Jenny Valentine - The Double Life of Cassiel Roadnight

“I’m Gordon,” he said. “And the lady’s name is Ginny.”

“Well done,” I said. “Good for you.”

“And you are?” he said.

I looked at my shoes, somebody else’s shoes, black and lumpy and scuffed. I wondered how many nobodies had worn them. I felt the fabric of someone else’s shirt against my skin, nobody else’s trousers. How was I supposed to know?

I smiled. “I’m nobody,” I said.

“Oh, come on,” he said. “Everyone is somebody.”

It was amazing really, how he could be so sure of that.

It was the 5th of November when I found out I wasn’t who I thought I was. I remember the exact moment. I didn’t know myself any more. I asked a man for the time so I could commit it to memory. He looked at his watch and told me it was twenty-five past seven. Then he just went back to his newspaper.

I said, “Do you know me? Do you know who I am?” I knew he wouldn’t, but I needed him so badly to say, “Yes.”

I could tell he wasn’t concentrating on his reading any more. He just had his eyes on the words while he waited for me to go away. He was scared.

The Ginny woman came back with something in her hand, a piece of paper. “Can I have a word?” she said.

Gordon got up and they left me in the room on my own again. I could hear them on the other side of the door. They were whispering, but I could still hear.

She said, “I only saw it this morning. Pure coincidence.”

“Bloody hell.”

“He’s been gone nearly two years.”

“Well. I. Never.”

“Do you think it’s him?”

“Look at it. It’s got to be.”

The door handle moved. I shut my eyes and tried to be ready. I tried to stop time. When they came back in they were altered, careful, like I was a bomb that might go off, a sleeping tiger, a priceless vase about to fall.

I thought they’d found me. I wondered how far I would get if I just ran.

Ginny’s hand hovered over mine, without touching. Gordon tried to smile. I was terrified. Was this it?

“Cassiel?” she said.

I looked straight at her. I didn’t know what was going on. “What?”

“Cassiel Roadnight?” she asked.

My name is not Cassiel Roadnight. It never has been. My name is Chap. That’s what Grandad used to call me. I always thought it was a good name. I always thought it suited me.

“Who, me ?” I said.

Gordon gave me the piece of paper. It was a printout, a picture of a boy with the word MISSING across his forehead.

A picture of me.

“Oh my God,” I said, and I took in a breath and I held it.

It was old. I was about fourteen maybe, something like that. Brown hair, not long and not short. Blue eyes, same shape, same lights and colours. My face exactly – my nose, my mouth, my chin.

I wondered if it was the last photo anyone had taken of me and I wondered who took it.

I wondered why I was smiling. I didn’t smile when I was fourteen. What did I have to smile about?

“Oh my God,” I said again.

They misunderstood me. Ginny let her hand touch mine and she squeezed. Gordon blew the air from his mouth with puffed cheeks, like a deflating ball. I kept my eyes on the picture.

There was something wrong with it.

Here are some things I know for sure about my face. I see them every time I look in the mirror. I know they are there without even having to look.

One. I have two scars. The first runs from my earlobe to my cheekbone, thin and raised and shiny, like one of the mends on my shirt. A dog bit me when I was five. It hurt like hell.

The second is beneath my left eye, a red mark, a swelling under my fingers, a diamond-shaped hole made by a boy with rings on every finger. I remember his face and I remember the sharp, weighted sound of those rings landing. His name was Rigg.

Two. I have three piercings in my left ear and two in my right. I did them myself with a needle and salt water and a cork. I breathed in deep and they didn’t even bleed. There’s nothing in them any more, no studs or rings or whatever. I took them out, but the holes are still there. My ears look like pincushions.

Three. My teeth are bad. One at the front is broken and three back ones are going to come out, even though they’re supposed to last me a lifetime. My teeth are terrible.

In the picture there were no scars on my face, no piercings. I had perfect teeth. I was happy and well fed and wholesome.

In other words, it wasn’t me.

I tried to tell them. I looked up from the picture and I said, “No.”

“Cassiel,” Gordon said. He crossed his legs. His trousers and his mouth made a shushing noise.

I shook my head. “Not me.”

“Come on,” Ginny said again, her hand still on mine.

I wanted to swat it off. I didn’t answer her.

“Whatever trouble you’re in, Cassiel,” she said, “whatever reason you had for running away, we can help you.”

“No, you can’t,” I said. They were too close to me. I didn’t like it.

“We’re here to help,” she said.

“Help someone else,” I said. “Help someone who wants it. I’m not him.”

“Who are you then?” Gordon asked.

Good question.

I stared at him. I smiled my angriest smile.

“What are the odds,” Gordon said to Ginny, like I wasn’t there, “of there being two identical missing boys?”

“ Billions to one,” Ginny said, like that settled it.

“I don’t care what the odds are,” I said. “It’s not me.”

“So what’s your name then?”

Maybe this is it, I thought, just a trick to get me to tell them my name. I wasn’t falling for it. They weren’t going to find me. I’d managed to keep away from them for this long.

“It’s not Cassiel ,” I said. “No way it’s that.”

They glanced at each other.

“Have another look,” Gordon said, and Ginny said, “Take your time.”

They didn’t believe me. They wanted to be right, I could tell that. They were going to insist on it. It doesn’t matter what you say to people like that. When they have made up their minds they stop listening.

I breathed in hard and I tried not to think. I looked at the boy in the picture. I thought how incredible it was to have a double like that, somewhere out in the world, to look exactly like a total stranger. I looked at Cassiel Roadnight’s happy, flawless, fearless face. And the thought occurred to me then, that I could be him, if I wanted. It crept in. I could see it coming and I tried so hard not to notice it.

I could be.

And if I were Cassiel Roadnight, the thought said, I wouldn’t have to be me any more, whoever that was.

You won’t exist , it said. You could wipe yourself off the face of the earth in a second. You could vanish into thin air, right in front of your pursuers.

I gave that thought my full attention. What did I have to lose?

There were people looking for Cassiel Roadnight, but they were people who cared. He had a family and friends. He had loved ones. He had a life I could step right into.

And what did I have?

Nobody. Nothing, except the fear of being found. The people looking for me just wanted to pull me apart.

I always wanted to be someone else. Doesn’t everyone?

“OK,” I said to the thought, so quietly I almost didn’t say it at all.

“What?” Gordon said.

They looked at each other and then back at me. It was like they’d been holding everything in. Suddenly there was this noise in the room of them breathing.

“OK,” I said.

“Good,” said Ginny, and Gordon said, “Your name is Cassiel Roadnight?”

“Yes,” I told him. “My name is Cassiel Roadnight,” and I watched the smile spread and stick to his face.