Down to Earth

Calum and I had moved in together six months ago after a whirlwind romance. He was several years older than me and had a ten-year-old daughter called Abbey. Abbey’s mother had died in a car accident eighteen months before I’d met them, and although things had been difficult between me and the resentful young girl for the first few months, we had gradually begun to gel into something resembling a family unit.

As I waited for him to pick up the phone, I thought about Calum’s horrified reaction when I’d first told him about the parachute jump. ‘Are you crazy?’ he had demanded when I’d shown him the sponsorship forms. ‘Don’t you realise how dangerous it is?’

‘People do parachute jumps all the time,’ I’d soothed him. ‘Nothing will happen to me.’

Over the next few weeks as I gathered sponsorship money, he had realised I wasn’t going to back down and had reluctantly added his own name to my list of sponsors. ‘I don’t think you realise that you are one of the most important people in my world,’ he whispered late one evening as we’d lain in bed. ‘I just couldn’t bear to lose you, Kaela. Promise me you’ll be careful?’

I knew he was terrified that history would repeat itself and snatch me away as it had his wife. His reservations were understandable and I’d tried to reassure him the best I could. We’d made love with an intensity sparked by fear and afterwards I’d lain awake listening to his even breathing thinking about how much I cared about him, whilst at the same time yearning for this one last chance at freedom.

At twenty-five the responsibilities I had so willingly taken on were more of a challenge than I’d expected. I was still trying to hold down my job as Graham’s personal assistant and would-be apprentice. It had been a smart career move when I’d been single and independent, but now I was doing a daily school run, helping with Abbey’s homework, shopping and cooking and cleaning for the three of us. More than once during the last six months I’d feared my parents might have had a point when they’d warned me about taking on a man of thirty four and his child.

‘Are you sure he’s not just looking for a new mother for his daughter?’ my father had cautioned me. ‘Is this really what you want to do with your life?’

‘He’s on the rebound,’ my mum added. ‘His wife has only been gone a year and a half; it’s too soon.’

But infatuation had conquered all. Calum had wined and dined me and had seemed so much more mature and sophisticated than the boys I had dated in the past. He was kind and considerate and we’d taken picnics and long walks by the river discussing all kinds of highbrow subjects, instead of drinking and dancing the night away at bars and clubs.

After I’d moved in with him we’d tried to keep some sort of social life alive, but the pressures of our jobs and being full time parents meant that we rarely went out in the evenings any more.

For all my promise of a lasting commitment, the parachute jump had been a breath of fresh air, an adventure in the making and nothing Calum or anyone else could say would have dissuaded me from taking part. Now, as the phone went unanswered, I wondered if I was being punished.

He must have gone out, I thought, even though he’d said he would be there when I got home. And it was a school night, so Abbey should be in doing her homework. Perhaps Calum had taken Abbey out for a pizza.

Replacing the receiver, I rubbed my hands over my face. I couldn’t stay here, that was for sure. Tolerant as the barman was being, I couldn’t see him letting me spend the night.

Coming to a decision, I dialled the number for my parents’ house. They would want to know why Calum hadn’t come for me of course, and I waited for them to pick up with mixed feelings. But the phone rang and rang endlessly there too. Where had everyone gone? Normally my parents ate dinners in front of the television; it was unusual for them to go out unless it was some special occasion. Out of habit I glanced at my watch again, forgetting that it might be broken. Ten thirty. Perhaps they had gone to bed.

I was about to replace the receiver, when it was picked up and a woman’s voice said, ‘Yes?’

‘Mum?’ It didn’t sound like my mother, but I couldn’t imagine who else it could be.

‘Who is this?’ the voice demanded.

‘It’s Michaela. Is that you, Mum?’

‘I’m sorry you’ve got the wrong number.’

I repeated the number I had dialled and the woman confirmed it was correct.

‘This is Michaela Anderson, are you sure my parents aren’t there?’

‘Very funny,’ the voice snapped waspishly. The phone went dead. I knew it had been unwise to press the point, but I couldn’t understand why some stranger had picked up my parents’ phone. I stood, rooted to the spot with the receiver in my hand, until someone nudged my elbow.

