The Other Us

by Fiona Harper

  There’s a flicker of warmth, interest, in her eyes, but her jaw remains tense.

  ‘Come on, Becs, you can tell me …’

  Her eyes start to fill and that’s when my stomach goes cold. ‘You didn’t see Grant, did you?’

  She shakes her head violently. ‘Oh, God, no! Of course not!’

  ‘Then what?’ I ask, leaning forward, lowering my voice.

  She takes a glug of her Diet Coke and looks at me. ‘I don’t know if I’m ready to say anything yet. You don’t know what it’s like, Maggie, having something so huge you can’t tell anyone, even if you want to. It’s … paralysing.’

  Wanna bet? I think, but I just smile and nod as if I agree. This is not the time, if there ever will be a right time.

  ‘I’m just worried about you,’ I say.

  Becca nods to herself then looks me in the eye. ‘OK,’ she says. ‘The truth is …’ the pause is so long I think she’s going to chicken out, but eventually, she says, ‘… I went to an AA meeting.’

  I put my wine glass down and stare at her. ‘AA? But you’re not … I mean, I know you – ’ I screw up my face. ‘Really?’

  She begins to eat again, and in between mouthfuls she fills me in on the story. ‘I know I’ve been known to misbehave on a night out, but I never really worried about it. I mean, loads of people do that … But it’s when I started misbehaving on nights in that it got to be a problem.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean sitting there on my own, polishing off a bottle of wine.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Every night?’

  She nods.

  ‘And when did it start?’

  ‘I did it sometimes when I was with Grant, when he was away for the night, but it’s really since I got rid of him that it’s become more of a … thing.’

  ‘You really think you have a problem?’

  She breathes in deeply. ‘I think I might have the start of a problem. If I’m honest with myself, it’s not just having a little tipple. I’ve got to the point where I’m worried I need it.’ Her mouth quivers. ‘I’m glad Grant is out of my life, but that doesn’t mean I’m not lonely … I just want to address it now before it does become something big, before it gets really out of hand.’

  I feel a rush of love for my best friend. ‘I think you’re really brave,’ I tell her. I stand up, go over to her, kneel down beside her chair and give her a hug. I feel her exhale, relax into me. ‘I’m here for you. Whatever you need, whenever you need it. That’s what friends are for.’

  ‘Get up, you daft mare!’ she says, pulling away and wiping the tears from under her eyes with her fingertips. ‘People are starting to stare!’

  I know she’s not bothered, really. Not by what other people think, anyway, but I also understand this has been enough for her, that it’s time to steer the conversation onto something else and save the rest for another day.

  ‘Now,’ she says, as I get up and plant my backside down on my chair. ‘Your turn. So what’s all this about James Bond?’

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  To my surprise, I trundle on in this life. Days turn into weeks, but I don’t mind. I’m happy. I’m just waiting for this train to finally lumber to a halt.

  That’s not to say that Dan and I don’t have our odd tiff or that everything is butterflies and rainbows, but that’s not real life, is it? This is real life. This is real love, I realise. Different from what I have with Jude, but real all the same. It’s grown-up. It’s not the first flush of romance, and it doesn’t pretend to be; it’s seen too much for that. Too many mistakes, too many angry moments, too many betrayals. But that hasn’t stopped it.

  Dan is writing. A lot. He squirrels himself away in his study like he used to, but this time I don’t mind, because when he comes down again he looks alive, and this release of creative energy is doing wonders for our relationship. Now that he’s finally let it off the leash, it’s leaking into other areas of his life. One day I find a bunch of flowers picked from the garden waiting for me on the kitchen table, another a trail of notes – a treasure hunt – leading me to my wardrobe, where my favourite dress is hanging, along with a note that he’s asked Gwen to babysit and that I should get dressed up and meet him at the Italian in town.

  It’s these little things that keep us going, remind us we’re on the same team, when the inevitable squabbles happen.

  One night, after a particularly long writing session, Dan appears at the bedroom door. I’ve just tucked myself into bed with my latest paperback for company. ‘Fancy reading something else?’ he asks, looking more than a tad nervous and then I see the ream of printed sheets in his hands.

