Chapter 5 Jules “Groove Is in the Heart” #3
“Yes, but we’re not talking theoretically, are we, Adam? We’re talking about my need to get out of this bloody shed in this reality right now.”
His eyes flick to his old stereo.
“But, of course, for time travel or traveling between multiverses to be practically possible, you’d still need a machine—a time machine—or some kind of bridging machine to open a portal to each parallel universe, and the energy to power it…
You know, like a DeLorean and a flux capacitor,” he says, nodding toward an old Back to the Future DVD case that’s lying open on the floor in front of the TV next to a copy of About Time.
Oh, Jesus. Maybe I can break out through the window? Maybe that’s my best bet.
“Whereas all we’ve got is this,” he says, shaking his head in wonder at the old Sony.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I finally interrupt him. “We?”
“Well, more you, really. Or at least you next,” he says brightly.
“Because I’ve already been back and so I know it’s true.
Even more so because of your tattoo. But also, it’s got to be you, because I want to stay here this time to see what happens to your body here.
Will it vanish? Or something else? You know, after you disappear into the whirlwind. ”
Whirlwind? What the fuck? So now he thinks I’m Dorothy about to be whipped off to see the Wizard of Oz?
“And then there’s the question of whether me being here when you put on the tape means I might even travel back with you, or whether it’s only possible for one of us to go back at a time…”
“Adam,” I say, still eyeing the keys in his pocket. “This is your last warning. You let me out of this shed. Right now. Or I will scream.”
But he just nods, as though he was expecting this too. He holds up his hands in surrender.
“Just humor me. That’s all I’m asking,” he pleads. “How’s one more minute going to hurt? Seriously, you don’t have to do anything. Just stand here, or even sit here on this chair, and put a tape in the machine.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“Then you’ll let me go?”
“Then you can leave, get me sectioned. Whatever the hell you want.”
I narrow my eyes.
“Come on,” he says, “you’re always telling me I don’t try enough new things. Well, all I’m asking is for you to try one tiny little new thing for me.”
One tiny little new box-of-frogs-crazy thing.
“Fine,” I say. Flatly. Not wanting him to think I’m in any way actually taking this bullshit seriously.
He does a little jump of excitement. Even pats me collegially on the back. But then he’s ranting again, like some barking-mad tour guide, telling me all about how this thing that isn’t going to bloody happen is going to feel.
Then I’m standing in front of the old boom box. Exactly where he wants me to be.
He blinks down at the tape he’s holding in his hands, rubbing at its casing where it looks a little melted and warped. Then holds it out to me. With a roll of my eyes, I perch on the armchair next to the Sony and slot it into the deck and press “Play.”
For a split second, I actually feel a sudden burst of apprehension. Like something really is about to happen. Like all this nonsense is somehow going to work.
But of course it doesn’t. Instead, his old stereo makes a gargling, squeaking noise as the tape unspools.
Only Adam’s still not deterred.
“Hmm. I did wonder…” he says, taking out the tape and carefully examining the squiggly black mess before grabbing another tape from the box, this one labeled Move Your Body! 1993. In my handwriting too. Christ. I wish I’d never given him the damned thing.
Eyes shining, he gives it to me, rubbing his beard and waggling his eyebrows at me like he’s a magician about to make a rabbit vanish from a hat.
“Good luck,” he says, before nodding at me again to put it into the machine.
“Ridiculous,” I start to say, as I press “Play,” but the first bars of Deee-Lite’s “Groove Is in the Heart” are already thumping out…
***
WHAAAAATT?… straightaway it’s like there’s a hurricane whipping my hair so violently round my face that it hurts. The floor drops out of the shed. Colors strobe all around. Faster and faster. I try to scream but all I can hear is this insane, almighty roar until—
BOOOOOM.
Music.
Dum dum-dum-dum-dum-dum, dum di-dum-di-dum-dum-di. Good God. It’s Deee-Lite’s “Groove Is in the Heart” still pounding through my brain.
What the hell?
My nostrils twitch from the acrid stink of stale sweat and dry ice.
Opening my eyes, I don’t see the shed like I’m expecting, but instead hands waving in front of me and I recognize a snake ring on one of the index fingers.
Mine! I bloody loved that ring. Mum and I bought it on a trip to Blackpool for my eighteenth.
