The Realities of Aldous U

by Michael Lawrence

  For four interminable months she had struggled daily through the creaking aftermath of the fateful quirk that had dumped her in this false reality. False to her anyway. It was as real to everyone else here as her original reality had been to her. There, beyond reach or contact, her mother still lived. Here, she lay beneath this stone, this water, amid eager weeds. The cut-off had been as swift and as total as it had been unexpected, and there was no way to reverse things, no way back. The sheer awfulness of that was bad enough, but she was stung by guilt too. Guilt that, in the final days, she hadn’t shown her mother the kind of affection which, later on, in quiet moments, might initiate a fond smile. At times, the guilt hurt almost as much as the loss itself.

  For Naia, these past months, there’d been much private weeping and a deal of public acting in the cause of thwarting suspicions that she might not be who people took her for. The greatest pity of her life here, bereavement aside, was that there was no one to talk to about such things. There were several ready-made friends, some of whom she’d not been remotely friendly with in the old reality. One or two considered themselves ‘close’, as their counterparts had actually been close. She went through the motions with these few, but always with a measure of reserve (occasionally remarked upon) because she knew, as they did not, that until February she hadn’t even existed for them.

  It took a supreme effort to regain control of herself, but as she blinked the last of the tears away Naia sensed that she was no longer quite alone. Glancing around, she saw a figure in black, an old man, turn in the water-filled lane below the steps. She knew him. She’d spoken to him once, in this very place, when she had again been in tears. He’d given his name – Aldous, and her own surname – which she’d not quite believed until some time afterwards when she came to terms with the fact that her life had altered beyond recognition, and that anything was possible, anything at all, however previously unimaginable. She turned away. Went back the way she’d come, not wanting to speak to the peculiar old man.

  Sunday: 5

  The water outside the village shop was lower than in the grounds of Withern Rise, which was so much nearer the river, but it would still have flooded the premises if the door had been opened. Mr. Paine, undaunted by having to serve his customers via the window, seemed to be rather enjoying the process, as were most of his customers for its novelty value. It was while he was handing over the goods on Alex’s list that four of Alaric classmates came by, and after taking the shopping home he joined them in a wade. He and Mick Chilton were the only ones in shorts. The others made no concession to the conditions, preferring to put up with wet jeans than admit to discomfort. One of his friends here was Gus O’Brien, who believed he’d known him since they were six. If there’d been a Gus O’Brien in his previous reality they’d never met. Even the friends who were essentially the same here were slightly changed, not in looks but in some of their mannerisms, attitudes, habits. He’d known a Davy Raine and a Paul Kearley in the old reality, but the present Davy swore a lot more, and this Paul had a sort of nervous tick in his left eye which the other Paul (whose step-dad didn’t get plastered and knock him about) had not. The new Mick Chilton wasn’t much different from the old, but Mick’s memories of the things they’d got up to together were fictions to Alaric. In his former reality, Chilton had been a fairly peripheral figure, with different pals. There, Leonard Paine had been Alaric’s closest friend, but here there was no Leonard Paine. No Len Paine! No Lenny! In the old reality Mr. and Mrs. Paine had three sons, with Len the eldest. Here, they had two sons and a daughter named Shallan. Like Len previously, Shallan was in his class. It was close to a certainty that she and Len were as unaware of each other as he and Naia had been before their paths first crossed on the second anniversary of his mother’s death.

  Distracted, Alaric hadn’t noticed the row that had flared up between Mick and Davy, but he noticed when they threw themselves at one another, hit the water, went under, came up wrestling and punching. Then Mick got Davy in a neck-lock and shoved his face under. There was no telling how long he would have held it there if Gus hadn’t smacked him off.

  They were too old to use the play area, but there no kids about, and no adults to give them grief. Besides, the flood had washed many of the old rules away, for the time being at least. So they spun the roundabout and flung themselves upon it, splashed up and down on the seesaws, and swept down the slide into the water, to rise effing and blinding and spluttering.

  ‘Look at him!’ Paul said suddenly.

