Love at Second Sight

by Cathy Hopkins

  ‘That’s if she even existed.’

  ‘Yeah but imagine it that the spirit looking through the eyes out of the photo is the same spirit that’s looking down through your eyes at it. Just different bodies in different times.’

  ‘Owen! That’s so creepy. Effy’s not the only one with a vivid imagination in your family.’

  Owen laughed. ‘Just speculating.’ He paused to looked at me. ‘I was only teasing before, you know, when I said I might have been Howard. Listen, Jo, you know that Effy’s like a dog with a bone when she gets into something. We’ve all seen it before. Let her do her thing and chew away until she gets bored. This will play itself out and she’ll move on to the next thing soon enough, but in the meantime, look at it as a bit of fun, otherwise you guys are going to end up arguing.’

  ‘I guess. We have both been winding each other up over it. She gets so mad that I won’t just accept the idea and I get mad with her for not questioning things more.’

  ‘The saying “What you resist, persists” was never truer than in Effy’s case.’

  I nodded. ‘Yeah.’ I knew my friend only too well. When she got into something, she tried to take us all with her, and if I was honest, her enthusiasm for life was one of the things I loved about her. Life was never dull around Effy, like the time she insisted I had a ritual to symbolise the end of my relationships with boys who were a waste of time. She told me to get a photo of all of them and we bUmt them. She put the photos in a pan which she placed on the coffee table at their house but the flames got out of hand and we almost set fire to the curtains. She likes a ritual, does Effy. She’d have made a good witch. Owen was probably right. The more I resisted, the more she’d press me. To go along with it was the best way to let her get it out of her system. ‘So do you believe in reincarnation?’

  Owen shrugged. ‘I don’t believe and I don’t not believe, if you know what I mean. I really don’t know. I guess the only way to know for certain is to die and find out, that’s if consciousness carries on in any way. I like the idea of rebirth though, you know, that the soul or spirit never dies and that we just cast off our bodies at the end of one life, like a set of clothing at the end of the day, then, just like we wear new clothes the next day, we pick up new bodies and carry on.’

  ‘Very deep, Owen.’

  He laughed. ‘That’s me. Deep.’

  I laughed too. Ahead of us Dave was strolling with his arm around Tash; Effy wasn’t far behind with her arm linked through Mark’s. As Owen and I sped up to catch them, I thought again about how well Owen and I got on. I felt like I could talk to him about anything and he just got me.

  A black Golf went past. I turned to look and saw Finn in the back seat; the two girls from the café were in the car too. Maybe I should reconsider Owen as boyfriend material, I thought. A boy like Finn would do my head in. He has so many girls after him, I’d always be watching my back and wondering if I could trust him. I can’t imagine having a proper conversation with him about something serious like I’ve just had with Owen, though maybe that’s not fair seeing as I’ve barely spoken to him at all. Anyway, it’s ridiculous to even think about it, Finn’s way out of my league. I made myself focus back on Owen. Just thinking about Finn filled me with a sharp pain. Owen, on the other hand, was comfortable, easy to talk to and always had something interesting to say.

  I thought about his idea of changing bodies being like changing clothes, that the body is a wrapping but not the real us. It made me remember how I’d felt when Dad died. Mum had taken me to see his body. I didn’t want to but she thought it would be good for me – a closure of sorts. It certainly took away any fantasies that he might walk back in the door. I turned to Owen. ‘When I saw my dad after he’d died, I remember saying to Mum, “Dad’s not here.” I don’t think she knew what I meant, but it was so clear to me that his body was like an empty shell. What made Dad Dad had gone. He’d gone and left his body behind, so yeah, I get what you were saying about the body not being the real person.’

  Owen took my hand as we walked on together in silence, both lost in our own thoughts. Even silence was easy with Owen.

  Chapter Six

  I arrived in the school library the next day to see Tash and Effy already hunched over the computer. We’d agreed to meet there during the lunch break to start researching Tash’s family tree.

  Tash’s face was flushed with excitement as I walked up to them. ‘Jo,’ she said. ‘We’ve found something.’

