Chapter 15 Anna
Anna
The journal sits under my pillow, burning a hole in my mattress until Mum’s gone to bed and it’s safe to read.
It’s going to be awhile: She hasn’t even finished making dinner yet because it’s her online tai chi class tonight.
I twiddle about on my phone, but the hairhack-cutehamster-JulianandMaddie doomscroll glazes into a meaningless stream.
I chuck on Chromatica and try to zone out whilst freaking out.
I get super overwhelmed by the world’s problems sometimes, so I never thought a personal problem could feel bigger.
Sure, I’m bummed out Maddie and Julian might be crushing on each other, but that’s really nothing compared to the idea Mum and me might be full-on crazy.
The whole planetary collapse might stop mattering then. So much for my activism.
I examine my wrists, watching the veins. Maybe the madness is in the blood, one of those genetic things. Maybe Julian’s dad is right and there’s no such thing as free will and we’re all just fulfilling our DNA’s programming and mine is for lunacy. Maybe.
‘Anna?’ Mum knocks as she opens the door.
I twist off my earphones. ‘Yeah?’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Thinking about genetics.’
She laughs.
‘It’s not funny, it was deep.’
‘I wasn’t laughing at you. You just reminded me of someone I used to know.’
‘Dad again?’ I ask. It’s odd for him to come up, but that’s twice this week.
She gets the extra-sad look that haunts her sometimes. ‘Something like that. Anyhow, dinner’s ready.’
I abandon my earphones, following her into the kitchen and perching at the annoyingly-thin breakfast bar. There’s a foldout dining table in the sitting room, but it’s always covered in stuff, and Mum never bothers extending it except for Christmas lunch. ‘What is it?’
‘Pasta.’
‘Pasta with…?’
‘Pasta with pesto and ketchup.’
‘Vegan pesto?’
She plonks it in front of me. ‘Duh.’
It’s what Mum calls lazy cooking but I love it. I feel better for eating. I didn’t have a snack this afternoon. Maybe I need to snack more now that I’m vegan? I should probably google it. But even eating doesn’t totally make the freak-out disappear.
‘You’re very quiet this evening.’
I run my finger through the pesto oil left on my plate and lick it. ‘Just thoughtful.’
‘Is it Maddie and Julian?’
‘No.’
‘Because if it is—’
‘It’s really not, Mum.’
‘Well, something’s up.’
‘Nothing’s up.’
‘Suit yourself. Ice cream?’ It’s this special vegan stuff she bought last time she managed to book in a Sainsbury’s delivery.
It’s really good actually, you can’t tell the difference, but I’m feeling a bit sick and just slouch off to my room.
I hear Mum click on Radio 4 while she does the washing up.
I should help her, but I’m too weirded out.
I put my earphones back in, though I’m not sure Lady Gaga’s helping, her vibe is making me existential. Mum comes to check on me at about nine.
‘Time for bed. Phone away!’
She always makes sure it’s plugged in at my desk by nine, says I’ll sleep badly if I keep scrolling all night.
In fairness there’s a bunch of evidence that’s true, I just don’t like not being in control of it.
It’s like she doesn’t trust me as an adult, you know?
I give it one last check for notifications, but there’s nothing.
I’m not sure I even care and hand it over with a sigh.
After Mum says good night, I pretend to reread The Amber Spyglass for the thirty-fifth time, listening to the Hiscocks downstairs trying to calm their new baby, and the sad postgrad upstairs laughing at reruns of Friends.
Mum knocks about in her room for a bit before falling silent.
I watch my alarm clock’s glow-in-the-dark hands tick out twenty minutes, then, wincing at the click of my bedside light, take the journal from under my pillow.
I skim past what I read earlier, my own name jumping out at me: Anna’s only newborn … her wails are so furious, it’s as if she knows … Anna, reminding me, with those big, familiar eyes … Where I left off, it picks up in blue biro, the words are loopier, like maybe Mum was tired.
Sometimes when I sleep I think I’m still in the dreamscape, but the Backward Traveller’s not there and the seeds have shrivelled.
When I wake up, CHARL1E’s voice rings in my ears, even though he doesn’t exist yet.
I really shouldn’t write this down. If Anna ever found it she’d—but she won’t.
Maybe I’ll burn it to make sure. And I’ll disguise bits of it so even if she does get hold of it somehow she won’t—yeah, but I shouldn’t even write it down should I?
