Page 53 of Beautiful Ugly

She looks like my wife.

She sounds like my wife.

Sheismy wife.

My mind scrambles to come up with possible explanations for what is happening.

Maybe she has a concussion from what just happened.

Maybe when she disappeared a year ago she lost her memory?

Maybe she’s lying.

I don’t understand what is going on but I have to know the truth.

I lift the bike into the boot of the Land Rover, then tell Columbo to get in the back seat before Abby and I climb inside the front. She even smells like my wife; she’s wearing Abby’s favorite perfume. I thought Columbo might jog her memory but it’s as though she’s never seen him before. He is very happy to see her, but he’s happy to see everyone.

“Cute dog,” she says, barely looking at him.

My mind is too full of questions. I decide to start with an easy one.

“Have you lived on the island long?” I ask, turning on the engine.

“Long enough,” she replies. She fastens her seat belt, checks it twice. “If you head toward the village I’ll guide you from there,” she adds, as though not wanting to tell me her address. As if she is scared of me. As though I am a stranger. Her hands are neatly folded in her lap and I take my eyes off the road just for a moment to look at them. They look like my wife’s hands except that sheisn’t wearing her wedding ring, and instead of varnish, her nails seem to be covered in splatters of blue-green paint.

“You don’t sound like you were born here,” I say.

“How observant.Youdon’t sound like a hit-and-run driver.”

“I didn’t see you until your bike collided with the car, and I didn’t run.”

“I’ve lived here for as long as I can remember,” she says. Which doesn’t mean anything given I don’t know how much she can remember. There might be no ring on her finger, but I think I can see a slight indentation on her skin where she used to wear it. I notice that she picks the paint off her nails, the same way Abby used to pick off her polish. It was something she did when things were stressful for her at work. A coping mechanism. A nervous tic.

I remember the newspaper articles that were left in the cabin and the car, maybe that’s why someone wanted me to see them, because they knew she was here. My mind is now filling with all sorts of explanations for how and why Abby might have ended up on the Isle of Amberly. My wife’s obsession with her work was one of the only subjects we ever argued about, and there were things I said before she vanished that I longed to take back after she was gone. I’d tell her that now but she doesn’t seem to know who I am. Abby looks up as we approach a junction.

“Ignore the turning for the village and turn right instead, along the cliff road.”

I’m on the cliff road.

That’s what she told me the night she disappeared. It’s one of the last things she said before she vanished. This feels like a total head fuck. I go along with it, withher, and I take the turning, but I can’t seem to stop myself asking the question again.

“Do you really not know who I am?”

She stares at my face while I stare at the road, and I feel her eyes boring into me.

After an almost unbearable silence, all she says is, “Should I?”

I shake my head. Silence resumes.

“Wait, are youthe author?” she asks then.

“Yes.Yes, I’m an author. Do you remember now?”

“I don’t get out much, but I do remember Cora Christie telling everyone who came into the corner shop that another writer had come to Amberly. So that’s you, is it? The author?”

“That’s me,” I say, trying to hide my disappointment. Either my wife has become an amazing actress or she really doesn’t remember me.

“It’s just down this lane here,” she says.