A User's Guide to Make-Believe

by Jane Alexander

  The lift settled, in a moment of silent hope; then the doors drew back. She felt nausea wash through her – heard herself saying No— Spun around, shoved through the door to the north staircase and leapt the stairs, two at a time, to the top of the building. They would be here, somewhere. They would be here. Check each floor, and she’d find them. She ran the length of the corridor, calling ‘Finn! Ella!’ Out onto the south staircase, down one flight, their names bouncing off the glass roof, down to the foot of the stairwell. Leaning over the railings, seeing fragments of staircase dropping and darkening – seeing no one. Back into the corridor – along – down again. Again. Each corridor a copy of the last, carpet swallowing her footsteps, muting her shouts, their names falling dead to the ground the moment they left her mouth – the hard height of the stairwell, her voice an echo that nobody heard – carpet again, the corridor floor seeming to tilt, so she ran uphill – and numbers on doors blurring, dancing, so she forgot how far she’d descended, how much of the building was on top of her and how much still to come. Twice she thought she’d reached the bottom then found there was further to go, and when at last she burst out into the foyer—

  Not there. They were not there. Not anywhere.

  Outside? But there was the button to release the front door – did Finn even know to push it? Or inside, behind any one of the doors she’d run past, the doors with the dancing numbers. Knock on the right one – it opens to show Finn and Ella tucked up on someone’s sofa, eating bowls of Coco Pops in front of the TV, a kindly neighbour looking after two wandering children. Behind another, a single man – a loner – someone who was always so quiet, who kept himself to himself—To ask at every neighbour’s door would take time she didn’t have. Instead she ran out, into a deserted Sunday. The sky – it was wrong, sun sliding behind the apartment block when it should have been climbing over the sea. Not morning, but afternoon; late afternoon. She dashed across the shore road, where drivers thundered along not watching for lost children – searched each direction, on tiptoe as if it could help her see further. Nothing. No one. Beside her a low stone wall just the height for a five-year-old to climb. Beyond that, the drop. The swallowing grey of the sea.

  This wasn’t real, it was a dream – like the dreams where she was late for a train, and she’d forgotten her suitcase and let her wake up, please let her wake … But she knew: it had happened. The worst thing had happened.

  For a moment she let herself think she could call the police, and they’d tell her the kids were safe at the station – had been wandering lost, but a concerned lady had found them, brought them in, and Cassie could come and collect them now. She let herself think, just for a moment, that Meg might never have to know.

  Then she held her screen in her shaking hand, and called her sister.

  The rest of it came in fragments, with jagged edges that ripped at her each time she remembered. Meg’s voice on the phone – urgent, loud – and her own words, thin and weak. Stalling the car, twice, three times, between the parking and the street. Sitting paralysed at the turning: left, or right? Spotting two small figures up ahead, her foot jerking on the accelerator, before she saw the children were accompanied by two adults, a couple, and realised it wasn’t them. The feeling of unreality, crawling the street, scanning the pavement, the sea wall, the beach. Panic blazing through her when she saw them for certain this time, and oh God they were in their pyjamas still, Finn in his Spider-Man suit and Ella her Hello Kitty set, and they were talking to someone – a man, a stranger – and she leapt from the car, left it skewed across the lane, running towards them shouting their names, and the man held out his screen to her, said, ‘I was just calling the police,’ and as he spoke a panda car arrived from the opposite direction – and then Meg was there too – Meg refusing to meet her eye – and the children hysterical, cold and terrified, and ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, kept saying it, ‘Meg, I’m so so sorry,’ and the relief so great she felt she might collapse even as she tried to hug the kids, desperate to comfort them—

  And then Meg had looked at her.

  She had stepped back. Dropped her arms to her sides. Felt herself sinking, under the horror of what she’d done. And she should have known it, then – but what she failed to realise was that although the children had been found, they were still lost. That her whole family, now, was lost.

