The Berkleys' House, Sunday

Following Sean's revelation, we'd driven home, or to the place that now appeared to be our home, at a terrifying rate of knots, appalled by the fact that we had left a four-year-old all on her own.

"But Lottie, this is bonkers!" Josh said, his hands tightly gripping the steering wheel. "Why are we old gits and parents too? I'm totally freaked out."

I had no answer to that. All we could do for the moment was rescue a child and work the rest out later.

After a mad dash from the garage to the house and then upstairs to try to find said four-year-old, we stumbled upon a smallish room, done out in white, silver and shades of pink, complete with luminous stars on the ceiling.

There was also a bunk bed, a small, sleeping child occupying the bottom bunk. The room smelled slightly yeasty, of talcum powder and small child sweat. I kind of liked it.

By this stage, Josh and I were out of incredulity—or so we thought. But again, a perusal of this child's sleeping face revealed certain likenesses to our own features. Child number two also had curly hair, closer in colour to my own dark hair, and a broad face with a nose that belonged, in a bigger form, to Josh.

He stared at me in disbelief.

"What–" he began to say, but I guess the whole lot of 'What's' he could have asked felt too overwhelming, so he settled for simply putting his head into his hands.

Luckily for us, the small child was still sleeping so did not seem to have experienced any ill effects thanks to her exposure to inadvertent parental neglect. I thought I'd better check it out for sure, so I prodded her gently.

"Tildie, Tildie..."

The child shuddered slightly and frowned without opening her eyes, a gesture I recognised as one of the 'do not disturb' types. I persisted anyway.

"Tildie, Tildie wake up!"

Tildie responded by pulling the duvet (illustrated with various Disney princesses) up over her head. I pulled it gently down again, uncovering a little body, dressed in mauve pyjamas.

There was a small sigh.

"Mummy!" She sat up, a look of indignation on her little features. "I was having this dream, a dream that I was on a horse and we were galloping and galloping, and escaping from the Narker Man."

I'd been expecting the 'Mummy' bit, but it still jolted me.

"Who's the Narker Man?" I asked, settling on something more addressable.

The little girl (my little girl?) looked, well, narked. "Mummy, you talk about the Narker Man all the time! He's that dragon king. He breathes fire. He comes to get me if I don't go to bed early and he will steal all my food, and I will starve to death if I don't eat all my dinner at night. You remember?"

Josh pushed himself from the wall he'd been sloped against and stared at me, hard. Bloody hell, what kind of monstrous person was I, frightening small children with tales of hideous creatures who starved kids to death?

"Do we, Tildie?" I sat down beside her on the bed. "Do you know? I think maybe the Narker Man has gone away—ooh I know!"

Inspiration struck "Do you know what, your daddy–" I flashed a look at Josh, daring him to disagree, "had this ginormous fight with the Narker Man last night. He attacked him with a rubber spatula," –Josh mouthed "A what?" at me—"and the Narker Man is gone for good. Daddy chased him out of the house, and he's set up invisible guards who will stop him coming back."

I stood up, holding out my hand for Tildie to take. "Do you want me to show you where the invisible guards are?"

She tilted her head and then nodded, stepping out of the bunk. The two of us padded over to the window in her room. I took quick note of the view to add to my stock of information about our situation. We were in a large, terraced townhouse with a good-sized garden surrounded by high walls. This looked like a very nice neighbourhood. I lifted Tildie up and pointed at a spot just above the front door that we could see just below the window.

"There!"

"Where, Mummy?"

Luckily for me, a plastic shopping bag had just floated past.

"Well, you see that bag? The guard's breakfast was in there, and he's just thrown it away now he's finished eating. Hey, Josh, can you have a word with them? They shouldn't be throwing their litter away like that."

Josh raised his eyebrows so high I thought they might hit his hairline.

"No, they mustn't throw litter, Daddy!" Tildie twisted in my arms to face him. "That will make the Narker Man come back because he hates litter bugs. He eats them for breakfast!"

