There’s nothing for me to do and I feel like I’m going mad. I can’t face Rebecca, and these know-it-all doctors can’t tell arses from elbows.
That nurse suggested I write. I doubt she meant for me to put it on the internet, let alone on the same website George used to post gardening pictures, but why not?
It started a few days ago. I wish I had listened to my own intuition. I wouldn’t have been able to save George, but things would have been different.
We were married for nearly forty years. It wasn’t always easy. He could be a very stubborn, frustrating man. And then there was his work. It damaged him, that I knew. Wore him down like a weight on his soul. And I had struggled too, raising Rebecca alone when he’d be away for years, with infrequent leave and I not knowing if he was going to come home in a box.
But that all changed when he retired nearly a decade ago. We moved to a beautiful little house, with a few acres of land. All overgrown at first, but George had put himself to work. He could never abide idleness, and he was determined to stay fit.
I watched from the kitchen as over the months he turned the overgrown woods into his own little paradise. He brought in apple trees, planted great beds of tulips and rose bushes and little patches of wildflowers.
“For the butterflies.” He always said.
Then he built his shed.
I told him it looked god-awful, but he insisted he needed a place for his man hobbies.
In the end I let him, but I still hate that shed. I swear I’ll tear it down.
Life became a series of routines after he retired. George would wake me with a cup of tea, I’d make breakfast, always porridge for both of us, followed by a bacon butty for him. Then he’d go to work in the garden, or else in his shed to play with his trains.
The same routine for years.
Until a few weeks ago.
I woke up on a rather rainy Tuesday, feeling very unusual. It took me a while to realise why. I’d slept the whole night, and that almost never happens. Normally George would have to go to the bathroom at least once, and I was a very light sleeper. I could think of only a handful of occasions over the last few years when he’d avoided waking me.
Still, I wasn’t alarmed, only groggy as George entered with a cup of tea.
“Morning.”
I grunted in response, throat dry as I took the steaming cup. George had never been a handsome man, but I’d always loved his smile, especially in the mornings. That morning, as I took a sip, I felt nothing, only that the tea was off.
I made a face, and a noise of dissatisfaction.
“What’s wrong?” He asked, smile slipping.
“How many sugars did you put in?”
“Two.”
“Two?” I said with all the venom I could muster.
“Yes.”
“When have I ever had two sugars in my tea?” I thrust the cup back towards him. “Three. Go make it properly, and think about going to the doctor’s. Probably dementia.”
George barked a laugh as he left, but behind my words I felt uneasy. Forty years, and even in the stress of ’91 and ’03 I’d never know him to cock-up my tea.
Eventually, thirst quenched and sleeping gown on, I made my way down to the kitchen. I was just getting out the saucepan for porridge when George poked his head in from his office.
“No porridge for me this morning, how about something a bit more substantial? Are there still some sausages left?”
I went to the fridge, and there were indeed four left from last night.
“Yes. Sausage and bacon butty, then?”
“Perfect.” And again he smiled and again it did nothing. It failed to twitch a smile from me in return, failed to rouse any warmth in my chest.
I made my porridge as the rain let up, topping it with a blob of butter and a drizzle of honey. Then George’s sandwich; three rashers and three whole sausages, brown bread and HP sauce. I handed it to him in the office, where he frowned at his computer.
“What?” I asked as I moved next to him, looking at the screen.
“Oh, nothing. Just thinking.”
He was looking at yet another bloody model train on eBay. Another one of those fancy German ones. A Fleischmann.
“That’s rare. Going to buy that one, are you?”
George smiled another hollow smile as he turned to me.
“Maybe. It’d look great on the layout, wouldn’t it?”
I looked at the listing, and couldn’t help but clench my hands at what I read.
“You might want to check again.” I said, as George looked on, confused.
I knew something was definitely wrong then.
The train he was looking at was N gauge. His layout was HO.
The rest of the day passed largely without incident, mostly because I went into town. Not for any particular reason, I had thought, but looking back on it I’m certain I wanted to get out of the house for a while.
Dinner was another problem. I called George around five.
“Yes dear?” Came his voice.
“I’m in town. Fancy a curry for tea? I can pick it up on the way back.”
“Sounds lovely. I’m feeling like a chicken tikka Madras. Four naan, too.”
My lips tightened. “Right.”
And I hung up immediately.
A man’s curry order never changes. My husband always had a Bhuna. Maybe, maybe, if he was feeling especially adventurous, a lamb Roughan Josh. Not to mention four naan was ridiculously overkill. George could barely finish one.
