HIS FIRST AWARENESS was the sight of yellow gravel that rushed at him during a rotational fall from a park bench.
A little girl’s voice broke through his concentration. “Jack, be careful.”
Was he ‘Jack’? He turned to view the speaker as his shoulder hit the ground. She was maybe ten, and certainly annoyed.
“Silly, you’ll rip your jacket.”
He rolled to deny her prognosis, but who was she? His daughter?
A brewing headache fogged his struggling amnesia. Tempting though it was to remain on the warm gravel, the discomfort lifted him to his feet. He returned to the seat to figure out his history. Nothing in his pockets except loose change; he vaguely recalled buying ices. He nudged silvery-rimmed spectacles back up his nose.
Two dogs chorused behind him. They snarled at a hoodie on a swing. Serves him right–probably teased them. A smile grew from a thought, making him megaphone with his hands: “Go on, eat him!”
“That’s not nice.”
Damn, he’d forgotten the kid next to him. With her unforgettable primary-red dungarees, too.
“Look, who are you?”
“Amy. And it wasn’t nice.”
“He probably deserved it.” He paused, conjuring the necessary condescending words to ask how she knew his name was Jack. If he was her father, wouldn’t she have said, Dad? Depends how modern the family, he supposed.
His nasty calling to the hoodie bothered him. He’d a compulsion to say it although it wasn’t his normal reaction. Was it?
‘Jack’ didn’t sound right; she must have mistaken him for someone else. He squeezed thoughts past his headache to find himself. He settled on the most likely profile. He was single yet constrained by a relationship. Perhaps a domineering fiancée waited for him at home. And where was that? An image of a smart apartment overlooking this park flickered–a boating lake, chiming ice-cream van, fog.
Her arm pointed past him. “I told you it wasn’t nice.”
He heard the dogs then he turned. Bugger. “We’d better go,” he said.
She remained sitting, fiddling unconcerned with her plaited marmalade hair. “That’s silly. We can’t run faster than dogs, especially those . . . what are they?”
“Akita Shepherds, bred in Japan to kill bears.” How did he know that?
“Ah, you read that book. Good.”
“What’s good about being ripped apart by dogs?” He knew he couldn’t run faster than the dogs, but he could outpace Amy. Grief, he was warped. He looked around for dog-owners, or witnesses.
She grabbed his arm making him look at her big brown eyes. “Don’t you dare.”
A mind reader?
“I only thought to lead them away from you.” Hah, what a lie, but if she could read his mind. . .
He hadn’t time to telepath stand on the bench and keep behind me, so he lifted her. He turned to find the beasts snarling only moments away. He thought he’d be braver, but all his limbs trembled. In spite of his fear, and part of him urging himself to run, he’d have to protect Amy. He could wrap his jacket around his arm.
A feeling of déjà vu flashed when he stamped a foot in the dogs’ direction. The saliva dripping fangs seemed to sharpen with the snarls, but then they quietened. The animals stopped, whined, then bounded away.
Jack, both puzzled and relieved, turned to Amy, who looked as calm as a pink sunset.
He pointed at the dogs. “What happened?”
“Animals don’t like you. It always happens.” She held out her arms for him to help her down. “The swings are free now. Push me.”
He looked around. No dogs, no hoodie, no witness to a potential accusation of paedophilia. She pulled him by his hand, hers being uncomfortably hot.
“Not across the grass, Amy, can’t you smell that it’s freshly cut?”
“I like having grass on my shoes. It annoys mother.”
Jack knew he should disengage and march away, but she was his only clue to his history. He lifted her onto the swing, even though she was big enough for a DIY mount, but liked to command, it seemed. He strolled around behind her, checking again for witnesses. Two pushes then he’d leave. Walk around the town seeking memory triggers.
On one of her return swings Amy whispered, “You’ll have to go.”
“Did I push too hard?” With a start, he spotted a policeman striding towards them. God, so he was a paedo in his lost-memory-life. He should run, but that would magnify his presumed guilt. Even so, he scanned the park perimeter for other people who might help the law run him down. The policeman strode faster–was that a smile or a grimace? A pulse in Jack’s neck throbbed.
Damn, his funny-bone jerked when the swing hit it. He rubbed it.
Amy darted worried eyes at him. Should he grab and hold the swing? Make out he was helping, which he was. But. . . he tasted acid reflux.
Amy fidgeted then raised an arm to the policeman. “Hi, Daddy.”
Jack blacked out.
HE AWOKE BUT DIDN’T OPEN HIS EYES. He should recall something from his earlier life, but his head hurt like hot nails every time he tried. He felt bedding under him. A fidget later revealed he wore no shirt though fortunately his trousers remained in place.
