by Helen Fisher
‘What’s the bottom line?’ I said.
‘Bottom line: you can’t change what’s happened, because it’s already happened. You wouldn’t be able to go back and kill your parents before they had you, because you exist. Simple.’
‘So the fact that I grew up with that pair of metal roller skates…’ I said.
‘Happened precisely because you went back in time and gave yourself those roller skates. It’s basically a self-fulfilling time-travel theory where anything you do to try to change the past ultimately only causes the events that happened, meaning that time travel can never change the future, or the present.’
We watched a couple of online videos about wormholes and travelling faster than the speed of light, and pretty soon my mind was swimming. I couldn’t take any more and I told Louis so.
‘Come on, I’ll call you a taxi,’ he said, switching the computer off and pushing back his chair. I left the study, but waited for him outside the door so he could lead the way down the stairs, and cringed as he stubbed a toe on the chair I’d been sitting in; I hadn’t moved it back to its original position.
‘Fuck!’ he said.
‘Sorry, Louis,’ I said, and winced.
‘That’s why the place is so fucking tidy,’ he said, replacing the chair.
As we went down the stairs, I remembered something. ‘What’s the opposite of “reckless”, do you know?’ I said.
‘Reckful,’ he said, without missing a beat.
‘How do you know that?’ I said, impressed.
‘Scrabble,’ he said. And while I thought about how it must surely be impossible for him to play it, he tutted and said, ‘You know there’s Braille Scrabble, right? You work at bloody RNIB, woman.’
‘Do you have a board?’ I said.
‘Yeah, you want a game sometime?’
‘Yeah, but you’d thrash me,’ I said.
‘Ya think?’ he said, with a touch of sarcasm that bordered on rude.
‘What are you doing tomorrow?’ he asked, as we stood in the hallway. ‘You’ve got tomorrow off, haven’t you?’
‘Uh huh,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure what I’m doing yet, maybe potter, think about my dual life. Maybe I should start writing a journal about it, make sure I remember all those details and everything my mother said to me. Yeah, I think I’ll do that.’
Louis rang a cab firm while I shrugged back into my cardigan and put my shoes on.
‘That’s not what you’re doing,’ he said. ‘Not tomorrow.’
‘Go on then, Einstein, what am I doing? Playing Scrabble?’
‘We,’ he said, ‘are going to get that proof I want. Not that I don’t believe you, honey, because I do. We’re going to see Elizabeth Keel, and we’re going to get your engagement ring back.’
‘Funny,’ I said. ‘I came here to ask you to do just that.’
19
Going home in the cab, the world outside the windows that flashed before my eyes went unnoticed, as another world played in front of my mind’s eye. I replayed my time with my mother in her garden, and her holding my face in her hands; I could hear the thrum of little Faye’s roller skates and the rhythmic sound blended with the sound of the car’s wheels on the road, and I must have nodded off, waking as the taxi drew to a stop in front of my house.
I wanted to talk to Eddie and the girls; I needed them to ground me. My heart ached, and I didn’t know if it was because I had been away from them longer than they had been away from me, or because they couldn’t join me in this lonely journey into the past that I was making, but I needed them so much that it felt entirely physical. My heart was hurting.
There is something about the way the ringtone sounds when you call another country that makes me feel like I’m calling another planet, and when Eddie answered the phone I felt like he’d died and gone to heaven, and I was able to speak to him anyway. He said hello, and my voice shook as I answered.
‘Hi,’ I said.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, my single syllable giving me away.
‘I hate it when you’re so far away from me,’ I said. ‘I’m just missing you.’ I was whisper-crying.
‘We talked yesterday, you seemed fine,’ he said. There was worry in his voice.
‘I am fine, I just wish you were here, that’s all,’ I said, wiping my nose on my sleeve and sniffing unattractively.
‘Have you had a drink?’ I could hear his sympathetic smile down the line.
‘Yes, detective, I had a couple of beers with Louis,’ I said, managing a smile myself now. ‘But it’s not that, I just wanted to hear your voice. I miss you.’
‘Don’t worry, you and me, we’re like John Donne’s pair of compasses: when one of us needs to leave for a while, the other stands firm in place, we never really let go of each other.’
‘Compasses?’ I said (although I do know what they are).
‘Yes, remember at school those metal things with a nasty point on one of the arms; you stick that bit in the page, and then you can draw a perfect circle with the other arm.’
‘I know, but you mean there’s a poem about it?’
‘Yes, John Donne. It’s called A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning. I’m looking at the spine of one of his poetry books in a bookcase as we speak; Mum’s a fan.’
‘Forbidding Mourning. I like the sound of that. Will you read it to me?’ I said quietly.
‘You won’t like it, it’s got a lot of doths in it, and that kind of thing.’
‘Read it to me,’ I said again, ignoring his sarcastic and absolutely accurate knowledge of my likes and dislikes.
‘Okay,’ he said, and I heard him move about and rustle some pages as he got the book from the shelf and found the right page. ‘I’m not reading the whole thing,’ he said. ‘But here goes…
If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the other do.
