The Day I Died

‘My classes, yes, exactly…Seven, that’s what I thought. And I can’t remember what you said about pay. Could you…?’

‘Thirty pounds a day, as we agreed,’ he snapped. ‘Six days a week.’

Jo nodded again. That was a hundred and eighty pounds a week. How much did it cost to rent around here?

‘Shall I show you the ropes?’

Jo breathed a sigh of relief and allowed the bald man to give her a sweeping tour of what was really quite a basic setup: hot-water tank, toaster, fridge, coffee machine, cupboards filled with grotesque sets of matching brown and gold crockery. It was clear that the man had delusions of grandeur for Trev’s Teashop.

The reference to Jo’s parents had left her feeling ill at ease. It wasn’t that she didn’t like to lie to the man; she barely knew him, and what she did know she didn’t particularly like. It was that she didn’t know what the truth was. She didn’t know where her parents were from–or where they were now. She didn’t know whether they knew about the nightclub explosion, or whether they knew she’d been caught up in it. She didn’t even know if she had parents. The chances were, though, there was someone out there who cared about her. She just didn’t know how to let them know she was OK without turning herself in–and that was the one thing she couldn’t do.

‘I’ll expect you to do most of the flitting between tables.’ The man waved a stubby arm across the premises. She nodded again, wondering who had been flitting up until now. ‘Now, you’re wearing black trousers, I trust?’

Jo froze, suddenly remembering that she was wearing a tiny dress and no shoes underneath the jacket. ‘Well, I couldn’t find trousers, but—’

‘Ooh, Mr Jackson! First customer!’ cried Trevor. ‘First customer!’ he said again, ushering her towards the back of the café. ‘Your shirt’s in the store cupboard under the stairs. Quick, quick!’

It was with mixed feelings that Jo pulled the brown aertex shirt over her head. She wasn’t keen on the embroidered teacup that covered her left breast, or the fact that she had Trev’s Teashop’ plastered across her front, but she had to admit that it was more appropriate than her own attire, which she was desperately trying to convert into a knee-length skirt to cover the tops of her long legs.

Along with a trowel, a plastic rhino, a sketchbook and a rah-rah skirt, Jo found what she was looking for in the back of the store cupboard: a mirror. She peered at her reflection in the half-light.

It was like looking at somebody else. Jo pulled at her skin–young skin, she thought, probably early twenties–and tilted her head this way and that, inspecting her face. Her eyes were bottle green, with dark lashes, which were coated in heavy, day-old makeup. Her lip had been bleeding slightly. She gathered her long, knotted hair in one hand and tried to twist it into some sort of order. It was almost raven black, with a dyed red streak at the front.

She spat on her hand and wiped the worst of the dirt off her forehead, wondering how her appearance had passed without comment by the portly teashop owner. Something caught her eye in the mirror. On the back of her hand was a splodge of blue ink. Writing. ‘SASKIA DAWSON,’ it said.

Who was that? Was it her? Was she Saskia Dawson? If so, why had she written her name on her own hand? Saskia. It didn’t sound familiar. But then, very little did. Jo tore a page from the faded sketchbook and scrabbled around for a pen. Letter for letter, she copied it down and tucked it into the waist of her newly formed skirt.

‘Ah, Jo! Go and serve table four, would you?’

Jo quickly worked out how Trev’s Teashop operated. It wasn’t so much a teashop as a caffeine outlet for commuters on their way into London–at least, that was how it seemed at seven o’clock in the morning. She did her best to flit from table to table, but there was only so much flitting one could do with so few seated customers and a queue for takeaway coffee that occupied most of the shop. She marvelled again at her boss’s self-delusion.

‘Blasted thing,’ muttered Trevor, turning purple with exertion as he tried to break his way into a new tub of coffee beans.

Jo cast her customer an apologetic look and turned round. ‘Let me try.’

‘Doesn’t work,’ he said, reluctantly loosening his grip on the tin-opener. ‘The tub’s got some new-fangled seal thing on it. We’ll have to—Oh. Right. You’ve done it.’

Jo handed over the open container and got back to serving customers, trying not to smirk. It had just been a case of employing some common sense: twisting the seal, applying some pressure and then levering off the lid.

