For the first three days I did nothing except remain in the cottage with Victoria, learning to care for her and attempting to get my bearings. Victoria required little attention except at mealtimes; she soon learned how to use the bathroom, to wash and dress herself, and she sat contentedly in front of the television for hours, watching whatever programmes were showing with a faint, vacant smile. Though she began to respond to me and seemed to understand simple instructions, she never spoke.
The study held a wall of books, some old, some new. There was an atlas and a gazetteer, guides to South Wales and Gwent, a one-volume history of the world, big coffee-table books on literature, the cinema and popular art. And, of course, there were titles on Mexico and the Aztecs, at least two dozen of them. These, and the sunflower painting, were not-so-subtle forms of Aztec mockery, I was certain. The painting, famous in this world, I later discovered, was unknown in mine.
I scouted the area around the cottage whenever I was able, avoiding contact with the locals. One of the guidebooks told me that the terrace of houses was the village of Troedrhiwgair, again unknown in my world. The people were Welsh, but English-speaking, dressed in a recognizable style of clothing, while the television revealed the manners and mores and means of speaking in this Britain as no different from the one I had left.
It was March here, as on our world, and I was able to calculate that two days had passed between Extepan’s coronation and my waking up in the cottage. Two whole days of nothing except the sound of the Aztec voice in my waking sleep, telling me what I could expect. Yet nothing could have prepared me for the actuality.
It rained for the rest of the week, and I spent much of my time sitting with Victoria, watching news reports and current affairs programmes, perusing book after book, studying their illustrations and photographs minutely, fascinated and dislocated by every fact, small or large, which forced me to accept that we had indeed been cast adrift on a different Earth.
And how different! How mundanely yet stunningly different. Its landscapes and histories echo my own, there are places and names and people which are familiar; yet nothing is quite the same. It is as if our destinies are separate but linked, like ghost reflections of one another, so that some people and places are famous in both – often for different reasons – others not at all. Of course, I was startled to discover that here the Aztecs are but a memory, their nascent empire destroyed by the very man who set them on the path to future greatness in my world. There is a British royal family that stems from a line of the ruling house extinguished on my Earth. Here, my great-grandfather was never born and our house at Marlborough does not exist I feel like a ghost. What could be more cruel than to inhabit a world which knows nothing of you? Extepan chose his revenge well.
There were days, especially early on, when I believed my knowledge that I was but a fiction would drive me into the same kind of madness as Victoria. Imagine, just try to imagine, living in a world that seems an invention, a parody of reality. It’s little wonder that I have become intensely mistrustful to the point of paranoia and seldom like leaving the cottage. Even less do I like having to meet people, however ordinary-looking or prosaic their concerns. A chance encounter fills me with dread; a simple ‘Good morning’ is enough to make me want to flee for fear that I might be forced into a conversation that will swiftly reveal the depths of my ignorance of this world, exposing me as a fake, an intruder, an anomaly. What could be worse than living in a place where every mundanity is an attack on memory and belief, a threat to one’s already fragile sense of self?
Yet if I thought that oblivion in this world was punishment enough, I did not realize that Extepan had reserved the subtlest cruelty for last. At the end of the first week, a maroon van came jolting down the rutted driveway to the cottage. Stomach churning with anxiety, I rushed outside as it pulled up. A man got out and smiled at me.
I went immobile with shock.
I watched him walk around to the back of the van, open the door and remove a large cardboard box filled with groceries.
It was Bevan.
He wasn’t the Bevan of my world, I knew that immediately, because he was slimmer, balder, and wore a greying beard. He carried himself differently, was less slovenly dressed, wearing blue jeans and a sweatshirt, the kind of clothing which my Bevan had never favoured. But their faces were the same – the prominent jaw and ears, the small mouth – and they were the same age. They could have been twins.
He brought the box up to me, still smiling.
‘Not a bad morning, is it? They said you wanted this.’
The smile was more open, less devious, than the one I knew. He wasn’t the same man, yet it was him, it was him.
‘You’re down for weekly deliveries, that’s right, isn’t it?’
I made to speak, but first had to clear my throat.
‘Who arranged this?’
He looked a little put-out. ‘Got a call from a bloke in London, didn’t I? He said you and your sister had just moved in and wanted a regular delivery. Run the local store I do, see.’
Again I found it hard to speak, and even harder to think clearly.
‘Did they say who they were?’
Now he was distinctly unsure of me. ‘Someone from your bank, it was. They’ve opened an account for you with me, so it’s all paid for. All right, is it?’
I looked at the box. It held bread, milk, tinned goods and washing powder. It was hard not to stare at him.
‘There’s another one in the back of the van,’ he said. ‘Where’d you want me to put it?’
I was still numb. ‘In the kitchen,’ I said, moving aside, indicating. ‘It’s in there.’
I followed him inside. He put the box down, then went out again, but not before saying, ‘Bit of rain we’ve been having.’
I couldn’t answer. He returned promptly with a second box, holding fresh vegetables and fruit.
Victoria was still asleep upstairs, and I was grateful, in case the sight of him sent her into another screaming frenzy. Everything about his manner suggested he was entirely innocent of who we really were and where we had come from, but his very appearance had thrown me into the throes of suspicion and unease. I wanted him to be gone, but at the same time I needed to find out what he knew.
‘You said it was paid for,’ I remarked.
He nodded blithely. ‘There’s an account at the local branch. They said you din’t want any fuss. Sister’s not well, is she?’
My suspicions redoubled. ‘Who told you that?’
He was peering around the kitchen. ‘Man who phoned. Mentioned that she’d had a breakdown, poor dab, and that you’d come here so she could convalesce. Nice and peaceful spot, isn’t it?’
‘Did he tell you who we were?’
Off-handedly he said, ‘Sisters from London. Got a bit of money behind you, have you?’
‘Who said that?’
He obviously found me strange, and perhaps was trying to be casual in response.
‘I just assumed. With neither of you working, like.’
Was this simple inquisitiveness? Or an echo of the other Bevan’s insolence? Did he really know something?
‘Was there someone living here before us?’ I asked.
‘Headmaster of the school,’ he said, obviously referring to the one above us on the hill. ‘He moved to Newport when it shut down. It’s been empty this past year or more. Pleasant spot, I reckon, with the river close by and no one to bother you.’ He sucked on his teeth. ‘Well, I’d best be going. See you in a week. If there’s anything extra you need, the number’s in the book. It’s the Gwalia Stores in town. Castle Street, up by the town clock. You can’t miss it.’