Seeing Other People

by Gayle, Mike

  The following morning over breakfast I announced to the kids that both Penny and I would be taking them to school. To Jack this was like hearing that Christmas and his birthday had arrived early.

  ‘You’re both taking us. How come?’

  ‘Mum and I have both decided to take the day off work.’ I looked over at Penny sitting next to me and she squeezed my hand.

  ‘It’s one of the perks of being a grown-up,’ said Penny. ‘Every now and again you get to put your feet up.’

  Never one to miss an opportunity when one presented itself Rosie’s ears pricked up immediately. ‘Can Jack and I take the day off school too?’

  ‘Not a chance, Missy,’ I replied. ‘You’ve got a maths test today.’

  Rosie’s face became the very picture of despair. ‘That’s so unfair! How come you guys get the day off and we don’t?’

  ‘It’s just the way it is,’ I told her. ‘Now go and brush your teeth and grab your bags because we’re out of here in five minutes.’

  Talking Penny into calling in sick had initially proved harder than I had hoped. Having had the idea during the night I had put it to her as we lay in bed that morning but she was still so racked with guilt about the accusation she’d made it was obvious that all she had wanted to do was escape to work. In the end she’d only relented because in the heat of the moment I said, ‘If you don’t take today off, sit down with me and talk through this mess you’re going to end up wrecking this marriage for good.’ As much as I regretted saying it, it did do the trick. ‘You’re right,’ she said tearfully, ‘I’ll phone in,’ and without another word she got ready for the day ahead, made the call and then joined the kids and me for breakfast.

  The house was quiet and still as Penny and I removed our coats and shoes having dropped off the kids at school. It was so rare for the two of us to be home alone and even more rare for such a day to occur during the week. Even the light in the house seemed different, and for what felt like the first time I noticed the shadows the oak tree in front of our house threw against the off-white walls of the hallway.

  We decamped to the kitchen. I made us coffee while Penny got out a plate on which she carefully presented the freshly baked pastries we’d purchased from the little bakery near the kids’ school. These small routines were so commonplace and soothing, it was almost possible to believe that everything would be OK.

  ‘Before we start,’ said Penny, cradling her cup in both hands, ‘I know you’ve probably got a lot you need to say about the horrible things I said last night but I want you to know here and now that I have never – and I do mean never – been as sorry as I am right now. What I said, what I accused you of was the worst thing I could ever do because the truth is in all the time we’ve been together you’ve never done anything other than give me cause to be grateful for having you in my life. I just want you to know that I love you and adore you and I will do everything in my power to make up for it.’

  This was too much. Being told I was in the right when I was so clearly in the wrong was just too high a price to pay. I wasn’t made of stone. I had a conscience and, when it came to Penny, I had a heart too. I couldn’t bear to hear her say another word. It was as though something cracked within me and the guilt came flooding out.

  ‘You were right,’ I said, avoiding her gaze. ‘You got the wrong person but I cheated on you all the same.’ I dared a glance at her as she looked on in silent horror. ‘It was a while ago – with Bella, the ex-intern you met the other day. It was a one-off, I swear. I was drunk, or not thinking properly. It’ll never happen again. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done. I hate myself for it. That’s why I’m telling you now. The guilt is eating me up.’

  Penny didn’t speak and somehow her silence and stillness were worse than any dramatic outburst could ever have been.

  I took her hand in mine and although she didn’t resist she didn’t respond either. It was as though she wasn’t there at all.

  I started to panic. ‘Pen? Please, please talk to me.’ I squeezed her hand still tighter but she didn’t move. ‘I love you, Penny. I’ve never stopped. I just got confused, that’s all. I made some really bad decisions but I swear on my life – on our kids’ lives – that I’ll never—’

  ‘Don’t you dare!’ spat Penny as though a switch had just been flicked somewhere deep within her. ‘Don’t you dare bring our kids into this! You want to ruin your life, Joe, then be my guest, but don’t try and manipulate me with the kids!’ She stood up and ran from the room. Every fibre of my being wanted to go to her, to comfort her but I just couldn’t move. It was like I was paralysed from the neck down and the only thing that worked was the one thing I wished would stop: my brain. I should never have told her. I should’ve kept my big mouth shut. The torture of keeping this from her was nothing compared to the memory of the look on her face when I’d told her. I’d see that look for the rest of my life; the look of pure shock that said, ‘I never thought that you of all people would do this to me.’

