Tears prick at my eyes, and Ellie puts her hand gently on my wrist. This time I don’t snatch it away. ‘We very much hope that’s the case, um …’ I can tell she wants to use my name here and fresh tears come at the thought that I can’t remember it – though somehow I’m almost certain it wasn’t Anna. ‘You’ll continue to talk to the psychiatrist and your memory will hopefully come back, and then you’ll be able to …’

I sit upright. ‘There’s nothing to tell! That much I remember. He was a good and kind man who looked after me.’ I swipe angrily at the tears, which are now coming thick and fast.

‘OK,’ Ellie says, in the tone of voice you might use to talk to someone very stupid, or maybe a wild animal. ‘The other issue, of course, is reuniting you with your family …’

‘I don’t want to be reunited with anyone!’ I yell. ‘I want my dad! Now please, leave me alone.’ I throw myself down on the bed and childishly turn my back on the two women. I hear them tiptoe out of the room and gently close the door behind them.

18

July 2013

Inverness

I cry and cry and cry until eventually I fall asleep. I dream of a house with a large living room, a big roaring fire, a kitchen table covered in books. It’s my house, I realize. Where I live. Lived. With Dad. My room is upstairs, where there are even more books. Dad’s room is along the landing. There is a bathroom, but the water is often cold and the bath which stands in the middle of the room is cracked and mottled. It’s nothing like the clean, white bath here with as much hot water as I want, or the tiny, neat white bathrooms I’ve seen on TV since I’ve been here.

I wake up covered in sweat, realizing that it wasn’t a dream, it was a memory. Wasn’t it? I remember the smell of Dad, woodsmoke and something else, mysterious and manly. In the evenings sometimes when it was cold we would huddle under a scratchy blanket on the sofa and watch films. We didn’t watch TV programmes, not like I’ve been watching here in hospital, but we watched films. Dad always chose them. Sometimes they were in colour but often they were black and white.

That’s why the TV seemed different. Films. Longer. Less shouting. More story. No adverts.

It is still dark, but it feels important that I have remembered something, and I wonder if I should tell someone. I switch on my bedside light and buzz for the night nurse. A few minutes later she comes in.

‘Everything OK?’ she asks in a soft voice.

‘Fine,’ I say. ‘I just thought I should let you know I’m remembering some stuff.’