A User's Guide to Make-Believe

by Jane Alexander

  ‘And just pull your hair back for me,’ she said.

  Cassie’s fingers caught and tugged as she combed her hair away from her face. The padded seat felt like being back in the car. She heard a dull metallic sound, and craned to see what Sam was doing now. Caught a glimpse of a silver cylinder the size of a large kitchen storage jar. Another sound: the soft snap of disposable gloves. Carefully, Sam drew something out of the cylinder. Turned, and held it up for Oswald to inspect. It was nothing like the branded canisters that contained the Make-Believe activation spray. This looked more like a squat, blunt syringe – and she thought of not-Alan in the locked ward. Of his agitation, how he’d punched at her, cried out, dug at the wound in his scalp, and of how she’d stayed silent, waited it out for fear a doctor would be called to settle him with a needle. The chair was moving, dropping backwards. Cassie clutched its arms.

  ‘We’ll just get you lying down for this,’ said Sam.

  Dropping, dropping, till her feet were higher than her head, till she was staring into the ceiling light which made her blink, and close her eyes.

  Something damp, dabbing round her nostrils. Cotton wool, and the sharpness of disinfectant. Cassie hoped it would cover her own smell; was conscious of Sam’s face close to hers, of breathing with her mouth closed. ‘This might feel odd,’ said Sam, ‘but it’ll be over in a second.’ Latex fingers, cool, competent, moving a strand of hair. ‘One thing: you mustn’t sneeze. If it tickles, if you think you’re going to, then pinch – really pinch. OK?’

  This was it. The moment Sam sprayed the stuff inside her, Alan would be gone. She made herself stay still, arms flat on the rests. Forced her body not to resist. Kept her eyes closed, and in her mind she imagined him, just the way she would in Make-Believe. But it was hard – her brain was hurt, was muddled – hard to get him clear. It was like those first times she’d tried, when all she could manage to hold of him was a fragment, just a fraction; the moment she got another part of him in focus, the first blurred and was lost.

  The blunted needle slid delicately up her nostril. Probed the tender place high inside. Cassie held her breath. Alan – I’m sorry – Alan—

  A puff; a cold trickle, like melting ice cream running down – up – her nose. A fleeting pain at the front of her head. An itch, rising: she grabbed the bridge of her nose, squeezed hard.

  ‘Good. Very good. Keep pinching.’ Sam was moving around, peeling off gloves, putting things back where they’d come from. ‘We’ll keep you there for a couple of minutes, just to be sure. You won’t feel anything now. It’s just that first bit, just the spray makes you want to sneeze …’

  Cassie heard her over the high mosquito whine, the sound of cold in her ears. Traced the tingling in her soft palate, the throb in her gums, in the roots of her teeth, that made her suck her cheeks in. Followed the cold seeping through her sinuses, creeping across her scalp. How do you know? That’s what she wanted to ask – because Sam had never experienced this. Because Cassie was the first, wasn’t she – so shouldn’t they be asking her what it felt like? But it didn’t matter. That was the thing. She was the first and only. An experiment with no follow-up – as long as she worked. As long as she did her job. It didn’t matter what else it might do, the cold trickling spray working its way into her. Didn’t matter what the side effects might be.

  But she had an agreement. The papers folded, lying on her stomach. She touched them, checking. Hanging on to that.

  She felt it still, a cold itch buzzing in her head, as she followed Oswald back through the maze of corridors. Felt it as she sat in the back of a different car, thinking of nothing but bed, and sleep. As she stood jacketless on the pavement at 6.30 a.m., Oswald pulling away, leaving her with the promise that he’d be back to collect her in twenty-four hours, once the upgrade had taken effect.

