At
Her husband, puzzled but not unduly worried by his wife’s sudden absence, waited just over the recommended twenty four hours before he contacted the police.
From that point on, David Brown was interviewed, recorded, filmed and broadcast live into the nation’s homes on a regular basis until it became clear that he was not responsible for her disappearance and Jenny Brown was not coming back.
Public interest in the case quickly waned, and the police were left to do whatever it is that they do in cases like this one. Which is to say, they kept investigating, they kept questioning, they drank milky coffee with two sugars and they went to the pub.
David Brown went back to his life and his routine. It was strange for him at first, Jenny not being there, but gradually he adjusted and settled into a rhythm that enabled him to carry on living without too much pain or indigestion.
His neighbour, Catherine Bradshaw, barely noticed the absence of Jenny Brown. The two women had rarely spoken, beyond a polite hello if they encountered each other returning from the supermarket, or going out to work. Catherine kept herself to herself, preferring to mind her own business and stop others from minding it too.
On the 16th of November, Catherine thought that she saw Jenny Brown walking through the town she was visiting on work. The town was a good many miles from the place where Catherine lived; the town where Jenny had once lived. Catherine’s instinct was to hide, to avoid being seen by Jenny, and then she remembered. Jenny Brown had disappeared. Perhaps she wanted to avoid being seen by Catherine as well.
This thought interested Catherine and she made it her goal to follow Jenny, or this woman who appeared to be Jenny, for as long as possible, to see what she would do.
It was in Waterstone’s, inside the new shopping centre, that Jenny looked up from the pile of Books By New Authors that she was browsing and fixed Catherine with a gaze that forced her to stop in her tracks.
“What do you want?”
“I’m sorry?”
“You’re following me. Spying on me. Really badly, it has to be said. So. What do you want?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Come off it. You’ve been five paces behind me all afternoon. From shop to shop, from clothing rack to clothing rack, from book display to, well. You know what I’m saying.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t.”
Their voices never rose above the level of any normal conversation. Their tone and cadence was as sweet as if they had been talking about gardening or the weather.
“Okay then. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.”
Jenny returned to her book. Catherine continued to pretend she was browsing the bookshelves.
“You like Sebastian Foulkes, then?”
“I’m sorry?”
“You’re very apologetic. Foulkes. You’ve been staring at that row of his books for ten minutes now. If you’re having trouble deciding, I’ll save you the bother. He’s shit.”
“Oh?”
“Oh, she says. Oh. Yes. Oh. He’s shit. Lazy. Passes off ill-researched fantasy as fact. Talks a load of bollocks. All that shit about birdsong. And that crap about the Resistance.
Again, her voice didn’t rise a note above gentle.
Catherine Bradshaw stepped away from the shelves; moved towards the island of books across which she was being addressed. She stood looking at Jenny Brown, wondering what to say next.
It was 3.45 in the afternoon. Catherine Bradshaw would either have to leave to catch her train or sort out a hotel room for later.
Looking at the woman, who was still flicking through books taken at random from the pile on the display, Catherine was no longer sure that she was Jenny Brown.
“You seem familiar,” she said.
“Is that why you were following me?” The woman’s eyes never left the book she held.
“I suppose so.”
Not Jenny Brown looked up. She smiled.
“So you were following me, then.”
“Yes.”
She put the book down and looked at Catherine with a frank expression on her face. Not playful, not friendly, but not hostile either. Frank.
“Who did you think I was?”
“A woman. My neighbour. Well, my neighbour’s wife. She left. Disappeared. It was on the news.”
“You thought you’d found her? You thought you’d found me? What were you going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Were you going to try to persuade me to go back?”
“No, I... I don’t know. I hadn’t thought...”
Not Jenny Brown picked up another book from the pile in front of her. She was losing interest in Catherine.
“No,” she said, “I don’t suppose you had.”
She remained silent for a while. Catherine didn’t know what else to say, so she put her hand on the covers of books, one after the other, as though she was going to pick one up, her breath hovering about her lips as though she was going to say something. She didn’t know what else she could say.
Catherine Bradshaw turned to go.
“Why did she leave?”
“What?”
“You’re not sorry any more then? Just deaf now? I said, Why did she leave?”
“Who?”
“Me, your neighbour’s wife. Interesting that you describe her that way. Was she never your neighbour, then?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I know that she was my neighbour, yes. Of course she was. I don’t know why she left. Or why I described her as his wife.”
“Hmm.” Not Jenny Brown was bored with the books in front of her, so she moved around the island, towards where Catherine was standing.
Catherine Bradshaw felt a little threatened by this. Although the store was a big one, the shelves were close together, and the section they were in was out of any obvious line of vision. They could have been on their own in the world. Lost in a secret room within the bigger shop.
She also felt a little excited.
Not Jenny Brown stood close to her.
“Didn’t you ever speak to her, then? Your neighbour’s wife. Me.”
Catherine felt confused. She looked at the woman more closely. They were standing very close together. The woman was still looking at books, not looking at Catherine. Catherine could smell her. The mix of perfume, light and fresh, with the heat of the day causing other smells and scents to come from her body. She smelled like apples. Or melons. Something fruity and light.
The woman looked up at her. Catherine smiled.
“You alright?” said the woman.
“Mm. Fine,” Catherine replied.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Oh. No. I didn’t, did I?”
Catherine Bradshaw felt confused by the way the woman said she wasn’t Jenny Brown but then called herself Me in relation to the person Catherine thought she was. Catherine wondered. Had the woman said that she wasn’t Jenny Brown, or had she, Catherine, assumed that she wasn’t because she hadn’t said that she was.