I was feeling rather put out after dinner. George hadn’t just polished off all four naan, but most of the rice and nearly all of my Khorma after I’d lost my appetite. He ate ravenously, barely chewing, just shovelling rice and curry into his mouth with wet, sloppy mastication. Most disgustingly of all, he used his hands.
I sat there. Lips pursed, a weight on my chest.
Eventually he was done, and as I filled the dishwasher, he headed back out to his shed.
I had no choice.
I had to call my daughter.
She picked up on the third ring.
“What?”
“Is that any way to talk to your mother?”
I heard a sigh and movement.
“Mum, why can’t you just text like a normal human being?”
“Oh, is speaking a crime now? Maybe I just want to have an actual conversation with my only child?”
There was a pause, and I moved to the kitchen, over the sink, looking out the window into the darkness of the night. Tree limbs twitched in shadow, and there was nothing to see save the warm glow from the shed’s sole window.
“Mum.” Rebecca sounded exasperated. “It’s a work night. I’m tired. I really don’t want to do this. Can I talk to Dad instead?”
“He’s why I’m calling.”
“Is he alright? Has something happened?” Her voice had pitched up.
“Now you care. Happy to talk to your father, just not your mother, are you?”
“I’m gonna hang up.”
Why is talking to her always like pulling teeth?
“No Rebecca. Listen. Your father, he’s been acting… strange.”
Another sigh.
“He’s always been strange.”
“No, I mean… He’s been scaring me.”
An edge of concern crept back into Rebecca’s voice. “What do you mean, scaring you? Has he been, uh, violent?”
“No! No, of course not. Don’t be so stupid. It’s just, he’s different.”
Now my daughter sounded thoroughly pissed off.
“Mum. He’s always been different. Tell me what the fuck you mean. No riddles.”
“He’s off, Rebecca. First, he forgot how to make my tea, then he ordered something he’s never had before from the curry house. He even forgot what scale his bloody trains are.”
The silence lingered so long I was sure Rebecca had hung up.
“Mum, you’re just being weird, like always.” She sounded so tired. “Sometimes people want to try new things, sometimes they forget stuff. I’m sorry we can’t always be exactly who you want us to be, Mum.”
Then she did hang up.
And I stood alone in the kitchen, looking into the dark.
He stood at the shed window, looking out.
Looking at me.
Watching me.
I didn’t know for how long.
Panic washed over me like a wave, cold enough to knock the breath out of me. He was nothing more than a George-shaped silhouette, backed by orange light. Yet I knew he’d been watching. He stepped out of sight, as if he was hiding.
I calmed myself eventually. Put the TV on, had a glass of wine, then another.
When I went to bed, around midnight, I went alone.
That wasn’t unusual. George was often out in his shed till late, tinkering with something.
I had been drifting, somewhere between waking and dreaming, when he entered.
I was facing away from the door. Normally I barely reacted, but that night the hairs on my neck rose, and my heart pounded as I heard him undress and get ready for bed. The sounds of the belt buckle jingling down, the opening of the bathroom door, running water, the toothbrush.
Then, he got into bed.
And I knew he wasn’t my George.
I felt his heat, his body, as he snuggled up close to me. I shuddered as a stranger wrapped his arms around me, felt an unfamiliar breath on my ear.
Then it whispered. “I killed your husband.”
I had somehow slept. When I woke, I was confused and scared and sick to my stomach.
But the sun was shining, I could hear birdsong.
A knock at the door.
“What?”
“May I come in, dear?”
I was still groggy, and at that moment was sure yesterday had been some sort of nightmare, or else I’d had a funny episode. It had happened before. I said yes.
And in walked George. Tea in hand.
My sickness struck tenfold, and I was sure I was about to lose whatever was in my guts.
Then he smiled.
It was that smile. George’s smile. The one reserved for me.
My belly fluttered with conflicting feelings as I hesitantly accepted the mug.
I took a sip.
Three sugars.
Just like usual.
“You scared me a bit, yesterday.” He said.
“I scared you?” My voice came out high and weird, the confusion clear.
He chuckled. “Yes. You really weren’t well. Having a little episode, I think.”
I pursed my lips and frowned. I wasn’t certain. Yesterday, I had been so sure. That this wasn’t George. But the smile, the tea. Everything seemed normal now.
And yet there was still the curry, the different breakfast.