Hospital? No, the bed shook as if someone jumped on it. Unwillingly, he bounced, time-lagged. He smelt freshly-squeezed orange.
“All right, stop it, Amy.”
She stuck out her bottom lip. “I give the orders.”
“Order yourself to stop bouncing before I throw up over you.
He opened his eyes at a pink ceiling. Confirmation of the lack of a hospital wake up. No. . . he was in a bedroom, and by the plastic ponies, dolls and fluffies, it was Amy’s.
He narrowed his eyes to focus–most of the dolls bore facial scars.
“My favourite is Super Ted,” Amy said.
The doll named Super Ted bounced next to him. Its eyes had been gouged. A bedside cabinet supported two beakers of orange, a saucer of chocolate cookies, and a pink bedside lamp with splattered black paint. He was in a madhouse. He worked on being normal.
“Amy, where’s my shirt?”
“I’ve been trying different colours on you. This police one—”
“Your father’s? I want my white shirt.”
The door handle rattled. On the door the Ripper stalked a gas-lamp-lit London street. It made him realize that Jack wasn’t his real name. While his brain tried to data crunch his real name, a doppelganger of Nicole Kidman walked in carrying Amy’s clothing–Jack smelled clean lemon. His cheeks heated as his hands tried to cover his chest.
“I’m sorry,” he stuttered, “I r-really don’t know how I got here.”
Nicole Kidman said, “Who were you talking to, Amy? Ah, is Super Ted making sense these days?”
Jack gasped at Amy’s mother ignoring him. On reflection, Amy’s policeman father must have brought him here. The amnesia prevented knowledge of being a family member. . . surely not enough to deposit him into a young girl’s bedroom, even if he was a favourite uncle? He spotted his shirt and wrestled it on while talking.
“Excuse me. I feel awkward being here. Shouldn’t I be in hospital instead of your house? Am I related?”
The woman turned towards the door. Jack stared as she caressed the Ripper’s torso, tickled the paper crotch then walked out of the room. Jack–but that wasn’t really his name–now wanted to rub his own genitals but propriety won.
He looked at the little girl. “Amy, what’s going on?”
The girl thrust a purple jumper on Super Ted then used a pencil to poke the unfortunate doll in the stomach. “Nothing.”
“Why didn’t your mum talk to me?”
“Don’t you like being my friend?”
“Well, sure, but I think I’d better be going.” There might be specialist clinics for amnesiacs, but if her mother ignored his hospital comment . . . “Amy, do you know where I live?”
“Course. You live here. I want you to try on one of daddy’s blue T-shirts.”
No way was he dressing up for a brat. His exasperation made his right eye twitch. He looked across the room at a green toy-box. On top, doll-sized effigies of Rasputin, Hitler and a witch huddled next to each other, looking at him with a mixture of pity and desperation. She needed antihero friends to counter her policeman father.
Something clicked.
“Amy, I’m your imaginary friend, aren’t I?”
She smiled a yes. A face of power, control over this adult, who’d thought he had his own home, career, family. The delusion was amazing but awful. He possessed the same overwhelming urge to live as normal people did–presumably.
It must be a mistake. Why had he said that? Or worse, even thought it?
“Amy, this is nonsense. I’m just someone, perhaps your uncle, who’s had a bump on the head, yeah?”
She stood, hands on hips. “No, you are my friend, but not for much longer.”
His peripheral vision darkened, then tunnelled, followed by him blacking out.
JACK SURPRISED HIMSELF BY WAKING UP. He’d thought that speaking his delusion out loud would have stopped Amy from wanting him. But maybe she was intrigued by having someone old enough to be her father as her imaginary friend. He slid sideways on the shiny subway seat, knocking into a young man dressed for office work.
“Sorry,” Jack said automatically, “braking took me by surprise.”
“No problem,” the young man in the suit answered.
While checking out the overhead subway map, Jack had a revelation. He turned to the man and laughed. “Hey, I just realized that you can see me.”
“And I you.” The young man leaned to whisper, “Amy’s over in the third seat to the left.”
“You mean. . . she’s here? Are you saying we’re both Amy’s friends?”
The young man in the suit just shrugged. Jack looked closely at the new apparition. Bronzed, three-day beard, ear ring. A younger rival. Did Amy make a habit of having multiple imaginary friends? He needed to create an ally.
“I’m Jack. You’re?”
“Clyde.”
Jack thought through celebratory villains. “As in Bonnie and?”
“Guess so.”
Damn, it meant Amy was probably tired of him; wanted someone younger. Somehow, he didn’t think teaming up with Clyde would work, but he launched.
“I’d like to be more than temporary.”
