it – these orange blossom flowers, this man, my husband.
“They don’t make me think of anything.” I say, the fear rising. “Why is that? What’s happened?” I place the roses on the bedside table in front of the photograph. My hands are shaking. There is a locked door to the past and someone has stolen the key. “Why am I here?”
I hear the sharp scrape of his chair. He stands, stretches and turns. A sudden wind clambers at the window. As he turns back towards me, he places the
tips of his thumb and index finger to the bridge of his nose as though to ease a tension that has gathered there. His head is bowed, and he sits back down.
“You had a procedure to help your depression. Look, I think it’s best we wait until the doctor’s here to explain,” he says. He shakes his head. It is an almost imperceptible movement, a nervous tick. He clears his throat, “Do you remember anything?” He looks hopeful, but hopeful of what? It is all haze.
“No,” I say. The hospital gown is too tight around my neck; sweat starts to prickle beneath. “I’ve told you that. Nothing. Is that because of the procedure? What was it?”
He sits in the chair beside me and considers this for a moment. What is he thinking? I envy him. I know who I would rather be out of the wife who remembers nothing and the husband who has to narrate her into being. “I am sorry, Iris. It’s too soon to tell you more.”
His voice is gentle, consoling, but there is guilt written into the lines of his face. What is he hiding? It strikes me that he is unnatural in this role. “Will my memory come back?” I press him. Looking at this man, this stranger, I feel as though one of us has issued from another realm. I wonder if I could ever consider him a husband. I try to envisage going home with him. A gaping door, a house, the two of us. The thought of it is frightening.
“Why was I depressed?”
He glances vaguely out of the window. “There are many factors that can contribute to depression.”
“Yes,” I say. “But what were mine?”
“Iris,” he says sadly, his voice a caress that is an intrusion. “There are some things it’s best not to remember. That are too painful. But other memories will return.” He picks up the photograph beside the bed. “We were so happy here.” He looks wistfully at me. “This was taken when I proposed to you at Lethe Bay.” His face breaks into a smile. “I thought I’d lost the ring – I thought it would be washed out to sea. We went swimming, leaving our clothes on the beach, and the tide came in so fast. It was in my jacket.” He retrieves
a ruby ring from his pocket. “It’s an heirloom.”
It is set against silver and surrounded by small, intricate diamonds. He runs his fingers over its serrated edges and then holds it out to me, this object. He slips it onto my fourth finger. My mouth is dry. His eyes are fixed upon me.
“Here, I’ll show you.” He hands me a set of black glasses from a compartment in the wall.
“What are these?” I ask. They are lighter than they look, bulky in size.
Marcus frowns. “A virtual reality headset. Go on. Try them on.”
I place them carefully over my eyes. Tiny pinpricks of light appear and then a landscape materialises around me. It is an amphibious place, where land and sea seem interchangeable as they merge with the horizon. There is sand beneath my bare feet, and I stand a few yards from a sea that undulates to and fro. Marcus is in front of me, laughing; a sound that carries on the breeze. The smell of salt tugs at my memory. He kneels on one knee and holds out a ruby ring that catches the sun. I notice that his eyes have pink veins that worm outwards across the vascular white. The beating of my heart thunders in my ears.
“I thought it was a fitting place – our first date was on that beach. A picnic in the dunes, champagne and strawberries. I arrived in this old convertible you joked was from another era. I thought I’d ruined my chances.” He smiles a little sadly. “We had everything to look forward to; our whole lives.”
I remove the glasses from my eyes. “How long have we been married?” I ask.
“Five years.”
“Where do we live?”
“We’ve lived in Notting Hill together since we got married.”
“When can I leave here?” I ask, as I try to imagine the spectre of a house, a home, lived in by this stranger and I, together. What would it be like, I wonder, moving in with him?
A hospital machine hums, invading our silence.
“Soon,” he says with
resonance.
He places his hand on mine; I flinch involuntarily. This must have once been familiar, the feel of his skin. It feels cold.