Or was Rebecca right? Was it just me, expecting the world to behave as only I saw fit?
I got up after my tea. Got dressed. Went downstairs. Made breakfast. No odd requests this time. Porridge. Bacon butty. As I made them, George gave another smile, as he reached for the backdoor.
“Going out?”
“Yes. To check the buds. The apple trees must be near to blooming now.”
And he went. I watched him wander his garden, examining the tiny brown knobs on the branches of each of the snarled apple trees in turn.
I was feeling almost like myself again when he came back in.
I was even considering calling Rebecca. To apologise.
Then, I went into the office, and served George his breakfast.
And everything broke.
He tore at the sandwich, ripping chunks from it with both hands, shoving bread into his mouth in a stream of alternating hands, then he lifted the porridge bowl with both hands, ignoring the spoon, and drank it all.
He turned and smiled again as he finished, but this smile had none of George to it. No warmth or kindness or familiarity or love. It was the smile of a beast, and I fled out his office.
I can’t really run at my age, but I was quick out the front door and into the car. I was half way to the town centre before I returned to my senses.
I definitely wasn’t mad. George, my husband, had to be dead. And that thing was masquerading as him.
It was still early when I parked outside the police station. I walked past the patrol cars and went in.
It took a long time. I looked at the grimy carpets, up at the flickering white lights, and around at the people. All young people, tatty clothes that made them look like criminals themselves. Stupid hats and dumber tattoos. I hadn’t stepped foot into a police station in nearly fifty years, and I almost wanted to turn and leave.
Then, I was called up by a tired-looking young policewoman at the desk. How do you explain that your husband’s missing when someone that looks just like him is living in your house?
From there, I was passed around and must have spoken to every copper in the county.
“Look, ma’am.” The officer spoke slowly, pity on his ruddy round face. “If you feel that something’s the matter with your husband, you need to talk to him. This really isn’t a police matter.”
I was angry, to put it mildly. Twenty minutes I’d spent speaking to a string of officers. Now I had been dumped on this overweight, bald sergeant.
“Is there anything you can do? I refuse to leave unless you help me. It’s not safe at home.”
The portly officer stood up, sighing and rubbing his eyes.
“Well, the most I can do is a concern for welfare procedure.”
“A what?” I asked.
“It means we can go and check everyone’s okay, that’s all.”
“But you’ll come? To the house?”
“Not me personally, but a constable will be dispatched to your home address to check on you and your husband, yes.”
“When?”
The sergeant’s nostrils flared. “As soon as we can, about an hour’s time, but please, we have a lot of important work to do, ma’am, so if there’s nothing else, I have to ask you to leave now.”
It wasn’t much, I reflected as I got back in my car. But, if the police were coming, I had an opportunity to expose that thing playing at being George. I just needed to make them see.
I stopped at Tesco’s, heart pounding in my chest, knowing I had to return home. I sat in the car park, under churning clouds, the soggy prawn mayonnaise sandwich making my guts churn in kind. I was moving through the world in a haze of fear.
Soon I found myself driving yet again, around the roundabout, stuck behind a grimy white van, then pinned in by the hedgerows. As I turned off and the car climbed up the drive to my house, I felt utterly trapped. Clouds were gathering overhead, throwing all into an early twilight.
Just a few minutes, I thought, and the police will be here.
I struggled with the keys. Nearly dropped them a few times, but as I fussed with them the door was unlocked from the inside, and swung open.
And there was that thing with George’s face.
It ushered me in with a hollow smile.
“Welcome home.” George would never say that.
As I turned to close the door, I saw a police car coming up the drive.
I scrambled to swing it back open, gesturing wildly to the two coppers that stepped out. A young man and an older woman, I didn’t recognise them from the station, but they exchanged a look as they walked up.
The short police woman went straight for George.
“Good afternoon, Colonel—”
The thing smiled as it cut her off. “Please, I’m retired now. Just George is fine.”
The woman nodded. “Right.” Her eyes slid over to me as she spoke. “Your wife came into the station earlier. She requested a welfare check.” She looked back to my fake husband. “Some sort of domestic trouble?”
It nodded, faking a look of concern. “Ah, I see. You’ll have to forgive her; she’s not been quite herself recently.” It shrugged. “Age catches up with us all.”
The woman smiled a sympathetic look.
I interrupted. “Can I speak with you privately, constable?”
There was an edge to my voice that made the woman frown, and the young policeman step closer.
“Of course. Would you like to step outside for a minute?”