And though it in the center sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.
Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th’ other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.’
He stopped and there was silence down the line, I listened to his breath. ‘Read it again,’ I said. ‘Slowly this time.’ He did, and when he’d finished there was more silence on the line, filled with love.
‘I’m proud of you, Faye,’ Eddie said, after a while.
‘Are you?’ I said.
‘Yes, for not laughing at the words erect and firmness. Well done.’
‘It wasn’t easy, but sometimes I can be very mature,’ I said. ‘There was also the word stiff,’ I said, grinning and tasting my own tears.
‘You like the poem?’
‘I do,’ I said, and with those words, like a trigger, our wedding day popped into my head, then time rewound from that image to another, and I saw Eddie on one knee, proposing to me. I looked down at where my missing ring should be, and felt a hot rush of fear.
‘I like the idea that when I need to leave you, you are there at home, a steady presence, waiting for me to come back,’ Eddie said.
‘Like a good little woman?’
‘No, you know I don’t mean that.’
‘What happens when we’re both roaming about and there’s no one at home to come back to?’ I asked, feeling tearful again.
‘What are you talking about? What does that mean?’
‘Nothing,’ I said.
‘What do you mean by “we’re both roaming about”?’ Eddie said, sounding a little darker now.
‘I didn’t mean that, I just meant, oh I don’t know what I meant. I just want you home, okay?’ I said.
‘All right, look, I’m just in France, you’re at home, we’ll be back soon.’ He hesitated. ‘Or s
hould we come back early?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m fine, really, it’s just the beer talking, and I’m being stupid. I can’t wait to see you all.’
‘I love you. I’ll see you soon. And, Faye, please keep yourself safe; I need you. Let’s speak earlier tomorrow, before the girls go to bed.’
* * *
In the night I woke from dreams of my mother; in one, I was a child, and we were holding hands, spinning in the garden. ‘There’s only you and me,’ she said. ‘Think about who needs who more.’ I jolted awake, sweating. I needed my mother but, more importantly perhaps, she needed me. I had been a happy child, and she was torn away from me, unfair on both of us. I thought of Eddie, Esther and Evie, and in my muffled mind’s eye I saw them holding hands and spinning, while I stood outside the ring. They had each other, they had Eddie’s parents, and our friends. Maybe I was more useful in the past, taking up the slack, making up the numbers.
At some point, I fell asleep again, and slept deeply, dreamlessly. The next morning, surprisingly, I felt better.
* * *
I got a cab back to Louis’ the next morning about eight. Finding Elizabeth Keel meant getting my ring back, and I wouldn’t feel right until it was back on my hand. Perhaps even more importantly I wanted to convince Louis about my story, help him believe. If we couldn’t find Elizabeth, or if she’d died, then I guess – though he might not say it – that would add to the list of evidence that suggested this was all a part of my imagination. Then there was the worry that she might deny me or not remember me; I couldn’t know what to expect.
The town where I grew up is about an hour’s easy drive north, up the motorway from London. I hadn’t been there for a couple of years but, like a lot of English towns, it had expanded and improved and had an infrastructure that spread continuously and gradually outwards like a piece of butter melting in the sun. I hoped the shop, Serendipity, was still there. Elizabeth Keel would be in her mid-fifties now, and I think she had been working in the shop when I went in with the girls the last time we visited. I was increasingly nervous. What if I couldn’t get my ring back? How would I explain that to Eddie?
We parked and found a place for coffee and breakfast. The waitress asked me what Louis wanted, instead of asking him directly, and she did it repeatedly, even though I kept throwing the ball back in his court. He was seething, but I managed to distract him.
‘I hope the shop’s still there,’ I said.
‘You could have googled it,’ he said.
‘I’m not sure they’d be online.’
‘Everything’s online,’ he said, sharply. ‘Is there a fucking sweetener on this table?’ He patted about, looking for some. I put one in his hand. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Sorry. That fucking waitress.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘She thinks she’s being kind, but it’s just patronising.’
‘I was only going to have some toast, but she’s annoyed me so much I’m going for a full English,’ he said. ‘I blame condescending do-gooders for my waistline.’
Actually, I was glad to spend some time having a proper breakfast; it was a delay tactic. I wasn’t in a hurry to go to the shop, in fact I felt a bit sick at the thought of what might happen. I know it’s all real, what’s happening to me: the time travel, the conversations with my mother, it’s real. But I’ll tell you what it’s like: it’s like being accused of a crime, and being offered a lie-detector test. If you’re guilty, you might as well take it, because it’s going to be wrong sometimes, and you might get lucky. But if you’re innocent, and you get unlucky, you’re screwed. No one’s ever going to believe you then. Elizabeth Keel was my lie-detector test. If we couldn’t find her, or the shop, or if she didn’t know what the hell I was talking about when I asked for my ring back, what would that mean?
I still had to accept that I might be insane.
It wasn’t just Louis that was in need of a little proof. I think I needed it too, something concrete that reassured me: you’re not crazy.
