The Other Us

by Fiona Harper

  Once inside, I slide the bolt across quietly so Dan doesn’t hear me, and then I sit down on the closed toilet lid and rest my head in my hands. I can hear him moving around in the room, turning down the bed, maybe, and it only makes my stomach twinge harder.

  After a couple of minutes, though, I realise I can’t just sit here. What am I going to do? Lock myself in the bathroom for the entirety of my wedding night? So I stand up, place my holdall on the closed toilet and carefully unzip it. The first thing I pull out is a white satin nightdress, ankle-length but with pretty spaghetti straps and lace at the top. I swallow, and my stomach plummets again.

  I turn away from the mirror and strip off, refusing to look at myself as I put it on. My pulse is racing and I feel sick. I rummage in my holdall for my wash bag. There’s something about brushing my teeth that always seems to settle my stomach. I don’t know why. And I suppose minty-fresh breath isn’t a bad idea considering what’s coming next.

  When I’ve rinsed out the last of the toothpaste, I move my bag and sit down on the toilet again. My heart is trying to escape my ribcage, like a bird desperately throwing itself against a window. This is ridiculous. I’ve done this hundreds of time with this man in the last quarter of a century. Why am I so scared? I should be able to check out emotionally and do it on automatic. That’s certainly how I’d approached the whole issue of sex back in my ‘real’ life for the last few years.

  I breathe slowly for a minute or so, trying to stop my head churning, and, as I start to calm down, images of Jude as I last saw him float through my mind.

  Jude. My chest squeezes tight. He’s the love of my life, I think. The kind of love people sing about in songs. The kind I’ve always hoped was real but was scared was just a fantasy. How can I let anyone else touch me the way he’s touched me? It seems wrong.

  Even though everything is back-to-front and it’s Dan’s ring on my finger and not Jude’s and it feels like being unfaithful, it’s not just that. I don’t want to dilute what I’ve got with Jude. If he’s really the love of my life it should be impossible to feel something for anybody else, shouldn’t it? I shouldn’t feel this pull towards the man on the other side of the locked bathroom door.

  My thoughts are disturbed by a gentle knocking. ‘Maggie? Are you almost finished?’ I’m glad he doesn’t try the handle.

  ‘Why?’ I snap back, and my voice bounces off the tiled walls. ‘Do you need a wee?’

  There’s a pause, as if he’s taken aback by my rather unromantic comment. ‘No,’ he says softly. ‘It’s just … You know what? Never mind.’ And I hear him walk away from the door. I can picture the look of confusion on his face as he tries to work out if he’s just imagining the bite in my tone, which he isn’t, but what bride starts sniping at her beloved groom on their wedding night? I can tell he’s convincing himself he heard it wrong.

  I feel a pang of sympathy for him and that just makes me angry. I turn and glower at myself in the mirror. I don’t want to care about how Dan is feeling. I don’t want to feel anything for him at all. I close my eyes and wish with everything I’ve got that I’ll just ‘jump’ again, that I’ll open my eyes and I’ll be standing in the flat I share with Jude in SE13, but it doesn’t work. When I open my eyes I’m still staring at the champagne-coloured corner bath, complete with Jacuzzi, that fills half the tiny room.

  I move around then, turning taps on, zipping and unzipping my make-up bag loudly. I even flush the toilet. Anything to explain why I’m stuck frozen in here like a zombie while my expectant groom paces around outside. Eventually, I run out of audible excuses and I just go still. I walk over to the bathroom door and place a palm on it.

  Dan surprises me by trying the handle and I jump backwards. ‘Maggie?’ He tries again, just to check, and I know he must be wondering why his new wife has barricaded herself on the other side of the door. ‘Are you OK? Is everything alright?’

  No, I want to shout back, everything is not alright! And flipping well stop being so understanding! It’s making it very hard to keep pretending you’re a cardboard cut-out in this little scene, a two-dimensional prop with no feelings.

  I turn and lean against the bathroom door, glad for its solid bulk, and then my knees soften and I start to slide, my back in contact with the wood, until my bottom hits the black-and-white-tiled floor.

