Getting closer

So today I've sent off the book for a quote on preparing it for ebook upload. I confess I was sidetracked by all the pretty promises (and prices) with which the various web pages I visited tried to tempt me. And I was tempted! Such nicely worded hooks they dangle - what indie author wouldn't be swayed, even if only momentarily, by the promise of full publishing. Send the book, pay the money, get it professionally published and marketed and sit back to wait for the royalties. Very tempting.

However it does cost quite a lot more than my original goal of simply having it formatted. I have no quibble with the fees, these people charge a one-off fee and all royalties belong to the author from that point on. But I do have to stick to my original plan. Remember, indie author, small budget, realistic expectations of modest sales on the first book (optimistic hope notwithstanding of the book going viral a la 50 Shades of Grey - a not especially well written book but with a terrific hook).

So I bid a sad farewell to my fledgling dream of having the book professionally marketed and gave myself a stern talking to. After all, who has a more vested interest in this book being a success than me? Who will work harder at getting it noticed if not me? Having set myself firmly back on my path I sent away the request for a quote for formatting. I also have another webpage saved which has even prettier promises wrapped up in steadily increasing prices. This page has a flat fee for a fiction novel, so I will wait for a return email from the other, and then compare prices and services. Very level headed of me I think :)

While I wait I'll go check my ever expanding list of things to do to get this book noticed. I have a few days off, so I'm going to spend them getting everything sorted. Because as soon as the book is formatted I want to upload it to Smashwords first, and then to Amazon kindle.

Bearing that in mind, perhaps it's time I attached the first chapter, so you the reader can sample my work.

BLANK CANVAS

Chapter 1

She woke up with that feeling of disorientation that sometimes happens on waking suddenly in the middle of the night. For just a few seconds she had no idea where she was, or even who she was. Then she recognized the layout of the shadows in the bedroom, felt the reassuring presence of her husband in the bed beside her, and the panic that had been building up dissipated. Taking a deep steadying breath, she linked the little finger of her left hand into the little finger of his right, smiling as even in sleep his finger tightened around hers. All was well. She slipped into a deep dreamless sleep.

The next time she woke it was full morning and sunshine was streaming into the room around the edges of the still drawn curtains. Looking at her watch she saw with a twinge of anxiety that she had slept in. Jumping out of bed she took two steps, trying to remember what she needed to do first. She couldn’t remember. She stood still, trying to think, but her mind would not cooperate. Perhaps a shower would help. She took a step forward to go to the bathroom and panic began to spiral up through her stomach as she realized that she didn’t know where the bathroom was. Was she even in her own bedroom?

She looked around, but nothing was familiar to her. It was a very nice room though, very colour coordinated, so maybe she wasin a hotel. Perhaps she drank too much the night before, although she didn’t feel hungover - but she did feel curiously empty. If she couldn’t remember the night before, what might she have done with all inhibitions on hold? Looking at the bed her heart sank as she saw a man in it, one who was naked at least to the waist, and one who was completely unfamiliar. Attractive, she noted with a small sense of relief, but a total stranger.

With a spurt of alarm she saw that he was looking at her through sleepy chocolate eyes. Willing herself to look back at the man, she smiled tremulously and said shyly, “Good morning.”

He frowned a little, as though slightly puzzled, but responded easily, “Good morning honey. Did you sleep in today? You’re usually gone before I wake up.”

Oh dear, so he thought he knew her. But he couldn’t know her. She would surely remember if she had shared a bed with an attractive man like him before. Was this a case of mistaken identity? Had she gone off with a man who thought she was someone else? It would certainly explain the lack of recognition she felt. She rubbed her forehead irritably. If only this fog in her brain would lift she might be able to remember the night before.

“Alicia, what’s wrong? You don’t look too well. Couldn’t you sleep last night?”

She stared at him in bemusement. Alicia? Who was Alicia? It wasn’t her, her name was, was… She didn’t know. Her legs turned to jelly and she sank to the floor in shock. She didn’t remember her name. She didn’t remember last night, and try as she might, she couldn’t remember yesterday either - or the day before, or the week before, or any time before right now. Lifting trembling fingers she pushed back her hair – she had long brown hair she noted abstractedly.

“Alicia?” The man had jumped out of bed. She averted her eyes hurriedly as she realized that he was completely naked. A small part of her mind congratulated her on her taste in men, but she was in no condition to pay it much attention. He was squatting down beside her, trying to get her to look at him, talking all the while.

“Do you feel sick? I can go into work later this morning if you’d like. I’ll get the kids ready and take them to school. You go back to bed and if you don’t feel any better when I get back I’ll take you to the doctor.” He had pulled her gently to her feet as he spoke, with the intention of propelling her to the bed.

