Jogging Memories Ch. 05

"Yes, I popped in this afternoon, after putting my paper in at college. You know, the staff here seem to think Mum 'n' me are part of the consulting staff!" she laughed, "But you still had a roomful of family with you, so I, you know, thought I'd leave you all to it."

"Well, you're very welcome to come in and see me any time, whoever I'm with. You should meet my Mum. You and Sharon are among my favourite people right now. Your Mum was at work over the weekend, wasn't she?"

"Yes, dawn to dusk Saturdays and Sundays, well almost, at the moment," Helen answered, "Nothing's shifting in this economic climate, with Christmas coming up, so they can't afford to miss a single potential client. Sometimes these run over and she gets held up. Plays havoc with the Sunday meal each week though, I have to leave everything on a low gas and kept my fingers crossed it's still edible when she gets home. Mum spends today getting the washing and housework done and she will take her turn to cook tonight's dinner. Although I rather suspected she might play truant today and come up here anyway, but I didn't see her."

"No, I didn't either," said Tommy.

"When you are up and about, Tommy, you'll have to come over to our place for a meal," Helen invited, "Mum's a marvel in the kitchen. She often cooks in the show kitchens, too; she reckons filling the house with baking sells houses like hot cakes! We could invite your Mum over, too."

Tommy laughed, holding onto his ribs, "Yeah, that sounds like fun, but what makes me think that you three girls'll gang up on me?"

"Of course we will!" laughed Helen.

"So, you always lived at home?"

"Lord no, I left at 18, off to college, then I set up house with a boyfriend. We rented a flat for a while..." Helen paused, collecting her thoughts.

"Didn't work out?" Tommy asked gently.

"No it didn't," Helen smiled at him, she could tell Tommy anything, he seemed so nice. "Bruce was a big time mistake on my part. He was lazy and abusive, not violent, but he was continually sniping away at my self-esteem, nothing I did was ever good enough."

"So you left him?"

"No," she suddenly laughed, "No, actually he left me! All the while he was sneaking around on me and I didn't have a clue. I got home from work and he'd cleared out the flat, completely emptied the bank account and disappeared."

"What a rat!"

"Absolutely," Helen agreed. "Mum was going through the divorce then. Dad had started a new family, baby on the way and so the house was sold and split between them. I took up half Mum's new mortgage, so Mum could get a place to live, and I moved in with her."

"And now you're back at college?"

"Yes, doing a masters degree in marketing. If I can't get a good man I reckon I better get a good career."

"Oh, you'll get a good man all right, don't give up yet, Helen. You are beautiful, smart, and, if these last few days are anything to go by, you are a catch. If only I was thirty years younger!"

Helen grinned back at him and winked, "You're as young as you feel, eh?" then she noticed the albums, "Are these your family snaps?"

"Yeah, come have a look. This is me when I was a kid-"

"Aw, you looked so cute with all that blond hair!"

"Yeah, where did it all go in the last 30 years?" he grinned ruefully, running his hand through his grey stubble and wincing when his hand reached his stitches.

"That your Mum and Dad?" Helen pointed to a faded snap of a couple with a blond toddler on a seafront promenade.

Tommy nodded, "Yeah my Dad died three years ago, of a stroke."

"Oh, I'm sorry Tommy," Helen squeezed his hand gently, "I assumed the man I saw with your Mum today was your Dad."

"No, he's one of the detectives, who is retired. I think he's a lot younger than Mum. He was involved in my original missing person case years ago, I think," Tommy replied thoughtfully, "Actually, I'm not sure, he may have looked into it later. Anyway, after I'd disappeared he had become a family friend, Mum used to baby-sit for his son - that was the other detective; I think he's a Chief something or other now. High up in the Nottingham police force anyway. I think Rachel was pretty impressed by him."

"Really?" Helen raised her eyebrows, "The 'Ice Maiden' melting at last was she?"

"She's not so bad you know," Tommy laughed, "And Mike, the other detective, was really relaxed and friendly all round, which set a nice tone for their visit."

"Well, she really likes you," Helen commented with a knowing smile, "You know."

"What? Rachel? No," shaking his head, "I'm old and ugly, well past my prime. I look like a panda that even the World Wildlife Fund wouldn't look at twice in a hurry. That Rachel's a young bundle of energy."

"Don't sell yourself short, Tommy, you should know that you're hot to trot!" Helen laughed, "And my Mum thinks so too!"

