Chapter 9 Jules “Hey Ya” #2
“But only to go back to whenever we handed them over,” I get Jules to remind him. “Which means,” I work out, “that if you make another one tomorrow, then in the future, say, like ten years from now, we can travel back to this weekend again.”
And while the thought of inventing a time machine just to transport me back to this otherwise pretty dull period in my pretty dull life might have once been a turnoff…
that’s all changed now that we have the machine.
Plus, I can imagine from their perspective—the older us we’ll become.
I bet, for them, coming back here will be a trip.
To our middle years. With the kids still at home.
And Adam and I starting to get on again.
To all this stuff I’ve taken so much for granted until now.
Equally, I can feel Yesterday Me becoming confused. Like she’s headachy, not quite sure what’s going on. But I keep my grip on her, distracted by the smell of the boeuf bourguignon.
As I walk her through to the kitchen, and Adam follows with his eyes dancing, I can sense my yesterday thoughts—about the credit card bill and the cheffing gig Darius has offered—but then suddenly my nostrils twitch—
Oh my God. Of course! The boeuf bourguignon.
Without thinking, I surreptitiously back Jules up against the cooker.
Adam’s looking at me strangely. “Jules? Tomorrow Jules? Are you still here?”
It’s hilarious, but he’s actually whispering.
“Yeah,” I get Jules to tell him.
“Okay, but we really shouldn’t talk anymore,” he says, a look of sudden panic on his face, “because the more we do, the more we might risk changing something.”
“I completely agree,” I tell him, but behind me, without him noticing, I get Jules to turn the oven down.
I know it’s wrong to change what happened to the incinerated supper…potentially. But this was only yesterday. It’s only a teeny weeny thing and surely worth the risk?
“Seriously. You should stop imposing yourself now,” Adam says.
“Doing it,” I say, throwing in the kind of cutesy little sign-off salute I imagine Lieutenant Uhura or whatever her name was on Star Trek might use.
I pull back. I cede control to my still blissfully unaware yesterday self. Then she’s moving—go, girl, all by herself!—turning slowly round and looking at Adam and around the kitchen as if she doesn’t know why she’s here.
“What?” she says. “Why are you staring at me like that?” she asks him.
“Oh, nothing. Nothing.” He checks the clock on the wall, maybe thinking my ten minutes is up.
Jules walks over to the mirror and stares into it, examining her wrinkles, with obvious dissatisfaction registering on her tired face. I remember how I did this myself yesterday after watching my younger self on those videos, wanting to masochistically prove to myself how much I’d aged.
Wow. I’m so mean to myself.
It’s only now that it dawns on me how self-critical my internal rhetoric is. How judgy. As if I’m somehow purposefully failing to change my appearance for the better. As if somewhere out there there’s a perfect Jules with fewer wrinkles and a youthful glow.
Except here’s the thing: yesterday I was the youngest I’ll ever be.
This simple fact feels like a huge epiphany.
For the first time in my whole adult life, the futility of chasing youth hits me square-on.
Along with the comforting realization that while the youth I’ve been experiencing of late is fabulous, it’s not the real me.
Not the full package. Having this home and having raised my family is way more profound than having dewy skin and pert breasts—however marvelous it feels to reexperience that.
Right on the heels of this klaxon-like thought comes another revolutionary one.
What if I just stopped worrying about it?
Threw in the towel and just accepted that I’m not ever going to be young again.
Or even look young again. Because judging from the look of Yesterday Me, she’s fine as she is. Which means so am I.
Does this mean I can finally learn to be happy in my own skin? The way I look today? Right now?
I hear the kids’ muffled laughter again. Adam is turning to walk back down the corridor and I know it’s nearly time to go, but then my attention is snagged by the dangling felt-tip pen on its string next to the calendar and a wicked little thought drops into my head.
Oh—and it’s wrong, so wrong. I know that—and Adam would kill me if he knew what I was about to do, but what is this trip if not an opportunity?
After all, I’ve already managed to reignite our sex life thanks to our machine.
What if I could sort out my money situation too? In a way that Adam need never know?
Quickly, I make Yesterday Me take the pen lid off in her teeth, then scrawl Carpe Diem on the blank space of Saturday.
And just in the nick of time, as the wind rushes up and I’m sucked back down into the future again…
***
Adam’s eyes are blazing.