Good grief. Who had come up with this Narker Man and his evil ways?

"I mean it, Tildie," I said, pulling her round to face me and leaning my forehead against hers, "the Narker Man is gone. He's not coming back."

She looked at me solemnly, nodded slightly and then wriggled in my arms. I set her on the floor, asking her if she wanted to get dressed.

Four-year-old girls, I discovered one rather exhausting hour later, take a long time to pick the outfit they want to wear, and they won't be told what they should wear. The same kind of 'Oh, Mummy, there is so much choice' palaver was repeated when it came to choosing and eating breakfast.

We eventually settled on cute denim dungarees over a pink polo neck, then toast and jam for breakfast. As there were no cocoa pop-type options in the cupboard, I had the feeling that I had broken every mummy—the mummy I was now meant to be—rule in the book by serving up sugary, processed carbs because I couldn't be arsed making scrambled eggs, or home-made muesli.

In my defence, I grew up on cocoa pops. It did ME no harm.

Once Tildie had chosen white toast and strawberry jam, she ate three slices in a row with lots of enthusiasm. Proof perhaps that toast spread liberally with jam wasn't her usual breakfast.

I noticed Josh watching her hypnotically as she ate and nodding slightly. I guess he had recognised the love for toast and jam, that same love he had, and the recognition was going some way to making sense in this crazy, mixed-up world we now found ourselves in.

Tildie had finished her third slice of toast and she pushed her plate back with a sigh of contentment.

"Well," I said, as Josh whipped the plate away with what could only be described as pure paternal house pride, "what do you want to do now, Tildie?"

Tildie sat back in her chair—the chair we had padded with some cushions so she could reach her plate—and looked contemplative. She kept darting looks at us, I noticed, and recognition dawned on me.

Aha! Tildie was a little girl working out what she could get away with. My genes, totally.

"Cartoons, Mummy? I could watch cartoons and be all quiet and good."

Josh and I always choose the path of least resistance. Therefore, whatever would keep this little one quiet and needed minimal input from us would meet with our approval. Cartoons sounded ideal.

"Yeah Tildie, you do that," Josh said quickly as if fearing my new maternal instinct might insist on something like communal games and running around for the next hour or so. "Where's the telly?"

Tildie gave us a look like the one her brother had given us earlier when he reminded us of the fact that we'd left a four-year-old in the house all on her own.

"Duh, Daddy!" she exclaimed, "in the living room!" She grabbed hold of his hand and pulled him. He left the room with her, glancing back at me. I shrugged back and stilled my buzzing thoughts by tidying up after Tildie. Bits and pieces of last night floated back to me, but not enough to work out what had happened or to figure out what we were doing here.

The kitchen's large dishwasher was a bonus. Like most students, Josh and I washed up only once all the clean plates had run out. And sometimes not even then. I stacked it with the dishes and the chopping board and topped the kettle up with water. Might as well make tea in such a moment of crisis. When you're British, tea in a crisis is hard-wired into you. I had a quick look in the freezer just in case there was a bottle of vodka chilling in there as tea with vodka is an acceptable combination in exceptional circumstances. No such luck.

Josh returned to the kitchen a few minutes later. I pointed at the kettle and Josh nodded back in relief, making himself his usual builder's brew with three teaspoons of sugar.

I opened the fridge to put the butter back inside and noted a posh-looking pastry. I took the plate out and waggled it at Josh.

"Go on, then."

Teas made and slices of a homemade Bakewell tart in front of us, we drew up stools opposite each other on the kitchen island, sipped cautiously and then put down our cups—a mutual understanding that we needed to talk. I had a feeling that something had gone badly wrong between Josh and I last night, but what on earth had happened to us in the meantime? I looked at Josh and shook my head. This was unreal.

"I didn't mean that you looked like shit earlier. You just look, well different. Different, but sort of the same?" Josh bravely kicked off our discussion.

