Story v lies…

knock knock.

My father’s dog started barking like crazy.

Two clean-cut young people were standing on my doorstep. They were twins. Were they new neighbours? I didn’t recognize them. Both had exactly the same haircuts styled fresh from a hairdresser recently reopened.

Both were wearing matching smart light blue trouser suits. One had a bag that said the words CELINE Paris on it. The other’s suit jacket was hanging open so that I could see, on the white T-shirt underneath, the words they /

them handwritten on it in Sharpie.

Yes? I said.

Can you just get that dog to stop barking, I mean right now? the CELINE twin said.

Sure. She’s only barking because you knocked on the door, I said.

The they twin said nothing. They glanced away down the road as if embarrassed, or as if at something much more important happening elsewhere.

I’ll certainly see to it if I can that she barks less, I said. Thank you for letting me know.

I went to shut the door.

No, we’re not here about your bloody dog, the CELINE twin said.

Oh. Right. How can I help you, then? I said.

We’d like a word, she said.

Which word would you like? I said.

We all three stood there in silence for some seconds until I realized they were waiting for me to invite them in.

Oh, I’m sorry, I said. I’m letting nobody inside the house. A member of my family is poorly and in hospital and I’m keen not to endanger him.

Covid’s over, the CELINE twin said. The government says.

I realized she was a lot younger than I’d first thought.

Yeah but what’s said about what’s happening and what’s really happening are often quite different things, I said.

We’re not ill, the CELINE twin said.

It’s not that easy to tell by looking, I said. Have you got masks?

Absolutely not, the CELINE twin said. We’ve nothing to hide.

Uh, I said. Excuse me for a moment.

I reached to the hallstand and got my own one.

Eye em oh you’ve a lot to answer for, the woman said.

What? I said.

You heard me, she said.

Yes, I did, I said. But I didn’t understand the first thing you said there.

Eye em oh, she said again.

Uh. Right. What exactly is it you think I have to answer for? I said.

We want you to stop upsetting our mother, she said.

Then she told me they were the children of Mrs Pelf.

I shook my head. I didn’t know anyone called Mrs –.

Ah, I said. Okay. Come through to the back of the house.

I opened the side door to the yard and stepped away as they went through. They sat on the bench by the back door. I went to the far end and sat crosslegged on the ground with my back against the studio door.

Because of you our mother’s acting like a mad woman, the CELINE

twin said.

Because of me, I said.

She’s always got up at 6.50, all our lives. But now, nine or ten in the morning if she’s not working.

Our father can’t function.

Oh dear, I said.

She won’t listen to him. She won’t listen to us. At night she goes off out in the car by herself and doesn’t come back till all hours and won’t tell anyone where she’s been.

None of those things sounds all that mad to me, I said.

You don’t know her, she said.

You’re quite right. I don’t, I said.

Does she come here in the evenings? she said.

Here? No, I said.

She’s really different now. She stands around in the kitchen and the lounge laughing at nothing. The last time I left Amelie with her, that’s my daughter, I came back and they were making a necklace out of a piece of string and the contents of a tin of spaghetti hoops.

I laughed out loud for the first time in weeks.

It’s really not funny, the CELINE twin said.

Clothes ruined, tomato stuff all through Amelie’s hair. And she keeps telling Amelie really frightening stories and now Amelie isn’t sleeping, she wakes up shouting about all sorts, birds with beaks as long as swords, horses with their legs cut off, eye em oh it’s grotesque, it’s really, really disruptive. And that’s another thing that’s changed. She never used to laugh at anything. Now she laughs all the time. Just like you just did. In the middle of people talking to her, even. And she keeps saying words. Out loud.

What, you mean speaking? I said.

No because it’s not to anybody. She just says words. Words that aren’t words we’ve ever heard her say.

What kind of words? I said.

She stands there going, I’m amazed, the CELINE twin said. Things like, life is amazing, and who knew this could happen, and then she just stands there smiling and shaking her head.

It sounds a little like she’s in love, I said.

That’s disgusting, the CELINE twin said. She’s a nearly sixty-year-old woman.

Well, properly speaking she’s fifty six.

The they twin had spoken at last.

And we know from someone at her work, someone with her best interests at heart, that she’s been going into the digital records system and changing attribution and all manner of historical and necessary cataloguing information, the CELINE twin said.

How do you know it’s her who’s doing this? I said.

They’ve traced it back to her computer, the they twin said.

That doesn’t mean it’s your mother doing it, I said.

She’s going to lose a prestigious part-time position because she’s acting so adolescently, the CELINE twin said holding her phone pointedly towards me.

Are you recording this? I said.

Why is your number in her phone and why are there several mentions of your name in the search history of her laptop? she said. You’re having an affair with our mother.

No, I said.

Is our mother here in your house right now? the CELINE twin said still holding her phone at me.

I already told you. No, I said.

Is that why you won’t let us into your house, because she’s here and you’re lying about it? she said.

I leaned forward and spoke at the phone.

Your mother’s not in my house, I said.

Won’t let us into the house so we’ve no way of knowing, the CELINE

twin said into her phone.

Please explain to whoever’s listening, I said, that I’m not likely to let a couple of strangers who might be scammers into my house.

We’re not the scammers here, the CELINE twin said.

If she says she’s not in her house, the they twin said, then she’s probably not in her house. Come on, Eden. Let’s go.

Then where is she? Eden Pelf said in a wail. Where else could she be?

So she’s gone a-wandering, I said. Well well.

What are you smiling at? Eden Pelf shouted.

She’s a fucking missing person.

Eden. Don’t, the they twin said.

That’s different, I said. I’m sorry for being flippant. How long has she been missing? When did you last see her?

