The Time of Our Lives

by Portia MacIntosh

  ‘Talk to you two in a bit,’ Matt says. ‘Loving the Eighties hair, Luca.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I call after him. ‘It’s more a product of sleeping with wet hair, rather than a passion for the decade, but I’ll take it.’

  Tom laughs. It’s just him and me now.

  ‘You guys figured stuff out then?’ he asks.

  ‘We have,’ I reply. ‘It was relatively painless too.’

  ‘Well, that’s good,’ he replies with a smile.

  Now that I think about it, it feels like these were conversations we needed to have with each other – some of them ten years overdue. Amazing really, that it took the destruction of a real bridge to start building them amongst ourselves.

  ‘Now we just have to figure out us,’ I say, ripping off the plaster.

  ‘Straight on to that?’ He laughs. ‘You don’t even want any Coco Pops first?’

  I smile, but the absence of a laugh causes Tom to snap into serious mode.

  ‘We’re both living in the same city now, right,’ he says. ‘So, we can just see what happens when we get back?’

  ‘Oh, OK,’ I reply.

  ‘Give me your number,’ he says. ‘I’ll give you a call, and we’ll organise that drink.’

  Suddenly, I don’t feel good about things anymore. I’m petrified, that we’ve done all of this in the wrong order. First we slept together, next we’re going for drinks – shouldn’t that be the other way round? What if he’s still scared? Maybe he was drunk last night and felt emboldened, or maybe he was just jealous … but now, in the harsh light of day, maybe he’s changed his mind again.

  ‘OK,’ I say, even though it isn’t OK at all.

  I give him my number and I suppose I’ll wait and see if he calls, but I won’t hold my breath. What can I even say to him now, that won’t scare him off or put him off?

  ‘Can’t wait,’ he says as I hand him back his phone. ‘So, we’ll see each other back in Manchester.’

  ‘We will,’ I reply.

  I’m not so sure now though.

  Chapter 37

  I’d like to say the drive home doesn’t feel as stressful as the drive here. I’d like to say I have different things playing on my mind. Neither of those things would be true though.

  Time is on my mind. How much of it I’ve had, how much of it I’ve got left, and how exactly I’m going to fill it.

  Everyone around me has grown up. Everyone but me.

  The wedding is over, and while everyone else is going back to their lives, I am going back to my … nothing. Sure, Tom has said that we’ll go for a drink. Can you think of a more underwhelming response to our situation? It’s not like I was expecting him to pop the question or anything, but simply saying ‘we should grab a drink sometime’ isn’t anything, is it? ‘We should grab a drink’ is what I would say to a friend I bumped into on the street, in an attempt to be polite whilst under no obligation to socialise with them.

  It only feels like a minute since my 21st birthday. Where has the time gone? When I was 21, I felt like I had my whole life ahead of me. Now that I’m 31, unmarried, childless, in a job with no prospects for progression, I feel like my whole life is behind me.

  My mum had kids when she was my age. Fi is my age and having a kid now. It probably won’t be long before Matt and Kat follow suit. I don’t want to be in a rush to have kids – I don’t even know if I want kids – but I’m being bombarded with information telling me that, as a woman in my thirties, my clock is ticking, and I’m slowly but surely becoming worthless. Bloody targeted marketing is supplying me with all the info I could possible need (that I really don’t need), being a woman closer to 35 than 25. I want to say that I have never felt so old and useless, but then I’m sure there are people in their eighties who would give anything to be in their thirties again … I’d just like to make a similar deal, but only to go back as far as uni. I feel like that’s where it all started going downhill for me. Regrettably, time travel isn’t a thing. We only lose time (by the second – ha), we never gain it.

  I’m never going to be younger than I am now … I need to stop wasting my time. Maybe Tom will call, maybe he’s just playing it cool. Or maybe he is panicking now, and has no intention of reaching out. Either way, I can’t put my happiness in his hands again. It didn’t work out for me last time, it won’t this time either.

  I’ve wound myself up now, and I absolutely hate driving when I’m stressed. It takes me from nought to Mad Max in a matter of minutes, and that’s not the best mood to be in when driving on the motorway. I eyeballed a sign for services not too long ago, probably best I pull over for a bit, go to the loo, maybe buy a drink and try to chill out.

