Remember Our Song (3 page)

We had just returned to the hotel after a dinner of various things from the bakery, salad, cold meats and cheese on the beach and the sun was almost setting.  If all had gone according to plan, we would have gone for a walk to enjoy it, but I could see from the intense concentration and concern on his face that he was reading something that was going to throw a spanner in the works.

“Shit,” he said.

“What is it?”

“I’ve got to go back, it’s hitting the fan over there.”

My heart sank, it was the best holiday we’d ever had and although we only had a couple of days left on the schedule it seemed such a shame to end it short.  Still, with a schedule like Jeremy’s, we’d been lucky to get even this much time uninterrupted.

“When do we leave?”

“I’ve got to go pretty much right now if I want to get back in time.  Why don’t you stay, though?  No need for your holiday to be ruined.”

“If you go, I go.  The pool boy here must be ninety years old, he’s no use to me.”

“Note to self, hire repulsive pool boys in the future.  Well, alright then.  Pack your stuff we’ve got to either walk back to the copter or steal that road train.”

The walk back to the helicopter was much less enjoyable than the walk away from it had been, but at least we did get that sunset walk we’d planned.  Although I’d said I wouldn’t eat a fig again, I did pick one and share it with Jeremy as a dessert-on-the-run.  A pack of apparently-wild peacocks spread their tail feathers and called out their strange cry as if they were the guardians of the figs.

I took a photo but otherwise ignored their warning.  The reds and oranges of the sunset played beautifully on the shifting blue and green eye-patterns of their feathers, they were stunning creatures.  By the time we reached the helicopter and were in the air, the sun had dipped below the horizon, but once we were in the air, I thought about those peacocks and smiled.

*****

Transcript of communication between Piraeus private airfield and Holt private helicopter.

CAM = Cockpit Area Microphone

PIL = Voice identified as Pilot, Jeremy Holt

PAS = Voice identified as passenger, Beatrice Holt

**** = expletives

TWR = Piraeus air traffic control

1943:25              CAM:               [Sound of grinding]

19
43:26              PIL:               ****.

19
43:28              CAM:               [Three chimes similar to master warning]

19
43:32              PAS:               [unintelligible]

19
43:34              PIL:               ****.

19
43:38              PAS:               What was that?  What’s happening?

19
43:45              CAM:               [grinding sound starts and continues intermittently for the rest of the recording]

19
43:46              PIL:               Piraeus, this is private flight hotel echo lima nine hundred, do you copy?

19
43:48              PAS:               What’s happening? [frantic]

19
43:49              PIL:               Strap in!  Strap in, God dammit!

19
43:51              CAM:               [Series of rapid beeps]

19
43:54              PIL:               Piraeus, are you there?

19
43:59              TWR:               Copy hotel echo lima nine hundred, this is papa sierra nine oh.

19
44:02              CAM:               [warning beeps continue]

19
44:03              PIL:               Mayday, mayday.  Something’s gone wrong with the tail rotor gearbox, I’m losing control.

19
44:09              CAM:               [warning beeps continue]

19
44:10              PIL:               What the **** going on?

19
44:13              TWR:               Hotel echo lima nine hundred, we have your position.  Are you turning back or coming in?

19
44:16              PIL:               Neither, it’s getting worse.  Tail rotor is all out of whack.  Pitching… ****!

19
44:20              PIL:               I can't hold it.  Mayday mayday, we’re going…

19
44:23              PAS:               [screaming]

19
44:24              CAM:               [sound of increasing wind speed begins and continues until the end of the recording]

19
44:26              PIL:               Oh ****!

19
44:26              TWR:  We have your position, we’re contacting all ships in the area, put it down as gently as you can, help is on the way.

19
44:31              PAS:               Oh my God!

19
44:33              PIL:               Not like this…

19
44:36              CAM:               [Sound of heavy breathing]

19
44:41              PAS:               Jeremy!

