Uncle Peter's strange encounter

“If there’s one thing we can be sure about in physics it is that all times exist with equal reality.”

Fred Hoyle

 Note to my nieces

Dear Zoe and Naomi. I wrote what follows in the weeks after the events described. I did so at the behest of your mum, my sister Linda, primarily for her benefit and mine. She feared at the time for my sanity – and possibly for her own – and felt that setting down this record of our strange experiences while the details were still fresh in our minds might help us to make some sense of them, and neither to deny them nor distort or downplay them in the future.

I did so with some reluctance (but she is usually right, of course!) not least because I can offer no explanation of what happened and as the weeks pass the memory of them feels more weird than ever. One only has to dip into the realms of physics, philosophy, theology and psychology to come up with any number of contradictory theories, as indeed we have done, and probably will continue to do so. Your mum is fond of quoting Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy” and I guess on this, too, she is probably right.

So what follows is a personal memoir that’s not written in my normal detective novel or bed time story style. I could never send it to my publisher; he wouldn’t believe a word of it and would assume it’s another piece of fiction. Anyway, the lawyers would probably want me to change the names and places. I’ve asked your mum (who as usual has typed it into her computer for me) to keep it somewhere safe and to let you see it whenever you wish. It was she, by the way, who suggested the title and the epigraph with you in mind. I was just going to head it ambiguously “Time out of order”. Because that appears to have been the case.

Yet strangely, although this all happened over the past year, it had its beginning, I realised, when I was the same age as Zoe is now. For me, that’s 33 years ago. But please don’t go having nightmares as a result!

Uncle Peter

A dream on my tenth birthday

It is the nature of dreams that they are rarely remembered but never forgotten. A dream I had on my tenth birthday has always lingered just below the surface of my consciousness. I rarely gave it a thought from one year to the next yet without fail it has resurfaced in some, usually partial, form, every year. Always, and only, on my birthday. It was as if I was being reminded of something, but I never understood what. Now, thirty-three years later, the whole original dream is replaying in my head even as I write. Because it has also become a mystifying reality, but more of that presently.

 Blue. And red. Some people say you only dream in black and white, but that wasn’t true for me then. Nor is it now. Swirling vortices of blue water are pounding the edges of a blue swimming bath. There is a deafening roar in my submerged ears, as when thirty kids are splashing and shouting in unison. I thought it must have been triggered by a school swimming lesson, which I never greatly enjoyed, being a bit of a stripling compared with some other children. You know how the day’s events can replay in an odd, distorted way, in your dreams.

But the dream is far worse than the reality of a single swimming lesson. A fearful helplessness comes over me as I am tossed and smothered by the waves. Yet I am neither swimming nor drowning. I am observing, a water baby floating in a sub-aquatic world.

I am startled as a twitching adult body drifts by. I see it being pushed and held under the surface by large hands. It appears to be dead. I fear my soul has separated from my body and I am looking at my own remains. Or at a preview of my forthcoming demise. I gurgle out an anguished cry. But no; it’s not me. It’s a woman in a red swimsuit. Her pale arms reach towards me, as if pleading for help. Her ghastly face stares at me, her eyes wide open. Terrified, I kick frantically to get away. Her head turns to face me. Somehow she seems to recognise me, her lips move almost into a smile, but I don’t know her.

My kicking takes me to the surface. I emerge spluttering, making for the side and a figure I can see there. I hope it’s a teacher, a lifeguard, who will pull me out. Instead it’s a sculpted mermaid on a round plinth, gazing down at me in the water. It looks like the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen Harbour that we had learned about in a lesson earlier that day. I reach out to her but she looks away. I close my eyes and cling to the side. Slowly, the water calms. I look around. The pool is empty. The cadaverous woman has gone. I am alone, awake, panting, and bathed in sweat.

June last year, in Kent

I was one of the participants at a literary festival in East Kent. It was one of those bright ideas of cash-strapped local authorities to attract visitors to their region. It had some logic, of course. Chaucer and Dickens and a few lesser writers had associations with the area. There are regular art, music and historic festivals in the area but literature has been the Cinderella of the arts thereabouts until now.

The Festival had a couple of well-known guests to headline it, but most of us taking part were jobbing writers like myself, earning our living with day jobs as teachers, lecturers or journalists, successful enough to earn a modest bonus from our craft, but not famous household names. They work their speakers hard at these low-budget events, too. I was booked to give a lecture or appear on a panel on several days, as well as doing book signings in different towns – often the most exhausting activity of all.

My first contribution was a seminar on crafting fiction. Usually such events attract a good number of people, all clinging to that myth that everyone has a book in them. Maybe they do – everyone is a unique story – but finding anyone with the talent to actually write one is rare indeed. This event, in a draughty church hall in Broadstairs, drew only a dozen wannabees. So I turned it into more of a conversation than a lecture with questions, hoping that the participants would give me a good rating on the feedback forms they had been handed as they came in. These Festivals are as much about furthering artists’ careers as educating the public. (I can hear you calling me a cynic, Linda, but it’s true.)

As we were so few in number, I asked each person to tell me their name and say briefly what they hoped to get out of our ninety minutes together. One of the twelve announced she was Amanda Threadgold, and said she was interested in the way stories are structured. She sat quietly, a little apart from the others, and other than her softly-spoken introduction said nothing else. The other participants tended to pontificate in order, probably, to impress me. (They failed.)

There was something about her – I know that sounds corny – and my eyes kept flitting back to her even when others were speaking. I wondered at first if it was my eyes, as she seemed gently blurred, as if I was seeing her through a soft-focus lens. It was probably how the dim, uneven lighting in the rather run-down hall fell on her. I guessed she was about my age, mid-40s, average build, broadening at the hips. She had shoulder-length brown hair and unusually for such an event wore a dark dress – it could have been black but I don’t remember exactly. Most participants wore jeans, the standard uniform of aspiring writers. She smiled and thanked me as she left. I had a fleeting sense that I’d seen her before, but she was too old to have been one of my college students. Maybe we’d been to the same university? But I couldn’t place her. Then I focused on preparing for my next engagement and gave her no more thought.

