The Man Who Could Not Forget Read online

  "But if you teach me now, I could give you the essays directly," I said. "And rid myself of them in the process."

  "It might take months to teach you," she said, "And I'm not sure my client can wait that long."

  We began after breakfast - me typing out the essays word for word, comma for comma on her computer. It was not a difficult task, only tedious, like copying out the pages of a dictionary. Every hour or so, I would produce a handful of printouts, which she would then settle down to read. The task took two long days to complete, the last full stop being punched in around midnight, after which I slept on a comfortable futon Clarissa had prepared for me in her spare bedroom.

  I woke up the following morning to find her sitting cross legged on the floor regarding me strangely, as if something was troubling her - as if perhaps she'd changed her mind, and was thinking of going back on her word.

  "You will teach me?" I reminded her. "You promised."

  She sighed. "Have you thought that the price will be your memories? Which ones and how many, only you can decide. Once gone, they are gone for ever and I'm worried you'll be reckless, destroying half your life in an attempt to preserve it."

  "Surely I'm the best judge of that," I said. But I knew she had a point, for already I had begun secretly sifting my memories in an attempt to label them for execution, and it had been harder than I'd thought. Was it only the good memories that sustained us? The successes? The times of deep satisfaction? Could I safely dispose of the failures, the cringing embarrassments, the heartaches, the insults - or were they just as important in defining us? Was there a danger I would destroy my soul in an attempt to preserve its mortal vessel?

  She reached out and squeezed my hand. "But of course I'll teach you," she said tenderly. "Besides you still have pictures of me I'd like returning."

  "Ah no, Clarissa," I replied, teasing her. "Some things I will never be persuaded to part with."

  By now she was almost too weak to leave the house, as if Lanchester's infernal essays had proved too much for her and in the end, I had to drive her across town to her appointment with her client. I was curious about him - even more so when she directed me through the gates of a geriatric home.

  We were greeted at the door by a cheery faced nurse and shown along a corridor heavy with a soporific heat, and finally into a lounge whose walls were lined by the vacant expressions of thirty ancient souls. Clarissa picked out a frail old man in a wheelchair and knelt beside him.

  "My client," she said.

  He was in a bad way - his skin almost transparent and drawn tightly over his bones. I offered him my hand, a gesture he returned by some long embedded reflex. He felt deathly cold.

  The nurse hovered at my elbow. "Poor old chap," she said. "He's stone deaf,… and he can't even remember his own name."

  "Perhaps he doesn't need to," I replied, for I knew it of course: This was none other than J V. Lanchester. And now I understood the value of memory, not just his, but also my own because what to me had been worthless was of course, to him, a spotlight cutting clean through the fog of his decrepitude to the finest of his days - days that had leaked away from him, to be gathered by chance into the strongholds of two temporarily stronger minds.

  I tightened my grip on his hand and Clarissa closed her eyes, as if to concentrate. Then she sighed and I swear as I looked into his eyes, I saw a glimmer of light - not much - but enough I thought,… .

  … ..to sustain him,…

  Michael Graeme.

  Thank you for reading this story. I hope you enjoyed it. If you're interested in obtaining other short works by Michael Graeme then why not visit the "Rivendale Review" Website at www.mgraeme.ic24.net. Several novels by the same author are available from Lulu.com. All are free to download.

  From the same author on Feedbooks

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  Push Hands is a full length novel, complete and free to download.

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