"Ninety degrees yesterday."
"Wow." I know what"s coming next.
"What"s the weather like there?"
"Oh, you know, pretty cold."
Maybe I"m missing something here, but my parents have lived in England their entire lives. Since when has January been anything other than cold? And yes, I know all about climate change, but did it used to be tropical before I was born? Balmy and hot even?
"Tell Dad I just saw Gramps," I say, changing the subject away from the weather.
"How is he? Has he been behaving himself??"
"Yes, of course," I say, immediately coming to his defence. "It"s Miss Temple, she just doesn"t like him . . ."
"Well your grandfather has to be nicer to her then. You know, he"s very lucky to be at Hemmingway House; there"s a long waiting list to get a place there-"
"I know, but it can"t be easy for him."
"It"s not easy for any of us, Tess," replies Mum, a little tersely. "We all have to put up with things we don"t like . . ."
There"s the sound of my dad and brother in the background, yelling at sport on the TV, and Mum tells them to shush.
"Anyway, he was in really good spirits. He"s showing me how to use his sewing machine."
"Right, yes," she says distractedly, and I can tell she"s not really listening. But then Mum never really listens to me. It"s as if she"s already formulated her answer, regardless of what I might have to say. It"s always been like that, which is partly why I"m so close to Gramps. When I was growing up he"d always listen to me; it didn"t matter what I had to say, how stupid or silly it sounded, he"d never pa.s.s judgement, just listen. Sometimes that"s all you need: someone to listen.
"But his memory does seem to be getting worse," I add.
"Why, what happened?" Abruptly she snaps back.
I feel a bit guilty for bringing it up when she"s away, but I"ve been thinking about it on the bus, and although I"m sure it"s nothing, just his age, I admit I am starting to get a bit worried.
"Well, I was talking about Seb, and he didn"t know who he was. It was like he had no recollection of him at all."
There"s a pause on the other end of the line, and I think Mum is going to bring up the topic of Alzheimer"s again, but instead she replies, "Oh, is that Fiona"s new chap?"
I feel my heart thud loudly and I feel a slight panic. Not Mum as well.
"Fiona?" I try stalling, in the hope the conversation won"t continue towards its seemingly inevitable outcome.
"Is that short for Sebastian?" continues Mum.
But it"s no good. I can"t stop it. It"s happening all over again "Um . . . yes," I manage. I suddenly feel very light-headed.
"You"ve never mentioned him before," she continues blithely, "Is he nice?" This from a woman who was over the moon when I met Seb and had to be physically restrained from buying a new hat when we celebrated our six-month anniversary.
"Um . . . yes," I say again. My mind is beginning to swirl and I"m trying to hang on for dear life but it"s as if everything is receding. None of this is making any sense. Either the whole world"s gone mad or- I freeze the thought and start frantically running around in my head like someone trapped in a maze and trying to find a way out.
Or I have.
I manage to get off the phone with Mum, which isn"t easy, as she"s intent on telling me all about how she took a recipe for Brussels sprouts from the new Jamie Oliver cookbook she received for Christmas and how "quite frankly it wasn"t a patch on how your nan used to make them", followed by her recommendations on how Jamie could improve his: "sprinkle on my secret ingredient, coffee, and brown them under the grill".
Right yes, Mum, I"m sure a mega-successful, millionaire chef will be just dying to take on your suggestions for his Brussels sprouts. Furthermore, no offence, but Brussels sprouts be they yours, my deceased nan"s, or Jamie"s aren"t really at the top of my priority list right now, because I think I"m going crazy.
Feeling as though I"m about to have a full-blown panic attack, I take a couple of deep breaths.
OK, focus. Focus.
I close my eyes, pinch the bridge of my nose and try to relax. There"s no point panicking and getting all stressed out, it"s not going to help. I need to think calmly and clearly. Calmly and clearly. Yes, that"s it, I think, repeating it over in my head. After all, there has to be a rational explanation for all this. There just has to be.
I concentrate. It takes a few seconds, and then . . .
I know! Perhaps there"s some weird type of selective amnesia going round, a bit like swine flu, and everyone"s caught it but me. And it"s not me that"s losing my mind, just everyone else that"s losing their memory. These viruses are everywhere in winter. And maybe all that"s needed is a course of antibiotics or a vaccination or something and . . .