  It was the old man Alaric had first seen across the river from the bedroom window in his former reality. The reason Paul pointed him out was that, wading across the Coneygeare in their general direction, his overcoat floated about him like a great black cloak.

  ‘Nutter,’ said Davy.

  ‘Dickhead,’ said Gus.

  ‘Who is he?’ Alaric said, displaying less interest than he felt.

  Nobody knew, nobody gave a monkey’s, and while the others returned to their play Alaric took to one of the swings and pushed himself back and forth, heels skimming the water, keeping a sly eye on the man. He seemed to be heading for the bridge. Why would he be going there? The bridge only led to the Meadows, where, because the ground was lower than on this side, the water would even higher than here. Passing within twenty yards of the boys, the man glanced their way.

  ‘Whatchoo lookin’ at?’ Davy shouted.

  ‘Piss off!’ bawled Mick.

  ‘Tosser,’ said Paul, more quietly.

  If offended, the man didn’t show it. He raised a hand as if to mates of his own, and started up the bridge. Clearing the water, he’d only gone a short distance when he did what looked like a slow double-take, at Alaric – just him, not the others – and stopped. Gus noticed.

  ‘He fancies you, Al.’

  The man continued on, and as he did so it came to the boys, each in turn, without discussion, that the fun had gone out of the day. Paul, Mick and Davy climbed over the play area’s low barrier fence, from water into water.

  ‘Coming?’ Gus said to Alaric.

  ‘Yeah.’

  He started after the others, but glanced back. The bridge was empty.

  ‘Where’d he go?’

  ‘What?’ said Gus, a little ahead of him.

  ‘That man.’

  From there they could see the entire length of the bridge and much of the covered Meadows on the far side of it. There was nowhere he could have gone.

  ‘He must’ve fallen over,’ Gus said.

  ‘He can’t have. The sides are too high. He wouldn’t get half a leg up.’

  ‘Ah, well.’

  Gus shrugged – who cared? – and went on. Alaric followed, but slowly. It was some minutes before he could let the man’s disappearance go. Much later, in bed, it returned to haunt him.

  Sunday: 6

  The water that had washed through the house and reached into every nook and cranny of the ground-floor gave off an odor that might have been sweeter, but Marie’s were the only nostrils offended by it. Her husband had nothing to say about the smell and the children barely noticed it. A.E. had brought a small coracle indoors – so small that it might have been a child’s – which he paddled along the hall, spinning into room after room to collect the various bits and pieces and edibles demanded by his wife, delivering them to reaching hands on the stairs. Marie fretted that she was denying her children nourishing food, but for them stale bread sandwiches thick with beef dripping added to the thrill of it all. Nor did they mind being restricted to the upper floor. Ursula and Mimi got the most out of the experience. They were great jokers, these two, and incorrigible gigglers. Ray, a fragile seven year old, joined in their games with some enthusiasm, but Aldous, as the eldest, felt that he should be above hiding in box rooms and under beds and pretending the bath was a boat lost at sea. Besides, he preferred to fiddle with his stamp album, particularly since the arrival of a new set from Cousin Edwin in Weymouth. Exciting depictions of war planes and aircraft ca
rriers.

  Aldous had the corner bedroom, which overlooked the river from one window, the south garden from the other. It wasn’t a large room, but he would have no other. He loved the way the light spilled in from two directions, tangling shadows. Not much sun at the moment, but the rain clouds had gone and the sky was brightening little by little, illuminating the fascinating new world around the house. The outlook from both windows was of nothing but water and floating vegetation, but it was the view across the source of all this that drew him. There were no river banks any more, no restraining walls or fences, and he longed to be out there, on the wide, wide water, drifting, idling, rowing wherever he chose. The trip to the village with Father had been excellent, but he wanted to go out alone at least once before the water subsided, explore this strange new waterscape to his heart’s content, returning only for tea. Father might not mind him going out unsupervised, but Maman would be far less keen. Marie Underwood worried about her children. Worried about them hurting themselves, falling sick, not eating enough. In particular she feared that they might be led astray by the wrong company. She feared mightily for their souls.

