Stephen Wealthy

Stephen Wealthy has letters addressed to my home. They land with some gravity in the hall. Some are from HMRC, doubtlessly demands for taxes owed, the same sort I get. Others are red and come from Southern Water, who are also my water supplier, so I recognise the colour well. There are formal-looking communiques from a bank, the same bank I sometimes get formal-looking communiques from. He never opens his letters.

Stephen Wealthy does not live at my address nor, to my knowledge, has he ever. For the first two and a half years of living here, I consistently saw letters addressed to a group of four individuals who never picked up their mail. I tried writing 'not known at this address' and putting them back in the post, but this seems to work only gradually. These, it is reasonable to assume, are former occupants of this building and Stephen Wealthy was not among them.

Letters for Stephen Wealthy only started appearing a small number of months ago.

I have begun to suspect that there is no Stephen Wealthy. In fact, I suspect that I am Stephen Wealthy. I suspect myself of creating this fictional character with a prosperous surname. 'I suspect' I say because I don't remember doing it, or even feel I have the expertise to do so.

There are plenty of cases of people performing complex acts without being aware of it. Some have been attributed to sleep-walking, others to multiple personality disorder. Whatever the case, Stephen Wealthy has gone from someone who does not and has never lived at my house, to a former occupant. He has done this without the seemingly necessary step of living here in the meantime.

Perhaps you are reading this with no small degree of incredulity. Perhaps you feel that there must be a simpler explanation, one less dramatic, less 'radio 4 afternoon play'. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps you are Stephen Wealthy, having Googled yourself and found this blog-post. If you are Stephen Wealthy: you've got some letters that really look like they need some attention.

But maybe I am Stephen Wealthy. For the purposes of the timbre of our post as it strikes the welcome mat, I am identical to Stephen Wealthy. Respected institutions like Southern Water, Natwest and HMRC have our names filed at the same address and they all seem to have the same demands from both of us.

Perhaps one day I will awake in the middle of worrying about the same financial stuff I worry about, in the same house I worry about it in, but having been Stephen Wealthy moments earlier. Perhaps that already happens with regularity; I don't know how I'd tell the difference.

However, the thought of being Stephen Wealthy, if only in some impossible to quantify selection of moments between sleeping and waking, makes all my financial worries seem inconsequential. It makes me feel calm, in control. Just the feel of the words, as they spill from my mouth, "I am Stephen Wealthy" straightens my back and lifts my chin.

It makes me want to make the boldest claims and roll the dice at the highest table: I am Stephen Wealthy, even if I am not.

I am Stephen Wealthy.