Flip

by Martyn Bedford

  “You okay?” she said. About Beagle, she meant.

  “Yeah, kind of.”

  She went to the fridge, took out a carton of orange juice and filled a glass. “The house seems … wrong without him,” she said. “Like he’s here, but he isn’t.”

  Alex nodded. He understood exactly. “It must’ve been horrible for you, Ter, finding him like that.”

  Another of those things Philip wouldn’t have said, or even considered. The way the sister stared at him, it was as though he’d sprouted wings. He poured himself some of the juice, just to give himself something to do. From outside came the sounds of the others talking, Cherry laughing.

  “So,” Teri said, lowering her voice. “What’s the story with you two?”

  He shrugged. “I like her; that’s all.”

  “But she’s smart,” Teri said. “She’s interesting. She’s funny.”

  “I know.”

  “She doesn’t wear fake tan, have unfeasibly large boobs or the personality of a Big Brother housemate.”

  Not long ago, Teri’s words would’ve been edged with malice. But this was nice teasing. Friendly teasing. Clearly Teri liked this new girl in her brother’s life, and by association with her, he had risen a few notches in Teri’s once scathing estimation. Even so, Cherry was one more brotherly oddness for her to get her head round.

  “Come on,” she said after a moment. “We’re being rude.”

  As they rejoined the others, Alex sensed the mood shift in Flip’s parents. With him indoors, out of the conversation, they must’ve relaxed. But now he was back again and it was like the air had flinched.

  Who were these people?

  He looked at them in the gathering dusk as they sipped wine and talked, their features slowly dissolving into the shadows, and Alex was struck by how totally out of place he felt among them. The mum, the dad, the sister, Mrs. Jones … even Cherry, if he was honest. None of them had the first idea who he really was. In all his weeks as Philip Garamond, he’d never felt such an impostor.

  “What’s this about a clarinet, Philip?” Flip’s mother said, pasting that smile on her face again. “Angela was just—”

  “I got sent home from school today.”

  It was like he’d smashed a glass. Alex waited for one of the parents to speak but neither did. So he showed them his hand, told them what he’d done.

  “You … punched … Jack?” Flip’s mum said, as though he’d used a foreign language and she was having to translate. Or as though being sent home from school was related to the purchase of a clarinet, if only she could work out the connection.

  “It felt good, actually. I just wish I’d hit him harder.”

  He looked at Cherry and saw that she was as shocked as the rest. Why was he behaving like this? Alex couldn’t have said. It was just something about the way the mum and dad had been chatting to Mrs. Jones, to their guests, as though everything was okay with Team Garamond. All that false, middle-class civility. Mr. Garamond made eyes at him, as though to say it wasn’t the time or the place, but Alex didn’t give a stuff whether Cherry and Mrs. Jones witnessed this. Let them. Let them see what a sham this whole family was with him in it.

  Alex turned away, barging back indoors and slamming the door behind him.

  He was lying on his back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, when there was a knock at the door, accompanied by Cherry’s voice. Alex hadn’t bothered to turn the light on and the room was etched in gloom. As he watched her come in, he saw she was struggling to pick him out at first in the unfamiliar bedroom.

  “Camouflage,” he said, pulling himself up to a sitting position, the suddenness of his voice clearly startling her. “If I’d kept still, you wouldn’t have known I was here.”

  He had no idea what he was gabbling about. Cherry came fully into the room and sat down on the end of the bed, in the depression where his feet had been.

  “Big bedroom,” she said, giving it the once-over.

  Alex switched on the lamp, which shed a soft amber glow on the walls. He tried to think of something to say.

  Cherry saved him the trouble. “We’re going,” she said. “Mum’s just using the loo and … I didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye. And, you know—”

  “See if I was all right.”

  She smiled. “I seem to be doing a lot of that today.”

  “Last time, the dog died—I hope this doesn’t coincide with another fatality.”

  But Cherry had become serious again. “Why are you so unhappy, Philip? I don’t mean about Beagle; I mean generally.”

  “Unhappy? Am I.”

