***
Beside the Lake
In retrospect, the realization that
her husband Gordon had been replaced by an impostor had not occurred to Bethany
all at once. It was a thought that had passed fleetingly through her mind a
number of times in the past several months but which she no sooner entertained
than immediately suppressed. Nevertheless, a multitude of small signs pointed
to it - to some kind of physical usurpation. Gordon’s wry comments about local
government politics over the newspaper in the morning, his habit of leaving
dirty tea-cups perched on the railing of the deck, even the perfunctory way he
called her “darling” before leaving for his job at the Coast Guard at eight AM–
all of these gestures seemed contrived, factitious, as though he were an actor
who had learned his part too well. The suspicion that her husband was her
husband no longer had incubated a long time in her mind before hatching into a
sure conviction.
Bethany
and Gordon had been married for ten years. They harboured no children. Early on
after their wedding, they had both looked forward to the idea of raising a
family but, after Bethany’s medical condition had been diagnosed two years into
their marriage, they had mutually agreed that having children might be an
unwise idea. Gordon worked long hours in a managerial position at the Coast
Guard and often would not return home until after six at night. During the day,
Bethany had her routine. In the morning, she would complete the Sudoku and then
do the housework if any needed to be done. Often she would walk to the local
Delicatessen to purchase genuine Italian pasta and fresh herbs. Bethany had no
friends and did not particularly want any: her life revolved around her
husband. For a time, she had occupied a casual position working one day a week
for the local florist but, deciding that it made little difference to her life
whether she worked or not and feeling no authentic connection at all to her
workmates, she had quietly resigned. Gordon’s income was quite sufficient for
both of them. All in all, Bethany felt not unsatisfied with her life. They
lived in an affluent suburb and voted National every three years.
In
the evening, Bethany would cook dinner in the well-established expectation of
her husband arriving home at six. She varied her menu considerably: sometimes
Spanish, sometimes Greek, sometimes even Moroccan. Her preferences
circumnavigated the Mediterranean. Planning and cooking the evening meal was
the chief pleasure of her day. Gordon would let himself in the front door at
six, hang his coat on the hook in the hall and sit down to the meal she had
prepared. When he had finished, he would lean back, burp delicately and say,
“Delicious, as always.” Ten years ago, after their wedding, they had
honeymooned in Bali. It was a memory that Bethany cherished.
It
was not just the fact that Gordon’s mannerisms had taken on a counterfeit
quality that persuaded Bethany that her husband had been replaced by an
impostor. A multitude of more concrete signs strongly intimated that some kind
of massive realignment had occurred. Gordon’s routine, his once dependably
predictable daily habits, had altered. Often he had started staying later at
work, sometimes not coming home until nine or ten. At weekends, he would
occasionally receive a call and, giving some vaguely spurious sounding
explanation of being needed at the office, would leave for hours; in the past,
he was never called in during the weekend. One day, when she was laundering his
second-best jacket, Bethany discovered a receipt in its pocket for an Indian
restaurant in town. The restaurant was called Authentic Taste. Gordon had never
mentioned going there to her and Bethany did not believe the real Gordon would
ever dine at a place like that. Bethany knew for a fact that her husband hated
Indian cuisine.
One
evening, Gordon returned from work and sat down as usual at the table. They ate
dinner with the television on – Bethany was more or less indifferent to the
news but Gordon liked to stay in touch with current affairs. When he had
finished he pushed the plate towards the centre of the table and said,
carefully, “Bethany, just so you know, I have a conference in Nelson in a
couple of weeks’ time. I’ll be away for three days.”
“Do
you want me to come with you?” In the past, Bethany had always accompanied
Gordon to such events.
Gordon
avoided her eyes. “Not this time. I don’t think you’d be particularly
interested in a bunch of middle-aged men discussing weather warnings and
channel markers. I think it’s best if I go by myself.”
Bethany
collected the plates, took them into the kitchen and started scrubbing them
under running water from the tap. All of a sudden, an inexplicable stab of
anger passed through her. She returned to the living room with scrubbing brush
in hand.
“Gordon
– do you remember when we were in Bali, the boys who would run along the side
of the road trying to sell us beads?” Bethany wasn’t sure why she felt this was
the question she had to ask.
Gordon
shrugged uncomfortably, again avoiding her eyes. “Not particularly. You’ve
always had a better memory than me.”
That
night, after they went to bed, Gordon made love to her. It was another change
in his routine: in the past, he had only wanted sex a couple of times a week
but now he seemed to want it every other night. He started by pawing at her
upper thigh and the cleft between her legs before climbing on top of her.
Bethany lay on her back, watching his left shoulder pistoning backward and
forwards. After a couple of minutes, “Gordon’ grunted, rolled off her and was
almost immediately asleep, snoring nasally.