"So do you. We're still us, but much, much older. You've still got all your hair, though, so that's a bonus."

As soon as I mentioned his hair, Josh jumped up and plonked himself in front of the microwave, bending down to check his reflection. Losing his hair at an early age was a recurring nightmare of his.

"Argh!" he exclaimed, ruffling a hand through his hair. It was cut shorter than he normally wore it, but it was all still there. From above him, I could see that there wasn't a bald spot at the top of his head either.

"How old do you think we are then?" I asked, holding my hands out in front of me. They featured prominent veins and wrinkled skin. I whipped them back behind my back before Josh saw them.

"Early forties, I think," Josh said and pushed away his plate with its half-eaten slice of Bakewell tart. I pulled it towards me and dug in. Waste not, want not.

Josh sat back on his stool and looked around the kitchen once more. Done with eating, I sipped my tea slowly, joining his observations.

"There!" Josh pointed at the wall behind me. "A phone!" He jumped up and snatched it from its cradle. "I'll try your number and see what happens."

He keyed in a couple of digits and then looked sheepish. "Oh...er, I don't know your number off by heart. Do you know mine?"

I shook my head. "I don't even know my number without looking it up. Do you know yours?"

Josh nodded and keyed it in, turning the phone to its speaker setting. We listened to the automated voice proclaim that the number hadn't been recognised.

"Do you know any others?" Josh asked. I said no. As it happened, I did know Dan, my ex's, number but I thought it better to keep that quiet. Anyway, Dan hated me and wasn't likely to respond to a plea for help.

I gathered up our cups and plates and stacked them in the dishwasher. "Should we make a list? Like, what we do know and how we think we can get out of here?"

Josh nodded and headed over to the various kitchen cupboards, opening and closing them with zeal.

He found a pen and retrieved an old, white envelope that he placed in front of me with the air of one who has hunted a tiger and now puts its corpse at the feet of his beloved.

I popped up the nib of the pen and scribbled hard on the back of the envelope to check it worked. It did, the ink flowed freely. I began the list:

Who are we? Where are we? How did we get here? What do we do to get out of here?

I underlined the last question several times. Josh reeled off the answers: "We're like an older version of Josh and Lottie; a posh house, maybe in London because I remember seeing red double-deckers when we took Sean to the auditions; no idea; and no idea again."

He looked at me hopefully when he said, "no idea", and I shook my head regretfully. I couldn't help with that either.

Josh got up. He ran his hands through his hair, blowing what I guessed was a stress-relieving raspberry and left the room. I settled for doodling on the notes I had written and stared at the copper pots as if they might offer answers.

I was on the brink of jumping off my stool and asking them if they had anything to tell me when Josh came back into the kitchen, a look of triumph on his face.

"They've got a computer!" he announced and then sat down on a stool wearing an air of self-congratulation.

"And...?" I was stupefied. Yes, a sodding computer, along with a range cooker, copper pots, a dishwasher, a satnav and a frigging RAV4, so what...?

Josh shot me a 'duh' look that made him resemble Sean so strongly I just about fell off my stool.

"You can look us up of course!" he flipped over the envelope I'd been scribbling on. "Look, who's the envelope addressed to? We seem to be a Mr and Mrs Berkley at Number 22 Queens Crescent. We're definitely in London. You'll get us on the electoral roll, or maybe you can find us through where we work blah blah–"

"Or on social media," I added. His lip curled; Josh had never been a fan of sharing stuff online and was the only person I knew who had only one social media account which he updated rarely. I suspected, though, that this was a situation where social media would come into its own when it came to finding out who we were supposed to be, and what had happened to the real Lottie and Josh, i.e. us.

Naturally, Mr and Mrs Super Rich had the latest in streamlined Mac hardware, housed in a home office lined with shelves filled with box files. I sat down on the fancy ergonomic chair (uncomfortable, actually) and fired it up. Josh looked over my shoulder.