She was staring at him in total confusion. What was that he said? Kids? They had kids? How could she not remember this man, presumably her husband, and children? Was she having some sort of waking nightmare? Surely it was impossible to just forget a husband and children, to just forget a life. Who were they? Who was she? She felt like she was suffocating, and even as shestared at the man’s face he began to slip out of focus. With a soft sigh she gave up the fight to understand and fainted in his arms.

The feel of pillows behind her head when she came to told her she was back in bed. For a few precious seconds she thought that it had all been a terrifying dream, but the insistent voice calling her name told her that it wasn’t. The only reason that she knew Alicia was her name was because the man who seemed to be her husband was using it to try to wake her up.

For another few seconds she considered pretending that she had slipped into normal sleep, or even better, a coma, but she soon realized that would not solve anything. With an internal sigh she opened her eyes and stared straight into worried brown ones. They were the colour of her favourite dark chocolate she noticed, and wondered briefly how she could remember her favourite kind of chocolate but not her own name.

“Alicia honey, what is it? I’ve never seen you like this before. You’re scaring me.”

“My name is Alicia,” she stated with a slightly hysterical rising inflection at the end that made it sound more like a question.

“Well of course it is, has been all your life.”

“I’m sorry to ask what must be a really obvious question, but what’s your name?”

The man blinked and stared at her cautiously. “What do you mean ‘What’s my name’? It’s Andrew, like it’s been all my life too.”

She nodded, and added the name ‘Andrew’ to her sad little store of names. Two now, she thought. “You said we have children. How many do we have, how old are they and what are their names?”

“Alicia, I don’t understand the game you’re playing, but it’s giving me the creeps.”

“Please, um, Andrew” - the name sounded strange on her tongue -“Please just humour me. How many children do we have, how old are they and what are their names.”

He sighed, but answered with only a slight edge to his voice, “We have three children. Josh is 13, Sarah is 11 and Michael is six. Do you want me to describe them to you?”

She recognized the last as sarcasm, and felt too drained to try to explain that actually, yes, she did need him to describe them to her. Three children, and the first two so close together. She did a rapid calculation. But then five years gap until the last. Should she ask, or was it something that she didn’t want to know about – marriage troubles or perhaps a few miscarriages. It was like getting to know a stranger, and hesitating to ask questions for fear of hurting feelings or calling up unhappy experiences.

She had been staring at her fingers nervously pleating and unpleating the bedcover and now noticed that the sheets and bedcover matched. Looking up, she saw that the curtains were in similar tones of deep rose and green. If this was her house, and she supposed it was, it seemed that she had good taste and took pains with the home décor – at least in the bedroom.

Swallowing reflexively she realized that there was a whole house out there past the bedroom door that presumably was maintained by her. Then there was the outside world. The enormity of what had happened to her began to break through the numbness that had cushioned her since she had woken from the faint and she began to shake.

“Alicia! What is it, what’s wrong?” All traces of irritation dropping away from him Andrew cradled her close, rubbing her back and trying with body heat to calm her. It only served to increase her agitation. Her body shook even further, tears spilled from her eyes and even as she tried desperately to regain control a huge sob traveled from the pit of her stomach and burst out of her. Abandoning her attempt at control she collapsed into his arms and sobbed out all her fear and desperation at the state in which she found herself.

Once started it seemed that she could not stop, but the human body cannot sustain such intensity for too long, and gradually her sobs became less intense, and she began to settle down. She felt calmer, but was aware that it was the calm of numbness rather than any real peace. Andrew had continued to hold her close, murmuring soft words of comfort as she cried. However he put her from him as the tears stopped, gazing worriedly into her face – no doubt blotchy and swollen from such a storm of weeping.

“I think you should stay in bed this morning. I’ll get the kids ready and take them to school, and then I’ll come back here and we can talk, hmm?”

Staring helplessly at him she could only nod. He began to get up off the bed, but stopped and sank down beside her again. Taking her hands in his he added a bit diffidently, “Would you like me to keep the kids away this morning? I think that perhaps you are not quite up to seeing them right now.”

She flashed him a brief smile of relief, because she had been feeling anxiety, no fear, at the thought of interacting with three children of whom she had no memory. How would they handle it? She had no idea since she had no idea what they looked like; let alone their personalities.

He looked as though he was going to add something else, but on glancing at his watch, jumped off the bed in a mild panic. “It’s late, we’re going to have to rush or they’ll be late for school. Stay here and rest, I should be back by 9.30 or so. It’s amazing no-one has knocked on the door yet, I hope they’re all up.”

