‘Or you could just give me her address.’
I shook my head. ‘If you turn up she won’t give you anything.’
‘Why not?’
‘Why d’you think?’
‘A good friend. Protective. You don’t hate me, though, do you?’ almost batting his eyelashes at me.
‘I’m off to bed now,’ I said. ‘Leave me your contact details and go.’ I’d email him the next day with an update, I said. Any more pestering and I’d get Flora to feed the book to the sheep.
He hemmed and hawed but that was it. He tried for my whole contact slew but settled for scrawling down his personal email. Then I escorted him downstairs and said goodbye at the front door.
‘Nim,’ he said there, flaring his nostrils, bending down to brush his lips against my hair.
We’re just animals, slaves to learnt reflex. Even then I had to bolster my innards against his scent. But he helped out: ‘You can’t know how grateful I am, or how much this reconnection means. I’ll wait to hear tomorrow and then from now on let’s be in touch from time to time, shall we? I’d like that: telling each other the important things, the big life moments. I’m not saying regular contact, my fiancée won’t like that…’
‘I’ll email tomorrow. Good luck, Christopher. Best wishes for your marriage and…event.’
‘Nim?’
But I pushed him out the door and closed it behind him. Then I stood on tiptoes and put my eye to the top keyhole and watched him. He stood facing the house for a while eyeing my flat, the ground floor, the basement flat. Then he came back to my door and put his own eye right up to the keyhole too so it went black. I froze and didn’t breathe.
Then he stood back, pulled up his hood, turned and seemed to walk away, up the curve of the road, to some driverless limo lurking there for him no doubt.
He didn’t look back.
Then I was sitting on the floor of the hall with my back to the door feeling the cold draught, hugging my legs. Was that always him underneath? Or was it the ice of the world?
Who cared. Good luck to him. Time for self-care. I should feel proud: I’d behaved with grace and compassion, and that’s all you can do. You can’t best such creatures—if you could you’d be as bad as them. And there was no point kicking myself for falling for it and putting up with it for so long once upon a time. I’d been young and dumb and desperate then, an easy mark, desperate for any crumbs of affection, thinking I deserved no better. Now I was older and over it. It was bound to feel weird for a while, seeing it up front again, but I’d be fine.
In fact I’d been finally set free. That’s what happens when your worst fears turn out true. There was no better Chris after all, no matter what I sometimes nursed inside me. He really was as bad as all that, vaporware.
I’d go upstairs, have a bath, go to bed. In the morning I’d sort my phone, call Flora’s farm shop, speak to her, email Chris, arrange a drop-off point, never see him again, forget about it, build my new wondrous.
I sat on the doormat thinking about the broken house.
After a while of this it felt like the stairs were watching me and having a laugh. I stretched, was about to get up to go upstairs and have that bath when my doorbell rang: five rings, a pause, six more.
3
Various possibilities. Him back different and sorry: unlikely, unwanted. Him back to twist worse for immediate book action: very likely indeed. Tal popping in for a late-night cuppa: a nice world irony I was in no mood for. Someone else for something else: didn’t cross my mind.
I’d been clear with him—and courteous. I was now furious: utter cheek, me as pure means. Zero boundaries, zero respect—I wasn’t going to open the door. But if I moved he’d hear me, start opening the letterbox to spew more poison. Perhaps he was already peeping through the keyhole. If so he wouldn’t be able to see me down on the doormat. I froze.
My light upstairs was on, he’d know I was still up. Sure enough he rang his eleven times again, followed by another eleven. And then next to me the door to the downstairs flat opened: my neighbour Glen in red silk dressing gown all furious: did I have the slightest consideration, did I know the time?
My visitor, aware I was in the hall due to Glen’s commotion, was indeed pushing open the letterbox trying to talk to me.
‘Nim. I know you’re there. Are you OK? Please. I’m begging you. It’s me, Chris. Christopher Kipp. Open the door, I got to talk to you. Do you know?’
Many apologies, Glen. Give me one minute, I’d sort this.
Glen shuffled back muttering into his flat.