The next day I was on an evening discussion panel in Margate. It was a larger venue and we panellists were on the stage. The audience was bigger too. The stage was well-lit, which is fine for the audience but hell for the panellists who have to stare into the darkened auditorium. As I peered into the gloom I saw Amanda, once again sitting to the side, and dressed similarly to the previous day. I could barely make out most other individual faces, but hers was clear, as if she had caught a stray beam of light. She was attentive, but never called for the microphone to ask a question or make a comment. As the audience filed out, she again flashed me a smile. It was brief, just a quick turn of her head, a sort of appreciative, friendly smile. But I still couldn’t place her.

It was book signing next, and that was over in Canterbury, chosen, I guess, because of the hordes of overseas tourists who crowd its ancient narrow streets and historic Cathedral. A brazen marketing ploy, of course. If a coach-load of American or Japanese tourists spy an author book-signing, they immediately translate that as “famous” and pour in to get an autographed copy even if they never read books. Or can barely read English. But that’s how livings are made.

As I said, these are the most exhausting part of the Festival round. Maintaining a rictus smile, being nice to people, trying to spell their names and dedications right (especially if they’re Japanese and their pronunciation of English letters isn’t clear), and repeatedly writing one’s authorial signature (not the same as the one on my credit card; you can never be too careful): it’s wearing. The signature degenerates quickly from scribbles to squiggles. The P of Peter turns into a shepherd’s crook, its final r runs into my mercifully short and common surname – Jones – with the j lower case and linked to the flourish that’s meant to be an s by a couple of shapeless strokes.

You barely notice who is in the queue. You look up, pull the smile, wait for the instructions, scrawl, close the book and hand it back. Next! It’s a soulless production line. But I need the royalties. Especially to pay for the parking in Canterbury.

“You must find this very taxing.” I looked up. It was Amanda, standing to the side of the queue, in a dark dress and silhouetted against the sunlight streaming in through the shop window.

“Amanda Threadgold,” I said. “And yes, it’s a bit tiring. But worthwhile.”

“You remembered me!”

I felt an urge to reply how could I forget you or Haven’t we met before but instead opted for caution. “You seemed to be rather more thoughtful than some of the others at the seminar,” I ventured. “Do you write?”

“A bit,” she said, then abruptly added, “Do you need a coffee or anything? To keep you going? I could bring you one over.” There was a coffee shop at the rear of the book store.

I glanced at the queue for signed volumes, which by now was short, and my advertised time was almost up. I was certainly wilting, but declined her offer. “I’ll finish up here, I think, thanks. But I’ll need one afterwards.” I held her eye, and made a sort of “take it or leave it” gesture as I added, “join me, if you like. But not here – away from the books.”

She flashed her smile. “That would be good, if you don’t mind. I’ll browse around the shelves. Don’t hurry.”

And that was how it began. I finished signing and exchanged pleasantries with the shop manager who was rather pleased with himself for having ordered enough of my books for the event but not so many that he had a lot left over. I joined Amanda who was reading quietly near the door, and we hot-footed it into the street.

“There’s a quiet café up the road,” she said. “Sort of midway between locals’ local and cheap watering hole for tourists on a budget. Suit you?” I nodded. “Can I call you Peter?” she asked. I nodded again. “I’m Mandy.”

“You know your way around,” I said as we settled at a window table in the café, having woven our way through several side streets.

She flashed her smile again. “I’m local,” she said. “And I do my research.”

And we were off. Or at least, I was. She had this knack of prompting me to talk with well-chosen questions, or suggestions that invited further comment. I did get a few questions in of my own. I found that she lived in a village outside Canterbury. She was separated from her husband and the divorce was almost finalised. However she planned to continue working as a producer for her husband’s film and TV company based locally, specialising in commercials and corporate videos. “Where the writing comes in,” she said. “Trying to turn screenplays into believable dialogue and fitting them to low-budget shoots.”

But the conversation quickly turned back to – well, everything. We just talked. About literature. Films and commercials. As if we’d known each other for ever. We seemed to think alike and genuinely agree with each other. (I know, another cliché that’s not worthy of me. Life is full of clichés, but for me, they always seem to be true.)

Mandy came to all my events at the Festival. We met for a drink occasionally, always sharing the bill. Never once was I allowed to pay for her. The conversation flowed as we discovered further shared interests and debated common themes. Sometimes we were – or rather I was – accosted by people who treated her as if she wasn’t there. They looked right through her as they came over to have a book signed. They assumed they had the right to interrupt a private conversation in order to ask how to become an author, or would I read their manuscript. I told them as kindly as I could to write stories with a beginning, a middle and an end and to send their scripts to my publisher (who will probably curse me – I should have said any publisher to spread the load of dross across the industry).

All the while, Mandy remained patient and understanding, seeming to sink into the background. “You handled that well,” she would say. “Don’t worry about it. It’s your bread and butter. The festival is a public event. You would be more worried if no-one took a blind bit of notice of you.”

On the final day, again in Margate, after a lecture on literacy in the twenty-first century (rehashed from one of my regular college lectures), I made straight for her. “Look,” I said, “we’ve been seeing each other all week. How about dinner tonight?”

She flashed that smile again. “I thought you’d never ask! That would be good. I know a great pub restaurant between here and Canterbury.” We arranged to meet there and again, despite my protests, agreed to split the bill.