The woman brushed against her as she passed behind Catherine to look at the books on the other side of her.
“Erm. We never really spoke much. Just in passing.”
“Did you talk to her husband much?”
“Not really, no.”
“But you think of this woman as his wife, not as your neighbour?”
“I suppose. I don’t know.”
“You really don’t know much, do you?”
The woman, Not Or Maybe Jenny Brown, walked off, moving over to the next island of books. Catherine Bradshaw stayed where she was.
“Do you wish that she would come back? Or do you wish that you could disappear like that, too?”
Catherine wondered about that herself. If Jenny Brown did come back, would she ask her why she had done it? Would she ask her what it was like to disappear. Catherine Bradshaw knew what it was to not exist. She didn’t know what it was to remove yourself from someone else’s life, though.
“Do you wish you were her, Catherine?”
Catherine looked at the woman sharply.
“How do you know my name?” she said.
The woman held up Catherine’s purse, which she had been looking through without Catherine realising.
“You should be more careful. Keep your bag closed. You don’t know what light-fingered people might be around.”
The woman tossed the purse lightly over to the island in front of Catherine.
“It’s okay. You can check it if you like. There’s nothing missing. I’m not a thief any more.”
Catherine didn’t hesitate to doubt the woman’s word and quickly riffled through the contents of the purse.
“You don’t even know for sure what was or wasn’t in there, do you Catherine? When was the last time you checked how much cash you were carrying?”
Catherine knew that the woman was right, but carried on checking anyway. The woman laughed.
“What was she called, this woman who lived next door and disappeared?”
Catherine put her purse back into her bag and zipped the bag securely. She clamped the bag under her arm.
“Jenny,” she said. “Jenny Brown.”
“Ohhhh,” said the woman. “Jenny Brown..” She paused, as though she were thinking. Then said, “Nope. I don’t know her.”
She smiled. “But I do know you, Catherine Bradshaw,” she said.
The way that she said it made Catherine jolt inside. She was sure, suddenly, that the woman did know her. Not just because she had looked inside her purse and found her name. She felt like she and the woman had met somewhere before. She did have a look of Jenny Brown, but it seemed to Catherine now that it was ridiculous of her to have ever thought that she could be Jenny.
“Don’t you have to get your train home, Catherine Bradshaw?”
Catherine looked at her watch. It was later than she realised. She didn’t know how long they had been standing there, lost between bookcases, out of sight of other people in the store. She only knew that it was longer than she had thought.
“See how easy it is for me to put thoughts into your mind, Catherine? You need to be careful of that. I’ve got you thinking now. Wondering if I really do know you. Wondering if I could possibly be Jenny Brown. I haven’t said one way or another have I, Catherine? I’ve only said that I don’t know her. Easily done. Just like telling you I know who you are.”
Catherine’s head was swimming. She bowed her head slightly, put a hand up to touch it.
“You’re confusing me,” she said, and looked up.
The woman was gone. Vanished, as they said, into thin air. The books on the island were undisturbed. The air around her smelled of books, of nothing. Paper. Book covers. Nothing.
Catherine felt paralysed. Only her head would move. She looked around her, as though she would be able to see the woman somewhere else. On the ceiling, maybe. Climbing up the book shelves. Crouching on the carpet, picking up something she had dropped. But she was nowhere to be seen.
“Mrs Brown?” said a voice somewhere behind her. “Mrs Brown?”
Catherine turned her head slowly to see who was speaking.
“I’m Catherine,” she said.
“Of course you are ducks,” said the woman she discovered. Catherine felt that she knew her, but she didn’t know how.
“Your husband is coming in a minute, Mrs Brown. He’s coming to visit you. Do you want to come with me and we’ll make you look pretty for him?”
“I don’t have a husband,” she said. “I’m Catherine. I’m not Jenny. Jenny disappeared.”
This new woman looked at her. Catherine looked back.
“Where did you find me?” she asked. “Why do you think I’m her? She disappeared.”
The woman didn’t speak. She took Catherine by the wrist and led her from the window she had been standing in front of. Catherine wanted to fight, but her body wouldn’t respond.
“I’m Catherine,” she said again. “Catherine Bradshaw. I’m not Jenny Brown.”
She sat in a chair with her face washed and her hair brushed out. She was wearing a little mascara, a little eyeshadow. No blusher, no lipstick. David Brown came into the room.
“Hello, love,” he said, and bent to kiss her.
“You killed her, didn’t you?”
David Brown straightened up. “No, Jenny, I didn’t kill her.”
“Don’t call me Jenny. My name is Catherine. You killed Jenny. I know you did. You told the police that you didn’t, but you did.”
David Brown sat down in a chair across the room from Catherine.
“Jenny, I didn’t kill anybody. And what you did was a mistake. Everybody knows that. And now you’re here to get well again.”
He said it as though he had said it a million times before. He said it with exaggerated patience. He spoke to Catherine as though she were a child.
She clamped her mouth shut and turned her face away from him. She didn’t know what he meant. What did she do? What was a mistake?
Chances are, she told herself, he’s trying to confuse you.
“I’m Catherine,” she said, over her shoulder, to nobody in particular.
David Brown sighed.
“No, darling, you’re Jenny. Catherine’s dead. It was an accident.”
Catherine Bradshaw thought about the woman in the bookshop again. Now that she had had time to think about it, the chances were that she was Jenny Brown. Jenny might have got away. And who was she to spoil her fun?
© J R Hargreaves September 2006
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