You Found Me

by Virginia Macgregor

Genres: Marriage & Divorce; Literary Fiction; Multicultural & Interracial Romance

Synopsis

Perfect for fans of Julie Cohen, Harriet Evans and Rowan Coleman.

Life is all about new beginnings.

Early one summer morning Isabel and her 11-year-old daughter, River, walk across Regent's Park. They come across a rain-soaked man sitting alone on a bench and ask him if he's okay. But he doesn't know. In fact he doesn't know the answer to any of their questions — not even his own name.

Urged on by her daughter, Isabel takes the man to the hospital she works at, hoping that will be the end of it. But when the tests show there's nothing physically wrong with him, and yet he still can't remember who he is, she realises she can't walk away.

Isabel made a promise to River that they would help this man, but with no way to identify him Isabel begins to worry about what he past secrets his memory loss might be hiding.

Can they trust him?

Release date: August 9, 2018

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 416

Sample

River’s eyes fly open. Right from the moment she wakes up, her body feels jittery, like she’s channelling all the electricity whizzing around London.

She looks to the window and sees the pigeon balancing on the windowsill. Raindrops on his feathers. He looks up for a second, puffs out his chest, tilts his head and opens his beak just a fraction. She knows what’s coming next – a low, mournful coo, so loud that it will fill the whole flat.

He’s hungry, poor thing.

She puts her finger to her lips. Shush, she mouths and then points in the direction of Mum, who’s standing in the kitchen, her back turned.

The pigeon is one of the many things she and Mum fight about. River believes he belongs here just as much as they do; Mum wishes he would leave them alone.

The bird flaps its wings.

Mum spins round, frowns and looks at the window, but he’s gone – so fast, he may as well have been a ghost.

Good boy, River whispers to the grey sky.

Mum comes over and places a pill in River’s palm: the one that keeps her calm and helps her focus. Sometimes. Then Mum sits down on River’s rainbow quilt.

Along with pigeons, rainbows are one of River’s very favourite things. It’s impossible to see a rainbow without feeling happy. She thinks about them when she needs to stop her mind shooting off in a million different directions.

Today’s a special day: it’s River’s last day at primary school. No more sitting still and trying to concentrate or being told to tie up her hair. No more uniform and silly rules about the colour her tights should be. Her whole body sighs with relief: just a long summer of running around doing as she pleases.

And after that? When the summer is over?

Well, she’s told Mum that she’s not going to secondary school. That no one can make her, not even the politicians Mum talks about, the ones who made that law about children having to go to school.

Mum gets up and walks to the window, mumbling something about needing umbrellas.

River wonders where her pigeon is now, whether he’s found shelter somewhere else, at least until the sun comes out.

For a second, she pictures her pigeon, his wings spread wide, feathers glistening with rain, flying across the arc of a rainbow.

Today would be the perfect day for a rainbow, she thinks. A sign that anything could happen.

It takes River and Mum exactly thirty-three minutes to walk from their bedsit on Acacia Road, through Regent’s Park, out of Chester Gate and to River’s school. And then it takes another fifteen minutes for Mum to walk to the hospital where she works as a cleaner. They walk every day. Even if it rains or snows or blows so hard that River imagines them being swept up and off the ground and swirled around in the sky and dumped in the lion enclosure at London Zoo.

Mum says River needs the fresh air, but River knows it’s for other reasons too.

Like that they don’t have a car.

And that the bus is too expensive.

And, most of all, Mum knows that if River can burn off some of the energy rattling around in her body before she gets to school, there’s a better chance that she’ll sit still for five minutes and actually learn something.

Today it’s raining. Really hard. Big sheets of water shoot off the side of River’s umbrella. Her school shoes are soaked already.

River finishes her cereal bar and puts the wrapper in a park bin.

‘Come on, Mum!’ River yells through the rain.

Mum’s dragging her feet today, which means she didn’t sleep well. And her umbrella is so small it barely covers her head. But then Mum’s small, both ways: vertically and horizontally. It won’t be long before River is taller than her – maybe then Mum will listen to her.

