by Fiona Harper
I know that. I’d watched, stood by helpless, as I’d seen him rob her of it bit by bit, unable to do anything but be a listening ear until she was ready to leave him and move on. I thought she’d done just that. I thought she’d bounced back.
I suck air in through my nostrils then puff it back out again. ‘OK. I’ll go.’
Becca lets out a huge sigh of relief and that’s when I realise this is what the constant badgering for me to go has been about all along. I feel awful I didn’t realise that before.
‘That’s it, then,’ she says, draining her glass. ‘It’s decided.’
When we’ve polished the rest of the bottle off, we book a cab to take me home and then drop Becca at the station and I give her an extra big hug.
‘Love you,’ she says and hugs me before I scramble out the car.
‘Love you too,’ I reply huskily, and then I close the door and watch the mini-cab drive away.
When I get back inside the hall light is still off. I dump my handbag on top of the shoe tidy and trudge upstairs, then I get into my pyjamas, slide between the cold sheets and try not to wonder why my husband isn’t home yet.
Dan and I don’t talk about it when we get up the next morning. I remember waking at 11.30pm and the bed was still empty, then again at 2am and he was there.
We waltz around each other in a practised dance as we have our breakfast – me passing him a knife from the drawer before he asks, him handing me the milk out the fridge so I can splash some in my tea. It’s odd that we know each other’s movements so well we can do this without thinking, while another part of me is wondering if I’ve ever known him at all.
We don’t talk about it in the evening either. Instead, we watch The One Show. When it’s finished Dan turns over to BBC Two. He doesn’t look at me, doesn’t ask if I mind, so I have to sit in silence and try to be interested in cacti for the next hour. By the time the credits roll, I never want to see another of the spiky little suckers in the whole of my life. ‘That’s an hour I’ll never get back,’ I mutter.
Dan clicks the TV off and turns his head to look at me. ‘If you didn’t want to watch it, you could have said.’
‘You could have asked. Once upon a time, you would have. Not just assumed. Not just taken it for granted.’
He frowns. ‘Bloody hell, Maggie. I told you I would have turned over.’
I shake my head. He just doesn’t get it. ‘You never think about what makes me happy any more.’
Dan lets out an incredulous laugh. ‘How did we get from a stupid TV programme to this?’
I exhale and look away. Oh, for a man you didn’t have to explain everything to with brightly coloured flash cards! We’ve been together for close to twenty-five years. He should know me by now. Suddenly, I’m very angry that he doesn’t.
That was the unspoken promise on our wedding day, I’d thought. That we’d grow old together, mesh our souls so tightly that we’d finish each other’s sentences, share that weird kind of telepathy I’d seen between my grandparents before they’d died. But Dan has never once completed a sentence of mine, and I seem to have to explain myself to him more than ever nowadays.
You were supposed to at least try, I wail inside my head. That was the deal.
I will him to understand me, but after looking at me for a few seconds, he huffs, picks up his half-empty mug and leaves the room. I slump down on my end of the sofa and cross my arms. Part of me hasn’t got the energy to knock this into his thick skull; the other half wants to follow him and pick a fight.
I collect my mug, swill down the last of my cold decaf and head for the kitchen, where I let him know, at volume, just where he can put his effing muddy shoes.
CHAPTER SIX
1992
I stare at my face in the bathroom mirror. The young me. The wrong me.
‘Maggie!’ Becca calls again. ‘Are you there?’
I hear her walking into the kitchen, looking for me, probably. If I remember rightly, she has some juicy gossip to deliver about her night with Stevo Watts and she won’t want to wait. I screw my face up and close my eyes. No. That’s wrong. How can this be? How can I be here, now, and still … remembering. It’s not possible.
I turn the tap on and splash the cold water on my face, hoping it’ll wake me up, but all it does is cause freezing droplets to run down my neck. I shiver.
What do I do? This can’t be real. Can it?
‘Margaret Alison Greene!’ Becca yells, doing a passable imitation of my mother when she’s in a snit. It’s not quite perfect, though, because I can hear a smile in her voice. My bedroom door squeaks as she continues her sweep of the flat. I realise I can’t stay here in the bathroom, hiding. Eventually she’s going to find me.
