Helen and the Hours of Death

Murder would forever blacken the conscience of Helen Lyle.

The murder of a stranger whom she killed without meeting.

The murder of a person who did not legally exist and who would not be missed. A killing that left no body, no stain, no trace of violence, and a victim whose life she had not simply taken, but taken over.

It was five thirty on a Friday afternoon when the crime was set in motion. The wall clock did not agree, stubbornly proclaiming the time to be eight fifty. Its hands did not move, except for the second hand, which twitched like a beetle on its back. Helen did not consult the wall clock herself. It was five thirty by her computer clock, so she straightened her papers and locked them in her desk drawer. Then she logged out of the system, and involved herself in her coat.

It was knee-length, fake fur. In it, she looked like a lean Russian leopard - dune sand, blushed with marmalade and spots of kohl. Her handbag too, she donned, passing it over her head and onto her left shoulder.

Helen looked forward to the sting of the cold air outside, to the banks and weirs of snow that had fallen, day after day, for the past two months, even to the hackle-raising sound-smog of early Friday evening. The office was narrow, full of things that never moved, laced with dark echelons and deep networks of store cupboards. The carpet glittered with used staples. London, beyond its entrance, was an awesome wilderness in comparison.

“Good night!” she said to her colleagues, and: “Have a lovely weekend!”

Once on the ground floor, she swiped her keycard and stepped out through the door, only to find in the next instant that she was back inside the building and facing the other way.

Vip. Just like that.

The effect upon her was not unlike dizziness. Part of her brain could not adjust to the fact that the world around her was now one hundred and eighty degrees out of line, and consequently, she felt nauseous. Resting against the wall, she fought for theories that might explain the sudden switch. Had something hit her, turned her round with such force that she couldn’t even remember it happening?

She spun back on herself and tried to exit the building again, this time succeeding. But there were further things amiss. The snow was luminescent now, not under streetlamps, but sheer daylight. Several stories above her, aluminium chimneys blew steam into a brilliant blue sky, while on a high, exterior windowsill of the Georgian bank across the road five hardhats lay like plundered heads. Left there by workmen who should have gone home hours ago.

There had been condensation on the glass in the door. Now the glass was dry. The air was slightly warmer too. Helen looked at her watch. Eight fifty? She looked about her. Eight fifty? Everything was wrong. Everything. She looked at her feet - different shoes. Her shoes, but not the ones she’d been wearing a few moments ago. These were her embossed slingbacks. What happened to the velvet Mary Janes? Eight fifty? Different tights too. Different skirt. She put her hands to her head and found that everything in that region felt normal. Same eyelids. Same hair. Same hot ears.

Eighty fifty? In the morning? Time for the early shift. Except it couldn’t be eight fifty. It was half past seven on a Friday in February, which was anything but eight fifty.

“You alright, Helen?” asked Roanne, a colleague, as she sidled past and into the building.

Yes, into it. Helen stumbled forward.

“Steady!” said Roanne. “Look at you, giddy as a whore! Been on a bit of a bender, have we?”

“Oh no, not at all,” said Helen. Then: “I’m slightly confused.”

“Aren’t we all?”

She tailed Roanne back to the first floor. In lieu of any appropriate or rehearsed strategy, this seemed to her the safest course of action. There were more people in the office than there were when she’d left, all of two minutes ago. Except it wasn’t two minutes ago. It was two days and nearly fifteen hours ago.

The clock on the wall said eight fifty, and this time it was right, though Helen knew it would not move except to continue its sickly twitching. She returned to her seat and took off her coat, smoothed her skirt over her freckled thighs. Placed her handbag in a drawer. Pulled up her chair. Slowly switched the computer on.

~

By the time the watch on her hand, and the computer clock, the treacherous sun, and every other time-keeping device save the clock on the wall said it was five thirty, the end of the early shift, Helen had resigned herself to her fate. She had lost the weekend, and that was that.

“Goodnight, Helen,” said Roanne.

“Goodnight,” said Helen, then, unable to stop herself: “Have a lovely weekend.”

She was slow at straightening her papers. She hammered each side twice against the desk. Then she shut the computer down, tentatively joined forces with her coat once more, put her bag on her shoulder, and counted the steps to the exit. Once more, she swiped her card and, with the utmost gingerness, advanced toward fresh air.

Vip. Just like that.

She was inside again. Facing the wrong way. It was eight fifty. Tuesday.

~

By her fourth eight and a half hour shift, Helen realised, with some shock, that she was still not tired. She was sick of it, and panic welled up in her repeatedly. She was ill with worry. Her mind was a jumble, shorted out by the endless monotony. But she was not in need of any sleep. Her eyes, she supposed, should be sinking in soft, purple rings a mile deep, should be gauzed with berry-red tributaries. Her limbs should have gained weight to the point where cranes were required to lift them.

But she was wide awake.

She could, in theory, leave the building at any time, except at the time her shift finished, which was the only time she was permitted to leave. Though the problem was vexing her to the point of madness, she retained enough sense to decide that walking out of her job should be the last possible resort.

