In the end it was a text message from Anna that convinced Kate she had to go through with it. Her phone bleeped with a friendly report from Anna that she had just bought her train tickets to Newcastle and was looking forward to the start of the experiment the next day. This gave Kate a fatalistic feeling that the path had already been decided for her and she would have to embark on the swap. She therefore dutifully continued her tidying and packing.
Once that was done, she set about composing a last email to Neil. How did you send an email to your husband in these circumstances? She couldn’t give anything away, or it would ruin the experiment. But she couldn’t just leave without a message.
‘My dearest Neil,’ she began.
The cursor hovered expectantly, awaiting her inspiration. Kate didn’t want to disappoint it.
‘Hope you got to the ship safely. Sorry you had to go away again so soon – and sorry if I was a bit cold. I just miss you when you go, that’s all. And I needed you so much after Dad and –’
Kate found herself crying. Delete, delete – if she cried when she wrote it, she was clearly being too needy. It was meant to be a happy message, her last real contact with him for three months. Wiping the tears away, she removed the last sentence and continued.
‘Thanks so much for all the help moving stuff up to Kielder. It will be good to be together in Portsmouth again, when you’re back.’
Maybe it would be good to be there again, once the experiment was through. Yes, she could imagine that, just.
‘We can go up Spinnaker Tower, like we said, and Fire & Stone – see if they’ve got any new toppings.’
She wasn’t such a fan of heights or pizza. But this was about Neil.
‘And I can tell you face-to-face again how much I love you. For now, I’ll tell you here: I love you. I know you’re here in spirit, and I’m there, and all that. But let’s look forward to when you’re back. Promise I’ll keep myself busy while you’re away.’
Well, she would.
Now, perhaps for a bit of damage limitation, just in case?
‘Sorry if I ever seem a bit odd while you’re away – just because you aren’t here with me. Not myself sometimes.’
She wasn’t sure Neil would like the idea of her being ‘a bit odd.’ It hinted at mental health issues – and he didn’t need to know she should perhaps be committed for signing him over to Anna. She deleted it and replaced it with:
‘If ever I don’t seem myself in our emails, just remember it’s because we are so much better together in person.’
Yes, that would do it.
‘All my love, always, your one and only Kate.’
She re-read the final version. Maybe she should put in some news from home, like usual? Something bland, nothing that would give the game away.
‘P.S. Your mum says hi.’
Resisting the urge to add another guilty ‘I love you’, Kate pressed send. Then she retired to bed with a mug of hot chocolate and a pad of paper. She was composing a list of useful tips for Anna about living in Kielder – taxi numbers, the local food shops she used, the name of her secretary and boss in case they called. In short, all the little details that Kate felt could be important in her day-to-day life – and if not followed, could give the game away to the outside world. Plus she didn’t think Anna would get very far if she didn’t even know where to buy food. Kate didn’t fancy coming home to a skeleton.
The thesis behind the swap still sounded fairly foundationless to Kate. Psychology had never been her subject, but she did not see how Anna could conceivably use this experiment to support a PhD. Fair enough, she knew that it must be increasingly difficult to meet a requirement for original research and ideas, but short of conjuring up a narrative of what memories may be hidden in the photographs around the house, that married couples hung their clothes up in wardrobes together and that being in a house with no stairs might make one lethargic and possibly a bit colder through lack of movement, which Kate didn’t really feel were the core aspects of her identity, she didn’t really see what Anna would get out of it. It seemed like the sort of romantic and over-idealised theory concocted in the excitement of a sleepless night, and continued with the enthusiasm of a student convinced they are about to do something ground-breaking.
However, this was Anna’s lookout; Kate had pointed out to her initially that there wasn’t a whole lot going on in Kielder, but Anna seemed happy with the idea, and if she wanted to base her research on this topic then it was down to her. For her part, Kate fully intended to follow the terms of the experiment as diligently as she could. There must be a lot more she could glean from a London life than Anna could from her life up here, and she had the concrete activities of the pre-booked drama class, a gym pass, and the internet-dating quest to go on. Maybe this was what Anna was relying on – a full report from Kate as to how much of her self she’d felt she retained while living in the London flat, or to what extent she’d felt she was adopting a new self in taking on Anna’s mantle. As she turned the light off, she tried to mentally prepare herself for a new existence the next day as Anna Roberts.
The next day the real Anna Roberts was already at the rendezvous spot at Newcastle Central Station when Kate arrived ready to hand over as planned. Keys, new bank cards and mobile phones were duly exchanged. Kate’s heart was thumping fast as she made the swap, full of anticipation. She imagined Anna was the same?
“You don’t know the half of it!” Anna replied. Anna had dressed in her best London interpretation of country-style tweeds, showing Kate that she was keen to get into role, and Kate had dressed in an urban outfit of jeans and fitted shirt, hair left unstraightened so that the natural wave showed through, reflecting the style of Anna’s hair when the two girls first met.
“So, are you ready?” asked Anna, looking hard at Kate.
“Well, I’d better be – my train leaves in ten minutes!” laughed Kate, feeling slightly giddy now that the moment was here.
“Good. Remember your responsibilities but don’t take it all too seriously – try to have some fun. We’re both in this to get what we can out of it, after all. I want to see if my thesis works and you want to have a break and live it up in London. I’m sure it will be an interesting few months, and thank you again for giving me this opportunity – I’ve wanted to do this for a long time.”
With that, she gave Kate a quick pat on the arm, and walked away, cases behind her, across the concourse before disappearing into a coffee shop and out of Kate’s view. Kate stood looking after her for a few moments, reflecting that it was disappointingly underwhelming that Anna’s first act as her should be something so routine as to go and get a coffee. Personally, she would be itching to go and see the property that she had exchanged into, and keen to join the taxi queue so that she could put down all her bags. Maybe Anna was just a more relaxed person, responding to immediate needs – after a three-hour train journey, decent coffee and a pastry was likely to be high up there, she supposed. Maybe she needed to relax a bit more too.
Shaking herself she picked up her bags, looked up at the platform indicator again and set off at a determined pace, narrowly avoiding stepping on a forsaken doll that lay on the ground as she did so. On seeing such an item she always felt a slight pang of sympathy for whatever tear-stricken child and parent would have to retrace their steps to rediscover whatever favoured toy it was that had been selected as a playmate for the journey, only to be lost in a momentary lapse of concentration. Ordinarily, she would have picked it up and handed it in at an information desk, but today she had only minutes before her train departed and she wasn’t going to let an unknown child’s toy hold her back from a new life in London. She hurried to the platform, made her way to the correct carriage, and smiling to herself noted that the seat reservation flashed up with ‘A. Roberts’. She sat down purposefully in the allotted seat. The journey had begun.
As the train pulled out of the station,