John peered at me with dazed and milky eyes. His lips squirmed. His mouth opened wide.
Then he took a step backwards and said, ‘This isn’t my house.’
My heart plummeted. I suppressed a groan.
Close up, the cuffs and tails of his raincoat were torn and stained. He was wearing old, discoloured plimsolls beneath his suit trousers. His cheap plastic shopping bag rustled in the wind.
He hadn’t shaved. Or if he had, he’d shaved badly. There were tufts of whitish hair spiralling out from his cheeks and ears.
‘This is not my house,’ he said again, gruffer now, his tone edging into belligerence as if his mistake was somehow my fault.
My eyes stung as I shook my head.
I looked at John and wished it had been one of his good days. I wished he hadn’t shown up like this, bewildered and lost.
‘No,’ I whispered. ‘You’re right, John, it’s not.’
‘Where is my house? What have you done with it?’
I didn’t answer him. I just stayed quiet, still, only too aware of how closely Donovan was studying me.
My skin speckled with gooseflesh as he stepped slowly out from his hiding spot, his head at an inquisitive angle as he came to stand next to me at the door.
He kept his phone up at his side, relaying our conversation to his accomplice.
A long, awful moment as he looked at John. He took his time over it, absorbing and evaluating the situation. Then he leaned very close to my ear and said, ‘Ex-Met?’
‘It’s true,’ I snapped.
But that had been a long time ago.
‘So . . .’ Donovan paused. ‘What do you suggest we do now?’
I didn’t answer him.
I didn’t know what to say.
I felt as lost and adrift as John appeared.
This was crazy.
This entire situation was crazy.
I was standing in the doorway to my own home, tethered by a phone call to a stranger who’d been tasked with watching Sam and harming him if I made a wrong move.
The street I lived on was right in front of me.
If I leaned out and looked to my right, I would see some of the builders working on the home renovation across the street. I could hear the stereo they had blaring from the scaffolding.
Directly opposite was the shadowed hump of the Dutch bike with the cargo box on the front of it which a dad who lived across the road used to transport his kids to and from school.
It was all so familiar to me, so tangible and real, but right now it seemed oddly distorted and fake, even staged.
My eyes flicked to Donovan’s phone. Its screen was still lit, the call still live.
‘What do you think?’ Donovan was speaking quietly from the corner of his mouth. ‘Should I invite him in?’
John’s feet scuffed the path as he stared at us in turmoil, the plastic shopping bag he was carrying hanging limply at his side.
I wanted so badly for him to snap back into a moment of clarity. I wanted him to sense how very wrong this all was.
‘No.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘John,’ I pleaded. I could hear the desperation in my voice. ‘John, your house is next door.’
I waited for him to move, but he didn’t. He looked at me as if he hadn’t heard me at all.
‘John, please.’
Still nothing.
I glanced behind him and scanned the windows of the houses opposite, some lit, others not, searching to see if anyone else was looking, if anyone could see.
People around here would know John. Not well, perhaps – not as well as Sam and me – but if they were observant they’d probably know enough to be concerned if they saw him wandering about in circles, angry, upset.
‘Tell you what,’ Donovan said, interrupting my thoughts. ‘I think it’s best we help the gentleman home, don’t you? That would be the neighbourly thing to do.’