Chapter 6 #2
‘Nicky, what’s going on? It’s not like you to be so tongue-tied.’
Instead of replying I reached down for my bag and unzipped it. Andy’s gaze felt like it was burning me as I pulled the books out and lay them on the table. I pushed them towards him and he picked the top one up.
‘The Mysteries of Time,’ he read out. He picked the other one up. ‘Reality and Time.’
He lowered it and looked at me. ‘What are these?’
‘They’re from the school library. Physics books. Sort of.’
‘Right. I suppose my question is why have you got them and why are you showing them to me?’
How was I going to explain this? It was clearly insane. If Andy came to me and told me what I was about to tell him I’d be worried about his state of mind. But I needed to get it out there.
‘You know this woman I’ve met? Emma.’
‘Yes.’
I flipped the beer mat over and over again, the tap, tap, tap drilling into my brain. I took a deep breath.
‘She lives in 2019.’
I didn’t know whether I’d expected Andy to laugh in my face, or get angry, or tell me I was being ridiculous. What I hadn’t expected from my loud and opinionated brother was the complete and utter silence I was now greeted with. I felt dizzy and realised I’d been holding my breath.
‘Aren’t you going to say anything?’
He didn’t get a chance to reply because the beers arrived, and the waiter stopped by the table.
‘Hello, you two, I thought you’d abandoned me when you didn’t come yesterday.’
‘Ah sorry, Abdul, but you know we’d never leave you for long.’ Andy flashed him a smile and Abdul grinned back.
‘Well good. The place wouldn’t be the same without you. The usual?’
Andy glanced at me and I nodded. ‘Perfect thank you,’ he said.
He waited until Abdul had left then turned to me and shook his head. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘That makes a change.’
He nodded his head in acknowledgement. ‘That’s true. But seriously, Nicky. What are you talking about?’
‘I know it sounds completely insane but I really need you to listen to me.’
He nodded without speaking.
‘Emma and I, we’ve realised that we live twenty years apart.’ I felt my face flush but carried on. ‘We didn’t realise at first, of course. But she knows things about the future, and she has this phone, like a computer, that she carries round with her that fits in her pocket.’
Andy studied me for a moment and rubbed the stubble on his chin.
He leaned forward onto his elbows. ‘Sorry, are you saying that, because this Emma has some sort of futuristic phone, that you think she lives in the future?’ Andy took a gulp of his beer and wiped the froth away with the back of his hand.
I shook my head and took a sip of my own beer. ‘No, not just that. It’s hard to explain. When she touches my skin, there’s this weird spark between us, like deep down inside me. But when we’re not inside the bandstand together, we can’t see each other. We don’t exist, except in there.’
‘I don’t think—’
‘The tree!’ I interrupted, desperate for him to understand. ‘I took my knife and I carved our initials on the tree. And when I got back to the bandstand Emma went to look at the tree and our initials were still there.’
Andy’s forehead folded into a crease. ‘And you believe her?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, presumably you told her you were carving something. And then she said she saw it. But you have no proof that she wasn’t just seeing it today. In 1999.’
‘I know but—’ I started.
‘Nicky,’ Andy said, reaching for my hand and covering it with his own. ‘I love you, and I know you desperately want to believe that this woman is something special. But I think she’s conning you.’
‘No!’ I snatched my hand back and scraped the chair back across the floor away from him. The people a couple of tables away glanced at us then back at their dinner. My heart pounded in my chest and my whole body shook.
‘Woah, calm down,’ he said, holding his hands up.
I didn’t move, torn between wanting to stay and try to explain, and wanting to get out of there. My chest felt tight and I struggled to breathe.
‘You don’t understand,’ I said. Tears pricked my eyes and I blinked them back. Abdul hovered nearby, steaming dishes balanced on a tray.
‘Sorry,’ Andy said, smiling at him. He turned to me. ‘Come on, Nicky. Please sit back at the table. Let’s eat and talk about it. I promise to listen.’
I didn’t want to make a scene, so I dragged my chair back to the table and waited as Abdul served our food. Neither of us looked at each other, and I was relieved when Abdul finally left us to it. I spooned curry and rice onto my plate and pulled a chunk of naan bread off. My appetite had vanished.
‘I’m sorry,’ Andy said. He was watching me across the table with an expression on his face that I couldn’t read.