‘Maggie?’ she calls and this time the smile is gone. Her footsteps get faster.
Don’t think about it, I tell myself. There’ll be time for answers later.
I nod at my reflection and notice that the young girl looks tense and serious, much more like the woman I’m used to seeing in the mirror, then I dry my face, take a deep breath and walk out into the hallway. I find Becca in the kitchen, making herself a cup of tea.
‘There you are!’ she says, grinning at me. ‘I was starting to think you’d been abducted by aliens!’
I just nod. I can’t seem to find my voice.
It was weird enough seeing Young Me in the mirror, but seeing Young Becca is even more surreal. I’m caught in the grip of déjà vu so strong that it makes my stomach roll.
‘God, are you alright? You look like you’re about to faint. Bad night, huh?’ She puts a hand on my shoulder then gives me a cheeky look. ‘Or should I say a really good one?’
‘Something like that …’ I manage to croak.
‘Well, whatever your night of debauchery was like, I doubt it could be as bad as mine!’
Wanna bet? I think.
She turns to grab two mugs off the wooden tree near the kettle. ‘I’ll tell you all about it, but after I’ve done this. I’m gasping for a cuppa!’
I watch her in silence as she begins to make the tea. Her hair is still a mousy colour with a hint of honey that I remember, the colour it was before she discovered highlights and started covering up the premature grey. That’s not the only difference to the Becca I know in my real life. I’d thought present-day Becca glowed? Not compared to this. There’s a sense of energy and bounce to this Becca – resilience – that’s been eroded from my best friend of twenty-plus years. All the scars, all the knocks in her confidence from her crappy marriage and her horrible divorce, are gone and they’re all the more glaring for their absence.
A rush of love for her hits me, for the friend she once was and for the survivor she will become. I launch myself at her and hug her hard.
‘Hey!’ she says, as she drops the teaspoon she’s holding. It bounces on the Formica counter, but she giggles and hugs me back.
‘I’ve missed you,’ I say into her hair.
‘Daft mare,’ she mutters. ‘I was only gone for one night!’ She pulls away, shakes her head affectionately, finishes making the tea and hands me one. I keep expecting senses in this dream … this whatever it is … to be dulled, muffled, so the heat of the cheap ceramic mug against my fingers shocks me.
Becca traipses into the living room, where she collapses onto the end of the velour sofa, tucking her legs up underneath her. I follow suit, taking up my spot on the opposite end. ‘So … how was it? How was he?’ I ask, wondering if I’m a good enough actress to pull off being shocked and outraged when she tells me. I remember the details of this little escapade all too well.
Becca looks at me over the rim of her mug. ‘Disappointing.’
‘He was no good?’
‘Never got that far,’ Becca says darkly. ‘His mate Dave was throwing a party so we ended up at his flat. Ten minutes after we arrived, I went in search of a drink and when I’d got back Stevo had disappeared.’
‘No!’ I say with my best attempt at disbelief. Becca
seems to buy it, but probably because she’s so wrapped up in retelling her tale she hasn’t noticed my lousy performance. ‘Where did he go?’
‘He skipped off to one of the bedrooms with Adrienne Palmer, that’s where! All those years dreaming he was the perfect guy, and thinking, if only he’d notice me my life would be sorted!’
I don’t remember much about Stevo Watts, but I do remember that as a third-year student, he’d had a reputation for prowling round the freshers. ‘Fresh meat’, I’d heard he’d called them.
I realise my best friend’s strategy with men hasn’t changed much: she finds the most good-looking, alpha jerks to swoon over, is completely bowled over if they notice her and then falls at their feet and does anything they want. That’s how she’d ended up with the horrible ex. I’ve been crossing my fingers hard that the lovely new man back in our real life is going to break that pattern.
‘You need someone who loves you for you, not just because you’re their devoted follower,’ I tell her. ‘Someone who is ready to do as much for you as you are for them.’ I have no idea if she’ll listen to me, or if she’ll even remember this next time she spies one of her ‘guys’, but at least I’ve got to try.
