Chapter 26
“Hey kid,” said the man. His cockney voice was gruff yet gentle.
“Are you real?” she asked.
“I think so. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“It’s this place,” she said. “The walls are thinner here.”
“The walls?”
“Between our world and the other worlds. That’s what Dan says, and I think he’s right.”
“Mind if I sit down?”
“Please yourself.”
He lowered himself awkwardly so he was seated next to her. She didn’t think he looked like a man who regularly sat on lawns. He ought to be in a police car sipping a takeaway coffee, or in an interview room cross-examining a suspect. His knees rose up to near his chin, and he dangled his forearms on them as if he could think of nowhere else for them to go.
“You’re that man, aren’t you?” she said.
“Yup.”
“Garfield Elphinstone Blake.” She pronounced each syllable of his name with slow and deliberate precision. “You’ve become one of the growing gallery of voices in my head.”
“I’m honoured.”
She looked at him more carefully. He was wearing a dark-brown, double-breasted coat with wide, floppy collars and big buttons, and beneath that a beige rollneck top. His brown corduroy trousers had risen up above his ankles, revealing a pair of dark green socks and an inch of pale, hairy, muscular leg. His nose had been broken long ago, flattened and twisted slightly against his face, which together with the silver cheek scar, the steely eyes and thin lips, gave him a worldly-wise, no-nonsense appearance. This man, she thought, had no patience for fools or princesses or people who heard voices in their heads. And yet, he did still seem to her like the embodied form of that head voice, and she couldn’t be entirely certain he hadn’t been conjured up by her subconscious.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“I’ve been watching you.”
“Should I be worried?”
“I shouldn’t think so. You’re not going to get any trouble from me.”
“If you’ve been paying attention, then you must know that I’m the one who causes trouble. I hurt people, especially those I care about.”
It didn’t seem at all strange to be saying this to him. This could have been due to a recklessness born of despair, or because of the unreal quality of this man, or the unreal quality of this place. Perhaps it was all three.
“I know all about that,” he reassured her. “As I said, I’ve been watching you, and…” –he softly cleared his throat – “you are, I have to say, a quite astounding liar.”
“I know.” She hung her head.
“Not only do you tell pre-prepared ones, you make up new lies as you go, adapting to changing circumstances, adjusting your character according to need. It’s impressive.”
“It’s my superpower.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what it is.”
“And it’s useless,” she said. “All it does is hurt people and make them hate me. I wish I didn’t have it.”
“Well I’m very glad you do.”
She frowned at him. “Why?”
He focused on her properly now, and she was unnerved by those unmoving grey eyes: barren, cold and indifferent, like a pair of remote moons, yet they contained a living, volatile substance that could burn through every layer of pretence.
“I have a proposal for you, kid, one that could benefit you greatly. I know you’re not happy working at the library, and you worry you might have missed the boat when it comes to a career in acting.”
“You know a lot.”
“I want to offer you an opportunity to do something that involves acting, but you won’t require an agent for this, and there’ll be no need to go to any auditions. You’ll most commonly have an audience of one or at most a handful of people, and you won’t have a script. You’ll have to ad lib and improvise – think on your feet in other words. The kind of acting I’m talking about isn’t for the stage or the screen. You’ll be offering something extremely close to the truth, and that, paradoxically, requires lying of the very highest order. You’re a born liar, kid – one of the best I’ve ever come across in terms of raw talent. With a little training, we can turn that natural gift of yours into something truly special. I think you’ll find working for us very fulfilling and, if all goes well, it could make you a lot of money.”
“And you too, I assume?” she said.
“Yes. I’ll be your manager, and I’ll take a cut of your earnings. We can agree terms later.”
“Are we talking sex work?” she asked. The words tasted slimy in her mouth, and saying them felt like spitting a fat little maggot onto the lawn between them. Yet they needed to be said. She had to be clear what was being discussed here.
