Come Again

by Robert Webb

  She put them on and looked out again at Benedict, revealed now in all its humdrum clarity. A male student out for an early morning run thumped along the walkway and averted his eyes with a tiny wave of apology as he went by. What had he seen? A middle-aged woman wearing amusingly oversized glasses? She looked down at her faded Ride t-shirt featuring the dude with cucumber slices for eyes and below that, the knees, shins and feet of a young woman.

  In fact, an eighteen-year-old. In fact, herself aged eighteen.

  She staggered back onto the bed and fought for breath.

  The giveaway was the nail polish. A shudderingly unwise ‘goodbye holiday’ that summer in Poole with Pete Lampton had left her with a tan but also her toenails painted turquoise. The nail polish had been one of many presents he had bought her that week when he had changed his mind about the mutual break-up.

  ‘Long-distance relationships can and do work, Kate!’ he had insisted. She had accepted his slightly annoying gift (she didn’t much care for either nail varnish or turquoise) but gently impressed upon him that the relationship was over.

  ‘Sometimes people just have to let go,’ she had said.

  The night before she took the train to the University of York for her first term, she had applied the nail varnish on a sentimental whim. It wasn’t just farewell to Pete but farewell to competitive sport. She wouldn’t be seen dead wearing cosmetics in a dojo or tournament. But now, having done ‘this karate thing’ properly, she was cautiously ready to attempt ‘this acting like a student but also a woman thing’ properly. The rules were considerably less clear. And she was rather behind with the skills too. After twenty minutes of making her feet look like they’d been stamped on, she asked her mother for advice. Madeleine was delighted. ‘Le moineau quitte le nid mais n’a pas de chaussures!’

  ‘I’ve got plenty of shoes, Mother. I just don’t know how to paint my fucking feet.’

  ‘Don’t spoil it, darling.’

  In her student room, Kate stared at her mother’s handiwork. She knew she had never worn turquoise nail varnish before or since. She knew she had cleaned it off today because she definitely wasn’t wearing it on the first night when she met …

  She looked up and took in the half-lit room. The walls with no posters. The shelves with no books. The open but unemptied suitcase. She had arrived late the previous night, taking out just her toothbrush, contact lens case and – she checked the bedside table. Yep, Orlando by Virginia Woolf. She had been reading it alone in the college bar when he first …

  No, it wasn’t that the laser eye treatment had stopped working. She just hadn’t had it yet. She was living in the past. This was Freshers’ Week, October 1992.

  This wasn’t Day 10,000. This was Day 1.

  She stood and had just enough time to take her glasses off before the floor leapt up and smacked her in the face.

  She woke with her mouth forming a single word. ‘Shit.’

  Someone was knocking at the door. Kate got to her feet. She grabbed her specs and checked for damage, putting them on and pulling her t-shirt down, hopping towards the door. The little spy-hole was still there, still set at the level for a bloke three inches taller. On tip-toe, she peered through.

  Oh God. The Australian second-year Christian doing the rounds and trying to swoop on homesick freshers. What was her name again? Kate opened the door a crack.

  ‘Hi there! Woo, late night, huh? You look frazzled! I’m Lauren! Welcome to Benedict!’

  Kate blinked at her. ‘Hello.’

  ‘HAHAHA! We’re all crazy at Benedict so you’ll fit right in.’ Lauren appeared to grasp that the girl just out of bed peering at her through eccentric specs wasn’t about to invite her into the room. She instantly recovered her joie de vivre and handed Kate a tiny slip of paper with some details printed on it. ‘So I’m just here to let you know about a cool tea party we’re having at four-thirty today for all the anonymous newbies? Meet people? Like-minded individuals? Maybe people you wouldn’t normally converse with? Maybe not! Hey, so … catch you there???’

  Kate took the roughly guillotined bit of paper. A Christian tea party. She slowly closed the door, saying, ‘Erm … I’m going to say … no?’