“Me too, Jack, but we can’t exist without Amy’s imagination. Or have you a plan?”
Jack had to be bold but the risk generated heat. He tasted the salt in his perspiration. “It’s like asking someone to not think of pink elephants. Get it?”
“We’re pink elephants?”
Groan. “We have to make her think of me–us–all of the time.”
“But she has to sleep.”
“We’ll be in her dreams, as nightmares.”
“Yeah, right.”
A hobo, wearing a tweed coat, reeking of sour milk, sat next to Jack, who wondered what would have happened if the tramp had sat on top of him.
“Clyde, near the park is a derelict house. We could persuade Amy to go with us to the basement, say for a special surprise.”
Clyde looked past Jack at the stinking hobo. Pointed across the aisle for fresher air.
After re-seating, Jack saw an angled smile on Clyde as belonging to one who didn’t, couldn’t want to survive. It was no good explaining how they’d keep Amy caged. Why couldn’t he see that they’d be kept in her mind that way, for perpetuity?
Jack pretended to yawn and stretched up his arms. He brought his elbow down hard into Clyde’s face. A bone cracked. Clyde yelled, but no one heard. Except Amy.
She came and stared at Clyde. Her face twisted with growing disgust. Clyde vanished. Jack knew she wouldn’t want a disfigured friend.
“The hobo did it,” Jack said, hoping she’d swallow it. The tramp looked furtive and she probably didn’t know for sure that her imaginary friends were invisible to normals.
Jack survived but he was still not in the comfort zone of longevity. Perhaps he could get Amy to persuade her mother of his existence. He wouldn’t mind testing his sensory faculties on her. Being an imaginary friend of two real people increased his survival, at least long enough to work out a longer strategy.
“Amy, your mother. Does she have boyfriends she keeps secret from father?”
She wore the look that said no but she liked the idea.
He continued, “If I were her friend too, she’d need to keep you on her side. She’d give you a lot more villain dolls.”
Her eyes brightened. “Let’s go see my mum.”
JACK OPENED HIS EYES. Blue tiles surrounded him and in the middle of the wet room, Amy’s mother wallowed in a free-standing bath. In shock he wanted to remonstrate with Amy but was afraid to speak in case her mother could now hear him. He averted his eyes, then allowed them voyeur privileges. Yes, a genuine redhead but not quite Nicole Kidman unless she too had breasts so pointy you could knit with them.
A tug at his elbow. Amy held her hand to her mouth in whispering mode.
“Massage her shoulders.”
“Surely not, and she wouldn’t feel it anyway.”
Amy placed her hands on her hips. “She will, silly. All right, just put your hand in the water.”
Jack knew that wouldn’t work either. He was imaginary, wasn’t he? But then he was when he pushed the swing, though he didn’t know it then. Did knowing make a difference to reality?
“Now.”
He obeyed by standing behind Amy’s mother. His hand skimmed through a thin layer of iridescent suds emitting a seaside aroma. When he raised his hand, bubbles slithered off; his fingers reassuringly moist. If he affected the water, then would Nicole Kidman feel his touch? He weighed up the mission to massage shoulders, which hid beneath a veil of auburn hair. If his imaginariness, via Amy, could be shared now, perhaps he’d exist for her mother later–with privacy. Then a more pleasurable existence would follow. He smiled. For the first time? He glanced at Amy. She smiled too, but surely she hadn’t twigged his carnal intentions? No, she merely enjoyed the experiment to see her mother adulterated.
Amy held an amber bottle of massage oil and tipped too much onto Jack’s hands. He rubbed and inhaled Sandalwood. His fingertips brushed aside long ringlets; more proof he must exist for her. He flexed his fingers then placed his thumbs at the nape of her neck.
The water erupted as the woman grabbed him, pulling him over her head. He was too shocked to struggle and so forward-rolled, landing on his back in the bath on top of naked legs. Spluttering, he put out his hands to the bath’s sides. A panicked thought shrieked at him–she might try to drown him, thinking he was an intruder, a rapist.
“Please! Please, I’m sorry. I was only following Amy’s—” Through the floating suds he saw the girl silently laughing. At him, or at the scene?
His excessively-oiled hands slipped but instead of being helped, his head was ducked under water.
After a struggle, he surfaced and sucked in soapy but welcome air. The woman had him trapped. He tried to reason with her. “This. . . is ridiculous,” he gasped. “I wasn’t. . . attack. . . ing you.”
Her grip slackened, but only as a concession and he was still in her control. The woman spoke as though amusing herself. “All right. What’s your name?”
“Jack.”
“Mine’s Bonnie.”
“Really? As in Bonnie and Clyde? But that means you’re also an imag…. Nooooooo.”