Chapter 2

Mistaken Identity

In the darkness, an indeterminate time later: a distant, familiar, high-pitched screech, ever louder. I struggled to activate other senses, but had only the dimmest impression of being warm and comfortable.

Then, over the screech, a voice: “Are you going to turn that off or not?”

A female voice… Yvette’s voice.

My eyes opened. I was lying in our bed, my arm around her, snuggled close, she facing away from me, her face burrowed into a pillow. Impeded by curtains, daylight clamoured for entry.

The high-pitched screech was my bedside alarm’s. Abruptly, I sat up and turned it off.

The welcome familiar sight of our bedroom evoked a loud sigh of relief. It had been a dream.

“Judging by that noise,” came Yvette’s voice, partly muffled by her pillow, “you slept well.”

I looked down on her still form, then leant over to kiss the nape of her neck, elated. “Not exactly,” I said.

“O,” she said, stretching. “Bad dreams?” She turned to face me.

On the verge of responding, I froze: now facing me fully for the first time, Yvette’s face was not her own but that of a scaly horned demon.

I lurched out of bed away from her—or it.

The next instant, I was back in bed, sitting bolt upright, the demon nowhere in sight.

Frantic scanning of the room confirmed the creature was not there, but also made me realise I wasn’t in my bedroom—I was alone in another, one I’d never seen before, dimly lit, compact, sparsely furnished.

Disorientation… belated realisation…

How much of what preceded the episode with Yvette was also a dream, I was not willing to guess, yet I could not shake the feeling that another demon was lurking—nearby.

A mild dull throbbing on one side of my head eked into awareness. Probing behind my right ear, my fingertips found a small but sensitive lump. Out of the frying pan, I thought. Had I been clubbed the moment my chest pain immobilised me? What was I doing here? Where, for that matter, was here?

Cautiously, I left the bed, moved toward the door. Almost at once, a figure in the gloom approached.

In shock, I halted. As did the figure.

We gazed fixedly at each other.

Sudden embarrassed relief flooded me when I realised the dim shape was none other than my own reflection staring back at me from a floor-length mirror in the central panel of an old-fashioned dark-grained wardrobe occupying almost the full length of one of the room’s mud-brick walls.

Wanting more light, I moved to the window and peered between the dark curtains. I squinted as bright daylight flooded my eyes.

Outside: a dense garden with native shrubs and small trees a short distance from the room, vegetable plots beyond them stretching to a distant row of screening bushes. Beyond that: the tops of tall native eucalypts. The sky: a rich blue devoid of clouds, with no sign of recent storms.

How long had I been unconscious?

Long enough for my bladder to be close to bursting.

I approached the door again, and discovered beside it neatly laid out clothes atop a plain wooden chair. Still naked, I could not help but wonder if they were intended for me to wear. I inspected them—they were about my size, but odd. None had any brand insignia except on washing instruction labels, all of them unfamiliar. The maroon shirt had a soft collar, wider than any I’d seen, and buttons made of an eye-catching material which reminded me of quartz. The dark green trousers seemed to be made of coarse wool. The shoes were clearly leather, but slip-ons, and with pointier toes than anything I’d seen since my earliest memories of my father’s collection. And the well-worn and heavily patched woollen jumper looked like a refugee from a child’s kaleidoscope, with more colours than could be counted and no discernible pattern. I’d never had much dress sense but this combination struck me as deranged.

With the alternative being naked, I chose deranged. The clothes were a neat fit, but looked every bit as ridiculous on me as I expected. The person who had selected them, I decided—gazing dubiously at my reflection—could not be a woman. Perhaps a vision-impaired clown… who’d skipped his medication… while on a bender.

My bladder compelled me to abandon these thoughts. I grasped the door handle—an unusual, almost square, wooden type—and turned it.

Then I hesitated. Is this such a wise move? What if I’m in the hands of the demon? Or someone else with nefarious purposes? Should I simply walk into their arms in meek surrender?