“It’s a lot to take on board, isn’t it?” he soothes. “I do understand how strange and confusing this all must be, but you have to trust me. We made a decision – the procedure was to make you better. You have the best medical professionals taking care of you. We have a fresh start.”
I nod, silently.
His eyes are moist.
“A fresh start,” I repeat slowly under my breath. What did we have before?
He looks at me closely. “It is going to be okay.” The corners of his mouth tug upwards with mechanical effort, like a ventriloquist’s dummy, his eyes not quite catching up.
I try to smile, but the muscles in my face won’t comply. “What is that?” I ask instead, motioning to the thing I noticed earlier seated opposite.
“PLUTO is your personal nurse.”
I try to remember a world before, with nurses like these, but my mind draws a blank. “Then why is it behind a glass screen?”
“PLUTO is there to monitor your progress, but in a way that’s not invasive. Research has shown it’s best to preserve a level of distance. People are suspicious of robotics. Look, I have to get back to work.” It is quarter to two. His relief is almost audible. “I’ll be back tomorrow.” He gets up to leave.
“Marcus.” He turns, and in that split second my heart opens, closes. I do not want him to leave. He is the only route I have to answers. “My memory will come back?” I try to get up, but a drugged heaviness stops me.
He nods. “In stages. I am sorry, Iris. I can’t tell you anything else. It would be too soon. I just want what’s best for you.” He kisses my forehead and lingers for a moment. He says as he exhales, “Tomorrow.”
And he is gone.
The robot wakes. It disappears through a door to its left and then reappears by my bedside. The badge on the lapel of its white coat reads, ‘PLUTO’. Its eyes blink shut with a click like a shutter closing and opening again. It holds a tray of pills and a glass of water, placing both on the table with careful precision.
“Hello, Iris,” a voice intonates from within the aluminium chamber of its lungs. PLUTO holds the pills out in the palm of its hand. I remember creatures like these from childhood now – just a glimpse of one at an exhibition. Its large, soulless eyes watch me. “How do you feel today, Iris?”
“A little better. Do you have a mirror?” I ask. I want to know what I look like, whether I am the woman in the photograph.
It moves slowly, methodically, across the room with a low hum and then returns moments later. It holds the mirror out to me. It reflects my face, one I don’t recall. A tired, sallow face that has not seen sunlight for some time. Drab strands of brunette hair hang limply at the sides. My eyebrows are unkempt. My cheekbones are taut. My eyes are a pale grey. It is not the face I expect. But then what did I expect? To look younger? Healthier? Happier? I am the woman in the photograph.
I move my head just a little, and in the light my eyes are no longer grey, but a water-green. And in this light, I suddenly look younger and my skin porcelain, like a china cup that might break. I wonder which face he sees – Marcus that is. Which face does he love? Supposing he loves me at all. When I turn my head this way, I look knowing, almost devious; this way, alluringly innocent. Does he see both of them? Perhaps that is why he fears me. I have seen it in his eyes: the ghost of dread.
“Can you help me, PLUTO?”
“I want to be of assistance,” PLUTO says, and it almost sounds like compassion speaking.
“What procedure have I had?”
“First take your pills, Iris.”
I look at the pink capsules. Two large pink pills the size of my thumb-print. The thought crosses my mind that I am being drugged.
“You have to tell me
why I’m here.”
PLUTO places the pills on the table. “Please wait whilst I check your records.” The mask of its face remains expressionless. “Sorry. I am not authorised to give you that information,” it says in that smooth tone, accompanied by a programmed smile.
My voice is a foreign sound that catches in my throat. “Who is authorised?”
PLUTO’s eyes blink. The empty pupils in its glassy sockets seem to swell. “Please take your pills, Iris. They will help you feel calmer.” PLUTO’s teeth are a polished white, and the cavity of its mouth gapes at me, revealing glimpses of the wall behind where the back of its head and inside of its mouth should be. It is the mixture of the human and non-human that I find so unnerving. Its face is uncannily life-like, with skin and teeth; but its body shows the machinations of the machinery it is built from.
“Please. Help me,” I speak softly now and reach out, clasping the cold steel of its arm beneath my fingertips. ...
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