19
44:47              PAS:               [screaming]

19
44:51              PIL:               [screaming]

19
44:59              CAM:               [sound of impact, water]

Chapter 3

It was pitch black, I couldn’t see a thing. I tried to move but couldn’t. 
Think, Beatrice!  What happened?
  A good question, but I had no idea.  Not only could I not move, I realized I couldn’t
feel
anything either.  Was I alive? Dead?

No… I could hear something.  Voices, sounds, arguments, crying, hazy like a television left on in another room.  I thought I
recognized some of the voices, but most of them were completely unknown.

Something B
ad had happened, that much was obvious.  Was I hit by a car on the way to work?  I fought to remember but every time I tried to focus on the last thing to happen, I got too tired and ended up slipping into dreams.  The difference between hallucination and reality was difficult to discern most of the time, but when I relived hearing the news of the last car crash to ruin my life I knew I was dreaming.

I dreamed about the funeral, except this time I was the only one there, sitting alone on the fold out seats as the coffin sunk into the ground and out of sight.  All day and night I sat there staring at the hole in the ground until I blinked and saw it was overrun with weeds and long grass, the tombstone cracked and old.

Then he was beside me, sitting in the only other chair left from the funeral, looking at the grave with sad eyes.  My mouth opened and closed over and over again, I knew there were so many things I’d wanted to say if I got the chance but I couldn’t remember what they were.

“Dad…”

My father turned his head to look at me and I saw that special smile that he used to say was only for me, his eyes brightening.  I basked in it, feeling the warmth like it was actual sunshine, the calming of nerves that his presence had always given.

I wanted to tell him something that would make that smile even bigger, like I’d won the lead role in the musical at school or the cute boy had asked me to sing in his band, but that was all old news now.  He’d already heard those ones.  Lately, things hadn’t been so good, had they?

“She left, Dad, I don’t know where she is.  I’m all alone.”

The memory of Henry Hampton reached out and stroked my cheek, then pointed at his wrist.  Although there was no watch there, the meaning was clear ‘
is that the time?  I’m late, got to go’.  He stood and then turned to face me, bending down to give me a kiss on the forehead before walking towards his grave.

Somewhere in the distance a car engine revved, like a big hungry beast.  My Dad looked scared, and I knew why.  I knew that car was red, red like blood, and behind the wheel would be a young man, too young to be trusted with a car that powerful.  Young enough that breaking the speed limit for the sake of breaking the speed limit was a thrill.

“No,” I tried to scream it, but it came out as a whisper.

The engine revved again and I heard the squealing of
tires an instant before I saw the car burst through the fence of the cemetery, skid sideways on the lush grass and then begin propelling itself towards us, twin plumes of dirt flying out from each of the rear wheels.

Between us and the car was row after row of tombstones, set in the ground marking the places where the cemetery residents were buried.  The red car drove through them like the marble and rock they were carved from was nothing more than rice paper, they exploded whenever the front of the car hit them.

With an evil crunching, cracking, grinding sound the red car gained speed and got closer, eating up the distance between us like the monster it was.

Crack! Crash!

“No!” I looked back to my Dad, he was facing the car, his back to his grave.  “Run!”

My Dad glanced at me, the terror evident in his eyes, but he shook his head and turned back to the car, only a few rows away from us now.  The front wheels of the car hit a small bump in the ground and it reared up on its back wheels as if it was going to pounce on the next tombstone like some predator at the top of the food chain.

Down it came, obliterating that grave marker like all the others before it, and smashing through the next one with a crazed revving of the engine.  Pieces of tombstone flew in all directions and I fell backwards crying.  Everything seemed to slow down and I got a good look in through the driver’s window where instead of the youth who had really been driving the car that god awful day, I saw my Mom, laughing maniacally as she floored it.

The front of the car hit my Dad with a sickening crunching sound and I finally found my lungs, screaming as loud as I could, with tears streaming down my face.