* * *
The route we took to get to Serendipity meant that I saw the shopfront face-on, because it was situated opposite a little passageway that led from the huge new library. The cut-through was new, because the library had been built since I was last here, on a site that would have previously been obscured by the row of little buildings that were across the street from Serendipity. As fortune would have it, my shop, the one I was interested in, had been built on the untouched side of the road, otherwise, who knew what I would have done.
I stopped when I saw it. In the past, I had always arrived at it from the side, the contents of the windows being the first thing to catch my eye. But from this angle I could see it in a new way: the place was laid out before me like an image on a postcard, and I was struck by the large, cursive and colourful name of the shop. There was something about the frontage that made me think of gypsy caravans and underneath, in smaller, curly painted letters, were words I had never even noticed before.
‘Huh…’
‘What?’ Louis said; he was holding my elbow and simply waited while I stood there.
I pulled Louis to one side so we could stand in the shade instead of sweating in the sun. ‘It says, “Serendipity, the discovery of things you were not in quest of…” ’
‘Quaint,’ said Louis, and I checked his expression for sarcasm, but found sincerity. ‘It’s still here then. Is it open?’
At that moment I saw a woman open the door to the shop, and the little bell rang like a talisman from the past. She held the door with her hand high up the doorframe as her son walked out under her arm, looking at the contents of the bag he was holding.
‘Yes,’ I said, but I didn’t move.
‘Let’s just go inside and see what happens,’ Louis said, kindly. He must have known how nervous I was. ‘We don’t actually have to talk to anyone, or do anything.’ As we crossed the road my legs felt like lead, just like they do when I dream I’m running away from something but can’t move properly.
The tinkle of the bell and the coolness of the inside of the shop were identical to when I was here the other day, thirty years ago. The layout was different, and of course the contents were more up to date, although there were some very traditional little trinkets that were hard not to touch. Louis squeezed my elbow tight, and drew closer, keen not to knock anything.
‘How many people are in here?’ he whispered.
‘Uh, there’s us,’ I said, and leaned around to see into another aisle. ‘There’s a woman looking around, and someone working the till.’
‘Who’s at the till? Is it her?’
‘No, too young, and it’s a guy,’ I said, just as the man looked over at us and smiled. ‘It’s her son, Adam,’ I whispered to Louis.
‘Can I help you?’ Adam said.
‘Just browsing, thanks,’ I said, looking pointedly at what was on the shelf in front of me.
‘Ask him if Elizabeth is here,’ Louis whispered too loudly.
‘I thought you said we could come in and do nothing,’ I whispered back, irritably.
‘Yeah, well, I say a lot of things.’
I looked over at the guy again, and smiled; he smiled and frowned back at me. ‘Are you sure I can’t help?’ he said, pleasantly.
I walked over to him, taking Louis with me. ‘Well, actually, I was hoping to speak to Mrs Keel,’ I said.
‘Which Mrs Keel?’
‘Elizabeth?’ I said, as though I wasn’t sure if she actually existed.
‘She’s gone out to get some shopping, but she’s coming back.’ He lifted the phone as he spoke, and said to me, ‘I’ll let her know someone’s here to see her; who shall I say it is?’
‘My name’s Faye, I think she might have something of mine.’ He dialled a number and smiled up at me and Louis as he waited for the phone to be answered, but just then the door opened, the bell rang again and the sound of a ringing mobile phone entered the shop. I turned to see Elizabeth Keel, with a bag of shopping in each hand, fumbling
to get her phone out of a handbag, trying not to drop anything.
The young man clicked the phone back into place and shot from behind the counter to take the bags from her. ‘It’s me calling you,’ he said, as her phone stopped ringing, and he kissed her on the cheek. ‘I thought you were just going to get a couple of things? You’ve got like a week’s shop here.’
‘This is not a week’s shop, darling, but I did get more than I intended,’ she said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. She had smiled at us briefly, but otherwise ignored Louis and me. The man took the shopping, deposited it out the back and then quickly reappeared.
‘Mum, this lady says she wants to talk to you, says you have something of hers?’ He said this, looking at me, as if to check he’d got it right, and I nodded at them both. Elizabeth Keel’s smiling face welcomed me. She was perhaps a stone heavier than when I saw her a few days ago, and more buxom. She had lines around her eyes, and her jawline looked a little slacker; she was clearly thirty years older but, I would say, apart from those minor things, she was exactly the same. The biggest difference was that although she had seemed perfectly nice when I met her as a young woman, she had definitely carried a touch of cynicism back then, was less trusting. Now her face was wide open; the face of someone who only expected good things.
Louis elbowed me gently.
‘Hi,’ I said. ‘I gave you something a long time ago; you said you’d look after it. I was hoping you still had it.’ I grimaced at how cryptic I’d made myself sound.
Elizabeth frowned, and tilted her head, still smiling. ‘Really?’ she said. ‘What was it?’
I felt sick. She didn’t know what I was talking about. Louis bent his head roughly to my ear. ‘I think you need to be more specific,’ he said, in another embarrassing stage whisper. I smiled apologetically at Elizabeth for Louis’ indiscretion, but it wasn’t really an apology.