  It was impossible to know how long I sat there motionless in the chair but the sound of her returning down the stairs was enough to snap me out of it and bring me to my feet. I needed to see her, to talk to her, to explain that I still loved her and was prepared to do anything to make it right.

  By the time I reached the hallway she was putting on her coat. At her feet was her overnight bag.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To my mum and Tony’s.’

  ‘But what about the kids?’

  ‘Tell them I’ll call later to kiss them goodnight.’

  Outside, a minicab driver sounded his horn. She picked up her bag and reeled off a list of instructions about the kids. It would have been funny – a broken-hearted woman who even in the midst of her pain couldn’t stop herself from entering the role that defined her – had this been a play, or a book, or a film. But it wasn’t any of these. It was my life. Her life. Our life together. ‘You need to write a cheque for Jack’s dinner money,’ she said, ‘and make sure you read with him tonight as he’s having problems with his “th” sounds again. Oh, and check Rosie’s homework diary. She’s taken to declaring that she has none even when it’s written down in black and white.’

  She opened the front door. The territorial songs of blackbirds. A far-off siren of an ambulance. The low rumble of a waiting diesel engine. I grabbed her arm but she snatched it away almost immediately. ‘Please, Pen, please don’t go. Look, let’s talk, let’s talk and make this right.’

  ‘I think you’ve said more than enough for now,’ she replied, then picked up her case and slammed the door behind her.

  For a moment I didn’t do anything but stare at the back of the door. She couldn’t have left. Surely any moment now she’d be back. But a moment passed and so did many others until the collective weight of all those missed opportunities came crashing down on me, forcing me to the floor where I sat sobbing uncontrollably. And there I remained, bereft of all hope until I smelled that same sweet heavy scent I’d smelled before I was mugged and turned my head to see the unmistakable form of Fiona Briggs sitting on the stairs.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘you made a right cock-up of that, didn’t you?’

  9

  Fiona Briggs.

  The very same Fiona Briggs I’d dated all those years ago. More to the point, the very dead Fiona Briggs whose funeral I’d attended not so long ago. But she looked so real. So alive, so . . . Fiona. I had to be seeing things. I blinked. I looked away from her. I looked back again. She was still there. Perhaps there’d been some mistake. Perhaps they’d buried someone else that day and Fiona was still alive. But this didn’t explain why she was currently sitting on my stairs examining her painted fingernails nor how she’d managed to turn the clock all the way back to the early nineties. The Fiona in front of me didn’t look a day over eighteen, complete with too much eyeliner and the brown monkey boots she’d loved so much. I put my head in my hands: I was having a hallucination. It was the only thing that
made sense. Penny’s leaving me had pushed me to the very edge of sanity. I was in real danger of losing the plot altogether; perhaps I already had.

  ‘Have you finished with all the soul-searching internal soliloquies or do you need another five minutes? It’s not like I’ve got anything better to be getting on with.’

  I raised my head, fixed my eyes on Fiona and rose to my feet determined to take control.

  ‘You’re not real,’ I said firmly. ‘I know you’re not real, so just go away, OK? You’re a figment of my imagination. I’m freaked out because Penny’s left, that’s all. All I need to do is go upstairs and lie down and you’ll be gone.’

  Fiona laughed. ‘That’s brilliant! Your wife’s just left you because you’re a cheating low-life toerag and your response is to take to your bed! Now that really is insane! I always knew you were an idiot, Joe Clarke, but I’d hoped you’d have become wiser over the years, not more stupid.’