  If she’d tried harder to apologise – if she’d persisted – if she’d told the whole truth – then, would things have been different? The first time Meg had hung up on her, she’d told herself her sister needed space, a few days to calm down. Days into weeks: the longer she left it, the harder it was. How could she ever explain? When she’d first started testing Make-Believe she had struggled for words to describe it to Meg. It seemed at the same time too profound and too trivial. The sensations were like nothing else – but they were only play. What Meg did, bringing up her kids, was real, was serious. What Cassie did in Make-Believe was nothing more than a distraction from life. Then once she’d found Alan – the afternoon at the hospital, the bench set in behind the bamboo – after that, there was nothing to tell. There was only Alan, and he was too special, too secret to share.

  It wasn’t till after it all fell apart, and she’d started to put herself together again, that she found the guts to keep trying. To call. To turn up at the flat. To send letter after letter. She was moving on with her life, had her bedsit, her fledgling business, had Jake and the group for support – and if she tried hard enough for long enough, kept apologising, surely Meg would forgive her and she’d have her family back as well. They were safe, after all, the kids: in the end, there was no harm done.

  But then that picture had arrived: the stolen snap of Finn and Ella in the back green. And she’d realised her actions had put them in danger once more. Her actions – though they seemed to belong to someone else. She hadn’t been herself. That’s what she’d tried to explain, in her last letter to Meg, but when she’d read it through the excuses had sickened her. She’d torn it up and started again. A statement of facts. A warning. She had borrowed money, and offered Meg’s flat as collateral. She didn’t believe it would stand up, legally, since the flat was not hers to offer. She was repaying her debt; there should be nothing for Meg to worry about – but Meg should know there was a chance Finn and Ella might be at risk. She understood that after this Meg would never forgive her. She would not contact her again. But she promised to do all she could to keep the kids from harm.

  All she could. And this, at least, was something she could fix.

  The park had emptied out; in the distance, thunder cleared its throat. Cassie hauled herself up from the bench. Her next repayment wasn’t due for nearly a month – but the self she’d be by then was someone she didn’t trust. She had to pay it now, while she was still a part of this world – not just the next instalment, but the whole debt.

  She checked her balance onscreen as she walked. Final payment had cleared from the latest summer school assignment. Fifty per cent of it was Nicol’s, but she would think about that later. Including the fees she’d set aside for her other operatives, she was short by nearly a grand.

  The first drops of rain were falling as she unlocked Lewis’s bike and rode it to the nearest bike shop. They offered her £750; she bargained them up to £800, but from there they wouldn’t budge. In the next place, a few streets away, they wouldn’t shift at all.

  The third place she tried was on the edge of the New Town, where the wealthy students lived. The window was filled with vintage and carbon-framed road bikes, price tags well over four figures. She would sell for £1,000, she told the guy in the shop, and he smiled and told her not a chance, lucky if they could get that much for it. She smiled back, trying not to look desperate. Pointed out the mint condition: barely used, not a scratch, worth more than £2,000 new, easily … Bit by bit they inched their way towards agreeing a price. Until the moment they shook on it, Cassie told herself she wasn’t really doing this, that it was just theoretical, finding out
how much the bike was worth. But then, Lewis didn’t need it – and in any case it had been stupid of him to lend it to her, when she was so clearly not to be trusted. He should have been able to see that in her. He was kind, but stupid.

  Via the bank quick deposit, it took her two hours to walk home. Lewis’s place was closer, by far – but tonight, she couldn’t look him in the eye.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  ‘I’m really, really sorry.’

  The late sun was aiming straight for her eyes. A handful of sand, gritty and hot: she turned from the window, seeking the dark. Felt as if she was being interrogated. Lewis was taking it worse than she’d thought.

  ‘I’ll get you a new one – I mean I don’t have the money, at the moment, but—’

  ‘You can’t just. What d’you think I’m going to do with a new one?’ His arms were folded high across his chest, hands clamped in his armpits; his jaw was set sharp-angled, as tight as she’d ever seen it. Keep it in the cupboard in the hall, she nearly said. Lend it out to the next charity case you sleep with.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said again. But last night she had set up the final repayment. It would go through as soon as her cash deposit cleared. In a couple of days, it would be as if she’d never borrowed the money; as if Ella and Finn had never been collateral for her stupidity. She was sorry for Lewis, hated to see him so wound up by what she’d done – but she’d do it again, in a heartbeat.