Common sense. That was something. At least she had that. And having it gave her a clue as to what type of person she was. Her brain worked in a logical way–like a scientist’s, perhaps. She could think laterally and solve problems. It was true, she made a reasonable waitress, but she didn’t think she’d been one before. Not properly. Maybe as a summer job a few years ago, while at school…School. That was another blank.

She tried picturing herself in various workplace scenarios. Sitting in an air-traffic control tower. No, too stressful. Patrolling the streets in police uniform. Too much authority. The Trevor experience had taught her that she didn’t like being told what to do. Staring at a computer screen in an office. Boring. Standing up in court dressed in robes and a wig. Not unfeasible, she thought, although she was probably a bit young for that…Jo poured another filter coffee and sighed. She didn’t have a clue.

Fortunately, Trevor seemed sufficiently unobservant to overlook his waitress’s lack of footwear. Her feet were freezing and the soles were turning slowly black, but there was nothing she could do except try to keep them in the shadows behind the counter. Occasionally, he would send her to check on table ten, the little bench outside the café where a commuter would occasionally perch as he waited for a train or a friend, and every time, somehow, he failed to spot the bare feet.

It was on one of these errands that Jo found herself in the situation she’d been dreading. Another girl, about her own age and of similar build and colouring, was running up the road towards the teashop, hair flying, satchel banging against her hip. She was dressed in black trousers and a cheap polyester blouse.

Jo caught her attention and stepped out to greet her. ‘Hi! You must be…’

‘Renata,’ she gasped, trying to push her way into the café.

‘Yes, you were due to start work at seven, weren’t you?’ Jo stood in her way.

‘Am so sorry,’ she said breathlessly. Her accent was Polish, or something like that. No wonder Trevor had been confused by Jo’s fluency. ‘Bus was not come, so I walk, then bus come but wrong bus…’

‘Oh dear.’ Jo smiled sympathetically. She felt terrible for doing this, but her need to survive outweighed her remorse. ‘Unfortunately, because you were late, we had to find someone else for the job. It was getting busy, you see.’ She gestured towards the queue snaking out of the café.

The girl’s mouth fell open. Her English wasn’t perfect, but she understood.

Jo couldn’t bear it. ‘But if you come back in three or four weeks we may well need another waitress.’ She nodded encouragingly. ‘Do come back, won’t you?’

The girl muttered something in her own language and looked at the ground. For a moment, Jo thought she might march into the teashop and demand an explanation from the boss, but then she just turned, shook her head and walked back the way she had come.

Jo wandered into the café to help with the coffees. She was filled with self-loathing. Good people didn’t behave like this. Good people didn’t steal wallets. They didn’t con innocent girls out of jobs. They didn’t reject the help of others and they certainly didn’t turn their backs on friends or loved ones who might have been hurt or even killed…

She stared into the frothing milk. It was a possibility–and one that left her feeling very uncomfortable–that actually she wasn’t a good person. Deep down, with everything else erased, all that was left was this. A lying, calculating, hard-hearted thief. Or maybe she was just desperate. Maybe the terror and guilt and paranoia had made her act in this way. Maybe she was just trying to stay alive.

Chapter Three

Jo’s basket was filling up quickly. She hadn’t eaten since, well, sometime before the explosion, presumably. She was ravenous. Everything in the shop looked appealing: cakes, bread, meat pies…She even found herself salivating over the Budgens own-brand malt loaf.

The cashier girl was politely trying to extract herself from a conversation with the pensioner, but he clearly wasn’t seeing the urgency.

‘Well, it is August,’ she said patiently. ‘It gets quite warm. D’you need a hand?’

The man attempted to balance his shopping on his walking frame and started to release his grip on the checkout.

‘I need new legs!’ he cried as the load slipped off for a second time and he started all over again.

Jo wondered where she usually did her shopping. She had a feeling that old-age pensioners and conversations about the weather hadn’t featured much in her life up until now. London, she thought. That was where she had lived. The paranoia–the ugly, dark fear of whatever it was–had originated in London.

She tried again to determine what had featured in her life. Friends. A mum. A dad. Brothers. Sisters. School mates. Neighbours. Any or all of the above. They’d start missing her soon, she knew that. It was selfish to vanish without a word to any of them–but this was the problem. It seemed too daunting, too dangerous to turn herself in. She couldn’t face the idea of going to the police. And without going to the police, she couldn’t let people know she was OK–unless she could somehow enlist the help of Saskia Dawson without giving herself away–whoever Saskia Dawson was.