Anyway, for once, River wants to get to school early. It’s the last day of the summer term and her last day ever at Caius Primary, which means there won’t be any lessons, just lots of assemblies and goodbye parties and – if the rain stops for a second – playing outside, which is the best bit about school. Whenever River spends too much time inside, her whole body starts to feel itchy, like her insides are going to burst out of her. She wishes she could go to a school where all the lessons happened outside. Even when it rained.

‘Mum?’

River runs back down the path and finds Mum staring at a row of terracotta pots spilling over with red geraniums in the Italian Gardens. The flowers are covered in millions of raindrops: they sit there on the petals like big, shiny tears.

Red geraniums are Mum’s favourites. Once she told River that, in Venice, they hang out of people’s window boxes all summer long and that it makes the houses look like they’re wearing bright red lipstick.

Mum loves Venice. She went there when she was really young.

Every day they stop here so that Mum can look at how the flowers are doing.

River takes Mum’s hand. ‘You okay, Mum?’

Mum bites her lip and nods. ‘I just can’t believe it’s your last day at school. You’re growing up so fast, River.’

River had always looked forward to growing up, but whenever Mum talks about it, she makes it sound like it’s a bad thing.

They stand there for a while, listening to the drip, drip, dripping of the rain on their umbrellas.

‘Come on, Mum,’ River says.

They keep walking until they get to the second place they stop every day: the entrance to London Zoo. River likes animals as much as Mum likes flowers. She likes to see the latest posters and displays. And sometimes, she thinks she can hear a chimpanzee swinging through the trees; a hyena laughing; the penguins flapping their tuxedo wings before diving into the water. Sometimes, River wonders what would happen if the zookeepers forgot to lock the enclosures and all the animals ran out of the main gates and hung out in Regent’s Park. She’d like that.

Mum walks ahead, checking her phone while River goes over to a noticeboard to see what events they’re putting on this summer. Except something stops her before she gets there. Someone crying. And it’s not like when Mum cries: small and hiccupy and sniffly. Whoever’s crying is crying properly: big, noisy gulps.

River looks round to see where it’s coming from.

There’s a man sitting on a bench, just by the entrance to the zoo. He’s all by himself and his head is in his hands. Everything about him is wet. His tangled brown hair is smushed down on his face and his jacket’s dripping from the seams. His tie’s soggy, his white shirt’s so wet it’s gone see-through, his suit trousers are sticking to his legs – and his feet are sitting in a puddle.

It’s like he’s gone for a swim with all his clothes on.

At first, River can’t work out whether the drops plopping from the man’s eyes are rain or tears, but from the gulping sound he was making a moment ago, he’s obviously been crying. He’s like one of those clowns whose face is painted to look happy and colourful yet still looks like the saddest person in the whole world.

River can’t remember the last time she saw a man cry – a proper, grown-up one.

She goes over, sits beside him and tilts her umbrella to shield him a bit.

‘Are you okay?’ she asks.

He looks up at River and blinks; more tears drop out of his eyes. Behind his tears his eyes are big and brown: they match the colour of his hair exactly. Although he looks kind of beaten down by the rain, he’s not old. He must be about Mum’s age. Which makes it weird that he’s sitting here. People Mum’s age usually have jobs they’re rushing to at this time of the morning.

‘What’s your name?’ River asks him.

‘River – come back here!’ Mum’s voice carries over to them from further up the road.

The man looks up, startled.

‘Don’t worry – it’s just Mum.’ River rolls her eyes. She’s been practising her eye-rolling for when people annoy her, like the teachers at school or the girls with neat hair who sit still in their chairs.

Jules, Mum’s best friend, taught her: she’s the best eye-roller in the world. Jules is basically like River’s second mum; she lives with them and River spends more time with her than anyone else, mainly because Mum works so much.

River studies the man.

‘What’s your name, then?’ she asks again.

He looks down into his hands, like he’s trying to find his name written on his palms. River spots an inky smudge on his left forefinger. Maybe he’s left-handed, like her. Maybe he holds his pen too low as well. Maybe, when he was little, teachers told him off for not holding his pen properly, like River’s teachers do.

‘Whatever’s making you sad is probably not as bad as you think it is,’ River says to him, gently.

That’s what Jules tells her when she complains about school.

‘Are you waiting for the zoo to open?’ she asks.

He looks over to the entrance but doesn’t answer.