‘Made your call?’ The barman was looking at me strangely. He took the phone from me and replaced it gently on its cradle. ‘Are you alright, love? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

‘I couldn’t get through,’ I mumbled, trying to shake off the feeling of deep unease that was creeping up through my body. ‘I need to try someone else.’

‘Go ahead,’ he said, turning away, ‘let me know if you need anything.’

I tried Ingrid next, but her line seemed to be out of order. Leaning back against the wall I tried to think. I was over an hour’s drive from home and I had no money for a cab, a train, or even a bus – should there have been one at this time of the night – which I doubted. Ice cold fingers of fear tightened around my chest which was feeling increasingly hollow and empty. I thought for a moment that I might actually faint.

Holding onto the wall for support, I clawed my way back towards the bar. There had to be a rational answer to all this. Maybe I was asleep and dreaming the whole thing. As I made my way slowly along the passage I glanced at the walls, which were covered from floor to ceiling with posters advertising various bands I’d never heard of, leaflets and personal messages stuck on top of one another forming a huge collage.

I paused as one particular leaflet caught my eye. There were several copies of it, some partially hidden by more recent stickers, others with pen marks and scribbles obscuring a face. Bold printed words asked: HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL? The thing that made me stop dead in my tracks was the face itself: my face peering out from a washed-out photograph. A photo I’d had taken only the week before, and which, to my knowledge hadn’t even been developed yet.

But it was not only the enormity of seeing my own face staring wanly back at me from the faded leaflets that made my blood run cold. It was the date printed boldly underneath the picture: ‘Last seen 15 April 2002.’

Because 15 April 2002 was today’s date. And I wasn’t missing at all.

Chapter Four

The pub toilet wasn’t the ideal place to hide. Apart from being less than hygienic, customers kept coming in to use the facilities to find me alternately splashing cold water onto my face and slapping or pinching myself in the hope that I’d wake up from this terrible nightmare. Most of the ladies coming in and out averted their eyes, though one or two looked at me sympathetically as they washed their hands or touched up their make-up.

Eventually the barman, who turned out to be the pub landlord, called me out and told me the pub was closing for the night.

‘There must be someone you can call,’ he said as he cleared the tables of glasses. I watched, perched on a bar stool as he picked up a discarded local newspaper and tossed it into a blue plastic bin.

‘Don’t throw it away!’ I exclaimed, reaching for the paper and smoothing it out.

‘I wasn’t throwing it away, love, I was recycling it. Look, that’s the recycling bin.’

I spread the paper out on the bar top and peered at the date. He hadn’t struck me as a save-the-planet type of guy, but I didn’t have time to wonder at his idiosyncrasies, because I was staring at the date printed in the top right hand corner of the paper. ‘Monday, 20 October 2008’.

‘Where did this newspaper come from?’ I demanded tremulously.

He shrugged. ‘One of the customers must have brought it in.’

‘Is it a joke or something?’

He stopped in mid-stride, his fingers full of glasses and stared at me suspiciously. ‘In what way might it be a joke?’

‘The date,’ I whispered. Something in his expression stopped me from protesting further and I backtracked quickly, a plausible lie leaping to my lips, ‘Sorry, I lost my reading glasses in the accident and I’m having trouble seeing the small print. This is today’s paper is it?’

He came over and took the paper out of my hand. ‘Of course it is. Look, love, I’ve got to close up and you can’t stay here. I don’t want to throw you out with nowhere to go, but what do you expect me to do with you?’

We stared at one another helplessly for a moment. No amount of prayer was going to help me now, I decided. Tears welled in my eyes and I blinked them furiously back, feeling in the jumpsuit pocket for a tissue, determined not to cry in front of this stranger. But it wasn’t a tissue my fingers located – it was a crumpled piece of paper with a telephone number scribbled in pencil.

‘Matt,’ I breathed.

‘Excuse me?’

‘There is someone else I could try, if you don’t mind letting me use the telephone one more time.’

He waved me towards the back. ‘Be my guest, but make it quick will you?’