‘Do you know of any B&Bs around here?’

‘Any what?’ asked the girl, mechanically scanning the pack of chocolate digestives.

‘B&Bs. Bed and breakfasts. You know, places to stay.’

The girl looked momentarily enlightened. ‘Oh, right. Um…’ She scratched her greasy forehead. ‘No. Sorry.’

‘Is there another town nearby?’ asked Jo. She wondered whether she’d be better off asking one of the deaf pensioners instead.

‘Yeah. Abingdon. That’s four pounds fifty-four.’ She glanced at the growing queue.

‘Thanks. Is that far? Can I walk there? Do they have clothes shops, that sort of thing?’

The girl shrugged and took Jo’s crisp twenty-pound note. ‘I guess.’

‘Thanks.’ Jo sensed that she wasn’t going to get much more information out of the girl. She held out her hand for the change. It was shaking badly, she noticed, and sweating. The fear had receded a little since she’d come to Radley but it was still there, looming in the back of her mind.

‘That’s fifteen forty-six change.’

Jo took the money and tipped it into Joe Simmons’ wallet. As she was leaving, she glanced at the shelves behind the cashier’s head.

She stopped and looked harder. Suddenly, she knew what had featured in her life before now–what would cure the shaking hands, the sweating, the anxiety. She knew what would relieve the nagging sensation that she hadn’t been able to identify up until now. And the revelation brought on a fresh wave of nausea.

‘Sorry–one more thing.’ She reopened the wallet.

The girl gave her a look that she’d previously shown the old man.

Jo picked out the cheapest bottle, paid the cashier and rushed out.

The high street was empty save for a couple of hunched-over residents shuffling from shop to shop. Jo perched on the wall by the parish hall and drained the bottle of water she’d bought, then quickly decanted the vodka. She was desperate, but she wasn’t desperate enough to swig from inside a plastic bag–not around here.

She took her first sip. It burned her insides, ripping at her throat and leaving an aftertaste that was instantly familiar. The reactions of her body and mind were at odds. It was good to have fed the need, allayed those symptoms, but it was frightening to think of the implications.

OK, so she had had quite a shock and everyone knew alcohol was known for curing the shakes, but this was more than the shakes. This wasn’t a taste for vodka; it was a need. Her body was craving the stuff.

She stared at the parish notice board, trying to make out where Radley was in relation to Abingdon and Oxford. She couldn’t focus. All she could think about was this new, abhorrent revelation. She swigged and thought, swigged and thought. What did this mean? What sort of life had she been living up until now? And why was she so damned scared about turning herself in, coming clean? What had happened in her past? Who was she?

Jo took another swig and delved into the plastic bag. Her fingers curled round the little notebook she’d bought and then felt about for the biro she’d nicked from the cashier. That was another thing: why had stealing the pen come so naturally to her? It wasn’t the incident itself that troubled Jo–the biro leaked and was worth nothing anyway–it was the principle. She was a thief. The pen wasn’t the only thing she’d pinched, either. First, there had been the wallet, then the Polish girl’s job…It was a worrying trait.

She pushed aside her concerns and glanced at the food in her bag. Drinking on an empty stomach was stupid, she knew that much. But the eating could wait. It had to. Before she did anything else, she had to straighten out her thoughts–pull together what she knew. She tore the cellophane wrapping off the notebook and started to write.

Nightclub near Piccadilly

Live in London?

Impatient, intolerant–feel wrong in small village

Thief–comes naturally. Survival?

CAN’T STAY IN LONDON–WHY?

Jo swallowed another gulp, larger this time. She knew she should probably find this Abingdon place, buy some clothes, some shoes, find a place to stay…but the writing was helping. It was as though, by transferring what little she knew into the pages, the notebook was becoming her. It was slowly filling up with all the details and characteristics that only a few hours ago had eluded her. Soon, she hoped, she would be able to piece together who she really was.

Alcoholic?

But healthy–slim, good skin, etc.

Going through bad patch/partying too hard?

