ELEVEN DAYS IN A FUGUE STATE

ELEVEN  DAYS IN A FUGUE STATE

The room is unfamiliar. I don’t know how I got here. From the filtered light entering through the curtains, I can tell it is either early morning or the twilight of evening. My bedside clock reads five minutes to seven. I am coming out of a deep sleep on a comfortable and plush bed. Elegant and tasteful furnishings surround me. I am in my sleeping attire, so I assume it is morning.

There is a knock at the door. “Madam, it’s just Nellie with your tea tray,” the voice outside announces.

“Come in,” I hear myself respond. The sound I make seems strange and somehow emanating from a different consciousness.

A young woman in a maid’s black and white uniform enters and sets down the tray she is carrying on a nearby table. She walks to the window, opens the curtains, and raises the window slightly. A cool breeze enters the room. I drink in the air, relishing the drop in temperature.

“Good morning, Madam,” Nellie says. “Another beautiful sunny winter’s day in Harrogate,” she adds. “It’s a little crisp but I know you like to freshen the room on waking. I left the newspaper with the tray as per your usual request. So much going on in the world. It’s all a tad overwhelming for me. I’m only a girl from the country when all’s said and done.” Nellie is fussing over various items in the room as she chatters on. I can hear her but I’m not really listening. I’m feeling bewildered.

“So just to remind you Madam that, it being Sunday, breakfast will be a little later this morning: the dining room won’t open until 8.30am. I will be back to service the room while you are at breakfast. Would you need me for anything further at the moment, Madam?”

“Thank you, Nellie but I’m fine for now,” I hear my reply. Then Nellie departs. Apparently, I’ve been ensconced in this establishment long enough for my peccadillos to be known: the way I like my tea, my need of some morning fresh air, and my intellectual hunger for a regular newspaper. But I can’t remember. I can’t remember anything. It’s as though I have just been born at this moment.

After I carry out my ablutions, I look at my face in the mirror. I don’t recognise myself. ‘Who am I?’ I wonder. According to my reflection I look to be a woman in her 30s but it’s hard to tell. Perhaps I’m older as I look fragile. I sit to drink my tea and eat the accompanying biscuits - baked fresh daily in the hotel kitchen I somehow know - and then I survey the newspaper. I note the date: 5th December 1926.  Apparently, overnight the artist Claude Monet has died. I remember his paintings, that’s something, as his works of art are not easily forgotten. I feel sad about his loss and suddenly the image of his waterlilies forms in my mind. In my lifetime, I know I have visited his exhibitions; of that I am certain.

The newspaper is full of political commentary regarding tomorrow’s Council Session of the League of Nations in Geneva and various events in Germany and Italy where Mussolini – whose name I recall with distaste - seems to be tightening his grip on power. There’s also a book review of Adolph’s Hitler’s first volume of Mein Kampf; the second volume is to be published any day now. I feel I have read this first volume in translation, but I just can’t remember. The word ‘dangerous’ bursts into my head. There is also one large article on the imminent lifting of restrictions in England as the coal dispute seems to be over. Did I know there were restrictions on coal?

I dress slowly, deliberating over the right outfit, the right shoes to wear, and I add a tied scarf as a band around my hair. It’s a way of keeping my unruly crop off my face. In the wardrobe I have an array of day and evening clothes, all high quality, and I notice I have some lovely jewellery including a long string of pearls. I seem to know that pearls are the accessory of the times.  I also don the spectacles from my bedside table although, from what I can tell, the lenses offer no enhancement of my eyesight. Am I in disguise? I just don’t know. At the last moment I also put on my wedding ring, which is on the night table alongside my spectacles. Am I married? That thought sends a shiver down my spine. I must be. And somehow, I know there is a child because I feel a hole in my heart. How could I have left a child, I wonder.

Making my way down to the dining room, I again observe the luxurious decor of this hotel. It seems, whoever I am, I have no worries about money. 

“Good morning, Mrs. Neele,” the dining room host welcomes me on my entering through the gold embossed glass doors. I nod and smile, as I don’t remember his name. His blazer has the crest of a swan on the breast pocket, and I realise that is the name of the hotel. “I imagine this cool climate is quite different from the heat of Cape Town that you would be used to,” he adds, as he carries my menu and leads me towards a table. “Oh, yes,” I say. “But I love it. This cold weather is so bracing.”

“Oh, Teresa over here,” a woman calls from a table to the right. She is beckoning me to join her. Finally, I know my name and nationality at least. Oddly I don’t feel South African. But my surname Neele rings a bell.  But who is this woman with whom I’m destined to breakfast?  She is already familiar enough to be using my first name. Just then another woman rises from a nearby table and engages my would-be companion in conversation. “Oh, Helen, you must walk to the waterfall today. You and Teresa would adore the view.”

“Good morning, you two,” I say, feigning familiarity, as I take my seat at the table with the first woman, I now know to call Helen. 

“Jane was just recommending the waterfall for our walk this morning. What do you think Teresa?”

