Resonance (2 page)

He unlatched the gate and stepped through, keeping his feet cleanly positioned in the center of the patio paving stones—one, two and turn, breathe and reach, switch hands and swing—once, twice, three times, release and click. He smiled, he couldn't help it. The beauty of ritual and the unexpected joy of seeing an old friend. The gate could have performed the ritual by itself, all those thousands of times it had swung back and forth to his touch. Every caress, every motion, ingrained into its fabric.

He took a deep breath and felt for his key as he walked the few yards to his front door. Would the key fit? He counted to four then slowly slipped the key into the lock.

The key turned, smooth and unchecked. He counted to two, relaxed his grip and let the pressure of the lock slowly force the key back to its original position. Another count, another turn, left, right and push.

The door swung open.

Inside, it was like stepping back six years. The carpets, the stairs, the furniture—all exactly as he remembered. Only his face in the hall mirror had aged, everything else looked straight out of a time capsule.

He walked from room to room, picking up familiar objects, opening cupboard doors, fingering ornaments. He recognized them all.

Even the ones that shouldn't be there. Like the sofa he'd sold when he moved to Pierrepoint Street. And the electric kettle he'd bought only six months ago.

He walked upstairs, slowly taking in his surroundings. Everything familiar, everything clean and orderly. He crossed the landing into his bedroom at the back. Again, everything was present and in its place. His small pine bed, his blue quilt, his dressing table, lamp and clock.

And his notice board. Covered as usual in yellow Post-it notes. Everything he needed to know would be recorded there. The name of his doctor, his dentist, any appointments he had or addresses he needed to know. Everything he'd need for times like this, when the world slipped a thread and became detached from his memory.

He read them one by one. All were written in his handwriting and yet he had no recollection of writing any of them—even the one dated yesterday.

He crossed the room to his bookshelf and ran a hand along the spines, checking the titles. A few he didn't recognize, a few that should have been there weren't. A story repeated with his clothes. The new jacket he'd bought last week was missing and there was a pair of black jeans he'd never seen before.

Another thought hit him. How far had this thread unravelled?

He stepped uneasily onto the landing. His parents' bedroom door was closed. But then it always had been. At least, since the last time, the time his mother had disappeared.

He stopped in front of the door, unsure, his hand hovering over the door handle. Should he knock? Call out?

He knocked tentatively, the word "mum" lodged in his throat.

No answer.

He closed his fingers around the knob, twisting and ever so slowly easing the door open. The door creaked. He peered in. Not sure what to expect. Would he see his mother, his father, an empty room?

He could barely breathe. His hand began to shake. He pushed the door wider. Their double bed came into view; the pink bedspread, the fluffed pillows, the two bedside tables.

His hopes fell. Both tables were empty; no book, no glass of water, no open box of tissues. No sign of occupation.

He forced himself further into the room and checked behind the door. His mother's dressing gown was still there. He opened the wardrobe. It was full: dresses and suits, skirts and jackets. All their clothes were there, wrapped in the smell of mothballs. He wondered if he should call out. Was there a chance they'd hear? Was there a chance they were still alive? Somewhere?

Silence.

He didn't call and no one answered. The story of Graham Smith's life.

The next day he set off for work at his usual time, walking to the tube station at Harrow-on-the-Hill, waiting on the platform for the Baker Street train. The train came and he jumped on, quickly moving inside to take one of the few remaining seats. He liked to sit and gaze out the window on the opposite side. To wile away his journey by looking out for landmarks. He'd tick them off as they flew by: that school, the big fir tree, the funny-shaped tower. They gave meaning to his journey. He wasn't just travelling from A to B; he was helping preserve the fabric of the world.

A fabric in need of constant reinforcement. The more something's observed the stronger it becomes. Its edges become sharper, its colors brighter. But ignore something long enough and it always goes away. That's the nature of the world. One day you ride by and it's gone.