  This was worse than I thought. The Fiona I’d hallucinated didn’t just look like Fiona but spoke like her too. There was no point in trying to argue with this imaginary Fiona – I never could win against the real one so I had no chance now – but perhaps if I indulged this illusion a little I could find why I’d manifested it here and then make it disappear.

  ‘Yolo,’ said Fiona. She crossed her legs and pointed the toe of her right boot in my direction. ‘That is why I’m here.’

  I was completely baffled. ‘I have no idea what you’re on about. What do you mean, Yolo?’

  ‘You. Only. Live. Once. My dad said it at my funeral and you used it to justify your little dalliance with that girl – who incidentally isn’t all that and a bag of chips. Her arse is HUGE and she’s not half as posh as she makes out – anyway, where was I? Yes, Yolo. Ironic isn’t it? There I was spouting platitudes like “You only live once”, and one altercation with the sharp edge of a tiled bench and I’m dead as a doornail and plaguing you from beyond the grave.’

  ‘So you’re saying you’re a ghost?’

  ‘We prefer the word apparition but yes, I suppose at a push ghost will do.’

  I had to laugh. This was all just too ridiculous. ‘Right, so you’re an apparition and of all the places in the world that you could appear right now – like, I don’t know, a spooky Scottish castle or a graveyard at midnight, you’ve chosen my hallway in South London in the middle of the day?’

  Fiona smiled enigmatically. ‘Let’s just say for now that I have my reasons.’

  ‘And am I meant to believe that one of them is that you’re precious about people hijacking your catchphrases?’

  Fiona’s face changed in an instant. Her eyes narrowed, her lips thinned. She looked like evil incarnate. She uncrossed her legs, stood up and walked down to the bottom of the stairs. ‘So you think this is funny, do you? You think this is all one big joke? Let’s see if you’re still laughing when I’ve finished teaching you a lesson.’

  ‘What lesson?’

  ‘The only kind that counts, Joe: a life lesson. You see, the thing about people like you is that you always have to learn the hard way. Wouldn’t you agree?’

  ‘No,’ I replied. ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really.’

  Fiona sighed and sat down on the bottom step. ‘So, Mr I-Like-The-Easy-Way, what do you think would’ve happened if you hadn’t got mugged that night?’

  ‘What night when?’

  ‘Don’t play the innocent with me. I’m talking about the night before the morning after when you woke up in bed with that little trollop who isn’t your wife.’

  I closed my eyes again. This was getting weirder by the second. Why was this hallucination I’d conjured up talking about that night? My memory of it was patchy at best. This vision of a teenage Fiona Briggs was nothing more than my subconscious trying to work things out. It was trying to tell me that I had been mugged that night but I knew for a fact that this wasn’t true. I hadn’t been mugged. At least—

  ‘At least what?’ quizzed Fiona, arching a carefully plucked eyebrow. ‘Is it all coming back to you now?’

  ‘Look, I’m not having this conversation. I didn’t say any of that out loud and the fact that you seemingly heard my thoughts just goes to prove I’ve made you up. I’m having some sort of breakdown and right now I’m alone in my hallway talking to myself.’

  ‘Nice theory dimwit, but let’s just park it to one side for a minute and concentrate on the matter in hand: were you mugged that night or not?’

  I hesitated, unsure of whether or not to indulge this illusion any further. I sighed. I was this far in, I decided, so I might as well see it through.

  ‘Well, the truth is when I woke up that morning I was convinced that I had been mugged. My memory of it was so clear. It seemed so real. But then when there were no cuts, no bruises, no marks at all and I still had my phone and wallet, I realised it couldn’t have happened. It had to have been some sort of vivid dream. That’s all it was, wasn’t it?’

  Fiona held out her hand to silence me. ‘Do I look like sodding Google to you?’

  ‘No,’ I replied.

  ‘Then stop with the questions, OK? From now on you only speak when you’re spoken to.’ Fiona took a deep breath and tossed her hair back as if to compose herself. ‘Right, where were we? Yes, that’s it, I asked you a question: what do you think would’ve happened if you hadn’t been mugged that night? And your answer is . . .?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I replied, fighting back the urge to question her again, ‘because as I’ve just explained I wasn’t mugged that night.’