‘I know.’ She sighs. ‘I wish I could find someone like Dan – faithful, capable of a proper relationship. Not a total turd, in other words.’
I hold my tongue. University Dan might fit that description, but present-day Dan might be giving it a run for its money.
‘That man is gold dust, Maggie. You’re just lucky you nabbed him before anyone else did!’ she adds, laughing.
I ignore the comment and lean forward. I’ve been guilty of taking present-day Becca for granted, not looking hard enough, so now I study her counterpart. ‘Are you OK? Really?’
She sighs again. ‘Yeah. Nothing much damaged but my pride.’
‘Hey, why don’t I treat you to breakfast? To cheer you up?’
Becca grins. ‘At Al’s?’
I stand up. ‘Where else?’
How could I have forgotten Al’s Cafe? He served the best greasy fry-ups in south-west London. There’s no Starbucks, no Costa, here and now, I remind myself. No organic cafes where you can get porridge and compote or chia-seed smoothies. If you want to go out for breakfast, a full English or a bacon buttie it is.
Before I head off to my bedroom I run my fingers through my fringe. ‘Don’t suppose you’ve got any spare hair grips, have you?’
‘What on earth for?’
I flatten the short hair of my fringe to the side of my head. ‘I want to pin this back.’
Becca just laughs at me as she fetches a couple of grips she’d left on the bookshelf. ‘You only had it cut like that on Saturday! Honestly, Mags, one of these days you’re going to have to make your mind up and decide what you really want – none of this flip-flopping between different options until the rest of us want to smack you senseless.’
I smile at her, but I take the grips from her open hand. ‘Thanks. I’ll be back in two secs …’
CHAPTER SEVEN
I look down with glee at my two sausages, bacon, beans, and eggs with bursting yellow yolks. It’s been almost twenty-five years since I’ve had one of Al’s breakfasts and I can’t wait. I take a bite of the bacon, a bit with crinkly brown edges, close my eyes and let out a moan of satisfaction.
‘Steady on,’ Becca says, with a mouthful of egg, from across the table. ‘I don’t want you going all Meg Ryan on me!’
‘It’s a distinct possibility,’ I mumble as I shove another mouthful in. ‘Oh, my … It’s every bit as good as I remember.’
Becca frowns. ‘We were only in here on Wednesday!’
I shake my head. ‘I really shouldn’t eat so much junk.’
‘We’re young. What else are we going to do?’
I chuckle, because I realise she’s right – I’m young again. No more boring forty-something life! No more ties and responsibilities! I’m free. I’ve got at least another ten years before my metabolism slows and I have to start worrying about piling on the pounds.
The thought floats through my mind quite benignly, but then it slams against a brick wall and I go cold all over. What am I talking about? This isn’t real. I’m not staying. I don’t even want to start thinking like that in case I jinx it and don’t wake up.
Oh, God. Maybe that’s it. Maybe I’m in a coma! And this is just my subconscious having a field day while my family stand around my hospital bed and cry.
‘Dodgy sausage?’ Becca asks, seeing the look on my face.
I shake my head, but I don’t explain.
‘So what’s the plan for today?’ she asks.
I pause. Maybe I am in a coma or having a psychotic break, but I look outside the cafe window, where the sun is shining, announcing the promise of an empty, unspoilt day; I feel Al’s breakfast warming my belly, and I can’t quite bring myself to believe it. It all seems so real.
Isn’t this what I wanted? To wind back the years? I have no idea how long it’s going to last, when I might wake up with a tube down my throat or wearing a fetching white jacket with straps and buckles, so I might as well make the most of it.
‘We probably should be revising,’ I say. Finals start next week. I know that much.
Becca makes a face and I laugh. Usually, I’m the sensible one and she’s the one who’s the bad influence, but today I sense we’re going to have something of a role reversal. I’m not going to waste this glorious day stuck indoors bent over a textbook.
‘I think we ought to start with shopping,’ I say. ‘Serious shopping.’
Her eyes twinkle. ‘Kingston?’ she asks hopefully.
I shake my head. ‘Oxford Street.’
