Space Hopper

by Helen Fisher

‘Let me go,’ I said, my words like wasps, full of sting and insistence. But of course he wouldn’t. I bit him on the shoulder and screamed, ‘Get the box off the bonfire. I need it!’

  ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ Eddie said, yelling at me and not loosening his clutch one bit. We rolled on the damp grass as I engaged all of my weight in a bid to break away.

  ‘Get that box for me, I’m begging you.’

  ‘You have got to be kidding me,’ said Eddie.

  ‘Get it off before it’s nothing but dust,’ I said, with a quiet urgency. ‘That box is my life, my childhood, my mother. If you love me at all, just do it.’

  He shoved me away growling, ‘Don’t move,’ in a voice so angry I wouldn’t have known it was him if I couldn’t see him. I lay on the grass, hopelessly trying to keep the box safe by keeping it in my line of sight, and watched as Eddie took a long piece of wood from the teepee structure and made a swipe at the box, barely grazing it. He swiped again, and when it still wouldn’t reach its mark, he threw the stick like a javelin, missing the precious object of my desire. Finally he yanked the washing line pole out of the ground and knocked the box clean off the fire, it flew a little way through the air, rolled lethargically along the grass like tumbleweed and then settled, more or less intact from what I could see, and not burning. Then Eddie stormed towards me like a Neanderthal man, swooped me up into a fireman’s lift and marched up the garden towards the house, swearing fiercely with every step. I bounced painfully on his shoulder, like a naughty child, watching our guests watching us as though we were strangers on some bizarre Channel 4 documentary. But I didn’t care about that. Nothing mattered at all, nothing but the box.

  ‘Get the box, Louis,’ I shouted. ‘Keep it safe.’

  * * *

  Eddie stamped upstairs to the bathroom and dumped me down without ceremony. He wrenched the plug so that it nearly broke from its chain, and filled the sink with cold water, then pulled me by an elbow and pushed my hands down into the water, gloves and all. Every movement he made was so aggressive that he threatened to do damage. I wasn’t frightened of Eddie, I was more frightened of what I had done to make him this way.

  His hands shook as he carefully removed my gloves, worried that some of my skin might have burned and stuck to the material. Eventually, Cassie peered round the bathroom door and warily observed the angry, silent nursing that was taking place.

  ‘Everyone’s leaving,’ she said, directing her conversation to Eddie, now that I was presumably deemed out of my mind. ‘Clem’s taking Louis home.’

  ‘Has he got the box?’ I said, sounding – even to me – more and more like the mad woman I appeared to be.

  Eddie whipped the glove off then, like a plaster; his way of lashing out at my nonsense. Luckily the skin underneath wasn’t too bad. Raw in places and tender.

  ‘Yes, he’s got a box with him.’ She glanced at me, puzzled, but then looked more meaningfully at Eddie, communicating what? That I inhabited a different world to them now because I suddenly existed outside their realm of understanding.

  ‘There will be a reason for this,’ Cassie said to Eddie, putting a hand on his forearm.

  I was invisible.

  ‘What reason can there be for almost killing herself for… for nothing?’ Eddie said.

  ‘I have a reason,’ I said, as a by-the-way.

  ‘What is it then?’ he said, spitting out the words, turning fiercely and slopping water over the edge of the sink, piercing me with a stare as full of hatred as if I were a stranger who had almost killed his wife.

  And I saw that here was the power of his love for me. The anger rising out of fear of losing me. The measure of love being loss; he had glimpsed that loss and attacked it. And my excuse for hurting myself? A cardboard box. When I told him the truth, as I knew I must, I realised that whether he believed me or not, he might at least be comforted by the fact that I didn’t, as he said, do this for nothing.

  ‘I’m going to tell you everything,’ I said, and then my knees gave way and weariness pressed down on me like heavy blankets falling from above.

  ‘Look after her,’ Cassie said. ‘Do you want me to have the children for a couple of days?’

