husband talked over her and she looked amused into her salad.
‘We’d like to talk to you about your epilepsy.’
‘Right,’ said Joe, not seeing what that could possibly have to do with these people. Some of them, having noticed the College slaves, were talking now about the pedigree of their own.
‘We’d like to know what you remember about the attack you had two years ago.’
‘If you don’t mind talking about it,’ Mme Sidgwick put in, more towards Sidgwick than Joe himself.
Sidgwick dipped his head. ‘Yes, of course, pardon me.’
‘How do you know about it?’
‘You were in the papers. Would you prefer not …?’
‘No, it’s all right,’ Joe said. ‘I … was found in Londres, at the Gare du Roi. I don’t remember getting there. I didn’t remember anything on the day, except my name. After a few hours I realised I knew general things; like, I knew how to read, how to speak English and French, I sort of knew Londres geography. But nothing specific. I still don’t remember anything from before that day. The doctor says it was a seizure. Funny but not … this kind of funny, I’d have thought,’ he said, nodding down the table.
‘No, no, no, it is quite our kind of funny. You say you were confused. Our information is that … pardon me, but that in fact you were in an asylum. You swore that you were married to someone who didn’t turn out to be your real wife.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘We asked for the files,’ Sidgwick said blankly. ‘You’re a slave, it’s all quite easy to come by, there’s none of the usual medical privacy nonsense. We looked into buying you, but then your service tenure was up and it was too late.’ He seemed annoyed.
Joe felt on edge. If Sidgwick still wanted him, really wanted him, there was nothing but social convention to stop the man slapping a blue band on Joe’s sleeve, taking away his papers and claiming to have found him wandering about outside the tobacconist’s for anyone to pick up.
‘Henry, you’re making him nervous,’ Mrs Sidgwick said.
‘I’m what?’
‘Ignore him,’ she said to Joe. ‘Do you remember the name you gave to the doctor?’
Joe had to struggle to remember what they’d been talking about. ‘Yes, I – but it was a false memory. They said at the asylum that epileptic paramnesia is common,’ he said, looking between them. He wanted to stop. The sooner Sidgwick decided he was boring, the better. ‘Why is it interesting? What’s it to do with all this?’
‘It is relatively common. In fact, it’s happened to everyone in this room,’ Sidgwick said. ‘Every one of these people experienced exactly what you’ve just described, but usually for a much shorter time. An hour, two hours. The same intense disorientation, feeling convinced that their families were not their families, only to recover later the same day. So far we’ve found it affects men and women equally. It’s nothing to do with gendered neuroses or any nonsense like that. Some people have even suggested that the same phenomena would explain erratic periods of behaviour in dogs.’
‘R … ight, good.’ It did make Joe feel better to hear again that it wasn’t a unique piece of insanity, but not much. ‘Am I missing something? You’re the Psychical Society, not the Psychiatric Society.’
Mrs Sidgwick smiled. ‘Some of the stories link up.’
‘What?’ he said slowly. He felt as if she had thrown a pebble at him and, instead of bouncing off, it had gone straight through, and now it clattered as it fell down inside him. ‘Link up how?’
She sat forward. ‘The reason we contacted you is that we’ve been playing games of mix and match. We invited people to write to the Society about their experiences. When the letters came in, we found that occasionally, the same name would appear. Of course, only a few people wrote in. But then we started to visit asylums, looking for cases of this syndrome, and we stumbled on yours. The name you gave, for the woman you thought you were married to. Madeline Shale. Is that right?’
Joe didn’t say anything, because he had no memory of having given the doctor a surname. He must have held that in mind only for a little while, just like the memory of the man from the railway station, the one who had taken him to hospital. It was such a tiny thing, but it brought on a blast of despair. He could have forgotten God knew what