Bethany lay on her back and stared
into the blackness. Terrible thoughts raced through her head. For the first
time, she decided to seriously contemplate the idea that an impostor had
replaced her husband and that the man who was lying in bed with her was a
stranger. The detail of his not remembering the boys in Bali was the final
confirmation: the real Gordon would never forget something so important. They
were trying to trap her or manipulate her in some fashion. The impostor looked
almost exactly like Gordon – she wondered how They had managed it. Of course,
doctors could perform miracles with cosmetic surgery these days. She tried to
imagine where the real Gordon was. Perhaps, she thought, he was in an
underground prison somewhere, perhaps somewhere in Guantanomo Bay, put there by
the CIA, calling out her name, imploring her for help. What did They want of
her? Did They want to use her as a breeding sow? After all, the real Gordon had had a vasectomy but Bethany
had no way of knowing if the impostor had also had a vasectomy.
Bethany lay awake staring into the
blackness for a long time.
Over the next fortnight, Bethany
kept her insight to herself, behaving around the fake Gordon exactly the same
way she had behaved around the real one. It was easy, in any case, because the
fake Gordon acted almost exactly the same way as her real husband had and so
keeping up her side of the charade was simply a matter of adhering to habit.
And anyway, there seemed no alternative. She was afraid of what consequences
might descend upon her if she exposed him as a fake. Many years ago, back when
Gordon had yet to find his feet and they were living a two-room flat in
Takapuna, Bethany had become convinced that there were electronic bugs in the
walls of the flat and that They were listening to everything she said and
monitoring everything she did; this belief, that she was under surveillance,
had never entirely gone away but nor was it something she to which she had paid
much attention in recent years. After the night when she had finally decided to
accept that her husband had been replaced by an impostor, the belief that she
was under surveillance strongly returned. There were microphones hidden in the
light fittings and camera equipment installed behind the bathroom mirror.
Sometimes she could sense a kind of darkness gathering all around the edges of
her peripheral vision, at the perimeter of everything she saw.
One day ‘Gordon’ said to her:
”Bethany, are you alright?”
“Of course I’m alright, ”Bethany
replied, putting on a smile she didn’t feel.
In her gut, she felt a sudden twinge of anxiety. “Why do you
ask?”
“Just
checking. You don’t want to see a doctor?”
“It’s
nothing,” said Bethany. “I think I’ve come down with a bit of a cold, that’s
all.”
That
night as Bethany lay in bed she thought about what “Gordon” had said. She
wondered if that was their plan, that they wanted her to receive compulsory
treatment as They had eight years ago. For three months when she was twenty-two
Bethany had endured the torment of being confined to a mental health ward. Was
that their plan, to drive her mad? Bethany would rather die than go back to
hospital. She wouldn’t permit it. That night Bethany started devising a plan of
her own.
The
next morning, a Saturday, Bethany fried some crepes with blueberry compote and,
when ‘Gordon’ emerged in pyjamas and dressing gown (the impostor also slept in
late on a Saturday), placed the plate on the table in front of him as if
nothing had changed overnight. For herself she had half a grapefruit and a cup
of tea, as usual. ‘Gordon’ read the paper while eating, as Gordon always had,
passing comments on ferry disasters in Indonesia and the state of the economy;
Bethany feigned interest as she generally did. On the surface, it appeared
almost like a typical Saturday in the Neumann household, but, in reality, it
was all artifice. Even as Bethany was asking ‘Gordon’ if he had enjoyed his
breakfast, a part of her was observing her performance from the outside and
laughing with glee at the subtlety and slyness Bethany was displaying in
pretending everything was normal, that she did not know that he was a fake. If
the impostor could play a part, so could she.
She
decided to put the plan into effect. “Gordon,” she said, pretending that it was
a spontaneous thought and not looking directly at him. “I have an idea. I
wondered if we could go for a trip today. I thought maybe we could have a
picnic. Beside the lake.”
“Gordon’
looked at her quizzically. “We haven’t done that for a while. What made you
think of that?” He seemed uncomfortable.
Bethany
wondered for a moment if ‘Gordon’ had recognized the real Bethany concealed
behind the façade and knew that she in turn had seen through his imposture. It
was a risk, suggesting a change from their usual weekend rituals, but it was a
calculated risk, a risk she needed to take.
“It’s
just an idea I had. It’s something we haven’t done for a while. The weather’s
fine and I think we should make the most of it.” She smiled, trying her best to
project sunshine and relaxed good humour.
After
a moment, ‘Gordon’ shrugged. “All right. If you’d like to, I have no
objection.”
The
lake was on the way to Raglan; Gordon and Bethany had visited it a couple of
times when they were courting but they had not been back for a number of years.
Bethany packed a small hamper with bread, pickled olives, salami, and cheese.
She made sure to include a glass bottle of grape juice. They set off, Gordon
driving. On the way down they listened to the Concert Programme. Occasionally,
Gordon would remark on the passing scenery and the towns they were driving
through. Sometimes he talked about work and his colleagues. Bethany responded
as though she were interested. It seemed to Bethany that she had divided into
two through some process of binary fission: one Bethany the fake one pretending
that she was off for a enjoyable picnic with her husband, the other removed
from the situation, hovering a couple of metres above the roof of the car, like
some kind of winged djinn, giggling at the consummate skill ‘Bethany’ was
displaying with her feigned fidelity. There was an edge of hysteria to this
giggling.