“No! No! No!”

The cemetery faded away to pitch black again, leaving me with only the sound of my own voice, which got weaker and weaker every time I said ‘No’, until my powerful screams were nothing more than parched-sounding croaks.  The sound of the television in another room returned and became louder and clearer, I noticed that with the sound I could see a faint light like at the end of a tunnel.

The light grew until it was all around me and I realized I had simply opened my eyes, my vision blurred by my tears.  I was still saying ‘No’ over and over again with that weak, croaky voice as I blinked to clear my sight.

I was in a hospital
, the machines on my right kept pace with my heartbeat and the room had that same sterile feel that all hospitals do.  I moved my eyes to the left and felt shooting pains explode in my head, making my eyes water all over again.  With that sensation, the feeling in the rest of my body came flooding back and
everywhere
seemed to hurt, but nothing more so than my head and right leg.

For the second time, I blinked away the tears in my eyes and saw that a man was sitting next to my bed holding my left hand and looking at me with eyes almost as red as the monster-car from my dream, dark circles under them .

“Nurse?” he called.  “Bea?”

I didn’t answer, instead glancing back to my right when the curtain partially surrounding my bed was pulled aside and a nurse glanced in at me.  Pain bolted through my head once more when I moved my eyes to look at the nurse and I winced, a quiet croak coming from my mouth.  The nurse came to the side of the bed and looked down at me with concern.

“Beatrice, can you hear me?”

My eyes rolled up to try and stay on her face, and I licked my dry lips, but anything more seemed to take more energy than it was worth.  I felt my eyelids start to droop again until the world came through via a small blurred line, which eased the pain in my head somewhat.

“Bea?”

“I’ll get the doctor.”

Voices went hazy again, but I forced myself to concentrate and open my eyes.  When I did I saw that a man with a stethoscope around his neck and a white coat was in the room, a doctor if ever I’d seen one.

“Beatrice, can you hear me?”

I tried to nod my head but couldn’t seem to do it, a small groan came out of my mouth when my efforts brought back the shooting pains.

“Water.  Nurse,” the doctor held out his hand and the nurse handed him a water bottle with a bent straw sticking out of the top.

The doctor held the straw to my mouth but I couldn’t seem to figure out how to suck the water out.  Carefully, he squeezed the bottle until a trickle of cool liquid dripped into my mouth.  The relief was amazing when I swallowed, as if the water was washing a thick layer of dust off my throat.  My body responded, remembering exactly what to do and forming a seal around the straw, allowing me to get a good gulp in before the doctor pulled the bottle away.

“OK, take it easy, Beatrice.  Do you know where you are?”

“Hos…” I licked my lips again, “Hospital.”

“That’s right, good.  Listen, Beatrice, you’ve been in a very bad accident, but you’re going to be fine, do you understand?  You’re through the worst of it.”

“What… happened?”

“It’s my fault,” the man holding my hand sobbed, “I couldn’t hold it.”

“It’s not the time for blame games, Mr. Holt, accidents happen,” the doctor turned back to me.  “The helicopter you were in crashed and you sustained some injuries, a badly broken leg and a pretty serious concussion.  Other than that a lot of small cuts and bruises, but it’s the head injury that’s been the most concerning. You’ve been unconscious for eight days.”

I could feel the water in my stomach, as if it was cleansing me of fatigue, slowly but surely.  My mind felt less sluggish, but something wasn’t making sense.  What in the hell was I doing in a helicopter?

“Helicopter?  You were the pilot?”  I asked the man, who glanced at the doctor before answering me.

“Yes, I’m so sorry, Bea.”

“Um… It’s OK… uh… Captain, like the doctor said, accidents happen.  It was really nice of you to visit me.”

“Captain?”

“Oh, sorry, are helicopter pilots not called captain?”

The man looked from me, to the doctor and back again, “Bea… it’s me.  Jeremy?”

“Who?”