I’d been majestic for more than an hour now, vast provocations shrugged off. Limits reached I stood up, put the door chain on, yanked the chained door open as far as it would go. Into the sliver once more moved Christopher Kipp in his posh jacket and million-dollar hoodie, pushing his face close to me.
‘Chris,’ I hissed quietly for Glen’s sake. ‘Fuck off. Forget about the book. Just manage your “event” without it, you precious dick, cos it is now feed for the sheep of the Brechfa Forest.’
‘Nim,’ he said, all fake-shocked now. ‘What are you talking about?’
So lost, really thinking he could play this. For the first time I saw him as he was: someone who just knew a bit less than me. No point. What a release.
‘Just go,’ I said, like I was talking to a child. ‘I’ll email, get you the book tomorrow. Now leave. No matter what I won’t give you the address.’
‘What address? What are you talking about?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Nim. I just got here. I don’t understand anything you’re saying.’
I gaped at him. He gaped right back.
‘Oh God,’ he said, and his face changed. ‘Do you mean..? Has someone…was I just here? Before? Have I been here earlier tonight?’
Wow. I raised my eyebrows at him. ‘Enjoying your work, Chris. Admiring your stylings. Keen to see where this is going. Whole new territories you’re mapping out here. Good luck down this road mateykins.’
‘I…OK, I thought I’d do this slowly but this is bad. There’s…a lot of freaky stuff. OK. So I came here earlier tonight and wanted something?’
‘You came here earlier tonight and wanted something. Weak. Are you on drugs? You sound like Tal.’
‘What did I want?’
‘A soul. Goodbye, Chris.’ I was closing the door but he jammed it open with a filthy trainer, pushed his face in close over the chain.
‘It’s totally freaky, I know,’ he said, much too close, bad breath, the top of his right index finger missing now, the finger he ran down his nose. ‘But the one who was here before? He wasn’t me, Nim. It’s so fucked up, Nim. I know how crazy this sounds. He’s…let me in and I’ll explain.’
4
‘He’s my…brother,’ he said from behind the chain because I still wouldn’t let him in, his rotten shoe jamming open the door. ‘Yup, I got a…brother now. Identical. Twins, let’s call it. I didn’t know. I found out. We look the same, almost, outside. Inside we’re different. But there’s two of us and I’m the real one,’ gabbling over the chain, running fingers through messy hair, grabbing his roots, his right index fingertip gone now, the top joint missing, running this stump down his nose again, a stump topped by a bobble of flesh. ‘I just turned up, this is the first time I’ve seen you in eleven years, I wasn’t here before, haven’t seen you since New York. The one before’s my double, pretending to be me, fake.’
Stone-cold effrontery. Off-the-scale gaslighting and contempt. I couldn’t speak. The stump seemed new. I hadn’t noticed it up in my flat before and I’d have noticed. His face looked the same, kind of: dirtier, more stubble, but it was Chris Kipp’s face. But the Chris in my flat, in my hall twenty minutes before had been finger-perfect, I was pretty certain.
‘I’m Chris Kipp,’ this stump one was saying from behind the chain. He was my old love from Scritchwood who I’d grown up with, the one who’d behaved poorly in New York and elsewhere
. ‘That other one,’ the first one, who’d just left: clean and shaven Mr Finger-Perfect who I’d let through the door and upstairs to my flat? ‘He’s someone else,’ this stump Chris was saying: someone called Sean, someone bad and dangerous who’d pretended to be Chris, to gain access to me and entrance to my flat under false pretences—for what reason? Chris and Sean. What had Sean been up to? ‘We’re kind of twins, it’s a long story, what did he want? What was all that about books and sheep?’
Then I shouted at him for a bit and he didn’t blame me—‘It is crazy,’ he said, nodding away. ‘Just undo the chain and let me in so I can explain properly, five minutes. In fact, undo the chain and leave with me right now, we’re in terrible danger. You got to know: if Sean’s been here we’re fucked, you and me, like you can’t believe. You’re fucked, your flat’s fucked—did he touch you, your walls, your machines, your computers and phones? Did he go into your fridge, your cupboards and jars? They’ve planted stuff, that’s what they do: smear things, listen in, leave messages for each other. They’re listening in right now, leaving messages, coming for us, me and you right now, they’ll know I’m here now, they’re after me, maybe they’re here already, maybe you’re one of them. Are you? Oh god are you, Nim? Are you Nim at all or something else?’ staring deep into my eyes from different angles. ‘I’m so paranoid, I can’t trust anything, even you, that’s what they’ve done to me. Where’s your phone? I got to have your phone, I can’t have phones. The world’s so fucked up, do you realise? It’s all a front. Nothing’s what it seems.’
