Chapter 19
Marielle had a large hold-all with her the next time she went up to the hospital. She smiled as she approached the nurse’s
station and saw her favorite ward sister, Tessa, on duty. Tessa used to go out with her son Teddy—not for very long, though,
which was a shame because Tessa was the sort of woman Teddy should have settled with. Thank goodness the one he was going
to marry met someone else and emigrated to the Antipodes, which still wasn’t far enough away in Marielle’s opinion.
“Hello, Mrs. B,” said Tessa, a smile of greeting flashing on her face as she clocked Marielle. “Lovely to see you as always.”
“I thought I’d bring a few things for the Lost Lady,” said Marielle. The Lost Lady was what one of the auxiliary staff had
named the patient in room four, and it had stuck. The Lost Lady said she was called Sabrina Anderson. She didn’t know where
she lived, though, or how she had ended up unconscious at the Shore Heights beauty spot.
“That’s sweet of you,” said Tessa. Marielle Bonetti had to be one of the nicest people she knew, and she wished she’d had her as a mother-in-law instead of the old bat she did end up having.
When Marielle had retired from nursing, she couldn’t keep away and so became one of the “friends of the hospital,” visiting patients to keep them company.
Too many old people had either no visitors or short visits from relatives who were off as soon as they’d satisfied their duty gland.
Marielle chatted to them, helped to feed them sometimes, did puzzles with them, and should have been on prescription.
The Lost Lady shouldn’t really be in this ward with geriatric patients who had pronounced memory loss, but there were no other beds, and she had to go somewhere for now.
“How is she?” asked Marielle.
“Just the same,” said Tessa with a regretful smile.
Tessa was as professional as they came, but she might have just dropped a tad more information to a trusted and respected
ex-nurse like Marielle than she would have to any of the other volunteers. Of course, there was always the possibility that
Sabrina, if that’s what she really was called, was deliberately withholding information, because it wouldn’t have been the
first time someone had feigned amnesia, usually for nefarious reasons. But they also had to consider she was in danger from
something or someone and that was forcing her to keep her details to herself. Often in these cases, a patient “suddenly recalled”
things like allergies and a past medical history if it meant that by not remembering them, they might be at some risk, but
Tessa did have to admit that Sabrina was either a genuine case of memory loss or a damned fine actress. There seemed to be
no medical reason why she couldn’t remember, so if she wasn’t pretending, the block had to be a psychological one, and that
could be very tricky to unlock, especially if serious trauma had caused it.
“Is she still in the same bed?” asked Marielle.
“We’ve had to move her into bay three as we needed the private room,” said Tessa. “Try and work some magic for us, will you?”
Marielle walked into the bay of six beds and over to the bottom corner where the Lost Lady was sitting by the window reading
a newspaper.
“Hello, Sabrina,” she said. “Up for some company?”
Sabrina looked up, recognizing her voice. Her mouth curved into a smile at the sight of the kind woman with the dark auburn
hair and the bright blue eyes.
“Hello, Marielle. How lovely to see you again.”
Marielle pulled over a chair and put the hold-all on the bed; then she unzipped it and took out what was inside.
“I’ve brought you a few things,” Marielle said. “If they aren’t right, I can change them.” There were a couple of soft flannelette
nightdresses and two packs of pants from Marks and Spencer, a waffle dressing gown, a pair of cozy slipper-moccasins, a loose
boho top in pinks and blues, and some gray marl jogging bottoms. There were also a couple of books and a bag of pick ’n’ mix.
Marielle put them in the storage cupboard by the bed for her.
“Thank you.” Sabrina sounded both humbled and crushed, not how Marielle had intended to make her feel.
“They’re just bits and they cost hardly anything,” Marielle said.
“It’s very kind of you.”
“What are you reading?”
“A days-old newspaper,” Sabrina replied. “The Daily Trumpet . My goodness, the spelling mistakes. I don’t know how they’re in business.”
