False Memory: Chapter 3, pp. 10-15

Chapter 2 begins the Dusty and Skeet story I have already recounted.  Chapter 3 begins with Martie heading home, thinking about her mother and her attempts to break up their marriage.  She wonders whether the strange anxiety attack was brought on by fear that her mother might actually succeed.  This is a perfectly good red herring.  From what we know about Martie so far, she is strong, resilient, optimistic and happily married.  The main sources of stress in her life appear to be (1) her father dying recently, and (2) her mother trying to break up her marriage.  (We soon discover another source of stress, a big one).  It does seem reasonable that if Martie is starting to have anxiety attacks, the most likely source is that she is being asked to choose between the two (living) people she loves the most.  As the story progresses it becomes increasingly clear that this is not the source of Martie’s anxiety attack, but Martie’s mother nonetheless goes on, dropping phone messages, mostly as a form on comic relief.  Finally, around page 435, we find out that Mom really has nothing against Dusty at all, she is just afraid he will fall off a roof and be killed or injured, and she wants to spare Martie the heartbreak.  This is the proper way to deal with red herrings – when they no longer serve their purpose, explain why they are really just red herrings.  This one is now disposed of, so I will take the liberty of ignoring it any time it makes a further appearance.

All is well until Martie goes to look into the bathroom mirror.  Suddenly she is again overcome with terror, this time of the mirror.  And, in another, pretty good, clue, even the sight of a strand of her hair in the sink seems so ominous that she washes it down the drain.  Koontz goes on for two pages, describing her terror in vivid detail.  Of the mirror, Martie thinks, “It was not a window at which some madman might be standing, peering in with a lunatic grin, eyes burning with homicidal intent, as in some cheesy screamfest movie.”  I will give Koontz this.  He needs none of Stephen King’s props to create terror; he can make it out of nothing at all.  It does an impressive work of making your own heart pound and stomach clench, without anything gross to account for it.  Martie then touches Valet, the dog, and her terror seems to pass through him into the ground, like a lightening rod.  She looks into the mirror and sees only her own reflection.  And unlike her fear of her shadow, Marties’ fear of her reflection makes a number of further appearances and becomes more and more understandable in the context of her real phobia.

Next comes a sequence that has to be quoted in full to do it justice: 

The phone rang.  She went into the kitchen to answer it.

Valet followed.  He stared at her, puzzled, tail wagging at first, then not wagging. 

“Sorry, wrong number,” she said eventually, and she hung up.  She noticed the dog’s peculiar attitude.  “What’s wrong with you?”

Valet stared at her, hackles slightly raised.

“I swear, it wasn’t the girl poodle next door, calling for you.” 

When she returned to the half bath, to the mirror, she still did not like what she saw, but now she knew what to do about it. 

Okay, let’s unpack that.  Martie answers the phone, and the dog sees or hears something that upsets him.  She “eventually” says, “Sorry, wrong number,” and hangs up.  We are not told what was said in the conversation.  Normally a wrong number call is very short.  This one, however, was long enough that Martie “eventually” said wrong number.  It also went on long enough for the dog to stop wagging his tail and become alarmed. This hints at an interval we are not told about, but one that disturbs Valet.  But the hint is vague enough that it could easily be overlooked. 

This sequence introduces two important themes that recur throughout the novel – memory lapses, and control by telephone.  Koontz is quite artful here in introducing both themes so subtly that one could easily miss them altogether.  Only later does one begin to appreciate the sinister aspects of the call and wonder what took place during that apparent interval.  But here is the problem.  We never find out what happened in that interval.  We never find out why it was made.  In fact, the whole conversation is never mentioned again. 

It would make much more sense if the phone preceded Martie’s anxiety symptoms, and only later did we begin to realize that they began after someone on the other end of the phone suggested them.  Of course, it would be too obvious if Martie’s symptoms began immediately after the phone call.  Some other event would have to intervene.  The possibilities are endless.  Maybe she would get the mysterious call, and then her mother’s call.  She would answer her mother impatiently, thinking it was the wrong number again, have a dispute over her mother trying to break up her marriage, and then start getting anxiety symptoms.  That would direct our attention toward the red herring of Martie’s mother.  Or, she could get then call, walk the dog without the shadow incident (which also never reappears) and then get her first anxiety attack over the mirror.  Or she could finish sweeping up the dead ants, then walk the dog and have her first anxiety attack.  But having the phone call trigger Martie’s symptoms makes vastly more sense than having Martie’s symptoms begin with no triggering event (unless you suspect, as I do, that she was originally supposed to have been programmed the night before), and then a seemingly pointless and unmotivated phone call. 

Although, to be fair, we actually do learn the outcome of the call.  Martie, as you will recall, now knows what to do about the mirror.  We don’t find out here, but in Chapter 14, Dusty comes home (changing into dry clothes, remember?) to find out that it was broken.  And when Martie gets home in Chapter 19, she has no memory of breaking it.  This definitely presents the theme of memory lapses.  But once again, we have the same problem.  The broken mirror is never followed up on.  We never find out why Martie’s programmer wants her to break the mirror and then forget she did it.  The subject never gets mentioned as the characters increasingly begin to suspect they have memory lapses.  Once again, Koontz introduces a clue, beats us over the head with it, and then drops it and never bothers to explain.