Jogging Memories Ch. 03

"Very kind of you to say so," she smiled, "I have to get dressed up smarter at weekends, I work for an estate agents in their site office on a new-build estate. Very nice houses, they are actually, out on the edge of town." She pulled a chair from the opposite wall and pulled it across to the end of the bed, "Way out of my price range, though, especially the final phase that they haven't started yet."

"Sorry, I can't help you with that chair," Tommy said, "They've let me get out of bed and I even had a walk up and down the corridor with some hideous eye-shades on, but they won't let me lift anything, yet, or even take me off this drip. I forgot about it and almost tore it out of my arm when I went to the little boys' room last night!"

"That's alright, Tommy, I can manage," she laughed lightly, "I'm a lot stronger than I look."

"You look stunning, I can see where Helen gets her great looks from. Sorry if I'm embarrassing you, Sharon, I don't mean to flirt with you, it's just that it's so great being able to see again, even if it is still a bit dark in here. Also, I don't know anybody anymore, other than you, Helen, Rachel, Ben, the Doc and a couple of other nurses. I don't have any other visitors, except the Docs and all they want to do is poke me."

"And what makes you think Helen and me don't want to do that too!" Sharon giggled, "As long as you don't mind Helen and me coming to see you, Tommy, we'll continue to visit until you get your family back."

"As I see it, Sharon, you, Helen and Ben are my family, my best friends, the only friends I seem to have in the world."

"I don't like to pry, Tommy, but Helen sent me a text saying that Rachel had brought you details of your Mum this morning?"

"Yeah, apparently Mum had reported me missing all those years ago and the local police have just been in contact with her. Rachel came back this afternoon to say they had sent her an old photo and she said was almost certainly me. I looked so much like my ... Dad. Mum will be up to see me on Monday morning with a couple of policemen from Nottingham."

"No word on your wife, yet, then?" Sharon asked quietly.

"No, nothing yet, Sharon."

"You said your Mum reported you missing, not your wife?"

"No," Tommy grinned, "Sally was quiet, shy. Tough and stubborn as hell, mind. No, she was always the retiring kind, comfortable with her own company, and mine of course. Sally was beautiful, but she could never see it, no matter how many times I told her. I've been thinking, wondering what's she like now, she'd be 53."

"That's not old, Tommy, about six years older than me."

"Yeah, she'd still be beautiful, without truly realising it. Just like you, Sharon."

"Get away with you, Tommy, you'd charm the hind legs off a bronze horse! Now, what did your Mum have to say about you to the police?"

"Rachel didn't know what conversation took place between the police and my Mum. She did tell them that my father died, though."

"Oh, no!" Sharon reached out and held Tommy's hand. "So sorry to hear that, honey." she could see tears forming in his already bloodshot eyes.

"Yeah," he sniffed, "Three years ago it was, apparently. He had a stroke, went into hospital and then a nursing home for a few months before having a second attack, which finished him off. I think he must've gone downhill quite quickly."

"Hopefully, Tommy, he didn't suffer too much."

"Hopefully not." Tommy slumped down in his chair for a few moments. Then he brightened up a bit.

"Oh, I got some further news from Rachel," he said, with a smile on his face.

"What's that?" Sharon smiled warmly in response to his change of mood.

"My new family have also finally got around to reporting me missing."

"Really?" she asked, "When?"

"Apparently on Friday, by telephone, to the Buxton police," Tommy was still smiling, "Further to that my new wife called into the station this morning, with a fairly recent photo of me," he started rummaging in the bedside cabinet next to his bed, pulling out an A4 colour copier printout and handing it to her. "What do you think?"

Sharon took the photo print from him, and looked it over. The photo was of a man a little younger than Tommy, his hair longer and a lot less grey, sitting at a table in a suit with a number of men and women in their finery, plus three children.

"Did Rachel say when this was taken?"

"Yes, three or four years ago, apparently at the wedding of one of our friends," he said, "They don't know me as Tommy, though, they think I'm someone else."

Sharon handed the photo back to him. "What do you mean, 'someone else'?"

"Different name, another background, an entirely separate identity altogether," he said, grimly, "I changed my name and history completely, it seems, at least twenty years ago."

"So what is your other name?" Sharon asked.

"Robert Morris, known as 'Bob', apparently. I work at an assembly plant about five or six miles by road from my home in Buxton, towards Derby, I think. My wife's name is Jennifer and I have three children, two boys and a girl... Sharon, I cannot remember anything at all about any of them."

"That isn't good," she offered, a little stunned as she tried to comprehend how this could have happened to Tommy.

"No, it terrifies me, actually. I don't know who I am or what I've been up to for a lot more than half my life." Tommy shook his head "For a start I am afraid to see those kids, to be honest. What effect is it going to have on them if I don't recognise any one of them? I am not sure if I can face that right now."

"Does your wife, er, new wife, does she know that you have lost your memory?"

"I don't exactly know what's been said to her by the Buxton Police, to be honest. Rachel's opinion is that the police in Buxton wouldn't say anything about me or my condition until there's been a positive ID established and that probably won't happen for certain until she comes up to see me."

"When's that likely to be?" Sharon asked.

"Don't know yet, to be honest," admitted Tommy, scratching his head. "Rachel wants me to speak to my Mum and the detectives from Nottingham first. I do want to see Mum, though, really desperately."

"Looks like Rachel is running the show," Sharon observed, with a smile, the younger woman was not much older than Helen and, Sharon had observed, she wore no rings on her fingers, "She's a smart cookie, very fit and pretty too."

"Yeah, she seems pretty cool, as far as coppers go," Tommy grinned.

"Yes, she certainly is," agreed Sharon, sadly.