Read by Silas Hawkins
The woman introduced herself as Greta. She matched the office. Attractive, compact, precise.
“Good morning, Mr. Grantham. I’m afraid Mr. Leigh is out, but I’ll be able to help you with the last of the paperwork.”
Alan watched her, spreading his file across the desk like slices of deli meat.
“We have almost everything we need. The only thing left is for you to provide us with the name of a dead child.”
James Andrew Ford. 1979 - 1990.
“Perfect,” said Greta. She scribbled the name into its box. “We’ll call you when everything is ready.”
When did Alan decide to walk away from his life? Perhaps the desire accumulated gradually, a sediment he only noticed when its weight cracked his foundation. No, let’s be honest. Alan had always been a quitter.
When he looked back on his forty years of life, he saw nothing but a series of sudden, liberating swerves. The most dramatic had been his decision to move to New York, a city without them. Here, there were only the avenues, the skyscrapers, the power and precision of straight lines.
It was only once he had made a life here that he grew nostalgic for the roundness of London. He convinced himself that the American grid was emptied of hope. Wishes lived just around the bends, at the ends of streets that lolloped like worms.
Of course, a return to England would be a step backwards. But if not England, if not Europe, then where? He did not know. Not yet. But his decision was made. One way or another, Alan was destined for another curve.
“Rule Number Two,” Mr. Leigh instructed. “Do not fake your own death. Death is obsessed over. Investigated. A case of accidental death will remain open for decades. A missing person, however, is something else entirely. Rule Number Three: There is no need for false identities. There are so many real ones already available. But don’t worry, Mr. Grantham. We will take care of rules two and three. You just remember Rule Number One. When in doubt, take the bus. It is the most perfect anonymous transport.”
Alan had known about Bev’s affair for some time. He had spotted his wife and her lover in a restaurant called Envelope. They were hidden behind the shelves near the exit, the ones that sold pottery and cook books. The man was tall and incredibly blonde. Alan watched their fingers, crawling over one another’s like newly hatched birds.
It wasn’t merely the affair. Alan himself had been unfaithful twice. The decision to leave was based on more than the casual infidelity of his marriage. There was also his job at Davis & Geller. Why hadn’t he made partner by now? He had only gone into advertising to please his father, and only moved to New York to escape him.
In truth, Alan had always dreamed of becoming a chef.
“It’s not uncommon to experience doubts after the fact,” Mr. Leigh told him. “The important thing is to believe in the life you create.” He thumped his chest audibly. “In here.”
Greta handed him a brown envelope containing a passport and Alan felt compelled to say, “I adore the cuisine of South America.”
She smiled and turned to Mr. Leigh. “Have you given him a pebble?”
Mr. Leigh produced a glass jar full of silver jellybeans. “Put one in your shoe,” he advised.
Alan stared.
“You are most likely to be recognised at a distance,” Mr. Leigh explained. “Not up close. Not by your hair, your face, your clothing, but by your gait.” He tapped a bean into his fat palm. “Left or right. It doesn’t matter.”
The last time Alan saw Bev, she was behind the wheel of her Toyota, backing into the street. Her body was twisted away from him, so his final impression was of the muscles between her throat and shoulder, rolling assiduously beneath her perfect skin.
It took three long haul buses to carry Alan to the Mexican border. Unlike planes and trains, buses had no exclusive route to call their own. They shared their way with traffic, towns, passersby. This proximity of life was a catalyst for thought.
Between Knoxville and Hattiesburg, the bus filled with travellers travelling alone. How many had been helped on their way by a consultancy firm like Leigh and Associates? One or two, at least.
In Mexico City, he felt he had availed himself of the anonymity of buses long enough. He used cash to buy a used motorcycle and careened through seven countries until, on the caribbean coast of Columbia, he met a woman called Freya. She possessed such wit and beauty he was convinced she could be the one thing in his life he would never quit.
Freya was an artist. Her medium was butterflies and insects. With the precision of a jeweller, she electrified their wings, made them sizzle a warm amber under the glass of old clock faces. In the galleries of New York, such on-the-nose ornamentation was ignored, but here, in the quiet Bogotá evening, it was a miracle.
Alan contacted Leigh and Associates using the special phone number they had provided. He told them he had found a place to settle. They wired him the savings they had held on his behalf in a Panamanian escrow account—less their not insignificant fees.
Alan used a portion of the money to buy a derelict touring bus. With Freya’s help he began converting the vehicle into a South American greasy spoon. Alan could already smell the deep fried fish, the empanadas, the sweet sangrias.
“I think this is how I was meant to work,” he told Freya. “Not at a desk, but like you, with my hands.” He held them up, calloused and spattered with paint. “I would commit to everything, if it all felt like this.”
Never use a computer to search for your old life. This was more of Mr. Leigh’s advice.
“It was much easier in the old days,” he explained. “The internet has made our work very difficult.”
But Alan couldn’t resist. On cooler nights, he dreamed of Bev. They never spoke, but his eyes would find her in some crowd. The prescience of dreams would tell him she was ill, stricken with some invisible disease.