  “Hitting Jack”—she gestured towards the door—“that business downstairs.” She took hold of one of his feet and gave it a tug, as though to shake some sense into him. “Happy people don’t go round fighting and slamming doors.”

  Alex didn’t say anything.

  “The other day, playing the clarinet in the shop, and when we took Beags down to the river … talking back to back, you know?” Her hand still held his foot but she was stroking it now, absentmindedly, making abstract patterns with the tips of her fingers on his instep. “You weren’t unhappy then. Today it’s—I dunno—it’s like—”

  “Like I’m a different person?”

  She squeezed his foot. Hard. “Are you going to keep finishing my—”

  “Sentences for you?”

  Cherry laughed. “See, this is exactly my point. Ten minutes ago, you’re acting like a ten-year-old throwing a strop and now you’re … you’re not.”

  “It’s because I’m with you,” Alex said. “I’m happy when I’m with you.”

  He’d meant it but was worried that it had sounded naff or insincere. Typically, her face gave little away. But she was thoughtful for a moment, gazing at the window, where the last light of the day was seeping from the sky and where the reflected bloom of the bedside lamp hung on the glass like a water color sun.

  “Your feet smell,” she said, letting go and placing her hands in her lap. “Why do boys always have smelly feet?” Then, turning to him, she said, “That time a few weeks ago, in the car park—you were unhappy then, as well. I’ve never seen anyone look so … I dunno, like you’d just found out someone had died or something.”

  They heard the bathroom door open and footsteps on the landing. Mrs. Jones’s face appeared in the doorway. She smiled at Alex. Then, to Cherry, she said, “Philip’s dad wants me to look at his bassoon—” As the double meaning struck her, she burst out laughing. They all did. Her eyes glittered. “Oh dear, I do wish I hadn’t said that.” She cleared her throat. “Anyway … he’s thinking of selling it and I said I’d quote him a price. I’ll give you a shout when we’re ready to go.”

  She left, pulling the door properly shut.

  “She’s nice, your mum,” Alex said as they heard her retreat downstairs.

  “Yeah, she is.” Cherry nodded. “She’s great, actually. I get on better with her than I do with my sister.”

  Alex thought of Sam, and of his own mum. His dad. Did he get on well with them? He hadn’t really thought so before; it wasn’t that they didn’t get on, either, just that they ticked along. Four people living under the same roof. Sometimes it was fine; sometimes it wasn’t. You lived with your parents, your kid brother, and you didn’t really think about it all that much. But being with the Garamonds these past weeks had made him realize how much he loved his own family. Flip’s mother and father weren’t worse parents, or better … they just weren’t his. Alex didn’t want to talk about families with Cherry—about Flip’s family, anyway, and that was where this would lead. So, changing the subject, he said, “She was brilliant today, taking us to the vet like that. You both were. I mean, you missed orchestra and everything.”

  “We couldn’t exactly leave him in the garden, could we?” Then, quietly: “Poor old Beagle.” And as though suddenly remembering something that had been bugging her, she said, “You lied to me about his name. You said that was the name he had when
you—”

  “I was embarrassed,” he said. “Writing letters to Santa and that. You know?”

  “But that story was so sweet. ”

  There he was again, lying to her. One lie after another after another. There was no end to it. Never would be. So long as he had to be Philip for her—so long as she saw Philip whenever she looked at him—Alex would remain concealed behind a screen of deception, closed off to her.

  He drew his knees up under his chin. In the soft light, Cherry’s skin was almost luminous, her hair looking like she’d sprinkled it with glitter.

  “I went to Manchester yesterday,” he said. “With Rob.”

  “Your cousin?”

  Alex shook his head. “We’re not cousins.”

  “Oh. I thought—”

  “No. It’s something else I lied about.”

  If Cherry wanted to understand why he was so unhappy, she should’ve been in that VW combi, hearing Rob spell it out for him: he could make the best of it, stranded in Flip’s life … or drive himself crazy, stalking the life he used to live.

  Before he realized it, Alex was crying. He tilted his head back against the wall, closed his eyes and let the tears come, not caring what Cherry made of it.

  “Philip.”