That evening went on longer than I’d expected. (Yes, time flew. We just talked, again.) And once again, she wore a dark dress, navy blue, I think, this time, coming just below the knee. When we said goodbye in the carpark she kissed me lightly on the cheek. “You’re a lovely man,” she said, “and I’ve had a lovely evening. Thank you. I’m glad to have met you at last.” Only now do I realise the full meaning of her words. At the time, I just thought she was a fan of my books.

She paused, looking at me, and I took the hint. Might we meet up again, I enquired. “Good idea,” she grinned. “Got a pen?” I always have a pen and my occasional book. She dictated a landline number then disappeared in the carpark. A veil of mist had descended on it, or risen over it; the land was low-lying near the River Stour.  I lost sight of her as she walked away and never saw what she was driving. I realised too late that I’d not given her my card. Or my number.

July to November last year, Buckinghamshire

Short-term holiday romances are notorious for being long-term disasters in the making. Ours wasn’t exactly a romance, it hadn’t been a holiday, and lifelong singleton that I am, I was determined to remain cautious. So I decided not to call Mandy for a while. Just in case my early impressions were wrong and she was a sort of groupie, or stalker, who got bragging points out of dating a minor author who she could easily magnify into a minor celebrity on social media. It happens. I’ve had one or two students over the years trying it on.

When I told Linda about Mandy, she surprised me with her questions. Things that, as a naturally curious writer always looking for background material, I would normally have asked myself but had overlooked. Questions about Mandy. Not just what she looked like and what she wore (which rarely changed, which in retrospect was odd) and her little mannerisms. Not even about what she did, but who she was: did she have a family, what sort of house did she live in, how was the divorce progressing, where did she grow up, did she have siblings, were her parents still alive, how had she got into the film industry, what training she had, all that sort of personal stuff.

Linda sighed. “You must be in love,” she said. “Blind love.” I denied it, but I couldn’t deny my fascination with the woman. “Just be careful,” Linda added. “I’d love to see you in a good relationship, but I don’t want you getting hurt.” Ever the protective big sister. And, as it turned out, ever the wise and resourceful one (remember that, girls, when she irritates you!). “Just let me know when you’re meeting her,” she added. “Not to pry – just let me know, OK?”

I waited a month, then called Mandy’s number. She answered quickly, but said she couldn’t chat for long. I kept it casual, said I was getting on well with the latest book, and wondered if she’d like to meet up, not least because I’d find it helpful to learn more about the film world. Could we, say, meet half way?

“Great idea,” she said enthusiastically. “I’m off next Tuesday. I know the perfect place. Near Tonbridge.” She gave me the details and I scribbled them down.

When I told Linda, she looked thoughtful. On the Sunday, I joined the family at their local church for an all age service, and then as usual for lunch at theirs. Afterwards, she took me aside. “I just want a word with Uncle Peter,” she said to the girls as they protested that she was taking me away from them. “He’ll be back in a minute. Be patient!” We retreated to her tiny study – a box room upstairs – where she did my typing and her study to be a church lay reader.

“Peter, I’ve done some research.” She paused. “About Mandy.” As well as typing my books and lecture notes, Linda also helps me with some research. I pay her a pittance for tax purposes (mine) but with David, her high flying husband in the finance world, she doesn’t need the money and enjoys the work. I’m a technophobe. I can’t cope with computers; I can barely cope with the basics of my mobile phone. I looked inquisitively at her.

“I can’t find her. She’s not on any social media site. Nothing comes up in search engines. I’ve not found her in any film production sites. Peter, be careful. Please. She sounds great but see if you can check her out a bit more. Promise?”

I thought she was being over-protective and said so, but to humour her I gave her the name of the pub we were going to. And despite Linda’s fears, Mandy and I carried on from where we had left off. In retrospect, she had this amazing ability to deflect questions about herself in such a way that I never noticed she was doing it. When I tried to analyse what she’d said afterwards I realised how devoid of fact it was, yet somehow it didn’t seem to matter.

We continued to meet occasionally during the autumn. I always took the initiative. Whenever I phoned her she seemed to pick up the call almost immediately, as if she was expecting it. One day, though, she suggested an alternative venue, just down the road from where I live in Aylesbury. She was working nearby, and would be passing on her way home.

I told Linda as an afterthought, and when the evening came regretted having done so. Because Linda breezed in to the restaurant. “Hi, Peter,” she said. “Was just passing – taken Zoe for a sleepover at her friend’s. Hi, I’m Linda, Peter’s sister,” she said turning to Mandy. “Heard lots about you.”

Mandy seemed flustered, the first time I had seen her like that. She shrank away. Linda noticed and continued, “Don’t get up. I won’t disturb you. Do you mind,” she added, pointing her camera phone at us. “Just for the record.” 

Mandy reacted almost violently. “No, please! No!” She turned her head away, and seemed to shrivel down into her chair. “I have to keep a low profile.”

Linda lowered her camera. “Sorry,” she said, giving me a long stare. “Sorry. Don’t worry. Catch up later?” she asked, turning to me. Not waiting for an answer, she left the restaurant.

Mandy recovered her composure immediately, and our conversation continued. She appeared to forget the incident as soon as Linda left. The restaurant was busy and there were a couple of parties going on near us, with cameras and phones flashing. A few days later Linda gave me a blurred picture – it’s still on the dresser in the kitchen. It’s the only hard evidence I’ve got. “Afraid I only got the back of her head,” she said. “Took it as I was leaving. Across the party that was behind you. There was something odd about her refusal. Thought you might like a keepsake.”

Ordinarily I would have been angry at how blatantly my sister had invaded my privacy. But not this time. There was something odd, but I couldn’t then, and wouldn’t even now, identify what it was. Maybe I was afraid that this relationship wasn’t going to last, that I might never have a picture of Mandy. Something to remember a few perfectly happy and absorbing dates was better than nothing. It was very blurred, too; a smear, a shadow, where she sat behind a large man at the next table. I feigned annoyance with Linda. “You’ll get over it,” she said. Really, Sis? Not sure I ever will. Not now.