The train pulled into and out of stations; people got up, sat down, walked by, hung from straps, the train filling with every stop. A large man carrying a suitcase shuffled in front of Graham and grabbed a strap. Graham shifted in his seat, looking for another unobstructed view of the window. A girl stared back at him. He looked away, gazing hurriedly at someone's back while watching the girl out of the corner of his eye. She was still looking at him, her eyes fixed. Had he left some remnant of breakfast on his face?

He moved his tongue in a wide sweep around his mouth, checking for crumbs. The girl did the same and smiled.

Graham reddened and slid along his seat as far to the right as he could, away from her line of sight.

The train entered a tunnel; there was a sudden whoosh of noise and a momentary blackness followed by the stutter of the carriage lights.

Graham leaned even further to the right, trying to catch his reflection in the blackness of the window opposite. Was there something strange about him today? Had he cut himself shaving? He strained his eyes, peering at the badly focused image. He ran a hand through his hair, over his face. He found nothing. No breakfast, no blood, no enormous spot.

He looked down at his clothes. Had he misbuttoned his shirt? Was there a stain?

There was nothing, nothing that he could see.

He checked the other passengers, was anyone else looking at him? He slowly scanned the carriage, watching people's faces in his peripheral vision, never looking at anyone directly, never giving anyone a chance to take offense.

No one appeared to be watching him.

Except the man by the doorway! He
was
looking. Wasn't he?

The man looked away.

The train lurched and swung, tunnels came and went in quick succession.

Graham was confused. He was anonymous. People didn't look at him. Ever. Even if the man by the door was a coincidence there was still the girl. She'd smiled at him. No one ever smiles on the tube.

He glanced back towards the girl, with her face hidden behind the ample body of the man with the suitcase he could watch her in safety. She was wearing jeans, her legs crossed, her right foot bouncing up and down with the motion of the train, her shoe loose and flapping, her . . .

No, it couldn't be!

She had a tattoo, just above the right ankle, just below the hem of her jeans. A tattoo of a blue bird.

Graham's mind raced. Was it the same girl? Her hair wasn't red, was it? It was more orange from the brief glimpse he'd had. But that didn't mean anything these days. It might have been dyed. Or a wig.

And if it
was
the same girl . . .

He was intrigued. And panicked at the same time. Intrigued by the possibility that here was someone who saw the world as he did. Who appreciated the danger of stepping on cracks. And panicked by the fear that she didn't; that it was all an act, a joke primed to explode in his face. He'd been the butt of too many jokes to trust the first stranger that smiled at him on a train.

And even if it wasn't a joke what could he do about it? He wasn't like other people. Any attempt at casual conversation would end in disaster. He'd learned that lesson a long time ago. The rest of the world was on a different wavelength to him, anything he said would either be laughed at or cause offense.

The train began to brake hard. Graham looked up, was it Baker Street already? The train continued its long deceleration, commuters grabbed hold of straps and hand rails, newspapers were folded, bags picked up.

The train stopped. Graham stayed in his seat, watching for the girl as an endless stream of people filed between them. He caught glimpses of her between the bodies. She smiled, he looked at his shoes. She was attractive in a street urchin sort of way, her features angular, her hair bright orange and unbrushed. What was she; twenty, twenty-two? A few more people filed past. He looked for her again. She'd gone.

He was still thinking of the girl on the tube as he performed his morning unlocking ritual on the Post Room door. He'd looked for her on the platform, he'd looked for her on the Bakerloo train, he'd half-expected to see her walking ahead of him on Westminster Street. But he hadn't.

He pushed open the door and switched on the lights. The Post Room flickered into life. He walked over to the terminal in the near corner and switched it on, waited for the screen to come to life so he could log in and print off the staff list.

"Morning, Graham." A young Indian girl came through the door. Graham smiled and nodded in her direction. Sharmila smiled back and hung up her coat.

"Oh, I nearly forgot. Mr. Anton was in the lobby. He wants you to call round at three this afternoon. Something about a large batch of documents that need to go out on the afternoon van."