  Fiona pulled a face. ‘Shows how much you know then, doesn’t it? Because Idiot Boy, in fact you were. By me.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Well me, and my friend Chaz – you know the one, walks with a swagger, likes sportswear?’

  ‘The guy with the lighter?’

  ‘Bingo. It was one of Chaz’s favourite tricks when he was alive, a pincer movement with his mate Traps, he was good at it apparently but then Traps went and stabbed him in a row over a girl and it all got a bit messy.’ Fiona grinned. ‘I’m digressing aren’t I? You probably want me to stick to the point, which is this: I was the one who hit you over the head with this.’ She reached behind her and produced a cricket bat that I’d never seen before.

  ‘You hit me with that?’

  Fiona nodded. ‘You should have heard the noise. Nothing quite like the sound of willow against numbskull.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Why would you hit me with a cricket bat?’

  ‘Because a tennis racket wouldn’t quite have done the trick.’

  ‘So you’re saying you wanted to hurt me? Why would you want to do that?’

  Fiona laughed. ‘Think about it.’

  I thought hard. ‘Because you’re a mean and spiteful bitch who despite going out with me for eighteen months couldn’t stand the sight of me?’

  Fiona wagged a finger at me nonchalantly. ‘Sticks and stones, Joe, sticks and stones.’

  This had to be what a nervous breakdown felt like. Talking hallucinations. General madness. Things sounding like they made sense when really they made none at all. I took a deep breath and made a superhuman effort to remain calm.

  ‘I apologise,’ I replied. ‘But try and see this from my point of view. My wife’s just left me and for some unknown reason I’m having visions of a dead ex-girlfriend. I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on.’

  ‘Aren’t we all?’ said Fiona. ‘The thing is, Joe, I actually saved you from yourself that night.’

  ‘Saved me, how?’

  ‘By stopping you from meeting Slag Face.’

  ‘You mean Bella?’

  ‘No, I mean Slag Face. I must say I thought you had better taste in women but obviously I was wrong. Anyway, I saved you. You should be thanking me, not casting aspersions on my character by trying to pass me off as a hallucination. Have you any idea how offensive that is?’

  ‘But none of this makes any
sense. I know I wasn’t mugged that night. I almost wish that I had been because then I wouldn’t have met up with Bella, or slept with her and made the biggest mistake of my life.’

  Fiona clapped slowly. ‘Finally, he gets it. Were you always this dense or is it a recent development?’

  My head felt like it was going to explode. ‘So are you saying that I didn’t actually cheat on Penny?’

  ‘Well not unless you’ve mastered the art of being in two places at once. You haven’t, have you? I’ve got a new friend who can do that but she’s been practising for years.’

  ‘This is ridiculous. It makes no sense at all. How could I not have cheated on Penny when I know for a fact that I woke up in Bella’s bed?’

  ‘It’s a real conundrum isn’t it?’ said Fiona sarcastically. ‘Any ideas? No? Well, let me spell it out for you in a manner that even you will understand: you were mugged that night by me like I said. You never were in bed with Slag Face. And right now you’re lying unconscious face down on a pavement in a dodgy part of East London, oozing blood from a cracking head wound. It’s genius really.’

  I stared hard at Fiona as she stretched out her arms triumphantly. It was incredible how intricate this hallucination was. The heavy-handed eyeliner, the detailing of her clothing, even the sweet heavy scent of her perfume was accurate for the Fiona I remembered. I tried to recall its name.

  ‘Poison by Dior,’ clarified Fiona. ‘Best. Perfume. Ever.’

  It triggered the sudden release of a fragment of memory from the depths of my mind. The morning I’d woken up at Bella’s I’d smelled that same fragrance. But that didn’t mean anything, did it? There could have been a million and one explanations for it, all of them more plausible than this. I laughed out loud. My imagination really was quite spectacular.