I left the door closed and moved to the window. After easily and silently removing its fly-screen, I opened the window and started clambering over its metal frame. But one leg out, the other in, my trousers hooked onto something.

I tried to free them, only to hear footsteps approaching from the other side of the door. More feverish attempts failed to explicate my trousers, as a gentle knock at the door sounded, and was soon repeated. Straddled across the window frame, fidgeting frantically, I watched helplessly as the door opened.

A man—not some denizen of hell—took one step into the room, saw me, and stopped. No more than thirty years old, he was tall and muscular, with piercing grey eyes. Brutally short eyebrows and lashes matched the conciseness of his haircut. His clothes were more conventional than those I wore, and far more subdued in colour.

“Are you so desperate for fresh air?” he asked, softly, his accent similar to the demon’s though his voice was not as deep. He strolled into the room, smiling, casual. If he intended it to be reassuring, it wasn’t working. “I thought I heard you rustling about. How are you feeling?”

I didn’t know what to say. Physically, I felt fine, apart from the throbbing behind my ear. I was no longer tired. But I was disoriented and confused, and not sure if this person could be trusted; or if I wasn’t again in some dream, with him about to turn into another demon. I groped for words, but only odd noises came out.

Was it concern I saw in the man’s expression? Or its masque? “Are you all right, Ernest?” he said.

I performed a classic double take. Initially thinking to answer the question, I was suddenly hit by the significance of his last word, and blurted it out myself: “Ernest?!”

It was his turn to struggle for a reply.

Hesitancy vanished as I forcefully defended my identity. “Steven,” I said, redundantly pointing to myself. “My name is Steven.”

“You don’t say,” he said, lightly but with a distinctly disbelieving tone. “How come you’ve always let me call you ‘Ernest’?”

“But we’ve never met before,” I objected, my disorientation and confusion steadily increasing. My need to urinate also prompted much fidgeting atop the window frame.

“Who are you kidding?” he retorted, a fresh smile bursting across his face. “How could you forget me?”

Mutually stupefied moments later, he must have decided I had forgotten him. His smile vanished, and he pointed at himself. “Wilbur. Remember?”

I shook my head in disbelief. “I’ve never met you. How can you say you know me?” I felt on a knife edge, ready to panic and crumble.

Perhaps recognising my parlous state, he became cautious and conciliatory. “Why don’t you come down from the window? We can move to the living room and have a cup of tea. Clear your head. After all, you’ve been through quite a bit.”

That set me going. “You know? How? What has been happening to me? Tell me.”

“All in good time,” he said, soothingly. “First let’s move to the living room and get more comfortable, eh?” Smiling cautiously, he moved sideways and beckoned to the door with an outspread arm. Despite my state, I was momentarily distracted by an unusual, ornate, golden bracelet dangling from his wrist.

The possibility of an explanation of recent events whetted my curiosity, yet still I felt wary of this ‘Wilbur’—if that was his real name. For all I knew, he could have been part of a larger masquerade meant to confuse me further. If so, it was succeeding admirably.

Still, there was no better option presenting itself. And the need to relieve myself was pressing. So I decided to accept his offer.

I swung my leg back from outside the window, and stepped away from it—only to belatedly realise that the motion must have somehow achieved effortlessly what my struggles had been unable to accomplish: the trousers were no longer attached to the frame.

Wilbur led me through a short hallway towards a large room. His gaze never left me, but he said nothing.

I noticed several other doors in the hallway, one of them to a room obviously small enough that it had to be a toilet—I pushed it open hurriedly and rushed in, muttering, “Be with you in a minute.” (Depictions and descriptions of sex abound in the media, often justified because it’s a natural part of life, yet other equally natural bodily functions receive no such attention. Greater consistency would lead to the event which followed being described in a similar style, perhaps something like: Frantically, I unzipped and extracted my feverish organ. I didn’t think twice about it, I just pointed it at the bowl and let nature take over. Almost at once, a rush of golden liquid erupted, crashing onto the porcelain with animal violence. The sensation of my fingertips gently grasping and directing my manhood was electric. A soft moan left my lips, unbidden, as relief surged through me…)

Even with everything else crowding my mind, including that unique sense of liberation that comes with the emptying of a bursting bladder, peculiarities of the toilet took my attention: there was no water in the bowl which had a tilting lid at its bottom, the cistern was no more than a tenth normal size, and the flush lasted only a second or two—it reminded me of some outdoor toilets I had used, only more sanitary. But I did not dwell on it.