Maths, common sense

She stared at the words and felt a twinge of resentment; it was as though this life, this personality, this person, whoever she was, had been thrust upon her. It wasn’t fair. She didn’t want to be an alcoholic. She didn’t want to have this paranoia. Like a teenager taking umbrage at her parents for conceiving her, she wanted to scream: ‘It’s not my fault! I didn’t ask to be the way I am!’ But she had no one to scream at.

Jo closed the notebook and slipped it into her jacket pocket, willing herself to screw the lid on the bottle and think about something else. Her hands were shaking less now, she noticed. One last swig. She stood up to study the notice board. Her feet wobbled beneath her. Grabbing the hand rail, she pulled herself steady. ‘Streetlighting in Gooseacre,’ she read. ‘Rats in Lower Radley.’ ‘Mahogany Dresser for Sale.’ Jo squinted up at the area map.

Abingdon was a brisk twenty-minute walk, according to the directions–although Jo wasn’t sure how brisk her walking would be after half a bottle of vodka. Everything around her had become fluid: the pavements, the shops, the clouds. She dropped the bottle into the bag and then turned and nearly fell down the parish hall steps.

Jo wondered how long the amnesia would last. What if the memories never returned? She reached for the vodka, then stopped herself. There was a panicky sensation inside her, the sort you got in a nightmare when you were desperate to run away but your legs wouldn’t work. Perhaps she would never find out who she really was. Jo forced herself to breathe normally and tried to ignore her yearning. Actually, given what she had seen of her character so far, there was a part of her that wasn’t sure she wanted to know who she was. And more specifically, she wasn’t sure she wanted to find out why she’d run away from everything this morning.

Abingdon’s selection of shops was slightly broader than that of its neighbouring village, but not much. Jo had expected to recognise some of the high-street stores–such as they were–but she felt reasonably certain that Choice Buys and Stylz weren’t big names in UK fashion.

‘Sorry, miss.’

Jo blinked back at the security guard whose arm was blocking her way. He shook his head at her. She stepped back, waiting for an explanation. It was four o’clock in the afternoon and the shop was swarming with people. It couldn’t be closed.

Then she realised. She saw herself through the doorman’s eyes. She saw the crazed expression on the dirty face, the bare feet sticking out from beneath the crumpled jacket. She smelled her breath and spotted the telltale plastic bag. She wouldn’t have let her into Stylz of Abingdon.

The mirror in the McDonald’s toilet was made of some sort of brushed metal that wasn’t particularly reflective, but even so, Jo could tell it was an improvement. She had tried to simulate a shower by rubbing the accessible parts of her body with hot water and the strange foamy syrup she assumed to be soap. Her hair was still knotted and the soles of her feet seemed to be painted black, but that was no bad thing. From a distance, it almost looked as though she was wearing shoes.

An hour later, Jo had acquired a couple of nondescript cotton tops, some cheap underwear, a pair of black trousers and some shoes, all for less than thirty pounds, which seemed suspiciously cheap, even to someone half-cut. She looked presentable, if not fashionable.

She tugged at the trousers so that they covered her shoes, wondering what type of clothes she had worn before. She still had a sense of her likes and dislikes–not a memory, exactly, more a natural bias towards certain styles. Just as she’d known in the supermarket that she liked fruitcake but not mushrooms, she knew that her preference was for the bootleg cut and sleeveless tops. Today, of course, there were other constraints, like money and the requirement for her clothes to double up as the teashop uniform.

She perched on a low car park wall, allowing herself a short break but very aware that she needed to find a bed for the night. Her head was throbbing and her limbs felt heavy and weak–not just because of the vodka. It was the homelessness. It was being in a strange place. The pressure to find somewhere to stay before nightfall, the running away, the loneliness…These things, combined with the stress of the morning’s events and all the unknowns, were weighing down on her, crushing not just her spirit but also her physical strength. Breathing deeply, she pushed herself up and followed the signs to the Tourist Information office.

She arrived just in time to see a Fiat Punto reverse from its spot in the empty car park and zoom off. Jo peered through the tinted windows of the building. The clock said one minute past five.

‘Fuck,’ she said out loud. It made her feel a bit better.

A young man walking past with a briefcase looked up. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Um. Hi. I just…I’m looking for a stace to play.’

The man frowned. ‘Sorry?’