  As I drive around the car park looking for a space, someone leaves a great space right by the entrance, just in time for me to pull in to it. It’s nice when stuff like that happens, isn’t it? On days like these last few days, when it feels like everything is going wrong, it’s nice to see a little glimmer of good luck.

  After a quick trip to the loos to run my wrists under the cold taps, I pop into Starbucks to grab myself an icy, fruity drink. I browse the weird and wonderful crap you can buy here on my way out – who goes to service stations to buy lawn ornaments or poop emoji cushions? With no need for either, I head back to my car.

  Slurping down my drink, I go to open my car door when I notice a note, held in place on my windscreen by one of my windscreen wipers.

  I frown as I remove it and read it to myself. Just when you think your day can’t get any worse … It says that someone has hit my car. The last thing I need is to get stuck here, or to have to fork out for repair work. I suppose I’m fortunate they left a note. Whoever assaulted my poor little Polo is inside the service station, sitting at a table by the big screen TV, waiting to swap insurance details with me. It’s annoying, but at least they’re doing the right thing.

  As I head back inside, I give my car a quick once-over. It’s strange though, I can’t see so much as a spec of damage – well, nothing that wasn’t already there when I parked at least. Still, I walk back inside and locate the big screen, keeping an eye out for someone who looks guilty, and that’s exactly what I find, except it’s a familiar looking face.

  ‘Erm … hi,’ I say, as a confused but delighted smile stretches across my face.

  ‘Hi,’ Tom replies. ‘I got you some nuggets.’

  I look down at the table he’s sitting at, to see nuggets, fries and drinks for two. I take a seat next to him.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I ask.

  ‘I was driving home and I thought I’d stop here for a bit,’ he says.

  ‘Same,’ I reply suspiciously.

  ‘I was on my way back to my car when I spotted your little red Polo, right outside the door. I recognised the T-Rex on the back,’ he says with a chuckle. ‘As soon as we said goodbye in Norwich, and I got in my car and drove away, my mind started racing, wondering: did I do the right thing? And, now that I think about it, I’m not sure I did.’

  ‘Oh?’ I say.

  ‘I didn’t want to scare you or seem too keen,’ he explains. ‘So, I left things more casual, but then as soon as I started thinking about it, I realised what a mistake I’d made. I shouldn’t be playing it cool, I should be making it as obvious as I possibly can.’

  ‘I have to admit, I did perceive your playing it cool as disinterest,’ I say.

  ‘And as soon as I left you, I realised that’s probably how it seemed.’

  ‘Listen, don’t beat yourself up,’ I say. ‘It’s easily done. We’ve spent ten years getting this stuff wrong.’

  ‘I know you hate the fate talk – I’m sorry, I know you do, and everyone keeps going on and on about it – but come on, what are the chances we’d run into each other here? We set off at different times, there are multiple routes we could’ve taken, multiple service stations we could have stopped at. But I was thinking about you, worrying that I’d blown it … and now, here you are.’

  ‘So you pretend to
bump my car?’ I chuckle.

  ‘I thought it might be cute, to leave you a note,’ he says. ‘Look on the other side of it.’

  I turn over the note to see that it’s on the back of a receipt for sweets.

  ‘Oh wow,’ I say. ‘You went all out.’

  ‘Not really,’ he admits. ‘I’d just bought some sweets. But doesn’t that lend to the fate theory too?’

  I roll my eyes, but a grin creeps its way across my face.

  ‘Tell me you weren’t driving along the motorway, cursing me for doing the wrong thing?’ he says.

  ‘Not cursing,’ I say. ‘Something similar maybe.’

  ‘I messed up,’ he admits. ‘So let me make this clear: I love you and I want to be with you. Immediately. No more crossed wires, no more waiting. Let’s go home and start our lives together straight away. That work for you?’

  ‘That works for me.’

  I have been waiting for a literal decade for him to say this to me. It might be late, but it feels like I’m finally getting what I need to be happy.