And what, Tess? Everyone will suddenly remember who Seb is? Realising how ridiculous I"m being, I keep wracking my brains.
Hang on, I"ve got another idea! Maybe this is Fiona"s idea of a joke and everyone"s in on it, like April Fool"s Day, only instead it"s January. And maybe in a few hours she"ll confess she was just winding me up and ha ha, wasn"t it funny?
I feel a flash of triumph: that"s a much better idea! Swiftly followed by niggling doubts. Yes, it could be true but the more I think about it, it"s unlikely. For starters Fiona doesn"t really do jokes. Only recently we were at the pub with a bunch of friends, swapping jokes, and when it came to her turn she deadpanned, "The only joke I know is my last boyfriend Lawrence."
Then there"s my mum. She can"t be in on anything for longer than two seconds without letting something slip. In fact, she"s single-handedly ruined at least half a dozen surprise parties by unwittingly calling up the person in question to wish them a happy birthday and finished off with a cheery, "See you tonight at the party!"
Plus that doesn"t explain my granddad either.
Anxiety quickly ratchets back up a dozen notches.
Plus why? Why would Fiona want to joke that I never went out with Seb? It"s not exactly hilarious, is it? And why would she get my mum involved? Or Gramps, for that matter? It just doesn"t make sense. None of it makes sense.
I try grappling with it like you see people grappling with umbrellas in the wind, trying to find an answer, but it"s futile. I give up. I"ll just have to add this to my list of things that I"ll never understand like the Dow Jones index, the appeal of Russell Brand, or why men always feel compelled to ask if they"ll need a coat before they go out.
There is no explanation.
"Tess Connelly?"
Hearing my name being called, I see it"s my turn for the helpdesk. Getting up, I walk over to the counter, where I"m greeted by a chubby-faced technician wearing gla.s.ses with the thickest lenses I"ve ever seen. He introduces himself as Ali.
"So what seems to be the problem?" he asks cheerfully.
How long have you got? I think ruefully.
"Excuse me?" Ali"s smile wavers ever so slightly.
Oh c.r.a.p, did I just say that out loud?
"Oh, er, sorry, ignore me . . . one of those days." Feeling my cheeks go hot, I quickly pull out my laptop and plonk it in front of him. "It crashed, I can"t get it to do anything," I say quickly.
"Right OK," he nods briskly. "Let"s have a look at it, shall we?"
Of course there"s no "we" about it. Pushing his gla.s.ses onto the bridge of his nose, he cat-cradles his fingers to limber them up, then dives on the keyboard. I watch as his fingers start flying all over the keys, like some kind of magician, and try not to think about my own two-finger typing.
"Well, we"ve managed to get the machine to turn on," he says brightly, as a screensaver of Johnny Depp flashes up on the screen.
"Brilliant," I say, feeling a surge of happy relief. At last something is going right. Feeling myself relax into Ali"s capable hands, I watch as he starts dexterously tapping away, his face a mask of concentration.
"Okey-dokey, what have we here?"
See: jokey, fun words. Everything is going to be just fine. Well, not everything, but at least I"ll be able to read my horoscopes online, Google completely random things and look up ex-boyfriends from school on Facebook and see how badly they"ve aged all completely necessary ways to try to mend a broken heart.
"Oh dear . . ."
I zone back. Hang on. That didn"t sound fun, or jokey. "Oh dear" is not "okey-dokey". "Oh dear" is what you never want to hear your dentist say when looking in your mouth. Or your computer technician when staring at your laptop.
"I"m afraid there"s a bit of a problem with your hard drive."
Now I don"t know much about computers, but putting the words "hard drive" and "problem" in the same sentence sounds deeply worrying.
"But you can fix problems, right?" I ask hopefully. Actually, change that to plead.
"Well, we do try to fix most things, but once the hard drive has gone, it"s pretty much the nerve centre of the computer . . ." He pauses and, seeing my face fall, adds quickly, "But the good news is your laptop is still under warranty, so we can replace your hard drive free of charge." He beams widely.
"You can?" I beam back. See, I knew I could trust Ali. He looks like one of the super-brainy types you always wanted to sit next to in Maths.