Pure nutty Tal. I stared at him, rattling the chain, babbling on for me to open up right now, get out right now, with him, into the street, into his car parked not far away, so he could explain properly about the fucked world. A psycho in full punishment meltdown, because I’d dared to show he could no longer control me?
Or was it all to get his hands on the book?
‘Why was Sean here, what did he want, why was he pretending to be me, what book, what sheep, what event, where’s the Brechfa Forest, what did he want to know, what did you tell him, where’s Sean now? I got to know.’
That stump. White now, gripping the door frame along with the rest of his fingers, stopping me from closing the door on him, the force of his hand plus his forehead and the jammed-in foot. Bad old trainers now, battered things, not the box-fresh luxe-casual of his first visit. Him and all his clothes, the charcoal: dirty and frayed. His face seemed more gaunt. Now he had stubble and blackheads, no clean pores. He had sprouting nostril hair. His nails were longer: less bitten, more filthy. But you could change clothes and filth your face and fingers, and glue-on stubble and nose hair and nails, and contour cheekbones: a quick session behind bushes up Holmesdale Road, no probs. It meant a planned operation, though, the opposite of crazy, nothing Tal could come up with: make-up kit, costume-changes, this whole loony twin yarn in reserve as an encore if I wouldn’t play ball, wouldn’t give him back his precious book—all for the book, what was it with the sodding book?
But. Possible. You could change clothes. You could put on foundation, stubble, nose hair, put dirt under nails, bloody eyes, spray on stink. The voice and gestures were the same. The aura felt different: caffeinated, desperate. When I’d known him he’d never been a good actor, too self-conscious, but maybe acting yourself was easier, specially if you really wanted something.
He seemed thinner, though it was hard to tell from the sliver of him I could see. Something about the eyes felt different.
A bad actor but a good liar.
Not crazy at all.
But could you change fingers, remove tips?
The bobbled stump was smooth, aged, healed, nothing recent. Nothing bloody, nothing hacked off behind trees five minutes ago.
‘What happened to your finger?’
‘Docked. Punishment. Undo the chain.’
Unless the stump had been disguised the first time, always there but topped off with a bit of sculpted silicon or—who knew?—real flesh, stuck on with art so the finger looked whole. Weird bother for no clear purpose but not impossible. Who knew how much he wanted the book, for what event or purpose? Who knew what they were up to in their robot labs?
Not for the first time I wanted that machine we’d all get shortly that would record everything, the lifelog with playback. So I could get a good look at that whole index finger up in my flat before. Freeze-frame, zoom, search for seams, scan face and clothes.
My dead phone.
But it was crazy to think my phone dying was part of this. It was Tal-like: massive connections, nonsense, everything I’d given up, everything I hated. Solid foundations, I’d built my new life on. I didn’t go big any more. I drew my line. Keep it simple, Alan used to say. And the simplest explanation seemed to be that my dead phone was a coincidence and there were no twins and this Chris was both my visitors and either mad or in meltdown because I wouldn’t play or else desperate for the book for unknown reasons, or just bored and back to prank. And then I remembered something else from Alan: that every warrior needed six things and one of them was a frightener: something scary to throw the enemy, distract them, stop them dead in their tracks so you could trip them up while they were caught up in being scared or distracted. Like snake-haired Grag Medusa in Alan’s stories: the ultimate frightener who turned you to stone when you looked at her like this stump-Chris’s disgusting stump forcing open my door, that I couldn’t stop looking at. That bobble.
I stopped looking at it. I couldn’t close the door but I didn’t have to. I stepped back, didn’t say anything, left him yabbering over the chain, turned round and walked away from him down the hall, back up the stairs. He babbled things after me, names from Scritch, Alan’s secret agent game we used to play as kids, desperate measures: ‘How’s Corpse Dog?’ Then he was shouting after me, begging me, telling me I had no clue and was I Nim or something else, was I Nim but part of it?
