$20k Summary

A girl wakes up in a youth hostel in Glasgow.  She has only a vague recollection of who she is, and her throat hurts.  She has a bag with a wallet full of credit cards, passports and drivers licenses in different names, books, and a photograph of a man that she loves.  She decides to call herself Louise, which is one of the names on the credit cards.

She walks through Glasgow, and gets occasional snatches of memory from things that she sees – she remembers an evening at a certain restaurant, with the man in the photo, or holding his hand while walking down a specific street.  She stops at a café, and while looking through the wallet she finds a train ticket to Birmingham.  She remembers that Birmingham is home.  Written on the ticket is “miss you, see you soon, M.”.

The train is for today, so she rushes to catch it.  She sleeps through the journey (it’s about six hours) and has weird dreams, about a little girl that looks like her and shadowy people trying to catch her.  She remembers sitting on a train like this with the man in the photograph.  She remembers him stroking her hair and telling her it will be okay.  She remembers feeling trepidatious.

In Birmingham, she walks through the city centre, unsure of what to do next.  She remembers more things; winning bets in a pub, going up to the top floor of the blue Radisson to pick up fake IDs, and so on.  She wonders if any of the names on the credit cards are hers.

She remembers having an argument on New Street at midnight, not caring who could hear or what they thought.  She remembers accusing the man in the photograph of something, she doesn’t quite remember what it was.  She knows that it was something which proved that he never cared for her.  A part of her desperately wants him to prove her wrong, to say exactly the right thing to prove that he does care about her.  Another part of her wants him to get it wrong, so she can leave him; being with someone who cares about her scares her.  She doesn’t think it can possibly last.  She’s always waiting for him to prove that his feelings aren’t enough, and trying to make him prove it so she doesn’t have to deal with the stress of waiting any more.

It starts to rain so she shelters under the council buildings in Victoria Square, with a group of other people.  After a while, she realises that the man behind her isn’t ignoring her, like you do in a crowd.  He’s staring at her, glaring at her with hatred.  She’s not normally a coward, but once she sees that expression in his eyes she turns and runs.  She keeps running, in a blind panic that comes from inside.  It’s the same sort of fear you get from a monster in your dreams.  You don’t know why, but you know you have to get away.

She’s on the Bristol Road before she realises he isn’t following her, that no one is.  It’s still raining.  Using one of her cards – this one with the name ‘Lauren’ – she books a night at the hotel.  She dreams again; she dreams about being a child, hiding in a cupboard and hoping that someone won’t find her and hurt her again.  She dreams that her mother finds her and asks what she’s hiding from.  Her mother says she’s silly.  Lauren knows that her mother knows what she’s afraid of.  Lauren doesn’t understand why her mother pretends she doesn’t know.  She notices that her mother  She wakes up when the thing she’s afraid of comes into the room.

She wakes up in the night and spends some time feeling lonely, and missing the man in the photo.  She remembers spending nights wrapped around him, and remembers waking from dreams with him wiping away her tears.  She remembers him bringing her tea in bed in the morning, and she wonders where he could possibly be.

She dreams about her mother.  She dreams that she and her mother live in a little cottage together and keep chickens, and live an idyllic life.  She dreams that she lives with her mother for years and years until one day she slits her wrists.

When she wakes up her wrists are fine, but her throat hurts again.  She sings in the shower to try to cheer herself up, and she remembers how happy singing makes her.  She sings a song that makes her wonder about the man in the photo.  She wonders what his name is.  She thinks of all the ‘M’ names she can, and none of them sound right.

She thinks she sees something waving at her in the bathroom mirror, but when she wipes the steam away there’s only her own face there.