"Hot to trot?" Tommy queried, "What's that mean?"

"Hot stuff!" she giggled, "Why not? You are very fit. Most guys your age have let themselves go completely. You're funny, charming, polite and a real live hero to boot. What's not to like?"

"Well, when you put it like that," Tommy breathed on his fingernails and rubbed them on his pyjama jacket lapel, "I suppose I must be!"

They both laughed.

<<<>>>

Tommy's final visitor before afternoon tea was served was Rachel, returning from Buxton, where she had interviewed his wife, Jennifer. Tommy wasn't really sure he wanted to hear what she had to say. Also, Rachel didn't look that cheerful.

"Hello, Rachel, nice to see you again. Twice in one day, too. Well, what's the verdict? Am I a happily married man or not?"

"Do you want the honest truth, Tommy?"

"Oh, I'm still Tommy, then, am I?"

"You having doubts, any memories coming back?"

"Nope. Only in my dreams, Rach, only my dreams, most of which I can't make head nor tail of. More like nightmares really, flashing lights, me rolling about, hitting trees, hurting my head and body, oh, and a graveyard with gravestones in a miserable grey dawn. Where did that come from? There's nothing concrete that I can get a firm grip on. Maybe they are clips from old movies? Who knows what's going on in this head of mine?"

"It'll come, in time, perhaps you're trying too hard, Tommy."

"Yeah, maybe. We was talking about it this afternoon, trying to sort out what I can remember. Mike and Ralph were very interested in the details of Helen finding me. Oh, by the way, I'm seeing Alicia Knight tonight. Hopefully I can find out from her what her daughter had to say about what happened when I turned up."

"You must have been like the Seventh Cavalry," Rachel laughed, "Alicia probably thinks you are the second coming, while Hannah probably hasn't really taken on board exactly what the consequences could have been if you hadn't turned up at just the time when you did. It hasn't seemed to have affected her much," Rachel shook her head, "The confidence of youth. Hannah told me she still goes out running as if nothing serious had ever happened. If it was me I wouldn't go out again unless I had an army with me."

"Or me," Tommy looked up smiling.

"Or you," Rachel laughed, "Once your ribs mend properly, anyway. When did the Doc say you could start running again?"

"In a couple of weeks' time. Assuming I get my jogging clobber back from your lot, Ben told me the uniform police who were here that first night took them away for evidence."

"We took them for forensic testing, for any fibres which would have come off your attackers' togs. At the time, Tommy, we were thinking the worst; that it might end up a murder enquiry and we needed every clue to the identity of whoever it was beat you up that we could find," Rachel had lowered her voice at this point, "Fortunately, you were made of stronger stuff, and Hannah filled in the rest of the evidence for us. We've got one matey locked up bang to rights, while the other one thinks he's got away with it for the time being, but we'll get him sooner or later."

"Anyway, Rach, I notice you have skilfully changed the subject away from the state of my marriage."

"I did, didn't I?" Rachel replied, quietly, sitting herself down on the edge of the bed. "OK, as a copper, I have got used to assessing what people are telling me, and your wife gives every indication that she is lying to me."

"Damn, the Doc says I can go 'home' in a couple of days. That sounds like it's not going to be much fun living with my brand-new everloving. If she's lying to you, how can I rely on what she'll be saying to me? I can't go to Mum's place. She's in a sort of old peoples' home, one with their own little flats. Also a trick cyclist who came around with the Doc spoke to me this morning and suggested that me going home could actually do me a world of good. Being at home, surrounded by once-familiar things and people, she reckons the experience should help me get my memories back."

"That sounds promising, Tommy."

"It does, but now I'm not sure that I actually want them memories back. I'm happy with what I have, to be honest. Did my wife explain why I was missing for nearly a week before she bothered to get around to reporting me missing?"

"Only that when you got in from work on Sunday morning you were still upset with her and continued a row that she said started earlier."

"Does that seem likely, that I would hold in an argument all night and wake her up to continue it?"

"Knowing you as you are, then no," Rachel said, "But this Bob Morris that you were, may have developed a different personality to you. She really avoided explaining what the row was about other than a minor domestic that had been blown out of proportion. Jennifer said the row was mainly about the hours you spend working and running and her offer to step up her part-time hours to offset your shift premium. Something about nothing, she stressed, anyway. If you hadn't been injured, Jennifer said that she believed that you would have come back that same day, probably with your tail between your legs."