  Aldous waited until his mother and father were together before broaching the subject. When he voiced his request, Maman gripped the front of her apron in horror.

  ‘Go out alone? In the boat?’

  ‘I’ll be very careful,’ he said.

  ‘There is no possibility of it,’ she replied. ‘None whatsoever.’

  ‘Where were you thinking of going?’ A.E. asked mildly.

  ‘It doesn’t matter where,’ his wife said. ‘He’s not going, and there’s an end to it.’

  ‘Oh, Marie. He’s a good boatman. He’ll come to no harm.’

  ‘So you say. But however good he might be, something could happen to him.’

  ‘Something could happen on the way to school,’ his father said. ‘Something could happen in the house, his bedroom, the bath. Come on, dear.’

  Marie became imperious. ‘No means no, Alaric. Is my English not clear enough for you?’

  A.E. was not intimidated. He winked at his son. ‘Leave her to me,’ the wink said. ‘Leave her to me.’

  Sunday: 7

  Apart from the willow tree and the steep gray slope of the garage roof, which between them framed the view, all that could be seen of the north garden was water. The window seat in the master bedroom had been one of her mother’s favorite places. Had been, still was, she knew. In the old reality her mother could often be found here, reading, drawing, day-dreaming. She might be sitting here this very minute, Naia thought, and sighed, almost content for once. The contentment wasn’t entirely due to the idea that she might be sharing the view with her lost mother. A purring cat, which she stroked absently, sprawled drowsily in her lap.

  It was barely more than a kitten really, this small beast. A present from Mr. Knight, the gardener. He’d only been helping out for a couple of weeks when he approached her with it under his jacket. ‘One of Dinger’s offspring,’ he said, revealing the perky white face.

  ‘Dinger?’

  ‘My cat. He’s yours if you want him. If you’re allowed.’

  She’d been startled when Mr. Knight turned up here. She’d known a version of him back home (as she often referred to the reality she’d been born into). He’d been helping in the garden there since January. But not here. It was mid-April before this reality’s Mr. Knight knocked on the door to offer his part-time services. As the garden hadn’t been touched for over two years, Kate almost fell into Mr. Knight’s arms with relief.

  The cat stirred in her lap. Her stroking hand had paused. Admonishing green eyes glared up at her: Did I tell you to stop? She resumed her stroking. The eyes closed. Naia returned her gaze to the view, but in those few seconds her contentment had given way to regret. She would never look into her mother’s eyes again. She could look a cat in the eye, but not her own mother. Worse, her mother would never give her a passing thought. The daughter she’d given birth to had been erased from her memory. Naia wondered if she existed in her mother’s subconscious, an ephemeral, drifting figure; or, for that matter, if she was ever dreamed about. But even if the living Alex Underwood dreamed of her, when she woke, went down for breakfast, into another day of her life, any lingering image conjured by the night would soon dissolve.

  From there, Naia’s thoughts turned to the one who’d taken her place in her mother’s affections, and for a moment she hated him. But this passed. Like her, he would have had to make huge adjustments, act as if he’d always been there, pretend that people who claimed to know him were equally familiar to him. She knew what that was like. It was because she refused to blame Alaric, and because she never expected to see him again, that she’d had his name engraved on the young cat’s name-tag. It had felt odd at first, saying that name out loud when referring to a cat, but she was getting used to it. In a way it was a kind of slow exorcism. Another six months, a year, and she might have virtually forgotten where the name came from.

  Another year! Her stomach knotted. How could she live another year without so much as a glimpse of her mother’s face? The thought was more than she could bear. And she didn’t. Tears came for the second time in hours. Four months of holding them in, and suddenly –

  ‘You like that seat, don’t you?’

  She dashed a hand across her cheeks, half turned.

  ‘Best in the house. You don’t mind…?’

  Kate Faraday was a cheerful thirty-eight year old of medium height, with fairish brown hair which she disparagingly referred to as ‘mousy’. She didn’t look at all like Naia, but when they were out together they were often taken for mother and daughter simply because they were together and a generation apart. Such mistakes pleased Kate, but while Naia was very fond of her, Kate was not her mother and she didn’t want people assuming that she was.

