by Tim Roux
I looked at her with what I hoped portrayed something like dignity. “I am an architect,” I asserted. “I work in a large London practice. I have never been to Hull in my life. I cannot begin to think what has happened to me, or to the other guy who used to live in this body I see around me, but I want to go home to my house in Wokingham to see my wife and two children. The trouble is that in this state, they wouldn’t even open the door to me. So what can I do?”
She began to fidget. She no doubt wanted to pick up the phone to ask for help. She had probably decided that I was psychotic, suffering from multiple personality disorder, or something.
I shrugged. “I’ll convince you in time.”
She did not say a word. She wanted me out of there. I put on my jacket – at least I assumed it was mine as it matched the trousers – and walked out into the lobby area. I got the front door first time. I turned back on her. “Do I have a car, by the way?”
“No. you came on foot,” she answered quickly.
I gave her a big smile, one designed to frighten sharks. “Thank you,” I said. “Goodbye.”
My gut feel told me that I was near the centre of Hull somewhere. When I got to the end of the street, I read the sign “Whitefriargate”. I searched in my pockets for money. There was a scrunched up five pound note, and some pence. I didn’t know whether it was enough to get me to Pease Street, wherever that was, or not. There was a square across the road with a statue of Queen Victoria in the middle of it, plonked on top of what looked like public conveniences. Between me and it, there was a taxi. I went up to it. The guy seemed friendly enough.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Could you tell me where Pease Street is?”
“Just down the Anlaby Road, mate. About five to seven minutes away.”
“How much would that cost me? I only have a five pound note.”
“I can do it for a fiver,” he replied. “Hop in. Trade’s slow at the moment anyway.”
* * *
He was right. It wasn’t far away. It came in at £4.85 in fact. I gave him the rest as change.
“Thanks, mate,” he responded, before driving off.
I stood at the front door of 34 Pease Street. It was the sort of house I was expecting. Terraced. Green front door. Perhaps a bit better maintained than I would have expected, in fact. I rang the bell. A quite pretty but resentful woman in her early thirties opened the door.
“Have you forgotten your key?” she fired at me.
I felt in my pocket. “No, I have got it here,” I announced, brandishing the key.
“Oh.”
I followed her into the house, down the corridor, through into the kitchen. A young boy, rather a nice-looking young boy, was sitting drawing on a high stool perched against a counter top.
“He has been drawing all morning, has Tommy. He is getting quite good at it.”
I leaned over to examine the drawing. It was indeed quite good. “Yes, it is very good,” I replied. “Well done, Tommy.”
The woman gave me a funny look, as did the boy.
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
“Yes, I am, I think.” It was hard to know in this body whether I was hungry or not. I had not calibrated my sensations yet.
“Fish and chips? Tommy and I have already eaten. We didn’t know how long you would be, or if we would see you today at all, like last time. You must have run all the way home. What was that in aid of? Did you miss us?”
“I took a taxi.”
“You did what?” Tommy stared at me as if the ceiling were about to fall down in front of him. “We can’t afford taxis. What got into you? Did that woman turn you soft?”
“I felt disorientated.”
“Disorientated? You? It must have been a right session you had with her. You are behaving a bit oddly, I have to admit.”
“In what way?”
“Dazed, somehow. You should go more often. Go and sit yourself down, and I’ll cook your dinner.”
Dinner? It surely wasn’t dinner time.
She pointed back down the corridor, so I followed her gesture and found a sitting room with two big chairs and a settee. I sat down on the settee and waited. I didn’t really know what to do, so I assessed the room. Comfortable chairs, although oldish. Patterned curtains, newish. Sash windows. Patterned carpet that clashed with the curtains and didn’t quite gel with the furniture coverings either. A nest of tables. A TV. A mirror over the fireplace – rather a nice mirror, in fact – 1930s. The smell of someone else’s home.
“What are you doing sitting there, Harry?” the woman challenged me with a certain amusement-cum-bemusement in her voice. “Aren’t you going to sit in your chair?” She parked the fish and chips and peas on the settee next to me, and shook free the largest of the nest of tables, placing it in front of a single chair, presumably ‘my chair’. She had a direct and elegant trim to her movements.
“Sit yourself down, then,” she said. “It will get cold.”
I got up and sat down in my chair, pulling the table over my knees. The fish and ships smelt good, and really fresh. There was a bottle of Heinz tomato ketchup perched next to the plate which rested on a round cork and melamine mat. I picked up the knife and fork. It felt clumsy using them, as if I was having to remember how to do it. I put the fork laden with fish to my mouth and stabbed my lip hard. “Ouch!” I exclaimed.
The woman was watching me with a puzzled expression on her face. “What is it, Harry? What is up? You are behaving really weirdly.”
I suppose that I could have seized the opportunity to tell her, but I didn’t, making it progressively harder to do so later on.
“I am feeling really odd,” I said.
“You are certainly acting that way.”
Tommy appeared in the doorway and watched me with more than idle curiosity. “Will you play cards with me later, Dad?”
I didn’t realise it then, but it was a trick question, designed to elicit whether I was in my right mind.
“Of course,” I replied, confirming that I wasn’t.
