The Man Who Forgot His Wife Read Online Free PDF Page B

without waiting for an answer she slumped into one of the two spare places at our table. ‘Over here, Meg! Got two seats here!’
    I was a parent to two strangers. But not like some passing ship’s captain who’d unknowingly fathered a child in a distant port. These children would know me; hopefully, they would love me.
    ‘Get a menu!’ shouted the lady to her companion, her daughter maybe. ‘I can’t read the blackboard without my glasses, and they never put menus on the table.’ This woman’s face was now imprinted on my mind, yet I had no idea what my own children looked like.
    ‘So what are they like?’
    ‘What do you mean?
    ‘My kids? What are they like?’
    The woman did a poor job of pretending not to listen.
    ‘Well, Jamie looks just like you, actually, poor bastard. He doesn’t say a great deal, but that’s probably his age.’
    I nodded, but inside I was shrugging. I was a father and teacher with no experience of children whatsoever.
    ‘He’s getting quite tall now, trendy, into music. Don’t think he has a girlfriend, but he might be keeping it quiet, I suppose.’
    ‘What about my daughter – Dillie? Is that her real name or is it short for something?’
    ‘Don’t think so – you’ve always just called her Dillie.’
    ‘Could be Dilys,’ said the woman at our table.
    ‘Sorry?’
    ‘Your daughter’s name? Dillie could be short for Dilys. Or “Dillwyn” is a name. Welsh, I think. You’re not Welsh, are you?’
    ‘I dunno. Am I Welsh?’
    ‘Nah, don’t think so.’
    ‘Well, it could be that.’
    ‘Thank you. That’s very helpful.’
    The detail of my own parenthood suddenly recast everything in an even more serious light. Now my mental breakdown was not just something that had happened to me, but to a whole family.
    ‘So what else would you like to know about them?’ Gary asked me, though the lady might have thought he was addressing both of us.
    ‘Er, it’s okay,’ I mumbled, ‘it can wait.’
    ‘Been in prison, have you?’ enquired the woman, nonchalantly.
    ‘Er, something like that,’ I smiled.
    ‘Murder,’ added Gary, in the hope of scaring her off, but she didn’t seem thrown by this detail.
    ‘My husband walked out on us when Meg was two. We never heard from him again. He wouldn’t recognize her if he passed her in the street.’
    ‘Right …’
    ‘Er, so what other news can I tell you?’ Gary said. ‘Er, the Tories are back in power. And everyone has mobile phones and home computers and Woolworth’s went out of business and, er, Elton John came out; that was a big shock obviously—’
    ‘Yeah, yeah, I know all that stuff. It’s just everything about
my life
that’s been forgotten. I can remember who won the FA Cup all through the eighties and nineties; I know every Christmas Number One. But I just can’t remember anyone’s name or anything about them.’
    ‘Ha! That’s just being a bloke, isn’t it?’ said the woman, with a sigh.
    After that we talked in hushed mumbles, which suggested that Gary was divulging information that was somehow classified. Now that we seemed to have abandoned any idea of doing my life in chronological order, I jumped to the question that had been gnawing away at me since my mind had first pressed the reset button.
    ‘So, Gary, I’m father to two children,’ I whispered. ‘Tell me about their mother.’
    There was a pause, punctured by a food order being called out from the bar.
    ‘Er – she’s cool, yeah. God, actually, this egg is disgusting. I might get something else. I wonder if they sell peperamis—’
    ‘No, no – hang on. I just want to get my head round this. Let’s start at the beginning. What’s her name?’
    ‘Her name? Maddy.’
    ‘Maddy?’
    ‘Madeleine, yeah.’
    ‘My wife is called Madeleine! That’s a nice name, isn’t it? Madeleine and Vaughan!’ I rolled the name about in my head, feeling how it fitted with my own. ‘Vaughan and Maddy.’
    ‘You know Vaughan, don’t you? He’s