With a rather distracted look on his face he grabbed some clothes out of one of the built-in wardrobes that lined one wall of the room. Even in her current state of distress she watched his naked backside appreciatively as he disappeared into the ensuite.

Bringing her mind back to her predicament she eyed the wardrobe speculatively. Inside there would be clothes that belonged to her. Surely the type of clothes she wore would give some clue as to who she was. Perhaps she should begin trying to reclaim this life, or at least try to understand it. Her mind beginning to function again, she decided that there had to be a way back toherself, and the sooner she started the sooner this whole nightmare would be over.

Andrew came out of the ensuite fully dressed. She felt a mixture of relief and regret that his body was no longer on display and decided that it must be a good thing that she could find him attractive even though she did not remember him. It must mean that even though her memory was gone she was still basically the same person.

      He headed for the bedroom door, did an about face and came back. Leaning down he brushed her lips with his, said, “See you soon, go back to sleep,” and was gone, the door shutting almost soundlessly behind him.

Lips still tingling from the unexpected contact, she stared at the closed door trying to remember what was beyond it. Expelling her breath in a gusty sigh she gave up the attempt. For all she knew there was nothing out there but space, like looking out of the Tardis in an old Dr Who episode.

About to lie back down in the bed she stiffened as she realized that she did remember some things – like Dr Who. What else could she remember? She fizzed excitedly in the hope that her memory was coming back and by the time Andrew returned she would be back to her old self. Lying back against the pillows she tented her fingers under her chin and tried to think. What could she remember? She strained and strained, but it seemed that the more she tried the thicker the fog inside her head became.

Ok, so trying to remember was not the way. Perhaps she needed a trigger, something that would reconnect the synapses in her brain and bring back her memory. Her eyes swung around the room, resting on the sliding doors of the built in wardrobes, moving on to the various pictures on the walls and the dressing table in the corner. It was very neat, with jewellery cases lined up and some pretty ornaments arranged precisely.

It would seem that she was a bit of a neatness freak she mused as she gazed about the immaculate room. There were no clothes lying around, no books or magazines in sight. Maybe there was something to see in the ensuite. Her gaze lingered on the doorway into that room before returning to the mirrored doors on the wardrobes. As the fingers of her left hand nervously twirled a long strand of hair, her eyes became fixed on the mirrors. There was one sure way to see who she was, or at least what she looked like. Maybe it would prove the key to regaining her memory.

Unwilling to take such a step with a potential audience in the house she listened carefully to the outside sounds. She could hear birds chirping just outside the bedroom windows, but there was no discernible sound from within the house. That meant that everyone had gone, didn’t it? Maybe not though, maybe they had a very big house and the kitchen was a long way away from this room. She had no way of knowing, but she supposed that Andrew had not been gone long enough to be able to get three children out of the door and off to school.

She glanced at her watch, and then studied it more closely. It looked familiar, yet also strange. It was as though she had seen it on someone else’s hand rather than hers. But then, she mused, her own hand looked like someone else’s. On a sudden impulse she pinched the back of her left hand with the fingers of her right. The resulting brief pain gave her a sense of ownership of the hand in a way that her eyes did not.

She looked at her watch again, 7.45am. Only slightly more than an hour had passed since she had woken, yet it seemed to have been far longer. Andrew had to get the kids out the door by 8.10am at the latest if they were going to get to school on time, she thought. Another memory flash! She grabbed onto the thought, tried to extend it – where was the school, how far from here? Where, exactly, was here? Once again though, the harder she strained to remember the thicker the fog in her mind grew.

This was so frustrating and so frightening that Alicia felt an almost overwhelming impulse to scream. She banked it down and the impulse subsided rapidly. Frowning a little Alicia (she was trying to think of herself as Alicia, trying to give herself an identity) felt that she didn’t really like the ease with which she had tamped down a quite reasonable urge. Coupled with the extreme neatness of the room it pointed to a very repressed personality.

Perhaps that was at the root of all this. Perhaps she was such a repressed person that she simply repressed herself out of existence – to herself at any rate. Gazing again at the mirrored wardrobe she became aware of another, more pressing need. It was time to visit the bathroom. Never was she more relieved at the invention of the ensuite bathroom than at this moment. Cautiously she climbed out of bed and made her way to the open doorway across the room.