  ‘Great,’ I said. ‘On your mum or dad’s side?’

  ‘Not her parents. We’re looking for Henrietta,’ said Effy.

  ‘No way! You haven’t found her?’ They couldn’t have. She didn’t exist unless I’d been right and she was a relative of Betty’s.

  ‘Not exactly Henrietta, but we’ve made a start. We’ve found a family of Gleesons.’

  ‘But what about the family tree for your parents?’ I asked Tash.

  ‘This is way more exciting,’ said Tash. ‘Don’t you think?’

  I had to admit part of me was intrigued even if only to discover that Henrietta was Betty’s great-aunt or her great-aunt’s cleaner. There had to be a rational explanation. Besides, a family of Gleesons wasn’t exactly the same as finding Henrietta.

  I sat down beside them. ‘OK, show me what you’ve found.’

  ‘You have to pay for some of the sites, but we found one where we could make a start,’ said Effy. ‘It asked for a date of birth, which we obviously don’t have, so we typed in her name and London and just tried a few different dates. Can you remember anything else that Betty said?’

  I rolled my eyes up as if I was going into a trance and spoke in a low, deep voice. ‘Speak to me, Henrietta, speak to me from deep in my soul’

  Tash punched my arm. ‘This is serious!’

  ‘Shh,’ said Mrs Cole, the librarian, from behind her desk.

  I remembered Owen’s good advice from the day before. What you resist with Effy, persists. ‘Sorry,’ I whispered. ‘No, really, sorry. Show me what you’ve got.’

  Effy passed me a sheet of paper. ‘See, so far, we’ve found a Lucy Gleeson and a John, a Violet, Alice, Cecilia, Thomas, a whole family of Gleesons but they’re in Manchester and Ireland, not London.’

  I was about to say that didn’t prove anything, Gleeson is probably a common name, but I bit my tongue. The new me was going to play along if only for a peaceful life.

  ‘She could have been born there and moved,’ I said. ‘Chances are she relocated because work as a governess was probably scarce where she lived.’

  ‘Now you’re thinking,’ said Effy. ‘We just need to find a Henrietta. Do you think she changed her name?’

  I shook my head. ‘No. Why would she do that? Doubt it. Keep looking.’

  ‘Dave said he’d go online at his school if he gets any time too,’ said Tash. ‘And apparently his uncle is researching their family tree so has access to some of the ancestry sites you have to pay for. Dave’s asked him to help too.’

  There was no getting out of it. The two of them would enlist the help of the whole world if given half the chance.

  ‘I think we should try some more dates,’ suggested Tash. ‘I think that’s our best plan seeing as we don’t have an actual date of birth.’

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Let’s think rationally.’ Haha, I thought. Rationally. Here’s me researching a woman that I supposedly was in a past life. How rational is that? Not. ‘What do we know? We know that Henrietta was a governess, we can assume that she wasn’t that old because if Howard was the son of the doctor, he was probably a young man, he wasn’t going to fall for an old lady–’

  ‘Unless he had a mother complex,’ said Effy.

  I tried to keep a straight face. They were taking it so seriously. ‘Maybe, but let’s not go that route for now. Let’s assume she was in her early twenties. Betty said it was at the turn of the century, around nineteen hundred. So if Henrietta was in her twenties then she was probably born between . . . 1875 and 18
80?’

  ‘Brilliant,’ said Effy and went back to the screen.

  I went to another computer and used the time to look up my father and soon found him. A date of birth, a dash and a date of death. It made me so sad to think that’s all there was of him and nothing to tell of the full life he’d had in between the two dates. A whole life summed up with a dash.

  ‘Found anything?’ Effy called. I shook my head then googled images of Finn O’Brady. I needed cheering up after having found my dad online. When Effy glanced over at me, I quickly found an ancestry site. I thought I’d better co-operate in the search for the Gleesons if only to keep her off my case. I found a few in Liverpool. Annie. Emilia. Jim. Then went back to googling Finn O’Brady. That was much more fun.

  Half an hour later, Effy and Tash still hadn’t found a Henrietta. I didn’t think they would.

