Fast Fiction: Memory Man
So just how good is this memory man's memory? Richard Mallinson's intriguing short story poses unanswered questions.
‘This fellow,’ says the grey-haired man opposite, pointing at me, ‘once typed out the whole of Macbeth from memory.’
I nod and smile.
Also at the dinner table are a red-bearded man and a pale elderly woman. They look at me admiringly.
The red-bearded man says, ‘But surely you’re a bank clerk, aren’t you, Mr er, not a literary gent?’
I ignore this. It is just the kind of thing that T S Eliot had had to put up with - though the other way round, of course.
Then the pale elderly woman says, ‘Do you remember the Memory Man on the wireless? You would be better than him and you could earn a fortune -’
This is all very flattering.
Later, as I gulp my after-dinner brandy, I realise that I don’t know where I am, nor who any of these people are.
Why are they all standing up and glaring at me?
*
When I wake in the morning I can hear the traffic bellowing in the street. I wash and shave and make my way down to the breakfast table.
A dark-haired woman in a loose blue dressing-gown arrives and leans forward, showing her breasts.
She pours coffee and lights a cigarette.
‘And who are you?’ I say, inhaling her smoke.
‘You know very well who I am, you idiot,’ she snaps.
She sits down, facing me, and I take a really good look at her.
‘No,’ I say, ‘I’m buggered if I do.’
