Resonance Page 10

  Five minutes later, the parcel delivered, he pressed the lift button and stood back to wait for it to arrive. He rocked gently back and forth on his toes and heels and counted the first row of ceiling tiles. They were all there. A good even number to finish on.

  The lift arrived. He got in, pressed "ground" and walked to the back. He liked to stand at the back—dead center, heels against the wall. He stretched his arms out against the back wall, judged the distance between the corners and the tips of his fingers and shuffled a few inches to his right. Perfect. Lifts appreciated equilibrium—all machines did. He watched the lights descend, five, four . . .

  The lift stuttered as it braked for the third floor. A muffled bell tolled in the lobby and then the doors slid back.

  Three people were waiting.

  All of them from ParaDim.

  The tall, gaunt one spoke.

  "Such a small world, isn't it, Mr. Smith?"

  Eighteen

  The ParaDim deputation stepped inside. Graham watched as they filed in, one to his right, one to his left and one by the doors—the man with the eyes. Graham looked beyond him into the lobby. Wasn't anyone else getting in? All he needed was one more person, a witness.

  The lobby was empty except for one girl at the coffee machine, her back to the lift. The doors began to close. Graham could feel the shoulders of the two Americans touch his own. Why were they standing so close? He felt paralyzed, hemmed in, trapped.

  Ignore them and they'll go away. More advice from his mother. Applicable to bullies, wasps and men from ParaDim.

  The lift began to descend. The tall, gaunt man was staring again, an amused expression on his face. Graham swallowed hard, fixed his eyes to the control panel, watched the floor numbers light and dim, willing them to move faster, watching for any movement out of the corner of his eye, his hand ready to spring for the emergency button the moment anyone moved.

  Should he press a floor button and get out? Or would that force their hand? The moment his finger hit the button, a hand would fly round his neck and a needle would find its way into his body. They'd carry him out of the lift, security wouldn't stop them. The man's had a seizure, they'd say. No need for an ambulance. Our car's outside, we'll take him to the hospital. We're doctors.

  The lift began to brake. The light flashed on "one." Graham waited for it to flip over to "ground." It didn't. He heard the muffled sound of the lift bell on the first floor lobby. He had a chance. The lift doors slowly opened. He could see one, two, three people standing back from the doors waiting for people to get out. He delayed until the last second and then surged forward, squeezing sideways past the tall, gaunt man and stumbling into the lobby. A nervous smile, a nod of apology to the girl he'd nearly collided with and he was away, half walking, half running down the rear corridor.

  He looked over his shoulder several times. No one appeared to be following. He heard two girls giggling and the lift door close. And then nothing.

  * * *

  He stayed on the first floor for ten minutes—mostly in the far lobby, looking out the window onto Westminster Street, straining to catch sight of the three men from ParaDim.

  He didn't see them.

  They could have kept to the near side of the pavement, they could have walked off in the other direction.

  Or they might not have left the building.

  He tried the windows above the main exit, plucking up courage to return to the scene of his escape from the lift. There were a few people at the coffee machine, which made him feel safer. He stretched up on tiptoe and peered down at the pavement. Plenty of people walking by but not one of them from the ParaDim delegation.

  They must have gone by now. Important people wouldn't hang around, would they?

  He tried the stairs, descending slowly, pressing himself against the wall, peering around corners. The door to the ground floor lobby had a glazed panel, he looked through, twisting his face to the left and right.

  He couldn't see them anywhere. He opened the door a crack and looked along the wall to the lifts. Nothing. Four people waiting for the lift, all of them people he recognized.

  * * *

  He left work, convinced they were waiting for him somewhere. Maybe in that big black car from Annalise's dream.

  He kept away from the curb, hugging the near side of the pavement, up against the shops and offices—stop-starting all the way down Westminster Street as streams of people flowed in and out of doorways. No one was going to bundle him into any slow-moving car.

  He buried himself in the crowds at the tube station, kept away from the platform edge, kept away from any nook or passageway where someone could hide or sneak up on him. He pushed inside the carriages as far as he could, far from the doors where someone could force him off the train against his will. The stations flew by, light and dark, the ebb and flow of people, the noise, the rock and roll of the carriage.

  And gradually, ever so gradually, his fear began to fade. Maybe, just maybe, he was safe. ParaDim had come for him, he'd said "no" and they'd gone away. Twice, if you counted the lift. Twice they'd had him and twice they'd let him go. Did that sound like people who wished him harm?

  Maybe these were the good guys at ParaDim? Maybe the medical tests were for real? Something to do with Kevin Alexander and his friends? He'd ask Annalise tomorrow when they met in the park. Even if Kevin wasn't behind the tests, he'd be able to find out who was.

  He felt relieved as he walked home from the station. An enormous weight had been plucked from his shoulders. Maybe the tests would convince everyone that he wasn't the key?

  He closed the front door behind him, dropped his keys onto the hall table and rushed upstairs to his room. He'd jot down a note to himself— have AM ask KA about medical—and pin it to his message board while the idea was still fresh in his mind.

  He stopped by his bedroom door.

