Could It Be Magic?

He walked me to my car, and I apologised again for having to leave almost before our evening had begun.

‘I’ll ring again in a few days, when you’ve had a chance to recover properly,’ he said, giving me a chaste peck on the cheek. ‘Go on, get yourself home. What you need is a good night’s sleep.’

It was gone ten o’clock when I clambered at last into bed and snuggled down with Frankie on the floor beside me in her basket. I was so tired, I didn’t even have time to fret about what might lie ahead of me. My last thought was that the nightmare might all be over by now. Perhaps the lightning had, after all, induced hallucinatory dreams, and that being the case, maybe I would never have to be Lauren again.

As it turned out, there was no such luck.

I felt myself being shaken awake by Dr Shakir, who was standing over me looking extremely concerned.

‘How do you feel, Lauren?’ he asked as I opened my eyes.

‘Fine,’ I replied groggily. My head felt as if I was waking from the deepest of sleeps, my eyes were having difficulty opening, and I was sure my lids were puffed up like a pig’s.

‘We have been worried about you. Do you remember who you are?’

I contemplated for the briefest of seconds telling him that I was Jessica Taylor, but decided against it almost immediately. What was happening to me was the result of no medical condition Dr Shakir would ever have encountered. There seemed no point in doing anything other than playing along with this strange game in which I found myself once again.

‘I’m Lauren Richardson,’ I said. ‘I’m married with four children.’

‘Lauren, sweetheart!’ came a voice from the other side of the room. ‘You’ve got your memory back!’

I turned my head to see Grant advancing on me, eyes bright. ‘We—the doctors and I—thought you’d gone into a coma! We thought we were losing you all over again.’ And, to my horror, my husband gathered me in his arms and began to sob uncontrollably.

Dr Shakir snapped his fingers at Nurse Sally. ‘Fetch Mr Richardson a cup of hot sweet tea, would you, nurse?’

‘Grant,’ I said from somewhere beneath his shirt, ‘you’re suffocating me.’

‘Don’t do that again, my love,’ he said, releasing me, but taking hold of both my hands as he perched on the edge of the bedside chair. ‘I couldn’t bear it if you left us.’

I stared with some embarrassment into the tear-stained face of this man who was gazing at me with such love. I told myself to think him as if he were the husband of a good friend. I knew that if I were an onlooker and not the object of his love I might have been moved by his obvious devotion. The knowledge quelled my instinctive feelings of alarm and I found a small spark of compassion. Grant was not a strong man.

‘I’ve only been asleep,’ I told him gently. ‘I’ve felt so tired since this all happened.’

His eyes darted to Dr Shakir, who shook his dark head as if my condition was a new one on him.

‘The nurses have been trying to rouse you since seven o’clock this morning, Lauren,’ Dr Shakir said. ‘In the end I was called, because they feared you had fallen into a coma. We ran tests, but although they showed your metabolism had slowed considerably, your vital signs have remained steady. We simply couldn’t wake you up.’

‘I think,’ I said slowly, realising that my worst fears had been justified. ‘That I might be needing a lot of sleep from now on. I’m sure there’s no need to worry about me, though.’

‘Lauren!’ Grant exclaimed, undisguised exasperation overlying his earlier tone of abject misery. ‘They’ve been trying to wake you for the last three hours. That’s not normal, sweetheart.’

‘Wouldn’t you rather have me back for a few hours a day than not at all?’ I asked him shortly.

Grant looked affronted, but I ploughed on regardless.

‘What I’m trying to tell you is that if you let me wake when I’m ready, I’ll probably recover a lot quicker.’

Grant nodded eventually and went out into the corridor. I heard him calling the children and I closed my eyes again, mentally preparing myself to try to be suitably motherly to his children.

‘Lauren,’ Dr Shakir’s voice murmured softly. ‘Is there something you aren’t telling us?’

‘Like what?’ I asked, frightened suddenly that he knew my secret.

‘I don’t know. Maybe your memory has returned more than you are willing to admit?’

‘Why should I say I don’t remember things if it’s not true?’ I asked. I was unsure what he was getting at, but he was looking at me strangely, and I didn’t like it.

‘You have a very demanding home life,’ he said with a shrug. ‘Everyone seems to depend on you. It can’t be easy to cope with four children under the age of eight, especially as one of your twins has special needs.’

I stared back at him, relieved that he thought I was shamming. It was a lot better than the prospect of him discovering the truth. I had no intention of spending the rest of my days in a laboratory, being hooked up to monitors while I slept, and having my life examined in minute detail. I decided to act as if affronted by his comment.

‘If you’re insinuating that I’m delaying my recovery on purpose, then I can assure you, you couldn’t be further from the truth.’

‘You haven’t seemed too eager to see your children since you’ve been in hospital,’ he pointed out. ‘No one’s blaming you, Lauren, everyone deserves a rest sometimes.’

‘Perhaps I should share my secret for a peaceful life with other harassed mothers,’ I retorted. ‘Get yourselves struck by lightning, girls, it works wonders in the sympathy stakes.’

Before the doctor had a chance to respond, Grant appeared with the children in tow, and I sat up and pecked them each on the cheek in turn. Teddy tried to twist his face away at the last moment, but I managed to kiss the side of his ear. I felt it was the least I could do for Lauren.

‘Did you all enjoy Chessington World of Adventures yesterday?’ I asked them.

‘We went on some really cool rides,’ Nicole said. ‘Daddy wouldn’t let us go on the really big ones, but Sophie and me went on the Vampire Ride!’

‘Toby and Teddy were too small,’ Sophie put in with a twinge of disappointment. ‘They only wanted to go into the Bubbleworks and to Beanoland.’

‘I drove Daddy in a Tiny Truck,’ Toby put in excitedly, ‘and in Beanoland we fired foam balls and went on the Bash Street Bus.’

‘Did Daddy go on it?’ I asked with a smile.

‘I had to go on all sorts of things,’ Grant said with a playful grimace. ‘Most of the rides require a parent to accompany young children, and it wasn’t easy with the twins being too small for a lot of the bigger rides.’ He gave me a wan look. ‘It would have been easier and more fun if you’d been well enough to come, Lauren. We missed you.’

I turned my attention to Teddy. ‘Did you have a nice time too?’

He twisted the toe of his shoe into the floor and wouldn’t answer.

‘You know he finds those sorts of places a challenge,’ Grant said with a sigh. ‘Remember when we took the children to the local fair last year and he spent the whole time with his head hidden under my jacket?’

I stared at him blankly and there was a short silence as everyone realised they’d forgotten I didn’t remember anything about anything at all.

‘Is Mum coming home today?’ Sophie asked into the silence.

‘It may be possible, depending on the result of the MRI scan and as long as there will be someone at home to look after her for the next few days,’ Dr Shakir said.

‘I’ve taken the week off work anyway,’ Grant said. ‘And Lauren’s sister Karen has said she’ll come to stay for a couple of days next week.’

Dr Shakir looked at me. ‘What do you think, Lauren? Are you ready to go home, even though your memory has not yet returned?’

I didn’t like to say that if the return of my memory were the criteria for going home with the Richardsons, then I’d be in hospital forever. Lauren’s memories were not available to me. I would have to start fresh from here, or else I’d have to persuade them to keep her sedated in hospital for the rest of her life in the hope that under the influence of a drug-induced sleep I never had to return here.