  Tom calling us ending up together fate isn’t annoying me as much anymore. The truth is that, we can all use the term fate, peddling whatever lines up with our own agendas. I think Tom, Alan and Pete all suggested that fate might be the reason our paths crossed at the wedding, but the real reason that happened is simple: we were all at the wedding. It can’t be everyone’s fate to bump into me, only one can be right.

  I don’t think it is the universe, littering my life with hints that Tom and I should be together. Instead, I think something different is going on. I honestly think it’s a combination of circumstance and coincidence that Tom and I reunited at the wedding, and that we’ve bumped into each other here now. It might not be a magical message from a greater power, but it does remind me of something: no matter why Tom and I have bumped into each other, we have. If we hadn’t, we wouldn’t be together. Things don’t happen for a reason, they happen purely by chance. I am lucky to have found my way back to Tom. I’m not going to rely on fate, to hopefully always keep us together, no matter what happens, I’m going to remind myself how fortunate I am to be with him, I’m going to love him forever, and I’m going to make sure that I never, ever let him go.

  Chapter 38

  Then – 1st August 2009

  ‘Family meeting,’ I hear Matt shout. ‘Family meeting everyone.’

  I’m currently in my bedroom, packing up my things, getting ready to move out today. I’m cutting it fine – of course I am – so I don’t really have time for a ‘family meeting’ … but I suppose, because we’re all moving out today, it might be nice.

  I fold the dress in my hands before placing it in a box and heading downstairs. When I get down there, everyone else has gathered in the living room.

  ‘OK,’ Matt starts. ‘I know we’ve all got a lot to do, but there’s one thing we haven’t figured out … who gets the TV.’

  The TV in the living room was all we could collectively afford when we moved in. We found a good deal on an already cheap TV and the six of us all put the same amount of money in for it. Now that it’s time to move out, we need to work out what to do with it.

  ‘Well, I’m happy with whatever,’ I say.

  ‘Same,’ Fifi replies.

  Now it’s just down to the boys to figure out who gets it. I lean forward, to stand up, head back upstairs and finish my packing, but a voice in my head tells me to stick around and mediate.

  ‘The place I’m moving to already has a TV,’ Ed says. ‘So I don’t want it.’

  ‘I guess I’ve got my big TV in my room,’ Matt adds. He recently bought himself a new TV to watch in the privacy of his bedroom, and I won’t miss the noise that came from it at night one bit. ‘So, yeah, I’m out.’

  That just leaves Zach and Clarky. They eyeball each other for a moment, waiting for the other to back down. Neither of them do.

  ‘Well, I think I can make a good case for why I should have it,’ Clarky announces.

  ‘The hell you can,’ Zach cackles.

  This isn’t going to be easy.

  ‘Well, you can’t share it,’ Matt points out. ‘You can’t cut it in half.’

  ‘I’d rather cut it in half that give it to Zach,’ Clarky says.

  I can’t help but roll my eyes.

  ‘Why doesn’t one of you buy the other one out?’ I suggest. ‘That’s kind of like splitting it.’

  ‘Because it’s old,’ Clarky tells me. ‘It’s not worth much now.’

  ‘If it’s old and worthless, why do you want it?’ Zach asks him with a grin.

  ‘Fine,’ Clarky says. ‘There’s only one way to settle this … we wrestle for it.’

  ‘Yes,’ Matt says, clapping his hands.

  ‘No,’ Fifi says just as quick.

  ‘Babe, it’s fine,’ Zach assures her. ‘He’s about as tall as one of my legs.’

  ‘Let’s do this,’ Clarky bellows.

  I sigh. Boys never cease to amaze me. I can’t believe they are going to wrestle for an old TV. Thankfully this is my last day here with them. I’ll never have to watch them fight again. I am almost entirely relieved but, if I’m being honest, there is a small part of me that is going to miss my weird little family.

  Fifi, Ed and I squash up on one sofa, lifting up our legs so that they don’t get in the way. Zach and Clarky square up to each other, with Matt standing between them, delighted to be given the job of refereeing.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen the following contest is scheduled for one fall,’ Matt announces in a faux American accent. ‘And it is for our crappy old TV. Introducing first, all the way from Glasgow, 6'1", weighing in at 195 lbs … Zach Anderson.’