I shook my head. ‘I know how it sounds. I do. But I promise you she’s not conning me, and I promise this is nothing to do with missing Dawn.’
‘Then why don’t you explain and I won’t interrupt. I promise.’
‘Okay.’
Over the next fifteen minutes, between mouthfuls of curry and gulps of beer, I told Andy everything.
All the things Emma and I had struggled to believe ourselves but had realised had no other explanation than the one we had finally settled on.
‘Plus she told me the carving looked old, like it had been there a long time,’ I finished.
Andy wiped the last smear of sauce from his plate with a piece of naan and chewed it slowly. I waited for him to say something.
‘So,’ he said, swallowing and dabbing his mouth with his napkin. He threw it on the table and looked at me. His eyes were serious. ‘These books.’
I glanced down at the library books, whose existence I’d forgotten about until then.
‘What about them?’
‘Do you believe they hold the answer?’
I shook my head. ‘Not really. I just didn’t know what else to do.’
‘Because the situation is impossible?’
Anger flared through me again. ‘You still don’t believe me.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
I looked up, surprised. ‘What then?’
Andy rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘Honestly? I have no idea. But I do know that you obviously do believe this, and I agree there does seem to be something strange going on here.’
‘So you don’t think I’ve gone mad?’
He shook his head. ‘Not completely. But—’ he held his finger up to stop me speaking ‘—I do think there must be some other, more likely explanation for what’s happening. And I’m going to help you find it.’
‘I’ve thought of everything. You know me. I’m logical. Sensible. I don’t believe things easily.’
‘I know that. Usually.’
‘But?’
When his eyes flicked away from me I knew what he was going to say. ‘You still think this is grief talking, don’t you?’
He shrugged. ‘I honestly don’t know, Nicky. I just don’t think we should rule it out, that’s all.’
I nodded. I hadn’t convinced him yet, but it was a start.
Even though Emma and I had worked out that the bandstand was the only place we could see each other and be together, I still got a knot of anxiety in my chest every time I approached it and saw there was no one there.
What if this was it? What if whatever wormhole had temporarily existed here had closed up and we’d never be able to see each other again?
The relief I felt every time I stepped up onto the raised floor of the bandstand and saw Emma waiting for me was so intense it could have knocked me over.
Today, as I walked through the park in the blazing sunshine, I was thinking about what I wanted to talk to her about.
I’d been trawling through the books I’d borrowed from the school library but they hadn’t helped me at all, so a couple of days ago I’d gone to the main library in town to see if I could find anything on the internet.
I remembered Emma telling me that she could access the internet wherever she was on that phone she carried around and wondered what that would be like – would it make life easier or would it be really intrusive?
I’d spent a couple of hours searching for information about time slips, time travel and anything else I could think of.
And although most of it had been hopeless, supporting the theory that time slips were believed to simply be a made-up plot device for novels and films, I did come away with one thing to suggest to Emma.
‘Hey,’ she said, standing as I stepped into the bandstand. It was a warm evening where I was, but she was bundled up in a jacket and scarf. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and her cheeks were pink as though she’d run here. I stood still for a moment, unsure what to do next.
She stepped towards me and the air shifted.
‘It’s good to see you,’ she said. She nodded at my bare arms. ‘You’re making me feel cold.’
‘It’s a beautiful evening here,’ I said. ‘I wish you could see it.’
‘So do I.’
We sat down, a couple of feet apart. Above our heads – or at least my head – the leaves rustled in the breeze, and beams of sunlight poked through the holes in the roof.
Emma looked grey, tendrils of hair whipping round her face in the strong wind.
Her hand rested on the bench between us, and I reached out tentatively and wrapped my fingers round hers.
As our skin touched, she gasped. ‘I’ll never get bored of that feeling,’ she said, a smile spreading across her face.
Our fingers were threaded together, hers cold to the touch.
‘You brought your violin,’ she said, nodding down at the case I’d rested by my feet.
‘I did.’ I smiled. ‘I realised I forgot to play it for you the other day and I never like to break a promise.’
‘Will you play it now?’
‘Right now?’
She shrugged. ‘There’s no time like the present.’
I had so many things I needed to say to her, things to tell her.
And yet she was right. There really was no time like the present, especially when you had no idea whether you’d have a future.
I leaned down and picked up my violin case and clicked it open.
As I saw it nestled there in the blue velvet, my stomach rolled over, and my hand hovered above it, unsure.
‘What’s wrong?’