T.J. Lebbon - The Family Man - An edge-of-your-seat read that you won’t be able to put down

‘How do you know?’ Dom asked.

‘Because I would be. Now what time can you get here?’

She was Jane Smith, the do-over woman, and upon waking every morning her new life built itself from scratch.

She relished those briefest of moments between sleep and full consciousness, when all she knew was the lonely warmth of the French gîte’s bedroom, the landscape of bare grey stone walls, the roof light affording a view of the clearest blue sky, and the scents of summer drifting through windows left open all night. For that shortest of times she was free and carefree.

But reality always rushed in, as if she would suffocate and die without it. Her life was constructed around her and she pulled it on like a costume. Her name, her history, why she was here and where she had been before. It no longer needed learning and repeating, this new existence, because she knew it so well. She was experienced at living a lie.

Fragments of her old, real life always hung around, like stains from the past. But she did her best to restrict them to dreams, and nightmares.

She stretched beneath the single sheet. Her body was thin, lithe and strong, limbs corded with muscles. She enjoyed the feeling of being fit. There were hurdles to fitness, buffers against which she shoved again and again, but she enjoyed fighting them. She knew that the more years went by, the harder it would be to deny the wounds and injuries. But for now they acted as badges of honour. Scars formed a map of her past, a constant reminder of her old life that made-up names and histories could not erase.

A spider was crawling high across the stone gable wall close to the sloping ceiling. It was big, body the size of her thumbnail, legs an inch long. She’d seen it before, usually on the mornings when she woke earlier than normal. It probably patrolled her room at night, secretive and silent and known only to her. She imagined it exploring familiar ground in search of prey, and perhaps it sometimes crawled across her skin, pausing on her pillow to sense her breath, her dreams.

It scurried, paused, scurried again, eventually disappearing into its hole until the sun went down. She liked the idea of it spending daylight out of sight. Its sole purpose was existence and survival. There was something pure about that.

She sat on the edge of the bed, stretched again, then walked naked down the curving timber staircase and into the bathroom.

She’d been living in the gîte in Brittany for a little over three months, and she knew its nooks and crannies probably better than the French owners.

In a slit in the bed mattress was a Glock 17 pistol. Tucked behind a stone in the stairwell wall was a Leatherneck knife. A loose floorboard in the bathroom hid a sawn-off shotgun and an M67 grenade, and downstairs on the ground floor, beneath a flagstone in the kitchen, was a small weapons cache containing another pistol, a combat shotgun, and several more grenades.

Though aware of everything around her, Jane Smith did not think of these things now. Her life was as quiet and peaceful as she had ever believed possible. But none of this made her feel safe.

There was no such thing as safe.

She used the toilet, then went down the second flight of stairs to the kitchen. Kettle on, coffee ground, she watched from the kitchen window as the new day was birthed from the dregs of night.

Leaving the coffee to brew, she opened the wide glazed doors that led onto the gravelled terrace. Several rabbits sat across the lawned area beyond. One of them pricked up its ears and froze, but it did not run. Birds sang and swooped across the lawn, picking off flies flitting in the soft morning mist.

The sun would burn the mist away very soon, but for now it formed a pale haze across the landscape. The large lawned garden that sloped down to the woodland, the fields beyond, and past them the wide lake and the steadily rolling hills, were all silent but for the sounds of nature. She did nothing to disturb the peace.

Still, she would not step from the door without dressing. The chance of anyone watching was small. But if a local had walked through the woods this early, and had strayed from the public paths to the edge of the gîte’s large property, she did not want to draw undue attention to herself. The quiet Englishwoman could have been anyone. The naked Englishwoman would draw second glances, and discussion in the village bar-tabac, and a form of notoriety.

Jane Smith was well versed in keeping herself unnoticed.

She took her coffee upstairs, showered and dressed. Then she locked the house and cycled her old bike up to the small village of Brusvily. The patisserie was already open, and she smiled and exchanged a few words with the owner in her broken French. She was getting better, and she knew that the locals appreciated her efforts. They were used to British holidaymakers assuming that everyone spoke English, and she made a point of only conversing in French when she was away from the gîte. Just another way to try and fit in.

She bought croissants for breakfast, and bread rolls, ham and cheese for lunch. That afternoon she planned a run down through the woods to the lake, a long swim in its cool waters, then a hike along its shore to the nearest town. She’d eat dinner there, then perhaps run back the same way, depending on how stiff her hip was. If it was giving her grief, she’d walk.

Back at the gîte she brewed more coffee and sat beneath the pergola on the terrace, eating the croissants with strawberry preserve, drawing in the sights and sounds of summer. This had been a long, hot one, and the lawns were scorched dry by the sun and lack of rain.

Her son, Alex, comes crying to her with a grazed knee, grass stains surrounding the scratches.

Jane Smith paused only for a moment, last chunk of croissant halfway to her mouth. Her coffee steamed. A breeze sang through the corn crops in the neighbouring field and stirred the wild poppies speckling its edges like beads of blood on an abraded land.

She finished eating her breakfast and drinking her coffee, licking her fingers and picking up pastry crumbs from the plate. The memory was already gone. But every such memory was also always there.

This life was a thin veneer. Routine gave it substance, and repetition made it almost like being free.

But Jane Smith was more than one person. After brewing her third cup of strong coffee of the day, and still before nine in the morning, she picked up her iPad.

First she accessed Twitter. Her current account was under one of many pseudonyms, but it was time to change, so she opened a new account under a new name. A few quick posts about apple pie recipes, pictures of cakes, and a couple of funny cat memes, then she searched some cookery hashtags and friended a handful of random people. That done, she accessed five accounts that she liked to keep track of and friended those, too. These people were in her past, and though she’d made a promise to the few she liked, most would never want to see her again. She might have helped them, but in many cases she had corrupted and cursed them, too. Salvation came at a price.

She knew that more than most.

There were no messages there for her, secretive or otherwise, and nothing to raise her concern. She was glad.