  She pressed the buzzer for Lewis’s flat, and kept on pressing, hoping – Please, God – hoping he’d be there; and before she’d finished speaking her name, the door sprang open, and by the time she’d started to climb the steps he was bounding down to meet her. When he grabbed her arms his grip was so fierce it was more restraint than hug, but the firmness was a comfort. She let him hold her, keep her upright. Relief spread through her as she gazed at him vacantly, his familiar face, his wide mouth and dark eyes. Relief, and the realisation of something significant, something she should tell him about – but she felt herself sagging in his arms. Let it slip away. Shook her head at his questions, at Jesus, Cassie, where have you been what’s happened to you I was worried—

  ‘Later,’ she told him. Later would do. Now, she needed to sleep.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  She woke with her eyes gummed shut. Rubbed and blinked till the world sharpened around her. She was clammy and stinking still, dirtying Lewis’s sheets with dried sweat and stale fear. She sat up: remembered the icy trickle, the buzz in her head. It felt fine now. Normal. She pinched her nose, rubbed her finger and thumb along the bones of her cheeks.

  Water. The thirst came suddenly; she had never been so thirsty. She swung her feet to the floor. Stood for a second, finding her balance. She was still in Alan’s T-shirt, her old jogging bottoms. She stripped them off and wrapped herself in Lewis’s dressing gown. Soft towelling, smelling of clean washing, and of Lewis’s sandalwood soap. She tied the belt tight, a reassurance.

  He must have heard the floorboards creak. Stuck his head round the door. ‘You’re up,’ he said.

  ‘Water?’

  He disappeared, and she heard the tap running. Met him in the kitchen, took the glass and downed it in one.

  ‘Thanks for letting me sleep.’

  ‘Well, God. You were dead on your feet.’

  ‘I need a bath. A shower. Both.’

  ‘OK – but you have to tell me first what happened. Where were you?’

  She blinked. The sun was warming the room; the cat crouched neatly on the table in a patch of light, fur glowing, eyes slitted. It felt like early evening. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Half six. You slept for twelve hours. Cassie—’

  The cat widened its eyes and flattened its ears as she pulled out a chair, and she remembered: when she’d left, Pita had been the only creature here.

  ‘Where did you go?’

  He looked blank. ‘Me?’

  ‘You weren’t here. When she came. It was – I don’t know – about three in the morning.’

  ‘Yeah, I went out – I left a note? It was just getting light and I wanted to walk, after—’ He shook his head. ‘You were still in Make-Believe. But who came, who’s this “she”?’

  ‘From Imagen. She took me; took me there.’

  He listened, narrow-eyed and frowning – confusion, or concentration; she wasn’t sure which. When her voice dried up he fetched her more water. He brought her toast, a mug of tea, and she demolished them, asked for more. She told him about Oswald. About the connections, and how they’d evolved, and the deal she’d struck with Imagen. She told him how her network was being upgraded; that they’d be back to collect her – she checked the clock on the oven – less than twelve hours from now. He listened patiently as she got muddled, remembered stuff she’d forgotten and looped back round to fill in the gaps. Not all of them, though; some gaps she left unfilled, deliberately. The hospital, the locked ward. She didn’t describe how they’d taken her there. Wouldn’t think of it. Not ever.

  She must have been in shock, she realised. She’d been behind a wall of glass, like the one in Oswald’s office; now it had shattered, and she felt skinned. Every twitch of Lewis’s face told her something of what was happening inside him. She was reminded of that moment, the first time they’d met, when she’d looked into his eyes. Seen straight through to the back of his skull, and recognised herself. He sat pushed back in his chair, tense and upright, his jaw with that tight, set angle, and listened silently. Too silent; he wasn’t asking the questions that must have been zipping around inside his head. And she thought she knew why.

 
; Somewhere between her and Lewis, her story had morphed from trauma to triumph. She could hear it from his perspective; it must seem she’d disappeared and walked back in with everything he longed for. She’d found her way back to Make-Believe. She was legit. All the threats hanging over her were gone. She had turned back time. She had managed to change the past.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  He shook his head. ‘Why, what for?’

  ‘Because – I know it’s what you wanted. And maybe there’s a way – once I’m back in there – I can sort you out. Get your account reinstated.’

  He stood up. ‘I’ll run your bath.’