  This is it, I think. The full stop in this life. I’ve had a feeling it has something to do with Dan’s writing, that when he reaches a certain milestone and his future is set on a different path, it will be the trigger I need to send me leaping back home.

  I hold out my hands for the manuscript and receive it eagerly.

  Dan has indeed written a story aimed at younger readers, but this one is different to the one he described over the meal in my dining room back in Notting Hill. I’d guess it’s aimed at slightly older kids, maybe early teens, and it’s not about time travelling friends. It’s about a lone boy, who has somehow fractured into three versions of himself. He has to chase himself through a dystopian world, trying to catch and eliminate the other two splinters before they get to him first and take over his life. The clever bit is that, at different times, the story is told by all three boys and it becomes harder and harder to know which one you should root for. It’s gritty, exciting and gut-wrenching. When I look up again, the clock says it’s past one.

  Dan is dozing in the armchair on the opposite side of the room. I didn’t even notice him sit down there. ‘Hey,’ I call softly, and he stirs. Then his brain moves into gear, realises what this signals and he sits bolt upright.

  ‘Hey,’ he says back. He doesn’t ask the question that’s burning on his lips.

  ‘Oh, Dan …’ I say, and I can’t keep the smile off my face. ‘It’s brilliant! The most imaginative thing I’ve read in ages! I think you need to send it out to a publisher. Now.’

  Dan is grinning so hard it looks as if his smile might spread farther than the reaches of his face. He tries to dampen it down, but it keeps popping back into place again. ‘Well, it doesn’t really work that way. I’ll have to find an agent first.’

  ‘Then start looking!’ I say as I thump the pile of paper with my hand. ‘This needs to be read by more people than just me.’

  Dan is suddenly across the room and holding me, the pages of his beloved book have scattered across the bed. One or two drip onto the floor, but he doesn’t seem to care as he looks into my face then kisses me softly. ‘I’m so sorry I didn’t trust you with this before,’ he says. ‘I should have known you would be wonderful.’

  I pull back and look at him. ‘No. You were right not to show me up until now,’ I say. ‘I’m not sure I’d have been ready before. I was too stuck in … something. But I’ve changed now.’

  He kisses me again. ‘You have changed,’ he says. ‘You seem …’

  ‘What?’ I ask smiling, as I can see his writer’s brain struggling for the right word.

  ‘Lighter.’

  I nod. I do feel that way.

  ‘What happened?’ He’s really looking at me now, as if he’s trying to see past my skin to what’s underneath.

  I think for a moment. ‘I suppose I’m like your character – Kai – I had to see different sides of myself before I knew who I really was, what I really wanted.’

  He nods, as if he understands, and maybe he does. I wonder if this experience of mine affects more than just me, that it ripples out and touches those around me.

  He looks a little sheepish. ‘I have a favour to ask you,’ he says. ‘I think it’s something the old you would have enjoyed, but if the new you isn’t really interested, that’s fine.’

  ‘Are we talking about bein
g naughty?’ I ask laughing.

  There’s a sparkle in his eyes, but he says, ‘Maybe later. What I was referring to was drawing. I have a feeling this book could do with some illustrations. Not loads, maybe just one at the beginning of every chapter, like a visual heading, and I was wondering if you’d be interested in doing something like that for me?’

  ‘Oh, wow! Yes!’ I say.

  I can see it already. Little black-and-white silhouettes of the three boys, configured in different ways. I get up, sending more of the manuscript sliding towards the floor, and run into Dan’s study, grab a sheet of paper from the printer and a biro from the desk, then I go back to join him and, resting on the dressing table, I do a quick sketch. Just the tip of a hill is visible at the bottom on the picture and there’s one central silhouette of boy with his arms folded, and the others flank him, one seeming to whisper into his ear, the other poised as if to strike. I show it to Dan.

  ‘That’s it!’ he almost shouts. ‘Just what I was thinking, although I hadn’t actually been able to visualise it. It’s like you’ve reached into my head and pulled out what I couldn’t.’