  ‘Woo,’ Fifi cheers. At first, it seemed like she was dead against this fight, but now she seems more than happy to stand by her man.

  ‘Introducing the challenger, the Scouse Mouse himself, standing at 5'6" tall weighing in at 98 lbs soaking wet … Mark “Clarky” Clarkson.’

  ‘Whoop,’ Ed says unenthusiastically.

  Clarky bounces around on the spot. I’m no expert but doing that, with his fists in the air, seems more like boxing to me.

  ‘Nothing in the face,’ Zach adds, a little too late.

  Clarky reaches up to grab Zach’s head but can’t reach, so Zach gets him in a headlock. For a minute, the two of them just hold this position, Clarky trying to struggle free, Zach refusing to let him.

  This is honestly the worst excuse for a wrestling match I’ve ever seen, and I went through a WWF phase when I was 11. No one is doing anything, they’re just holding each other in a really awkward way.

  ‘Just let me pin you and it will be all over,’ Zach says.

  ‘Never,’ Clarky replies, his voice sounding all kinds of weird from his neck being squashed.

  ‘Do something,’ Matt yells passionately. ‘Come on.’

  Something does happen. I’m not sure what, but the two of them move all at once, crashing into Matt, before the three of them fall into the TV stand. The TV falls off and, on its way to the ground, the screen hits the corner of the big, black TV stand.

  ‘Well, that settles that,’ Ed laughs. ‘No one gets it, it’s knackered.’

  ‘It might still be OK,’ Clarky says rushing to his feet.

  ‘Maybe,’ Zach replies. ‘Either way, there’s no shame in losing.’

  ‘No, there’s no shame in losing at all.’

  Oh God, from the tone of their voices, it sounds like they both think they won.

  ‘I’ll still take it,’ Zach says. ‘Maybe it can be fixed.’

  ‘You won’t,’ Clarky tells him. ‘I won.’

  ‘No, you didn’t,’ Zach says. ‘I wiped you out, mate.’

  ‘No, I dragged you down.’

  Zach scoffs.

  They both turn to Matt, the referee, as he climbs up from the floor, rubbing his shoulder.

  ‘I have no idea,’ he says. ‘One minute nothing was happening, the next we were on the floor.’

&nbs
p; ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Fifi says. ‘Are we really arguing over who won a rubbish fight to win a broken TV?’

  ‘Yes,’ they both reply in unison.

  ‘We’ve got bigger problems,’ Ed points out. ‘Look.’

  He points at the TV stand. On the corner, where the TV hit, the black coating has chipped, revealing the wood colour underneath.

  ‘That came with the house,’ she says. ‘We won’t get our deposit back.’

  ‘Shit,’ Matt says. ‘He texted me earlier, said he’d be over this afternoon to inspect the place. He could be here any minute.’

  ‘Really?’ Clarky replies. ‘I was really hoping I’d be gone by the time he got here, my room is an absolute tip.’

  ‘You’re supposed to clean it,’ I tell him.

  ‘Alright, Mum,’ he laughs.

  ‘No, I mean you’re actually supposed to clean it, if you want your deposit back,’ I remind him.

  ‘It’s no big deal, the deposit wasn’t even that much. Plus, you still all owe me for your share,’ he replies.

  ‘Wait, do you think you paid all of our deposits?’ Fifi asks him.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Mate.’ Matt laughs. ‘That was just yours, and you won’t get it back unless you tidy your room.’

  ‘I think we’re all in trouble, unless we fix the TV stand,’ Fi points out.

  ‘I hope you two are happy,’ Ed ticks the boys off.

  They both sheepishly look at their shoes.

  ‘I have an idea,’ I say, before dashing up to my room, grabbing a black Sharpie marker from my desk and hurrying back.

  I dab the pen on the wood and, before you know it, you can only tell it’s damaged if you look really, really closely.

  ‘That one of your eyeliners?’ Clarky jokes.

  ‘Charming,’ I say. ‘I’m fixing your mistake, and that’s the thanks I get.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he says quietly.

  I smile. ‘And now, we need to fix your room.’

  ‘Really?’ he says, with a hopeful smile.

  ‘My God,’ Ed scoffs. ‘We have literally spent the whole year cleaning up after you.’