“Straight after dinner?”
“Shouldn’t you be in bed soon?” I inquired.
Tommy stared at me incredulously. “At two o’clock in the afternoon during the holidays? Why are you sending me to bed? What have I done wrong?”
“Sorry, I forgot.”
The woman was loitering, hesitating. I guessed that she was considering phoning the hypnotherapist for reassurance and advice. Indeed, a couple of minutes later I heard her talking on the phone very quietly. There was a lot of surprise in her reactions at her end of the call.
She came back into the sitting room and sat herself down in the other chair. She paused for a second. “Harry, I am worried about you.”
“That makes two of us,” I replied, honestly.
“Mrs. Starbright says that you were really freaky at the end of your session with her too. She couldn’t tell me the details. I know that the probation people thought that hypnotherapy might make a difference to your behaviour, but I wasn’t expecting anything like this, and certainly not as quickly as this. You look completely befuddled.”
“I feel it.”
She smiled hesitantly, sympathetically. “Harry, do you think that the session has affected your brain somehow - fundamentally?”
“Yes, I do. I feel a completely different person.”
“You are acting like a completely different person; like a large child.”
“I am certainly feeling like I need to start to learn things all over again.”
“This hypnotherapy has definitely got to you. If you didn’t have to go again in two weeks or get into trouble with the probation service, I would be suggesting that you gave it up. I am a bit nervous as to what I will get next time. You might come back like Attila the Hun - swing the other way. Would you like some tea?”
I was thrown by the question. “What, is it tea time?”
“Oh God,” she exclaimed, “I am married to an imbecile.” Then she flinched. When I
didn’t react, she added “I meant the warm and wet stuff.”
“Is there any chance of a coffee?”
“Coffee, Harry? Since when did you drink coffee? You chucked a whole cup of boiling coffee at me once when I accidentally handed it to you while I was picking something up. I had to go into the Infirmary, if you remember.”
“No,” I replied. “I don’t.”
“Harry, have you lost your mind entirely?”
“Well, yes actually, I think I have.”
She left the room, throwing over her shoulder “Well that could be a good thing, couldn’t it?”
* * *
The phone rang.
I stood next to it, anxious not to have to answer it, hovering in indecision.
"Aren't you going to answer that?" the woman asked me in some exasperation.
I picked it up. Tommy was watching me again.
"Hello?" I announced more timidly than I had intended. I coughed. "Hello," I repeated, much firmer this time; much, much firmer, in fact. I had overcompensated.
"’ullo. Is Kathy there, ‘arry?"
"I'll pass you over. Hang on tight!" (my standard joke). "For you," I said to the woman, handing her the phone which I almost dropped before she could get a proper grip on it.
"Hullo," says the woman. "No, Martin, Kathy isn’t here. I am telling you, Kathy isn’t here. .... I don't know why he said that. He is a bit funny at the moment……..Sorry, Martin, I still cannot help you. Kathy is not here." She put the phone down abruptly, and turns on me.
"Harry, what is wrong with you? Why on earth did you tell Martin Kathy was here? He'll be around here next, shouting and screaming as usual. You had better get her out of here before he arrives. What happened at that place? Did they give you a lobotomy? You really are beginning to scare me."
"So Kathy is here?"
"You know damn well she is. You haven't forgotten your own sister now, have you? If that man catches up with her, she's dead, you told me that yourself yesterday. ‘Don't tell anyone she's here’, you said. So what happens the fist time someone calls asking for her? You say she's here. Get her out of here quick. We don't need any more violence around here. You're bad enough. I don't want that bloody Martin smashing up the place too."
"Where do you think I should take her?"
"You are asking me, you who claim to be the boss of the Hull underworld? How should I know? Get your sister out of her marathon two hour bath upstairs, and escort her out of here before Martin shows up. Go on!"
She virtually pushed me towards the stairs, where I was confronted with some highly perfumed bathtime fragrances permeating the stairway.
I started to climb the stairs. "Harry, is that you?"
"Yes." At least I recognised my own name by now.
"What's up with that mad old cow?"
"Martin is coming round looking for you. He just phoned."
There was an explosion in the bath like an elephant had suddenly jumped into it, and a girl appeared, barely managing to cover herself with her towel.
She was in a flat-out panic. "What are we going to do, Harry?"
"I don't know. How fast can you get dressed?"
"Time me. Come and talk to me. Calm me down."
It took her less than two minutes to get dressed, at which point she was all ready to run, literally.
"Let's go."
We rattled down the stairs like rats, and I opened the door.
Three men were standing there. They were obviously well-practiced in intimidating people.
"’ullo, Kathy. ‘ullo, ‘arry. Thought we might find you both ‘ere."
Kathy backed away behind me, tugging at my shirt.
“You don’t mind if we come in, do you?”
I stepped aside. “Help yourself.”
“Thanks,” said the first man perfunctorily. He made sure he pushed me backwards into the hallway as he passed me. Presumably this was Martin. His two accomplices grinned at me. Having made his physical point, Martin stepped aside in turn, and ushered Kathy and me towards the kitchen. “We’ll follow you.”
