Both of Me

by Jonathan Friesen

  Other books by Jonathan Friesen

  The Last Martin

  Aldo’s Fantastical Movie Palace

  Aquifer

  BLINK

  Both of Me

  Copyright © 2014 by Jonathan Friesen

  ePub Edition © December 2014: ISBN 978-0-310-73189-4

  Requests for information should be addressed to:

  Blink, 3900 Sparks Drive SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Friesen, Jonathan.

  Both of me / Jonathan Friesen.

  pages cm

  Summary: “When her carry-on bag is accidentally switched with Elias’s identical pack, Clara uses the luggage tag to track down her things. At that address she discovers there is not one Elias Phinn, but two.” — Provided by publisher.

  ISBN 978-0-310-73188-7 (hardback) — ISBN 978-0-310-73187-0 (softcover) — ISBN 978-0-310-73189-4 (epub) — ISBN 978-0-310-73190-0 (epub)

  1. Multiple personality—Fiction. 2. Dissociative disorders—Fiction. 3. Artists—Fiction. 4. Voyages and travels—Fiction. 5. Love—Fiction. 6. Christian life—Fiction. I. Title.

  PZ7.F91661Bot 2014

  [Fic]—dc23

  2014031382

  Any Internet addresses (websites, blogs, etc.) and telephone numbers in this book are offered as a resource. They are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement by the publisher, nor does the publisher vouch for the content of these sites and numbers for the life of this book.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means — electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other — except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  Cover design: Brand Navigation

  Interior design and composition: Greg Johnson/Textbook Perfect

  14 15 16 17 18 19 20 /DCI/ 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  To Siobhan, a very savvy Londoner.

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  PART 1: CLARA

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  PART 2: CLARITA

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  At what moment does your life become your own?

  At birth? No, you are owned and helpless, unwitting and unaware. Life is food and sleep. But you are listening, listening to and learning from Dad and Mum. Your ’rents, they make you.

  And if your dad strikes a copper and ends up in the slammer, well, that’s stirred into your pot.

  School arrives, but you are not free. Once again, you are owned, this time by teachers who have heard of your rep and know of your dad and decide without cause that remedial work is your lot.

  They don’t see into your flat. They don’t see the angelic faces of Marna or Teeter, your sibs who had no dad or mum to learn from because Mum spent her days weeping and her final nights little more than a zombie at the factory. But even then, I suppose, they were watching, learning that our brief lives are never our own, and the future is as murky as the London sky.

  Mercifully, your final term ends. Exams show you to be equal parts unemployable and incorrigible, but it doesn’t matter, as that is how they show everyone to be.

  And for the first time, you have a choice.

  You tuck a blanket over your last memories with Mum, remembering her fitful sleep and her cold face stained with tears. You listen to your brother and sister — children you’ve raised — arguing in front of the telly, and wonder what you’ve done.

  When will you be more than a sum total of your ’rents’ many mistakes . . .

  And your one large one.

  When does your life start?

  And in a fit, you rummage beneath your bed, retrieve your passport and all the savings you own, and stare into the mirror.

  Nobody stares back.

  “Clara?”

  Teeter’s call acts like a vise, and the squeeze is unbearable.

  “Clara!”

  You repeat your name. “Clara.” A whisper that gains strength. “Clara.” Because unlike your life, your name cannot be lifted from you. Friends, family, teachers — thieves all — have taken everything else, but they grudgingly agree; the name is yours. Even to the swine, it is sacred.

  You stare at that name in your passport and look out over Marbury Street, at the buses that run the same routes, at the same times, carrying the same blokes. They’ve given up, traded teachers for bosses, and will live the rest of their lives in responsible agony. And you vow you will never be like them.

  “I’m hungry, Clara!”

  “On the hob! Start without me.”

  You stroke the world map, yellowed and torn . . . together with a Celtic cross and journal, they are the few pieces of Dad you’ve allowed to remain. One hundred red tacks supposedly mark one hundred selfless acts Dad performed for strangers across the globe.

  At least that’s what Mum used to say . . . and maybe she was right, but . . .

  There is no tack in London.

  Now, tomorrow, he is coming home.

  According to the warder, Dad’s incarceration was the result of “extraordinary circumstance,” and Mum’s recent death qualifies him for early release. He will return to your flat, to Marna, an eight-year-old he has never met, and to Teeter, a thirteen he will not want to.

  He will not return from prison to you.

  Not when your actions had a hand in sending him there.

  “Clara!” Marna calls. “The wash wasn’t started.”

  “No, it wasn’t.” You remove Dad’s weathered leather journal from the trunk in the closet, the volume entitled 1995.

  You quietly fill a bag — one is enough, because at eighteen years old there’s little to remember — and wait for night to fall, and for unfamiliar stars to call you far away.

  And you never look back.

  PART 1

  CLARA

  CHAPTER 1

  The accent. Tell me where you’re from.” The young fool crumpled his McDonald’s bag and leaned over the table. “I could listen to that all day.”