  His room was different. Very different. His bed was covered in a green bedspread. There was no quilt. The pillows were white. As was his wardrobe—white, laminated and modern. Not the solid oak antique he'd grown up with.

  He opened the wardrobe door and looked inside. He'd never seen so many ties. He touched them, let them cascade over his fingers. So many, so colorful. And the clothes—he hardly recognized any of them.

  He moved quickly around the room, dipping into drawers, running a finger along the spines of his books—at least most of those he recognized.

  He crossed onto the landing. Nothing there had changed. The same carpet, the same wallpaper, the same color paint on the doors and skirting boards.

  Was it just his bedroom that had changed?

  He lingered outside his parents' room. A few deep breaths to steel himself, a pause and then he knocked—ever so gently. Tap. His hand moved towards the handle, closed around it and turned. Click. He pushed the door open a crack.

  There was a book on his mother's bedside table.

  He swallowed and stepped inside the room—slowly—his eyes drawn to the book. He walked over, reached out and picked it up.

  "You're home early, Graham."

  He dropped the book and turned towards the window. His mother was seated at the dresser, combing her hair. She was back! Alive! After all these years!

  He ran towards her, tears welling in his eyes. His mother was alive!

  And then he caught sight of the face in the dresser mirror.

  And stopped dead.

  It wasn't his mother.

  Nineteen

  "You look like you've seen a ghost," she said, looking at him quizzically in the mirror while she patted at her hair. "You're not starting all that nonsense again, are you? I've already told you it's not funny."

  Graham stood rooted at the woman's shoulder, unable to take his eyes from her reflection. She didn't look anything like his mother. His mother's nose had been longer, her eyes bluer, her face fuller. Even seven years couldn't have sculpted those changes. The woman was an impostor. Sitting at his mother's dresser, using his mother's things.
It wasn't right. It wasn't. . . .

  His eyes fell on the picture. The one on the dresser. The wedding photograph. His father's face smiling up at him. His father's face pressed up against a younger version of the woman at the dresser. Not his mother. Though it should have been. It was practically the same wedding picture he'd grown up with. The same church, the same smiling, youthful dad.

  Something was wrong, very wrong. His mother couldn't have unravelled away completely. Without his mother, he couldn't exist. He wouldn't have been born. He shook his head and stepped back from the dresser. No, this could not be happening. It had to be a trick or . . .

  Or what? Virtual reality? Was this part of the brainwashing technique? Mess with his mind until he had nothing left to trust or cling to?

  He couldn't believe that either. The world was real, solid and unforgiving. Imperfect—yes. Unstable—definitely. But it obeyed rules. And one of those rules was that when people unravelled completely they took everything with them—including their children.

  It had to be a trick. And if it was a trick, how thorough had they been? They'd doctored the wedding photograph but what about the others?

  He raced downstairs to the lounge. The sideboard had three photograph albums in the bottom drawer—family snaps from every holiday they'd ever had, every outing, every family occasion captured forever on film. He took them out and flipped through the pages. Not one picture of his mother. She was there instead—the impostor, the woman upstairs—smiling and posing and wrapping her arms around Graham and his father.

  It wasn't right! It wasn't right at all!

  How could anyone think that this woman was his mother? He didn't look anything like her. There wasn't the slightest hint of a family resemblance. Not around the eyes, the nose or the shape of the head.

  He looked again at the picture of his father—a portrait from about twenty years ago. He traced the outline of his face, the curve of his jaw, the nose, the slightly hooded look to his eyes.

  And realized.

  He didn't look anything like his father either.

  He prized his father's portrait out of the album and looked for a mirror. There was one on the chimney breast, above the mantelpiece. He walked over, picture in hand. What would he see? Would his face have unravelled along with his mother? Would he find a stranger staring back at him, a stranger with this other woman's features?

  He stared deep into the mirror. A familiar face stared back. He hadn't changed one bit. He placed his father's picture against the mirror and compared the two—photo and reflection—scanning every line and feature. There was no family resemblance. None at all.

  He summoned back a picture of his mother. The one from the shelf where the TV used to be. He knew it by heart, he'd picked it up so many times since her disappearance. And he tried to see it in the face in the mirror. Just one feature would do—eyes, nose, mouth, chin, forehead. Something!

  He saw nothing. No similarity, no resemblance.

  How was that possible?

  Had he been adopted? Was that the significance of 16/10/66?

  Who could he ask? Not the woman upstairs. And there were no close relatives. All the old neighbors had moved away. And as for family friends—the few that might remember that far back—he'd lost touch with them many years ago.

  There was no one.

  Except for her. The stranger in the bedroom.

  And he could hear her coming down the stairs. He turned towards the door and waited for it to open. It didn't. He heard the click-clack of her shoes on the kitchen floor. The opening and closing of cupboards.

  And then her voice.

  "Graham, where did you put the shopping I asked you to get? I can't see it anywhere."

  He replaced the picture of his father, slammed the albums shut and stuffed them back into the sideboard.

  "Graham? Where are you?"

  The lounge door opened. The woman came in.

  "There you are. Did you get the shopping like I asked you?"

  Graham shrugged, not sure what to do. Should he confront the woman or play dumb?