"It does means that you"ll lose all your data, but that shouldn"t be a problem. When did you last back it up?"
"Back it up?" I repeat tentatively.
"Yes, we can transfer the backed-up data," he says matter-of-factly. "Do you use an external drive, or a remote data-storage facility online?" He stops typing and looks up.
It"s as if he"s speaking gobbledegook. Somewhere, in the recesses of my mind, lurks a memory of me thinking I must learn all about this kind of stuff.
"Erm, no," I admit, reluctantly. "Neither."
Followed by another memory of me thinking I"d get around to it later and watching Strictly Come Dancing instead with Fiona.
Ali"s cheerful smile freezes slightly. He falls silent and studies me for a moment, eyes unblinking behind his gla.s.ses, like a Maths student focused on trying to figure out a really tricky algebra equation he"s never seen before. "Oh, I see," he says finally, a sharp crease appearing down his forehead. "Well, in that case I"m afraid you"ve lost pretty much everything that was on this computer."
"Everything?" I look at him with horror.
"Everything that was stored on your hard drive, yes. So any doc.u.ments, files, music-"
"Even all my photos?" My voice trembles. I think about all the photos I took over the past year with Seb. All gone.
"I"m afraid so," he nods.
Unexpectedly my eyes start watering. It"s not the photos after all, I threw most of them away. It"s just . . . well, everything. The last few weeks have been tough, breaking up with Seb, getting through Christmas and New Year, b.u.mping into him again and being blanked and now this. It"s all too much. A tear escapes and rolls down my cheek.
"Are you OK?"
I catch Ali looking at me with concern. "Sorry," I sniffle. "I broke up with my boyfriend and, well . . ." I get a lump in my throat and feeling my eyes welling up. I break off and roughly rub my eyes with my coat sleeve.
"Look, there might be another way." Taking pity on me he hands me a screen wipe. "In nearly all hard-drive recovery cases, data can be recovered by a trained specialist technician. It"s only when there"s really bad platter damage, magnetic degradation or a file overwrite that the data is impossible to recover."
He waits for me to say something.
"I"m sorry, you lost me at hard drive," I confess, blowing my nose.
"Well, it"s like this: your computer stores everything on the hard drive, every keystroke, every site you"ve visited, every email you"ve sent . . . If that crashes, it"s like a plane, everything goes down with it you lose everything." He pauses, then leaning forwards, lowers his voice and adds darkly, "Unless you know where to look."
He gives me a pointed glance and I break off from blowing my nose to stare back wide-eyed. Gosh, it all sounds very cloak and dagger.
"The workings of a computer are extremely complex. It"s like a rabbit warren of tunnels, and computers can hide things deep, deep inside. That"s why you have people involved in criminal activity who try to erase their hard drive and browsing history, but there"s still a record of it somewhere."
"There is?" I have a flashback to me on Facebook looking at the pages of Seb"s ex-girlfriends and going through their photo alb.u.ms.
"Yes," he nods gravely. "You can try to delete everything, try wiping them clean, but if you dig deep enough and know how to use the right software, you can still find things lurking. It"s virtually impossible to erase everything from a computer. In fact, I"d say it was impossible."
"How do you know all this?" I gape, dabbing my eyes.
"I used to work for a data-recovery company in my spare time when I was at university in Delhi."
"Wow, you really are a genius."
"Oh, I don"t know about that. I"m just a bit of a geek. At least that"s what my ex used to tell me." He gives an embarra.s.sed shrug.
"Well then your ex was an idiot," I say supportively.
"So was yours," he replies kindly.
We exchange sympathetic looks. Then, glancing around to make sure no one is listening, he adds, "Look, I really shouldn"t do this, but I"ve got a fifteen-minute break I"ll see what I can retrieve for you, if anything, OK?"
"Really?" I sniff gratefully.
"Leave it with me," he says and, pa.s.sing me another screen wipe, he leaves the counter.
Feeling slightly cheered up, I go and sit back down. I dig out my hand-mirror, and I"m wiping away my smudged eyeliner and streaked mascara when I"m interrupted by a voice.
"Excuse me, is this seat taken?"
It has an American accent and I stiffen. Hang on, I recognise that voice.
I look up.
It"s like a bowling ball in my chest.
"Seb?"