The ensuite was as immaculate as the bedroom. Here, though, were magazines, neatly arranged in a magazine rack. She gazed around this little room while using the facilities. There were some toiletries on the vanity unit – his to one side and hers to the other. A bin, empty, sat next to the toilet and the magazine rack was in easy reach on the other side. There was a large corner bath reached by a couple of steps. She supposed it was a spa bath. A huge shower lined one wall, with a shower head at each end. All was spotlessly clean, like an advertisement in a magazine. Above the vanity unit was a large mirror.

She looked at the mirror and looked away again, turning her attention to the magazines. Flicking through them she saw that they were a mix of car and gardening books. There were no women’s gossip magazines and she was a little disappointed to see that. What did that mean? Was she a closet reader of such magazines, disposing of them once read, or did she not read them at all? Did this new person in this strange body have different taste to the old one? Alicia shuddered, the thought was enough to send a cold finger of fear through her belly.

She got up decisively and flushed the toilet. It made very little sound which seemed in keeping with what appeared to be rather luxurious surroundings. Turning on the taps at the vanity she washed her hands thoroughly, examining them minutely as she did so. They were long, narrow hands with long elegant fingers. Her nails were short, but well manicured. She was wearing a thick wedding ring, an engagement ring with a modest stone, and an eternity ring set with six good sized diamonds.

It seemed safe to assume that they were not so well off when they married, but had improved their lifestyle as they went along. She wondered what Andrew did for a living, and whether she worked or was a stay at home wife. With three children and the youngest in his first year of full time school she guessed that if she did work it was only part time. Of course that was only a guess. For all she knew not only was she a neatness freak but she was also a frazzled mum who worked full time. That was probably enough to make her want to lose her memory.

Keeping her head down she carefully dried her hands on the soft yellow hand towel. The mirror was right in front of her, all she had to do was look up and she would see who she was. It was what she wanted to do, yet at the same time the prospect was terrifying. Giving herself a brief pep talk Alicia took a deep breath, forced her head up and locked eyes with her reflection.

She had been hoping for instant recognition, for a rush of relief as she reconnected herself with her image but that did not happen. Instead, deep blue eyes stared at her without a hint of recognition as she stared back. It felt like she was looking at someone to whom she had just been introduced. She studied herself curiously. Long tousled brown hair framed a face that she thought was pretty but unremarkable. Her eyes were undoubtedly her best feature she thought dispassionately. They were large and framed by long dark lashes. She had perfectly arched eyebrows, probably the end result of careful waxing or plucking. Her nose was pleasant, her mouth large with full lips, her cheekbones prominent. There were fine lines at the corners of her eyes, and faint frown lines on her forehead.

Suddenly consumed by curiosity she dashed into the bedroom and stood in front of the mirrored wardrobe. She was rather short, she realized, but with a reasonable body for someone who has given birth to three children. There was a bit of a tummy there, but not too much. She studied her legs critically and decided that they were attractive enough.

Looking at the full picture, she decided that she was an attractive woman, and she really didn’t look like she was 42. She studied the look of shock that came into the face of the stranger in the mirror, realized again that it was her, and then realized that she knew her age. Staring at her reflection for a long time, she willed herself to remember something else. Was her hair natural? Yes, she thought so. Was childbirth easy?Blank. Did she get on well with her husband? Blank. Was she happy with her life? Blank, but she thought perhaps not or she would not be looking at a stranger in the mirror.

Maybe she was asking herself questions that were too specific.Can I drive a car? Yes. What car do I drive? Blank. Can I swim?Yes, and very strongly. What day is it today? Tuesday. What is the date? Blank. What is the year? 2010. So, she was not a completely blank canvas. There was a measure of relief in the knowledge.

She thought of another question and faced herself in the mirror again. Do I have a family, apart from those I know of? It was like there was a void inside her. She didn’t know whether she had a mother or father, siblings or cousins. It was like being an orphan, only worse. She was totally alone right now; even though it seemed she had an immediate family she didn’t remember them or anyone else.

The person that she was before may have family and friends, but the person she was now had no-one. The person she was now was totally alone in an unfamiliar world. There was nothing in this room that she recognized, and she had no reason to believe that she would fare any better outside of the room. She had no point of reference, and she felt as though she had been picked up from her life and deposited on a strange planet to start a new life – her mind wiped clean and empty. Panic was ambling around the edges of her thoughts, waiting to take possession. She realized that she was in danger of losing her mind completely – it would be too easy to simply give up and be swallowed up by the panic.

The thought of being institutionalized was enough to kick start her survival instinct. She would not give in to this; she would not be lost in the grey mists of her mind. There was a way back to herself again, and she would find it. She seemed to have a comfortable life, with a good husband and three children who presumably meant a great deal to her. This life was surely worth fighting for – she was surely worth fighting for.