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  He was almost there. The house he was looking for was just across the road. He stared at the overgrown hedge and front garden: once neat and trim with a pond in the middle and gnomes fishing with tiny rods. What had happened to those? He couldn't remember. In the great scheme of things did it really matter? Things came, things went. It was how it was.

  He made to cross over the road, almost stepping into the path of an oncoming car. He pulled back just as the driver blared his horn, shouting through the open window: "What the hell's wrong with you? You tryin' to get yourself killed?"

  The dead man watched him drive to the end of the road and follow the curve around. Those words went around and around in his mind: "Get yourself killed... Get yourself killed..." He closed his eyes, images flashing across his field of vision below the lids:

  A flash of red, of light. Hands clutching at something, tight, white knuckles and a ring on the third finger of the left hand. A pair of eyes, dulled but open in shock. A----

  He snapped his eyes open, flinching when he felt the hand on his arm. "Are... are you all right?" asked an Indian woman standing beside him. He searched her features but found nothing recognizable. Again he just stared, not saying a thing. In the end the woman let him be, not knowing what else to do. As she walked on up the street, she looked over her shoulder just once.

  Turning, he checked for traffic this time, and crossed the road to the house.

  He studied the small semi, the windows gaping back at him in disbelief. He put a hand out for the gate, which was hanging off by the hinges. It creaked heavily as he moved it aside, the latch long-since vanished. The path was overgrown too, each carefully laid slab now raised slightly at the side by the sheer amount of weeds pushing up from beneath, like a healthy tooth dislodged by its crooked neighbor. He trod the path slowly, dead flowers on either side, leading him to the front door, its mottled glass set inside a faded varnished frame.

  Raising a hand he prepared to knock on the door. He hesitated. Why, he had no idea. This was what he was meant to do, he felt sure of it. And yet...

  He shook his head and rapped twice on the wood. The wait was excruciating. He gave it a few minutes, then knocked again, cocking his ear at the same time. He heard movement from within, a voice calling, "All right, all right. I'm coming."

  The door opened a crack and someone peered out. It was difficult to see clearly as it was dark inside the hall, but then the door opened more fully. It wasn't because the gray haired woman standing there was willingly allowing him entrance; it was more that she was in a state of severe shock.

  She put a quivering hand to her mouth, eyes wide and filling with moisture. "Matt... Matthew?" The old woman made to take a step towards him, but her already unstable legs gave out. "No... no it can't be." He covered the distance between them in an instant, hands there to catch her as she fell back into the house. Her eyes rolled up into her head and she began gasping for air.

  "It's okay, I've got you," he said, experimentally talking again. He half-carried her into the house, then closed the door on the outside world. He tapped her face gently with his fingers. "It's me, Mum," he told her. "It's really me."

  But she fainted again----the result of seeing her dead son standing on the doorstep after seven long years.

  Chapter One

  Mrs. Irene Daley woke from her nightmare to find herself on the couch.

  She'd had the most awful dream. In it she'd been watching the television, The Breakfast Show had just finished and she was about to turn off a report on the troubles abroad----the commentator stating that they were on the verge of yet another 'conflict.' Then there had been a knock at the door. She hadn't heard it at first due to the explosions on the TV, but when the knock came again she'd switched off the set with the remote then got up to answer it, her back aching as she lifted herself out of the high seat chair.

  Whoever it was they were persistent. Might be the postman? she'd mused as she turned into the hallway. But why would he knock? No one ever sent her any packages, not even her own family. She was lucky if she got any mail at all that wasn't simply junk. She'd called out that she was coming, and she could see the shadowy shape through the misted glass at the door. Irene even considered putting on the chain, but it was the middle of the morning not ten o'clock at night. Nobody would be trying to break into her home this early on in the day, surely. She decided to meet the potential threat half way, only open the door a tiny bit. That way she could shut it again quickly if need be, but she could also see who was so eager to get her attention.

  When she opened the door she thought her eyes were playing tricks. Through the gap she looked out at a face she hadn't seen in over half a decade. A face she'd adored more than anything in this world, last seen under a very different set of circumstances. Her boy; her Matthew...

  But that couldn't be. It only happened in dreams, in nightmares. So when she'd collapsed in the hall and everything had gone black, it only lent more weight to the argument that it was all in her head. That she'd made it all up because yes, even after this length of time, she still missed him so, so much.

  She'd heard him say something, but by that time darkness already had her. And now that she was rising from that deep pit of despair and pain she was even more convinced the events that put her there were a product of her imagination.

  Irene resolved to open her eyes, get up, and pop the kettle on----to try and put this whole episode out of her mind. But that was going to be incredibly difficult, because as she turned her head and looked at the chair facing the couch, she saw him again. He was sitting there with his hands clasped, staring at her. No, that wasn't strictly true; his eyes weren't so much staring as burrowing into her. She turned away again, quickly, not able to meet his gaze, nor accept what must be the truth. That Matthew was in the room with her, right now. Unless she was still dreaming? Could that be it? Irene pinched the loose skin on the back of her hand, nipping it tightly and hoping the pain would deliver her back to the world she knew. Back to sanity.

