Chapter 7
EMMA
My hands shook as I opened the notes app on my phone and read the list again. It didn’t seem like much, but it was all we had. For now, at least.
Kissing Nick had been an explosion of chemicals, like fizzing candy going off in my mouth, a chemical reaction it was impossible to describe. My whole body tingled afterwards and the truth was I could have sat there in his arms forever.
But all good things must come to an end, and eventually, the cold got the better of us both. Plus, of course, we desperately wanted to give our idea a try. Because if we could work out a way of being together away from the bandstand, then it really would change everything.
I’d felt giddy and anxious with expectation as Nick and I had both checked our lists – mine on my phone, his on a piece of paper torn from a notepad which fluttered in a breeze as he clutched it.
‘So, our watches are synched, we’re sure of that are we?’ I said. Goosebumps had formed on my arms and I shivered.
‘Perfectly,’ he said.
‘And you’re ready?’
‘As ready as I’ll ever be.’
We stood for another moment. I studied his face in the dimming light, the contour of his cheekbones and the slight shadow of stubble on his chin, and I longed to reach out and touch his lips again. But it was time to go.
‘Hopefully see you later then,’ I said.
‘Hopefully,’ he said gently. Then he turned and jumped off the bandstand and disappeared like a popped bubble.
I hurried home through the gardens, where the rose bushes shivered in the unseasonally cold spring breeze, and out into the park.
We had almost an hour before our plan began and there was no way I could eat anything.
My stomach was in knots. Instead, as soon as I got home I poured myself a glass of wine and ran a bath and sat in it, warming up.
As water lapped at my sides and steam rose around my face, I tipped my head back and closed my eyes and tried to imagine Nick sitting in the same place.
He’d said he preferred a bath to a shower, but did he spend hours soaking in it, full to the brim with bubbles the way I did, or was he quick and efficient?
There were so many everyday things that I didn’t know about this man, and I knew that if we couldn’t get our experiment to work, they’d probably remain a mystery forever.
I hauled myself out of the bath and hurriedly dressed.
We’d agreed to put our first item on the list into action at seven o’clock, and my phone told me it was nearly time.
I clipped my damp hair off my face, then hurried down to the kitchen and opened the back door.
It was dark now and the wind had got up even more.
I picked up the empty wallet Nick had given me as his personal item (‘sorry, it’s all I really have on me’, he’d said, as I’d handed him one of my favourite MAC lip glosses) and clutched it in my left hand as I stepped onto the back step.
I wrapped my cardigan more tightly round me.
Three minutes to go.
The garden was peaceful tonight, most of the trees still bare of leaves. A dog barked a few gardens away and I could make out the quiet whine of a distant motorbike.
My stomach was in knots, and I wondered how Nick was feeling. What if this worked, and we somehow found a way to be together? What if, against all the odds, we succeeded in beating the laws of physics?
It seemed futile. But we had to at least try.
I checked my phone again, the screen glowing brightly in the darkness. One minute.
Thirty seconds.
And then.
Time.
We’d agreed we would both stand here on the back step for five minutes, in exactly the same place, to see whether we could recreate the feeling I’d had that he was somewhere in the fabric of the house just after we’d first met. ‘Should we do anything else while we’re there?’ I’d asked.
‘I don’t see that there’s much point,’ Nick replied. ‘Just make sure you’ve got your feet in the right place, hold my wallet in your hands, and see what happens.’
I looked down now and checked. Feet a foot apart, a couple of inches from the front of the step, a foot from the left. I shuffled to the right slightly and planted my feet firmly.
Then I clutched the wallet to my chest and closed my eyes.
I felt weak with nerves. I pressed my hands into the door frame behind me to steady myself, and waited, heart thumping wildly.
Something brushed against my skin and I flinched. But when I opened my eyes, there was nothing there. I reached my hand out and swiped it through the air in front of me. Could I feel the crackle of something? Did the air feel different, charged?
I held my breath and listened. I had no idea what I was waiting for.
If this did work and we did manage to cross time, what would it feel like?
When Nick and I were together in the bandstand everything felt normal until we touched.
Would I simply feel his presence, or was I able to conjure him somehow?
I checked my phone. Two minutes had passed.
I inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly. Right now, Nick was standing in this exact spot, twenty years in the past. Perhaps if I just concentrated harder, really focused on his presence, we’d make the connection. It had to work. It had to.
I closed my eyes and waited, the wind whipping through my cardigan, creating goosebumps on my skin.
But nothing happened, and when I checked my watch again, five minutes was up. I was reluctant to move from the spot, just in case, but eventually I had to. Disappointment lodged in my chest like a heavy weight as I stepped back into the kitchen and closed the door behind me.
I wished I could ring Nick and ask him how it had felt for him; whether he’d felt anything at all. But instead I had to make do with checking the list and trying the next thing we’d agreed.
7.10 p.m.: Sit on the sofa in the living room, with your back against the wall by the door. Try to be roughly one metre away from the door. Stay for five minutes.
I topped up my wine and walked through to the living room.
We’d worked out we had our sofa in the same place, up against the wall with the window to the left, so I sat right in the middle and tucked my feet up underneath me, Nick’s wallet in my lap.
I tried not to think too hard about what might or might not happen, watching the clock tick closer and closer towards 7. 10 p.m.
And then, it was time.
I placed my hands on top of the wallet, palms down, scrunched my eyes shut and willed Nick into being. Tried to picture him in exactly the same spot doing exactly the same thing. Hopeful, waiting.
Nothing.
7.13 p.m.… 7.14 p.m.… Still nothing. Not even a slight tremor or crackle in the air.
7.15 p.m.…
Five minutes was up.
I sat for a moment, letting the realisation that it hadn’t worked – again – settle. Then I looked down and checked my notes once more.
7.20 p.m.: Sit at the table in the kitchen, facing the window.
7.30 p.m.: Stand in front of the sink in the upstairs bathroom and stare into the mirror. Stay for five minutes
7.40 p.m.: Lie on the bed in the main bedroom.
Despite the mundanity of our actions, all the talk of cosmic strings and wormholes had given me some hope that this really could work. That we really could somehow achieve what scientists had so far failed to achieve.
How naive we’d been.
But I couldn’t give up, not yet. I owed it to Nick to at least try to complete the list, and so for the next half an hour I dutifully made my way round the house, to the kitchen, the bathroom and, finally, the bedroom.
And it was here, as I lay on the bed and stared up at the ceiling, that I let myself properly think about Nick.
I tried to imagine him here, lying beside me.
Imagined a life where we were here, together, in this house.
I stretched my arm out and let my hand rest on the other side of the bed: the side where Greg had always slept, and the side Nick had told me he slept on too.
The stone of disappointment was mixed with a feeling of guilt that, in all of this, Greg had barely been on my mind.
He’d been my whole life for so long and yet now here I was, not only thinking about another man, but letting him fill all my thoughts.
I turned my head to the empty space. A tear trickled down my face.
Time was up. It was over.
It hadn’t worked.
And I needed someone to talk to.
‘The boys wanted to see you, can you nip up and kiss them goodnight?’ Rachel said as I stepped inside her house half an hour later.
‘Course.’
I ran upstairs and into Aiden’s room. A night light glowed dimly on the bedside table and all I could see was a head peeking out the top of the duvet. I sat on the end of Aiden’s bed and he peered at me bleary-eyed.
‘Aunty Emma,’ he said, his words blurry with sleep.
‘Hey, sweetie,’ I whispered. ‘I’ve just come to kiss you goodnight.’
He smiled, but didn’t reply, so I leaned over and planted a gentle kiss on his warm forehead, then left him in his dream world.
When I got to Harry’s room, it was a different story.
He was wide awake and sitting on top of his duvet, and when I walked in he said, ‘Can you read me this?’ He had a Peppa Pig picture book in his hand and a smile so wide I couldn’t resist. So, although, I desperately wanted to get back downstairs to tell Rachel everything that had happened today, I sat and read his book to him, laughing when he corrected me, and loving the feeling of his hot little body pressed against me.
I loved these boys with every bone of my body, and spending time with them had helped with the sadness I felt about not having children of my own.
They’d helped mend my broken heart and I’d never forget it.
By the time the story was finished, Harry was half asleep, so I tucked him in, kissed him softly and crept out of the room.
Downstairs, Rachel was sitting at the kitchen island, a glass of wine waiting for me.
‘They’re out for the count,’ I said, pulling myself onto the stool.