While a night’s rest had not cured him of his delusion, he still felt he must be in the middle of some tortured dream from which he had, so far, not escaped. There were, however, two tiny chinks of light on the horizon. Perhaps where he now was, neither Connor Sinclair nor the police were after him. And that was when he remembered Jeannie. All he had to do was ring her. She’d soon clear things up. There was even a telephone in his room where there had been none before. After obtaining an outside line, he rang her number. Immediately a pre-recorded voice told him that the code he was using for London was not valid. This surprised him. He was unaware of any recent changes, so he tried again but with the same result. Checking in the telephone directory he found in the bedside cupboard, he noticed that the area code for London was indeed subtly different from the one he remembered. Confused, he tried Jeannie’s number one more time but this time using the code for London given in the directory. The number simply did not exist. In a panic, he even resorted to directory enquiries; again with no success. They could find no Zachary Storie or Jean Granger, Jeannie’s maiden name, living in the Croydon area.
This was extremely bad news. Until that point, every change he had experienced had been for the better but if, in the process, he had lost Jeannie, the light of his life, that indeed would be a bad exchange.
It was no exaggeration to claim that Jeannie was everything to Zak. He loved her dearly and what was amazing, she genuinely loved him back, useless and worthless though he was. He and Jeannie had been together for the last ten years. Of course, she could sometimes be a bit dizzy but for all that, when she needed to be, she had loads of common sense and she was completely loyal. Zak was not sure how he would manage without her. The other question was, if he was not in hiding, who the hell was he and what was he doing in Carlisle?
As far as Zak could see, he had three options open to him. He could return to Croydon where Sinclair and the police might be waiting for him; he could continue in hiding and in ignorance; or he could play along with the dream, if dream it was. The final option, even were he not a gambler, was not a difficult one to take. In truth, it was the only one with any real appeal. He would play along with the dream and see where it took him. After all, he had nothing to lose and it might be an interesting experience. Then, when he became himself again, what a story he would have to tell Jeannie.
After showering and dressing in his unaccustomed clothes and feeling rather pleased with himself, he packed his suitcase. Nevertheless, little things; like the water in his shower being dangerously hot; like the way he painfully stubbed his toe on the leg of a chair; brought home to him that, dream or not, the environment in which he found himself could be just as painful and dangerous as a real environment. Making sure he left nothing behind, he vacated his room, packed his case into the boot of his new car and went along to Reception to settle his account.
A man Zak did not know was on the desk and like the young lady had the previous evening, he, too, immediately recognised Zak.
‘Good morning, Mr Storie. I hope you’ve enjoyed your stay with us. You’re becoming one of our regulars, aren’t you? Can we expect to see you again soon?’
Zak forced himself to smile and to mutter something non-committal as he handed over his key together with the gold visa card he found in his wallet. He, of course, had only ever owned an ordinary visa card.
He knew it was probable that, in addition to the many personal changes he was experiencing, many other larger changes might also have taken place, though presently, he had no way of knowing how extensive these were. In the meantime, he had to eat. In fact, he was ravenously hungry having missed his dinner the previous evening and was well as food, he was in desperate need of a cigarette and a large black coffee.
‘Will Old Mother Bainbridge’s Pantry still be open?’ he said. Before checking in to the motel the previous day, he had popped into the mean, little café for a coffee and a cigarette. It wasn’t a great place to eat but at least it was cheap and cheerful and it would give him an opportunity to get himself together.
The man on reception looked blank. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Storie, I don’t know where you mean. Is this pantry place near here?’
‘It’s just down the road, isn’t it?’ Zak said. Then, noting the look of disbelief on the man’s face he added, ‘Don’t worry about it. Perhaps I made a mistake. I just want somewhere to get breakfast, that’s all.’
‘Have you gone off the Fellview? I thought you liked it there.’
‘No, the Fellview will do fine. How do I get there?'
‘Are you pulling my leg? Uncertainty sounded in the man’s voice.
Zak thought quickly. ‘I’m sorry, but I gave myself a bang on the head last night and I’m not feeling my best this morning.’
Immediately, concern appeared on the man’s face. ‘I’m sorry to hear that, Mr Storie. I can call you a doctor if you want one. It wouldn’t be any trouble.’
‘No, don’t worry. I’ll be as right as ninepence before you know it.’
‘Well, if you’re sure. But I don’t like to think of you driving if you don’t feel well.’
‘I’ll be fine once I’ve got some breakfast in me,’ Zak smiled at the man. He was already regretting making the claim about his head. ‘Now, where’s this place you mentioned?’
‘The Fellview, Mr Storie. Just turn left out of the exit and you’ll see it on the left a few hundreds yards down the road. You can’t miss it. And it’s sure to be open.’
Zak’s stomach gave a lurch. The nightmare was set to continue. The directions to the Fellview were exactly where Old Mother Bainbridge’s Pantry had been the previous evening.