“It worked,” he says—almost shouts as I snap to. “Because…because I already know that you talked to me yesterday when you imposed yourself and told me that Tomorrow Jules was there. Only you didn’t already know that on your previous timeline, did you? You had to go back to make it so.”
Make it so. And yes, he’s right. I did.
“But doesn’t that also mean—” I start to say.
“That this is yet another alternative timeline? Another new universe?” He nods. “But only fractionally. So marginally it can’t really make any difference to anything, can it? The only difference is me having had that two-minute chat with you yesterday.”
I think of my addition to the calendar.
“So I reckon it was worth it,” he declares.
“Because now we know we can make new tapes if we want. And I think we should, right? Regularly. From here on in. That way when we’re older, we can come back to today and tomorrow and the next day and onward.
We just need to keep making more and more tapes. ”
“Sure,” I say.
“Good, because I’ve already ordered some.” He grins. “But nothing else has changed?” he then checks, our usual debrief question.
“Everything else looks the same,” I tell him, because it does. “You. The shed.” I look in the mirror. “Me.”
“And what about what you remember?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean about yesterday. And your new memories here in this universe. Nothing’s too fuzzy or messed up, memory-wise, after you imposed yourself?
Only I was wondering if there might be, like, a hangover effect or something.
Like whether you’d still remember us all just having a quiet one last night, crashing out on the sofa after we ate so much of that awesome boeuf bourguignon of yours. ”
I slowly nod.
Even though, no. That’s not what I remember. Not with my old memories of my old timeline. I remember that I burned it. Incinerated it. Except…except, right this second, I’m getting these new memories of how everyone was in raptures about how good that stew was. How it was slow-cooked to perfection.
Because I turned the oven down.
“But do you know what’s really odd?” he says.
“Er, no…”
“After we talked yesterday, I tried prying, you know, subtly, to find out if you—if Yesterday You—remembered talking to me about Tomorrow Jules being there. But none of it registered, like you had no memory of it. Oh,” he then adds, “and what you wrote on the calendar. Carpe Diem.” He smiles slyly.
“I saw you do that on my way out of the kitchen. Only you didn’t remember doing that either when I asked.
” He bobs his eyebrows. “Meaning I’m guessing that that was still the work of Tomorrow Jules too? ”
“Guilty as charged. But just as a little joke,” I quickly cover.
“What does it mean?”
“Just that, er…we should seize the day,” I bluster. “That I realized that, as well as all these little adventures, we should live more in the moment too, you know?”
Only it really wasn’t that at all, was it?
Because this morning when the new me on this new timeline checked the calendar like every morning and read those two words written in her handwriting, they stuck with her just like I’d hoped.
What the hell did they mean? she must have been thinking.
And yes, she was. I can suddenly now remember that too.
Then, later at the Peregrine, when Rose read out all the horse names, alongside Danny Boy, she read out the name Carpe Diem.
And, Christ, that other me’s heart started pounding as she worked it out. That the me of the future had left a glaringly clear message.
Which is why the new me on this timeline went right up to the end of her overdraft to put a thousand pounds on Carpe Diem to win at Royal Ascot.
At odds of twenty to one.
I have a vivid memory of standing with Rose in the bar at the Peregrine earlier, watching the race together, and when Carpe Diem flew over the line, we hugged each other and jumped up and down. She even hugged Eddy.
Then I made a jubilant Rose promise—absolutely promise—not to tell Adam, as I was going to use the money for a surprise.
Fuck a duck! That same betting slip is in my purse right now, and when I cash it in, I’ll have nearly twenty grand. Enough to clear my credit card at last.
I turn away to the tapes before Adam can see my face.
I want to squeal with excitement, but I can’t let on.
The fact that I gambled at all would be bad enough in his eyes.
Me, acting like his dad. But combine that with me breaking our cardinal rule and deliberately messing with the past—he’d seriously flip.
Which is why I’m never going to tell him.
Much as I hate to be dishonest, this one’s going to have to stay in the vault.
“So, it’s your turn,” I say, as with shaking hands, I rifle through the tapes. “Where do you want to go?”
He stands beside me.
“I was thinking maybe when the kids were really little. Even one of them newborn, because my memory’s such a blur from back then. I was so knackered.”
“You were knackered? Try giving birth.”