  I took aim and lobbed a chip at his nose. It bounced off his eyelid, and still he smiled. Quite the idiot. “It’s the little things you miss, really. Little, like chips and a shake. Nepal had neither.” I stuffed my mouth and eased back. “Is it cold in here? I’m thinner than when I left home, and it seems I’m always cold.” I glanced around the terminal — after eight months and hundreds of layovers, they all looked the same. Even the faces blurred. Travelers, different only in age and size. Their voices long ago faded to white noise.

  They drifted by me harmlessly, like so many clouds . . .

  Then he walked by, and my gaze fixed on him.

  He walked between his ’rents. His proud dad. His watchful mum, eyes darting for lanes through the bustle.

  The child carried a little Superman bag, and from the look on his face, he was happy. So happy he didn’t notice the stuffed bear poking out his bag’s zip. So happy he di
dn’t notice the bear fall.

  “One minute.” I grabbed my own bag, jumped up, and joined the fray, weaving through the crowd. I reached the fallen bear, and a well-dressed loser distracted by his mobile stepped on the toy. I shoved him, and he stumbled and cursed, but he no longer existed to me. I bent down and gently picked up the loved animal, with its patchy fur and one eye.

  Little T owned a bear like this.

  I pushed forward. Toward the boy. He would want this, need this. I reached the family and placed my hand on Mum’s shoulder. She reached for her son’s hand and spun around.

  “Yes?”

  “Your son. He dropped his bear.”

  The boy’s smile widened, and I swallowed hard.

  “This nice young lady found Pooh!” Mum knelt beside him, rounding his shoulder with her arm. “What do you say?”

  He said nothing, but rather reached out his hands, and I placed the bear inside them. He squeezed the bear and I wanted to squeeze the boy. His almond-shaped eyes, the muted features. He had Down syndrome, and he was perfect.

  I backed up slowly. “I just wanted to reunite the two of you. I once had a brother who loved a bear like yours.” I turned and walked slowly back toward my new mate. A hundred nobodies parted around me.

  Reaching the table, I slumped down into my seat and stroked the tiny number 3 tattooed between my left thumb and pointer.

  “What was that about?”

  I shook my head. The little boy had looked happy.

  “Now, then. What were you saying? Oh, yes. London,” I said quietly, glancing at the bloke across the table. “Born in London. Seems forever ago.”

  “Clara, it’s been almost a year, right? I know we just met, so you can take this or leave it, but, nobody wanders forever. You’ve got to go home sometime.”

  I leaned back, and stared upward. “I know a man who never did. He was brilliant. His ’rents put him through university, and he became the most sought-after architect in his class. He had job offers across the United States. But one month before graduation, he packed his bags, left school, left his family and his country. He never went back. He wandered the world digging wells for the poor, building hospitals, churches. I carry a record of his route.”

  “So you’re following in this guy’s footsteps.”

  “No.” I took a deep breath. “I don’t dig. I don’t build, and I will not rot penniless in prison. But his path keeps me safe. People remember him, help me on my way.” I scooted nearer. “Have you ever followed what you’re running from?”

  “Last call, Flight 302 departing for Minneapolis.”

  “That’s me.” I rose, reached down, and gathered my bag. “Thanks for the meal. It has earned you a place in my diary, though I’ve quite forgotten your name. How would you like to be remembered?”

  Young fool jumped up and grabbed my wrist. “Take the next flight, Clara. Let me show you New York City. Honest, if you’d just get to know me . . .”

  I pried loose his fingers, and patted his cheek. “We’ve already met. In Paris and Pakistan and Brazil. Accommodating lads like you are everywhere. If there’s one thing I’ve learned these last eight months, it’s this . . . involvements equal pain.” My voice fell. “Not that I’ve always remembered the equation.”

  I hoisted the strap over my shoulder. “And I’ve a mate waiting on the far end of this flight.”

  The last passengers boarded, and I sauntered toward the gate agent. She left her desk and moved toward the gate door. I raised my ticket high.

  I would not jog. I would not shout. Those actions belonged to the responsible, to those who cared. The memory of my first flight returned and tugged at the corners of my lips. How early I had arrived. For five hours, I sat nervously inside Heathrow, checking and rechecking my flight’s status. But that was before. Before the world reminded me there was always another plane, and revealed to me the wild joys of plan B, the spontaneous path the punctual never travel.

  I peeked over my shoulder, blew a kiss to the young fool still watching from a distance.

  He would certainly take me in if the agent would not.

  She gave a final glance about the gate and our eyes met. She beckoned wildly.

  “You on this flight? Get a move on, girl. You came mighty close to missin’ the plane.”

  “Yes, I suppose I did.”

  She swiped my ticket and I wandered into the tunnel. Tunnels were the Great In-Between. Tucked between the leaving and the arriving, these bridges, these portals, existed on every continent. Inside, I always pictured myself back in London, slogging toward a bus. The same bus. Stuck in the middle.

  I hated tunnels, but they were a necessary evil.

