Chapter 7 Jules “Alright”
Jules
“Alright”
It’s Tuesday morning and I’m on my last length in the Sea Lanes, the outdoor fifty-meter heated pool down on Marine Parade.
“Whoa. Steady on,” Ngozi says, as I reach the end. “You’ve been proper motoring.”
I nod, out of breath. “I needed that,” I gasp, taking off my goggles.
“Everything okay? Still worrying about Adam?”
“Uh-huh,” I lie, even though I’m not thinking about Adam at all, or at least not in the context of what I told Ngozi in the changing room earlier about the shit week he’s having with all the fallout from Todd breaking the news about Quark.
Adam ended up having to handhold everyone in his department, who all wanted to know what he’d known, which was nothing, and wanted reassurance, which he at least could give them, promising them that Darius is a stand-up guy.
“It’ll be fine,” Ngozi reassures me. “Big news always takes a while to digest.”
No bloody kidding. Like the existential bonkers-ness of the fact that thirty-nine hours and fifteen minutes ago, I—Jesus, I still can’t wrap my head around it—traveled back in time to 1993. I mean, this has to be the head fuck of all head fucks, right?
Everything is different.
Except that everything is completely normal too.
And real, because Adam continues to not have a beard. All of yesterday evening, I couldn’t stop staring at him, and this morning it felt downright pervy watching him shave. Not to mention also kind of hot.
Even so, I’m getting used to it. Which is odd.
Like my memories of the actual Adam—OG Adam, the Adam-with-the-grizzly-crumb-filled-beard—are getting less dominant.
Even though I know he was like that, it’s now equally true that he isn’t.
Like my memories of him from that old timeline are now happily bobbing along with my new memories of him in this new universe.
It’s like owning the same pair of trousers in both blue and black.
“Can’t wait for the sauna,” Ngozi says.
She’s booked the Luna Wave just outside on the beach as a treat for us both.
“Me too,” I say with a smile, but it feels like I’m acting, keeping this huge thing from her.
Even Ngozi, who can usually read me like a book, couldn’t get close to guessing the biggest, most mind-bending secret of my life.
And I can’t tell her. None of it. It’s my and Adam’s secret. Ours to bear alone.
As we walk from the pool across the pebbles to the sauna hut, I start to feel a bit more grounded, though. She hasn’t sussed anything is wrong and soon we’re on to chatting about Darius’s party.
“I was looking for you at the end,” she says.
“We left early.”
She smiles. “Aye-aye. You two love cats.”
If only. Not being able to talk about the time machine brings me and Adam back into focus. Because, yeah, I am still processing what we rowed about too. “Adam was drunk,” I say. “We had a fight on the way home. Said a few horrible home truths.”
“Oh Lord. Shit-faced honesty,” she says. “The worst. I don’t miss those days one bit.”
I’ve often marveled at how quickly she moved on from Geoff.
They were never the most passionate of couples, granted, but the second their twins, Isa and Isaac, went to uni, she just gave him the flick.
Said she was done with that whole “conventional relationship thing” and it was time to move on.
I’m amazed that they’ve managed to remain friends.
She opens the door to the sauna and it’s empty, which is a rarity.
Beach saunas are all the rage in this neck of the woods.
She takes the ladle and splashes water on the coals in the corner.
A cloud of scorching steam rises, and she sits on the top bench, relishing the heat, looking through the picture window to the sea and the pale horizon in the distance.
“So? How are things now?” she asks, genuinely concerned.
“We’re okay. We’ve made up…ish… but even aside from what’s happening at his work, we’re both still rattled,” I say, which is all true enough, because discovering our time machine hasn’t wiped away the memories of that fight.
We sit for a moment in the heat.
“Do you ever…I don’t know…”
“What?” she asks.
“Do you ever have that thing where something happens, and it blindsides you?”
She opens one eye. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I bluster. “Just that I’ve been doing a…deep dive into the past to try and figure some stuff out. Do you remember the night Adam and I first got together? The Zap Club. You were there. You had E’s down your Wonderbra.”
“Did I?” She hoots with laughter. “Seriously? How on earth can you remember? I could get disbarred for that,” she adds, not altogether joking.
“It felt so amazing. I mean, if I could go back to how it was then…”
“You want to go back to your early twenties? Are you mad, woman? It was shit. We were skint, remember? Everyone had bad teeth and BO.”
“I guess.”
“Oh dear,” she says, “sounds like you’re having a midlife moment.” She shakes her head, settles back, and closes her eyes. “Don’t worry, babe. It’ll pass.”