Near the apartment he shared with Freya, there was an internet cafe catering to backpackers and the homeless. Alan used it to search for news of New York. He rarely found anything of note, but one evening, a photograph appeared.
It was taken at the National Association of Advertising Awards. Bev stood beside a man Alan didn’t recognise. This was not the blonde from Envelope. This man was dark featured, with a robust and fashionable beard. The caption read:
Winner of this year’s award for Best Print Campaign, Beverly Stowe (pictured with her husband, Alan Grantham, of Davis, Geller & Grantham Advertising).
Alan read it again.
There was no mistake. It was his name. But surely it was the result of a typo, a failure to fact check. He visited his old firm’s website. And there it was—his name.
Davis, Geller & Grantham.
He did something then Mr. Leigh had expressly forbidden. He searched for himself. There were hundreds of images. In every one he saw not his own face, but this stranger. This other Alan Grantham.
Could Bev had remarried someone with the same name? Could she have induced her new husband to satisfy a perverse sense of continuity? No. Impossible. He knew Bev too well.
Something was very wrong.
Freya noticed immediately.
“What’s the matter?” she asked. “It’s like you’re not here.”
Alan blamed the popularity of the restaurant. He said he was considering expansion. He would turn his successful one-off business into a personal brand. In truth, he was considering something much wilder. He was considering a return to New York.
In the end, his wandering mind got the better of him. One afternoon, he reached for a pot and instead dipped his entire hand into the deep fryer.
He had never felt a pain like this, so intense it blotted out his existence. At the hospital, he no longer responded to his new name, only to simple commands.
Stand here.
Please wait.
Hold still.
He could feel his skin sloughing off under the bandages like a soft layer of suet.
When his hand had healed, Alan purchased an open-return ticket to New York. At the airport, he rented a car and made plans to haunt his old life.
First, he went to Bev’s work and waited under the public sculpture where she ate lunch with her work friends. Several of them stared at him. He must look out of place with his long hair, his jet-lagged expression, his tropical tan. Suddenly, Bev’s eyes met his own the way they did in his dreams. She pretended she didn’t recognise him.
One of the group approached, a gym-junkie to judge by the thickness of his arms.
“Do you mind. We’re trying to eat in peace.”
Alan was bewildered. “I’m…not…” When had he drawn so close to the group? “I didn’t realise…”
Bev looked up at him again. Now her face was tight and suspicious. Could she really not see it was him?
“Get lost.” The gym-junkie shooed him away.
Now Alan panicked. His hand, its skin now marbled like posh Japanese beef, throbbed with menace. He had revealed himself. He had come across a continent only to ruin everything.
But he knew how to fix things. He would visit Leigh and Associates. They would have a system to deal with fuck-ups such as this. They would be rules to follow.
Their office, however, was now a 3D print shop. Architectural models and garish figurines crowded the shelves beyond the window. He called the firm’s special phone number, but there was no answer. At last, he returned to his former home. He parked across the street, watching.
The other Alan arrived first, much earlier than he remembered ever coming home himself.
“Excuse me,” Alan said, crossing the street as the other Alan was opening the front door. “Alan Grantham?”
The other Alan nodded. “Who’s asking?”
“It used to be my name, too.”
The other Alan opened his mouth to say something, but Bev’s Toyota crunched into the driveway.
“I saw you at lunch,” she said.
“Do you recognise me now?”
“No.”
Alan pointed into the house. “I used to live here.”
“We live here now,” said the other Alan. “I think you’d better leave.”
“I’ll prove it.”
Alan ran up the steps, forcing his way in. He pointed to the spot where Bev had dropped her mother’s urn and half the ashes had blown out the window. But the urn was still on the mantlepiece, intact.
“I’m calling the police,” said the other Alan.
Alan didn’t know what to say. “You’re a partner at the firm,” he muttered. “I never made it. It’s why I left.”
“You were never here,” said Bev. Her certainly was shattering.
“I was never here,” Alan repeated, and suddenly he realised why no one recognised him.
He removed one of his shoes. The silver bean was still there, pressed deep into the foam. With a fingernail he pried it up.
“See?” His shoe back on, he paced in a circle. “It’s me!”
Bev and the other Alan said nothing. There were men at the door.
“Sir,” they said, “we’ll have to ask you to come with us.”
Jail was surprisingly comfortable.
There were beds and hot showers and very edible food.
There were windows. Alan pressed his hands against one of them.
Which was more real, he wondered, the world on this side of the glass or on the other? He would find his answer at the cemetery. Seeing the name would prove who he really was. Whenever they decided to let him out, he would find it again, that small slab of stone, lying grey and ageless in the unkempt grass.
(c) Robert Paul Weston, 2016
Robert Paul Weston is the author of several internationally award-winning novels for children and young adults. His short fiction has appeared in literary magazines in the UK, United States & Canada, including The New Orleans Review, Postscripts, Kiss Machine and others. He lives in London.
Silas Hawkins continues the family voiceover tradition (he is son of Peter 'Dalek' Hawkins & Rosemary 'Emergency Ward 10' Miller). Favourite voice credits: Summerton Mill, Latin Music USA & podcasts for The Register. Agents: [email protected] / [email protected]. Website: www.silashawkins.com
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