  Planes — now, they were different. They held mystery and promise, and over the course of my Third World travels, a chicken or two. They also held the very real possibility of death.

  I ducked inside and paused in first class, surveying my travel mates. The red-eye from New York to Minneapolis held nothing but the comatose. Self-satisfied businessmen, ties loosened and shirts untucked, returning to knackered wives. Beyond, a sea of the ragged and unwashed. My world.

  I greeted the stewardess and slipped toward the rear of the plane, toward the one empty seat, a middle. I opened the overhead and pressed my bag into the compartment, and then paused to analyse my neighbours.

  On the aisle, a tall, bald man. He winced and groaned, undoubtedly wishing for hinges with which to fold up his legs. His knees barricaded my row, but he quickly dislodged and stood, likely grateful for one last stretch. Beyond him, tucked into the window seat, sat a good-looking lad with a serious face, his gaze locked in a sketchbook and his pencil working feverishly. He was so absent, he almost blended into the plane.

  I eased down in-between.

  Neither spoke. I could do worse.

  I removed Dad’s journal from my jacket pouch, tracing the numbers 1 – 9 – 9 – 5 and the cross on its cover. I removed his shredded map from inside it and a marker from my pocket, and dotted Nepal yellow. A quick count: Eighty stars across five continents.

  Dad, I will soon have you beat.

  Minutes later, the plane taxied away from LaGuardia. Someday, I would experience New York, but not with an idiot I met at McDonald’s. The cabin lights went dark. I yawned and Aisle Man groaned, but Window Boy reached franticly for his reading beam. He managed to turn on all three vents and hit and cancel the stewardess call twice, but his flummoxed fingers could not locate the light. Sweat formed on his temple, and he muttered about an imminent attack and a lethal threat and an insidious enemy.

  All very poor word choices when seated on an aeroplane.

  “Hush. Let me help.” I reached up and flicked on his beam.

  He peeked at me, and as our gazes met, I assigned to him, as was my habit with all handsome blokes, a Possibility of Entanglement score — POE for short. This involved four questions worth three points each, the outcome scored like a football match. The lower the score, the safer for me.

  Has he shown himself to be needy? Yes. Three points.

  Does he remind you of anyone from London? Oh, the eyes of Jordy Waltham. Three points.

  Does he show any interest in you? No. Three points.

  Is he an original?

  Window Boy dug in his pocket and extracted a tiny pencil sharpener and a baggie filled with shavings. He popped the plastic sharpener lid and picked out three shavings, whispering as he went along, “One, two, three.” He placed each minute fleck into the bag, one by one, as if handling the sacred, again whispering the count. Then he carefully sealed the bag, fought it back into his pocket, and gave his pencil precisely three turns inside the sharpener.

  I frowned. Is he an original? Yes. Three points.

  Total POE score: 12

  I exhaled slowly.

  I haven’t met a twelve in months.

  “What’s your name, then?” I asked.

  His jaw tensed, but he neither glanced up nor spoke.

  “Right. Heading home o
r away?”

  This time his hand paused and he double clutched his pencil. He wasn’t answering, but he was hearing. An unusual lad.

  “I’ve never been to Minneapolis.” I leaned into his shoulder and felt him flinch. “Tell me about it.”

  “You talk too much.”

  Direct, emotionless . . . flipping fascinating. I shifted in my seat. He was right, and I couldn’t help but smile.

  “Yes, I do. And you practice eye contact far too little.”

  “I look at visitors when I need to, and since I don’t need to, and I already know what you want, I will ignore you.”

  “And what is it that I want?”

  “Secrets.”

  Here, on the outbound from New York, I had happened upon the most interesting bloke yet — a glorious breeze following five parched continents.

  “Yes.” I licked my lips, my goal only to extract him from his sketchbook. “I do want your secrets. Every single one — and since we have the time, let’s start with your name.”

  His face tightened. “My name is not a secret. Elias. Elias Phinn.”

  “Hmm. A perfectly sensible name.”

  “Now you’re trying to put me at ease with compliments.” Elias stared down at the lights of the city. “Many stars fell tonight. But” — his voice hardened — “just like my name is no secret, it’s also no compliment. Your schemes won’t work.” He paused. “I know where you’re from.”

  “Horrid for me. You’ve uncovered my clandestine programme, and you know where I’m from. This places me at a slight disadvantage.” I craned my neck to see what precious thing he could be sketching, but he raised the book’s back cover and blocked my view.

  He returned to drawing, and I bit my lip. I couldn’t lose him, or this conversation. Though I had to act utterly dim, this nonsense was addictive.

  “Did my accent give me away?”

  “Your accent.” He thought, and shrugged. “You’re probably pretending to have an accent. Your dad doesn’t have an accent.”

  I pressed back into my seat. He was right again, depending on perspective. My father, American by birth, never sounded like a Londoner. But Elias’s guess on that point was the least of my worries. How had we traversed so much ground? Dad was a topic reserved for my inner circle. Elias was not in that queue.