Graham picked up a Post-it pad on the desk and searched for a pen. Which room was Mr. Anton in these days? Three hundred thirty-six? He browsed the staff list on the screen to make sure. There it was, U.S. desk, room 336. He carefully wrote out the details and stuck the note to the side of his in-tray. A dozen other Post-its ringed his in-tray like an early Christmas decoration. Another twenty adorned the notice board above. They were his memory made tangible. Whatever happened to the world outside, however dislocated his memory became, he knew that here was one place he could trust. One place that kept pace with an everchanging world.

He didn't know how other people coped. He used to ask—his parents, other kids—but they'd look at him as though he was stupid or swiftly change the subject.

His father had taken him aside one night just before his eighth birthday. "Sit down, Graham," he'd said. "We need to talk." Graham had sat down, shuffling along his bed to sit back against the headboard.

"Children can be cruel," his father had said, smiling and making room for himself on the edge of the bed. "They pick on kids who are different. They'll pick on you if you keep asking these questions. See?"

Graham had nodded, bouncing his head up and down in exaggerated agreement, his arms clenched tightly around his bear.

"Good," his father had said, looking relieved. "We'll never talk about this again. Right?"

"Right, Dad."

And he hadn't, though it hadn't stopped him thinking about it. It was obvious people didn't want to talk about unravelling. He understood that now. It made them uneasy. So they pretended it never happened. And hoped to God they were somewhere else, safe and untouched, whenever the next thread worked loose.

Graham pushed the mail trolley along the short corridor back into the Post Room.

"Well, if it isn't Mr. Post-it."

Graham's heart sank. Surely it had gone eleven. He always timed his rounds to be out of the Post Room whenever Ray was driving the midmorning van. He glanced at the clock on the far wall, just the slightest of glances, enough to confirm the time—eleven-fifteen—and then quickly turned the glance into a deferential nod towards Ray.

And added a smile, his shield against the world.

"Shut up, Ray, you know he doesn't like it."

That was Sharmila, undoubtedly the reason Ray was still hanging around the Post Room. She sat at her desk, probably trying to work, while Ray hovered behind her, looking down her dress.

"Of course he does," said Ray. "Look at him, he's smiling."

Graham turned away, retracting his smile and pushing the trolley over to the sorting stacks. If only he could push Ray away so easily.

"I'm surprised he hasn't stuck one of those notes on you, Shar."

Ray laughed. Sharmila hissed something inaudible. Graham started sorting the mail from the trolley. He picked up the first envelope and looked for the name: G. Stevens, 5
^th
floor. He didn't recognize the name, not that that in itself was unusual. People had a habit of coming and going.

He checked the list for G. Stevens, and found her in room 510. She must have taken Jerzy's old job. He checked the list again. What had happened to Jerzy? He wasn't anywhere on the list and he hadn't heard anyone talking about Jerzy leaving. There'd been no collection or leaving card. At least not that he remembered.

But then that's what often happened. Sometimes people just disappeared. Their name would be removed from the staff list and all record of them having worked in the building would be erased. They'd never existed, never worked for the department and no one would ever talk about them again. The office taboo; you don't talk about the unravelled.

Even when they came back.

Which Graham couldn't understand at all. How could you not talk to an old friend who'd disappeared for six months? But it happened so many times. They disappear, they come back and everyone treats them as strangers. Even close friends, people they'd gone drinking with every lunchtime, would pass them by in the corridor without a second look.

It was like they'd broken some unwritten rule. They'd come back. They'd made people face up to something they preferred not to. So they had to be punished, made to start over as though it was their first day and everyone was a stranger.

Laughter broke out behind him. Ray again. He had an unpleasant laugh, more sneer than humor.

"Shush!" hissed Sharmila. "He'll hear."

Graham tried to block Ray out of his mind as he filed the first envelope in 510's pigeonhole. Not that he understood why Ray was still employed by the department. He'd been arrested last year for abducting little girls. Even used the department's van. Or so Graham had heard. You hear a lot when you keep your mouth closed and your ears open.