  I’m ambushed by a yawn. I check the clock and realise it’s almost two. I’ll probably need to be up at six. I gather up the strewn paper and as I do so I smile at my husband. ‘Dan, this is incredible. I’m sure you’re going to be an amazing success.’

  ‘We,’ he says, stooping to help. ‘You’re in this now too, Maggie. We are going to make this a success.’

  And when we’ve dumped the manuscript, pages all out of order, onto the armchair, we turn the light off and climb into bed. I lay my head on his chest and fling my arm across his waist and I smile into the darkness as sleep creeps over me, and as I do so I let this life go. I leave it at rest.

  I jump.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  A warm, salty breeze kisses the skin of my bare back. Somewhere in the distance soft waves crash on a beach. I can smell exotic flowers and coconut. I open my eyes and sit up, automatically holding the sheet to my chest.

  I blink.

  OK, maybe I really did die this time. Maybe a gas explosion killed us all in the night, because this surely looks like paradise to me.

  There’s white sand, a creamy-blue sky and sea so transparent I can see fishes swimming near the shoreline from almost thirty feet away. I stand up and walk towards it, taking the sheet with me, more because I’m mindlessly clutching it rather than by actual design. That’s when I hear a grunt, someone moving beside me. I turn my head and see Jude lying face-down on a large bed, with linen so white it almost hurts my eyes to look at it.

  I’m not surprised, even though I didn’t expect to see him there. I seem to have slipped into a dreamlike state. I’m just absorbing the information around me rather than reacting to it. Maybe that will come later, but right now I’m happy to just walk, to pad across the cool, tiled floor. I’m in something that looks like a luxury hotel room, but one whole side is missing, leaving it open to the air.

  Not really thinking about the fact I’m only wearing a sheet, I walk down a few wooden steps and onto the beach. My toes sink into the sand and I sigh. I wrap the trailing end of the cotton around myself, leaving my lower legs free, and keep walking.

  While the sensible side of my head is telling me I’m probably not dead, it is being roundly contradicted by the information flooding into my brain through my senses. I keep walking until I reach the shore, let the frothy waves wash over my feet. The sea isn’t chilly, but its comparative coolness sharpens my senses. After a couple of minutes I feel normal again, as if I’m back inside myself, thinking clearly.

  ‘Well, that’s a sight to behold, first thing in the morning,’ I hear Jude say behind me, and I realise my bum is probably still showing, despite the sheet twisted around me. I can’t tear my eye off the view – turquoise water that stretches for miles and bleeds so seamlessly into the sky I can only just tell where the horizon is. ‘And you were worried about coming,’ he says as he comes to join me, stands behind me and drapes his arms over my shoulders. ‘I told you it would be OK.’

  ‘Yes, you were right,’ I reply, even though I have no idea what the argument was, because what about all of this could be wrong?

  ‘Come on, then,’ he says, taking one last look at the view. He begins to steer me in the direction of the bungalow. It’s nearly eleven and we said we’d be up at the main house for pre-lunch drinks at noon.’

  I nod, even though I haven’t properly listened to what he’s just said. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I’m back with him and my life is absolutely and completely perfect.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  I discover we’re not at a resort in the Caribbean, as I had first suspected once I’d got the daft idea about heaven out of my head, but we’re on a private island north of Martinique, which belongs to one of Jude’s clients. It’s called Flamingo Island, which is strange because there don’t seem to be any flamingos here. I don’t remember this man, but that’s hardly surprising, since I’ve worked out that I’ve skipped almost a year forwards since I jumped away from Dan. It’s like I’ve left that life completely behind now.

  Anyway, Jason is an entrepreneur, one who’s been raking in the billions. When we wander up from our private bungalow, a few minutes’ walk from the much larger house that crowns the tiny island’s highest hill, I discover he is one of those portly men whose faces always seem too large, too spongey, for their skulls. He wears striped shirts, even on holiday, and when I look at him carefully I can see the yuppie he must have been close to twenty years ago, red braces and all. He must have developed his laugh then, too, a resonant braying that carries far too easily on the sweet tropical air.

