She turned her head. In the dim light he had a vision of the older woman she would one day become. Accomplished, fiercely intelligent. Yet ever a free spirit, skimming lightly over the earth.

‘You asked me earlier how I ended up here. If you still want to know, it’s because I suffered some kind of amnesia after my friend died. She fell out the window at a student pub in Oxford. I’d begged her to go out that night, even though she wanted to stay in. If only she’d told me to piss off.’ Libby sat up and hugged her knees. ‘Three weeks later, when the police found me living in Bristol under an assumed name, I was admitted to the psych ward at a local hospital. After a couple of days, I finally remembered who I was, but I had no memory of travelling to Bristol, or the three weeks I’d spent there as a girl named Margaret. Turns out, I’d had something called a fugue state.’ She tried to catch his eye. ‘Even though I felt fine, my dad wanted me to come here to be treated by Dr Gessen. Apparently, that’s one of his specialities.’

‘Fugue states?’

‘Anything to do with amnesia, I think.’

His heart thumped oddly. ‘Funny how the brain works… Sometimes, I…’ He hesitated, trying to formulate his thoughts. ‘I’ve felt at times this strange sensation, that someone – or something – but not exactly me, had taken up residence in my body.’ He smiled to let her in on the joke. ‘Now you’ll think I’m truly mad.’

When she said nothing, Vidor lay back and focused on the fairy lights, which once again had transformed into a sprinkling of stars in the vast reaches of space. In a gesture of solidarity, he reached out and briefly touched her wrist, grateful that she didn’t flinch and pull away.

45

The chessboard was set up on the table by the hearth. Next to it, Gessen placed a tray with tea and a plate of those almond biscuits with the strange ability to transport Vidor to a different place and time. The scene was set. The only thing missing was the patient himself. Gessen turned to the window where the snow-covered mountains resembled great dollops of meringue. The glare was blinding, and he hastened to adjust the window shades.

In moments like these, waiting for his patient to arrive, he often grew dizzy at the monumental task ahead of him, and the complexity of the journey that had brought him here.