The man smells damp and musty like River’s clothes do when Mum forgets to take them out of the washing machine. He could be a homeless person, River thinks. But homeless people don’t wear suits, do they?

Then River notices a stick propped up beside him against the bench. She wonders whether there’s something wrong with his legs and whether that’s why he’s sitting in the rain getting soaked: because he can’t move.

‘River! You’re going to be late for school!’

A moment later, Mum’s standing in front of them. She stares at the man and River can tell that she’s taking it all in: his blotchy, tear-stained face and his soggy clothes and his squelchy feet.

River stands up and pulls Mum to one side.

‘I think he’s sad,’ she whispers.

Mum looks back at the man for a second and River can see that Mum’s as nosy about him as she is. But then Mum takes River’s hand and says, ‘He probably just needs some time to himself. Come on, River, let’s not bother him any longer.’

Mum gives River’s hand a yank.

River pulls her hand away.

‘That’s not what Jules says to me when I’m sad, she says that it’s best to share your worries. And you’re always saying that Jules is wise and that I should listen to her.’ River likes to use her Jules card: Mum listens to Jules more than anyone. ‘Anyway, he’s soaking. We can’t just leave him.’

Mum goes over to the man. ‘I’m sorry we disturbed you,’ she tells him. ‘River likes to talk to people.’

Mum doesn’t mean people – she means strangers. She’s told River off for doing it before. It’s another thing that keeps Mum up at night: River talking to strangers and her fear that she’ll be stolen away from her. Only most of the strangers River’s met seem really nice – nicer, sometimes, than the non-strangers in her life.

‘My name’s River.’ River holds out her hand. ‘Mum called me that because she loves Venice.’ River pauses, realising that this probably doesn’t make sense to someone who doesn’t have the full story. ‘And in Venice there are lots of canals, which are like rivers, but you can’t really call your daughter Canal so she called me River.’

A bit of light comes back into the man’s eyes.

Mum’s obsessed with Italy. And not just the flower thing. She, Jules and River live over an Italian restaurant called Gabino’s; they get the rent cheap because Mum cleans for the owner, who they call Grumpy Gabs because he doesn’t ever seem happy about anything. Mum’s promised that, one day, when they’ve saved up lots and lots of money, she’ll take River to Venice on holiday and that they’ll buy masks and lounge around on gondolas all day.

River waits for him to tell her his name back but he doesn’t say anything. So she leans towards him and tries not to let the damp smell into her nose and says:

‘I hope you feel better soon.’

The sky goes from dark grey to a lighter grey and suddenly, the rain stops.

River looks up. ‘Phew!’ She puts down her umbrella and gives it a shake. Then she grins at him. ‘There might be a rainbow.’

Very slowly, the corners of the man’s mouth turn up and, for a second, he doesn’t look quite so sad any more.

‘Do you like rainbows?’ she asks.

He nods.

‘So do I. They’re probably my favourite thing in the whole world.’

The man’s smile goes a little wider.

‘I think we’ve bothered this gentleman long enough,’ Mum says. ‘Let’s get going, River.’

But River doesn’t want to go until she knows who he is.

‘Don’t you have a name?’ she asks.

River likes to find out about people’s names, especially unusual ones. Ones that come from faraway countries that she’s never been to, names that roll around in her mouth and take a while to learn how to say properly. One of Mum’s cleaning friends is called Ashur, which means great warrior, which is kind of cool. Though everyone calls him Ash because he’s always sneaking out to smoke on the fire escape. And River likes the stories behind how people got their names, like how she got the name River and how Mum’s friend is called Jules even though her real name is Juliet, which she hates because she thinks it sounds too girly. Jules likes Jules because she says it doesn’t let people know whether you’re a boy or a girl and that that’s a good thing because there are enough people in the world trying to put you in boxes. River’s a name like that too – for boys and girls.

River wonders what Jules would think about this man. She has strong opinions about most people.

‘If we know your name, then we can be friends,’ River says.

Then River wonders whether it would be possible to be someone’s friend without ever knowing their name.

Mum tugs at River’s arm and pulls her away.

River tries to think of a reason to persuade Mum to stay a little longer and then she hears a quiet voice behind her.

‘I don’t remember.’

