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Back The Imposter Save as PDF
Chapters (55)
  1. Cover
  2. ANNA WHARTON
  3. Dedication page
  4. ONE
  5. TWO
  6. THREE
  7. FOUR
  8. FIVE
  9. SIX
  10. SEVEN
  11. EIGHT
  12. NINE
  13. TEN
  14. ELEVEN
  15. TWELVE
  16. THIRTEEN
  17. FOURTEEN
  18. FIFTEEN
  19. SIXTEEN
  20. SEVENTEEN
  21. EIGHTEEN
  22. NINETEEN
  23. TWENTY
  24. TWENTY-ONE
  25. TWENTY-TWO
  26. TWENTY-THREE
  27. TWENTY-FOUR
  28. TWENTY-FIVE
  29. TWENTY-SIX
  30. TWENTY-SEVEN
  31. TWENTY-EIGHT
  32. TWENTY-NINE
  33. THIRTY
  34. THIRTY-ONE
  35. THIRTY-TWO
  36. THIRTY-THREE
  37. THIRTY-FOUR
  38. THIRTY-FIVE
  39. THIRTY-SIX
  40. THIRTY-SEVEN
  41. THIRTY-EIGHT
  42. THIRTY-NINE
  43. FORTY
  44. FORTY-ONE
  45. FORTY-TWO
  46. FORTY-THREE
  47. FORTY-FOUR
  48. FORTY-FIVE
  49. FORTY-SIX
  50. FORTY-SEVEN
  51. FORTY-EIGHT
  52. FORTY-NINE
  53. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  54. Praise
  55. THE IMPOSTER

Her hand grips the top of the paper, she pulls and the whole page comes loose from the Blu-Tack. It hangs there, limply. She thinks of the curtain downstairs. She thinks of Nan in the home. She thinks of Claire Sanders taking Nan away. Now taking her house too. She thinks of Malc sacking her from the archive. She thinks of Maureen and Patrick – why had she ever trusted them? She pulls harder, the cuttings rip. She pulls the next and the next. It feels better. She uses both hands then, ripping at the cuttings with her fingers, feeling stronger with every tear. She goes faster and faster. She sees Maureen and Patrick’s faces tear in two, words split on the wall, on the floor. Fake words, lies. She stamps on them.

What’s the use in keeping them anyway?

She pulls again and tears and rips and all those fake words gather in a pile on the floor. She pulls again and again, snatches and slashes until the wall is bare and the woodchip shows through. Until just a few dots of pale blue putty or their greasy marks remain on the paper, and those smoky shadowy outlines of the pictures that once hung there. In places even the lining paper is torn. Not that Chloe cares. At her feet are the scattered remains of the cuttings, the stories, the headlines, the pictures, the quotes. All lies.

Then, among the rubble, the panic comes. She searches quickly from one article to another, to another, desperately trying to find one of the earliest. She picks it up with two hands, scans through the lines for the address. What if it was her fault? What if she had got the house number wrong? But there it is, unchangeable. 48. The same house she went to. Nothing had changed in black and white, yet in real life, everything had.

She sinks down among the paper on the floor, kicking one cutting off her shoe, and feels her throat constrict with hot tears.

Maureen and Patrick were meant to be different from all the rest. What a fool she’s been. They are exactly the same.

SEVENTEEN

It’s the afternoon before Chloe finally pulls herself up from the floor of her own shattered archive. She only does because she’d promised to visit Nan. Not that Nan will remember. But the staff will. She walks out of her bedroom with cuttings stuck to the soles of her shoes. One trails out of the house after her. She peels it off her shoe and allows the wind carry it off up the street.

It’s just after 3.30 p.m. when she boards the bus. She changes twice and watches children in various school uniforms walking home, skipping alongside Mum or Dad. She plays a game from her seat by the window, trying to spot the parents who would move away from their kids should they disappear. She doesn’t find a single one.