  She heard him walk to the bathroom. The gush of taps turning on, and the rumble of water filling the tub. Smelt something herbal, heavy and sharp: rosemary, eucalyptus. Heard the swish of Lewis encouraging bubbles, and thought of Sam doing the same; and long ago, her mother— For a moment she sat, eyes closed, arms wrapped across her chest. Then she shook off the memory.

  She padded through to the bedroom, collecting clean underwear from the drawer in the bedside table, the cleanish jeans she’d had on yesterday – was it only yesterday?

  ‘Can I borrow a T-shirt?’ she called.

  ‘Yep, hang on—’ Lewis came through, opened the wardrobe. ‘This one’s kind of shrunk – it’ll still be too big, but …’

  On the floor by the bed, creased and folded, was the Imagen paperwork. She picked it up, took it with her bundle of clothes to the bathroom.

  In, and under. The heat against her skin, the weight of the water; the surfacing, already feeling cleansed, and the soft prickle of bubbles bursting. How the cold had seeped inside her head … Under, and up again. The steam, hot vapour, beginning to clear her mind. Dispersing the fog that had clouded her thoughts.

  She sat up, reached for the towel to dry her hands, then leant out and picked up the paperwork.

  It was still hard going, densely legal, but slowly she picked her way through it. One clause made her pause, and frown. As far as she could tell, it meant if she were found to be in breach of any of the standard terms and conditions of employment at Imagen, the whole agreement would be void. Void for both parties: but since she would have carried out her side of the deal, that could only go against her.

  She would ask about that, when they came for her. When they took her back to the hospital. The thought of it made her drop the paperwork onto the bathroom floor, dunk down underwater once more, holding her breath, plugging her ears with the slow deep sounds of water and blood. But to know that not-Alan would be safe from that nightly horror … She came up gasping.

  What would it be like to step back into her old job? She would need a new wardrobe – she had nothing appropriate, had long ago sold all the good quality clothes she had owned. She would need a haircut, too. She reached for the shampoo, started to scrub at the sweat, the grease, the dried specks of vomit. And once she was back at her desk, what first? They would need to revise their strategy, given the changed landscape. Re-evaluate their benchmarks for subscriber satisfaction. Revise their targets for expansion. It would take her a while to get up to speed; the workload would be heavy, but that was a good thing. Something to focus on. Something to stop her thinking of Alan.

  She pulled the plug, stood up and turned on the shower to rinse her hair while the water drained from round her legs. She thought she understood, now, about Alan, understood the facts of it. That their networks had found each other that afternoon at the hospital, on the day of her final visit. That they’d connected via their respective receivers – or else his had already been removed, and his network was sufficiently evolved that it could register hers, could reach for her … All the necessary factors would have been in place. Time: her own network evolving its connective capacity, and Alan’s already active. Sleep: when her visit had wound him up too tight, left him bouncing off the walls, so she’d left him to the tender care of a man with a needle, his sedation taking hold just as she slipped her receiver onto her ear and sank into her own Make-Believe. And distance: the bench outside his ward. A wall between them – but only metres apart.

  The bathroom was a refuge, perfumed and clouded, but she couldn’t stay there for ever. She rubbed steam from the mirror, checked her reflection. Washed and in cleanish clothes, she was more herself – on the outside, at least.

  In the living room she joined Lewis on the sofa. He smiled as she sat beside him, a try-hard, unconvincing smile, and she felt herself do the same. He was doing his best to be pleased for her, and she was pretending too. Pretending, because he wasn’t Alan.

  Twelve hours left, before they came for her. Before she delivered the upgrade, and the connections were severed, Alan lost to her for ever. If that woman hadn’t taken the receivers, she could have spent the night in Make-Believe. Met Alan by the waterfall, been with him one last time. Even without the receiver … she could catch a bus back to Raphael House, find a place in the hospital grounds that was close enough to Alan’s locked ward room; she could try to sleep, and trust that their networks would find each other. But to sleep so close to the other patients was to risk it happening again – the unthinkable thing that had happened to her in the back seat of the car. Her mind turned white with panic. Impossible.