  I learn that he was so pleased with the sixteen-bedroomed Georgian mansion Jude found him in the Buckinghamshire countryside that he insisted he join him on Flamingo Island for a couple of weeks this winter. I did not do the decoration, I discover. He hired someone with a much bigger affinity for gold leaf, velvet and glitz than I’ll ever have. Still, he doesn’t hold it against me. Nor I him, to be honest. I get the feeling it would have been a nightmare.

  There are ten of us here: Jason’s wife, Stella, who is only two years his junior, surprisingly. She’s got the blonde hair and pert figure of a trophy wife, even though she’s clearly in her fifties, and while her giggle is high-pitched and soft, when she thinks no one’s watching, a hardness creeps into her eyes.

  One of the other couples is Jason and Stella’s daughter, Karin, and her husband – a German whose name I didn’t catch first time around – who is Jason’s right-hand man. There’s a woman in her forties, Amanda, who I later discover is Stella’s stylist, and Enrique is a yacht dealer based in Monte Carlo. Jos, along with partner Thomas, is the decorator who was actually let loose on Jason’s country pile.

  We all gather on a large terrace at one end of the large house, built in local stone and timber but, like our guest bungalow, missing a few strategic walls here and there. Every bedroom must have stunning views. Jason hands round the champagne cocktails looking very pleased with himself. He is a king and this island is definitely his kingdom. It doesn’t escape me, though, that we have all worked for Jason in one capacity or another, and it makes me wonder why he hasn’t invited any friends.

  I don’t know whether it’s because I’ve only just jumped into this life, but as lovely as the surroundings are, I just can’t seem to get the swing of the conversation as we sip our drinks and wait for an army of silent servants to deliver our lunch of fruit platters, salad and mouth-watering seafood.

  Maybe it’s because I’ve just jumped back in after being with Dan, who is a bit of a lefty and despises the sort of people who flash their cash and have no social conscience, but even though the bragging is done skilfully, elegantly, all I can hear is everyone honking on about how much stuff they’ve got and how wonderful they are.

  I try to catch Jude’s eye, to share a little moment of ‘do you see it too?’ with him, but he’s
too engrossed in one of Jason’s lengthy stories, which always seems to end up with him decimating the opposition and coming out on top, to be my ally. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think my partner was lapping it up.

  And then something strange happens. The food is eaten and cleared away but the drinking continues, and by the time Jude is on his fourth G&T his laugh changes. It’s no longer the chuckle, so deep it often comes out silently unless he finds something really, really funny. Now it’s loud and obnoxious, perfectly harmonising with the others.

  I know he’s a bit of a chameleon, that this ability is what’s helped make him as successful as he is, but I find I can’t dismiss it this time. Something about it – about him – is grating on me.

  By the time the women, and Jos and Thomas, start talking plastic surgery I decide I’ve had enough. We only flew in yesterday, so I claim jet lag and head back to our guest quarters, where I slip into the plunge pool, rest my arms along the edge, tip my head back and close my eyes.

  Maybe it is a kind of jet lag, I muse, as I let the breeze play across my features. A kind of time-travelling jet lag. These aren’t horrible people. Jason’s a little abrasive, but the rest seem nice enough. Usually, I can look through the things that irritate me and find the good qualities, but today it feels as if I’ve lost that skill.

  I relax as I lie there, feeling the cool water soothe my heated skin, and by the time Jude comes to find me – staggering a little, it has to be said – I’m feeling much more mellow. I think he has amorous intentions and I say I’ll join him for a nap, but by the time I’ve dried off and head back to the bedroom, he’s asleep on top of the sheet, shorts removed, but T-shirt still on, and he’s snoring.

  I watch him as he sleeps for a while, glad to be able to see, not just imagine, the jut of his cheekbones, the sharp angle of his jaw, and then I throw a loose beach dress on and take a walk in the shade of the palm trees at the beach’s edge.