I dialled the number with trembling fingers. Matt had only given me his number a couple of hours ago, but those few hours seemed to have turned into half a lifetime.

‘Please answer,’ I begged, shifting from one weary foot to the other as the phone rang in the distance. ‘Please, please pick up.’

And then there was a voice at the end of the line. ‘Hello?’

‘Matt?’

‘Who is this?’

‘It’s Michaela. Michaela Anderson. You gave me your number and asked me to give you a call …’

The silence at the end of the line seemed to stretch into eternity. I thought for a moment I had lost the connection, but then his voice came again, hesitant but clear.

‘Is … is it really you, Michaela?’

‘Yes. You suggested going for a drink sometime, but something has happened and I don’t know how to get home.’

‘Where are you?’

‘I’m in a pub near the airfield – the Royal Oak, I believe.’

‘Wait right there. Do not move, do not talk to anyone. Give me ten minutes and I’ll come and fetch you.’

The line went dead and I turned to find the landlord look -ing at me. ‘Is someone coming for you?’ he asked hopefully.

‘In ten minutes,’ I replied with the faint beginnings of a smile. ‘I’ll be out of your way as soon as he gets here if you don’t mind letting me wait a little while longer.’

The landlord grinned with obvious relief, indicating a seat by the door. ‘Be my guest,’ he said.

It was nearer fifteen minutes when the door opened startling the landlord, who was leaning against a wall, waiting, key in hand, to lock up and go to bed.

My head, which had drooped wearily onto my chest, shot up as the door swung inwards and I saw a figure emerge through the doorway. A tremor of something indefinable flooded through me.

‘Matt?’ My voice came out as a hoarse croak. ‘You … you’ve had your hair cut.’

I knew it was an odd observation to make, considering the circumstances, but not as odd as the fact that although I could see quite clearly that it was Matt, he looked older, had put a little weight on his slim frame and just seemed … different.

And he was staring at me as if I were a ghostly apparition.

‘My God, Michaela … it really is you.’

I opened my mouth to speak, but closed it again in confusion.

He seemed to come to a decision and held out his hand. ‘Come on let’s get you out of here.’

I rose to my feet, ready to follow him goodness knows where but felt a sudden nagging doubt. What was I doing going off with someone I barely knew? I turned to the landlord, but he was holding the door open for me and I realised that I had little choice but to leave with Matt. ‘Thank you so much for letting me wait here, it was very kind of you.’

‘Don’t mention it.’ He yawned widely. ‘I just wish I could remember where I’ve seen you before.’

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that he had several posters of my face stuck all over his back walls, but Matt had taken my elbow and was guiding me out into the dark night. He released me as soon as we were outside. I saw a black car parked at the kerb and Matt walked towards it and indicated I should get in.

I would normally never get into a stranger’s car, but the alternative was to continue being lost and alone and that was something I could not contemplate a moment longer, so I slid onto the cream leather upholstery of the front passenger seat and clipped my safety belt into place. The driver’s door opened and Matt climbed in, started the engine and guided the car out onto the road.

‘Where are we going?’

‘I’m taking you straight to the police station.’

My insides gave an involuntary lurch. ‘Why?’

He risked taking his eyes off the road to glance at me. ‘Michaela, you’ve just turned up out of the blue after all this time. Everyone’s been searching for you. We have to let them know you’re back so that they can question you.’

So I had come down in the wrong place and they had been looking for me all day and all evening. My theory that I must have bumped my head and become disorientated was right. ‘Couldn’t it wait until the morning? I’m very tired and I’d rather just go home.’

‘I’m not sure that’s an option. It’s been a long time, things have changed.’ He shook his head and whistled through his teeth. ‘The press are going to have a field day with your reappearance.’

My stomach clenched at his words and the dread I’d felt earlier began to resurface. ‘Things can’t have become that urgent in the space of a day, surely?’

Matt slowed down and drew in to a small lay-by where he let the engine idle as he turned to face me. His expression was kind, but his voice firm. ‘People are going to want to know where you’ve been. The whole world is going to want to know what happened to you. Your reappearance is going to cause a sensation. Michaela, it hasn’t been a single day. You’ve been missing without trace for six and a half long years.’

