Chapter Eleven
Of course I can’t be that Bethany and that fact is brought into sharp relief when I wake up with a slightly stiff neck from sleeping on some ridiculous orthopaedic pillow, which is most definitely not the one I fell asleep on last night. I’ve slipped again. No more 400-thread-count sheets to laze luxuriously in. I drag myself out of bed, slip on a dressing gown and cinch it in at the waist.
This Bethany is tidy. Really tidy. She even has this anally retentive thing of ordering her clothes by colour. But there are a few flashes of disorder – brilliant moments of chaos that make me think perhaps this Bethany isn’t a total loon.
Hmmm … actually I might need to take that back. I’m in the kitchen and the cupboards are … well, I’m not quite sure what I’m even seeing, let alone how to describe it. Everything is in variously sized plastic tubs and boxes. And when I say everything, I meaneverything. All labelled in black cursive with brackets for additional information:
Rice (basmati)
Flour (self-raising)
Pasta (wholemeal)
Sugar (icing)
Cereal (Crunchy Nut)
I wonder about the mental state of this Bethany. Living like this just cannot be normal.
Although at least this Bethany has contacted Cesca in the past month. A series of incredibly trite messages sent back and forth, mostly discussing someone called Helen and the potential for some kind of birthday drinks. It’s glaringly obvious from the messages that neither this Bethany nor this Cesca want these drinks to happen; but Cesca is too polite not to invite her sister and evidently Bethany is too polite to just outright decline. I check the date: the drinks are scheduled for this evening. Should I go?
I open Instagram, ready to stalk my sister and hopefully find out who Helen is and what she means to her. Has she finally – in this world at least – found a nice girl to settle down with? But I’m distracted by my feed, which is full of videos about something called decanting. Basically just decanting all your food from its original packaging into pretty matching jars and tubs. I scroll and scroll, feeling myself sucked into this strange new world I didn’t even know existed. I can feel myself nodding along,hmmm, this doesn’t look quite so crazy when you think about it. There’s one particular influencer with hundreds of thousands of followers who has taken the decanting trend to a whole new level, every single item in her kitchen in matching tubs, everything so beautifully labelled it really is a sight to behold.
I’ll just watch one more, I tell myself, eyes on the screen as I head towards the living room.
Forty-five minutes later and I’m perched uncomfortably on the arm of the sofa, still scrolling, still nodding along, albeit slightly more animatedly this time. I can definitely see the appeal of this, why this might grab hold of someone with my predilections. I finally manage to tear myself away, standing up to let the blood flow back into my right foot, the circulation previously trapped by the rather odd angle I was sitting at.
I get back to the job at hand. Cesca doesn’t have Instagram in this world. Which is not wholly surprising as it’s something she flip-flopped about for a long time, umming and aahing until, in my world, she bit the bullet and made a profile. But then she only posted sporadically; it wasn’t like she was some kind of influencer or anything. I guess this Cesca just didn’t bother with it at all.
She does, however, have a Facebook account. She has one back home as well, and it’s something I have taken the piss out of her for a number of times, saying she’s just like our Auntie Janet. Auntie Janet is a full Facebook uber-conspiracy- theory-believing nutjob who I take perverse pleasure in debating with every Christmas.Why yes, Auntie Janet, do tell me about the evidence that the earth may in fact be flat.Debating with Auntie Janet is a national sport for the Raven girls; Cesca and I enjoy it immensely.
Just as I’d already guessed, Cesca Raven in this world does indeed have a girlfriend. Helen is classically beautiful, all red lips and dewy skin with a penchant for an A-line dress and a particularly full skirt. I can see why Cesca likes her.
But – and this is a huge, big red flag-flying ‘but’ – there’s something not right about Cesca. It’s like she’s a negative of herself, all the colour and joy drained from her. She’s dressed in muted tones of black and grey and beige, nothing too outrageous, everything so safe and nondescript. And then there’s the real issue: the dullness in her eyes. My sister has always been the happy one, the one who laughs and loves and dances on tables at three in the morning. I do not recognize this sepia version of her.
I need to figure out what is wrong with my sister.
To hell with my problems; Cesca needs me and I might only have a day to save her before I skip again. There isn’t a moment to waste. In this world, Cesca isn’t a teacher at a posh all-boys school. According to her LinkedIn – whichI normally curse with every fibre of my being but is oddly useful as a research tool given the circumstances – she quit teaching last year to work for a company that runs corporate training courses. I genuinely yawn reading her blurb about the company: it all sounds so bone-crushingly dull, sonotCesca. I would’ve told her to run as far from this job as possible. It takes me all of five minutes to figure out where she works: an office complex on the outskirts of Croydon.
It takes me quite a lot longer than five minutes to get there. Well, more specifically, it takes me about thirty minutes to find where Bethany keeps her keys so I can leave the flat. After screaming bloody murder at her as my frustration grows, I eventually take a step back to think properly.Breathe. Now where would you put your keys if you werethisBethany?
How the hell am I meant to know?
Because you could have beenthisBethany.Yes, yes, yes, I know I’m basically arguing with myself, but don’t you dare tell me you never do the same thing.
There’s a picture of her in the living room leaning against the bonnet of a car with a massive grin on her face. I’ve never learnt to drive; I live in Clapham so it isn’t like I need to. But perhaps this Bethany has? And if this Bethany has a car, then the keys will be on the same key chain as those for the flat.
This Bethany likes little boxes and places to tuck things away out of sight. And she’s bright. Obviously, she’s me.
And so naturally the keys – complete with a Toyota fob – are in the drawer of the console table in the hallway, a place I had already looked a dozen times to no avail. Because they aren’t just sitting in the drawer; they are in a small metal box pushed towards the back of the drawer. A Faraday cage. Designed so that no one can clone the signal for the keyless operation.
Smart and well organized. I could like this Bethany. I just wish she was here so she could drive us. I’m going to have to get the bus.
I sit on a bench in the park by Cesca’s office, my hair covered with a baseball cap I bought from the huge Next in the retail park adjacent to the industrial estate. I don’t want her to see me, to recognize me. I figured she often has lunch out here when the sun is shining; there were enough pictures on her Facebook to build a pattern.
Sure enough, there she is. She balances a salad on her lap and phones someone. I’m behind her, well within earshot but out of her line of sight.
‘Hey, honey!’ she says with an enthusiasm I can tell is one hundred per cent forced. I glance at her, at the way her shoulders still slump forward, the weariness etched into her posture.