“Jeremy… your husband.”

Lightning bolts of pain burst behind my eyes and the heart rate monitor started beeping frantically.  I pulled my hand away from his, fuelling the pain but not relenting until he let go.

“That’s not funny, can’t you see I’m hurt here?”

“I’m… Bea… what?”

“Take it easy, Beatrice, you’ve been through a lot, calm down.  Nurse, will you please escort Mr. Holt to the waiting room?”  The doctor placed his hand on my shoulder and looked at the nurse.

“Like hell!”  The man, crappy helicopter pilot and bad joker Jeremy Holt, said.

“Mr. Holt, your… Beatrice needs to rest, I’ll be out to speak with you in a moment.  This is what she needs.”

The two men had a fierce but silent stare-down over my bed, the home ground advantage eventually working in the doctor’s favor as Jeremy appeared to wilt.

“I’ll be right out there, I’m not leaving the hospital.”

The nurse followed Jeremy out, leaving me with the doctor, who brought the water bottle back to my lips before putting it in some kind of drink-holder clipped to the side of the bed.  The heart rate monitor slowly returned to a more normal pace as the doctor picked up a clip board and examined it briefly.

“Should we call the police or something?” I asked.

“Hmmm?  No, don’t worry about anything, Beatrice, it’s all under control.”

“You sure?  That guy was a bit of a weirdo.”

“Yes, I’m sure.  Oh, forgive me, my name is Doctor Jensen, I’ll be looking after you most of the time while you are staying here at St Theresa’s.”

“Nice to meet you, I’m Beatrice Hampton.”

*****

Hospital food wasn’t as bad as all the movies had made me believe, and my room was spacious and private.  I wondered aloud what such extravagance, by hospital standards, was going to cost me but I was told not to worry about it.

Doctor Jensen was on hand almost constantly throughout the day, checking in on me every hour or so, asking me how I was feeling, whether I remembered any details of the crash, or anything else and did it hurt when he pressed here (yes it did).  It was the next evening when I was eating some bland but well-prepared dinner that I noticed I had a hospital wristband on.

Out of curiosity, I brought it up to my face to see what kind of information they put on there and my heart practically stopped beating.  Instead of
my
name it said ‘Holt, Beatrice.  D.O.B:  10/14/87’ and under that it said ‘Date of Admission: 7/03/13’ but that couldn’t be right.

I’d done my best to remember everything I could, and the last thing I could recall was moving into my apartment and ‘celebrating’ my eighteenth birthday.  It wasn’t much of a celebration, since I was all alone, but at least I remembered it.  If the wristband was to be trusted then that would mean I was twenty-five, almost twenty-six, years old.  It had to be some mistake, you couldn’t just
lose
almost eight years.

When Doctor Jensen came to check on me he found me staring forlornly at my unfinished dinner, a blank look on my face.

“Is everything OK?” he asked.

“Why does my wristband say this?” I held my arm out.

“Ah, sh… yes.  Beatrice, I don’t want to put you under any undue stress.  I forgot about the wristband.  I wanted you to remember as much as you could, naturally, without any pressure, but the information on the wristband is correct.”

“Holt.  That guy, he must have lied when he brought me in, it can’t be true,” I felt tears welling up.  “What’s happened to my life?”

“It’s true,” he said, “but I can’t tell you what’s happened with your life, just with your recovery, which, aside from your memory, is coming along really well.  You’re a strong girl, Beatrice, you were in some deep dark woods for a few days, but you’re going to be just fine.  Amnesia is almost always temporary, there’s just not much we can do about it aside from treatment of the physical injuries.”

Tears streamed down my face and I felt a dull headache begin throbbing behind my eyes as I shook my head.  A momentary impulse to jump to my feet and make a run for it was put to rest swiftly when an explosion of pain from my leg left me in a cold sweat the instant I tried to move it.  I let out a strangled cry and let my head slump back in the pillow.