  She heard a mild huff of bewilderment on the other side of the door and some retreating flip-flops. Lauren, Kate remembered, had written a review of one of Kes’s plays in the student magazine, the piece being notable for its passive-aggressive homophobia and lack of commas. But she hadn’t known that last time. How had she treated the bubbly Christian Union rep twenty-eight years ago? She sat down with her back against the door, surveying her room in recollection.

  An interesting philosophical question invited itself and Kate chose to ponder it rather than screaming herself demented with mortal terror about what the ATOM-FUCKING-UNIVERSE was going on here??? Maybe she would do that later.

  What had she done last time, the first time? She had unpacked and put her contacts in. She had showered and dressed, and dithered over which Caravaggio print to put where. Yes, she had invited Lauren in with the heavy warning that she hadn’t had a chance to buy any tea. Lauren had yelled some annoying endearment about the English obsession with hot drinks and had then left her to it.

  The question was: had she just changed the course of history? Just now, she had been slightly rude to Lauren; certainly ruder than last time. Would that affect Lauren’s mood? Would it make her snappier with the other freshers? Or would she bond with them by making bitchy comments about the weird girl in room South 47? What would be the net effect on the Christian tea party attendance? Would people who had first met there now not meet? Or at least not meet in the way that led to that first date? Or maybe there was still a first date but under different circumstances: rain where there would have been sun; the try-hard business tie instead of the open-necked shirt; Howards End instead of Basic Instinct? And so no second date? No third? What marriage had she undone? What children unborn? And their children? The children who grew up to invent fusion power or perfect carbon capture. In short, had she just doomed planet Earth because she had foreknowledge that Lauren was a queer-loathing bellend?

  Come on, this was all very well but she had to be dreaming. Kate took her glasses off and slapped herself hard in the face. ‘Wake up,’ she said out loud. The sound of her own voice threatened another wave of panic: it was half an octave too high and a stranger to herself as well as, clearly, tobacco. She hadn’t really started smoking till the end of this year, when everyone was doing weed after preliminary exams. She said, experimentally, ‘This is me talking.’ And then a weird falsetto: ‘This is me talking.’ And then as low as possible: ‘This is me talking.’ Outside, a neighbour across the hall slammed their door and departed with a jangle of keys. ‘Okay,’ she whispered, ‘maybe stop sounding like a mad person.’

  She got up and glanced at the door to the bathroom. That would be a challenge in itself. A mirror. Her younger self. Would she have a heart attack?

  Well, no, probably not, she reasoned. It was a young, healthy heart and could take almost anything. Physically at least. But her emotional heart was much older – as old as she believed herself to be. How had she remembered everything? The memories in her brain were forty-five years old. That brain was part of her body and subject to change. But the body had reverted to youth and the brain had stayed the same. That was impossible. It was a dream. She took off her glasses again and administered an even harsher slap.

  Noop. Still here. She replaced the glasses and got to her feet. Her fingers hovered over the light switch on the little bathroom’s exterior wall. Best foot forward, Katie, she thought and then instantly retracted her hand.

  Her dad was alive. Not just Luke but Dad.

  Somewhere in this building, Luke was putting up his Kurt Cobain poster or maybe setting out to Discount Apparel to buy that grandad shirt. And somewhere back in Deptford, her dad was doing a Saturday morning shift and politely torturing passengers with his informed guesses about their football team’s
chances this afternoon.

  Kate’s hand returned to the switch. Right. Courage. One thing at a time. Whatever she did next she needed to put her contacts in, have a wash and get dressed. She flicked the switch and heard the familiar noise of the fan wobbling into life. She stepped inside.

  And there she was. ‘Oh,’ she said softly. ‘Oh, my word.’

  Apart from the flush on her right cheek from all the self-slapping, her skin was absurdly clear. Golden and still slightly freckled from the summer. Her cheekbones seemed oddly pronounced, as if she’d had surgery.

  No, this is what the surgery tries to reclaim. I’m not vain and ridiculous. I’m just healthy. I’m just young. This is not to be confused with beauty. Nothing is going on here.

