Chapter 5
EMMA
You wait two years to meet someone you can imagine a future with, and then they live twenty years in the past.
Of course they bloody do.
Nick and I talked endlessly that night, telling each other stories from our lives, about our likes and dislikes.
I learned that he loved rummaging for treasure in charity shops, that he preferred baths to showers, that when he was eight he spent three months in hospital with a mystery infection, and that he supported Ipswich football team because his grandad did but had always been hopeless at playing football.
I told him about my love for musicals, how I collected a programme from every one I’d been to see but always felt sad that I hadn’t gone further with my own acting career; I told him how Rachel and I loved to go to the cinema and watch sad films, but that Rachel always tells me I’m cold-hearted because it takes a lot to make me cry; and that I used to go horse-riding until I fell off and broke my leg at the age of eleven and never got on a horse again.
We steered clear of talking about the twenty-year gap between us, and just focused on getting to know one another, as though everything was normal.
Later, as it got chilly, he told me a bit more about Dawn.
‘Everyone loved her,’ he said, smiling sadly.
‘She had such a big heart and I’m sure everyone only invited us to places because they liked her so much and I was just a tag-on.
I remember this one time just after we got married, and she took me to a work do with her – she was a carer in a nursing home a few miles away from here.
The old people adored her, but one of them, Marjorie, seemed to take an instant dislike to me from the moment I arrived.
She was rude to me all night, gave me daggers across the room that were so sharp that I could almost feel them on my skin, and she turned away if I tried to speak to her.
It didn’t bother me particularly, but Dawn was really upset.
She loved Marjorie and she really wanted her to like me.
So before we left at the end of the evening, she went over to have a word with her.
She was over there for a few minutes, and when she walked back over she had a huge grin on her face.
“Marjorie wants to speak to you,” she told me, so I dutifully went over, expecting the old woman to apologise to me or something.
But when I got there and sat down beside her she looked at me and said, in a voice that carried across the entire room, “You’re far too pleased with yourself young man.
You need to be a bit more grateful that you have such a wonderful woman and stop standing around looking so bloomin’ smug about it. ”’
I laughed. ‘Oh dear,’ I said. ‘Sounds like she got your measure.’
‘That’s what Dawn said,’ he said, chuckling.
‘Greg was the same,’ I told him. ‘He was the life and soul of any room, people always seemed to like having him around, were drawn to him. Sometimes when I was next to him I felt invisible.’
‘I’m sure you could never be invisible,’ he said.
I was about to object when he added, ‘You’re too beautiful to be invisible.’
I felt my face flush and when I looked at Nick, his cheeks were pink too. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Too much?’
I shook my head. ‘No. It was a lovely thing to say. Thank you.’
Neither of us wanted to leave that night, but it was getting cold and dark – in both our worlds – so we agreed to meet up again the following day.
‘But what if you’re not here? I mean, what if whatever this is—’ he flapped his hand around in the air ‘—isn’t here?’
‘I don’t know. But unless we stay here for the rest of our lives then we don’t really have a choice but to risk it.’
We’d left shortly afterwards, together this time, and as we stepped off the small platform of the bandstand, Nick disappeared. I held my hand out but it just swiped the air where he had been. I shivered.
Now, back at the house where I now knew he also lived, I felt strange.
It was as though there were ghosts living alongside me here, and I could almost feel the presence of Nick beside me.
What was he doing right now, in 1999? Was he standing right here in the hallway thinking about me, or was he in the kitchen, making dinner?
Or perhaps he was in the front room watching TV, or in the bedroom, asleep.
I shivered. I probably shouldn’t be thinking about him in the bedroom.
I dropped my bag in the hall and trudged towards the kitchen at the back of the house.
The kitchen here was modern, dark blue cupboards and low-hanging lights, so it definitely wouldn’t be the same kitchen Nick had back then.
But he was here in this space nonetheless, cooking, eating, laughing, living. Loving.
I sat on one of the bar stools and placed my phone on the worktop in front of me.
I thought about the conversation Nick and I had had when we’d realised what was going on.
At what point had I decided to believe him when he said we were living twenty years apart?