  I heard Eddie say yes, and try to organise pyjamas and overnight things, but Cassie said she had it covered. I surrendered my body to my husband, who carried me to the bedroom, undressed me – as he had when I was too drunk to do it myself – and felt my stinging hands being wrapped in soft bandages. I pressed the clean medicated material to my lips and tried to look my husband in the eyes, but he wouldn’t return my gaze. Eddie held a glass up for me and put some pills in my mouth, painkillers I guess, and I drifted into a fitful sleep.

  At some point I woke and saw Eddie sitting on the edge of the bed, head in hands, crying. I touched his back, but he didn’t move, or stop sobbing, and I sank back into oblivion.

  I recall being roused, with water held to my lips, and hearing the murmur of something like a prayer, or maybe simply a word of love or comfort. It was all the same, I realised.

  I don’t know how long I’d been asleep when I came to full consciousness. Daylight dappled the room in a calm glow and my muscles hurt from being in the same position for too long. Parched, I took a glass from the bedside table, holding it awkwardly between two bandaged hands, and then replaced it carefully; my throat was sore and I wanted some milk, my stomach rumbled like a marble in an empty can, but I couldn’t imagine swallowing actual food. I rolled over, catching my breath suddenly when I saw that Eddie was asleep on one of the girls’ mattresses. He had dragged it through and laid it in front of our bedroom door. To stop me escaping.

  My darling husband was frightened of what I could do.

  ‘Eddie,’ I croaked, my voice damaged from lack of use, or maybe smoke. He stirred and opened his eyes, looking at me like a hurt animal. ‘Sorry,’ I croaked again and tried to clear my throat.

  * * *

  In shorts and T-shirt, with dishevelled hair and puffy eyes, Eddie sat on the edge of the bed, hands in his lap. ‘I want to know everything,’ he said, his voice like the sound of a biplane in the distance on a summer’s day.

  ‘But this is the kind of “everything” I want,’ he continued. ‘I want the truth, Faye.’ His eyes were holding mine, kindness in them, uncertainty, and love. He shook his head sadly. ‘We always said we wouldn’t lie to each other, and I’ve never broken that promise. But for some reason you have.’ I opened my mouth to speak, but he held a finger up to stop me.

  ‘Just listen,’ he said. ‘Maybe it’s been easier for me than for you; I’ve never wanted to lie to you, never needed to. So I haven’t. But I don’t deserve a medal for not lying, that’s just the way it should be, you should expect nothing less. You, however, have been lying to me for a long time and I think I’ve been patient enough. I’ve tried to trust in you, and prayed that your lies are about loving me, and not about deceiving me. But the time has come to tell me what’s going on.’ He touched my face where the scratches were healing, and ran his fingers gently over bruises on my arms in various stages of yellow and blue and brown. ‘I want to know how you got these, I want to know why you went into the fire. I want to know why that bloody box means so much to you. I want to know everything.’

  ‘And I’m going to tell you everything,’ I said, my voice hoarse and quiet.

  ‘I’m glad to hear that.’

  ‘But it’s going to be hard to hear,’ I said.

  ‘How bad can it be?’ He smiled weakly, as if he already knew that it would be something terrible.

  ‘You might think I’m crazy,’ I said, the salty tingle of tears threatening the back of my eyes.

  ‘Too late, darling, I’m already there,’ he said, kissing my fingers.

  ‘Have you spoken to Louis?’ I said.

  ‘Yes. He’s got your box,’ Eddie said, with a sigh, as though the box were an old boyfriend whose name he was tired of hearing. ‘He says he’s keeping it safe and it’s not too badly
damaged. He also said you had something of his, that you put somewhere safe; he asked if he could have it, but I don’t know where it is.’

  He was talking about the box of old money. ‘In the bottom of the wardrobe, a brown cardboard box.’

  ‘I hope you’re going to explain all of this,’ Eddie said.

  I nodded. ‘Can you tell Louis to come and see me tomorrow?’

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘And when are we going to talk?’

  I moved a lock of brown hair away from his face, and already I felt a huge sense of relief.