And then the affair – in the broad sense of that word – took on the dark mystery that just crushed me. I called Mandy in early November. She said, “I’m not working this weekend. Would you like to come and stay Saturday night? We could celebrate your birthday!”

Would I just! To see her in her own environment would help me settle once and for all the niggling questions in my mind. Just who was she, and why was she so secretive? I knew her so well, yet I knew her hardly at all. Her husband, she said, had already moved out and they were planning to sell the house. But how did she know it was my birthday? I didn’t think of it at the time and was only later that I realised I couldn’t recall ever telling her. She certainly never told me hers, which I surely would have asked for in return.

My 43rd birthday, last November, back in Kent

The travel instructions Mandy had given me were impeccable. She had warned me that her home, called Ash Tree House, was situated down a narrow country lane near the village of Bridge, with fields either side. It had been raining but was quite warm for November, and there was a pocket of mist rising from the fields and drifting over the road as I passed the Fox and Hounds, a pub on a bend in the lane. The house stood at a crossroads – well, the intersection of two narrow lanes. The front was surrounded by iron railings and, true to its name, there were several mature ash trees partly obscuring the house. The gated entrance was open.

I drove down a short gravel drive and stopped in front of an imposing Georgian-style double-fronted brick house, with a sort of portico front entrance – steps, pillars and a canopy. Mandy had said it had several bedrooms; I guessed at six, from the window count, unless they were all exceedingly large.

I decided to leave my bag in the car for the time being, but picked up from the back seat the flowers and wine I’d bought on the way down. I didn’t lock the car, and walked up the four steps to the front door. I half expected Mandy to open it as I reached it, and give me a warm hug of welcome. But then she had once said she employed a maid, so perhaps door-opening was delegated to her. (Only later have I thought that “maid” is such an odd word to use these days. Housekeeper, perhaps; cleaner, cook, au pair. But maid? Another oddity. Rather old fashioned.)

As I approached, I could see the door was ajar. I rang the bell, and gently pushed the door. Hesitantly, I stepped inside. The door was on a spring and closed gently behind me but didn’t latch. I looked around. I was in a spacious hallway with a wide staircase ascending from it. Several doors opened off it, and all were ajar. Lights were on everywhere.

The hall walls were painted sea-green, which would have made the area dark but there was a floor to ceiling window, bordered with coloured glass, at the rear of the half landing which I worked out faced south, so I guessed it would have bathed the hallway in light in the daytime. I shivered. It was very cold. But then it was November. I put the flowers and wine on a small telephone table at the bottom of the stairs. The handset was one of those old fashioned, chunky kinds with a dial, which you hardly ever see these days. There was a large cast iron radiator behind it, the sort we had in our school years ago. I felt it. It was cold. Maybe the heating wasn’t timed to come on yet, I thought. She could have been away working all week.

The house was silent. There was no sound whatever. No ticking clock. No chink of cutlery or china. No chatter from a TV. No water flushing in a bathroom. Not even the rustle of someone turning a page in a book or newspaper. Total silence. “Hallo! Mandy!” My voice sounded strange to my ears. “It’s Peter.” There was no reply.

I checked my watch; I was marginally later – only ten minutes or so – than I had said I would be, but the Saturday afternoon traffic on the M25 had been heavier than normal. Pre-Christmas shopping trips, probably. Ten minutes was nothing. I cautiously tried each of the doors in turn, pushing them gently and saying “Hallo! Mandy?” as I entered. The first led into a lounge, with three chunky sofas, a rather old-looking TV, a large coffee table with several picture books I didn’t examine, an upright piano and a well-stocked drinks cabinet. I’d expected something avant-garde, but this was more retro. Floor to ceiling curtains in a floral pattern matched the sofas.

Then I found a small study, book lined, with a desk and – I did notice this – an electric typewriter. It was very like my own, which I only use occasionally. Was Mandy as technophobic as me, shunning computers? It wasn’t what I would have expected of a modern film producer. There was what appeared to be a script on the desk, which I didn’t open; I’ve never written screenplays and had been hoping Mandy might give me some tips. Some of my novels have what I consider enough action in them to be potentially adaptable into film material.

Still deep silence. Another door: a dining room, with a stone fireplace and large dresser filled with china. A polished table with eight chairs, and a triple candlestick in the centre. Vases of fresh flowers at each end. A large sideboard, with a tray of bottles – wine, port, whisky, soda. Then a kitchen, a table in the centre, four chairs around it, all the usual cupboards and white goods. And a full coffee percolator. That was a good sign; it suggested that someone was expected. Except it was cold.

Everything looked a bit old-fashioned; 1970s or 1980s styles. It reminded me very much of the house and its furnishings that Linda and I had grown up with, only this was on a larger scale. Maybe Mandy had inherited everything from her parents. Or her husband’s. Or maybe the independent film business wasn’t as lucrative or arty as its popular reputation suggests. Everything, everywhere, was neat, tidy and clean. But eerily quiet, and so cold.

I remembered that Mandy had told me there was a swimming pool in a conservatory. Perhaps she was taking a dip. Here I faced a choice. I had seen a door from the lounge that looked as if it led outside, and there was also one from the kitchen. Being in the kitchen, I opted for that. It too was unlocked, and as I stepped outside a floodlight came on automatically. I found myself standing on a broad paved patio with a brick barbecue. Beyond it was in a walled garden, mostly laid to lawn and bordered with shrubs. A rather forlorn tennis net was strung across the lawn, sagging and grey from the damp; I was surprised it hadn’t been stored for the winter. I could see faded white lines on the grass. There was a shed in one corner. I called out again. “Hallo! Mandy!” Again, there was no reply.