At what point had disbelief and horror become the realisation that he was telling the truth?
I also let myself think about the moment when he told me I was beautiful, and I held it to my chest for a moment as a warm feeling flooded through me.
It had been a long time since anyone had said something like that and I wanted to savour it, just for a moment.
My phone flashed with a message and for a ridiculous second my heart flared in the hope that it might be Nick. But of course, even if he was somewhere out there in the world, he wouldn’t be able to contact me.
The screen showed me it was Rachel, asking if I wanted to go to hers for dinner.
I thought about the chaos of her home – the two boys running rings round her, Iain cooking dinner, the TV blaring, and wondered whether I could face it tonight.
But then I pictured the alternative – a lonely night on my own watching TV with a glass of wine and some toast, surrounded by the ghosts of the past, and I told her I’d love to.
Twenty minutes later, I was in Rachel’s kitchen, glass of wine in hand, trying to hear her over the shouts of Harry and Aiden who appeared to be having some sort of sword fight with plastic light sabres.
‘Anyway, you’re very quiet tonight. How did it go with Nick?’ she said as Iain ducked behind her and kissed the top of her head. My heart clenched with a stab of jealousy which I pushed away immediately.
I shrugged.
‘It’s okay, Iain knows about him,’ she said.
‘Honestly, Ems, I’m really happy for you,’ Iain said. ‘And I know Greg would be too.’
I felt my face flush. ‘Thanks. But it’s… it’s not that.’
Rachel stopped what she was doing and squinted at me. ‘Ems? What’s wrong?’
‘I—’ I started. But whatever I was about to say was drowned out by a crashing sound followed by a stunned silence.
‘Boys!’ they both yelled simultaneously. Behind me, Aiden and Harry were standing surrounded by shards of broken pottery looking like butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths.
‘Sorry, Mummy,’ they chorused as Rachel bent down.
‘Bollocks, that was the vase my mum gave me for my birthday,’ she said, picking up the largest pieces.
‘I’ll clear this up,’ Iain said, smoothly stepping in. ‘Why don’t you two go in the other room and talk?’
I threw him a grateful look, and Rachel and I scooted out of the kitchen as quickly as we could.
‘That’s better, we can actually hear ourselves think,’ Rachel said as she slid the door to the living room closed and the racket from the rest of the house melted away. ‘Now, sit down and tell me what’s going on with you.’
A sense of dread thumped in my belly, but I did as I was told and perched on one end of the sofa. Rachel settled on the other end and tucked her legs beneath her.
I hadn’t wanted to talk about what had happened with me and Nick.
I’d planned to tell her that everything was fine, that Nick and I had got on and that we’d arranged to see each other again.
No need to mention the small issue of us being twenty years apart.
But one look at Rachel’s face and I knew I couldn’t keep it in any longer. I needed to talk about it.
‘I met Nick again.’
‘Yes, I know that.’ She waited and I squirmed in my seat. Finding the words for this was harder than I’d imagined.
‘We got on really well,’ I continued slowly.
‘We talked a lot, about Greg, and about his wife.’ I stared at the rug in front of me, at the small red stain across the corner where one of the boys had spilt a Fruit Shoot.
A stray piece of Lego was nestled against the leg of the coffee table.
I turned to look at Rachel who was giving me a look I couldn’t read.
‘We found something out. Something… unusual.’
A frown creased her forehead and she folded her arms. ‘Is he ill or something? Because I’m not sure you should—’
‘It’s not that,’ I said, cutting her off. I rubbed my hand over my face and took a deep breath. ‘He lives in 1999.’
She stared at me, a pink blush creeping up her cheeks. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
I sat back against the sofa, tipping my head against the wall behind me and staring at the ceiling.
Then I told her everything that Nick and I had found out today.
I didn’t dare look at her as I spoke, scared of seeing any judgement in her face, and when I finished I waited for her to say something.
She didn’t speak for a long time but when she finally did it wasn’t unexpected. ‘Are you feeling okay?’
I lifted my head and looked at her. ‘I know it sounds completely mad,’ I said. ‘I know it does and I don’t blame you for not believing me. But there’s literally no other way to explain what happened today.’