Wilbur was on the kitchen side of a wide bench when I found him, setting up cups. I kept my distance, in the adjoining lounge.

“Why don’t you sit down while I prepare your tea?” he said, beckoning to a large sofa.

“Could you make mine a coffee,” I said, making no move to sit. “I don’t drink tea.”

A lingering surprised look gave way to a nod. “Of course. How do you like it?”

“I thought you said you knew me,” I probed.

“I do.”

“But not so well that you’ve ever made me coffee before?”

“You’ve never wanted one before, Ernest. You’ve always drunk tea.”

“Steven. Remember? No, apparently you don’t or else you’d know I don’t like tea. Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

“When we’re seated and comfortable. Please be patient.” A short pause and an ostensibly benevolent gaze later, “Now, how do you prefer your coffee?”

I told him. He prepared our drinks, while I roamed the room: a large bright central space dominated by wide floor-length windows on two sides. One set of windows overlooked the back garden and adjoined a narrow verandah with timber decking, three cane chairs, a small low wooden table, and a pergola covered by a concise, very abundant grapevine. Beyond the other set of windows, which let in most of the room’s light, was a line of dense screening shrubs about three metres high. Of the adjoining rooms, the door of only one was open. Through it I could see a neat desk, filing cabinet, and a narrow high bench covered in white cloth. Feigning nonchalance, I wandered closer and looked in. Near the desk was a stethoscope, a blood pressure meter, and other medical equipment, including several unfamiliar electronic gadgets. A diploma hung on the wall, the recipient’s name emblazoned boldly: Wilbur Edmonds.

That explains it, I thought. He was a doctor. No wonder my sense of conspiracy.

But if this was a private practice in his own home, how strange the room was not more isolated. Patients would need to move through the living room to reach his office. And where was reception? Or the receptionist for that matter? My mind abuzz with questions, I distractedly put my hand to the lump behind my ear and rubbed it.

“Is that lump bothering you, Ernest?” said Wilbur, filling a bright silver kettle with water.

“Steven,” I shot back with irritation.

He looked at me, blank-faced, before turning off the tap. He put the cord-free kettle on the bench, and pressed a button near its base. A tiny light lit up on its side.

“Is it bothering you?” said Wilbur in the same calm voice as before.

“It hurts,” I said. “A little. If that’s what you mean.”

“There’s no fracture of the skull, but you’ll probably be a little sore for a day or two until the swelling reduces. Best if you take it easy for a while, to minimise the effects of any concussion.”

That took me by surprise. “Do I have concussion?”

“It’d be consistent with your injury. Although amnesia wasn’t expected.”

“Amnesia!?”

He gave me another of his lingering looks. “You don’t know your name. And you’ve forgotten me. Sure seems like amnesia.”

“I’d like a second opinion on that.” He seemed a little taken aback by the remark—had I offended his professional pride? Wondering if this was a common event for him given his relative youth and what must have been limited medical experience, I surprised myself by trying to ease his discomfort. “Nothing personal. For all I know you’re the best doctor in the world, but I know my memories are real.”

Wilbur’s expression grew more ambiguous. A moment’s hesitation later: “Of course a second opinion can be arranged if that’s what you want. But I can see no other explanation for your loss of memory.”

“Look,” I said, perhaps more loudly than was warranted. “I don’t know what this is all about, but I do not have amnesia. My name is Steven Stone, and I do not know you.”

Another lingering look but no words.

I turned away from him in frustration, and my gaze fell on an object plugged into a wall socket—it looked like a phone recharger. Inspiration struck. I could kill two birds with one stone by phoning Yvette: not only could I stop her from needless worry by telling her what had happened, and that I was at least in one piece, she could confirm my identity to Wilbur.