First thing this morning, Eden Pelf said.

It was only noon now. I couldn’t not laugh.

You’re obscene, Eden Pelf said. Laughing at our loss.

Eden, the they twin said.

They turned to me.

Are you having an affair with our mother?

I shook my head.

But you do know her, they said. She does know you. You’ve been in touch. Recently.

We know you have and we’re going to the police, Eden Pelf said. We know the police. My father’s very well known. We’re friends with the authorities. We’re friends with very powerful people. We’ll take you to court. We’ll go to the press. We’ll get you vilified on social media. You’ll be cancelled. You’ll lose your job. We’ll make sure everybody and everything boycotts you.

I shrugged.

It’s your mother who got in touch with me, not the other way round.

We’ve spoken only twice in more than a quarter of a century, and the first

time was when she phoned me one evening recently. Then she sent me a zoom link and we spoke to each other on that for just over half an hour.

That’s the sum total of my dastardly hold on your mother.

What about all the texts you’ve been sending her? Eden Pelf said.

What texts? I said. I didn’t send any texts. Oh. Wait. I did send one text.

One text! Eden Pelf said. Liar.

No, the they twin said. Truthfully, Ede, we did only find one text on there.

Yeah because our mother’ll have deleted the others because they were incriminating, Eden Pelf said.

The they twin turned to me.

This text we did find. It says, and I quote, I’ve something for you.

What did you actually give our mother?

Was it drugs? Eden Pelf said.

What are you both doing looking at your mother’s private personal devices? I said.

We’re only trying to help our mother, the they twin said. Please help us.

So I told them I’d told their mother a story.

And that’s it, I said. That’s all.

What, Eden Pelf said. Like, a news story?

A story, I said. A story story. She told me one, so I told her one back.

Fair exchange.

Like an old-fashioned once upon a time story? the they twin said. Like a bedtime story?

You’re a disgusting person, Eden Pelf said, playing a perverted game with a woman to seduce her away from her children.

Look, I said. Your mother got in touch out of the blue and asked me to respond to a few things in her life that felt mysterious, and what she told me took the shape of a story. So when we got back in touch I told her what had come to mind regarding that mystery, and it took the shape of a kind of story too.

Whoa. Quirky, the they twin said.

Manipulating our mother, Eden Pelf said. By telling lies.

No, I said. People who tell lies are only interested in the enslavement of their listeners to some cause of their own.

She’s enslaved our mother, Eden Pelf said. She’s in love with our mother and she’s stalking our fam. She wants to break our fam into little pieces.

I’m not stalking anyone, I said. I don’t even know where your mother, or any of you, lives.

Yeah but a story about what? the they twin said.

You’d best ask your mother that, I said. But I’ve a question for you.

How come you know where I live?

We know all about you, Eden Pelf said. Lee works in eye tee at eye gee.

Is that your name? I said. Lee?

Yeah, the they twin said. Lea with an a. El ee ai. And this is Eden.

And what’s eye gee? I said.

Boomer alert, Eden Pelf said.

Insta. But I don’t work for them any more, I’m outsource now, I’m in data, Lea Pelf said.

I looked at Lea Pelf again, and then at the sharpied words they / them on their T-shirt.

You know, I’ve often thought, I said, that if given the chance, the tiniest verbal shift, like on your T-shirt, can make everything possible.

Told you, Eden Pelf said. Boomerissimissima.

Lea Pelf looked at me sharply for the first time and said, are you taking the piss?

No, I said. It’s one of this era’s real revolutions. And one of the most exciting things about language, that grammar’s as bendy as a live green branch on a tree. Because if words are alive to us then meaning’s alive, and if grammar’s alive then the connection in it, rather than the divisions in us, will be energizing everything, one way or another. It means an individual person can be both individual and plural at the same time. And I’ve always believed there’s real room to move in embracing the indeterminate.

Actually I’m very determined, Lea Pelf said. And in my usage it’s a singular they. It’s to signal that gender is irrelevant to me. It’s to cancel the binary.

Powerful little word, I said.

Yeah, you’re right. So powerful, Lea Pelf said (and pointedly leaned to say it as close to the phone their sister was holding as they could), that my father’s made me move all my stuff out of the house and into the garage.

Eden Pelf frowned and put her hand over the phone mic.

– and won’t let me in the house till I stop buggering about and use what he calls the traditionally correct pronoun to refer to myself again, Lea Pelf said.

Ah, I said.

I leaned towards the phone again.

The word they, I said, has been used traditionally grammatically as a singular form since medieval times and for exactly what you’re expressing when you use it.

Thanks for the gesture of support, it’s nice of you. But I don’t need you or anyone to make the case for me, Lea Pelf said.

Well, I said. It’s been very nice to meet you both. Thank you both for coming.

I smiled with my own preconceptions on both Martina Inglis’s / Pelf’s children. They looked back at me with their grown faces full of their preconceptions about me. I stood up and opened my arms in that end-of-the-meeting way. They sat on the bench and didn’t move.

We’re going nowhere, Eden Pelf said, till you give us your word never again to come near our mother. Or us.

You have my word, I said. Now you can go somewhere.

I went to the back gate. I stood by it, open. They still didn’t move from the bench.

We’re going nowhere till you tell us how to get our mother to go back to being the person she used to be, Eden Pelf said.

That’s the kind of mystery you’ll have to deal with yourselves, I said.

Come on, Ede, Lea Pelf said. We’ve done all we can here.

They pulled their sister to her feet and pushed her towards the gate.

We know where you live, Eden said as the gate swung shut behind her.

We’ll be back.

Bring masks the next time, I called after them.

Then I washed my hands and went into the studio again to get on with my work.