the hot air flow; the usually thriving Truro slave market was quite empty. He found himself in the evening classifieds. Joseph Tournier, memory-loss patient at La Salpêtrière, seeks relatives.
There was no change. He sat awake through the night, trying to listen to his own memory. The more he listened, the more hollow it rang. But that tiny recollection of Madeline was right. He could see her if he thought about it, so he did think about it, hard. He told her name to the doctor. The doctor promised to pass it along to the police, but looked grim when Joe said he still didn’t know where he lived. Tuesday, the deadline of his stay, loomed taller.
On Saturday morning, someone did come, and it was an unexpected someone: a pin-sharp, purple-cravatted gentleman. When the doctor showed the man into the visiting room Joe froze, wondering who he could have offended, but the man let his breath out and smiled.
‘It is you! Oh, Joe. Do you recognise me?’ French, Paris French.
‘No,’ Joe said softly. His stomach screwed itself into a knot. There was no way he could have any normal business with someone like this. God, what if the doctor had been right, what if he had been involved with the Saints? This man was easily well-dressed enough to be a police commissioner, or one of those government people who introduced themselves politely, showed you the red badge, and then took you away to what they called an inquiries facility.
He had a surge of anger with himself. How could he know about red badges and inquiry facilities but not who Madeline was or where he bloody belonged?
‘I’m M. Saint-Marie. I’m your master. You’ve been in my household since you were a little boy.’ He said it kindly. ‘I hear you’re having a few problems remembering.’
Joe’s lungs hitched, because his instinct had been to say ‘Pleased to meet you’, which of course was wrong. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t …’ He trailed off uselessly. The man was too grand for the visiting room.
‘Never mind for now,’ the doctor said quickly. ‘Perhaps Mme Tournier?’
Joe looked up fast. Maybe it was Madeline.
Every atom of him wanted it to be. He still didn’t remember her properly, but it would be something, and seeing her would help, he knew it would – and she would help too, because if there was a single thing he did know about her, it was that she could help with anything. She was one of those people who could blast through walls and barely notice.
The observer voice in the back of his mind pointed out that, in its humble opinion, he sounded awfully like he was spinning a fairy-tale woman for himself.
Shut up, shut up.
She was real. Maybe she was just outside.
‘Mme Tournier?’ he asked. His voice came out tight.
‘Yes,’ the gentleman agreed. He looked worried, but he didn’t say anything about it. ‘I’ll fetch her.’
Joe waited, feeling like he might burst. Neither he nor the doctor spoke. The details of the room kept scratching at him. The only sound was glass scraping near the window, because the gardener had come in to water the ferns some of the patients were growing in bell jars. He flipped the bell up, sprayed the ferns with a perfume puffer, eased it down again. Outside, the man who said he controlled the weather was talking to a cherry tree.
The doctor was playing with his fountain pen, clicking the lid off and clicking it back on again. For a red-hot second, Joe thought he deserved a hand grenade in the face.
Well, said the voice, maybe you could manage the Saints after all.
Steps groaned just outside the door.
‘Hello again,’ said the gentleman as he came back in. He held the door open for someone else. ‘Here’s Mme Tournier.’
Joe’s heart swelled, and then crumbled.
It wasn’t her. There was nothing familiar about the woman called Mme Tournier. Her clothes were plain but well-ironed, and when she offered a quiet good morning, she spoke with a Jamaican swing. The way she moved was so quick and precise it made Joe wonder if she might be a governess, or a nurse.
‘I’m Alice. Do you know me?’ she asked. She was very young. Joe looked from her to the gentleman and wanted to demand how in the world either of them imagined he could possibly be married to her – he must have been twice her age – but neither of them seemed to think it was ridiculous. They only looked expectant,