  As we left the library and got out into the corridor, we turned our mobiles on. A text came through for me from Owen. How goes the search?

  I texted back. So far, a dead end.

  He texted back. Haha.

  Tash had a text too. She looked up from her phone. ‘That was Dave to say that he hasn’t had any luck in his search either.’

  No surprise there, I thought. I tried my best not to say, told you so.

  ‘We need to find Betty again,’ said Effy. ‘We need more facts.’

  ‘But the fair was only on the Heath for the weekend,’ I said. ‘She’ll have gone.’

  ‘Yeah, but she mentioned to me that she has a stall at Camden Lock some weekends.’

  ‘Did she?’ I tried to look enthusiastic. Clearly Effy wasn’t going to give up that easily.

  Effy nodded. ‘We can go and look for her this Saturday and see if she can give us a few more details. In the meantime, maybe Dave’s uncle will find something. Apparently he’s a whiz at researching stuff on the Net.’

  Don’t hold your breath, I thought, but I didn’t object to the idea of a day out in Camden. It was always buzzing down there and there would be plenty of other stalls besides those of fortune-tellers with vivid imaginations.

  Chapter Seven

  ‘Not seen her this way for a long time,’ said a man on a vintage clothes stall. ‘Ronnie in the café reckons she’s gone back up north for the summer.’

  It was Saturday morning and, as I’d expected, Betty was nowhere to be found in Camden Lock, though Effy and I looked everywhere and asked a good number of stallholders.

  Great, I thought as I feigned disappointment. Maybe this thing is going to bUm out faster than I reckoned.

  We cruised some of the jewellery and clothes stalls at the Lock for a while, had an organic apple juice at a juice bar, then Effy went off to join Tash who’d gone to watch the boys playing football.

  ‘You coming?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m good here for a while, thanks. I might look around a bit longer then head home and work on school stuff,’ I replied. It was a warm day, good for browsing the open-air stalls, plus I wanted a bit of space away from coupledom and from the Henrietta stuff which seemed to be dominating every conversation.

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Anyway, Tash and I need to discuss your birthday plans.’

  It was a tradition with the three of us that we arranged something for each other’s birthdays – either a girlie sleepover, a few people over at one of our houses or an evening out for just three of us. We all put a lot into it when it was our turn to be the organisers and it was fun being surprised by whatever had been arranged. Last year, they made me a treasure trail of presents, all hidden in Effy’s back garden. The first ones were small, silly presents like my fave magazine, chewing gum, a heart chocolate, a miniature teddy bear, all leading to my main present which was a gorgeous collection of Bobbi Brown make-up. For Effy’s birthday, Tash and I arranged a day of beauty treatments. We started the day for her with a bubble bath with scented candles, then we did her nails before finishing with a visit from a proper beautician who gave her a facial. For Tash’s, we got tickets to see her favourite band, the Laddites, at Kentish Town. I couldn’t wait to see what they came up with for me this year.

  After Effy had gone, I cruised a few of the vintage stalls and bought a fab handbag, made from what appeared to be crocodile skin, for eight pounds. I didn’t want to go home yet so mooched around a few more lanes looking at the stalls. Everywhere I went, I noticed couples, hand in hand or just sitting chatting, laughing, having a good time. If not in couples, the other people my age were in groups. Friends hanging out, helping each other choose a top or a necklace or a nick-nack, just like Effy, Tash and I used to do before they went into their couple bubbles. I missed our girls only weekends.

  As I walked on, I became more aware that there were very few people my age on their own and I felt a pang of loneliness. Get over it, I told myself. I would certainly never begrudge Effy and Tash time with their boyfriends and usually I was quite happy with my own company – in fact, I like my space, it was just that lately I seemed to be having rather a lot of it. I looked at my watch. I could go home and catch up on homework, I thought, but it will be so quiet there. I decided to go and walk down by the canal instead. As I made my way through the jostling crowd, I glimpsed Ben the bass player from Finn’s band. He was coming towards me and appeared to be on his own. I waved but it was hard to tell whether he saw me or not because he was wearing shades. Either way, he didn’t respond. When he got closer, I made a point of acknowledging him. It wouldn’t hurt to be matey with a friend of Finn’s, I told myself.