River spins round. His voice sounds different from the way English people speak. It kind of rolls.

‘You don’t remember what?’ River asks.

The man’s looks right into River’s eyes. ‘I don’t remember…’ He coughs and takes a while to get his breath back. Then he looks back up at River with his big, sad, brown eyes and says: ‘I don’t remember my name.’

Isabel sits in the waiting room of the neuropsychiatry ward next to the strange, quiet man River found sitting outside London Zoo.

Unable to find any clothes in lost property long enough for his beanpole limbs, she’d put him in a hospital gown and wrapped him in a towel. It will have to do for now.

His wet clothes are sitting in a carrier bag at his feet. They’ve soaked through the plastic and have left a puddle on the floor, which, as soon as she gets back to doing what she’s meant to be doing right now – cleaning – Isabel will have to mop up.

She wonders what he’d look like in that suit if it were dry and clean and if he weren’t sick. He’s got smooth skin – the only wrinkles on his face are tiny smile lines by his eyes. His hair is a rich brown and although his eyes are sad, they’re bright.

Isabel imagines that, before he got all wet and sick, he must have looked quite smart in his suit. He could easily have been just another commuter travelling through the city on his way to work. Someone with a nice office and a wife and children to go home to at night.

The man coughs. A huge, wracking cough that comes from deep inside his lungs. It doesn’t sound good. Neither does the fact that he doesn’t seem to have a clue about who he is or where he is or how he came to be sitting outside London Zoo.

When he keeps coughing, Isabel goes to get him a cup of water.

Only when she comes back, he’s not there any more.

She spins round and sees him walking down the corridor. She breaks into a jog and catches his arm.

‘Where are you going?’

He looks at her, his brown eyes wide.

Sometimes, when you meet someone, the feeling isn’t of unfamiliarity or strangeness, but of remembering. Even if you know that you’ve never seen them before.

It’s not the first time that Isabel’s felt drawn to this otherness. There’s a relief, somehow, in encountering a stranger, especially one from far away – from a place that doesn’t know that she or this life of hers exists. It’s how she’d felt when she went to Venice with Jules all those years ago – as if, in that brief window of time, everything that had gone before was forgotten and she could be someone new.

He keeps staring at her blankly. God, he’s lost, Isabel thinks. Really lost.

‘It’s okay.’ She presses his arm. ‘Just come back and take a seat.’

The man looks away from her, down the corridor, in the direction he’d been heading.

‘Come on, I got you some water,’ Isabel says.

She steers him back to the seats and then hands him the cup of water.

He takes a sip.

‘Thank you,’ he says, pushing out the words through another cough.

Isabel’s phone vibrates. It’s a text from Ash:

 

Can’t cover you for much longer.

If Isabel’s supervisor, Stingy Simon, finds out that she’s missed an hour of her shift, he’ll dock her pay.

Be there in a minute, Isabel texts back.

Then she stands up and says to the man: ‘Wait here.’

He nods and his eyes turn sad like when River asked for his name at the park. She hopes he doesn’t start crying again. She feels she should say something to make him feel better, or maybe put her arm around his shoulders.

Isabel’s heart contracts. Perhaps it wasn’t just River who wanted to make sure he was okay.

‘I’ll be back in a moment,’ she says gently.

Isabel walks down the corridor to the room where all the consultants hang out and have coffee. She knows she’s meant to go through official procedures but official procedures take too long.

She knocks.

A doctor she hasn’t seen before opens the door. A woman with white-blonde hair. Young. Much younger than Isabel. Isabel notices the woman’s name badge: Dr Reed.

The doctor looks Isabel up and down, clocking her cleaner’s uniform.

‘Can I help you?’ she asks.

‘Could I speak to David, please?’

Dr Reed raises her thin eyebrows. She has time for that, thinks Isabel. To take care of how she looks.

‘David?’ the woman asks.

‘Dr Deardorff. I need to ask him about a patient.’

He’s the best psychiatrist on the ward. Probably in the whole of London. Patients get sent to him from all over the country, hard cases that other doctors haven’t been able to work out.

Dr Reed frowns, tilts her head and makes a point of scanning the ID card hanging from Isabel’s lanyard. ‘A patient?’

Isabel wishes she’d never knocked on the door.