  ‘We agreed you wouldn’t take it to yours!’

  She wished he’d stop talking. ‘I know. I did lock it—’

  ‘What, with your tinny chain? How long d’you think it took them to cut through that?’ He didn’t wait for her to answer. ‘Jesus, you didn’t even take it into your flat, you just left it in the stairwell of some dodgy fucking high-rise?’

  Low-rise; but she didn’t correct him. ‘I know – it’s just it was so heavy to – but I should have.’

  ‘Yeah. You should.’

  How many times could she say she was sorry? She didn’t want to be here. Not in this flat. Not in this body. Last night when she’d finally made it home, her neighbour was having another party. She’d asked him to turn it down; he’d asked her in. Ryan, he was called, and he was alright once you talked to him, though she didn’t remember what they’d talked about. Didn’t remember how much she’d drunk. Enough to poison her. Enough to swell her brain in her skull so it ached at every movement. Enough so her stomach lurched at the smell of the food Lewis had been making. She wished she’d stayed in bed, told him she was ill. Put off her confession until tomorrow. It was a resigned kind of self-loathing that had propelled her out of bed, into town on her rattling old bike, to endure his wrath along with her hangover.

  He had every right to be angry, but she was surprised just how gracelessly he was behaving. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t afford another bike. It wasn’t as if he even needed one. She’d grovelled about as much as she could bear: now, in the heat of his anger, her guilt was bubbling up into a resentment she’d no right to feel.

  Maybe he sensed it. He shook his head, letting go. ‘Forget it,’ he said, but he still looked like a man in search of something to punch.

  Cassie watched him turn his back on her. Thought, unexpectedly, of Meg. Of the fight, not long after their mum had died. It was over the cardigan that had been her mum’s, that Cassie had taken to wearing, had worn for weeks non-stop, come to think of as hers, before Meg had noticed the dark patch. Stain of oil from some dropped food. The fight that ensued was so violent, so vicious it roused even their dad from his sleep of grief. He’d held Meg, held her back as she’d shouted careless bitch, clumsy bitch, spoilt for ever— Her mum had worn that cardigan, the one time Cassie had Make-Believed her. She could see it, feel it, smell it still, so precisely: fuzzy orange, hand-knitted, all shades from apricot to sunset to rust. Soft smell of wool, and lily-of-the-valley. The cardigan was easy to Believe. It was all the rest that had been too hard.

  Cassie pinched her forehead. Stood, picked up her satchel.

  ‘I said forget it … Where are you going?’

  ‘Some dodgy fucking low-rise.’ Lewis looked blank. ‘Home.’

  He gave a kind of a groan. ‘No, look, don’t. You don’t have to.’

  ‘I don’t have to do anything. I just think you probably don’t want to be looking at my face at the moment, or listening to my voice, and to be honest the feeling’s pretty mutual, so … I’m going to let you, you know—’ She held out her hands, palms down, steadying the situation. ‘Simmer down.’

  His jaw twitched, and for a moment she thought she’d set him off again. Then: ‘Hang on just a moment,’ he said, and walked out of the room. Called back: ‘Something to show you.’

  All at once, the ache in her head was muted. Her thumbnail found a notch in the table edge, worried its way inside. As she stared, the grain of the wood seemed to undulate, like something alive; she blinked, concentrated on stilling it, settling her tilting stomach.

  It had to be. It had to be.

  When he came back carrying nothing, she knew she’d guessed right.

  He sat down opposite. She felt his eyes on her face as he opened his fist.

  ‘Where did you get them?’ She glanced up. A shake of his head. Two curves, nestled together. They could have been shells, or insect carapaces.

  ‘You think they’ll work?’

  A nod.