Hiding his consternation, Zak thanked the man, paid his bill and went back to his new car. The Ford was much bigger and sleeker than his old Vauxhall and it smelled brand new. He took a few minutes to accustom himself to its controls before, very gingerly, he drove away from the motel, which, he noticed, was called The Crossroads Motel. He had booked into The Trusty Motel. Was the change of name significant, he wondered?
Chapter 4
Zak
He remembered Old Mother Bainbridge’s being as run-down as was the Trusty Motel but with its bright paint-work and welcoming air, the Fellview was scrupulously clean, bright and cheerful and was in much the same league as the Crossroads Motel. Nevertheless, because he was still in desperate need of a cigarette, he almost turned around and went out again when the smiling young waitress informed him that not only did the Fellview not sell cigarettes, it was also a non-smoking café. In the end, his need for strong coffee and food overcame his more subtle need for nicotine and in a less than easy frame of mind, he allowed the waitress to lead him to a corner table.
The café was about half full and the other diners all seemed to be enjoying breakfast while they chatting cheerfully together. Nor was he surprised they were so cheerful when he saw the prices. His coffee the previous evening had been almost as expensive as the standard full breakfast in the Fellview.
When his waitress returned to take his order she asked if he would like to read a complimentary copy of the daily newspaper while he waited, an offer Zak was only too happy to accept. The first thing he did when the paper arrived was check the date. At the back of his mind, the idea still lingered that somehow or other he had travelled backwards or forwards in time; but the date was exactly what he expected it to be, which dispelled yet another theory to explain his confused state of mind. It wasn’t as if horrible things were happening to him, indeed, quite the reverse. It was the simple fact that he was unable to explain why everything was so different. His previous life had been anything but organized, indeed, chaotic would be a better word to describe it, but it was a chaos of his own making; it was a chaos he understood. Where he now found himself, everything gave the impression of being well organized, but it was of a nature he found both unsettling and bewildering. With no idea how to explain what was happening to him, he decided to put it from his mind for the time being and began reading.
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According to the newspaper, England had just retained the Ashes for the third successive time and Walter Williams, the Prime Minister, had just concluded a new trading agreement with the nations forming the European Union, further vindicating the decision Britain had made all those years earlier not to join the EU. The newspaper claimed that the economic prosperity of Britain, one of the strongest in the world, was marching well ahead of its EU neighbours who were suffering all sorts of economic difficulties, while ties with its trading partners across the world had never been stronger. He also discovered that the huge volume of money Britain received from its oil bonanza in the North Sea had not only completely paid off all its debts, much of the residue was invested in capital projects at home and abroad. It was expected that the overseas projects would provide a continuing source of income when, eventually, the oil dried up.
Surreptitiously, Zak looked around at the other diners. They all seemed perfectly normal and no one appeared to be paying any attention to him. He now had the idea that if he genuinely had not experienced a time shift, someone was playing a hugely complex practical joke on him. That said, he could not explain why he felt like a foreigner parachuted down into a strange country. Nothing made sense any more yet everything and everyone seemed so normal. No, that wasn’t right either; everything seemed so much better than normal.
His reading was eventually interrupted when the attractive young waitress arrived with his breakfast. There was something inviting in her smile.
‘Your breakfast, sir. And is there anything else you fancy?’
Zak smiled nervously back at her as she turned away. With only the delicious food to distract him, Zak’s mind once more returned to his immediate problem. He was not a fanciful man - indeed, Jeannie was always making jokes about his lack of imagination - but faced with such an intractable problem, only one explanation made any sense, mad and fantastic though it was. He was convinced that, even if he were worth the trouble, which almost certainly he was not, no one could perpetrate a hoax on the scale he was presently experiencing, and he was equally certain he was not dreaming. At the same time, he could not ignore his previous existence. Nothing could convince him that his memories were merely a figment of an electrically shocked imagination; which left one, and only one incredible explanation. He remembered reading in a freebie newspaper he had picked up on a bus that there were scientists who claimed it was theoretically possible for countless different dimensions to exist, all subtly different from each other, all simultaneously running along almost parallel paths and each in complete ignorance of the others. Was it possible that, somehow, his mind and memories had been knocked into a different but parallel world? If they had, what had happened to the poor smuck who previously had been the owner of the body he now inhabited? From the trappings of success of his new personae, it seemed, materially at least, Zak had done considerably better by the exchange. As he warmed to the subject, it occurred to him that if there really were multiple dimensions out there, more than one change might have occurred. While the possibility was easy to conceive, it was all so fanciful and incredible, no one would ever believe him. On the other hand, no other explanation seemed remotely possible. Shocking though the idea was, it was actually a relief to find a possible explanation for his present predicament. Time would tell if the explanation was correct. At least it was comforting to realize he had not gone mad, unless imaging his mind had miraculously been transported into another dimension was not the very epitome of madness.