She tried defenestrating herself after everyone else on the early shift had gone home, but even before she could land in the snow:

Vip. Just like that.

Inside. Front entrance. Facing the wrong way. Ten fifty (the midday shift). Except this time she put her hands to her neck, and found that she was bruised.

~
She checked the bruising in the toilet, and found that it was grapefruit yellow at the edges. Roughly hand-shaped. Strangled? Too near the shoulder. Her knees were also quite raw. Her body was changing, admitting punishments, without her knowing it. She caught herself sobbing slightly, and retreated into a cubicle for tissue.

Her work suffered. She tried her best to keep up with the load, to meet targets and tackle set-backs, but everything seemed to blur together into an endless ream of paper printouts that towered like castles and keeps around her. She slouched at meetings, her eyes glazed over and her mouth agape. She forgot how to work the photocopier. The store cupboards seemed to go on forever.

~

When the second Friday became a Monday, Helen had already, very gloomily considered various extreme acts. Screaming. Punching Roanne. Drinking alcohol. Taking down her skirt and photocopying her arse, then delivering the photocopies into everyone’s mail tray. None of these seemed, on examination, to be permanent solutions.

One good idea occurred to her. She booked the whole of the following week off as holiday. But when it came time to leave, she simply found herself back inside the building, having skipped that whole period.

~

The snow continue to fall, all the way through Spring. Helen stared at it through misty windows, and longed for the cold. After six months, she had finally had enough. Her brain was soup. Her hair was changing style completely of its own accord. Her old clothes seemed to have been replaced with dull new fashions that covered up her hips, and brought out her rump. Her wrists and heels were often friction-burned, sometimes slightly grazed. Her groin ached, and her phonebook went on filling with unfamiliar contacts, whom she didn’t dare to enquire after.


Every week, her make-up seemed to get tartier, and had to be adjusted, as best she could manage, in the women’s loos. Scraping off foundation with a ruler, cutting back eyeliner with water and the corner of a paper towel. She even found herself having to pick glitter out of her pubic hair. The clock on the wall had been replaced, and the new one had got stuck on six twenty three.

She decided she would quit. She wrote out her notice, printed it, wearily signed it. She proofread it, and realised it didn’t make much sense, but couldn’t find it in herself to care.

On the way to her manager’s office, her path was blocked. Quite deliberately, by a stranger. A man, about six foot tall, wearing an unconfrontational flannel shirt and ever-so-slightly boss-eyed. He had his hands on his hips.

“Helen.”

He performed what seemed to be a karate chop, but which quickly transpired to be a hand
extended in greeting.

“Thought we could catch up.”

His accent was Scottish. Helen stared at him, then at his hand, as she crumpled her notice tightly between her small breasts. The man’s face rang no bells, though it was entirely possible that she had forgotten one of the training team. Or that he was a mirage.

“Sorry,” he continued. “I completely forgot. We haven’t met yet.”

Helen took a step back, to see if she might duck and weave, and thereby pass her aggressor. But the office was too narrow. A wave of adrenalin rippled in her chest.

“Helen, it’s OK. Calm down. I know it’s all a bit baffling, but don’t worry. We’re going to sort it out. OK?”

He smiled, disarmingly. Now both hands were held out.

“My name’s George. I’ve spoken with your boss. He’s agreed to let me have a few moments
of your time, and with any luck, we’ll have you out of this nightmare pretty sharp. What do you think? Sound good?”

Helen dropped her notice.

“Yeah?” said George.

She crashed into his embrace, hands shaking, stifling sobs.

“Shh, shh. Good girl. Good girl. Let’s go and find somewhere to sit, shall we?”

Outside, on one of the benches in the nearby park, George reclined, his huge, flannel-shirted arms thrown over the bench’s back. He inhaled deeply, and grinned.

“Fresh air! That’s better, isn’t it?”

Helen nodded, blotting her eyelids with a tissue. The office was visible through a curtain of trees. It sat like a huge, grey tooth in the snowdrift gums, its aluminium chimneys curling out clouds.

“Now, first things first. I think you’re owed an explanation. Only, sit tight, ‘cos it’s a bit of a strange one. The long and the short of it is that I work for a company who deal in psychological health. OK? The guy who started the company, he noticed that people’s performance levels in the workplace tend to be reduced by the repetitive nature of the work. I’m sure you’ve found that yourself, right, Helen?”

“Yes.”

“What this guy thought was, ‘OK, so what if the work wasn’t repetitive? What if every day you could come to it fresh? Experienced, still, but fresh-faced. Totally relaxed. Sort of like coming back from a long holiday.’ So he thought he’d have a go at inventing a service that could give people exactly that. And, what do you know? It worked. You with me so far, Helen?”

“Yes.”

“The way it works is through a sort of hypnosis, mixed with a pinch of science. I won’t go into too much detail, but the effect is that every day, the client completely forgets what happened at work. Completely. He gets home, and the last thing he remembers is going to sleep the night before. So while he’s at home, life is just one big holiday. No work stress. Brilliant.

