Stolen (16 page)

So many memories came flooding back as she went into the lounge and saw the big blue sofas, the vivid posters and paintings, mostly done by their artist friends, and the huge white shaggy rug on the floor. It wasn’t as minimalist as she remembered. The shelves which once held a single bust, piece of sculpture or other ornament, were now stuffed with books, CDs and a thousand and one trinkets, ornaments and bits of bric-a-brac.

Yet all the extra stuff was a reminder of the huge circle of friends the boys had, and the raucous nights when everyone got together here. Lotte remembered many a wild night when she was too drunk to move from the sofa to her own bed, when the police called and asked them to turn the music down. She could almost hear Fallin’, that album by Alicia Keyes, playing; Simon had loved it and played it constantly for weeks.

It was in the early evening that Lotte had a major breakthrough in memory. All afternoon she had little, unimportant things from the past pop into her head – items of clothing she wore, records, and films – and Simon dated them all as belonging to the year 2000.

The three of them were still sitting at the kitchen table, eating cheese and biscuits after their meal, when Adam mentioned the attack on the Twin Towers in 2001. Lotte didn’t know what he was talking about, but sensing from his serious tone it was a momentous, world-shattering event, she asked him to explain. Simon said he had recorded some of it on video tape and maybe watching would bring it all back.

It was the hysteria in the voice of the television newscaster as he described the scene of first one of the towers being hit by a plane, and then the other, which opened that locked door in her mind. She could hear other hysterical voices all around her, a hubbub of noise, confusion and distress as the truth of what was happening in New York got through.

Yet even more importantly, Lotte could see where she was at that crucial time. In a hairdressing salon on a ship!

She recalled an American woman bursting into the salon and screaming that she couldn’t understand why the ship was still heading south, away from Miami where they’d been the previous day.

That day had been shocking and traumatic, but Lotte was overjoyed to find herself able to relive it, for it was proof that all her other locked memories could be unlocked too.

Detail about that period was there again in her head – she could see it, smell it, taste it. The memories might be grim, but she welcomed them.

When Dale had talked about the salon on the ship, Lotte had imagined it rather dark and cramped, but it wasn’t; it was bright, light and airy, there was even a door open on to a balcony, and the sea beyond was turquoise and calm as a mill pond.

There were five or six hairdressers there that morning, including herself. They’d heard about the disaster some half an hour before the American woman burst in, and although they’d all been talking about it to their clients, and some women had cancelled appointments for that day, everything was still quite calm, perhaps because they hadn’t as yet really assimilated just how bad things were.

‘The captain should turn the ship around and sail back to New York,’ the American woman yelled out, wild-eyed and beside herself with hysteria. ‘And you should all be ashamed of yourselves for carrying on as though nothing has happened.’

‘It would be irresponsible of the captain to even consider adding to the confusion in New York by going there,’ Alice, the salon manager, said sharply, catching hold of the American woman’s flailing arms and trying to push her into a chair. ‘Now, if you feel you must go there, I’m sure that it can be arranged for you to be put ashore at the next port, but unless you have close family there that you need to be with, I suggest you stay away.’

Lotte remembered being as impressed by Alice’s composure as she was horrified by the American woman’s manic behaviour. From that moment, however, there was no attempt at behaving normally by anyone, for clients were cancelling and other passengers and staff kept bursting in to discuss the events as the full scale of the disaster unfolded.

As must have happened in shops and offices all around the world, the hairdressers and beauticians clustered around a television in the salon and watched the drama. Lotte was sure she must have seen recorded images of the planes’ moments of impact with the towers at least a hundred times that day.

And at last she remembered Dale.

She had flitted between the hairdressing and beauty salons all day – it seemed some of her clients kept their appointments. Lotte remembered how she had her dark hair twisted up on to the top of her head and fastened with a white artificial rose. With her deep tan she looked very exotic.

It must have been around three in the afternoon when Dale came into the hairdressing salon and flopped down on to a chair, well away from the rest of the girls who were crowding around the television.

‘It’s morbid watching that over and over again,’ she said in a loud, disapproving voice. ‘It’s not going to make it any better, and you can bet your life the Americans will keep harping on about it for centuries anyway.’