  I hear another noise, a shuffling, and I realise that Dan is on the other side, just as close as I am, and that he’s sitting down too. How he knows I ended up on the down here and matched his pose to mine is a mystery to me.

  ‘It’s OK,’ he says, and I hear his voice drift through the old-fashioned keyhole, twisting its way round through the levers and mortices. ‘I’m nervous too.’ He’s filling in the blanks I’ve left with my inability to explain, I realise, and he’s doing a pretty good job of it.

  I hear him haul in a deep breath, as if he’s just made a big decision, and then he continues. ‘We don’t have to do anything tonight if you don’t want to. We can just kiss. Or cuddle.’

  He pauses and I’m overtaken by the idea of just cuddling. It shocks me how much I want that.

  His voice is quieter when he speaks again, but less hesitant. ‘We’ve got a whole lifetime. There’s no need to rush.’

  A tear escapes from beneath my lashes, one I didn’t even know was brewing. I know how much he’s been looking forward to this. I know how much I was first time around, even if it did turn out to be slightly disastrous and we’d ended up in hysterical laughter before trying again. It hadn’t seemed to matter, though. Dan was right. We knew it was just the start of a journey we were taking together and by the end of our honeymoon we’d certainly worked out a good number of the kinks.

  I close my eyes. It would be so much easier if I was just flipping from life to life without having lived one of them first. I might be able to switch off at this point if that was the case, but despite the state of our marriage in the future, I’ve loved this man for more than two decades. I can’t seem to forget that, not when he’s being so thoughtful and understanding of my needs. Not when he’s being the Dan I’ve always wanted him to be.

  The truth is I’m here in this moment and I don’t know when I’ll jump back and be with Jude. Maybe it’ll never happen again. And what am I going to do if it doesn’t? Cross my legs for the next twenty-five years? Invent a headache every night until Dan becomes convinced I’ve got a brain tumour and takes me to see a specialist?

  I stand up slowly and face the door. My fingers hover over the tiny brass bolt but I don’t draw it back because Dan starts to talk again. He sounds weary. ‘Talk to me? Open the door? We can sort this out together.’

  More tears fall, but I’m frozen, unable to move.

  ‘I know it was my idea to wait, and maybe that was stupid, because now it’s become this huge thing, but I can’t help believing what I believe. I don’t know what the problem is, not if you won’t talk to me. If anything, I should be the one locked in the bathroom, because at least you’ve done this before …’

  I open my mouth to object but he carries on before I find the words.

  ‘But I don’t care about that, Maggie. I don’t care if you’re my first but I’m not yours. All I care about is here and now, and making sure you’re OK, because I love you.’

  My fingers, which have been sitting loosely on the little knob screwed into the door bolt, now grip it more tightly.

  ‘And I know you have trouble opening up to people, that you’re scared people will disappoint you or let you down, but I promise I won’t. That was what today was all about, wasn’t it? Promising we’ll always take care of each other, no matter what. And I promise I’ll always do that for you, Maggie. I really promise.’

  My nose is running now. What a beautiful, glowing bride I must look! But I never knew he understood those things about me. I pull back the bolt and open the door. I don’t even care that Future Dan will break every one of these promises, because here and now I know he means them with all his heart.

>   Dan scrambles to his feet and looks at me, searching my face for an answer. I don’t have one to give him, not verbally, anyway.

  ‘I know I’m the luckiest idiot alive,’ he says, looking very earnest. ‘I know you’re too good for me, but I’ll spend every day of my life …’ He breaks off, unable to say any more.

  I step forward and press the tips of my fingers to his lips as I shake my head. I remember what Becca said in that other reality, the one where I broke Dan’s heart, about thinking I was better than him. ‘No,’ I say, ‘that’s not true.’ Because I don’t know if I’ve ever been as selfless with Dan as he’s being with me right now.

  He takes my hand and kisses it. There’s a chain reaction of tiny fireworks up my arm. Dan’s gaze drifts downwards to what I’m wearing and he smiles softly. ‘You look beautiful.’ I can’t help blushing, smiling back. And then we’re kissing and it all feels so right, so natural.

