by Karen Klyne
Alex glanced around the beach. What a mess. The beach was always clean apart from the day after a bank holiday. She tutted as she watched the crisp packets, paper cups, sandwich wrappers, and cartons blowing around in the light breeze. Lazy devils. Why couldn’t they take their rubbish away with them instead of leaving it for someone else? She picked up as much litter as she could and threw it into the bin. See? How easy was that? Bloody day trippers. Jasper came scampering back and dropped the ball at her feet. She picked it up and threw it again. Off he went at full speed.
There was nobody else on the beach. There rarely was at this time in the morning. That’s how she liked it. Get there before all the others arrived to spoil the peace. She threw the ball a few more times and then looked at her watch. Time to go. Her mum’s physio, Laurel, would be arriving in fifteen minutes. She didn’t want to be late.
“Jasper. Come on, boy.” He tore past her, and she turned and headed back the direction she’d come. In the distance, she could see someone walking toward her, seeming to come out of the mist like a spectre. As they got closer, she could see it was a woman. A hood covered her head and most of her face, and her jacket was pulled tightly around her neck. She had her head down and walked briskly as if she was on a mission. Something about her made the hair on the back of Alex’s neck stand up. She wanted to turn away to give the woman plenty of space. But that was silly. It was just a woman on the beach.
As she neared, she looked up. The woman stopped and held out a small shoulder bag. “You dropped this a little while ago.”
Alex looked at the large shoulder bag. She’d never seen it before, and it certainly wasn’t hers. She never took a bag out with her in the mornings. In fact, she’d even forgotten her phone today. “Thanks, but it’s not mine.”
“It is. I saw you drop it.”
“You must be mistaken. It’s definitely not mine. You’d better hand it in at the police station.”
The woman grimaced. When she looked her in the eye, Alex shivered. An odd feeling came over her. It was so strange. The woman looked familiar, and yet she couldn’t quite place her. The scent of roses and apples surrounded her like a slightly too strong perfume.
“Would you take it in for me? I’m late for an appointment, and if I don’t get there I’ll be in big trouble. I’ve looked inside and there’s an iPad, a phone, credit cards, driving license––everything. It shouldn’t be hard for them to trace her.” The woman seemed to hesitate and looked out at the water for a second before her chin lifted, and she looked at Alex again. “I’m sorry. I really thought I saw you drop it.”
She unzipped the bag, and Alex took a few steps back. The woman could be unhinged. For all she knew she might pull out a gun or the bag could have a bomb in it. Something felt off.
“There’s nothing untoward. It’s just got personal stuff in, that’s all.” The woman held it open to show her.
Alex stepped forward and peeked inside. Like the woman said, it was all someone’s personal belongings. She put her hand out and took the bag. “Okay. I’ll take it in on my way to work.”
“Thanks.” Her relief was palpable, and she seemed to hesitate for only a second more, like she was about to say something, before she shook her head and rushed off.
Alex quickened her pace. If she didn’t hurry, she’d be late for Laurel. She looked down by her side, and there was no Jasper. She scanned the beach, but the mist obscured her vision, as though she was peering through a pond of grey murk. “Jasper. Come here!” Nothing. “Jasper, where the hell are you?” The woman was nearly out of view, but she could swear there was a dog by her side. Then they disappeared into the haze. She followed the same route, just in case it was Jasper she’d seen. She climbed the steps to the promenade and turned left, nearly missing the last step because the mist had grown so dense. Her head began to spin, and she tried to grab the wall but nothing was there and she stumbled, landing hard on her knees, her breathing laboured. The haze lifted, her head stopped spinning, and she could focus again. There was a whooshing sound like a patio door being closed, but there was nothing and no one around. She got up, feeling better, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something had changed, that her footing was less than sure.
When she got home, Jasper wasn’t there. Still, he knew his way back, so she wasn’t too alarmed. She’d tell her mum and Laurel to listen out for him.