‘Don’t you care?’ Amy, a South African girl, said.

‘You think brooding on it shows you care?’ Dale retorted with some sarcasm. ‘I hate all this madness when there’s a tragedy, it’s like people get off on it. Any minute now they’ll be making an appeal for money. Why do they need to do that? There’s no one homeless, cold or hungry. Most will have insurance on anyone who is dead, and money won’t stop them grieving.’

‘The wives of the firemen who died should get something,’ someone argued hotly.

‘Why?’ Dale asked. ‘They get their widow’s pension like any other woman who loses her husband. We don’t go round with a collection for a woman whose husband has died of a heart attack or been run over going to work. OK, the firemen were brave, but then that’s their job, like soldiers, policemen and all those other dangerous occupations.’

Lotte half smiled as she recalled how stroppy her friend had been that day. Yet that was perhaps the reason why she hadn’t remembered Dale straight off at the hospital, for she’d been like a different person there, tearful, gentle and placid, certainly not opinionated or outspoken.

Dale on the cruise had put on a convincing display of being as hard as nails, self-centred, opinionated and just a bit of a bully, even if that was tempered by being beautiful, amusing and charm itself when it suited her. Yet she had actually meant what she said that day, and although it was hardly an appropriate time to speak out so forcefully, she made a lot of sense. She certainly kept her soft side well hidden, but Lotte already knew that she would give her last penny to anyone who really needed it.

And finally she recalled Scott too. The first memory to pop up was of him coming into the salon wearing only white shorts and a singlet, his skin golden-brown with the sheen of good health. He asked if someone could cut his hair immediately. It must have been on the first or second day, right at the start of the cruise, because she remembered the electric buzz that went around the other girls when they saw him. They were all whispering, asking who he was.

Lotte stepped forward to cut his hair and he gave her one of his heart-stopping smiles. ‘OK, Barbie Girl,’ he said. ‘Make me less of Lenny the Lion and more Funky Fitness Man.’

‘Well?’ Simon said as he turned off the video. ‘Did that do the trick?’

Lotte nodded. She was a little stunned by so much coming back all at once and needed time to sort through it. ‘I remember Dale now, and what good friends we were. But that day was crazy, people were crying and going on and on about it. I know it was a terrible atrocity, but I didn’t quite understand the depth of the shock and grief. It reminded me of when Lady Di was killed.’

‘It was much the same here,’ Adam said. ‘In every pub, café, and shops too, people were glued to TVs.’

‘I remember meeting Scott for the first time as well.’ She told them a little about that and they both laughed because they could understand the impact he would have on a crowd of girls. As Simon pointed out, he’d have the same effect on some of their friends.

‘So does your memory go beyond September the eleventh?’ Simon asked a little later. ‘Can you remember Christmas of that year?’

‘Don’t try to rush her,’ Adam reproved his friend. ‘Let her think about what she’s recalled already today.’

*

Dale and Scott arrived at about eight that evening, and they were thrilled to find Lotte had remembered them. Memories came spilling out – a dive they’d got drunk in in Montevideo; the time Scott entered a limbo competition in Jamaica and was stunned to be beaten by a sixteen-stone woman. Dale reminded Lotte of the occasion when the three of them had been in a club in Cape Town, and when Dale couldn’t find Lotte she assumed she’d gone back to the ship. With only ten minutes to go before the ship sailed and no sign of Lotte, Scott decided to run back to the club to check. Lotte had fallen asleep in the cloakroom, and but for Scott would’ve found herself stranded in Africa.

The stories kept coming, one after another, till Lotte said she had a stitch from laughing so much. Simon cut in then and said it was time Dale and Scott left as Lotte mustn’t overdo it and it was time she went to bed. Dale bristled at his bossiness and reminded Lotte how she had never liked to be told what to do.

‘There’ll be other times,’ Lotte reassured her friend. ‘Maybe when you get a day off we could spend it together and catch up?’

‘Dale’s very full of herself,’ Simon said after she’d left with Scott. ‘I like her, but she’s one of those people who think the world revolves around them.’