“Can I use your phone?” I said, my voice suddenly enthusiastic.

“Phone?” he said, obviously surprised, then suddenly sure. “O, you mean… Of course.”

He put his hand in his shirt pocket, extracted something, and passed it to me. It was small and rectangular like most phones, not as slim as most, and with unusually precise square edges. It also had no brand name or model number, nothing visible at all, a completely black object. The only thing that distinguished it from being a smaller version of the monolith from 2001 A Space Odyssey was a small socket at one end—for recharging presumably—and a slight difference in texture distinguishing front from back. I tapped its front, but it stayed blank. Seeing nothing else to press to activate it, I turned it over and around, struggling to figure out how to use it. “How do I…?”

Wilbur held out his hand, with a quizzical but concerned expression, and I passed the “phone” to him. He took it, tapped the back of it lightly with a finger, and returned it, watching me studiously the whole time.

On the phone’s now lit screen, I could see several app icons, one of an old fashioned handset. I tapped it and a number pad appeared under an address book icon. I tapped in Yvette’s mobile number, but when it rang through, all I heard was an auto-message suggesting there was no such number and that I should check it before trying again. Ignoring the advice, I tapped the same familiar number, more carefully, a second time. The result was the same.

“This is impossible,” I said. “I dial that number all the time.”

“Perhaps your amnesia has confused you,” replied Wilbur. “You could check for the number in the directory. Assuming it’s not private.”

“Directory? For a mobile number?!”

Wilbur’s quizzical expression did not last long. “Perhaps if I show you.” He stretched a hand for the phone.

I hesitated before passing it to him, but then watched as he tapped it to bring up the main screen.

“This is the app,” he said, pointing at an icon I didn’t recognise. “Just enter a person’s full name in it, then tap search.”

He handed the phone back to me, and I followed his instructions, but the two search results made no sense. “What sort of phone numbers are these?” I said angrily. There were two digits too many! “And where’s Wunsa Pond?” With a deep frown, confused beyond imagining, I turned to Wilbur and thrust the phone back to him.

He pocketed it then indicated two steaming cups. “Perhaps we should take this on the verandah. It’s perfect weather for it.”

“Sure,” I muttered, my mind overwhelmed yet relieved to have a distraction. “Whatever.”

We walked together to the verandah, sat down on the cane chairs, and drank. Judging by the shadows and temperature, it was early afternoon.

Confused as I was, I could not help admiring the view from the porch. In the background were nearby wooded hills, about all I could see beyond the perimeters of the yard other than occasional tall eucalypt trees. I wasn’t sure but I thought the screening hedge at the far end of the yard had a discontinuity, a section at one corner where it ended and re-started further out.

My attention was further taken, if briefly, by the garden’s abundance of spring colour. Birds chirped merrily all around, flitting into view to sip nectar from a profusion of large native flowers giving off delicate familiar scents. Insects hovered, bees buzzed, flies pestered. It almost seemed like home, but I was not in a state that permitted me to relax and enjoy it for more than a few distracted moments.

Perhaps the coffee cleared my head though, because after several sips, I suddenly realised, with considerable surprise, that I hadn’t so far thought of asking the obvious question. “Where am I anyway?”

“My name’s not ‘Anyway’,” replied Wilbur, straight-faced. When he saw me frown and narrow my eyes as response, he continued with obvious discomfort. “Just trying to relieve the tension with a little joke.”

“I’d like a second opinion on that, too,” I replied sourly.

He showed no sign of offence, merely took another sip of tea before answering. “I suppose even if you don’t remember this place, you must have deduced it’s where I live.”

“Which is where exactly? What city?”

“Chord, of course.” My expression must have reflected my puzzlement—soon he repeated the name. “Chord. Jibilee locality.”

“Locality?”

His terse nod gave nothing away.