When she leaves, the door of the room next to hers is open.  She walks inside and sees a photo of herself, with a plane ticket under it.  The plane ticket is for Oregon, later that evening, and is in the same name as another one of her credit cards, Lisa.  The picture is of her, on a swing, with the man from the photo behind her.  It’s sunny and they look happy.  The bed smells like him, and there are cigarettes in the ashtray by the window.  She realises he was here in the night while she was missing him, and starts to cry.  She wonders if he’s running away from her, if he’s rejecting her, like everyone else.  She tells herself that can’t be true, because if he were he wouldn’t be leaving tickets for her.  She wonders if it’s really meant for her, because she knows Lisa isn’t her name.

The plane ticket is for that evening.  She leaves the hotel and walks to a nearby primary school, which she attended as a child.  It’s a Catholic school and there’s a church attached.  Lisa remembers being frustrated by a specific discussion in class.  Her teacher had asked why there was a hell, if god was all forgiving.  Lisa remembered knowing the answer; because god only forgives those as much as they forgive others, as that same teacher had told them.  She remembered being annoyed when he wouldn’t listen to her answer and kept trying to get them to debate the question.

She walks up to the alter, looks at the statue of Jesus on the cross and is overwhelmed with grief.  She doesn’t know why she’s crying, but she can’t stop.

She reflects on her own beliefs.  She doesn’t think of herself as a Catholic; she’s an atheist.  However, Catholicism is the first religion to come to mind whenever she thinks about the subject, and she knows the specific god she has rejected is the Catholic god.  In the night, when she’s frightened and thinks of praying, it’s Catholic prayers she thinks of. 

Lisa leaves to get some fast-food for breakfast.  This triggers another memory of her childhood, one where she is punished for not finishing her food.  She starts to panic, and calms herself down by reminding herself that she escaped, that she ran away to Glasgow as soon as she was able.  She remembers that she was seventeen and she’d gotten a job in a fast food place just like this – maybe this exact one – and had saved up every penny she earned until she was able to leave.  She realises that she had come back to Birmingham at some point in the past few years, but can’t remember when, or why, or when or why she returned to Glasgow.

Outside of the fast food place is a bus stop, and, on a whim, she gets on the bus.  It’s one she remembers she used to catch to get home.  However, when she gets off she’s not at the house she grew up in but at another building, a plain, stern-looking place that she knows to be a nursing home.

Twenty Thousand Dollar Bills - first page, draft

She woke up knowing there was someone beside her. She knew it was sure as you know that water will be wet or that the sun will warm your skin. She was sure right up until she reached out, and her arm passed straight through common air.

Suddenly awake, she sat up. She was lying in the top half of a bunk bed, with a backpack at her feet. Looking around the room, she saw two other similar bunks and two doors. All of the beds were empty, and the sunlight through the wind showed it to be late morning.

She felt a sense of unease, like she was waiting for another shoe to drop. Her heart ached with longing and despair for something she couldn't quite name. And her throat really, really hurt. She swallowed saliva, which did nothing to soothe her throat before unzipping the bag and hunting for a bottle of water. Her hand found it, almost by instinct, and she gulped greedily. It helped, a little.

Picking up the backpack, she climbed out of bed and tried one of the doors. It opened into a bathroom.

Her face in the mirror was pinched and pale. It was pretty enough, with dark eyes and curly dark hair wild around her face. Her skin was a little olivey, and the bags under her eyes were as dark and purple as bruises.

Sighing, she brushed her teeth with a travel toothbrush she found in her bag and climbed into the shower. The water felt amazing. She hadn't realised how badly her body was aching until she'd stepped into the flow.

Desperately trying to stave off thought, and knowing that no one was sleeping, she began to sing. She started softly at first, building up to a louder belt on the chorus. She loved to sing. She loved the sounds felt moving through her mouth, how expressive the music was. She loved that she could lose herself in it.

She felt sad, suddenly, almost as if she wanted to cry. She wanted to do...something. She wanted something in her life that was lacking, something she had no words for, no conception of, but wanted desperately none the less. The powerlessness of the position angered her, and she sang more loudly to drown the feelings out.

Finally, sung out, she stepped out of the shower and began to dress. She had nothing more to do but face the facts, which was that she had no idea who or where she was.