"Not 25 miles out and 25 miles back, I wouldn't!" he laughed. "By then my tongue would be between my legs, resting on the ground!"

"No," she smiled, "I suppose you wouldn't have run back all that way. Anyway, when you didn't come back she says she thought you were sulking and was prepared to leave you to stew for as long as you wanted. Oh, I spoke to your supervisor, Amos Joseph, on the phone, too."

"Yeah? Well, I don't remember him either. What did he have to say about me?"

"Said you were his best assembly worker. With your engineering background you were an excellent problem solver. That's how you got the deep gash on your arm: rather than just dump this duff assembly that some other team had put together, you tried to dismantle, correct the problem and reassemble it. Unfortunately, a component had been put in upside down unbeknown to you, so the sharp edge was on the outside and that caught you out."

"So, that's how I got that wound. I had wondered about that, to be honest. I thought the missus might've owned up to doing it to me with a kitchen knife!" Tommy laughed, then continued more seriously, "The Doc says I might have to have a couple more operations on that arm, if I want to minimise the scarring. I've seen it at wound dressing changes, it is not a pretty sight."

"Yes, I can imagine," Rachel sympathised, "It was an open wound for a long time, rubbing red raw against your vest as you ran, then left open to the elements in that hot and dirty environment. At least you made it out alive."

"Yeah, I can live with that, Rach."

<<<>>>

Monday evening visiting time was a busy and somewhat confusing one for Ben's most unusual patient. Firstly, Alicia Knight came in ten minutes early and managed to charm her way past the nurses' station with her dimpled smile. She came armed with a huge bag of grapes.

Tommy's room had the lighting turned down low. After a long exciting day, he was lying in bed propped up by pillows; his eyes were closing on him as he was becoming very tired.

"Hello, honey," she smooched as she came through the doorway, "It's very romantic and atmospheric in here, I really should have brought some candles to go with these grapes."

Tommy opened one eye and sat up wide-awake when he recognise Alicia from this morning.

"Oh, hello, Alicia. Sorry, I was just resting my eyes for a few minutes. Come on in and chat with me for a while."

"Been a long day for you then, hasn't it sweetheart?" she asked sweetly, putting the grapes on his table, "With your family here and all."

"Yeah," he grinned, "It has been a long day. But a really good day, Alicia, it was very nice to see my Mum again."

"That's nice, honey, you not seen her for a while then?" Alicia sat down on one side of the bed, Tommy having to move his legs over before she sat on them.

"You could say that," Tommy smiled, "She thinks it's a long time anyway, for me it only seems a couple of weeks."

"Mums always do, sweetheart, they can never get enough of their children, even more so as they get older, as they think they are more savvy and feel they don't need their old Mums as much. They have their own lives to live."

"You're right." Tommy nodded.

Alicia beamed at him. "I see you have a lot of photos here, do you want to run me through them? I love looking at old photographs."

Although the room had the overhead lights switched off, there was ambient light coming through the doorway and one of the two low-powered reading lights by the bed were on, so there was just enough mostly soft warm light to see the photos by.

"Yeah, why not?" Tommy replied cheerfully.

"Well, budge up then, and I'll sit next to you," she smiled and raised her eyebrows up and down. "It'll be easier to check them out. I promise I won't check you out. You'll see my hands at all time." Alicia held her hands up and wiggled her fingers, a cheeky smirk on her face.

"Why not?" Tommy laughed and wriggled over to his right, giving Alicia room enough to slid over next to him but keeping her shapely legs on top of the blankets, after she'd kicked off her shoes.

"These ones," he said, opening up the album, are of me as a child..."

"Bob, honey! What?" came a loud interruption from the open doorway.

Jennifer Morris stood there, almost as made up as Alicia was but with a far less cheerful expression on her flawlessly painted face. Her hands were on her hips, a bunch of flowers firmly gripped in one fist had the blooms pointing downwards and a small shower of petals drifted to the floor.

Tommy looked up from the albums. He smiled at the newcomer, "You must be Jennifer?" When the stranger softened her features and nodded, Tommy continued, "Rachel said she had seen you earlier today and I half-expected you to visit in the next couple of days or so. Come on in, please, are those flowers for me?"

Jennifer nodded again.

"You shouldn't have," Tommy continued, "They are lovely, very ... bright and mainly yellow. Good choice."

