‘Is this a joke?’ he said. He looked round, his eyes wide. ‘Is Jeremy Beadle about to jump out on me?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You live at number five, do you?’ There was an edge to his voice that I didn’t understand.
‘Yes. Why? Nick, what’s going on?’ He looked furious, but my mind couldn’t seem to work out where this conversation had so quickly gone off track.
He stood, picked up his bag and clutched it against his belly. ‘I think I’m going to go now.’
I stood too. ‘Wait! Tell me what’s happening here. Please.’
‘Number five Cherry Tree Close ismyhouse. I’ve lived there for eight years.’
Time stood still. Oxygen was sucked out of the air. Everything around us stopped moving, the world suspended.
‘But… how can you?’ I stammered.
‘Because I do. And I assume you already know that, which means I’ve clearly misread this whole thing.’
‘But… no! Of course I don’t know that. I… I don’t know what to say.’
His gaze was fixed on me, his eyes wild.
‘Please, sit down and talk to me.’
He hesitated for a moment, not moving. Then in one swift movement he threw his bag back down and perched on the very edge of the wooden slats at one end of the bench. I sat too, right at the other end, as far away from him as possible.
‘So, we both live in the same house, apparently,’ I said. I was trying for light-hearted but it fell flat. I squirmed beneath his glare. ‘Maybe there are two number fives,’ I said. ‘Maybe, you know, when they built the houses, they used some strange numbering pattern, some weird superstition, like on thosehousing estates where they don’t build a number thirteen in case it brings bad luck. That must be it, right?’
He shook his head. ‘I’m fairly certain there’s only one number five.’ His voice was flat. I was tempted to get up and leave him there, but he looked so upset I couldn’t bear to just walk away. Besides, there must be some perfectly reasonable explanation for this. We just needed to work out what it was.
I had an idea. ‘Hang on.’ I opened my bag and pulled out my phone and scrolled back through my camera roll until I found the photo I was looking for. I held it out and he stared at it with a confused look on his face.
‘What the hell is this?’ he said.
‘Just look at the photos,’ I said.
He glanced down at the phone as though it was a bomb that was about to explode, and his frown deepened. ‘This is my house,’ he said.
I turned it round and looked at it. ‘Are you totally sure?’
‘Absolutely. I laid those paving slabs myself.’
I peered at the mossy path leading up to the front door and turned the phone to face him again. ‘This path here?’
He nodded, and looked at the photo more closely. ‘Although they look much more worn and old here.’
I turned it back to look at it again. My mind was all over the place, trying to find a reasonable explanation for what might be happening. The only answers I could come up with were either that there were two houses that looked exactly the same on two different streets with the same name – or that Nick was mentally ill.
‘Anyway, what the hell is that thing?’
I looked up. ‘What thing?’
‘That… computer thing in your hand.’
I looked down at my iPhone, then back up at Nick. He seemed deadly serious, and suddenly I felt a little afraid. Iglanced round. A man was walking past with his pug on a lead, and a couple strolled a little further away, chatting. I was okay, I wasn’t alone with him.
‘This is my phone, Nick,’ I said gently.