  The woman shook her head. "I despair of you sometimes, Graham. I really do. Did you get the shopping or not?"

  Graham shook his head. The woman rolled her eyes.

  "Have you still got the list?"

  He checked his pockets. He found a shopping list in the same pocket as his note.

  But no black and gold business card.

  He searched his pockets again.

  "It's there in your hands," the woman said impatiently, pointing at the small strip of light blue note paper. "I can see it from here."

  Graham stopped looking for the business card and held out the shopping list.

  "I don't want it," she snapped. "You know perfectly well you do the shopping on Tuesdays. It's all the heavy stuff." She looked at her watch. "There's still time if you leave now. They're open to half past."

  Graham nodded, folded the list into his pocket and hurriedly left. He was glad to get out of the house.

  * * *

  Graham shook his head as he walked along Wealdstone Lane. What was happening to this world? Every day there was something new, some new twist that, if ignored, changed tack and came back twice as scary the next day.

  There must have been a major unravelling. It was the only thing that made sense. Something enormous. Something that reverberated through the outer layers of the planet, fracturing reality and generating host after host of aftershocks.

  He'd just have to ride them out.

  After all, he'd done it before. He'd been through far worse as a kid. Twice he'd woken up to find his father had died in the night. Twice he'd watched his mother grieve, unable to comfort her. "He'll come back," he'd told her the second time, rubbing her back, trying to console her. "He came back last time, didn't he?"

  Not a pleasant memory; his mother's head spinning round, the look in her eyes, the anger so intense she couldn't speak.

  But he'd been right. His father had come back. Appearing out of the blue one morning as though nothing had happened. Only to vanish again within the year.

  He'd lost his mother twice as well. The first to a heart attack, the second . . .

  He never knew what happened the second time. He woke up one morning and she just wasn't there. Her bed hadn't been slept in, no note. She'd just unravelled away, leaving a room full of clothes and a house full of memories.

  But he'd endured. Survived. Moved on.

  This too would pass.

  He turned the corner, lined up his right foot with the back edge of that big cherry tree, and started to count.

  * * *

  Graham looked at the shopping list as he manoeuvred the shopping trolley towards the supermarket door. He liked everything arranged in supermarket aisle order so that he could walk along the aisles and go down his list one by one. But this list wasn't in any order. Unless they'd changed the shelf layout again.

  They hadn't.

  He wheeled the shopping trolley down the first aisle. Music blared out from an unseen speaker, a few last-minute shoppers darted purposefully back and forth between the shelves. He took another look at the list. What was the woman buying? All those processed foods, products he'd never touch. He liked his food fresh and home-made. He liked a strict order to his meals. Roasts on Sunday, pie on Monday, fish on Friday.

  The week had an order to it. His stomach expected it.

  God knows what he was going to have to eat tonight.

  He rearranged the list in his head and started loading the trolley—tins of soup, baked beans, ravioli. Up and down the aisles, more tins, more ready meals.

  He stopped by the frozen food display and leaned over to rummage through the packs of frozen fish. He liked to take the ones from the middle, they felt more . . .

  A hand reached in and touched his. A woman's.

  "Graham Smith?" she whispered.

  Graham glanced to his side. He knew who it would be but had to check just the same. His eyes widened in surp
rise. It was Annalise but . . .

  "I know," she said. "I have a slight weight problem. But the way I see it, if I'm VR girl then all diets are off."

  She grinned and waited. Graham blinked and quickly looked around to see if anyone was watching.

  "You're supposed to laugh," she said. "That was my ice-breaking joke. I spent hours on the plane thinking that one up."

  "Sorry. It's just . . ."

  "You do know who I am, don't you?" she said anxiously. "I'm Annalise Mercado. The other Annas were sure you'd know."

  Graham nodded and straightened up. He could hardly take his eyes off her. She was so familiar and yet so different. It was like seeing a close friend who had gained fifty pounds in a day. The friend was still there but all her features had softened.

  "You forgot your fish," said Annalise, handing it over to him and looking at him quizzically.

  He checked the aisle again—still empty. But for how much longer?

  "I need you to get in touch with Kevin Alexander," he said. "It's urgent. Three men from ParaDim came to see me this afternoon. They want me to go for two days of medical tests. I need to know if it's safe."

  "Three men from ParaDim, two days of medical tests," she repeated. "Is it okay to ask Gary Mitchison? He's my contact in this world."

  Graham wasn't sure. A trolley appeared at the far end of the aisle, a woman ambling by the meat counter. Graham backed away from Annalise and pretended to be interested in hamburgers. The woman continued on her way.

  "You really think people would follow you in here?"

  Graham shrugged. "I didn't think people from ParaDim would show up at work. And—" he looked over his shoulder, one more check up and down the shelves "—I didn't expect to come home and find someone pretending to be my mother."

  "Someone's pretending to be your mother!" Annalise said in a voice much louder than Graham would have wished.

  "Ask Gary Mitchison about that as well."

  He looked at his watch, five minutes to go before the shop closed. He'd have to hurry.

  "Sorry," he said, "I've got to go. The shop closes in five minutes."