  I thought about how Eddie’s belief in God was all about faith and trust, a conviction of something that was unseeable, and yet for all that, unshakable. I thought about what it was that had made me believe in the fact that I’d travelled in time to see my mother, and how I had only believed in the truth of that experience because of the evidence of my senses: the sights, the sounds and the smells. The taste of toast in the 1970s, the undeniable feel of skin against skin when my mother held my hand to help me up into a tree. I needed that. But Eddie didn’t. Eddie was no fool, and wouldn’t just believe in any old story. But I knew he trusted me and would recognise the sound of truth when he heard it, just as he’d recognised the lies. What he did with the truth, and what he thought of me afterwards, I had to leave in his hands. I had faith in him and didn’t want to wait any longer, or make him wait, so I told him I would tell him everything.

  ‘Now.’

  29

  Eddie listened. I talked. I started with the photograph and told him how I’d found the box in the attic, and everything that had happened that day, the first time I travelled back. I reminded him of my injuries that time and how the truth, no matter how unbelievable, actually made sense of everything. It fitted with him looking up in the loft when the ladder was down, and finding it empty, but hearing a crash and discovering me up there later. I told him how much I’d wanted to talk to him, but that I knew he’d think I was insane. I explained how I ended up telling Louis the story, how I thought he’d believed me, but that he only became convinced later on.

  I told Eddie that I’d returned to the past a second time, while he was in France, and that I’d stayed longer with my mother on that occasion. I told him about meeting Elizabeth and what had happened with the roller skates and my engagement ring. I told him how Louis and I had visited Elizabeth, how she’d lied about my ring being stolen, and that guilt had inspired her to send me an eternity ring.

  I explained to Eddie my dilemma of returning to the past, how the missing ring initially made me pause and consider the consequences more seriously, and that I’d been trying to get on with my life like a normal person. I told him about my recent plans, since I found out from Henry that my mother didn’t die, not for certain, but went missing, and how it was my fault, because she’d started to think of me as a guardian angel and had gone looking for me.

  I told him how I needed to go back one last time, to make amends, tell Jeanie the truth, and that after that I wouldn’t go again; I told him about the old money and the ski suit, and the mattress at Louis’ house. I told him about how I’d seen the box on the top of the bonfire and had no choice but to rescue it.

  And the last thing I said to my husband – in my rasping husk of a voice – to the man I trusted more than any other person in the world, was that the Space Hopper box must be kept safe, because it was a lifeline. My mother’s life depended on it, and while he may think I’d already lost my mind, if the box was lost, then I really would be.

  And then I slept again.

  * * *

  When I woke, Eddie was sitting on the edge of the bed; we stared at each other, unflinching in our gaze. My mouth was dry and when my eyes darted to the bedside table, he reached over for the glass and held it for me while I manoeuvred myself into a sitting position. I drank deeply and handed the glass back to him. He silently placed it back on the table and we resumed our quiet eye contact.

  ‘How does it feel to have a crazy wife?’ I said eventually.

  Eddie held my chin gently between his thumb and finger, so I wouldn’t look away, and regarded me with a gravity that felt like the bass note in a song; the kind you can feel vibrating in your heart more than you can hear with your ears.

  ‘It feels wonderful,’ he said, leaning forward and kissing me firmly on the forehead.

  ‘Really?’ I said, my voice tiny.

  ‘Really,’ he said. ‘You’re no different to the woman you were when I met you, no different to the woman you were yesterday. I loved you then, and I love you now. Only now, I can share what you’re going through.’

  ‘But it’s bonkers,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, it is a bit bonkers.’ He smiled. ‘But I believe in you, Faye. And whatever this is, it’s crazy, but wonderful. You’re wonderful. Don’t worry, everything’s going to be okay. We’re just going to take things one step at a time.’

  I nodded. ‘Is the box safe?’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, and then slapped his legs as if to signal a change in direction. ‘So, are you hungry?’

  I nodded again and Eddie made me scrambled eggs. It turned out I’d been drifting in and out of sleep for two days; I bathed and Eddie redid my bandages. Although my hands hurt, there was no real damage. It felt as though I’d briefly ironed my palms on the cotton-setting, and there was some blistering, but not much. I’d been lucky.