‘She might come across like that, but there’s a lot more to her,’ Lotte said in her defence. She had noticed Dale seemed a little resentful that Simon and Adam were friends of much longer standing than she was: every time one of them brought up an event in the past, Dale tried to top it with an anecdote from the cruise. ‘I think she just feels a bit left out. I mean, it was she who recognized me in the paper and went to the police and my parents. She would have liked the opportunity to look after me.’

‘Only to make herself feel more important,’ Simon said cattily.

‘No, because she cares about me,’ Lotte said firmly. ‘Now, don’t be nasty about her, or we’ll fall out.’

‘So what about Scott?’ Simon changed the subject. ‘He’s a good-looking bloke. Was there anything between you?’

Lotte grinned. ‘I’d like to have had something,’ she said. ‘Both Dale and I fancied him, but so did all the girls, so we settled for being his friend, and he proved to be a very good one.’

‘I’d say he likes you more than just a friend,’ Simon said. ‘I’d put money on it.’

Lotte just laughed. She didn’t believe that. Simon had always been of the opinion that all men fancied her.

On Sunday David drove over from Chichester to see her, and Simon and Adam invited him to stay for lunch. He looked very handsome in a pale blue, open-necked shirt that matched his eyes and teamed perfectly with his cream chinos.

‘How long will you have to stay cooped up indoors?’ he asked as Lotte laid the table in the lounge.

She’d asked herself that same question earlier that morning when she saw the sun shining yet again and people taking a short cut through the alley down on to the promenade. She knew Simon didn’t even think it was safe for her to sit out on the balcony, and while she didn’t mind so much for herself, she felt sorry she couldn’t go on out there now with David as his question suggested he’d rather be outside. ‘I don’t know. Until the police find whoever was responsible, I suppose,’ she said with a sigh. ‘But I don’t expect anyone to stay in with me all the time.’

‘It would be a pleasure to stay in with you,’ David replied with a wide smile. ‘But it would be even nicer to take you out for dinner, or a walk along the promenade.’

Lotte took a step nearer him and kissed him on the cheek. ‘How very gallant,’ she said teasingly.

He caught hold of her two arms and held her for a moment. ‘I haven’t been able to think of anything else but you since I found you on the beach,’ he said, his eyes looking right into hers. ‘I told myself at first that it was the mystery surrounding you, but I know it’s not just that now.’

‘David, I could’ve done all kinds of terrible things,’ she said. She felt she had to warn him off even if she did really like him. ‘We know I’ve had a baby, but I might be married, I could even have done something criminal. I wouldn’t want you to become involved until we know about me.’

‘I don’t believe you’ve ever done anything bad,’ he said, lifting one hand to caress her cheek. ‘But even if you have, I want to be around to support you when it all comes out.’

It was Lotte who moved to kiss him. She couldn’t stop herself because his mouth looked so soft and appealing and his hand on her face was making her heart race. It was the kind of sweet, gentle, lingering kiss that suggested passion was waiting in the wings.

‘Ummm,’ he said as she broke away, ‘that was delicious. Any chance of seconds?’

Simon came into the room at that point and looked at them sharply as if he sensed something was going on. ‘Lunch will be ready pretty soon. Would you like a beer, David?’

David followed Simon out into the kitchen and Lotte finished laying the table. As she went back to the kitchen to get some serving spoons, she overheard Simon talking about her.

‘She needs to rest after lunch. The doctor told me it is as important that she regains her strength as it is to regain her memory. You are welcome to stay here while she has a snooze, but I doubt she’ll go and lie down if you’re here.’

Lotte knew Simon was right, she did tire easily, but she didn’t like him telling David he should go. It was so disturbing having so much blank in her memory, and it felt good to be with David who she knew was not part of her past.

But she wasn’t brave enough to challenge Simon’s authority, so she said nothing.

Over lunch Lotte found herself warming still further to David. He was such easy company; she supposed that was coming from such a big family. There was real interest in his eyes as Adam talked about windowdressing and interior design. He asked questions, and there was none of that talking-down, homophobic angle many straight men tended to get into when they were speaking to gays. He had similar tastes in music to the boys, laughed at the same kind of jokes, and appreciated their cooking.