It looks so new, but that’s because this, right here, right now, is only… 1993.
1993!
But I suddenly know this with absolute certainty.
This really is me. Me in ’93.
I’m in me. In my head. In my body.
Oh my God. How’s this working? It’s just like Adam said. It feels so utterly real.
I start looking round for him to tell him. Which is even more crazy, right? But there are too many dancing bodies in the way. Then I look at my hands again. My old hands. Or rather, young hands. No age spots, or cooking burns, just the smudge of the Zap Club stamp.
Of course. I’m in the Zap Club. Down on the beachfront. My old haunt. I recognize the low ceilings, the dripping walls, the sweaty fug. The homely pong of ciggies and farts. And right next to me is Ngozi.
Oh my God. She’s so young too!
She’s wearing a low-cut top that laces up the front, her hair up high, and just a sliver of a leather skirt.
Her eyes are thickly lined in gold and she pulls her dancing face at me as she lifts her arms, wanting me to mirror her.
The two of us are thick as thieves and have been since that trip in the first week of sixth form college to see Starlight Express in the West End, when we bunked off and went to the cinema to watch the far superior Withnail and I instead.
It’s like I’m observing everything. Like I’m in Peep Show on the telly. Or Being John Malkovich. I can sense memories, ones the real me—the older me from the future—has forgotten. But even as I note this, I can tell these aren’t just memories, these are her thoughts. Young Me’s actual thoughts.
This. Is. Insane.
I can read her mind. All that’s pulsing through it is Adam and how he’ll be here any moment.
I’m doing it. Tonight’s the night. But first I’ll give him the tape.
This is what she’s thinking. I feel a bulge in the back pocket of her jeans. The mixtape she’s made.
Holy shit.
The same mixtape I put in the machine just now. I don’t even need to look to know.
Jules is desperate to find a quiet moment to give the tape to Adam.
Alone. Because this thing between them has been building ever since she came back from her catering course in London and walked into the Basketmakers Arms three weeks ago and realized Adam had changed from a boy into a man. A hot one at that.
Suddenly, Ngozi nudges Jules. She nods to the door, and my tummy—Jules’s tummy—jolts.
There, over there…
He’s here. Adam’s here.
Ngozi grins. She knows all about my crush.
Adam’s eyes lock with mine and he puts up a hand in greeting. A wrist full of leather bangles.
Just look at him! Gangly yet lithe, undone baggy shirt, and look at those flary jeans. Black Doc Martens. That boy-grin and chiseled jaw. So like Liam’s. Only Liam doesn’t even exist yet, does he? Wow.
My Adam.
Her thoughts. Young Me’s. And mine. Only he’s not mine, is he? He’s hers.
They shoulder through the crowd toward each other. He’s with someone. Bloody hell! Is that really Young Darius? I’d totally forgotten that he used to be such a dork.
“Where’ve you been?” she shouts as they meet. She, the younger me. She’s so confident. So loud.
Adam glances at Darius and Jules sees the look that passes between them and she knows they’ve been gaming. The two of them are obsessed. Not that she cares, because at least Adam’s here now. From the way he’s looking at her, it’s clear he doesn’t want to be anywhere else.
“Let’s go,” he shouts, pointing to the bar on the other side of the throng of dancing bodies, and Jules laughs, skipping after him, before nodding for Darius to follow too.
She’s so springy. I feel so springy. So much energy. God, I feel incredible. So up for anything.
We get beers and mingle with the crowd and the music throbs through me. Darius is ogling Ngozi’s bouncing cleavage. She’s just announced she’s got E’s down her Wonderbra, but Jules isn’t interested. As soon as Adam finishes his pint, she knows it’s now or never.
“Come with me,” she yells, and quickly takes Adam’s slim, sweaty hand and they run up the stairs, past the cigarette machine, someone thumping the top of it.
I catch a flash of my reflection in a dark mirror and, oh my God, I look amazing. These low-slung jeans are so flattering. My stomach’s taut and bare beneath my crop top.
I want to stop. To caress myself. To marvel.
But there’s no time.
We burst through the metal push bar exit door into the night, where there’s still a queue, and next thing we’re on the concrete slope leading down to the beach.
Our breath is clouding, the cold sea air immediately cooling our skin.