“Not unless you want to go down that route,” he replied. “I have people on my books who are willing to take on those sorts of jobs, but you certainly don’t have to. I don’t think it would be playing to your strengths.” He coloured. “Not that I’m casting any aspersions on your abilities in that department. What I mean is, that’s not the aspect of you that interests me.”
She smiled, happy with the eventual compliment, and equally pleased that she’d embarrassed him. It made him seem marginally more human.
“People have needs,” he said, “and they’re not all about sex. Sometimes they just want to escape the boredom of their daily lives and step briefly into a world of make-believe. People who’ve suffered tragedy or misfortune want a chance to relive a time when they were happy. What we’re selling here is pretence. I run an agency called Bluebird. Each letter of that word will tell you something about our clientele and what we offer them. The first B is for the Bereaved, who want to see and talk to their loved one again.”
“And I’d be expected to play the loved one?” she gasped. “That sounds impossible, not to say immoral."
"Don’t worry. Our clients know you aren’t their actual missing daughter or wife or whatever, but they’re willing to suspend their disbelief for a while just to ease their pain. They’ll send us all the relevant details, and we can provide hair stylists, make-up, clothing, whatever’s needed. You’ll view photos and videos of the deceased. We’ll give you coaching and rehearsal time, even in-ear remote support on the day. You’ll have everything you need to provide a top-quality performance.”
She shuddered, and not entirely with horror. She had to admit to a faint tingle of excitement. “What do the other letters stand for?” she asked.
“L is for the Lonely – people looking for a friend. That’s relatively easy, as you’re not playing anyone they know. The client will send us an ideal friend profile, and you can play a character based on that.”
“And do I have to go on being this person’s friend forever?”
“No. All these jobs last for a set period. The client is made aware of that at the start. It’s in the terms of the agreement. Of course there’s nothing stopping them placing repeat orders. If you don’t want to do it, we’ll send them another friend .” He put the last word in air quotes.
She wrinkled her nose at this. He was playing with people’s vulnerabilities. So much could go wrong. “What does the U stand for?” she asked.
“The Unsatisfied. These are the types who need something they can’t get from their existing friends or lovers. It might be adoration, respect, amusement, excitement, unpredictability, anything really.”
“They want me to idolize them and laugh at their jokes. No problem! What’s next?”
“E is for Exhibitionists.” He cleared his throat. “This is where the sex work comes in. People who get their kicks from exposing themselves to others, or performing sex acts in public, need an audience. We provide them with one.”
“So I’ve got to pretend to admire some sad bloke’s penis.”
“Exactly. Or be horrified by it. I’m never quite sure which one they want. Maybe both. Some sort of reaction, anyway. Occasionally, we do get enquiries from non-sexual exhibitionists, who want to perform poetry, music or drama recitals to a responsive stranger.”
“That sounds like an easy gig.”
He winced. “Maybe, though looking at a penis might almost be better than having to sit through some of the poetry I’ve heard.”
She smiled at this. “What’s next?”
“The second B is for the Broken-hearted. You’d have to pretend to be the lost lover. Not too different from the lost loved one for the Bereaved.”
She thought momentarily of Dan. “You’re playing with fire there, Garfield,” she tutted. “Contract or no contract, they’re going to get attached. These are vulnerable people, and you’ll be breaking their hearts all over again when the contract ends. What if they start stalking me?”
He shook his head. “That’s not how it works. The client knows exactly what they’re getting into from the start. They’re paying for a temporary respite from pain, not a return of their lover. It’s more like a dream or a memory, only it happens here in the physical world with a flesh-and-blood performer. We’ll have a postmortem after each meeting, and if you sense the client’s getting overly attached we won’t send you there again. As for stalking, we’ve never yet had a problem on that score. Our performers work on a strictly anonymous basis. We don’t even keep their real identities on file. The only way a client could find out your name is if you give it to them.”
“They could follow me home.”
“If they so much as follow you to the corner of their street, they’ll be instantly kicked out of Bluebird. Performers’ safety is our absolute priority.”
“What’s next?” she asked.