  And she was there, moving up the bed, one hand on his knee, the other on his arm, then his hair, the side of his face, his cheek. Stroking. Wiping at the streaks of wet. Both hands now. Cradling his head, drawing it into her shoulder and letting him sob against her. After a moment, she eased him away from her so she could look at his face, drying him with the too-long sleeve of her top. They were breathing distance apart, her eyes locked on his, searching them, as though the key to all this was right there, in the patterns of his irises, if only she could decipher it.

  She moved to kiss him.

  Gently, he stopped her. “I need to show you something first,” he said.

  “Show me what?”

  Alex eased himself off the bed, went over to the desk and switched on the PC. As it began to fire up, he said, “I have to let you see who I really am.”

  When she’d finished reading, Cherry sat back in the chair and let out a long breath.

  “Psychic evacuation,” she said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “But … what are you saying, Philip?”

  Alex was on the edge of the bed, watching her closely, her face reflecting the illumination from the computer screen. The whole time she’d been scrolling down the home page, following the link to the evacuees’ stories—his story—he hadn’t taken his eyes from her face, with its look of intense concentration. Now she had half turned in the chair to look at him, and still he couldn’t fathom her reaction.

  “It’s me,” he said. “What happened to me. It’s who I am.”

  “You’re—”

  “A psychic evacuee. My name’s Alex Gray.”

  She indicated the PC. “This is you, iamalex1? That boy in a coma?” He nodded. “But that’s … Philip, that’s just totally insane. ”

  “I’ve wanted to tell you before,” he said. “I sort of did, once.”

  She frowned. “When?”

  “That time we walked down from school together and I was asking you out. ‘But you’re Flip Garamond,’ you said. And I’m like: ‘What if I told you I wasn’t?’ He gave a shrug. ‘You thought I was joking.’ ”

  She laughed, a little oddly. “Of course I thought you were joking.”

  Alex sat back against the wall, making the bed frame creak. What had he been thinking, showing her the Web site? He closed his eyes. Maybe when he opened them again, she wouldn’t be staring at him like he was a complete stranger, or mad, or both. What could he have expected, though—that Cherry would be cool with this? That it wouldn’t be a big deal for her? That she might, in a million years, believe him?

  “That time in the car park,” he said, eyes open, gazing at a point on the wall where he didn’t have to see her expression, her body language, as she sat at the desk as though fossilized. “I’d just had a voice mail from a woman who works with my mum, calling me evil. Telling me not to try to call Mum again.”

  “Not to call your mum?”

  “My actual mum, down in London. The woman didn’t believe who I was.”

  That quietened her for a moment. She was studying his face as though trying to memorize every last detail in case she was tested on it.

  “It’s too weird, isn’t it?” Alex said when the silence started to get to him.

  “You’re serious, then,” she said with a half shake of her head. “You actually believe—what?—that you’re literally someone else. I mean, come on, Philip—”

  “This is Philip.” He gestured at his face, his body. Then, tapping his temple, he said, “In here, I’m Alex.”

  “Your brain?”

  “My mind. My psyche. My consciousness. My soul, if you like.”

  That odd laugh again. Cherry shoved both hands into her thick frizz of hair and pushed it clear of her face. At that moment, Mrs. Jones called from downstairs. Cherry looked at the door, then back at Alex. “How can it even happen?” she said.

  He started to explain psychic twinning but could tell it was making him seem more crazy, not less. Cherry cut across: “But, this Alex … you’re saying your psyche switched from his body to this one. To Philip’s. That’s what you’re saying?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your psyche switched bodies.”

  Toneless, the words separated as though there were full stops between them. The bewilderment in her voice had been replaced by something Alex couldn’t name.

  “Couldn’t you tell there was something different? About Flip, I mean,” Alex asked.

  He counted them off on his fingers, the oddnesses: that time he’d got upset in the car park; the German lessons, when it was like he’d forgotten every word of the language and was starting over again; the things he’d said to her (“the house” instead of “my house”); his not knowing stuff he should’ve known (about school, teachers, other kids); his getting lost in the corridors; his asking her which lesson she had next when it was the same class he had; his asking her things about herself that “Philip” ought to have known; his not knowing things about himself, his life, his family. Beagle’s name. Leaving poetry in her locker. Playing the clarinet like he’d been doing it for years.