Round to the left, adjoining the lounge, was a large lean-to conservatory. It was quite ornate, and easily mistaken for a greenhouse. It had a brick base about three feet high, and the rest, including a sloping roof, was formed of panes of glass between white-painted wood mullions and transoms. I made my way towards it. If she was bathing, I didn’t want to scare her by suddenly appearing. I peered in and quickly confirmed that this was indeed the swimming pool. The water was still, and the pool empty. There was a mermaid statue on the side, in one corner, the stone figure gazing pensively into the water. I tried the door, and like all the others it was unlocked. I went in, called again, but there was no reply. I walked round the pool to what I guessed was the door taking me back into the lounge, which it did. Puzzled, I sank into a sofa and wondered what to do next.

I didn’t stay there long. Restless, I got up and went back into the hall. My flowers and wine were on the table where I had left them. But so was something else. A note tucked under the telephone. Had it been there before? Surely I would have seen it. But it’s a fact that most of us observe very little of our surroundings, which is why the term about “hiding in plain sight” is so true. I picked it up. It was printed neatly. I read it. “Dinner at the Fox and Hounds. 6.45.”

That was a relief. Maybe she’d been held up. She’d told me once that her hours – and days – were unpredictable. It was 6.00 pm. I decided to fetch my bag from the car, and see if I could find a bedroom and bathroom upstairs. Then I remembered that I’d not actually called up the stairs, let alone been up to the first floor – I felt a bit uncomfortable exploring someone else’s bedrooms. I remedied the omission. “Mandy! Hi! It’s Peter. Are you there?” Silence.

The front door was still on the latch. Before opening it I checked I had my car keys in case it slammed shut while I was outside. At least then I could get away. But it didn’t. Back in the house, I climbed the stairs and saw that all these doors were ajar, too. That was a relief. I wasn’t going to burst in on someone. I tried her name once more. “Mandy? Anyone here?”

I looked around. I was right. Six bedrooms, and a bathroom. I guessed most of the rooms were en suite. Each dark wooden door had a holder for a small card, but only one had a card in it:  Peter’s room. Well, that answered one question. No, two. I was the only person staying. And she wasn’t assuming we’d spend the night together.

I showered and changed. I wandered around downstairs. No-one came. So at the appointed hour I drove down to the Fox and Hounds – the lane was dark and narrow, there were no street lights, and I didn’t want to walk especially as the fog I’d encountered would probably get thicker. It hadn’t, although the mist pocket near the pub was still there. I guessed there was an exceptionally damp area in the field. The waitress gave me a strange look when I asked if a table had been reserved in the name of Amanda Threadgold.

“Table for two, is it?” she asked. “We’ve got one spare.” She showed me to it and handed me a menu. It wasn’t very busy but most of the tables had reserved signs on them. I’m used to my own company but I seriously believe this was the loneliest evening of my life. I waited to order, assuming that Mandy would turn up soon. But after half an hour, and the waitress giving me more strange looks, I ordered a meal. Chicken and mushroom pie and chips; standard pub grub. This wasn’t a bistro.

Back at Ash Tree House, the front door opened to my touch. I was glad of that as I’d left my bag upstairs, but sorry as I half expected Mandy to have arrived back and be waiting for me. I paced around the house. The silence was thick; it’s the only way I can describe it. That sort of echoing silence you sometimes get in an old cavernous building, like a deserted church, only this place was neither cavernous nor, so far as I knew, sacred. There was still no-one else there. Yet several times something startled me. I thought I heard the sounds of a party, close by in the next room to wherever I was. And as I walked around, I sensed someone was there, just behind me, watching me. I turned round, but saw no-one. It felt like a woman, which is weird. How can you feel the gender of a person who isn’t there? It wasn’t Mandy, I was sure. The mystery maid? My imagination was hyperactive. My heart was pounding. Fears were rampaging through my head like a stampede of elephants. I was seeing and hearing things.

On impulse, I opened the kitchen back door. As before, the outdoor light came on to illuminate the patio. I sauntered round to the conservatory and looked in. The water was moving. Someone was in the water! It was a woman in a red swimsuit. Mandy! I called out to her, and pushed the door. This time it was locked. I banged on the glass. I peered again. She was face down. Motionless.

The water rippled violently. Someone else was in there. A man. Thickset, tanned, dark hair. He burst up through the surface, stood by the woman, and held her under the surface. I banged on the glass but he took no notice. He then climbed out of the pool, leaving a trail of wet footprints on the side as he walked casually to the inner door that led to the lounge. I looked again at Mandy. She had floated to the surface. Her head was half turned. Her staring, unblinking eye caught mine. One of her arms was stretched out towards me.

My dream! My birthday dream. I’d given it no thought since last year; indeed, I couldn’t actually recall what form it had taken last year. But now it exploded in my head in all its detail. Except that I wasn’t dreaming and I wasn’t in the water. This time I was wishing desperately that I was. Mandy was drowning. I could save her. I rattled the door again but it wouldn’t budge. I shot back indoors and round to the lounge. I called out. No-one answered. There was no-one there. I literally ran into the door to the conservatory; turning the handle and expecting the door to fly open, instead I crashed into it. It was locked. I called out again. Was the man still in there? I hammered on it. I turned towards the hallway and yelled for help. It was foolish, I know; that man was a lot bigger than me. But where was he, though? There was no trace of water on the floor. And why was the door locked if he’d just come through it? Where was the key?

In the momentary pause as I considered what to do, I heard the strains of the party again. And that presence – that other woman – was in the hall but the feeling disappeared as I dashed round again and out of the kitchen to where I could see into the pool. Mandy was floating there. Face down. Motionless.