Then another voice came from behind me.
‘I’m recording this,’ it said.
5
I turned round to see trembling Glen brandishing his phone like a cross to ward off Draculas. ‘The police have been called. They are on their way. This footage is evidence,’ swinging his phone between me on the stairs and Chris behind the chain.
With something—his hands? a tool?—Chris bashed the chain from the door frame and pushed into the hall and snatched Glen’s recording phone from his tiny fingers and smashed it onto the floor and stamped on it many times with the new rotten trainers.
We all looked at Glen’s broken phone on the mat.
I started to say things, Chris started to say things. I shouted at Chris to stop it, apologised to Glen, explained that Chris was crazy and I was glad the police were coming, shouted at Chris to leave. I came down the stairs. Glen, who’d been silent, just staring at his broken phone, scuttled back behind his door and slammed it shut.
I knocked on Glen’s shut door. I wanted to apologise, get behind his door with him because Chris had grabbed my arm. I tried to shake Chris off, I tried to pull away, go back upstairs. I banged on Glen’s door again, shouted for him to let me in, screamed for help. But Chris had me and was dragging me away. He was much bigger and stronger than me, he always was. That’s how it works. I tried to kick but it meant nothing. He was pulling me back out of the hall, out of the open front door, saying he was so sorry but just couldn’t be recorded, hadn’t meant to frighten me or anyone, didn’t mean to be frightening me now and sorry if he was hurting me but we had to leave: Glen had recorded him, called the police, Sean had been here, everything was tainted, the police weren’t the police, everything was dangerous, I couldn’t understand, time was nearly over, he’d take me away from tainted here to someplace we could talk.
One hand round me pulling me out of the building in my grey fluffy slippers. The other, the stump hand, jammed into my mouth, stopping me from talking or screaming as he forced me outside down the steps into the misty night.
Gone beyond, him caved-in.
Little orange leaves glittering on the pavement ahead. Lights off, people asleep, empty roads, his jammed hand in my mouth. He nestled me into his chest, bustled us off towards the railway bridge, yanking my wrist back so it hurt, forcing me on. I bit hard on his hand, the stump, broke skin, tasted blood. But he pushed back, made me gag so I had to stop or suffocate or get my teeth knocked out. I bent my knees, went limp. He lifted me into his rank self and dragged me on, me kicking uselessly. At the bridge he forced me through the railings up the embankment into the trees and darkness beyond.
Up there was the Parkland Walk, a nature trail built over a disused railway track. He forced me along the path in the dark for perhaps ten seconds then pushed me down into a bush so I lay face-down on dead leaves, clay and flint, my face scratched by blackberry thorns. He lay on top of me, his bitten fist tanging my mouth with his blood and dirt. He got my hair and twisted my head and stuffed my mouth with rough cloth, tied some other rag over it and behind my head so I was gagged tight and could bite on that instead of his fist, did this expertly so I couldn’t speak or scream, part of his planned kit, what more did he have?
We lay in the bush on the ground in the damp night staring out through the halo of fog smearing the orange street lamps down below. Above us fine droplets pattered on trees, reaching the ground as mist. He lay breathing on top of me, his mouth on my ear: ‘I’m sorry.’ Sirens, new smeary lights: we watched two police cars speed down my road below, saw the beam of their headlights in the wet air. They parked, house lights went on, neighbours in nightwear came out into the street, talked in clumps to each other and to the police. I tried to move but was pinioned by him: arms over my arms, legs over my legs, his heart thudding at my back, his mouth at my ear panting how sorry he was, telling me to look at all the police and was that really warranted for some noise complaint and how it wasn’t Glen who’d called them and this proved it.
Proved what?
Below the police knocked at my front door. They must have come to help me, Glen hearing me scream having called them a second time. The door opened, probably Glen. Some chatting, they went in, modern uniforms, ‘do you see?’ Riot-wear, with visors and weapons, ‘for some noise complaint? And there?’ jerking his stubble at my cheek up to the misty sky, to the helicopter whirring above.
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