“I is for Impressionists. These are people who want to make an impression on a third party – it might be their parents, friends or a potential business investor. It could be a gay man needing a beard, a son needing a girlfriend, a wedding invitee needing a plus one, or any number of other scenarios. It’s one of our most popular products, both with clients and performers. The jobs are quick, typically lasting one night, and usually quite straightforward.”
“I like that usually ,” she smiled, but she was intrigued by the prospect of working with an impressionist. “What about R?”
“Romantics. These types tend to be addicted to the flirting stage of romance and quickly tire of relationships once they become too serious, which works fine for our business model. Three, maybe four dates at the most, during which they’ll fall head over heels in love with you, and then, before you know it, their heads’ll be turned by someone else. We’ll try and make sure that the ‘someone else’ is also on our books, so we can profit from their neophilia.”
She wondered if she was dreaming. Like many dreams, it all sounded quite rational, yet at the same time totally mad. Surely there was no agency called Bluebird, no industry selling pretence to the lonely and dysfunctional. Why had she not heard of anything like this before? Garfield Blake was just a voice in her head. Now he had a body, too, but that didn’t make him any more real. As a representative of her subconscious, he had very thoughtfully invented a role for her superpower, and for that she was grateful, but any moment now she expected to wake up. On the other hand, she’d never heard the word neophilia before. Did her subconscious just make that up?
“You’ve gone very quiet,” Garfield said to her. “Are you listening to what I’m saying. Are you considering it?”
“Tell me about D,” she said by way of reply.
“Those are the Dreamers – another very popular category. They want someone who doesn’t exist. At the mad end of the spectrum – we privately refer to them as the Delusionals – are the ones who actually believe they’re someone famous from history. A Napoleon wanting to find his Josephine, for example. But mostly they’re just people who love role play. A Vulcan seeking a lady Vulcan, Juliet looking for her Romeo, it can literally be anything. This type of job generally calls for acting rather than impersonation skills and they can be a lot of fun for both parties.”
The Hill Garden was as quiet and peaceful as she could ever remember, without a person in sight. A wraithlike mist hung above the lawn, and the trees and topiarised bushes emerged from it like green islands in a grey sea. Garfield sat just three feet from her. She could smell the damp wool of his coat and could hear him breathing through his misshapen nose, yet he barely seemed present. When he wasn’t speaking, he was as insubstantial as the mist.
It occurred to her that, with the possible exception of the Exhibitionists, she suffered from every one of the needs and deficiencies of the Bluebird clientele. She could just as easily be a client, and that might possibly make her better at the job he was asking her to do.
“Well?” he said at last. “What do you think?”
There was no conscious decision, barely even any thinking involved. “I’m going to have to work out my notice at the library,” she said.
“Or you could resign by email with immediate effect. We can reimburse you for any financial penalties this may incur. It’ll be worth it not to have to face Sondra again, don’t you think? All those questions?”
“Sondra is my friend. I owe it to her to…”
“I doubt she feels that way about you any more.”
It’s like he’s in my head, thinking my thoughts for me.
“Sondra knows where you live,” he said. “So does Dan. They may come round and start harassing you with questions. You might want to consider moving out of your flat.”
The mention of Dan brought with it a fresh shock of pain. My name will be dirt in your mouth.
“If you like,” said Garfield, “you can move into my flat temporarily until you find yourself a new place to live. I have a spare room with an ensuite. And I cook a mean fish pie.”
She turned to look at him – trying to assess if he was real. “You’re paying money up front to my employers, and offering me temporary accommodation. You must think very highly of me.”
“I hope I’ve already made that clear.”
“You’re asking me to give up my whole life, to reinvent myself as a new person.”
“It’s what you wanted.”
“Can I change my name?”
“You can call yourself whatever you like.”
“And can I pick and choose what jobs I do?”
“Of course.”
She offered him her hand. “I want to shake on it now,” she said.
He raised an eyebrow, as bushy and grizzled as his sideburns. “Before seeing the terms of the contract?”
“Yes.”
His hand felt cool and substantial in hers. She squeezed it hard. It didn’t melt away.