I panicked. I tugged and pushed at the door again. I thought of finding something to break the glass, reach in, turn the key, go in and pull her out. But I could see the key lying on the poolside, well out of reach. Near the mermaid statue, which was still looking pensively down, staring sadly, it seemed, at the body in the pool. Call for an ambulance. It was the obvious thing to do. But how long can anyone survive with their lungs full of water? Medics would never get here in time to save her. I sensed that she was dead already.

I fumbled for my phone. I really did mean to dial 999, but I speed dialled Linda instead. It was instinct. I garbled to her the situation. I was breathing heavily, my voice shrill with panic. Her voice, calm but authoritative, sounded loud in my ear. “Peter. Get out of there. Now. Do nothing. Just leave. Get your bag and come home.”

I protested. “I can’t leave her like this!”

“Do what I say. Trust me. OK? If you stay, you’ll either confront a maniac or be grilled by the police. Get out. Please.”

I reverted to childhood. Do what your big sister tells you. Don’t argue. I raced upstairs again, terrified I would encounter the mystery man, and grabbed my bag. The flowers and wine were still on the hall table. I scooped them up and fled to my car. Waves of guilt screwed up all my muscles. I was fleeing the scene of – what? A tragedy? A crime? I was breaking the moral law if not the civil law. I was deserting my girlfriend, as I was now thinking of her. I wasn’t reporting an incident as any decent person would. I could hardly move. I fumbled with the car keys. I turned on the wipers to clear the screen but it was my tears that were clouding my vision. I’ve no idea how I got home. I must have stopped somewhere, probably a motorway service station, and dumped the flowers and wine in a bin, because they weren’t in the car when I got home.

I locked the door, called Linda, and refused to go round for lunch the next day. I sank into a dizzying depression. Afraid of what I’d not done. Afraid I’d be charged with something. Just afraid.

The next few days, at home

I spent much of Sunday, Monday and Tuesday lifeless on the bed or mooching slowly around the house. I ate and drank little. I did no work. I couldn’t write. I couldn’t prepare a lecture. I think I phoned to cancel my teaching engagements for the week. Pulled a sickie. I hope I did; I can’t remember. I certainly couldn’t have fulfilled them. I was numb. Numb in my head, numb in my body. Drifting in and out of the moment and reliving the weekend. I kept the door firmly locked. I kept the curtains pulled. I couldn’t think about anything except Mandy. And the body in the pool. Surely I was mistaken. I thought of phoning her. But if I wasn’t mistaken, then someone might pick it up, and I’d be linked with her, and who knows what might happen as a result.

Then on Tuesday evening Linda and David turned up. Usually they’d phone first, but probably guessed I wouldn’t answer this time. I’d heard their car outside and peeked through the curtains, before opening the door.

Linda looked grave. She gave me a hug which I hardly responded to. “Can we chat for a few minutes? Kitchen will do. Can’t stay long; called a babysitter at short notice. How are you feeling?” She looked at me and knew the answer. I said nothing. Her tone softened. “I’ve got some good news,” she said. “I’ve trawled all the local and national media, the police website, everything I could think of. There’s no reference whatever to Amanda’s death.”

“Maybe no-one’s found her yet,” I suggested. “Why did you make me come home – “

Linda held her hand up. “A hunch, Peter. Just a hunch. I can’t explain. Not yet, anyway. But I think, in the circumstances, it was the right one. There’s more,” she hesitated. “Not quite such good news, I’m afraid. And there’s no easy way of saying it. Peter, David’s found something else out.” She turned to her husband.

He opened the tablet he was carrying. “You’re sure it was Ash Tree House?” He recited the precise location. I assented. “This it?” He passed me the tablet. A photo of the house from the gates.

I looked hard at it. Something wasn’t right. “Yes,” I began. “Like it, anyway. Except – there’s no trees.”

David grunted. “Ash dieback,” he said flatly. “They got the disease and were felled a few years ago. They’ve planted laurels along the fence since then. And this? Is this the pool?” He leaned across and swiped the screen. There were two photos of Mandy’s pool. One looked like an estate agent’s shot, wide angle lens, making it look larger than it actually was. It was unmistakable. The mermaid statue was clear in the corner. The other was a similar interior shot, but there were several people milling around the pool. A couple were splashing in the water. They appeared to be partying. Some held drinks.

“Yes, but what is this?” I asked. “How did you get these? When?”

David looked at me as only an accountant can: straight in the eyes, telegraphing that he’s found some anomaly in my records. “They were taken on Saturday,” he said flatly. “By a work colleague. This Ash Tree House is owned by Sir Michael Smith-Jenkins. He runs a local brewing business. He’s one of my firm’s clients. It was his fiftieth birthday at the weekend. He invited a few business contacts down for Saturday dinner. He was having a big family do on Sunday, I believe. A couple of my colleagues went down. When Linda told me your experience, I asked them about theirs, and to send me the photos.”

He continued to stare. I dropped my eyes. “Peter,” he said. “You couldn’t have been there. Wherever you were, it wasn’t there.” I looked up. My face must have registered surprise and disbelief but before I could say anything, he added: “Are you really sure Amanda Threadgold exists?”

Even Linda looked surprised. I rose to the bait. I like David, and I get on well with him. But that was red rag to a bull. I half rose. “Are you calling me a liar? Saying I’ve got some invisible friend like your Zoe used to have when she was small? That I’ve just been dreaming or got some multiple personality disorder? That my meetings with her have all been figments of my imagination? I’ve seen Mandy – Linda’s seen her.”

Linda pushed me back into the chair. “It’s OK. Really. Tell him about the woman,” she said to David.