  She didn't fully turn, but caught him still sitting there in the periphery of her vision.

  Seconds passed like hours, until finally she knew she had to speak. "Who... who are you?" Irene asked. "What do you want?"

  "I..." he began, and she felt compelled to look at him now as he shook his head. "I'm your son." The man said it so certainly that for a moment she almost believed him. For one thing he was saying the words in her son's voice.

  "No... no you're not. You can't be."

  He nodded. "But I am."

  Irene sat up against the cushions, where he'd placed her, and brought her legs around with a slight crack of the bones. "You look like him----"

  "I am him," he interrupted.

  "You have his face, but..."

  Oh sweet Lord did he have her son's face. It was exactly the same, every line, the dimple in his chin, the crowsfeet that were beginning at the corners of his eyes even though he was barely into his thirties. Those hazel eyes were the same too, and the way his hair made him look like he'd just got out of bed in spite of trying to brush it flat. All the same, all the same. And those clothes... were the shirt and trousers part of the suit they'd buried him in, or just very, very similar?

  "Why won't you believe me?" It was a simple enough question and yet staggeringly complex. "You know, deep down, that I'm telling the truth."

  Irene could feel tears starting to form in her eyes. "You're..." she managed before she began to cry. The tiny beads of water crawled down her cheeks, running into the rivulets created by her wrinkles and breaking up. "You're... you're..." She couldn't get the word out, and when it did eventually slip free it came only as a whisper. "Dead."

  He frowned, saying nothing. What could he say? If he was her son, as he so vehemently claimed, how could he deny that? Yet here he was, in the 'flesh,' in her living room----that was a good one, living room----sitting in the armchair he always used to occupy when he visited. "I can't explain it," he finally offered. "But I know who I am, a
nd I know that I love you, Mu----"

  Irene held up her hand. "Don't. Please don't."

  He got up, putting his hands in his pockets. Walking over to the window, he pulled aside the net curtains and peered out. Then he looked down at the photo in the frame on the windowsill. He lifted it up.

  "Put that down," said Irene.

  He held it out instead to illustrate his point. It was a photo taken at least ten years ago, of Matthew with his arm around his mother. "Look," he said. "This is me... this is me here with you."

  "No," said Irene again. She was crying freely now.

  There was a noise at the back door and they both turned. A shadow appeared in the hallway, small and dark, followed by another: this one very much alive. The jet-black cat froze when it reached the doorway, the swinging and creaking of the cat-flap still carrying into the living room.

  Irene was half standing, looking from the cat to the man holding the picture.

  "Tolly?" he said.

  The cat had something in its mouth. It looked like a toy at first, but when the animal dropped it onto the hall carpet they could both see it was a sparrow the cat had stalked and caught, just like it always loved to do. The feline----named after Tolstoy, because of its long tail----was now locked in a battle of gazes with him. He took a step towards the creature and its fur stood on end, hackles rising. On some level it could sense there was something wrong. Was this really the man it used to curl up to, making itself comfortable in his lap while pressing its feet into his thighs as if making a nest?

  One more step and the cat hissed, spinning around and shooting off in the direction it had come, leaving its prey behind. The man stood and looked across at Irene. She knew exactly how the cat felt----didn't want him coming anywhere near her.

  "Mum," he said.

  "Don't call me that!"

  "It's who you are," he insisted. "You're my mother."

  "I was Matthew's mother. I... I don't even know what you are."

  He looked wounded.

  Perhaps she was losing her mind. Was that it? Were these the first signs of Alzheimer's? Or a brain aneurysm? Was she conjuring up this whole scene because she wanted to see Matthew so badly, at this time of year especially? Was this all her doing? Irene shook her head. No, this was real; the man in front of her was real. And she had to figure out some way of dealing with it before she really did go insane.

  "I'm Matthew. I'm not an hallucination," he told her, seemingly reading her mind.

  "I don't believe in ghosts," Irene said.

  "I'm not a ghost either," was his reply. "I'm solid, as solid as I was in this photograph. See?" He reached over and grabbed her arm and she nearly fell back onto the couch in an effort to escape him. But there was no force in that grip; it was merely to illustrate his point. "I carried you back in here, remember?"

  Her eyes were wide and white as dinner plates. He let go of her, slowly, and Irene was profoundly aware that she was trembling.

  "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. It's just, well, I don't know how else to convince you."

  "T-Tea," said Irene, her mouth a straight line. "A cup of tea..."

  The man smiled. "Of course, tea. The cup that cures." He said it like he knew that was her mantra. Like he knew that all the problems there had ever been in this house had been solved over a cup of hot, steaming tea. "I'll go and put the kettle on."