“Sounds good to me,” I hear myself agree.

“So pleased we all came to this spa hotel at the same time. It’s rare that I find other women with whom I feel so comfortable so instantly,” Jane announces. “We should meet for lunch when you return, and we can compare notes on the falls. It’s so atmospheric there, I could almost imagine it a backdrop to a tale of murder, perhaps something Mr. Conan Doyle might write. Or the elusive Mrs.

Christie.” Our trio all nod sagely as it seems these writers of murder and mayhem are known to all of us, even me.

“You know that Mrs. Christie has seemingly disappeared,” Jane adds. “I’ll bet it’s got something to do with her philandering husband Archibald. Bloody men!” It was then I recalled reading a small column in this morning’s newspaper that the missing writer might have been heading for Yorkshire according to a note she’d left for her secretary. Or was it Cornwall. I couldn’t be sure. Even my memory of recent news is now fading fast. I feel all at sea and wonder how I ever had negotiated my way here from Cape Town, South Africa.

“Anyway, the falls sounds a perfect outing for Teressa and me this morning,” Helen says.  “Then this afternoon, we can all enjoy the indoor hot springs. Immersion in that pool is so invigorating, don’t you think?” And so, it was a fait accompli: we would all be going into the hot springs later that day. I started to look forward to the activities ahead.

Over breakfast Helen confides to me that she is glad to be away from her family. Her children are still in boarding school and her husband has recently been discovered to have had yet another affair with a schoolteacher from the village near their country estate. “Not much love there anymore,” she sniffs, fighting back the tears. 

I find I have great sympathy for Helen and her situation. “From my experience, I have discovered men to be totally untrustworthy,” I hear myself mutter. I wonder how I have formed this opinion.

 “And the children will be home for Christmas soon,” Helen continues, swallowing the last bite of her marmalade toast, “so I must put on a brave face as their young lives don’t need the drama of a divorce.”

Again, a cold shiver runs down my spine. Am I being overly empathetic or is her experience something I know about. I wish I could remember.

Each day resembles the day before as the first week passes pleasantly at Harrogate’s Swan Hydropathic Hotel. I feel a little stronger every time I take to the walking trails with Helen or immerse myself in the indoor hot springs. The food served at all meals also feels like a tonic to repair my internal system as sometimes Helen and I join Jane and her husband for dinner and a post-meal game of cards or scrabble. They are surprised at how good I prove to be at the latter. At one point, the hotel brings in a medium to foretell our fortunes: she has little of no success with me, which causes me huge disappointment as I was hoping she could break apart the cloud enveloping me right now.

I keep track of the days and dates only because of the morning paper faithfully delivered by Nellie to my room. Mrs. Christie’s disappearance has become a national enquiry by now as even voices from the floor of parliament have raised concern. The papers are full of speculation and everyone at our establishment has a theory.

I have no plans to move on anywhere from this retreat, but I know Helen must eventually return to her family home in London before her children break from boarding school. I like her so much but have no real wish to be left alone with Jane and her husband. I would feel like a third wheel over the Christmas period. On the morning of 13 December, Jane shares the news that her friend Amy is arriving from London tomorrow. This news brightens my horizon as I may have another single woman with whom to bond once Helen has departed.

No sooner has Amy arrived and joined our small group of women than she takes me aside for a private conversation. “I know who you are,” she tells me. I go into shock. “And who might you think I am?” I ask hesitantly.

“Why, you are the missing Mrs. Agatha Christie, and I am going to contact authorities.”

I feel my knees go weak and I seek a lounge chair to sit upon. It is as though a veil has suddenly lifted. I remember everything in one blinding flash. The whole emotional scene plays out before me as though I am at a picture palace.  

It is night. I argue fiercely with my husband Archie. He tells me he is leaving our marriage and is in love with another woman; her last name is Neele (so not by chance that is the name I adopt for my escape). I wait till later that night and go up to kiss my daughter goodbye, making sure the nanny is still close by to keep her safe. I write a hasty note to my secretary indicating the region I will travel to. I leave this note on her desk. Then I pack my ports and drive out into the darkness, tears streaming down my face. Hours later, exhausted and alone, I drift into sleep at the wheel and run my vehicle off the road into a ditch. I am unharmed and have the good fortune to drag my luggage up to the road and wave down a passing automobile. I tell the driver my new name and the good Samaritan drops me at the hotel. He is enroute to a fishing lodge in Scotland. That is the moment my charade begins. From then until my meeting Amy, I believe I am Mrs. Teresa Neele.

Once the police arrive, they are soon followed by Archie and the press. The whole world then witnesses another charade of a loving husband finding his bewildered wife. We are divorced two years later. I write another 64 novels, and more than a dozen stage plays after my divorce from Archie. These include my most successful works. I find happiness again in a marriage to Max Mallowan which lasts for the rest of my days.

I never again forget who or where I am in life. My state of fugue was 11 days long, never to return.