Amy Bird - Yours Is Mine

Anna nodded and made a note.

For her side of the bargain, Anna handed over the password to the internet dating site she used, with (not quite mock) stern instructions that Kate was to look at the profile Anna went by, as well as Luke’s profile, ‘to focus Kate’s mind’ on how she should be writing. Anna clearly only wanted the opportunity keeping warm for her while she was away, thought Kate. She wanted the ultimate prize for herself.

A detail that Kate paid full attention to was the financial proposition made by Anna. Anna suggested that each girl would set up a new bank account in her own name for the other to deposit into it however much money she wanted so that she could use it during the swap. They would each then hand over the card and security information for this account, and the person who deposited the money would reclaim it at the end of the swap. Kate was initially sceptical, worried that she was not only potentially giving money to Anna but also giving her licence to run up debts in her name, and then vanish. Anna seemed a little affronted by this concern, particularly as Kate, focusing in on the detail as she had been trained to do, had expressed herself in rather a blunt manner. Anna reminded Kate frostily that as she had explained at their initial meeting, if the girls genuinely wanted to pass each other off as the other, they would need some identification in order to do this. Besides, if they were to buy things over the next three months, unless they wanted to carry round wads of cash or always have to give their correct legal identity at point of sale thus undermining full assimilation with each other’s identities, they were going to have to use such a device, and it had been the least requiring of trust that Anna could think of.

Kate was still unconvinced by this. However, she reluctantly agreed to carry on with the deal on the basis that they would type out a short-form agreement stating that the monies deposited by one girl [A] in the account in the name of other girl [B] of account number [X] would remain at all times the property of girl [A] and the account should under no circumstances be allowed to go overdrawn, and that should it in breach of the agreement go overdrawn this money would be repaid by the girl in breach before the end of the exchange and if not would be recoverable as a debt, and the girl in breach would use her best endeavours to undo any damage to girl [A]’s credit rating, and any charge, costs, or other expenses incurred by girl [B] in girl [A]’s name or otherwise would be for girl [B]’s account.

Kate was not wholly satisfied that it worked, but thought it may have some use as a last resort, and she always sought to make use of her skills as a lawyer in day-to-day transactions. She contemplated getting it witnessed to make Anna realise that she was serious, but the subsequent loss of dignity at letting someone she knew realise not only that she was embarking on the swap but also to see such a tenuous piece of drafting was too much for her. Besides, Anna was already turning red in indignation as Kate wrote down the paragraph, complete with signature blocks, and if Kate suggested executing it as a deed it might scupper the whole deal. Muttering that she might make some amendments to the drafting before putting it in final form, she allowed an increasingly impatient Anna to move on.

They would each only listen to the other’s music rather than their own, with MP3 players being swapped and CDs being left in situ. This was to ensure they were fully immersed in the other’s mindset. Kate had cast an eye over the CD rack during her first visit, and had been impressed with the collection of jazz she had seen there, although somewhat perturbed by the occasional pre-teen pop album lurking amongst them. Looking again now, she didn’t see the latter genre there. She suppressed a giggle. Maybe Anna had felt she would be unable to live without them and had already squirrelled them away to take to Kielder with her. Addressing her mind to the music Anna would have at her disposal, she made a quick apology that Anna would just really have the iPod to listen to; most of hers and Neil’s music was in Portsmouth, and although it was possible her dad’s 50s crooners might appeal to Anna, it wouldn’t exactly immerse her in Kate’s way of living. An iPod filled with School Disco classics wasn’t a lot better, but at least it was true Kate and Neil.

The only other critical arrangement was work. Kate had decided that Anna would be able to deal with the task of editing the textbook that her firm was producing, but that she could not in conscience give Anna the remote internet log-in details that would enable her to see her work emails. The reputational, not to mention legal, risks for both her and her firm were simply too great. It may be that Anna would have to field the odd call, but work had not been calling much, and if she really could not manage it, she would ring off, blame the poor signal in Kielder, and get in touch with Kate so that she could call them back. On her part, Anna handed over the proofreading training notes and house style guidelines of the publishing house that she freelanced for, advising Kate to cast her eye over them before she set to work. The latest set of proofs would be due to come in next week, so Kate would have a bit of time to read in.

That was the end of Anna’s list. Or at least, of the tangible points.

“I’ve gone through all the concrete points I can think of,” she explained. “The rest of it is up to us. We have to use the raw materials in each residence to identify as closely as possible with the essence of each other’s lives, to take every opportunity to do things as we believe the other person would do them, and to realise that for the next three months we are in a sense becoming new selves that have to be cultivated by living in each possible detail the way the self we are pretending to be would live. Otherwise the experiment will not work.”

Kate surmised from this rather pompous summary that Anna had already started rehearsing the opening paragraphs of her thesis. She nodded her agreement, trying to convey understanding and sincerity. Lofty psychobabble aside, she appreciated the sentiment; it was a big responsibility to live someone else’s life for three months, and to essentially be the research on which they based their PhD. Kate took this as seriously as Anna did.

Anna smiled to lighten the mood. “And of course, you must enjoy yourself too! Make the most of London while you’re here! Forget you’re an old married lawyer and live a little!”

Kate laughed. If last night’s over-indulgence was anything to go by, she would certainly be making the most of it.

They agreed that Kate would return to Kielder and pack up her things, set up the necessary bank account, and then meet Anna at Newcastle station in three days’ time to hand over the keys to the Kielder cottage, the new bank details and mobile phones. Kate had offered to show Anna to the cottage but she had not taken her up on it – it seemed Anna wanted to get an entirely fresh perspective and see what she could absorb from the building and their contents alone. There would be no transition for her; she would step straight into Kate’s life and make of it what she could.

Kate therefore had three days to get ready to surrender her old life, and adopt a new one. Only temporarily, of course.

- Kate-

The evening before the exchange started, Kate was seriously considering trying to get herself committed as an in-patient to some sympathetic mental institution. She had come to the simple conclusion that she must be mad. Why else would she be considering handing over her property, bank details, work responsibilities and her relationship with her husband and essentially herself to a girl with whom she had spent a grand total of perhaps thirty minutes? She was not sure whether the fact that she knew it was a rash and highly risky thing to do made it more rational and therefore less mad, or whether the fact that she was knowingly putting herself in this predicament made her completely beyond hope. She felt that perhaps in good faith she ought to phone Anna and advise her of her own evidently lacking mental competence, and suggest that both girls lie in a darkened room to calm down before beating a path to the friendly local lunatic asylum. However, the reminder that Anna too was about to make a similar leap of faith reassured her slightly – if more than one person was to carry on in this way, that made it twice as normal and therefore half as likely as being a sign of incipient madness.