Katie's Rescue

by Michael Graeme

  We sat down by the river and watched the boat disappear around a bend in the distance. By degrees I felt the atmosphere beginning to settle out as Parker's disruptive influence receded.and a comforting vagueness returned.

  "Do you feel that?" I asked her.

  "Yes,… it's amazing,… "

  "And look:"

  "It's all shimmery,.. and,… oh, it's lovely!"

  "Won't be long now," I said. "Try not to let it enchant you too much. In fact, you'd better close your eyes." Then I gave her a hug, because – well – there's nothing like the feel of another human being for reassuring you, is there? And pretty soon she'd be disappearing back to her life, and I'd never see her again. We stayed like that for a while and then she must have felt herself slipping because she said: "Promise me, you won't try to stay."

  "I promise. I'll try to catch up with Parker first, make sure he's okay. You never know, I may get through to him eventually. Then you'll have nothing to explain will you?"

  Anyway, with her laying there on my shoulder, I closed my eyes too and began to murmur a relaxation script,… you are feeling heavy,… you feel yourself sinking,…

  She went with it quietly. I felt her draw back, and I thought she was about to slip through so I decided to open my eyes because I was curious to see what it would look like, whether she'd just disappear, or go all shimmery like everything else, but she took hold of my hands at the last minute and when I opened my eyes she was still there, or rather, it seemed,…

  … she'd pulled me through with her.

  We were two miles downstream in a little teashop in Burnsall Bridge, holding hands across a table strewn with the remains of lunch. We hadn't come far in distance but things had a different tingle to them, so I guessed we'd swapped realities again and therefore left Raworth behind. But this wasn't home. This was somewhere else entirely.

  Katie was wearing a cute beret and a little red woollen jacket of unfamiliar styling, and there was this kid sitting in a high-chair at the same table as us, squealing the place down while he rubbed tomato sauce into his hair. We both looked at him in stunned silence, both of us for very different reasons. I noticed she was wearing rings, but these were different to the last ones, and I was unable to shake the feeling they were mine.

  "This isn't right, Katie. I'm sorry."

  She looked at me, puzzled. "It's not?"

  "It's,… I don't know. This is really weird,… " I looked around, trying to get my bearings, and I realised I was floundering in the tide of a life I'd no sense of ever having lived. Clearly, it was a possibility – but surely rather an unlikely one!

  "Why did you do that?" I asked her.

  "Do what?"

  "Pull me through like that. That's really confused things! This is,… well,.. I don't know what it is. It's like a compromise, a best fit of all the probabilities, a most likely scenario. We should try again."

  She looked at the boy, her heart melting. It was definitely her child, and there was no way she'd ever leave him again. But where did that leave me?

  She leaned over and squeezed my hand. "Let's see how this goes for a while. I'm sure we'll muddle through."

  I tapped my finger against her rings, and raised my brows, in case she'd not noticed yet, but she chuckled. "I know. Funny isn't it? Who would have thought it? But that was a lovely hug you gave me,… it just felt so,.."

  "Whoa, listen,… don't get me wrong, I was merely being,… "

  "No, you listen, mister: this slipping in and out of reality has nothing to do with detachment – or I could never have left him. I've not had a moments' detachment since the day he was born." She shook her head as if she'd just realised something. "Don't you get it. This is not a compromise. It's not a best fit, or a make do. This is the only thing that makes any sense at all,… to either of us.

  "What I said about you falling through in order to rescue me: I was wrong. It was me who fell through in order to rescue you."

  "Katie, this is hardly a rescue. In case you hadn't noticed, we're in real trouble here."

  "No. You were in trouble. You had no connection, nothing binding you in life at all. You keep yourself all sealed up and aloof – I mean I don't even know your name! It's as if you're afraid of handing it out in case people can start calling you by it and interfering in your private little world. No wonder you kept dropping out of the bottom of reality! Well,… I think we can help you with that."

  I noticed she had said we. I looked at the squealing child - snot and sauce dribbling down his face - and I rather doubted the pair of them were much of a solution to anything, but then she took her glasses off and made the most appealing eyes at me, and the child was quiet for a moment, beaming sunshine through the mess,… and for a second the idea seemed ridiculously attractive,… then just ridiculous.

  "Katie,… that would be a really bad idea. And if you were thinking straight, you'd realise it too."

  She looked crestfallen. "Oh! Do you think so?"

  "All that stuff you said about me,… well,… some of it may be true, and if you did rescue me, then I'm very grateful, but we don't exactly know each other do we – I mean we only met this morning."

  She was admiring her rings. "But it looks to me as if we've been married for a while. How long would you say? Three years? Four?"

  "All right, it seems as if we've set down in this place already with a bit of history, which is really weird, and we've some catching up to do. But what if I turn out to be your worst nightmare? Have you not thought of that? What if I'm the husband from hell?"

  She was shaking her head. "We didn't fall through two versions of reality to wind up sitting at this table, for there to be any bad stuff between us. No. This is going to be perfect,… trust me!"

  It was the craziest thing I'd ever heard.

  I began to search my pockets.

  "What are you doing?"

  "I was looking for something with my name on it. I just wanted to make sure it was still what I thought it was,… I mean before I told you."

  "There's no need, if you're intending skipping out the first chance you get."

  I could see the river through the window, and I wondered if about now was the time Parker should be coming floating downstream to interrupt us, hollering for help and creating a scene. It was impossible of course, wasn't it? I mean, Parker had never existed here. To my surprise however I discovered I was afraid he really would appear and ruin this moment, this chance of a life,…

  With one wary eye on the river, I said: "Erm,… my name is Richard."

  I wasn't sure how long we could sustain this, but things felt pretty firm, and something told me neither of us would be leaving here in a hurry, but I reached out and took hold of her hand,…

  … just in case.

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