This made no sense. I’d never heard of Jibilee or Chord. Or, for that matter, localities. We had shires and towns and cities, most local government electorates had wards, and churches had parishes, but what the hell was a locality? “Okay, let’s try it from another angle. This is Australia, right.”

His eyes widened, clearly surprised by the question. But just when I thought he was going to say otherwise, he said, “Yes. Of course it is.”

In other circumstances, this would have been the most unremarkable piece of information imaginable, but hearing it then and there I almost breathed a sigh of relief. I pushed on. “Victoria?”

His surprise mounted. “Dianne’s daughter? What about her?”

“Not funny,” I moaned. “Victoria! The smallest mainland state. South-east corner. What am I doing telling you this? You must know!”

“Yes, Ern—” He stopped himself in time to smile wanly, then, with obvious emphasis, “Steven. Yes, we’re on the south-east corner of the continent, but the region’s name is Hillbeach. Australia doesn’t have states.”

An alarm inside my head erupted. Previous desperate theories about my predicament paled beside the one now springing to mind: had I shifted to an alternate universe? With different suburb names? And phone numbers? Blame it on all the sci-fi I’d read and seen, but it was hard not to form a similar conclusion given Wilbur’s responses to my o so simple questions. Even so, it was not a conclusion I could accept. A conspiracy to delude me seemed more plausible if no less explicable.

“This is some kind of joke,” I exclaimed. “Right? Friends and family are going to leap out from behind the house and yell ‘surprise’ any minute now. Okay, well, you’ve all had your fun, but I’ve cottoned onto you now, so why not drop the charade? Australia doesn’t have states—very funny!”

He looked long and hard at me: his expression—instead of relenting and breaking into a prankster’s satisfied grin like I hoped—grew more concerned. Indeed, I thought I saw doubt creep across his face. “Everything I said is true, Ern— Steven. Where do you think you are?”

I grappled for an answer, then plummeted into a daze. “Somewhere near Melbourne, I suppose.”

“Melbourne?!” His expression was one of mild incredulity.

“Melbourne! Capital of Victoria,” I blurted out, my frustration blossoming into anger. The prank was definitely starting to outstay its welcome. “For god’s sake, it’s the second largest city in the country.”

He did not reply, but his expression gave me the impression he was contemplating which mental health service had the most to offer me.

“But…,” I began before realising I had nothing further to add. Could he possibly be serious? If he was acting, it was an impressive performance.

“It would seem you do not have a simple case of amnesia after all,” said Wilbur, sipping quietly on his tea.

“It’s not amnesia. I’m telling you the truth.”

“You’re telling me what you believe is the truth, but they are clearly false memories. Probably filling in the void of your amnesia.”

“That’s ridiculous. I don’t have amnesia. And I know who I am. And where I come from.”

“Perhaps you should fill me in.”

“I told you. Steven Stone. I live in Melbourne—an outer suburb anyway. What I don’t know is how I got here! Wherever here is!”

Wilbur hesitated before saying, “What is the last memory you have before waking?”

It was then my turn to hesitate. If this wasn’t all some elaborate put-on, I must have already seemed unhinged to Wilbur, and my case would certainly not improve if I answered his question with, “O nothing much—I just ran into a demon.” It was all starting to seem like a dream anyway, and surely it had been a dream, so why mention it? Besides, even without the demon, the rest of the story was going to be hard enough for him to believe.

“All right,” I said, sullenly. “This will probably seem just as ridiculous to you as it does to me, but I was at home in bed at night, then all of a sudden, a flash of lightning blinded me, and when I could see again, I was somewhere in the wilderness in the daytime, naked and alone. And exhausted. I found a road and walked for maybe an hour, before I felt a tremendous pain in my chest, then I must have lost consciousness. The last thought I had was that I was having a heart attack.”

“Hmm,” said Wilbur, after an inordinate silence. I could not tell what he was thinking—his blank-faced expression gave nothing away. I certainly wouldn’t want to play cards with him, I thought. After another deep silence, he continued. “Well, at least you should be pleased to hear there’s no evidence of a heart attack.”