I closed the door behind me, but through the frosted glass I could feel it standing there. Watching me.
“That is not my husband.”
The police woman looked confused, hand crawling towards her belt.
“What do mean? We have him on file as—”
“That’s not him. It looks like him. Sounds like him, but that isn’t George.”
The two officers shared a look.
“Last night,” I went on, “it told me it had killed George.”
A few minutes later I had composed myself. It was clear the police didn’t really believe me, but it didn’t matter. They saw how scared I was, they knew something was wrong. I went to open the door. The obscured figure of that thing still just standing, watching. As the door swung too, it had an easy smile.
“Excuse me, George?” The male officer asked. “May we have your permission to enter the house?”
The female officer interjected. “It’s only, your wife seems unsettled. If we can just have a look round, maybe that’ll help her.”
“Of course.” It stepped aside, spreading its arm in a welcoming gesture.
Once inside, they looked through the living room, at the photos lining the mantle. The real George and I, Rebecca when she was younger. The three of us back when she was still in University. George in his uniform, looking handsome, medals and ribbons all across his chest.
They even picked up a more recent photo, one of George with a trophy from a recent gardening competition. Silently, the police looked from the photo, to not-George, and over to me. They talked quietly as the imposter rounded the room.
A feeling of ice ran down my back as an unknown hand held my shoulder. Unfamiliar breath on my bare neck.
And a whisper.
“No one will ever believe you.”
The officers stopped dead as I spoke out. Loudly.
“What did you just say?”
They turned, looking puzzled, to me and the fake.
And once more it smiled. It raised a hand to my shoulder, giving me a gentle squeeze, like a pork loin in the hands of the butcher.
“I said, ‘I’ll do whatever it takes to help you’”. The imposter turned to the officers, glided round to them. “Is there anything else I can do to help, officers?”
The man spoke quietly into his radio as the little woman shook her head. My stomach dropped at her words.
“It’s obvious you have everything in hand. Though” —she twisted to look at me— “you should probably get her seen by someone, as soon as possible.”
The thing with my husband’s face twisted its head to look at me. “Yes. She’s had problems in the past. Hopefully a doctor can help her, help put a stop to these silly little notions.”
“Exactly.” The woman agreed with my tormentor.
The policeman turned to it. “We’ve got her in our system now. If she has problems, tries to call emergency numbers, comes around the station again, well, she won’t waste any more of our resources next time.”
The charlatan acted convincingly sombre, guiding the police to the door. “Thank you so much for coming, anyway, I’m glad you reached out.” It turned to me, grin radiant. “Well, dear, aren’t you going to say goodbye to the kind officers?”
I stood beside the monster at the door. It had started to rain outside. My chest was tight, I could scarcely breathe, and my hands shook as I made eye contact with that little police woman one last time.
“Please.” I choked.
The woman just smiled sadly and waved. Then, they got in their car, and leisurely turned out of my driveway as the rain grew harder and the wind picked up.
“Don’t you see?” A cold voice spoke from the figure beside me. “No one believes you. They never will. Not even your own kin. Whatever you try, you’re mine to do with what I will.”
I turned and ran into the house. Its head twisted all the way around on its neck, eyes following me.
In the kitchen, I stopped, and yanked the big carving knife from the block.
“Stay back!” I whipped around, pointing the blade at the fake. “Whatever sodding games you want to play, whatever you are, I’ve had enough!”
It walked towards me, calm and smiling, walking with a posture and swagger that were alien to the man it was pretending to be.
“He was a very special man, wasn’t he? Our dear, dear George.”
“He was, yes.” I kept the knife pointed, held it still despite my shaking hands. “He was a great man.”
A barking laugh, nothing like George’s came out of George’s face. “Great? Oh I don’t think so.”
It stopped, barely a foot away from the knife pointed at its throat.
“Get out of my house.” I said.
It shook its head. “All those shiny medals, all that money.”
“He earned those. And his money. He served our country. A Great man. A real man.”
The beast stilled. The smile melted away. Less and less could I see any of George in it. I felt like a simpleton for having ever been fooled.
“Do you know what he did? How many were murdered on his word?”
George never killed anyone. He was a gentle man. Stubborn, perhaps. But gentle. What kind of murderer could tend a garden? I shook my head.
The thing grew angry, its face dark. Faster than I could see, it stepped towards me, ripped the knife out of my hands and tossed it away.