Nevertheless, he could not suppress feelings of anxiety and foreboding. As far as he was aware, what had happened to him had never happened to any other person in the entire history of the human race. But the more he considered the possibility, the more he wondered. Was it because it truly had never happened before or was it because those caught up in the change had decided to keep silent about what had happened to them? Almost certainly, had anyone in the past been foolish enough to speak out about their experience, they would immediately have been killed or hidden away by those nearest to them, convinced that evil, madness, or both, had come to live in their midst. There were certainly many recorded instances of people’s personalities completely changing following some traumatic incident. Had these also suffered some dimensional shift? The more he thought about it the more intrigued he became.
As he drank his coffee, he wondered what had happened to Jeannie and his life down in Croydon. Was she still his wife but now translated to Edinburgh? ‘I hope to god she is,’ he breathed. He then began wondering what had made him so prosperous in this dimension. There had been few clues among his newly acquired belongings when he’d looked through them for the first time but armed now with what he hoped was new information, he got out his other self’s diary and opened it to the present date. It seemed that at ten-thirty that very morning he was due to meet someone called Wragg at somewhere called Ibbotsons. He had no idea who this Wragg person was or where or what Ibbotsons was. Nor did he have the least idea what the purpose of the meeting was but as it was already five minutes to ten, if he were to keep that appointment he would have to make some decisions, and pretty damn quick, too.
Perhaps it was his spirit of survival coming to the surface; it might even have been something in the new body he was wearing that encouraged him to take a risk. Whatever it was, Zak knew he must not panic. He also guessed that whatever decision he made in the next few minutes might well affect the rest of his life. It was a sobering thought.
Calling the waitress over, he asked if he might borrow a local telephone directory. When it came, a glance through it showed just three businesses in the area trading under the name of Ibbotson. One was a grocer, another seemed to be an engineering concern and a third sold cars. He had never owned a mobile phone but the other Zak did and when he had slid into the seat of his car earlier that morning, he had been surprised to see it sitting in full view of anyone passing by. So, before going into the café, he had shoved it into his pocket for safe-keeping. One could not be too careful. It took him a few minutes to work out what to do but eventually he managed to ring what purported to be his own business number; a number the other Zak had so helpfully written in the front of his diary.
The voice of a young woman answered. ‘Good morning, this is Galviston Ford. How may I help you?’
Zak immediately knew where he was supposed to go that morning and he could have hung up there and then but, instead, he decided to brazen it out. In any case, he had already made up his mind what he intended doing. ‘Hello, luv, this is Mr Storie. Are there any messages for me?’
‘Oh, good morning, Mr Storie. Mrs Cuthbertson rang asking about her new Festivo and I said you’d give her a ring when you got back. Is everything all right? You sound a bit different.’
‘Everything’s fine. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘I thought you were coming back this afternoon, Mr Storie.’
‘Yes, I know, luv. It’s just that something’s come up and I’m gonna stay down here for the afternoon. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
Zak was amazed at how easily he had stepped into his new role but the last thing he wanted was to face his work colleagues before working out how to play his part. So far so good but he now needed to make up his mind on which way to go forward. Should he try to assume the life and persona of the other Zak for the time being or should he make a clean break with whatever past he had inherited and start a completely new life? The latter alternative was tempting since he was by no means confident he would be able to assume another man’s identity, even if that other man happened to be him. Nor did he have any idea if the changes he was presently experiencing were permanent. Who knows, perhaps, just as quickly, he might find himself back in his old dimension. It was all too worrying and complicated to think about at present. In the end he decided to delay making a final decision until after his meeting with whoever Wragg of Ibbotson’s was.
What was remarkable was that Zak was functioning quite efficiently even after being denied his regular
shot of nicotine. Presumably, the other Zak was a non-smoker so, even while his mind continued its demand for nicotine, his physical body had no such cravings. What was also amazing was that, after accepting he was the victim of some fantastical dimension shift, so far he had not become a gibbering idiot. Most men, or women for that matter, would have been quite unable to cope with such a devastating change in their lives and it was a tribute both to his resilience, as well as to his famed lack of imagination, that he was managing so well. Partly, of course, this was because, so far, he had no idea what lay ahead of him.
Even as he mused through the various possibilities that popped into his mind, he became aware that one doubt about his future had simply disappeared. Perhaps it was because deep in his subconscious, another part of him knew how best to protect him. Whether it was simple common sense or some deep-seated instinct for self-preservation, he neither knew nor cared but he was now convinced he must not disclose his real past to anyone. Friends, relatives, work colleagues, priests, doctors, psychologists, as well as casual strangers would all believe him insane should he reveal what he now believed had happened to him. And who could blame them? Only yesterday, he would have reacted in precisely the same way to anyone making such a claim. He could never prove the truth of his arrival at wherever he was simply because, as far as all those hundreds of people who knew him were concerned, he had never gone away. At best, they would laugh at him; at worst, they would section him. It was far better to try to merge in and to go with the flow, at least for the time being.
Zak’s other, more organized self, had brought a street map of Carlisle with him and after rechecking Ibbotson’s address and locating where it was, Zak gave the unknown Mr Wragg a ring.
SWITCHED: The man who lost his body but kept his mind. Page 7