  Once I’d eaten I felt revived, and Eddie asked if I felt like seeing Louis. ‘Your “partner in crime”,’ he said, with good humour. Then he drove me to his place, saying it would do me good to get out for a little while, and promised to collect me in an hour. After which we were going to pick up the kids from Cassie’s place.

  Louis hugged me, and my comrade and I spent a minimal amount of breath on niceties.

  ‘Eddie says the box is safe,’ I said, as he led me into the lounge.

  ‘Yeah, apparently he knocked it off the bonfire and it just landed on the grass. Your friends must have thought I was nuts, wanting to take it home with me. It’s got a hole in the side now, and apparently it’s black and peeling in places; I don’t know how much difference the damage will make,’ he said.

  ‘It’ll still work,’ I said.

  ‘You haven’t given up on going back then?’ he said.

  ‘If I don’t, then all this drama will have been for nothing, won’t it?’ I said.

  ‘Sometimes we need to stop. Sometimes things go too far. You’re lucky to be alive, from what I hear.’

  ‘I’m hardly hurt at all, I just burned my hands a bit, and that’s nothing to do with time travel.’

  ‘It would have been, if the box had been on the bonfire when you were coming back from the past,’ he said. I grimaced at the thought.

  Louis paused, his posture poised for revelation, and I waited.

  ‘I have a little confession,’ he said.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I tried it myself.’

  ‘Tried what?’ I said, sitting more upright. ‘Did you get in the box?’

  ‘I put the ski suit on and everything.’

  ‘Louis!’ I said. I didn’t know how to feel. Proprietorial, was my instant reaction. I wanted to shout, ‘My box!’ I was a bit indignant, but excited. ‘What happened?’ I said.

  ‘Well, I put on the suit, it was a bit on the tight side, and stood in the box. I stood there, waited a bit, because you told me it sometimes takes time for something to happen.’

  ‘And then?’ I said.

  ‘Then, after about ten minutes I got out of the box, feeling like a total dick, took the suit off and ate a Mars bar. Two actually.’

  ‘Do you think it still works?’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, I think the box is fine. My gut instinct tells me it’s your connection with your mother that makes it work; it’s nothing to do with me. I don’t think the box is a ticket to the seventies for just anyone.’

  ‘I have to go back,’ I said. ‘When my hands are better. Soon, though, I can’t leave it much longe
r.’

  ‘Do you think Eddie will let you?’ Louis said.

  ‘I didn’t talk to him about that, but I told him everything,’ I said. ‘And it went better than I thought.’

  ‘I know, he came to see me last night, said you’d told him the whole story, and he brought the money with him, the old currency I’d ordered. And took the box.’

  ‘He what?’ I said, half-standing. ‘I thought it was here.’ Of course it wasn’t. I felt suddenly and dazzlingly deceived as I clocked that Eddie would never have left me here at Louis’ place if the box was here too.

  ‘He said you wanted the box kept safe, and that’s what he said he’d do. He said there was no point in keeping it at my place now that he knew what was going on.’

  ‘Do you think he really believed me?’ I said, trying to calm myself and slowly sitting again.

  ‘He’s your husband, what do you think?’

  ‘I thought he did when we were actually together, but now he’s not here, I don’t know,’ I said.

  ‘When he came over he said it was a pretty amazing tale, and I agreed, said it was hard to believe, and he said, “But you believe in her, Louis,” and I told him yeah, because actually nothing had happened to make me think it was anything other than the truth. And that I’d met Elizabeth too.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘He said he believed you were telling the truth.’

  ‘In other words, he doesn’t think I’m lying but he thinks I’m crazy.’

  ‘I don’t know about that, but it’s not going to be easy for him is it, Faye? All he knows is you almost killed yourself trying to save a fucking cardboard box, cut the guy some slack.’

  We laughed, but mine was a cautious laugh.

  ‘Oh shit,’ I said, my voice grating, realisation catching up with me. ‘Shit.’

  ‘What?’ Louis said.

  ‘Eddie’s going to get rid of the box.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious? If there was a gun in the house, he’d get rid of that. But it’s the box he thinks will kill me. Oh Louis, what if it’s too late? Do you think he’s thrown it away already?’