  It goes better this time than it did on our first wedding night, probably because one of us knows just what works between us, there’s more give and take and I’m braver; I say what I want.

  Afterwards, I curl into him and close my eyes. His warmth is familiar and comforting. Just as I’m drifting off to sleep, Dan murmurs, ‘And to think I almost lost you, that you almost didn’t become Mrs Lewis.’

  My eyes open. ‘What do you mean? I said “yes” straight away, didn’t I?’

  Dan nuzzles into me. ‘Classic Maggie … always rewriting history from your own perspective.’ He doesn’t sound annoyed, though. Just indulgent. ‘Do you really not remember you strung it out for almost a week? I never said this at the time, but at one point I was really scared you were going to break it all off.’

  I turn and prop myself up on one elbow so I can see his face, see whether he’s joking, even though every bit of knowledge I have about this man tells me he isn’t. He cranks one eye open.

  ‘What are you looking at?’ He waves a hand, indicating his naked body. ‘Can’t believe you almost turned this down, huh?’

  I laugh, punch him softly in the chest, then lie back down again. ‘Bighead.’

  I can hear his breathing becoming more even as I lie there, warm and comfortable, staring at the jacquard canopy over the bed.

  I haven’t considered this. I thought this reality was a carbon copy of the one I’d left behind, but it must be a new version. In this one I didn’t accept Dan’s proposal straight away, but I obviously did accept it in the end. Was it still Jude that made me wobble? And if it was, why didn’t I choose him again?

  I lie there, running the bits of the life I can remember as a slideshow in my head. Because of all my jumping around the memories don’t bleed into each other as they would have done if time had marched steadily on, instead each is its own little nugget, complete but separate from those around it. I thread these moments together, like beads on a string, piecing together the history of this version of my life. As I add the memory of the night Dan proposed and then the one of the morning after something occurs to me. Dan is seventy-five per cent asleep now, but I speak anyway: ‘Where did you go that night?’

  The night he lied about the next morning.

  He doesn’t move, but I’m painfully aware he’s now fully awake. ‘I went for a walk to clear my head,’ he says lightly.

  And just like that, the intimacy that’s gently woven itself around us as we’ve been loving and laughing and talking hardens into a spiny, brittle thing. I feel like pushing my way out of the bed, getting away from this feeling that, once again, his niceness has lulled me into a false sense of security and that I should have been more watchful, more wary. I don’t move and I deliberately control my voice. ‘You told me you went out with Rick.’

  His breathing becomes more shallow and he runs his hand through his hair.

  Busted, I think, and I wait.

  ‘You’ll laugh if I tell you,’ he finally says.

  That was not what I’d been expecting him to say. I roll over and turn to face him. Even though it’s dark, I need to be able to see what I can of his expression. I know I can catch the lie if I’m looking for it. It was only because I’d stopped watching, stopped caring, that I missed in the future.

  ‘You can tell me,’ I say, mimicking the same open tone he used on me earlier. I’m lying, though, because I will not accept any answer he gives me, the way he was ready to accept mine.

  This is different, though. I don’t want to hear about a horrible mistake because he was upset, a drunken shag in the back of Rick’s borrowed-for-the-purpose Mini. Because when those words fall out of his mouth it will make everything that has happened this evening a lie.

  ‘You promise you won’t laugh?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, entirely confident I won’t find whatever he has to say the tiniest bit funny.

  He moves to lie on his back so he doesn’t have to look me in the face. ‘I wrote a song.’

  I blink. And then I blink again. It’s so not what I’m expecting him to say that I let out a small giggle.

  I see his brow lower as he glares at the canopy of the four-poster. ‘You promised you wouldn’t laugh.’

  ‘I’m not … I’m not … at least, not like that. You just took me by surprise.’

  He drags his arm from underneath my neck and puts both hands behind his head. No part of us is touching the other any more.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say and I reach out to lay my hand on his bare chest. ‘You wrote a song? What about?’

  He grunts. ‘About that night. About the possibility of losing you. I do that sometimes … It helps.’

