Forgetting is a release. The warmth of the hospital bed flowed through my body. I had been put in a room on my own.  I had lain three hours in a ditch prostrate with pain, looking up at a hard, clear, blue sky. I had been hit and my body bumped from the saline green verge into the putrefactious pit. The hedgerow was bare except for some berries. It was a crisscross of prickly branches, the thorns clearly visible like spiky railings. Black birds perched ominously on an enormous oak. Pain became numbness and a real deadening cold, slowly numbing my mind into black nothingness.

I suppose they found me. The doctors came. One was a tall, frank Scot with a red face; the other was a studious, rather nervous, young man with beautiful brown coffee coloured skin, probably Thai.

‘How are you feeling, Beatrix?’ the Scot inquired.

The Thai was looking at the digital screens of the machinery wired up to my body and then suddenly took the thermometer from under my armpit, studied it briefly and started scribbling his notes. 

I nodded and said, ‘Okay.’

‘I have to ask you some questions. In fact, the police want to talk to you. I have told them they’ll have to wait. They can wait. Do you remember how you hit your head?’

A silence descended on the room as I thought about his question and the police. But there was still snow on my brain and I could think of nothing.

I answered bluntly, ‘No.’

‘Well, if you remember anything, tell the nurse and we will chat later. It’s probably the concussion.’

‘Concussion?’

‘Yes, you’ve got a nasty blow on the back of your head.’

‘Oh.’

‘I’ll leave you to rest now. Just tell the nurse if you need anything.’

‘Thanks, doctor.’

When I was alone with my mother, I remembered and said,

‘He did it.’