Again, I fled. The only path left, the door to the back garden. I threw myself into the darkening night, the howling wind and slashing rain.
Those twisted apple trees, so pretty in the day, slashed and grabbed at me with skeletal limbs. I kept moving as fast as I could with the gale trying to throw me to the ground.
I looked back, but the house was dark now. The lights that been blazing as I left had all gone out. The windows were in deep shadow, the back door swinging crazily on rusted hinges. Through that portal I could still feel eyes on me, eyes full of hate and fire.
Thorns ripped at my legs as I pushed deeper into the garden, into that place that had been for George alone.
I saw it.
The shed was there, a warm light streaming through its windows. I hated the place, an unsightly hut for all George’s boyish little hobbies. His trains and all his gadgets and gardening stuff.
I could still feel that vengeful presence watching, and now the shed was a beacon. It had been my husband’s place after all.
Blood ran down my legs as I came to the wooden door. Barely looking, I swung myself inside, slamming the door behind me, and I turned to look out, back towards the dark house that no longer felt like home.
I wasn’t sure.
Was it still there?
The storm still slashed noisily outside, the wooden shed creaking and groaning as if in pain.
The house was empty.
It was sudden. But I knew, in an instant, that thing was gone. It had what it wanted, had served its purpose, and left. There was no hostile sight focused on me anymore.
But why? I wondered. Why leave when I entered the shed?
My breathing slowed as I stood, looking out the little window. I started breathing through my nose.
And rankness filled my nostrils.
I turned.
Around the three walls, his train layout was still running. Little steam engines passing through tunnels and twisting valleys, past little brick stations with waving families, and through forests rendered by my husband’s hands.
All the gardening stuff was crammed into the space beneath the layout. Pots and bags of mulch and soil, trowels and rakes and little cutters.
And on the floor was George.
My George.
Stinking and rotting. He’d been dead for days. His blackened face still had a look of terror, of pain.
It took me a long time to compose myself. But eventually I did. I tried everything. First I called the police on my mobile, but it didn’t go through. I went to the house, tried the landline. As soon as I gave my name, despite my screaming and fear and saying my husband was dead, I got nothing but an apology, and a warning not to call again.
Then, I tried Rebecca, hands shaking, only for the call to be dropped immediately. It was late, I later learned, and she had work early.
I couldn’t eat, couldn’t drive, I was in such a state. It took until the next morning, around six, before I finally got Rebecca on the phone.
It was a brief conversation. She hadn’t believed me. But she got the police to come again, another check.
I was in a daze when they answered the door.
A different pair this time; a tall, bald black man, and a very fat red-faced woman. I hadn’t washed, and looked dishevelled, panicky. These two at least could see something was wrong.
I showed them through the house, almost wordlessly to the shed. I barley spoke at all.
Instantly, they shut the whole house down, called the ambulance, the coroner. It felt like half the town invaded my property. There were questions, ones I couldn’t answer. I didn’t bother with the truth, not all of it.
The black officer questioned me with a deep, calming voice.
“And when did you realise?”
“Last night. I… went out to check on him. In that storm. I found him there.”
“I’m sorry, but he’s been dead for days. Why didn’t you look sooner?”
I shrugged. “My memory hasn’t been right these days. It’s why George told the police to ignore me. I guess I just didn’t notice his absence.”
The man talked with someone in a suit, with a few other police officers. The two from yesterday turned up at some point, and they had other words for him, the three of them looking back at me frequently.
Someone pushed a cup of tea into my hands. Only two sugars.
It didn’t take long before they took me away. They were very nice about it, when they held me in a cell overnight. It stank of piss, but the police were kind.
After that, I ended up here.
They’d done an investigation, thinking murder. And naturally I was the prime suspect, along with various terror groups and extremists.
But George had died of natural causes, apparently. Or at least no causes anyone could find.
I know, though. I know he was murdered, by whatever he brought back from those god-forsaken wars.
They put me in a mental hospital.
Apparently, any woman that can’t notice her husband’s death for days is clearly insane, incapable. Useless.
Useless. That’s what Rebecca said, when she came to visit. I still don’t know where I went wrong raising her. There was no love there. She shook her head at me when she walked in. Disgust and anger on her face. I’m not sure if she thinks I killed her father, or if I just didn’t do enough, perhaps that I could have saved him.
Her words were short, her manner shorter.
“I never want to look at you again.”
Maybe I deserved that.
I don’t know.
And now it’s all written, what really happened. And I still don’t know.