Chapter Five

‘I don’t believe you.’ Even as I said it I pictured the newspaper in the pub dated October 2008; the faded leaflets and posters on the wall.

‘Well it’s true. Don’t you remember anything about what happened?’ Matt studied my blank face with an alarmed expression and after a moment swung the car out onto the road again.

I fixed my gaze on the road ahead, the dark tarmac illuminated in the car’s headlights, the hedgerows a black blur outlining the road as we sped by. ‘Nothing untoward happened,’ I insisted softly. ‘I jumped out of that aeroplane this morning and when I landed it was dark.’

‘I have to let the authorities know you’ve been found.’ He looked at me pityingly and his voice was gentle. ‘Whatever has happened to you, you need professional help.’

‘No!’ I turned to him beseechingly. I was beginning to feel exhausted and didn’t know what to think, the physical evidence seemed to support Matt’s claim, yet the suggestion that six and a half years of my life had simply vanished since this morning was farcical. ‘Please won’t you just give me a lift home? My boyfriend must be worried sick about me by now. I said I’d be home before nightfall.’

‘It’s not going to be as simple as that. After all this time you won’t be able to walk straight back into your old life. When you return, it’s going to be traumatic – there will be a lot of curiosity, not just from the police but from the media too. It’s going to be a shock for everyone, Michaela, your boyfriend particularly. It’s been a very long time.’

I fell silent, trying to stay alert despite the weariness that was creeping through me. Forcing my eyes to remain open I stared at the road, thinking about what he’d said. My head had begun to spin and my mouth felt dry. I began to doubt that I could make the journey home to Surrey without being ill. Like a confused and wounded animal, I wanted nothing more than to find a safe dark place where I could curl into a ball and hide. ‘I don’t want to be questioned; not tonight. If you don’t want to drive me all the way home, maybe I could stay at your place … just for tonight?’

He sighed. ‘I don’t think that’s a very good idea.’

Despite the fact that all sense of reason seemed to be shutting down, I detected the doubt creeping into his voice and latched onto it with the desperation of someone about to drown. ‘Please, Matt, just one night while I collect my thoughts.’

‘I ought to take you straight to the police.’

‘Please …?’

He rolled his eyes and after a moment or two’s hesitation he nodded and I felt the panic inside me subside. Whatever had befallen me, I had one night to rest and to buffer whatever horrors I might have to face next.

‘Thank you.’

We hardly spoke for the rest of the journey back to his place, but it seemed that in no time at all he was turning into the shingle driveway of what appeared to be a smart detached house. The house was in darkness save for a single light in the porch. He drove into a narrow garage before killing the engine and turning to face me again.

‘It was really kind of you to come and fetch me …’ I began lamely.

He shook his head. ‘It was the least I could do. I just wish I hadn’t let you persuade me to bring you here instead of taking you to the authorities. I must be crazy.’

‘I tried ringing my boyfriend but he didn’t pick up and a stranger answered my parents’ phone – I’m sure I dialled the right number.’

‘Yes, you probably did.’

Raising my eyes to his, I asked the questions that had been foremost on my mind all evening, ‘But why? I can’t believe what you said about six and a half years having passed, so what’s happened to everyone? How come the airfield was deserted, my car gone and a newspaper in the pub said it was October 2008?’

‘Do you remember anything, anything at all about where you’ve been?’

‘I remember everything very clearly and I haven’t been anywhere. That’s why this is all so confusing. I remember the early morning call from Graham saying the jump was going ahead, the drive down to Kent, the exercises and the briefing, the parachute jump … you telling me I’d regret it if I didn’t go through with it, I remember every detail.’

He reached out and ran a finger over the material of my jumpsuit as if not really believing I was actually wearing it. ‘So you have no memory of anything in between?’

‘There has been no “in between”. It was only this morning you were teaching me my rolling fall! I didn’t want to jump, remember? But I did it and it was all so beautiful once I had got over the terror of falling. You were right, I did love it. Then that strange wind hit me and when I landed it was dark and everyone had gone.’