  She scooped her feet under her, curling into herself, filled with the need to seal herself off with her thoughts of Alan. Her memories. In the hours she had left, this, now, was the most important thing: to relive their final night together, remember it so clear, so deep that she built an unbreakable neural circuit, locking him inside her. How his hair glows when she opens her eyes. How his body feels, solid and hot, under her hand. Shoulder, chest, ribs, hips. How his voice sounds – the first thing to go … Even now, just hours later, she strained to catch the traces, struggled to conjure the tone – and when Lewis spoke, deep and gruff, she wanted to slap him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I wasn’t there when they came for you.’

  She made herself smile once more. ‘No. It’s alright. I don’t know what you could have done anyway.’

  His jaw had lost its tightness, and without it all the angles of his face tugged downwards; the dark of his eyes seemed to pool in their sockets, overspilling, shadows of tears. Of course, he was like her: he too had lost a lover, and found her and lost her, and now he’d found and lost her all over again. And he must realise, now, that even if he could get hold of another hacked receiver, it wasn’t safe for him to go back to Make-Believe. That if Imagen knew about Cassie, they must also know about him.

  Gently, she leant into his shoulder. Felt him shift his weight towards her. They were mirrors of each other – slightly cracked, a bit distorted, but enough the same that they should at least be kind.

  After a while, she got up to fetch her satchel, her papers and tobacco, wet hair leaving a damp, dark circle on Lewis’s shoulder. Her screen buzzed when it sensed her hand, letting her know she had notifications. Two messages – three – all from Nicol. She realised she’d missed a meeting as well as a client deadline. Well: that stuff didn’t matter now.

  When she tried to reclaim her place on the sofa she found Pita installed there, drawn to the warmth she’d left behind. She perched on the arm instead, rolling a cigarette. Allowed an extra inch of tobacco, thinking how she’d soon have money – laid a fat line of it onto the paper – pinched and rolled it into shape – paused, just for a second, in her making, as a heat bloomed at the top of her head, washed through her, down to the soles of her feet – then carried on, carefully, tightening the paper – lifting and licking – sealing and straightening. She put on her trainers. Slung her satchel over her shoulder.

  ‘Just smoke it out the window, if you want,’ said Lewis.

  ‘It’s OK.’ She patted her satchel. ‘I’ve got keys, you won’t need to buzz me back in.’

  At the bottom of the stairwell, she propped herself in the doorway. Lit up with shaking hands.

  She hadn’t mentioned Lachlan. Not on purpose; it wasn’t a test.
He was just unimportant. It was the woman who’d been in charge, and that was how she’d told the story. She could hear her own words. When she came … She took me there …

  So why had Lewis apologised like that? I wasn’t there when they came for you.

  Not she. They.

  A slip of the tongue. An assumption – that any woman would need a man to back her up. Perhaps.

  She crushed the stub of her rollie, turned to go back inside. Stopped, uncertain, at the foot of the stairs.

  Perhaps not.

  She turned, slowly. Stood staring hard, seeing nothing.

  The click of an unlatching jolted through her. Lewis in the doorway, calling her name.

  She looked up. Where she stood, he wouldn’t be able to see her yet. Trainers silent on the concrete floor, she backed round the side of the staircase. Reached for the door to the understairs cupboard, hoping it wouldn’t be locked.

  ‘Cassie? Are you alright?’

  She heard Lewis descending – his light, scuffing tread. She pulled the cupboard door ajar, ducked and stepped inside, shrinking into the stacks of stuff, the mops and pails, bikes and boxes, the broken furniture. Shut the door after her, and stood barely breathing for fear of starting a junk avalanche.

  The click of a snib: Lewis opening the front door. Closing it again. Then silence. And God, what was she doing, hiding in a cupboard from the only person who was on her side, who cared for her, who knew what was really going on? Because of a simple slip of the tongue? And now she couldn’t just appear, step out of this damp-smelling cupboard, because how would she explain herself? She would have to wait until he went back upstairs, or outside to look for her.

  No sound from him, still. And she realised – he was phoning her; had to be. He’d hear her buzz, from where he was standing. Fat-fingered, she wrestled her satchel open, reached for her screen. Just as it flashed into life, she fumbled it off.