  Her dark hair meandered down to the bottom of her ears – unbrushed and unbothered. She took her glasses off and peered closer. Her eyes were the same grey-blue … but the whites! The whites of her eyes could blind a Californian. On an impulse, she lifted the left sleeve of her t-shirt. Her BCG scar! The pale circle from her teenage injection was more pronounced among the youthful muscle of her shoulder. She had only recently stopped training.

  What else? This body was strange to her but also home – scarily out of time but right now her only friend. What else, though? What else?

  Showered and fizzing with curiosity, Kate hurried from the bathroom in a towel and closed the curtains again. What next?

  Gleefully, she dropped the towel and set about the almost effortless business of twenty press-ups. She sprang to her feet, shrieking with delight, and performed a nude star-jump. ‘Oww!’

  Okay – don’t try that again without a bra. You’re eighteen, not Silicon Woman.

  She clapped her hands and laughed like a super-villain. This body! For a second she wanted to run around the college, banging on doors and yelling – ‘You’re beautiful! You’re all so beautiful! You’ve no idea how fucking ALIVE you are! I don’t care if you haven’t been training like a karate maniac for years – you’re still IN YOUR PRIME! Chuck the books in the bin and go for a run! Or just bonk each other! Is “bonk” still the right word? Or was that the eighties? All right, “romp”. Everybody romp immediately! I’m ordering you! Take it from me because I’m the …’

  She sank down on the carpet, catching her breath and slowly crossing her legs. She said faintly, ‘Because I’m The Girl from the Future.’

  She pressed her thumbs into the arches of her feet, massaging thoughtfully.

  Luke.

  What the hell was she supposed to do about Luke?

  Kate felt suddenly unprepared and stupidly naked. She scrambled over to her open suitcase and fished out some underwear. She shuffled herself into the most comfy knickers she could find and grabbed a bra. The geography of this body presented a few unexpected curves and angles but it was joyfully familiar in this alarming world. She peered into the retro treasure-trove of her clothes. ‘I suppose all treasure-troves are retro,’ she said, getting more used to her new voice. Her old voice. Her young voice. Yes, this was going to be complicated. She needed her diary. No laptop.

  The notebook diary. Made of paper. Yes, obviously. Oh God. First, get dressed.

  Her green corduroy mini-skirt: ‘Oh, you’ve got to be joking,’ said Kate. Why had she even packed it?

  What had she actually worn on that first day? Indeed, that first night? Well, the denim pinafore dress and the massive boots, of course. Did it matter? Did she have to be wearing the same thing? Because – she permitted the question that was both absurd and inescapable …

  She wasn’t seriously going to try and have sex with Luke tonight, was she?

  Right?

  Just … really?

  No. No, that would be too much.

  Kate wanted to stay in her body and do more jumping around. But there was too much to think about.

  Doesn’t matter for now.

  She dressed and then looked across to another bag, her rucksack. The one that contained her diary. She took it to her student desk.

  I will do everything exactly the same. Completely the same. Except this time, I will save Luke.

  Kate replaced the red cap of her Berol rollerball and twizzled it in her fingers as she used to. She compared what she had just written to the entry above it – the one she had written yesterday – the yesterday that was twenty-eight years ago. It was the same pen, but her handwriting had since become scrappy and oversized. She didn’t even write shopping lists by hand any more. She half-expected her wrist to hurt from even these seventeen words. But of course not – this hand and its muscles understood pens. This was the hand that could toss off a three-hour A-level exam, as well as Pete when he was drunk. But her mind insisted that she was forty-five and that fluent handwriting was a lost skill.

  She re-read the previous entry.

  Holy shit then, off we go! One hour till the 18:54 to York. Dad is so much more nervous than me, the daft bugger. About to cab me to King’s Cross, like I haven’t got the bus into town a million times. Darling Mother more concerned that I’m abandoning her. High opera, mainly in French. Oh, and she couldn’t help another Oxford dig. ‘I’m sure York will be wonderful in its own unchallenging sort of way. What a pity. What a pity.’ BITCH! I never told either of them the truth about what happened at that interview – that I rejected them. Sort of. Anyway, ’nuff said and best foot forward and other fascinating clichés.