“Come on,” Jules tells Adam, pulling him onward. Now that I can hear her properly, I notice how different her voice is from mine now. It’s light and full of promise. Probably because she hasn’t spent half her life nagging her husband and kids.
They run down the beach to where the waves are breaking against the stones in a silver line as the moon rises over the sea, leaving the derelict old West Pier—which won’t even burn down for another decade—looming eerily like some vast and creepy set from Scooby-Doo.
My ears—her ears—feel fuzzy after the booming noise of the club.
But Adam’s still craving more music and heads farther up the beach until they’re standing beside a fenced-off section in front of the Fortune of War pub where there’s a band.
They both laugh, immediately recognizing the song.
“All the Daze,” by the hot new local group everyone is talking about, Troubadours d’Amour.
“Shit,” Adam says. “I didn’t know they were playing. Or else we could have gone.”
Because she—Young Jules—loves this band too.
He bought her their CD as a gift. For a minute they just dance there on the beach like they’re the only people in the world, and I can’t help myself, I’m almost swooning too.
Because this song, it’s my and Adam’s song.
The one we’ll end up dancing to at our wedding in only six years’ time.
I can still hear her thoughts—she’s been wanting this moment for ages, it’s now or never. But the risk—eek! What if he doesn’t feel the same?
She’s brave in spite of all this, though. A bravery I realize, plungingly, I’ve somehow lost along the way. She jumps toward him, planting her feet on the stones in a power stance. Eye to eye.
Bloody hell. This is the start of it…of us. It’s happening right here, our future bursting, blooming out of this very moment.
“I’ve got something for you,” she says, reaching round and taking the cassette tape out of her pocket. She gives it to him and grins, watching his face. “I figured I owe you one,” she says, pleased by the smile he suddenly gives her. “You might not like them all,” she warns.
“No, I will,” he says.
She knows he means it too, even though he hasn’t even read through the whole list of songs. Because he trusts her.
Their eyes lock and I can’t breathe as the moment stretches, then their faces—our faces—move together and his lips are on mine and I’m fizzing with every second of this magical first kiss.
Her heart, it’s like a jack-in-the-box as he finally pulls away.
“Wow,” she says.
Because, hell yes, wow. It feels like we’re the last two pieces of a jigsaw and now everything makes sense.
“I’ve wondered if you fancied me for so long,” he confesses.
“Really?”
“Only I didn’t want to make a move. Spoil our friendship.”
Oh God, he’s so earnest. So adorable.
“Don’t worry. We’ll always be mates too,” she says, taking his face in her hands. “Promise. No matter what.”
I want to weep because I can sense her optimism, her sheer faith in the world. In him.
“So what’s all this?” she teases, rubbing his stubbly chin. “You not shaving these days?”
“I was going to go the full George Michael.”
She twists her lips.
“What?” he asks, something close to panic in his eyes.
“No, no, it’s nothing, honestly,” she says.
But it is something. And she’s not being honest.
Because I’ve always disliked his beard. Always. Not because of how it looks. It’s more the distraction of it. The tickliness. And not just on my mouth.
She doesn’t want to ruin the moment, though. She’s going to let it slide.
But before I know it, it’s me who’s rocking back, just as we’re about to kiss again. And me who’s somehow opening her mouth and putting my thoughts into words with her tongue.
“It’s just I’ve never really liked beards,” I make her say.
Adam stares at her, stunned. And she feels stunned too, by these words that have just come out of her mouth. But she’s not upset. Or annoyed. More relieved that she’s had the courage to be honest to his face.
“Really?” he says.
“Yeah. Sorry. Really,” she answers. All by herself, with zero help from me. “It’s just the way it feels.”
“Okay. Anything else you’d like to change about me?” he asks, smiling.
“No. Nothing.” She laughs, like it’s a silly question, really. “Or not yet, anyway,” she teases, grabbing at his hair.
Oh, that lovely, thick hair of his.
“Let’s not worry about that now,” she says, and she pulls him close and it’s as if they’re melting together. And, as the seagulls caw, she snogs him like her life depends on it.
Then, finally breaking away, they laugh with the sheer joy of this, of them. They hold hands and walk back toward where the band is still playing. They push through into the crowd and, as he hugs her from behind, she wants this moment to never end.