  ‘Hey, Ben,’ I said.

  He stopped but didn’t say anything.

  ‘Hi,’ I said.

  He still didn’t say anything.

  ‘Quiet, mysterious type, are you?’ I asked and gave him a cheeky grin to show I was being friendly not critical.

  ‘Not really,’ he replied.

  ‘Ah, so you do speak?’

  ‘Course.’

  ‘I saw you play on the Heath the other Sunday,’ I said. ‘With Finn O’Brady.’

  ‘Oh yeah. Finn.’

  ‘So you on your own?’ I asked. I thought if he was, I might suggest we get a cappuccino. We could join the crowds of chatting teens plus it would be a great opportunity to find out more about Finn, maybe even his relationship status and how serious things were with the girl with auburn hair I’d seen him with on the Heath and in the café.

  ‘No, I’m here with Finn. He’s around here somewhere.’

  I tried to keep cool. ‘Somewhere around here as in at the Lock? Or north London? Or just on the planet?’

  He didn’t laugh at my attempt to be funny.

  This isn’t going well, I thought. Time to move on and maybe I’ll bump into Finn myself. ‘OK, well, nice talking to you.’

  ‘Right,’ said Ben, and with a brief nod he pushed on past me.

  I immediately thought of a nickname for him Scowler. I made my way down the left of the Lock and through a narrow passage lined with stalls selling posters, badges, lighters and joss sticks. There were loads of boys around looking at CDs and clothes. Any one of them could be Howard, I thought, and maybe we’re destined to keep missing each other: I turn right as he turns left or I walk past just as he turns to look in a window. How sad would that be? Whoa! Jo, watch yourself. You’re beginning to think like Effy. I’m supposed to be the one that doesn’t believe.

  I must have laughed aloud at my thoughts because a voice to my left said, ‘First sign of madness that.’

  I turned to find myself looking into Finn O’Brady’s dark eyes. ‘Oh! How did you get here?’

  Finn looked amused by my question. ‘Probably same way as you. Tube. Feet. So why were you laughing?’

  I blushed. I hate that I can’t stop it and it gives me away every time. ‘I was just thinking of something funny’

  ‘And what was that then?’ he asked as he fell in step beside me. ‘You going towards the canal?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Mind if I walk with you?’

  �
��No.’ I felt chuffed to be seen with him and could see a few girls turn their heads to look at him as we walked past.

  ‘Been shopping?’ he asked me.

  ‘A bit.’ I held up my new bag. ‘Just this.’

  ‘Nice. So just cruising round on your own then?’

  ‘Yes. No. Seen loads of people I know,’ I blustered. I didn’t want him to think I was a billy-no-mates loser with no-one to hang out with on a Saturday. ‘I saw your mate Ben and before that I was with my friend. We were, er . . . looking for someone.’

  ‘Someone? And who might that be?’

  ‘Just. . . someone.’

  ‘Ah. A mystery someone?’

  ‘Not exactly . . . well, sort of. Long story’

  ‘And is that what was funny?’

  I felt awkward. ‘Sort of.’ I was aware that I was giving him short answers and not being very interesting.

  ‘So share the joke. I could do with a laugh.’

  No way was I going to tell him the Henrietta story. He might think I was a nutter or claim to be Howard just to tease me, but he was looking at me expectantly. I had to say something. ‘I, er . . . that is . . . a friend of mine, Um. . .’ I wished my brain would get into gear. Why is it so easy to chat away with Owen but so hard with Finn? I asked myself. ‘Um, where to start? OK, it all began on the Heath last week–’

  Finn put his hand on his heart. ‘When you saw me? Everything changed?’ He grinned. ‘See, you were right – I am big-headed.’

  So he had heard what I’d said about him having a big ego in the café. ‘Before that. I . . . that is, a friend went to see the clairvoyant. . .’

  Finn’s eyes twinkled. ‘A friend.’

  ‘Yes. A friend. Effy – you met her in the café the other day? She dragged me along to see the clairvoyant too. Early birthday present.’