“Meanwhile, every day he walks through the door to his office, it’s like his first day on the job. The only difference being, he knows what to do, and he knows where everything is. Instinctively. Like a baby, you know? The way newborn babies swim as soon as you put them in water? Just like that, Helen.”

“I understand.”

“Great. Now, ninety-nine point nine percent of the time, it works. We’ve even got special programmes that help people work from home and still not experience stress. Believe me, I’ve tried it myself. We’ve got testimonials from some of the hardest-working, most highly regarded people in the industry. Simple put, it’s a great service. You must have thought that yourself when you picked up the phone and gave us a call. ‘Hang on - this sounds pretty good. Why don’t I get a piece of the action?’

“But like anyone, Helen we make mistakes, and sometimes it takes a while to sort it out. Nobody’s perfect. So what I’m trying to say is, what you’ve been going through these past six months - I hold up my hands - it’s our fault.”

Helen had foreseen this conclusion. In her fake fur coat, looking like a lean Russian leopard, in a hairstyle that wasn’t hers, she allowed a bracing wind to coax a shiver from her. Her fringe shimmied like a grass skirt, and when she looked up at George with empty expectancy, his boss-eyes nailed her to the back-slats.

“First of all, Helen, I’d like to personally apologise. I‘d also like to promise you that it won‘t happen again.”

“What now?” she asked.

“We’re going to sort it out. You’re going to forget all this ever happened.”

Helen sighed.

“I don’t want to forget. I just want to go home and move on.”

“I understand. I really do. Unfortunately, you do have to forget.”

Something nipped her in the v of the ribs. Adrenalin again. Nip. Just like that.

“Why do I have to forget?” she asked.

George nibbled his lip. His hands buffed one another. The knuckles were red.

“Because… how can I put this? Because there’s another you now, Helen. There’s the Helen who’s been at home all this time. There’s her to consider.”

Helen rose from the bench, as if speared and pushed upward on a lance of wind.

“Sorry,” said George. “Bad way of putting it. My fault. Of course there isn’t another you. But you see, you can’t just remember everything that you’ve missed out on in the past six months. Unfortunately, it can’t be done. So the way it works is, you’ve either got to forget everything that happened at home, or forget everything that happened here. Now don’t tell me you’d prefer six months of solid work, Helen.”

Helen backed away, nearly stumbling in heels that weren’t hers.

“Now, calm down,” said George. “The worst thing you can do is panic.”

“What did I do at home?”

“I don’t know, Helen. It’s your life, not mine.”

“Look at my shoes. God, look at my hair. This isn’t me. It’s not me. Don’t you understand? That woman isn’t me.”

“Come on, Helen. Let’s not get hysterical. Of course she’s you. There’s only one Helen Lyle, and soon she’ll be back at home with no recollection of this nightmare.”

Helen didn’t listen. She kicked off her heels, turned and ran into the wild white.

“Helen!”

She could picture him behind her. Standing up, arms open in querying dismay. A giant, wind-buffeted scarecrow.

~

She arrived home wheezing, her feet panging and prickled with rock salt and grit. The place stank of old smoke and mixed perfumes. New things had been bought; ugly things. There were stains, and magazines as glossy as oil. She bit her knuckles, gasped, then went to the kitchen to run a tub of hot water. Empty liquor bottles crowded the worktop. Others rolled around on the vinyl like dying infantrymen. The sink was full of ashtrays, ramekins used as ashtrays, foil cups used as ashtrays, beer cans used as ashtrays, coffee cups used as ash trays.

She bathed her feet in the water, massaged her burning toes. The door croaked; she splashed as she whipped round, only to see a dog the size of a large rodent, with eyes the size of cow’s eyes, its tail twitching like the second hand of the office wall clock. It yapped. Repeatedly.

She expected to disappear. Or to find herself back at work again. But when the clock hit five thirty, all she heard was the splash of melt water on the kitchen windowsill.

Over the next few days, she tidied up, while waiting for time to skip again. It  didn’t. No vip. She rang work and told them that George had been an associate of her father’s, that he had brought news of a very personal and upsetting nature. She reported depression. Her manager arranged a few weeks of unpaid leave.

She drowned her simcard in bleach after copying down all her old contacts, and pretended not to be in when anyone unfamiliar came calling (which they did, by and by). She got rid of the dog. She unearthed all the old items she used to keep - her journal, her books, her beads and bangles - from musty corners and threw out the junk that had replaced it.

Soon, she realised, she would have to explain to her old friends what had happened. If any of them were still speaking to her.

Then the matter of the other Helen occurred to her. The Helen that no longer existed, and who, once she had sorted out her house and her social life, would be lost without trace. She had committed no violent act. She had not even snooped after her other self. And yet, somehow, her release seemed to have brought about death. She could not escape the conclusion.

By the end of the following week, the snow had melted completely.