The twinkle in Becca’s eyes reaches her mouth and she grins at me.
‘And after that, whatever we want to do, whatever takes our fancy. As long as it’s fun!’
‘Good plan,’ she says, then snaps to attention and does a Benny Hill backwards salute at me. ‘Reporting for Maggie and Becca’s Day of Fun!’
I smack her hand away from her head and laugh. ‘Shut up.’
‘Oops, don’t look now.’ She nods to something outside the window. ‘Here comes lover boy … Just don’t you go changing all our perfect plans on me now he’s arrived.’
I turn and a jolt of electricity first stops then restarts my heart.
‘Dan …’ I whisper.
‘Oh, God,’ Becca mutters. ‘I think I’m gonna puke.’
I can’t take my eyes off him as he walks past the plate-glass window at the front of the cafe, grinning because he’s spotted us, and then opens the door and walks in. He leans down to kiss me softly, lingering in a way he hasn’t done in years, then sits down beside Becca so he can keep looking at me. My heart is going again, but it hasn’t yet resumed a normal rhythm.
I am honestly struck dumb in his presence, part of me shocked at how young, how good-looking, how energetic this version of Dan seems to be, and part of me wanting to reach across the table and slap him hard for making me feel this way when Future Dan is quite possibly having it away with Miss Perky Gym Teacher.
Becca finishes her breakfast as mine goes cold on the plate in front of me, then she pushes back her chair and gives the pair of us an indulgent look. ‘Right, I’m clearing off back to the flat to leave you two alone for a bit.’ She turns a sharp eye on me. ‘But I’m meeting you there after lunch to go shopping – don’t blow me out!’
Things don’t get any better when it’s just me and Dan left alone at the table. He reaches over, takes my hand in his, then turns it over and gently kisses the back of it. I stare at him.
‘What?’ he says, grinning at me. ‘Can’t a guy get a little romantic now and then? I thought you girls liked that stuff.’
I nod. Again. And then tears fill my eyes and start to spill over my lashes. Dan immediately jumps up and comes round to my side of the table to put his arm round me. He perches on the edge of the adjacent chair and takes my hands in his, his face
full of concern. ‘Maggie? What is it? Tell me?’
I shake my head and swallow. I can’t tell him. But this just makes me cry all the harder.
I hate this dream. I want it to stop. I want to wake up. Now.
I squeeze my eyes shut and will it to happen, but I know it hasn’t worked, because I can still feel Dan’s fingers wrapped around mine, hear his soft breath as he waits for me to tell him what’s wrong.
But how do I tell him I’m crying because I know one day he will stop looking at me this way? That one day he will stop thinking I’m creative and wonderful and clever, and not very long after that so will I?
I haul in a breath and open my eyes. He’s looking at me as if he would gladly rip his heart out of his chest and give it to me if it would make me feel better. It almost starts me off again, but I manage to hold back.
‘I’m just being silly …’ Just for a moment I let myself forget I’m supposed to be feeling angry and wronged and heartbroken because of him. I reach out and trace my fingertips across the fine blond stubble on his cheek – he’s a bit lazy about shaving, is Dan, especially in his early twenties, when he doesn’t think the grey patches make him look old and grizzled before his time. ‘It’s just …’ My throat closes again and I have to swallow a lump down to continue. ‘It’s just that I really love you.’
The temporary dam on the tears gives up and they start to flow again as Dan takes my face in his hands and kisses me so sweetly that the heart I’ve hardened against him begins to soften. Tiny painful splits appear, like those in a dry lip that’s been stretched too far.
‘That’s nothing to cry about,’ he whispers as he pulls back and smiles at me.
I nod but the tears don’t stop, even though I’m doing everything I can to make them. It is, I whisper silently inside my head. Because right at this moment, I know I’m telling the truth.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Becca and I do indeed go shopping. We wander round the giant Top Shop in Oxford Circus for at least an hour. I have no idea how much I have in my student bank account and I really don’t care. I usually hate clothes shopping in my real life, but I have ten hangers full of cool stuff in my changing cubicle and I can’t stop smiling.