Only I’m not sure it will.
—
And it doesn’t. All the way home I keep thinking about Adam and the Zap Club and that amazing kiss, but how different our lives are now.
In the kitchen, I’m about to put on Radio 4, but linger on Heart radio, as it plays first D:Ream’s “Things Can Only Get Better” and then “Oh Carolina” by Shaggy. Both bangers from ’93.
“Er?” Nelly asks, coming in to find me dancing. She looks appalled. “What are you doing?”
“Dancing,” I say, not stopping. “Why?”
“Well, firstly because the way you’re…moving…is dangerously close to cultural appropriation, and secondly, because you’re meant to be giving me a lift.”
I stop abruptly, remembering what she told me earlier. How Darius has come good on his offer of workspace. Only not just any workspace, workspace at Quark, where Adam says Darius and his people have already moved into the top two floors.
“Honestly, Mum, your brain is like a sieve.”
“What did Dad say?” I told her to check with him that it was okay, because he says there are quite a few people at work already viewing Darius as the enemy.
“He muttered something about it potentially looking weird for optics, but said I should do it anyway. It’s my life.” She grins, like she couldn’t agree more.
Hustling me into the hall, she points out the two large cardboard boxes she’s already packed. As I open the front door, I interrupt the postman, who’s about to wedge a brown envelope through the letter box, addressed to me.
I rip it open and slide out the letter inside. It’s a final demand from the credit card company. The figure in red leaps off the white page. Thank God Adam has no access to my business card, or he’d be freaking out.
“What is it?” Nelly asks.
“Nothing,” I say, folding it and stuffing it into the back pocket of my jeans, feeling my heart thud. I can’t tell her, or anyone. Not now. Not with Adam’s job up in the air. Even if Darius has assured him he’ll be fine.
“We’ll miss having you around,” I tell her, as I walk out with one of the boxes and unlock the ?koda.
“Yeah, sure you will,” she says sarcastically, as she loads the boot.
“But even you’ve got to admit, it’ll be a bit more sociable than being at home.”
“I’m actually more going there for the internet.”
“Yes, but hopefully you’ll meet some new people too. Go out at lunchtime. In the sun,” I offer, as I force the key in the ignition three times before the car finally starts with a shuddering cough. Bloody Adam, he’d better have ordered those spark plugs.
“Can you please stop telling me how to live my life?”
“I’m not—”
“Look. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this, but I’m working this hard because I want to save up. To move out into my own place. So I don’t get…stuck here.”
Like you. Her voice is laden with these unspoken words. I feel my face flush, remembering how I leveled that word stuck at Adam during our fight.
“But sometimes if you spend all your time focused on the future, you can get stuck too,” I point out.
“Mum. Just drop it, okay?”
Her spiky tone hurts. As does her lack of respect. I’m also frustrated by my inability to convey that I am proud of her for being a hard worker. She’s always been diligent. I just wish she’d, I don’t know, lighten up.
“That’s weird,” she says, after a while. “Eva’s texted.”
“Oh?” I ask, as casually as I can. “What did she say?”
“She’s having a drinks thing tomorrow night.”
“That sounds fun.”
Nelly scrunches up her nose. “I bet you put her up to it.”
“No, I didn’t,” I say, trying hard not to blush. “She’s always saying how much she’d like to see you.”
Nelly’s not buying it. “Seriously?”
And something inside me snaps.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Nelly. Go and have some bloody fun for once.
I mean, do you even realize how lucky you are to be young?
To not have any cares, or real responsibilities?
To have exciting new relationships stacked up ahead of you.
To have a body that will let you drink and do whatever the hell you want to it and stay up all night because you still get to look like a supermodel in the morning? ”
Because that’s how I felt when I went back. That’s how bleedin’ wonderful it was.
Nelly looks at me in surprise. “All right, Nana, keep your hair on.”
Nana. For a second, I nearly snap something back at her. But then I stop. I’m not that girl in 1993. I am old.
Rolling her eyes, she starts texting. Hopefully saying yes to Eva.
—
When we arrive at Quark Studios, the receptionist picks up a sleek phone like she’s in The Apprentice.
“Mr. Angelopoulos says to go right on up to the eighth floor,” she tells Nelly.
“Can I go too?” I ask, because only ever having been in the basement of this building, I want to see what it’s like upstairs.
“Sure.”
The lift opens onto a smart, open-plan space. A tall young woman with long, styled red hair, heavy eyeliner, and an electric-blue trouser suit, who I recognize from Darius’s party, steps toward us.