She hadn’t locked the door. She rarely did in the morning, because she was only going to be out for a short time. Mind you, it was nearly nine o’clock. What with the bag business and Jasper running off, she was a good twenty minutes late. Still, it was safe in their village, and neighbours always kept their eyes open. She pushed down on the handle, opened the door, and walked into hall. Funny, she’d always thought the handle was round. What an odd thing to forget. She closed the door gently in case her mum had nodded off again. Her shoes were covered in sand, so she took them off and looked around for her indoor shoes. Where were they? More to the point, where was the bloody carpet? Things shifted and slid before her eyes like a video camera moving too quickly. She gripped the edge of the table and shook her head. It was home, but it wasn’t. She was herself, but she was outside herself like looking through a window.
What the hell was that smell? She sniffed a few times. It smelt like burning toast. “Mum? Laurel?” There was no reply, but she heard laughter coming from the kitchen. She opened the kitchen door and walked in. There were two children, a boy and a girl, sitting at the kitchen table.
She dropped the shoulder bag on the table and stared at them. Who the hell were they? Perhaps they were Laurel’s kids? Yes, of course, they were still on school holiday.
The boy pouted. “Mummy, where’ve you been? You know I’ve got that footie match today. Where’s my kit?”
Alex looked behind her, expecting to see their mum…whoever she was. There was no one. She looked back at the boy staring at her. “Who are you? What are you doing here? Are you Laurel’s kids?”
The boy giggled. “Don’t be silly, Mummy. Stop messing around. We’re going to be late. I have to be there by nine forty-five for the warm-up.”
Alex looked around the kitchen. She must have walked into the wrong house. The layout was the same. It was an open plan kitchen with a dining and living area, but the table was light oak, not dark oak. And then there were all those magnets and pictures stuck on the fridge door…and of course, the two children. She looked around and took more in this time. Everything was different. She rubbed her forehead, a feeling of foreboding making the bile rise in her throat. She turned around and walked through the hall to the front door and opened it. The driveway was the same, and there was a number eighteen stuck on the door. She hurried down the driveway and marched to the corner of the road. There it was. The street sign read Seascape Crescent. She walked back to number eighteen. It was still the same inside. Her legs began to wobble, and she felt dizzy. A smell of roses and apples invaded her nostrils and made her feel sick. Somebody was playing a trick on her, though she couldn’t fathom why or how. This was her house, on her street. But it wasn’t. She slowly walked back to the kitchen. The children were still there.
The boy stared at her. “What’s the matter, Mummy?”
“Stop calling me that. I am not your mother. Tell me your names and where you live, and I’ll take you back to your real mum.” They stared at her with their mouths open and didn’t say a word. Now she was getting worried. They didn’t look like delinquents, but who knew these days? Christ, they were only about six or seven. Unless this was all a ploy. Perhaps their father was upstairs rifling through their cupboards looking for valuables. It didn’t make sense and in the back of her mind, she knew her logic was faulty. Nothing about the house was right, especially the little humans calling her mum.
Mum! Oh, God. She’d be terrified. She high-tailed it out of the kitchen and ran up the stairs taking two at a time. Where the hell was the stairlift? Right now, it didn’t matter. “Mum! Are you all right?” She pus
hed the door to her mum’s room open, and there was nothing. Well, there was something, but there was no Mum. The room was decorated nicely, bright, and cheerful. However, instead of her mum’s mobility bed, there was just a plain, ordinary queen size bed. Her wheelchair wasn’t there either.
Her mouth was dry, and her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. Her hands trembled as she ran them through her hair. She felt like she was losing her mind. She left the room and walked around. The configuration was the same. Four more bedrooms. The one opposite her mum’s room was hers. Tentatively, she turned the handle and opened the door. The resemblance was there, but there was different bedding and lots of cushions and pillows on the bed. She opened her wardrobe. It was packed full of clothes…but they weren’t hers. Shit. She was dreaming, that’s what it was. Total explanation. She pinched herself. It hurt like hell. So, it’s not a dream…it’s a nightmare.