"Are you going to introduce me to your ... er ... friend? She looks very comfy, I'm surprised she's not under the covers with all those pillows behind her."

"Yeah, they do seem to have given me loads of pillows, just add two more and I could just sleep on the pillows and release a hospital bed."

Tommy delayed the inevitable. Just how do you describe a woman you have only just met, a complete stranger, as your wife to another stranger you only met briefly today?

"Er, yes, well," Tommy began, "Jennifer, this lovely young woman here is Alicia Knight, she is the mother of the young girl who was attacked on Sunday in the woods-"

As he uttered the last few words, Jennifer gasped and walked around to Alicia's side of the hospital bed, holding out her arms, saying,

"Oh, Alicia, that must've been dreadful for you and your daughter," she said, tears already welling up in her eyes, "I would be absolutely frantic, just imagining what could happen in such a situation."

Tommy continued, addressing Alicia, "And this beautiful woman is Jennifer Morris, my ... er ... wife."

Alicia half-climbed off the bed before Jennifer embraced her, already crying by then, sparking off the tears that anger and frustration had held Alicia's emotions in check for the last five days or so.

"We have a daughter, JJ, who is just sixteen," sobbed Jennifer, "She thinks she's streetwise and can take care of herself. But JJ has no idea. She goes camping out in the countryside, halfway up mountains, all the time, even last weekend in the cold and wet weather they had in Yorkshire. Boys, who she regards as non-boyfriends, surround her all the time, and she is only a tiny slip of a thing. I worry about her all the time ... and she barely even talks to me any more."

"I know, same here, Jen. Hannah's an urban girl, who wants to be liked by everyone and simply refuses to see the dangers. I can't tell her anythink without her sayin' 'Oh, Mum!' all the time," Alicia's tears rolled down her face, shoulders racked with sharp sobbing intakes of breath. "She's a great big lump, Hannah is, takes after her father, and thinks she's bullet-proof. She could have been murdered, probably worse, an' she's all I got!"

"I know dear," Jennifer pulled back and regarded her new friend, "We Mums need to stick together."

She released one hand and started pulling tissues from a box on Tommy's side table, forcing several into Alicia's hand. Soon they were both dabbing at eyes and talking together about their girls, and then about Jennifer's boys. Only then did they both look at Tommy sitting watching them and that sparked them off speaking about men in general, both shaking their heads, sagely.

"Look at his poor face, though, Hon," Alicia noted, even in the subdued lighting, there was no disguising the cuts and bruises, the still blackened eyes, the bandages on his fingers, the large dressing on his right arm poking below his half-rolled up pyjama sleeves, "He got like that protecting my baby. You've got one of the good guys there, Jennifer."

"Yes he is," Jennifer agreed, "He always has been, that's why I love him so much."

Alicia hugged Jennifer one more time, "I'm going now and leave you two to visit, I'll pop by tomorrow afternoon Tommy, and have a chat with you," she turned back to Jennifer, "Hope I'll see you tomorrow again?"

"You can depend on it Alicia. Hey, perhaps we could go and get to know each other better over some tea after visiting time tomorrow afternoon?" Jennifer suggested, "Before I go home and collect the kids. I want to bring them up for evening visiting hours."

"I'd love that." Alicia smiled, her eye make-up ruined, but still looking like an attractive, vulnerable woman, "You take good care of this man, you hear me, Jen?"

CHAPTER TEN: Em for Mother

"You poor love, what's happened to you? It must feel awful." Jennifer sat in the chair, stroking the top of the bed absently.

"It is," Tommy said, "I really don't know how to cope with what is happening. Like with you, for instance, Jennifer, I don't know you at all, sorry to say, and I don't know how to act with you. It's like I'm meeting you for the first time. On the other hand, you are looking at me as someone you have seen pretty much every day for, what is it twenty years?"

"We've been married for nearly twenty, but have known each other for about twenty-two years," Jennifer answered, a slight catch in her throat. "You really don't remember our silly little spat on Sunday?"

"Not a thing," Tommy shook his head smiling at her, "Was I, threatening?"

"No, just stubborn."

"Sorry," Tommy said measuredly, "I was worried about how angry I might have been. This must be an impossible situation for you."

Jennifer rested a hand on his and smiled. "Not impossible, Bob dear, just awkward and difficult. But this is like you are suffering from an illness and we will get through this until you are better. What do you actually remember?"