Read Dead Man's Gift 03 - Today for Free Online Page A

kind of gravitas, but at the same time he also gives off the impression that he doesn’t take himself too seriously – not if the clothes he’s wearing today are anything to go by, anyway. His latest adornment is a tweed three-piece suit, a red bow tie that matches the rims of his glasses, well-worn brown brogues, and loud pink socks.
    ‘So how have you been, Matt?’ he asked me, his voice soft, yet sonorous and reassuring. We’d been seeing each other twice a week every week here at my sister’s, and this had always been his opening line.
    ‘OK, I guess. Nothing much changes really.’ Which up until a few days ago had been the truth. Now, though, I was less sure.
    ‘I sense you’re looking a little despondent today,’ he remarked. ‘Don’t lose hope, whatever you do. Recovery from the kind of immense brain trauma you suffered takes time. Sometimes months. Sometimes years. We’ve both got to be patient through
this process.’
    The brain trauma he was referring to was my car accident. Early one morning some months back, I was driving in a semirural stretch of Hampshire when my car left the road, went down an embankment, and hit a tree. For some reason I wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, which possibly saved my life, because I was thrown clear of the car, straight through the windscreen, and was twenty feet away from it when it burst into flames. I was in a coma for three months, and when I woke up my life was this.
    A blank slate.
    Without doubt, the most lonely feeling in the world.
    ‘I know, I know,’ I said, with more than a hint of exasperation. ‘It’s just we don’t seem to be making any real progress.’
    ‘Well we are,’ he countered firmly. ‘We’ve managed to get you to remember growing up with your sister; the camping trips with the family when you were a boy. We’re slowly piecing together your childhood, Matt. And we’re using that as a foundation to allow us to reconstruct the memories of adulthood, and finally get your memory back altogether. When people suffer from the kind of amnesia you do, the memories often come back very slowly, starting with the earliest first. We may never solve the mystery of what you were doing on the road that night, we may never remember the few months of your life prior to the accident, but we will return your life to you, Matt. You have to believe that. It’s like a box we’ve simply got to prise open.’
    I sighed. ‘I’m trying.’
    ‘So nothing’s come to you since we last spoke?’
    I paused. Did I tell him or didn’t I? ‘Everything we talk about here is confidential, isn’t it? It can’t go any further than these four walls?’
    He gave me a strong, reassuring smile. ‘Exactly. I’m bound by oath not to repeat anything you tell me to anyone. Has something come back to you then?’
    I paused again. Because the thing was, I didn’t entirely trust Dr Bronson. It was hard to say why. He acted genuine enough, but maybe that was the problem: he came across like an actor playing a part. Yet maybe that was what all therapists were like with their patients. In the end, I bit the bullet, figuring I didn’t have anything to lose by telling him. ‘I’ve had a dream.’ Jesus, the dream. I took a deep breath. ‘The same one, twice in the last four nights.’
    ‘Did you write everything down like I suggested?’ Dr Bronson always suggested. Never told.
    ‘I didn’t have to. I can remember the whole thing vividly. And it was exactly the same both nights. I never have recurring dreams. I never really dream. But this ...’
    Now, suddenly, Dr Bronson looked really interested. He wrote something down on his yellow A4 notepad. ‘Tell me about it. Start from the beginning and take me through every detail. You know, we might have a breakthrough here, Matt.’
    That, worryingly, was what I was afraid of. I took a deep breath. Then I began.
    ‘I’m in an unfamiliar house. The lights are on and it’s night. The dream starts with me standing outside a