‘I think he’s busy…’ the woman starts.

But then David pushes past her. ‘Isabel! I thought I heard your voice.’

David is short and round, with thick-lensed glasses and dimples – the dimples make him look more like a child than a fully-grown man. But they also make him look warm and kind, less intimidating than the other doctors.

David never seems to go home and Isabel works long shifts, so their lives at the hospital have always overlapped.

David shoves the remains of a Jammie Dodger in his mouth, gulps hard and wipes some crumbs off his top lip. Then he takes a packet of Rennies out of his pocket. It’s a routine Isabel’s familiar with: Jammie Dodgers followed by Rennies.

‘What can I do for you, Isabel?’ he asks, chewing on a Rennie.

‘I need your help.’

He swallows the rest of the tablet and then smiles at her, as if asking him for a favour is just about the nicest thing she could have done for him on this grey, rainy day.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you…’ she stutters. ‘I know you’re busy —’

‘Nonsense. What is it?’

‘Would you mind looking at a patient?’

The young doctor is still hanging around. ‘I’ve got this,’ he says to her.

Dr Reed gives David a strained smile and slips back into the staff room.

‘Lead the way,’ David says.

 

He doesn’t comment on the soggy plastic bag at the man’s feet or why he’s wrapped in a towel or what he has to do with Isabel. Instead, he shakes the man’s hand and smiles.

It’s not the first time Isabel has noticed the parallels between David and River: their frightening openness to the world.

‘Hello, I’m Dr Deardorff.’ He pushes his glasses up his nose.

The man nods.

David takes the man’s elbow and helps him out of the chair.

The man reaches out for his stick, winces and rubs his knee.

‘That giving you trouble?’ David says, looking at the man’s leg.

The man nods again.

David nods. ‘We’ll find you a bed and take a good look at everything.’

The man starts coughing, and keeps coughing for a good few minutes. David rubs his back in slow, gentle circles, like you would with a distressed child.

‘We’ll need to take a look at that too. You have been through the wars, haven’t you?’

For a moment, the man looks at him, startled. ‘The wars?’

David smiles warmly. ‘It’s just a turn of phrase.’ He turns to Isabel. ‘Coming, Nurse Rushworth?’

It’s what he calls her when she helps with one of the patients. He’s the only one at the hospital who knows that, long ago, that’s what she was meant to be: a nurse.

‘I’ve got to get back to work,’ Isabel says. ‘I’m sorry.’

David gives her a bow as she goes to leave. ‘Of course.’

She turns back to David. ‘Thank you for agreeing to help.’

As she watches the short, chubby doctor taking the weight of the tall, long-limbed man as they walk down the corridor, she thinks how there couldn’t be a more unlikely pairing.

The sea, it’s rising; waves lap at his body, as though he were the shore.

Soon, he thinks, I will be washed away altogether. Maybe things will be easier then.

He tries to lift his hands to his ears to block out the sound, but the clamp’s in the way, holding his head in place.

It’s nothing sinister, the doctor had said. We just have to keep your head stable, to get a sharp picture.

He thrashes his arms against the bed.

Why did he let them bring him here?

Clanging sounds, muffled through the foam in his ears. But still loud. Behind his closed eyes he sees a metal ladder bashing the side of a ship.

Clang. Clang. Clang.

It won’t take long, the doctor had said. Just a quick look to check that there’s nothing obvious we’re missing.

But it feels like he’s been in here for a lifetime.

Clang. Clang. Clang. Ricocheting between the bones of his skull.

It won’t hurt, he’d said, pressing his arm.

But everything hurts.

He tries to move his head from side to side but it’s held down by the clamp.

He wants to leave. He wants to be back outside under the sky, by the entrance to the zoo. To wait there.

Maybe if he found the strength to stand right at the place where people went into the zoo, that would be better. Maybe he should never have sat down on the bench. People walk past benches. They don’t see.

He opens his eyes. It’s dark in here.

Where is the doctor?

Then he feels the button in his hand. He presses it over and over.

‘Are you okay in there?’ A voice comes to him.

It’s not the doctor’s voice.

Where is he?

And where is the nurse who brought him in? The mother of the little girl. The girl who found him.

Where are they now?