“Not sure it’s relevant,” he replied, but she urged him to continue. “There was a couple there, apparently. Don’t know them personally. The wife’s a bit highly strung, I’m told. Had a breakdown a while ago. Not really got over it, from what I hear. She was on edge all evening. Said she felt there was an unseen man roaming around the house. She kept shivering, saying it was cold. And she took one look at the conservatory – the pool – and refused to go in there. Said there were dark shadows moving around and she could see a body in the water. Very odd. But as I said, she’s a bit funny peculiar. Sir Michael tried to pacify her and said there wasn’t any history of the place being haunted but she was agitated all evening. They had to leave early.”

I looked at Linda. I’d told her about what I’d thought I’d seen, felt, heard. She shook her head, indicating that I should say nothing. She stood up. “We’ll leave you, OK? But I’ll call round in the morning when I’ve dropped the girls off at school. We can talk then.”

The day after

Linda arrived about 9.30. She looked tired. “I’ve been up half the night,” she explained. “Doing some more research. Make me a coffee, will you? Strong.”

“What’s the research, then?” I asked as we sat at the table. “More photos to prove I’m a delusional liar?”

“Don’t be cross. I’m sorry about last night. David can be a bit blunt at times. He wasn’t saying you were lying, but he’s a facts geek. If it can’t be plotted on a spreadsheet it isn’t real. He’s confused.”

“Aren’t we all?”

 Linda pulled a folded sheet of paper from her bag. “I was wrong before. There is information about Mandy on the internet.” She was holding the paper tightly. “I hadn’t looked back far enough. I found some old press cuttings about her.”

Her hesitant manner annoyed me. “And?”

“You’d better read them. But look at the date first.”

She slid it over. It was a print-out of a story from a Kent weekly newspaper. It was dated a few days after my tenth birthday, November 1983.

FILM DIRECTOR’S WIFE FOUND DEAD IN POOL

Amanda Threadgold, the estranged wife of Rufus Milton, a Film Director, was found dead in a swimming pool earlier this week at Ash Tree House, their luxury home in the heart of Kent.

Police say that investigations are continuing but no-one else was believed to have been in the house at the time of the tragedy.

Miss Threadgold had continued to use her maiden name professionally. She was employed as an Assistant Producer in her husband’s company.

Mr Milton is said to be away but his whereabouts have yet to be confirmed. The news was broken by a woman who works as a housekeeper at the house and who found the body when she arrived for work the next day.

Family friends and work colleagues suggest that the couple were in the process of divorcing.

“There were a lot of rows,” said one, who did not wish to be named. “Even on set. There were rumours that she had been secretly dating an up and coming young writer. Rufus was jealous, big time. He had a temper on him.”

Accompanying the story was a photograph captioned Mr and Mrs Milton in happier times. The man was dark, thick set. He could easily have been the person I saw leaving the pool. And leaning on her husband’s arm, smiling demurely into the camera, was the woman I had been seeing, on and off, for the past few months. Yet here it said she had drowned 33 years ago. On my tenth birthday.

Once again, my childhood dream cascaded into my head. I was dizzy as if I was being sucked into a whirlpool. I looked again at the print-out. I whispered, “Are you sure the date’s right?” And Linda nodded gravely, and massaged my shoulder as my head collapsed onto the table.

“There’s another cutting,” she added quietly, passing it across. “There was an inquest a few weeks later. The coroner recorded an open verdict. There was no evidence that she had taken her own life. She’d left no note. She’d given no hint to anyone that she was depressed; on the contrary, she’d seemed happier than usual. There was no toxicology or medical evidence from the autopsy to suggest a sudden death. The locked doors were a mystery. There was slight bruising on her back to suggest she may have been held under the water, but it wasn’t conclusive. There was no evidence of a break-in.”

I looked up. “But I saw someone there – possibly him!” I jabbed the photo with my finger. “And in my dream. It looked as if she was held down. Then I saw her alive just a fortnight ago!”

Linda nodded again. “I believe you, Peter. Really.” It was little comfort.

“Shouldn’t we do something? Tell the police? Get them to re-open the case?”

Linda shook her head slowly. “They won’t believe someone who had a dream when they were ten years old, Peter. They certainly won’t take seriously someone who claims to have been in the house last Saturday and witnessed a possible murder that took place three decades ago. There’s a dozen or more witnesses to say you weren’t there. The only action they might take is to section you. Or charge you with wasting police time. Besides, even if the husband did do it, I discovered that he died a couple of years ago. He was well into his seventies.”

I buried my head in my hands on the table. “Why don’t you write it all down,” Linda suggested. “It’s what you do. What you’re good at. It might help to clarify things.” She glanced at the photo on the dresser. “For both of us.”

This June, six months later

I did get round to doing what she suggested (obviously!). Has it helped? Not sure. No-one recovers quickly from traumas like that. It’s been an emotional roller-coaster. My publisher was screaming for progress on my next novel, but the dreaded writer’s block set in. After a couple of weeks off, I managed to teach most of my classes and lectures, relying on well-worn material, which is something. David offered to pay for some post-traumatic stress counselling, which was kind of him, but I couldn’t face that. How could I tell anyone what had happened without appearing to be mentally ill, deluded, even? Maybe I am, but it was such an isolated, unusual “episode”, as they call such things. At least, I hope it was. I couldn’t cope with such disorientation again. Mandy was so real. I touched her. Ate with her.

Over the weeks, Linda and I have chewed over numerous theories. One of the first things she did was to call Mandy’s number using her phone. The result was a “number not recognised” recorded message. “I’m not surprised,” Linda told me. “The number is a digit short. They added an extra digit to increase the available numbers ages ago. The one she gave you was accurate three decades ago, but not now.”

So I was connected via a modern phone network to an older one that no longer exists? In a different year, and not just a different location? Try explaining that. 