  Much to my utter astonishment, I know he’s telling the truth. Dan has always been one to internalise his emotions. I just didn’t know he ever needed, or indeed had found, an outlet. ‘Will you sing it to me? Just a bit?’

  His frown deepens.

  ‘What? It all worked out in the end, didn’t it? Don’t be embarrassed.’

  Because that’s exactly how he looks right now: embarrassed. And the feeling only gets stronger as he clears his throat. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  He stops looking at the canopy and turns his head just a little bit more away from me so I can’t see his eyes. ‘Because it was more of a poem than an actual song.’

  ‘A poem?’ I want to laugh again, but I don’t know why. It’s not funny but sweet. And surprising.

  Dan keeps staring upwards. ‘Yeah.’

  I literally don’t know what to say to that for a good minute or so. I can’t quite marry up the idea of good old dependable Dan, who likes a pint of proper ale and pottering about in the garden, with someone who writes poetry. I don’t know why I’m so surprised. He did end up as an English teacher, after all.

  ‘Can you tell me a bit?’

  He sighs. ‘Not sure I can remember it properly now …’

  Yes, he can, I think. He just doesn’t want to say the words out loud, and it’s OK because I understand that.

  ‘I can show it to you when we get home, though.’

  ‘Really? You don’t mind?’

  He waits a moment before he answers. ‘We should share everything, shouldn’t we? Not keep things hidden away.’

  ‘We should,’ I say as I lie down again and place my head on his chest. But we failed to do that last time. Quite spectacularly. And I’m just not sure, despite all our good intentions, we’ll succeed this time either.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  ‘Come on, slowcoach! We’re almost there!’

  I hear Dan’s voice above me on the trail and I can tell he’s smiling, possibly even laughing, at me. I’m doubled over with my hands on my bent knees, hauling in oxygen as fast as my lungs will allow. My calf muscles are awash with lactic acid. I’m supposed to be young again. Why the heck am I so unfit?

  ‘Sadist!’ I try to yell but only manage to puff before I straighten and start walking again. Gentle stroll, the lady in the B&B said. She probably thinks Ben Nevis is a minor pimple too.

  We’re in Scotl
and on our honeymoon. Nothing as fancy as a holiday to Spain or Greece for these two cash-strapped newly-weds. We spent all our money on the wedding and we’ve both still got overdrafts in our student bank accounts. However, my mum and dad chipped in to help us with a week in the Highlands. Last time it was Wales.

  We’ve been in Inveraray for three days, and this is the first that’s been drizzle-free enough to attempt a walk up to Dun na Cuaiche, which sits on the so-called ‘hill’ above the town. Dan’s been eyeing up the small, square watchtower ever since we got here and as soon as the sun came out this morning he pounced on his chance.

  The last section is a steep and windy path and I’m puffing and red-faced by the time I reach level ground. Dan doesn’t let me look at the view, but pulls my baseball cap down over my eyes and leads me silently towards the rough stone folly, giving me a leg up to get into the high entrance and almost causing me to land flat on my face in the process. When we’ve stopped laughing and he’s finished dusting me off, he positions me just where he wants me, at one of the tall stone arches, then he lifts my hat up and lets me see.

  ‘Wow!’

  ‘I know,’ Dan says, his voice close to my right ear. Below us Loch Fyne lays stretched out like a long sheet of brushed steel, curling round the rocky headland where the town sits. Inveraray looks even more neat and orderly up here than it does from the ground, with its uniform white buildings and their stark, black windows. The castle sits majestic in its gardens, its four conical turrets making the whole scene look like something from a fairy tale.

  ‘Told you it would be worth it.’

  Without taking my eyes off the view, I reach back to punch him with a loose fist and I’m rewarded with an ear-tingling kiss on the side of my neck. It’s the most natural thing in the world to turn and kiss him back.

  We’ve been married for almost a week now. I was dreading this at first – being on my own with Dan for a fortnight – but I’m actually rather enjoying myself. I’m discovering that being with him is easy. Our relationship is new and clean, unpolluted by the million little disappointments of our future life. I don’t love him the way I love Jude, but I had forgotten we could be friends. Friends with benefits, it seems, lots of enthusiastic newly-wed benefits.