I took a while to digest the information. “That’s some consolation,” I finally said, “I suppose.”

“You remember nothing else?”

“A few other things. Minor details like the weather, crossing a creek, some animals I saw.” Another long still silence. “You think I’m making it up, don’t you?”

“Frankly, I don’t quite know what to think. But though it may have seemed real to you, the fact that I remember you as Ernest convinces me that at least some of it was not real. More probably, you have simply mistaken a dream as real.”

“It was not a dream!”

“Can you be sure? Some dreams can be very life-like.”

More confused than ever but irritated by his calm surety that I was not who I knew I was, I responded angrily. “Who knows! Maybe I’m dreaming right now.”

He ignored this completely. “Were there dream-like aspects during your walk?”

The face of the demon sprang to mind, and then the vague familiarity of the landscape. Doubt crept into my head, and I responded more calmly. “There was a sense of some things being similar but different—exaggerated—like in a dream. But still it felt more real than any dream I’ve ever had.”

“Was it at any stage surreal or hallucinatory?”

“No,” I answered loudly. “Look, for all I know I did hallucinate the whole thing. I’ve thought of any number of unlikely explanations—including being slipped hallucinatory drugs—but none of this makes any sense to me. Even if you told me right now it’s all just some sort of grand prank, I can’t think why anyone would go to such extremes to trick me. And if I dreamed of being Steven when I’m actually Ernest—and I know I’m not Ernest—then why wouldn’t I recall knowing you? Or this house?”

“I would assume the bump on your head has prompted a very extensive form of amnesia.”

I could not think what to say. His explanation was starting to make sense, even though I had the strongest feeling that it was simply wrong. Another long deep silence ensued, with Wilbur and I both lost in thought. As much to break the silence as anything, I finally asked, “After I lost consciousness, how did I get here? And don’t tell me I sleepwalked.”

Wilbur hesitated before replying, only briefly, but for an instant his poker-face seemed to waver with uncertainty, filling me with suspicion. “I don’t know exactly how you arrived here. There was a knock at the door late yesterday afternoon, and there you were lying on the doorstep, unconscious, with no one else in sight.”

Astounded that I’d been unconscious for the better part of a day, but even more disappointed that this only further heightened the mystery, I reacted with sarcasm. “Was I in a picnic basket, wearing a nappy, with a note from my mother?” Thinking of the demon, I massaged the lump behind my ear. “And why did she bash me on the head?”

“I’m not sure anyone bashed you. After you lost consciousness, you may simply have fallen onto a rock.”

“Why didn’t you put me in hospital for observation? Instead of just putting me to bed.”

“Your injury’s not that severe. There was certainly no indication it would cause amnesia.”

“It is not amnesia! How many times— ?”

“Please calm down. No doubt, this is all very disorienting for you, but I’m sure things will sort themselves out soon. When you look back on it, it’ll seem like a storm in a molehill.”

“A what?!” I said, feeling even less calm.

“A storm in a molehill. You know, like making a mountain out of a teacup.”

“Is this another joke? Or is English not your first language?”

“It isn’t actually.” Wilbur put his now empty cup on the table, and looked me steadily in the eye. “If you’re feeling well enough to take a short walk, there’s something that may be of value for you to see. Would you be willing?”

I hesitated, half expecting this to be another trick, some new development in the masquerade. But then I realised there was little point refusing. It was not like staying put had anything to offer. On the other hand, following Wilbur would probably give me my best chance of gleaning some hidden truth from some overlooked detail in the conspiracy. Yes, I was starting to think in terms of conspiracy, even if it was a grandiose word to describe what was surely just some outrageous and unwarranted practical joke. Why it was being played on me I had no idea, but what else could I think without accepting that something strange and unknown had befallen me. I certainly did not want to think any further about Wilbur’s explanation—that I was not who I knew I was.

“Why not,” I finally said. “What is it you want to show me?”

He stood. “You’ll see for yourself when we arrive.”

Somehow, that did not seem reassuring.