Or the photo. Linda broached the subject as gently as she could one day. “Look, when David first saw it, he said there wasn’t anyone there. I think now that he may have been right. If you look closely, it’s just a blur, a shadow, that could have been cast by the flash. There were others between where I stood and where you sat.”

            “But you saw her with your own eyes.”

“Don’t over-react. I saw what you wanted me to see. We’re siblings, remember? Not as close as twins but be honest. We do often think alike, see things the same way. I saw Mandy through your eyes. It was as if there was a rip in the fabric of space and time that opened just enough for me to glimpse her too. Think back. The way she seemed to shrink when I addressed her. The people who looked through her at other times. The way she sat apart, almost in soft-focus, in your sessions. The mists you said she faded into, and the one you passed through on the way to her house. Remember, she never let you pay for her meals – as if she never actually was there. Like she was a sort of hologram projected from another time zone or dimension visible only to you – or rather, on that occasion, to us. You were both in all the places that you saw her. But at different times.”

She obviously noticed my incredulity, and attempted to reassure me. “It all happened, Peter. I’ve no doubt about that. But somehow you were in one time zone and she was in another and you met where they intersected. Whether you crossed into hers or she into yours is beyond me. Think about it,” she continued. “You saw Mandy in places which she obviously knew. She chose them. You never paid for her because you couldn’t. You were using different menus.”

Why is it that we overlook obvious things so easily? I thought back to those meals and coffees we’d enjoyed together. “Do you know, I can’t recall a single time when the waiter brought both our orders at the same time? They just don’t do that! They’ve got two hands. They can carry two plates, or more. And it was never the same person. Someone brought me mine, someone else brought hers.”

“There you go, then,” said Linda. “You’ve cracked it. Sort of.”

And the day I discovered her? My birthday? In the same house as a group of others who were partying in the present while I’d gone back thirty years – and hang on, I was ten then, yet I was there as an adult.

“Remember that woman at the party David spoke of,” Linda said. “She sensed you, I guess, just as you were aware of her. She felt something about the pool, too. You were physically proximate at that moment yet decades apart in perception. And you heard the echoes of the party. Some people are sensitive like that. Obviously you’re one. And so too, perhaps, was Mandy.”

Linda had dug out a couple of old obituaries of Mandy. One of them praised her sensitivity and her ability to “read” people. It spoke of her acute perception and apparent pre-cognition. “I wonder,” Linda said, “if somehow she reached out in her dying seconds, flung a cry into space-time hoping that someone equally sensitive might hear it? And that you picked it up as a boy in your dream at that very moment? Maybe that weak signal was then amplified when you ventured into her geographical patch for the Festival? So you really did encounter her as she was 33 years ago while you remained rooted in our time.”

Time, we realised, is just a convenient way of measuring change and especially decay. It doesn’t really exist. “Maybe it’s possible to cross between different times,” Linda suggested one day. “So that our present is also someone else’s present but each is marked by a different date on the calendar. After all, if as the physicists tell us photons can be in two places at the same time, why can’t people?”

Inevitably, it was all inconclusive. The only thing we discovered was that nothing was theoretically impossible, and almost anything was, theoretically, plausible.

 “We’ve been asking the wrong question, Peter,” Linda concluded. “We’re asking ‘how’. We’ll never work that out. Maybe we’re not meant to know. Maybe it’s just something that happened, period. But what we’ve not asked is ‘why?’ I don’t think anything happens without a reason, even though we can’t often discover that either, because we’ve got such a limited perspective on life. We can’t see the big picture. But...”

She paused. I raised my eyebrows. “But I have found out that she was cremated. Her ashes were scattered at the Crem. And there should still be a little marker in the gardens there.”

I didn’t need to reply other than to ask, “when can we go?” We fixed it for a Sunday a couple of weeks later when Linda had no church responsibilities and David could have the girls for the day. We set off early and stopped for a break at the Medway Services on the M2. I paused at the flower stall.

“Don’t think it’s allowed,” Linda said quietly, reading my thoughts. “It’s not a grave or anything. Just a marker in a flowerbed.” I moved to a tub of red roses that were sold individually. Linda nodded: “Maybe.” I bought one.

We found the Crematorium near the village of Barham. Linda had been told roughly where we should look in the gardens but it took us about an hour to locate the small metal plate that said “Amanda Threadgold”. We’d had to get on our hands and knees to peer closely at the names on many identical ones, sometimes wiping off the dirt with tissues in order to read them.

“Here she is,” whispered Linda, when we found the spot at last. We stood quietly in front of it. She linked her arm into mine. After a few minutes I bent down to lay my rose beside the plate, then decided rather to stick it upright in the bare earth behind the plate. It looked more natural that way, and it merged with the spring bedding plants that made the whole garden seem vibrant and hopeful, a place of life rather than death.

Linda made the sign of the cross over it. “Rest in peace, Mandy,” she whispered. “Until you rise in glory when all wrongs shall be put right.”

“Do you think she knows?” I asked her.

“Dunno. But we know. We know what we believe is the truth about her untimely death. And because we know, the universe knows. Maybe justice doesn’t always have to be paraded in public or end in retribution. Maybe it just needs to be known in that bigger dimension. Maybe that’s why you were drawn in. She just wanted someone to hear her cry.”

We were quiet again. Then I said what I’d been afraid to say, but which also came as a relief. “I won’t see her again, will I?”

Linda shook her head. “I doubt it. Not in this life, anyway.” She tugged at my arm. “Come on. Didn’t Mandy introduce you to a cheap café in Canterbury? It’s time you bought your long-suffering sister some lunch.”

I laughed, it seemed for the first time in ages. “If it still exists! I’ve no idea which era I was in when we went there. Let’s leave the past behind. Let’s go somewhere posh!”

But one question remains. What will I dream about on my next birthday?

© Derek Williams 2019