When
“Gordon’ wasn’t talking, they sat in silence. Occasionally during these
periods, Bethany would steal sidelong glances at ‘Gordon’, allowing her true feelings
towards him to rise to the surface of her mind. What she felt towards the
impostor was something more like loathing than anything else: she hated his
too-casual Saturday attire, she hated the way he brushed his hair forward to
hide his receding hairline, she even hated the way he smelled. She asked
herself again when precisely the doppelganger had replaced her husband and
tried once more, as she had many times over the years, to decide who They were.
Many
years ago, Bethany had nearly joined a Pentecostal evangelical church. This was
back when she was at University, before she met Gordon, when she had friends
who were members of the congregation. The friends had encouraged her to go to a
meeting held in the sitting room of a large mansion in West Auckland. Bethany
had attended more out of curiosity than anything else. The room had been full
of young people; the pastor had delivered a sermon expostulating to the sinners
in the room that if they failed to heed the True Word they would burn in hell.
A young man being brought forward, the pastor had clapped the heel of his hand
to the young man’s forehead saying “Do you accept Christ into your heart?” and
the young man had fallen back into the arms of those around him in the throes
of what appeared to be an epileptic fit. At one point during the service, the
people around her had started speaking in tongues. To Bethany, the whole thing
stank of fraudulence. After that meeting she never returned. But she had often
wondered in the years since if it was the Church who was behind the conspiracy
against her. She knew for a fact that it had the resources to mount a campaign
to try to ‘save’ her– she had learned that it exacted tithes on its followers –
it probably had ties to the CIA - and so if anyone could afford to put
surveillance equipment in her house it was the Church. Perhaps They would
remain unsatisfied until They had recruited her? When she had attended that one
meeting she remembered, she had put her name on a list.
“Gordon’
had been silent for some time, lost in thoughts of his own. Suddenly he began
to speak, ruminatively, as though talking to himself.
“Life
is funny, isn’t it? One day you’re eighteen, chasing skirts and getting drunk
with your mates and the next you’re thirty-two with a mortgage and a job with
no prospects of advancement. Life has a funny way of sneaking up on you. After
a while, you reach a point where you feel a need to reassess your priorities.
What do you want? Where do you want to go? Do you want to be stuck in the same
old rut forever? It’s strange – I wish I could go back in time to speak to my
old eighteen year old self and give him some advice about what to do and what
not to do.”
It
was a strange speech and Bethany permitted herself a suspicious glance at her
‘husband’. What did he mean? And how did it relate to her? It was
uncharacteristic and so perhaps a sign that the impostor was losing his grip.
“Well,”
she said at last. “Everyone has moments like that from time to time.”
The
‘lake’ wasn’t really a lake at all. It was more a kind of basin at the base of
a thirty-foot waterfall, surrounded by native bush on all sides. There were
open grassy spaces not only around the pool at the base of the cataract but
also at its head, and a couple of monitory signs advising against swimming in
the pool. One of the reasons Bethany had suggested the lake was that she felt
that it was unlikely for surveillance equipment to be hidden anywhere in such
an environment. Additionally, no one else was likely to be present. No one
could possibly interfere with her implementation of the Plan. She set up their
picnic at the top of the falls, spreading out a blanket and laying the
condiments out on it. ‘Gordon’ sat down with his legs outstretched. There was
no way he could know that he had become a pawn in her game. Bethany perched
cross-legged across from him.
“You
know,” said ‘Gordon’ suddenly. “I’ve been thinking about the boys in Bali. I do
remember them after all.”
For
a moment, Bethany felt a moment of doubt. Perhaps he was the real Gordon after
all?
Gordon
paused and then said, “There something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about,
Bethany.”
“What
is it?”
“It’s
difficult for me to know where to start.”
“Shall
we have a couple of glasses of grape juice first?”
“Okay.
I think it can wait a couple of minutes longer.”
Bethany
walked to the boot to collect the bottle of grape-juice. As she crossed to the
car, she felt a pang of terrible triumph: the man pretending to be her husband
had finally betrayed himself an impostor after all. The real Gordon never had
anything significant or surprising to tell her. She picked up the bottle by the
neck and walked back. Gordon sat staring away from her across the valley. Right
before she struck ‘Gordon’ as hard as she could with the bottle across the back
of his head, she heard a voice. It said “Do you accept Christ into your heart?”
The
impostor wobbled, put a hand to the back of his skull and then slumped on his
back unconscious. The Plan had succeeded.
After
that the rest was simple. Bethany used a tarpaulin that she took from the boot
of the car to wrap Gordon up, filled it with stones and tied it securely.
Dragging the impostor to the head of the cataract was difficult but not
impossible and, after a couple of minutes, Bethany had succeeded in pushing him
over the edge. The impostor plummeted into the basin and immediately sank,
Bethany sinking with him, down into inky black darkness, down into the
nightmare. Down into a dense black space full of images of pagodas, beaches and
boys who ran along the side of the road wanting to sell beads.