As we entered, the woman who was supposed to be my wife, or partner, or whatever, backed up against the sink. Tommy remained where we was at the counter, crayon poised.
“Good afternoon, Deirdre,” Martin said to the woman, wryly.
“Who’s Deirdre?” she replied.
“Any lying slut I cannot be bothered with,” he replied. “I know a lot of Deirdres, but I don’t know them for long, if you get my drift.” He turned on me. “Right, ‘arry, let’s get to your point.”
“My point what?” I asked.
“What are you doing with Kathy?”
“She came to have a chat with me. It’s a family thing.”
“That’s not ‘ow you explained it last time, ‘arry. You said that she was a right old slapper, and you didn’t mind if I shoved a red hot poker up her whatsit. It might kill some of the germs up there.”
“Brothers and sisters fall out sometimes.”
“I am thinking I might take your advice.”
Kathy whimpered and clung onto the other woman. I did not respond.
“But I think we should teach you a quick lesson too, don’t you think, ‘arry, just to show everyone that you are more of a big mouth than a big cheese, although you might smell a bit cheesy by the time we have finished with you.” His boys rather liked that. “Deirdre ‘ere can tell everyone all about it.” He took a step towards me. I took a step back. I waited until he was off balance, and kicked him as hard as I could in the solar plexus, following this manoeuvre up with an elbow jab to the temple as his head came down, knocking him unconscious outright. He wasn’t expecting Harry to be an all-England kick-box champion. One of his heavies stepped forward, I expect because he was confusing his forwards and his backwards. I took one sharp step to meet him and upper-cut him cleanly to the floor, making him bite his tongue. Blood poured from his mouth. The third man stood there dumbstruck.
“Harry, where on earth did you learn to do that?” Kathy exclaimed admiringly. Even the woman was visibly impressed, and Tommy was cock-a-hoop. He encouraged me to “Finish off the third one, Dad!”. The third one did not move, and neither did I.
“Awesome!” Kathy added.
The second man stirred and staggered slowly to his feet. “You can go if you want,” I offered. “I’ll deal with Martin for you.” The second man grabbed the other one by the shoulder and urged him towards the door.
“Now what?” asked Tommy’s mother.
“Now you three go upstairs and calm yourselves down. I’ll see what sense I can talk into Martin when he wakes up.”
“You’ll never talk any sense into him. You know him as well as I do. He’ll be out of that door and back in again within ten minutes with the rest of his mates.”
“So what do you suggest?” I asked.
“Short of killing him, I don’t know what you do to him, to be honest.” Tommy stared at his mum in amazement. “And you obviously can’t do that.”
“Go on, girls, go and powder your noses. Tommy, you help them. I’ll work out what to do down here.”
The woman gave me a strange look, trying to second guess my thoughts. Kathy took Tommy’s hand, turned and left.
It took about twenty minutes for Martin to come round. He was preoccupied with his own sensations for about another minute, then he looked up at me, bewildered.
“You’re full of surprises, ‘arry.”
I drove the carving knife straight through his heart. “There’s another one,” I muttered. It certainly surprised him. I stood back. The deed was done, and I felt quite good about it. The women were right. His type never gives up, the care home had taught me that long ago. Luckily, he had a gun and two knuckle-dusters in his pocket. Who was to say that it wasn’t self-defence?
* * *
The police came round and didn’t even arrest me. I doubt that they believed me, but they were plainly delighted to be rid of Martin whom they believed had shot a
nd killed in cold blood one of their own last year, without their being able to prove it. They had forensics around for hours and interviewed all of us, except Tommy, and they were gone by nine.
“Just be good and sure that you turn up to the Coroner’s Inquest, Harry,” Detective Inspector Martin warned me as he stepped back out into the street. He seemed to know me. They all did.
Tommy’s mother, who by then had revealed her name as being Fran to the police, came up and touched me affectionately on the chest. “I never knew you had it in you, Harry. And I am absolutely sure Harry never did one second of kick-boxing, so who are you?”
I was astonished to have a willing audience at last.
“My name is Keith McGuire, I am an architect with a wife, called Chrissie, and two children, Ella and Mark. I also happen to have briefly been the UK kick-boxing champion, so you can look me up on the Internet if you want to.”
“We don’t have no Internet here, but I will when I get the chance. My friend Sandy has it down the road.”
We all went to bed. Fran slept with Tommy, and I got her room.
I woke up in the middle of the night to find someone slipping into bed beside me and cuddling up against me.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
“So you are awake, Harry,” she whispered. I could tell immediately that it was Fran.
“I am.”
“Do you mind?” she asked, stroking my chest.
“Yes.”
“But it’s not your body, is it? It’s Harry’s, and Harry has his duties.”
“Yes, but I am Keith, not Harry.”
Fran got back out of bed again and switched on the central light. “Take a good look at yourself. Who do you look like?”
“I look like Harry, but I am Keith.”
“Kathy and I are the only two who are ever going to believe your story.”
“Chrissie will.”
“Maybe eventually, but she won’t want to. I’ve sneaked over to my friend Sandy’s house while you were asleep to look you up on the Internet. You are very good looking when you are not Harry. I would trade your body for his any day of the week. Is Keith good in bed?”