  ‘How can I mind?’ Kate said. ‘I’m the cuckoo in the nest. What are you looking at?’

  Leaning to peer over Naia’s shoulder, she noticed the shine on her cheek. Sat down beside her.

  ‘You all right?’

  ‘Yeah. Just having a moment. You know.’

  ‘If there’s anything…’

  Naia touched the back of her hand: a simple gesture appreciated by Kate, who had her own insecurities. The cat rang his bell. Stroke!

  ‘Oh, Alaric,’ Naia said. ‘You get quite enough attention.’

  And for once it was the cat’s name, the cat’s alone; nothing to do with the boy who’d usurped her life.

  Sunday: 8

  ‘My name is Aldous Underwood and I’m seventy-one years old.’ It had become his personal mantra, chanted quietly on waking each morning, and every so often during the day. Seventy-one. That’s what his birth certificate told him, measured against dates on present-day newspapers. He carried his birth certificate at all times. If he’d had more possessions this would have been his most valued. It proved he existed. Proved it to himself. He needed such evidence because his mind and body told him different stories. Because of the way he looked he imagined that he was expected to behave in an elderly fashion, but he found it difficult, his head being so full of a young boy’s thoughts, a boy’s interests and attitudes. He practiced talking seriously, walking ponderously, being long-faced when he saw the kind of everyday things – a flock of geese in the sky, a squirrel in a tree, sunshine on water – that most mature people paid little or no attention to. For him, such things weren’t easy to ignore. Nothing was easy to ignore.

  He had little money, but his wants were few. He lived out of doors by choice, in the thicket on the bank across from the house. It wasn’t a comfortable existence, especially now, with the flooding, but he was alive again, awake again, and that was what mattered. When he first came back it was winter. He’d found an old mattress in a ditch and dragged it into the thicket. The ground was hard then. Ice-hard. Snow had begun to fall, and soon covered everything. If not for the overcoat and some large sheets of cardboard he might have frozen to death.
His roof then, as now, was an old tent, opened out and stretched between branches. In the early weeks the nights, infinitely cold, had seemed endless, but he was glad to shiver and feel, be kept awake by discomfort. By anything. Staying awake while others slept was an exquisite luxury.

  He’d found the hammock about two months ago, on the council tip. It was stained, it ponged a bit, but it was made of strong canvas, there were no holes in it, and the metal rings along the reinforced ends were intact. And it was dry enough. The hammock had turned out to be quite a memory-jogger. Surprised to find that he knew how to hang a hammock at all, he was fixing it in place when he recalled one they’d had when he was physically young. It wasn’t heavy canvas like this one, but of thick rope, with brass hooks. They always took it in during the winter months, but in summer and through most of each autumn it hung in the south garden, between the apple tree and the pear. He recalled reaching up as a small boy, gripping the sides of the hammock, trying to haul himself into it, succeeding only in swinging beneath it, to the family’s amusement. These many decades later he managed not to swing beneath the canvas hammock, though getting into it was often a problem. He managed, though, and there, some way above the ground, sheltered by the stretched tent, he felt safe, and a little excited. An adventure, like sleeping in the garden as a lad, on warm nights, in the other hammock.

  Until recently he had spent a good part of every day walking round the village and the adjoining town, and further afield, clutching at snippets of memory triggered by some sight or sound or smell, trying to put them in context and sequence. Then the rains came, great gray walls of water, falling relentless day after day after day. He’d stayed in his shelter for longer than he liked, venturing forth only to buy bread, cheese, the odd piece of fruit that hadn’t been available, even heard of, when he lived at Withern Rise. There had also been the necessary trips to the public toilets in the car-park across the area they called Withy Meadows these days: osier beds in his time. When the river swelled and spilled over the banks, he was glad that he’d hitched the hammock so high. Even with his weight, it remained some inches above the water. Getting out was the least pleasant aspect of using it in time of flood, but he managed, often laughing at himself, his efforts. He was alive and awake, and here. He felt privileged.