‘Well, I blotted it out, mostly. I had my imaginary life.’ She smiled.
‘How do you mean?’
‘When you were a kid, weren’t there some things which seemed just as real to you as real life, although you knew they were different? The things you didn’t tell grown-ups about, although they were every bit as real and important – if not more so – as life at school and at home?’
‘You mean like pretend games?’ I asked. ‘I used to pretend – ’ And suddenly I remembered. ‘Of course! That’s who you remind me of.’ I laughed, feeling silly. ‘Jane. I had an imaginary friend named Jane.’
Jane’s smile was somewhat wistful. ‘What was she like?’
‘Oh, she was everything I wanted to be and wasn’t. Practical and neat instead of dreamy and disorganized. Her hair was dark and curly instead of straight and mousy. She read a lot, like me, and knew all kinds of wonderful games. She had my favourite name, of course.’ I shrugged and then laughed. ‘She was like a real person. She didn’t have any magical powers – except, of course, that she disappeared from time to time. She was actually rather like you, I guess. Isn’t that funny, that my imaginary friend should remind me of you?’
Jane didn’t look as if she found it particularly odd or amusing. She said, ‘I had imaginary friends, too. Except, at the time, they weren’t in the least imaginary to me. The life I made up for myself was more important to me than my real life. It was my escape. It was how I survived the childhood I don’t remember – the things that really happened to me.’ She paused to sip her coffee and then went on.
‘I was six years old. I was wearing a brand-new brown velvet dress with a white lace collar. I’m not sure why, but I think I was going to a party later in the afternoon. I was feeling very special and happy, and I was sitting at the dining room table eating my lunch. My mother sat next to me and nagged me. She kept warning me to be careful. She kept telling me how expensive the dress was, and how difficult it would be to clean if I got it dirty. She told me not to be as clumsy as I usually was, and she warned me that I’d better not spill anything on myself. So of course, I did. I slopped a little bit of milk onto my dress. At that, she grabbed me and pulled me up out of my chair, screaming at me that I was messy, disobedient, and a complete disgrace. I didn’t deserve to have nice clothes. I was an animal. I ate like a clumsy pig and I didn’t deserve the nice meals she fixed for me. I should never have been born. Nobody could stand to be around me. I should be kept in a cage where I could spill my food all over me to my heart’s content. Screaming all the way, she dragged me up to the attic and left me there to meditate on my sins.’
My stomach clenched with sympathy at Jane’s level, matter-of-fact tone.
‘But the odd thing,’ Jane went on, ‘the odd thing was that I liked the attic. I always had liked it. Being taken up there and left was no punishment at all. I was always begging to be allowed to play up there, but she would never let me. I could only go up there when my father went, to help him clean, or to get out the Christmas ornaments, or to store old clothes away. I suppose I liked the attic so much because it was outside her domain. She would send my father up for things instead of going herself. It was the only place in the house that didn’t belong to her.
‘And that was where she left me. Where I couldn’t mess up any of her things. I was left all alone up there under the roof. It was cold and quiet and filled with cardboard boxes. I was very far away from the rest of the house. I couldn’t hear my family downstairs – for all I knew, they might have gone out, or just disappeared. And I knew my mother couldn’t hear me or see me, either. I could do anything I wanted and not be punished for it. I could think or say whatever I liked. For the first time in my life, it seemed, I was completely free.
‘So I pretended that my family didn’t exist – or at least that I didn’t belong to it. I made up a family I liked a lot better. My new mother was pretty and young and understanding. She never lost her temper and she never shouted at me. I could talk to her. My new father was younger, too, and spent more time at home with us. My real sisters were so much older than me that they sometimes seemed to live in another world, so my new sisters, in my made-up family, were closer to my age. I had a younger sister who would look up to me and ask me for advice, and I had a sister exactly at my age who would be my best friend. She was good at all the things I wasn’t. And instead of being ugly, with kinky hair like mine, she was pretty with long, straight hair that she would let me braid and put up for her.’ She stopped short, as if on the verge of saying something else. Instead, she sipped her coffee. I waited, not saying a word.
‘I know I invented them,’ she said. ‘I know it was all a game. But still it seemed – it still seems – that I didn’t make them up but found them somewhere, and found a way of reaching them in that faraway, warm place where they lived. I lived with them for a long time – nearly seven years. When I remember my childhood, it’s the time I spent with my make-believe family that I remember. Those people.’
I wanted to ask her their names, but I said nothing, almost afraid to interrupt her. Jane was looking at me, but I don’t think she saw me.
‘I sat all alone in that cold, dusty attic, and I could feel the house changing below me. I was in the attic of another house. I could hear the voices of my new family drifting up to me. I could imagine every room, how each one was furnished. When I had it all clear in my mind, I went downstairs to see for myself. It was the same size as my real house, but completely different. There was a small chord organ in the living room that my make-believe mother played in the evenings, all of us gathered around to sing old-fashioned songs. The family room had a cork floor with woven Indian rugs on it. There was a deer head over the television set; my make-believe father liked to hunt. The wallpaper in the kitchen was gold and brown, and the cookie jar was shaped like a rabbit dressed in overalls. There was a big oak tree in the back yard that was perfect for climbing, perfect for playing pretend games in. It could be a pirate ship, or – ’
My skin was crawling. It was my house she was describing. My parents. My childhood. ‘What about the front yard?’ I asked.
‘Another oak tree. We had lots of acorns in the fall. There was a magnolia tree on one side, and a big brick planter box built out of the front of the house. It was great to play in. I’m amazed those blue flowers managed to grow with us stomping on them all the time. Your mother – ’
‘It was you,’ I said.
She shut up and looked down into her coffee.
‘Why didn’t you say?’ I asked. ‘Why this game? Why pretend you didn’t know me? Did you think I’d forgotten? Jane?’
She gave me a wary look. ‘Of course I thought you’d forgotten. I wasn’t sure myself that any of it had happened. I never thought I’d see you again. I thought I’d made you up.’
‘Made me up!’ I laughed uneasily. ‘Come on, Jane! What are you talking about? What’s the point of this whole story?’
‘It’s not a story,’ she said. Her voice was high and stubborn, like a child’s. ‘I knew you wouldn’t believe it.’
‘What is it you want me to believe? We were friends when we were children. We both remember that. But if you tell me that you grew up in New York, and I know that – ’
‘Why did you say you had an imaginary friend called Jane?’
‘Because I thought – ’ And I stopped and stared, feeling the little hairs prickling all over me as I remembered. ‘Because you disappeared,’ I said softly. ‘Whenever you left to go home, you just vanished. I saw you come and go out of nowhere, and I knew that real people didn’t do that.’ I was afraid that I was sitting at a table with a ghost.