Matt’s eyebrows shot up and he looked sceptical, yet I had the uncanny feeling that he knew more than he was letting on.

‘Maybe Kevin has been right all along,’ he murmured with a smile.

‘Kevin? Oh, so he does exist then?’ I countered, thinking he was mocking me. ‘I was beginning to think my whole life had been some sort of weird dream and I’d imagined him and my job and my family and friends.’

‘No, but something has happened to you and if you don’t remember what, then I don’t know what to think any more than you do.’ He opened his door. ‘Look, come into the house and I’ll get you a cup of coffee.’

I followed him into a brightly lit, very modern but rather messy looking kitchen. Hovering awkwardly by the door, I watched warily as he filled a see-through plastic kettle and switched it on.

‘You look exactly as you did when I last saw you,’ he said, shaking his head in obvious disbelief as he pulled out a stool for me at a breakfast bar. ‘It’s unbelievable.’

‘Well, you only saw me this morning.’ I was getting a bit fed up with the look of amazement on his face. I slid onto the stool, wrinkling my brow as I took in every detail of his appearance. ‘You look different though,’ I commented wearily. ‘Maybe it’s the hair cut, but you look – I don’t know – a bit older.’

‘That’s because I am.’ He turned to face me with that penetrating gaze of his. Taking the seat next to me, he rubbed his palms on the knees of his jeans. ‘Look, Michaela, I don’t want to frighten you, but after you parachuted out of that plane back in April 2002, you simply vanished without trace. You really have been missing all this time: it was as if you’d been completely wiped off the face of the earth.’

‘Stop it!’ I got to my feet again, and began pacing up and down, my jump-boots clattering across the quarry-tiled flooring. Eventually I stopped and turned to face him. ‘How can you expect me to believe that?’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. But whether you believe it or not your disappearance changed a lot of lives, includ -ing mine. I was the last one to see you; I was the one who told you when and where to jump. The mystery of your disappearance has haunted me ever since. At one point the police even had me down as a suspect for your possible murder.’

‘But I didn’t vanish,’ I protested faintly, the anger ebbing away as quickly as it had come. ‘I’ve been here all along.’

He went to the counter and spooned instant coffee into mugs. I watched as he poured the hot water into the mugs and added milk.

‘When you didn’t land on the airfield we scoured the surrounding fields and woods for you.’ He brought the mugs over to the breakfast bar and took a seat. Somewhat begrudg-ingly I took one of the steaming mugs as he went on. ‘We assumed you’d somehow gone off course and landed outside the airfield, but there was no sign of you anywhere. After several hours of fruitless searching we called the police who widened the hunt to farmland, people’s back gardens, sheds and outhouses but you were nowhere to be found. The search went on for months with door-to-door questioning and television appeals, but there were no leads. It was if you’d just vanished into thin air. Your parents refused to give up on you long after the police had put your case on the back burner. They had leaflets made and circulated them in the area. That was six long years ago, Michaela. After a year or so everyone except your parents – and Kevin and I – believed you would never be seen again.’

I tried lifting the coffee mug to my lips but my hands were shaking so much I could barely hold it. Resting it back down on the counter I gripped my head in my hands and closed my eyes.

‘You must remember something about where you’ve been?’ he pressed again.

‘I told you,’ my voice came out muffled between my elbows and from under my long hair. ‘I remember everything very clearly. Today is 15th April. It’s 2002 …’

He reached over to the back of the counter and pulled a folded newspaper towards me. Scanning the date in the top corner I closed my eyes again and groaned.

‘It can’t be … it just can’t.’

Because this newspaper also proclaimed that today was Monday 20th October, and it was definitely 2008.

Chapter Six

‘Wait here.’ Matt left the room, returning a moment later with a large envelope filled with piles of posters, leaflets and newspaper cuttings. Tilting my head to one side, I watched as he sifted through them.

The first reports had apparently made front-page headlines; ‘Girl vanishes in parachute jump’, and ‘Missing girl in charity jump mystery’, then, ‘Missing jump-girl’s parents in TV plea’, ‘Police quiz instructor in parachute puzzle’, and finally, ‘Michaela – abducted by aliens?’