  What will it be like? Who’ma’gonna meet? Shall I tell them about school? Or about the silver medal? Fuck it, let the chips fall as they may. Let’s just go for it. Tall, dark, handsome stranger? Or maybe some lady-action? Everyone except Pete thinks I’m a lesbian in denial so I might as well. This nail varnish still stinks. Whada mistaka damaka. Ooh, Dad yelling from downstairs about the traffic – must dash. Find out tomorrow in The Continuing Adventures of Ms KJ Marsden and Her Totally Doomed Quest for Normality.

  Okay, so I’m chirpy, thought Kate. I’m chirpy and optimistic. I’m eighteen and full of fucking hope. That’s not easy to fake but worth a try. On the other hand, I still love both my parents but find one of them a reliable pain in the arse. That’s a bit more familiar. Plus ça change … Right.

  She popped the lid off her pen and continued with the new entry.

  I don’t know what has happened or why I’m here. God or aliens or glitch in the universe or a very deep coma. That last one is the most likely but wtf because I’d only had half a bottle of wine, a brisk walk and a nice lunch. Obviously I was also suicidal and paranoid about dear Charles sending heavies to beat me up and in terrible grief and had just insulted and then ejected a very good friend from the house so … yes, definitely quite stressed. But this? This is just unreasonable.

  Anyway. Look. I’m here. Completely and undeniably here.

  She paused and inspected the underside of her left forearm – while she was in the shower she had scored it with the rough plastic corner of her contact lens case, trying to inflict as much pain as she dared in order to snap out of the dream/coma. Carefully avoiding veins, she had dragged three livid parallel scratches. No, she had not woken up. No, she hadn’t really expected to.

  She wrote on.

  And there must be a reason. For now I’ve decided that the reason is to save Luke. The meningioma is already there. I’ve got to convince him that he has a tumour growing in his head which is going to kill him. But without sounding like I’m a mentalist. That, to put it mildly, won’t be easy. Let’s just get this straight – from his point of view, we’ve never met. We are complete strangers. He doesn’t know he’s my husband. And he is not forty-seven, he is nineteen.

  Kate dropped the pen on the desk and stared ahead into the empty corkboard on the opposite wall. This was crazy. This was mission triple impossible. She felt the room beginning to throb. Was she going to faint again? She breathed. Let it come, then. Let it come. She waited.

  She refocused her eyes and found some courage. She took up her pen.

  If anyone can do this, it’s me. I have
these fucking ‘gifts’ which everyone goes on about. They annoy people but I’m better at hiding them now. Definitely. I know things that they don’t. I always did, but now – well, now I know even more. Must be careful with that. But the ace in the hole is that I love Luke. That must help.

  She stopped again. Was that really an advantage? If she was going to save his life, did it help that she loved him? Or would that get in the way? She shook the thought from her head, looking for other advantages. There was one which she would have been too shy to write when she was eighteen. In fact, when she was eighteen, she didn’t even know.

  And by the way, I’m beautiful. That should help.

  She stared at that first sentence. Had she really just written that down? Her dad had always said so, but that’s just what dads say. Pete had said so, but that’s what boyfriends say. Her mother had provided a lifetime’s rolling commentary of veiled slights or compliments in search of a subject: ‘It’s wonderful when young women these days can actually dress in a way that’s actually feminine.’ Or, ‘You’ve nothing to worry about, darling. Yes, men go on looks – your father certainly did – but I know you’ll make the best of yourself, despite those muscles.’ And the returning, ‘Remember that your strangeness doesn’t make you beautiful. But you are to me, however you look.’

  Luke had called her gorgeous on a daily, then weekly, then monthly basis for twenty-eight years. She didn’t believe a word of it. She was quite sure that he fancied her, but that was different.

  But just now, in the bathroom, she had gazed at her face with all the compassion and judgement of an older self. In fact, older Kate felt an overwhelming need to give the lovely kid in the mirror something she had always wanted. She picked up the pen.

  This girl has a proper mother now. This girl is going to be looked after. And so is Luke.