  “Add all these together,” he said, “and there’s only one way it can make sense.” He spread his arms. “Cher, it’s the difference between ‘Philip’ and ‘Flip.’ ” But he saw that he had lost her.

  “I was starting to really like you, Philip.”

  “Same here.”

  From downstairs: “Che-rry … time to go, hon.”

  She shook her head, like a wasp was bothering her. There were tears in her eyes. Pushing the chair back, standing up, she gestured at the PC. “This … I’m sorry, but this is just …” Another shake of the head. “Look, I’m going.”

  As she crossed the room, Alex said her name, moved to get up from the bed, reaching out for her hand. But she pulled it away.

  “Don’t, Philip.” She was shaking. “Just … don’t.”

  She let herself out of the room. He heard her on the landing, on the stairs. The goodbyes in the hallway, the front door opening and closing. Footsteps in the street. The beep-beep of an alarm being deactivated. Car doors. An engine. The sound of a vehicle driving away.

  He sat at the desk. The Web site had given way to the familiar screen saver of endlessly interconnecting pipes. Alex stared at them as they formed their patterns like robotic snakes.

  It was only a matter of time before the Garamonds came up. The postmortem into the exhibition he’d made of himself (of them); the unfinished business—Jack, school, the clarinet. Cherry’s looking upset when she left. Maybe they’d call another family meeting. Or they’d leave him alone for now, talk to him later, when everyone (he) had calmed down.

  Whatever, he had nothing to say to them.

  Alex moved th
e mouse and the screen saver disappeared. He closed the PE site and typed a new search into the box: Alex Gray.

  He’d done this often, trawling the links to the information about him that had been strewn around the Internet since his accident. Online versions of newspaper articles, mostly. Blogs. Forums. Other bits and pieces. Alex read them in his blacker moods, as though they kept him in touch with himself or reaffirmed his existence in some way. In each link his name stood out, highlighted in bold type.

  That’s me. That’s me.

  Just as often, though, it was like the sites referred to another person altogether. Or like he was looking at photographs of himself as a young child: recognizably him but an earlier, out-of-date model and, as such, not him at all.

  On most of the links, the picture of him (released to the media by his parents, no doubt) was recent. Mum had taken it with her new digital camera on Alex’s fourteenth birthday, two months before the accident. He was posing in a pod on the London Eye, with the Houses of Parliament in the background. Hey, here I am having a great time on my birthday! Typically, his weaker eye, the left one, was squinting. It wasn’t especially sunny, but the pod’s transparent shell magnified the brightness, bleaching his complexion and making his hair seem more coppery than ever.

  Him, nine months ago. Nine in real time, but only three to him.

  He navigated to David’s blog. No matter how often he visited this site, Alex would be struck by how good his friend had made it. The look, the content, its user-friendliness. Web design was David’s thing, what he wanted to do when he was done with being a student. Alex clicked on one of the buttons down the left-hand side of the home page. “Alex Gray” was all it said. A portal to a virtual shrine. The first time Alex had come across it, it had been like standing at his own graveside.

  That photo from the London Eye was there again. Alongside it, a video link. He clicked on it. His mum had filmed this once she’d figured out how to get her new camera to take moving pictures.

  There he was—just like the last time he’d viewed this clip, and all the times before—caught in profile through a half-open bedroom door, wearing his Crokeham Hill High uniform and practicing the clarinet. Totally unaware that he was being filmed until, a little way into the piece (“Bridge Over Troubled Water”), his mum gave herself away by singing along to the chorus. The picture became a bit jumpy as Mum—laughing, telling him, Hey, don’t stop!—tried to keep Alex in frame. Point that thing somewhere else, he was saying, pushing the door shut. The footage continued with a shot of the door; then the camera swung round as his mum filmed herself, her features distorted in extreme close-up. My elder son. When he’s a soloist with the Royal Philharmonic, this film will be worth a fortune. There was a beep, the picture went blank and he could hear her swear as she tried to figure out what she’d pressed by mistake.