She checked the other three rooms. One was an office. Yes, she had one, but this one was a mess and hers was meticulous. Then there was another that looked like a guest room but wasn’t made up. The other room had a single bed on the left. It was shaped like a racing car and all the bedding matched. The one on the right was pink. It was like a little cabin and had shelves and storage space. There were dolls and teddies everywhere. She thought about that stupid television program, Through the Keyhole, and how they always asked, “Who lives in a house like this?” Well, it isn’t bloody me.
Something was radically wrong, but when she tried to think it through, when she tried to put it together, the pieces slipped away like fish in a stream. She had her memories, but felt others trying to invade and take their place. And those two children…they knew her. They recognised her as their mother.
She ran downstairs and back into the kitchen. She glared at the two children. “Where’s my mother?” She wanted to go over and shake the boy, but he was only a child.
The boy wrapped his arms around himself and rubbed his arms. “Barry and Lulu are in Spain.”
Spain? Barry and Lulu? Who the hell were they? She only had a mother. Her father had died eight years ago. Alex closed her eyes tightly, knowing that when she opened them, things would be right again. She opened one eye and looked around. No, they were still there. Whose children were they? They certainly weren’t hers…although, there was a memory, a sense…no, the thought swam away again. Why the hell did they keep calling her Mummy? Alex couldn’t move and her vision kept playing tricks on her. A vase superimposed itself over a picture before the picture faded away. The floor itself shifted from carpet to flooring and seemed to undulate. She held onto the counter, panic making it hard to breathe.
The little girl jumped up, and her chair went crashing to the floor. She ran over and threw her arms around Alex and clung to her waist. “Mummy, Mummy, what’s the matter?”
She was a cute little girl. Alex gently smiled down at her, removed her hands, and stepped back.
The little girl began to cry. She ran over to the boy and held him tightly. “What’s wrong with Mummy, Callum?”
Callum stroked the little girl’s hair. His lips started to quiver.
Oh, shit. The waterworks were about to double. Instead, he took a deep breath and pulled his shoulders back like a little man.
“It’s okay, Mattie. I’ll call Mum.” He picked up the landline phone and pressed a number.
Mum? Only a few seconds ago, she was their mum. What the hell was going on? Nothing was right, everything was topsy turvy. It was her house, but not her house. These kids called her Mummy, but she had no idea who they were. But that niggle in the back of her mind, that feeling she was missing something, kept at her. Her head was buzzing. Right now, she needed a strong coffee. When she walked toward them, Callum protectively pulled Mattie away from the table and led her over to the little alcove where she sat on the window seat.
He talked into the phone, his little hand covering the mouthpiece. “Mum. Come home quickly. Mummy isn’t well. We’re scared.”
Unfortunately, the loudspeaker wasn’t on the phone so she couldn’t hear the reply. Callum kept the phone in his hand and his eyes on her. He put his arm around Mattie and rubbed her shoulder. It was quite touching. If she’d had children, she wouldn’t mind two like Callum and Mattie.
As for this Mum and Mummy…what the hell was going on? A host of shivers trampled down her spine and she continued to shake. Coffee, and fast. She opened a cupboard and took down a mug. It was unfamiliar like everything else. Not her taste, but she’d got a lot more to worry about than that…even the kitchen surfaces weren’t black marble. They were a wishy-washy grey colour. She poured herself a coffee from the unfamiliar coffee pot and sat at the kitchen table. She shook her head and sighed. What. Is. Happening?
About ten minutes later, the door crashed open. Alex heard someone running down the hall and then the kitchen door was pushed hard, and it banged against the wall. In came the person she assumed was Mum. Like the woman on the beach, she looked familiar, and yet she couldn’t place her. But she had a face like thunder.
She glared at Alex as the little kids ran into her arms. She grabbed them both and held them tightly. “It’s okay. I’m here.” She looked across at Alex again. “What’s happened?”
Alex folded her arms across her chest. “I was rather hoping you could tell me.”
Callum briefly told her his side of the story, and how she’d run upstairs and gone “bananas.”