  Their lights were off, would remain so until she chose a receiver and slipped it on, fitting it over the cartilage of her ear. When it tapped into her electrochemistry, the light would pulse, then settle into a blue-tinted illumination.

  Lewis’s voice sounded far off. She concentrated. Whatever he was telling her, it must be important.

  ‘… how they work,’ he said. ‘What they do is encrypt our DNA, allow us to jump onto existing accounts. So you put this on, it scans the network, and the first idle account it finds, it’ll hijack – and bam, you’re John Smith, or whoever.’

  ‘But it’s a one-off?’

  ‘No! That’s the beauty of it. Every time you connect, you’re using a different account. Tomorrow night, you’re Jane Brown. The night after, you’re Annabel Double-barrelled-Whatever. You’re always one step ahead.’

  She looked at the clock on the oven. ‘Does it have to be at night?’

  ‘That’s when the chance is greatest, of finding an idle account. When most users are asleep.’

  Lewis stretched over the bed, tugged the sheet free from the corner. Rumpled it into a heap with the old duvet cover and pillowcases.

  She’d felt awkward asking – but it had mattered. It would have been wrong, their bodies slumped in the bedding they’d fucked in. Perhaps he felt the same. In any case, he didn’t ask her why. Of course, he’d said, fetched clean linen from the airing cupboard.

  He snapped the fresh sheet in mid-air, and Cassie caught a corner.

  ‘Are you sure?’ she said.

  He stopped, hands outstretched. ‘You haven’t changed your mind?’

  His voice was sharp: she could sense his tension. It couldn’t make a difference to him, either way, not a practical difference. With or without her, he was on his way back to Make-Believe. Which must mean he wanted her at his side, as they pushed out from the edge towards their separate destinations. She smiled, shook her head.

  He bent to fold the sheet under the mattress. ‘Good. Me neither.’

  Cassie folded in her side of the sheet. Pulled the corners nice and tight. ‘I spoke to Jake the other night,’ she said. When she glanced up, Lewis was looking at her blankly. ‘From the group.’

  ‘Oh, Jake. Of course. What for?’

  ‘Because – once I thought this might happen, I felt like I needed advice. I worked really hard, you know, at sorting myself out, getting my life back together.’ She picked up a pillowcase, flipped it inside out and pushed her hands into the corners. Grabbing hold of a pillow, she shook the case down over it.

  ‘Good trick,’ said Lewis, watching.

>   ‘Got it off my mum. You can do it with the duvet too – chuck it here, and I’ll show you.’

  ‘So what did he say?’

  ‘Nothing you couldn’t guess. Oh, he told me to get over myself, basically. But I realised something, then. The group, all that – we were never doing what everyone else was, we were never resisting temptation, because there was none. It was only ever about managing the loss. For me, at least. The loss of Make-Believe. And no matter how hard that felt, it was simple compared to what everyone else was up against. And even now – this is what I realised – it’s not that I’m slipping. I’m not giving in. I choose it.’

  She flung the quilt out over the bed. Left a pause for Lewis to agree or disagree. She chose it: how could she have thought she’d do otherwise? All those times before, she’d believed she was Making the Alan she wanted, a version based on memory and imagination. And he had been real. Now she hoped – believed – she would find him once again. The excitement bubbled up inside, wanting to be shared; but since dinner, when they’d forced down some pasta in preparation for tonight, Lewis had spoken barely two dozen words. She was talking because she was dizzy with anticipation, like her tongue had come unstuck from the roof of her mouth. Lewis was the opposite, pulling back into himself.

  ‘Completely informed,’ she said. ‘Knowing everything it’ll do to me. A straight choice – between what everyone says is real, and what I know is real. What I choose to make real.’ Another pause. ‘Are you going to change?’

  ‘Change?’

  He was wearing jeans, a belt. She’d already swapped her clothes for the most suitable ones she had at Lewis’s: tracksuit bottoms and an old band T-shirt, soft with wear. ‘Into something comfortable.’

  He glanced down at himself. ‘Oh. I will do, yes.’