  Irene almost laughed then, a nervous laugh. Her dead son, or at least someone who purported to be so, was now offering to go and brew up. She nodded and watched as he put the picture down on the coffee table and left the room. From the kitchen she heard cupboards being opened, the tinkling of china----he knew exactly where to look. Then the sound of the kettle being filled with water.

  Irene snapped out of her daze. She picked up the cordless telephone she always kept down the side of the couch when it wasn't charging. And, with one last glance at the photo, she stabbed the buttons with her finger.

  Chapter Two

  "I remember there used to be a poster here when I was growing up, some band," the person claiming to be Matthew Daley said, examining the wall of what had once been 'his' bedroom.

  The request had come after he'd brought back the tea on a tray, along with a plate of biscuits, taken from the jar Irene always kept on the counter next to the bread bin. He wanted to see his old room, asked her politely and with that same lilt Matthew once had in his voice. Irene simply agreed, not knowing what else to say. She led the way up the rickety stairs, checking behind her all the time to see if he was still there. He was, and he followed her to the room where her son had spent much of the first twenty-two years of his life.

  "The TV was there, the stereo over... there." He pointed to a sideboard. "I bought it with my first month's wages from the plant. You used to keep telling me to turn down the racket, you remember?"

  Another nod.

  "It's not there anymore, is it?"

  For a second she thought he was still talking about the stereo, but then she realized he meant the place where he'd worked since he was in his late teens. "They... they shut it down a few years ago," she managed.

  He nodded and walked over to the wardrobe, a cheap flat-pack one that was still----remarkably----standing, after many years of service. He opened the door nearest to him, taking out a jumper on a hangar. It was navy with pink zigzag lines running across the middle. "I can't believe this is still here. You gave me this one Christmas when I was about fifteen. I didn't like it, but I wore it anyway because I knew you did."

  Irene thought she had the tears under control, but now they came again. "How do you know all these things?" she asked him.

  "I thought we'd been through that. I'm your son."

  At the risk of repeating herself, she said it again; this time the last word was more emphatic. "My son is dead."

  He thought for a second or two. "Then who am I?"

  "I... I don't know."

  He put the jumper back inside the wardrobe and his eye caught something on the floor inside. Stooping, he picked it up; it was a small red racing car. Irene stood in silence as he brought the toy up to his face, turning it over.

  There was a knock on the door downstairs, much the same as the one she'd answered earlier that morning. The 'stranger' in her home didn't appear to notice; he was too transfixed by the car her son had once played with and which had been left, forgotten, in the bottom of the wardrobe. The knock came again and Irene made for the door of the bedroom. She thought at any moment he would try to stop her from answering it, but he didn't. There was no hand on her arm this time, no sharp words. He----whoever he was----seemed to be in a world of his own.

  She ventured down the stairs, more quickly than she had ascended them. Another shadow was visible through the frosted glass, but this time she knew exactly who it was. And for a moment, when she opened the door, it was like déjà vu. Irene was back in time, seven years ago, the two policemen standing at the door waiting to tell her the news. Except this time it was the uniformed officers waiting for her to speak, not the other way around. She'd known instinctively that Matthew had passed on even before she saw the Police Constables, just as she still knew he was dead----should be dead. Now it was a case of how to explain it to the policemen without sounding like she was on some kind of medication.

  "Mrs. Irene Daley? We've had a report of a disturbance," said the first copper, a young black man.

  A disturbance? That was one way of putting it.

  "That someone was in your house," chipped in the other officer, a much older man with a graying beard.

  "Y-Yes," she said, not really knowing where to begin. "He's... upstairs."

  "Right," said the younger man, entering the house. The older man put a hand on his shoulder and gestured up towards the top of the stairs. Irene followed their gaze and saw 'Matthew' standing there. It sent a shiver up her spine.

  "Sir, would you mind coming down here?" said the bearded officer. "Hands where I can see them."

  He started to d
escend, a disappointed but resigned expression on his face. He held his hands palm outwards, and there was nothing in them.

  "Now," continued the older man, "perhaps you'd mind explaining to me what you're doing in Mrs. Daley's home."

  The man said nothing.

  "Mrs. Daley... have you been hurt at all?"

  "No signs of forced entry at the doorway," the younger PC confirmed.

  "I... I opened the door and..." Irene was still crying and they took this as a sign to proceed.

  The young black officer turned the man around and handcuffed him, just to be on the safe side. Their prisoner stared at Irene, half in disbelief, half resentment.

  "So, perhaps we can get a few things sorted out now," said the bearded PC. "Who exactly are you and what are you doing in Mrs. Daley's home?"

  "I'm her son," he said at last.

  "Her son, eh? Mrs. Daley, is this true?"

  She hesitated for a second, then shook her head.

  "My name is Matthew Daley," stated the handcuffed man as he was patted down. The young PC found nothing, no ID, no weapons----nothing, save for a small toy car in the man's pocket, which he handed to his colleague.

  "So he's not your son?" pressed the bearded policeman.