“Gemma. What the hell is wrong with you? Why did you ask where your mother was?” the woman asked.
“Listen, lady. This is serious. My mother has MS. I need to find her. What’s going on here? I leave to walk my dog and when I come back, you’ve changed my whole house. I don’t even get how that could happen.” Alex remembered Laurel was due. She’d call her. Maybe she could help. Surely someone would understand what the hell was going on. “Where’s my phone? I left it on the table.”
Callum pointed to the shoulder bag that the woman passed her on the beach.
“It’ll be in there. You took it with you in case we needed to call you.”
“That is not my bag. I already told the lady on the beach that.” God, she wished she could remember Laurel’s number. But she couldn’t even remember her mum’s number.
Their real mum grimaced. “Gemma, for God’s sake, stop this.”
“Gemma? That is not my name. It’s Alex Gambol, and I think it’s about time you told me what the fuck you’re doing in my house.” That same sense of foreboding, of surreal panic, pushed through her. This wasn’t her house or her life. Something was very seriously wrong, but as hard as she tried, she couldn’t explain it.
“Don’t use that language in front of the children. As for this being your house, perhaps in your dreams, but both our names are on the deeds.”
Alex held up her hands. “No. This has gone far enough. I’m calling the police.”
The woman looked concerned now. “Have you had some sort of accident? Can you remember falling…banging your head?”
“No falls. No head banging either, though I feel like I’m banging it against a brick wall. Tell me? Who are you? And why do you think you recognize me? And why does my house look so different?” There had to be answers that made sense. There simply had to be.
Mattie began to cry again and wrapped her arms around her mother’s legs. She bent down, took out a tissue, and wiped the little girl’s eyes. “It’s okay, darling. Everything’s going to be fine.” She turned to Callum and ruffled his hair. “Take Mattie upstairs and look after her while I sort this out.”
Callum looked like he was going to start bawling too. He took Mattie’s arm and led her out of the kitchen, then popped his head back around the door. “Call me if you need me, Mum.”
She smiled at him and nodded, then she walked over to the coffee pot which was standing on the countertop behind Alex. She took out a mug and poured herself a coffee.
Alex followed her every move, which was somehow familiar and not. “Feel free
. Help yourself.” It was odd though. She appeared to know where everything was kept. Again, she eyed the mugs. It was only a little thing out of the many bigger things, but they weren’t hers. She glanced at the knick-knacks all over the place, and potted plants, and recalled how the bedrooms were different. It was if someone had come in whilst she’d been gone and done a make-over, though she preferred her old version. She shivered again and felt the hair lifting on the nape of her neck and arms. She’d like to cry, just like the children. There was no question this was her address, but she knew she’d walked into the wrong home, the wrong life.
The woman sat down beside Alex. “Do you know my name?”
“No. Why should I?”
She stared into Alex’s eyes for a long time, and whatever she saw there seemed to worry her out of her anger. “My name is Reece Tennant, and you should know my name, because we’ve been married for eight years.”
Alex laughed loudly, though without much humour. “Me? Married? You have to be joking? I’m not the marrying kind.” She sure as hell wasn’t about to discuss her love life with a total stranger. “What do you keep calling me?”
“Your name is Gemma Tennant. You took my name.”
Alex laughed again. “This is a load of bollocks.” She stood. “Ah ha! Just remembered my neighbour, Cheryl. Come with me. Let’s see what she has to say.”
Reece frowned and shrugged. “Let’s do that.”
Alex and Reece left the house. The gardens were open plan, so they walked to the house next door. This would prove what a farce it all was. There had to be an explanation, one that would keep the suffocating panic at bay. She rang the doorbell. A few seconds later, someone came to the door.
A woman opened the door. “Hey. What a pleasant surprise. You two are a bit early for G&Ts. Do you want a coffee instead?”
Alex rubbed her sweaty palm on the side of her leg. Again, something was wrong. “Is Cheryl in?”
The woman shrugged. “Who’s Cheryl?”
“Sorry, Bren. Gemma thought she saw her friend walking up your drive.”