"Firstly," I said, launching Safari and typing in various URLs. "Where are we, the young versions?" I searched Facebook, PingIt, Twitter, MessageMe, Instagram and PicMe. Nothing. My accounts were gone. Not there, like they'd never been there.

"Try mine," Josh said. "My PingIt account, user name josh1996, lower case j, password..."

He stopped, flushing. I twisted in my seat. "You can type your own password in if you like."

He put his arms around me and typed in a password. I did mean to allow him his privacy, but I couldn't help looking. His password was 'lottie4josh'. Yikes!

The same thing happened with his account. Nada, zilch, zero. We had vanished. I tried my friends and then Josh's friends. They had disappeared too. Our world and everyone in it was gone. I rubbed my arms, shivering. We were like ghosts.

"Let's see what we can find out about," Josh waved the envelope we had scribbled on earlier, "Charlotte and Ed Berkley. Isn't Charlotte your real name, by the way?"

"Yes, but no one calls me Charlotte. Your name isn't Ed, though, is it?"

Josh shrugged. "Nope."

I tried Facebook first, where I discovered Charlotte Berkley's account. She was a total social media bore, sharing duff inspirational quotes here, there and everywhere, and spouting off cheesy shit about marriage and children.

As if! And who uses Facebook anyway? Why bother when you've got Twitter, Instagram, PingIt, MessageMe and all the other better places to hang out? I just used Facebook for the occasional nosey. Once or twice a week I posted pictures of me and various other people getting drunk, or one of Corky my cat doing his cutesy stuff.

I never posted up inspirational sayings about love, friendship and/or fitness, or a bet that ninety-seven percent of my friends wouldn't share this earnest quote about cancer. I didn't ask people to reply to a post with one word, and preferably a word that was flattering, that described me perfectly and thereby proved their friendship.

Charlotte Berkley did all the above. And yet at the same time, she had hundreds of friends on Facebook, and people kept sharing her shite. Those inspirational quotes were popular. Her Facebook friends appeared to love all the sickly pictures of Tildie she posted.

Not one person had made a sarcastic comment about this: Celebrating our twentieth year of marriage. Can't believe we've been together and so happy for so long. Love you so much baby which she'd posted the other week.

Twenty years married? Well, that tied in with the dodgy dress in the wedding pic on the landing.

Sean, I noticed, had blocked me, or rather Charlotte, from accessing his account.

Josh had left the room, returning minutes later with more tea. He pointed at Charlotte's profile page. "She's got the same birthday as you," he said. Charlotte had chosen not to reveal the year, but sure enough, her birthday was the same as mine: 15 October.

"Who the fanny flibberty are these people?" I exclaimed.

Josh gave me a look and didn't bother with the euphemism. "Fucking nobs, I think."

I took a contemplative sip of tea and nodded in a way I hoped proved slight but not total agreement with the sentiment expressed. I mean, that range cooker was something else. These folks were undoubtedly doing well for themselves.

And Sean and Tildie were kind of adorable. Talking of which...

"But we've got two children in this life," I said. I put down the tea, stood up and grasped Josh's hands. He looked down at my hands, fingering the unfamiliar wedding ring on my ring finger. Those stirrings of memory from last night resurfaced. I wished I could remember exactly what had happened.

"Mmm-hmm," he said. "And we're married."

A long silence.

"Do you think we got married and we've forgotten the last twenty years or something?" he said, finally. Letting go of me, he fiddled with the ring on his left hand, twisting it round and round.

Amnesia wasn't an acceptable answer to me. It was far, far worse an idea than having misplaced my nineteen-year-old life. My skin crawled. Imagine being with the same person for twenty years! Then, like a Titanic passenger spotting a stray bit of wood, I zoned in on the life-raft.

"But you're not called Ed or Edward. Or Edmund or anything like that. We can't both have forgotten. Think, Josh. We need to work out what's going on and how we can get out of here."