He opens his eyes. It’s dark. Somewhere, far off, lights flash across the dark sea.

He has to get out.

He tries to stand up but he can’t move.

I’m not meant to be here. 

He shuffles his legs. His knee burns and tears.

We’ll snap a picture of that too, the doctor had said. Make sure there are no broken bones.

He raises his hands to his head and bangs his fists against the walls.

Clang. Clang. Clang.

Everything’s too loud in here.

And the sea, it’s rising.

It can be a bit strange, but it’s nothing to worry about, the doctor had said.

‘Nearly done now,’ the voice comes again, from outside.

I have to get out of here. I have to get back to the bench outside the zoo. I was never meant to leave. 

He thrashes out again. Then he presses the button over and over. He’s screaming now, his voice raw. He coughs. The words won’t come out.

And the sea, it keeps rising.

‘Let me go!’ He screams it over and over, arching his back, contracting his muscles. ‘Let me go!’

‘So, you found him in Regent’s Park?’ Ash asks, mopping the area around the nurses’ station.

Besides Jules, Ash is Isabel’s closest friend. Although they never really see each other outside the hospital, they started at the same time: they’ve been working alongside each other for over ten years.

‘Yep.’

‘And he doesn’t remember his name?’

‘Nope.’

‘Are you going to check on him?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What do you mean, you don’t know?’

‘There’s not much more I can do now. He’s being looked after.’

‘You’re not curious?’

Curiosity gets you in trouble; having a daughter like River has taught her that.

‘It was good of Dr Deardorff – I mean, he didn’t have to help out. You know, he really is nice.’

‘Yes, he is.’ She pauses.

Ash props himself up on his mop, leans into Isabel and grins at her.

‘He’d never say no to you.’

Isabel tugs at the collar of her cleaner’s uniform. She hates the polyester against her skin.

‘You could do worse,’ Ash goes on.

‘He’s a consultant, Ash, and I’m a cleaner. And I’m done with men – present company excluded.’

The truth is that Isabel isn’t done with men: she just isn’t over the man she fell in love with eleven years ago. No, that’s not true either. They were only together for a few hours; you have to be with someone longer than that to truly love them, don’t you?

You’re in love with the idea of him, Jules says. And the idea’s getting old.

And she’s right.

For years, Isabel has been in love with how he made her feel that night, and with how she felt about herself when her life was still full of possibilities. And now she’s scared that she’ll never find anyone who’ll make her feel the same way. And she’s scared that if she does, it’ll happen again: she’ll wake up one day and he’ll be gone and she’ll find herself alone.

And even if there weren’t all that clutter in the way, when’s she meant to find the time to fall in love again? She works extra shifts at the hospital, just to make ends meet, and when she’s not here she’s worrying about River.

Ash shakes his head. ‘Well, we’ll see.’

‘We’ll see about what?’ David is standing behind them. He pushes his glasses up his nose and looks at her intently.

Ash winks at her. Isabel shoots him a look.

‘I thought you were going to come up and check on our patient?’ David says. ‘He’s been waiting for you.’

‘Waiting for me?’

‘You’re the one who brought him in – he trusts you, Isabel.’

He’s known me for five minutes, thinks Isabel, he’s probably just confused.

And then she thinks of his big brown eyes and how he looks at her as though he’s trying to find an answer in her face.

‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I have too much to do down here.’

David tilts his head to one side. ‘He’s had a bit of a rough morning,’ he says.

Isabel looks up at him. ‘He has?’

‘He didn’t take too well to the MRI. Keeps saying he wants to leave.’

‘Poor guy,’ Ash says.

‘Yeah, he’s been through a lot.’ David fixes his eyes on Isabel in a way that she’s all too familiar with: he wants her to help and he knows that she’s going to say yes. ‘He’d like to see you, Isabel.’

‘He said that?’

David nods. ‘You and River.’

David’s known River nearly as long as he’s known Isabel, and he’s always letting her sneak onto the ward when Jules can’t watch her.

Ash says the hospital is David’s family, which always makes Isabel feel sad. Though she supposes she’s not so different. She spends more time scrubbing this ward than she does doing anything else.

‘He’s quite taken with you both,’ David adds. The tips of his ears glow red.

An awkward silence . . .