‘A–a place to stay, I mean. Is there a bed and breakfast or something around here?’

‘D’you know, I’m not sure!’ He chuckled as though it was quite amusing that she would have nowhere to sleep tonight. ‘Of course, there’s the Premier Inn, but that’s on the other side of town, and,’ he looked her up and down, ‘I think it’s about seventy pounds a night.’

Jo nodded irritably. The man was offensive and useless. ‘Thanks.’

‘Ooh, there used to be a place on the way into Radley. Above the convenience store halfway along Radley Road. That’s quite a walk, though, and I’m not sure it’s still running. I have a feeling there’s somewhere around here too–Bath Street?’ He waved his hand vaguely. ‘Hmm, sorry.’

The man strode off, leaving Jo squinting through the darkened glass of the Tourist Information office. She knew it was futile, but she had to make sure she’d explored every avenue. Maybe there would be a list of nearby guesthouses pinned to the wall or something. A leaflet lying open on a desk, or a phone number…

The walls were covered in large, laminated posters of church spires and Oxford colleges. A banner hung from the ceiling advertising guided tours of the old County Police Station and on every surface was a little plastic box containing guidebooks in a variety of languages: ‘Bienvenue à Oxford!’ ‘Witamy, w Oxfordzie!’ ‘Willkommen in Oxford!’ ‘Bienvenido a Oxford!’

Jo’s forehead made contact with the dirty glass and she closed her eyes. Then she opened them again, realising something. She looked again at the nearest set of guidebooks. ‘Bienvenido a Oxford!’ she read again. ‘Conozca una de las ciudades mas bellas de Inglaterra.’ Learn about one of the most beautiful cities in England.

She could speak Spanish.

Jo pulled away from the window and looked at her own reflection. It wasn’t much; it wasn’t a huge revelation, but it was something. She reached for her notebook and scribbled it down. Walking along Bath Street, her newfound sense of elation gradually diminished as she realised that there were no signs of hospitality in the vicinity–not unless the B&B was masquerading as a Chinese restaurant or a nightclub called Strattons.

She stopped to consider her options. The hotel was a last resort; Joe Simmons’ money wouldn’t last for ever and she wasn’t sure when she’d get paid for the waitressing work. A bed and breakfast, or better, a youth hostel: those were her only real options. There was a remote chance that the guesthouse above the shop was still operational–if indeed it existed at all–but she knew the chances were slim.

She was obviously going to have to ask around. But how long would that take? And who would help her? The only people nearby were four lanky youths who were practising the art of suspending their trousers from beneath their buttocks.

Jo wondered what day it was, and whether the nightclub would be open later. She briefly considered the option of going out drinking, relying on meeting a guy and being invited back to his for the night. She dismissed the idea immediately. It was too risky, too ridiculous. She took a swig of vodka to help her think. She had to find people to ask. Perhaps the shopping centre would be a good place to start.

The idea of clubbing stayed with her as she hobbled back to the town centre, the cheap plastic shoes wearing away at her ankles. It was the alcohol, she thought. Her imagination was running wild. She was picturing a scene: her at the bar in a club, finishing her drink. A guy leaning sideways towards her. He was an older guy, maybe twice her age but not unattractive. It was so vivid, the scene, almost as if…it was a memory.

She was remembering something from before the blast. Jo could feel him tapping her elbow, offering her a drink. It wasn’t her imagination; it had happened. And she was remembering.

Jo stopped and shut her eyes, trying to summon more. Maybe it would all start to come back to her now. She stood there, waiting for the scene to rematerialise, but it wouldn’t come; she was trying too hard.

Jo walked on, distracted but with a new sense of hope. It wasn’t much to go on, but it was a start. Perhaps this flashback was the first of many. She reached for her notebook and laid it against a wall, scribbling down what she’d seen.

The next two people she asked had no idea about local guesthouses and the third just looked at her suspiciously and hurried away. For the first time all day, Jo started to lose faith in herself. She had no one to call. She was alone in a strange town where nobody wanted to help her, and before long it would be dark. She had limited cash, and even if she did opt to blow seventy pounds on a hotel room, she’d have to find it first. She found herself on the road back to Radley, hoping, despite all the odds, that the man was right about the B&B. The alcohol was blurring her thinking and she could hear the blood pounding round her head.