“The Daily Trumpet is renowned for its mistakes,” said Marielle, picking it up and reading out the headline: “ Sheffield Woman Bitten by Cobbler on Indian Holiday .”
“Surely they mean cobra ,” said Sabrina.
“You’d hope so,” replied Marielle, thinking that if she’d never heard of the newspaper, she couldn’t have come from Yorkshire,
though her accent suggested she was from somewhere up north.
They were interrupted by the tea lady trundling her trolley through the ward.
“I don’t like milk in my drinks,” said Sabrina, sipping her coffee. “So I know that about myself.”
“Well, it’s good you know some things.” Marielle chuckled. “More will follow.”
“I spoke to a consultant today,” said Sabrina.
“I think they’re satisfied I’m not lying when I say I really can’t remember anything of what happened.
I wish I could, I really do...” Her voice trailed off, and she shook her head as if she was having a small inner battle with herself before she started speaking again, but more quietly this time.
“Marielle, I do know more than I’m letting on, though. ”
“Ah.” It wasn’t a surprise. “Do you want to tell me?”
Sabrina licked her lips nervously. “Please don’t say anything to anyone... I know I’m a business analyst,” she said with
absolute surety. “I know I have a daughter and that she’s out in Australia, and that’s good because I know she’s safe, and
I know I ended up here to get away from what was happening in my life and that I’m absolutely sure no one will think to look
for me in this place.”
Marielle knew that she arrived with a wedding ring on a necklace. She’d taken it off her finger for some reason and put it
on a chain. She waited for Sabrina to say more, but all she got was a regretful smile.
“That’s it. That’s all I have. Other than an overpowering feeling that I don’t want to go back to wherever I came from.”
Marielle had been expecting more, and she wasn’t quite sure if what Sabrina was telling her was true because it did sound
a little dramatic, although she seemed convinced of it herself.
“It must be very frightening for you,” said Marielle.
That was putting it mildly, thought Sabrina. Why did she remember just these few details about herself, and that she had run
from someone and she didn’t want him to find her? Somehow she had to make a cake of the rest of her identity using only those
random ingredients.
“I asked the doctors what will happen to me, and they said that I might be in hospital for a while. Apparently they’ll set
up social care and get the safeguarding adults team involved, and that can take ages.”
“That sounds about right.” Marielle nodded.
“I had indents on my fingers, apparently, where some rings must have been. They think I was mugged.”
“It’s certainly a possibility if you had no handbag with you. And that’s quite a distance up the hill where you were found.
No one would walk up there”— in their right mind. Marielle cut off her words because they were insensitive under the circumstances.
“The police came to see me, but I wasn’t exactly helpful.” Sabrina gave a little laugh. “They took notes, but I don’t think they really know what to do with me. For now anyway. No one’s reported a woman like me missing.”
She got the feeling that the cynical policewoman who had interviewed her didn’t believe that she didn’t know much about herself.
She couldn’t really blame her. Especially when she said she didn’t want to go down the route of getting the press involved
to put out an all-points bulletin in the hope that someone would recognize her. She didn’t want to be recognized, not until
she could uncover more about herself and why she had washed up in a small seaside town on the east coast of Yorkshire.
“I can’t stay in hospital for weeks on end—I’ll go mad. Especially when there’s nothing wrong with me physically.” Somewhere
she had friends, a bank account, possessions, a job waiting for her. She needed to remember why she’d forgotten everything—and why she felt that she had to lay low. The consultant had asked her if she
had been under a lot of recent strain, because that might have triggered it. Or maybe even something small sparking off long-term
stress—like a match to a load of dried hay, was how he put it. She wished she had a pound for every time she’d said “I don’t
know” this past week; she’d have enough money to start a new life in San Tropez.
“You’re in the best place for now,” said Marielle kindly, reading the despair on her face. “You will remember little pieces
and they’ll come together like a jigsaw puzzle. I promise.”