All my earlier qualms flood back. I don’t understand how a stack of pages feels more dangerous than getting into the knife drawer as a kid, but it does.
I desperately don’t want to know what happens next, but the notebook is open, and my eyes keep scanning the lines, so I keep reading even as it’s making me feel like I’m all vomit inside.
Anna can’t know. Sometimes I’m still not sure if she’s real, but the doctors say she is—say it’s a miracle she survived ‘home birth,’ and how sad that her ‘father’ died.
My friends keep telling me I’m so lucky my ‘baby bump’ didn’t show.
I can’t ever risk having children of my own, because I’d probably get a big normal bump, and everyone would know I lied.
I lie all the time now. I have to write them somewhere, or I’m frightened I’ll lose track of them and contradict myself, but even writing this, I can hear the leaves rustling in the dreamscape woods, whispering the danger.
I don’t know what would happen to Anna if she found out—
I slam the notebook shut and throw it across the room. It hits my wardrobe with a massive thunk and falls, getting buried in the pile of clothes at its base.
‘Anna?’ Mum’s shout is muffled through the wall.
I need to reply and tell her everything’s OK, but I can’t organise my breathing enough to make words. Did Mum not give birth to me? Did she adopt me? Did she—oh cripes—did she steal me? I can’t breathe. Say something, anything, come on—
Too late. Mum’s footsteps charge down the hall, and she bursts in wielding a hairbrush. ‘Anna?’ She’s half asleep, but if there was an intruder in here, they’d have no chance.
It doesn’t matter how much I’m freaking out about her, seeing her helps me breathe normally, and I finally manage to squeak, ‘I’m OK!’
‘What happened?’
‘A bird hit the window.’
‘A bird hit your window?’
‘Yeah.’
‘At night?’
It’s a rubbish lie. ‘I thought it did, but I was asleep. Maybe it was something upstairs?’
‘Nothing actually in here though?’
I shake my head. Her hairbrush-wielding arm lowers and she yawns. ‘So, you’re OK?’
‘Uh huh.’ I smile, lying through my teeth. I’m surprised my pyjama bottoms don’t catch fire.
‘OK then. Well. Sleep tight.’ She’s already basically asleep again as she leaves.
I shuffle back in bed until my shoulder blades are flat against the wall, staring at the pile of clothes that now hides that notebook. I’m not reading any more tonight. I might not read anymore tomorrow either. I’m not sure I want to read any of it ever.
But I also can’t stop my mind spinning: can’t ever risk having children of my own. Who the hell is Mum? And where did she get me?
I wake up with a crick in my neck, still huddled against the wall.
I must’ve fallen asleep sitting up. My dreams were horrible and abstract, filled with women who looked like Mum but weren’t her, and didn’t turn to me when I called to them.
My blinds are still down, but I blink at the gloom, as if I’ve just come in from a sunny day, and my ears reverberate with a sound like the wind in the trees around the Common.
Stretching, I mooch out of bed and open the blind. The sun’s still behind the houses opposite, so it must be early. Sure enough, my alarm clock says half six. Mum’ll be doing yoga on the balcony, not expecting me to be up yet.
I pick the notebook out of my pile of clothes, unbending a page that got squashed in landing, and hide it back under my mattress. I stare at the wall for a moment, thoughts whirling, until the need to pee makes me go to the bathroom.
When I look in the mirror to brush my teeth, the-face-that-isn’t-my-face is there.
She’s not looking back at me, just getting on with her business, fiddling with something out of sight in her hands.
Normally when I blink, she vanishes, but she’s stuck this time.
I squeeze my eyes and shake my head, but it makes no difference.
I let out a little yelp, and the reflection looks up, as if she’s searching for a plane in the sky.
My breath does that disorganised tight thing again, but I don’t think you can develop asthma overnight, and a heart attack goes with shooting pains in your arms, doesn’t it?
It’s got to be that hyperventilation thing the school nurse told us about.
I reach for the mirror, air racing in and out of my lungs like a rabbit, and for some reason I’m surprised when my fingers hit its cool surface.
What was I expecting, to walk through a mirror?
The-face-that-isn’t-my-face goes back to her work, not noticing my fingers tracing her in the reflection.
This is what Maddie would call ‘proper odd.’