by Melanie Rose
“I’m sorry. Would you like something to eat? I’ve made a pasta dish.”
He looked at me over the rim of his glass and nodded. “Yes, I am rather hungry. Thank you, Lauren.”
He was no longer treating me with casual familiarity, but rather with the formality of one talking to a guest. Presuming Karen’s chat with him in the early hours must have done some good, I felt a wave of relief wash over me. If he was prepared to behave properly, then I would find a little charity in my heart for this man, who must be feeling almost as confused by the change in his wife as I was in myself.
He followed me to the kitchen, which Karen and I had cleared up after the meal, and settled himself at the breakfast bar while I placed a dish of food in front of him.
“This looks good,” he said, taking a mouthful and chewing thoughtfully.
“Thank you. The children liked it, too.”
“I can’t get used to this new you,” he said, washing down a mouthful of food with the remains of his whisky. “You seem very attentive toward the children.”
“I suppose after my brush with death I feel I should make the most of them,” I said evasively. “You never know what’s around the corner.”
“No indeed,” he said, considering me closely. “The thing is, though, as I said this morning, I was hoping it might stretch as far as you and me. I know you wanted to include the children today, but would you like to come out with me this evening, just the two of us? Karen would babysit if we asked her, I’m sure.”
I wondered if my newfound forgiveness would stretch as far as spending some time with him and reckoned I could maybe give him a chance to redeem himself. I glanced at the kitchen clock. It was eight o’clock. Frankie needed to be let out soon. Tonight was out of the question.
“I’m really tired, Grant,” I said, watching his face fall. “But as tomorrow is Saturday, I could have a long nap and then maybe we could go out somewhere later?”
Grant beamed at me, and I felt a pang of guilt about how easily I could please him. I suspected that all he wanted was a partner who showed she cared enough to spend time with him; someone to make his life easier and make him happy.
“Where would you like to go?”
“I don’t know. What do you like doing?”
He held out his hand and I had no option but to take it. It was cool, dry, and steady, but there was no electric current running between our connected fingers, as there had been with Dan.
“This is very strange, Lauren, trying to remember you don’t know anything about me. How about the cinema. Would you like to see a film?”
“I don’t really mind.”
“What about a meal? We could try that new Italian place in the village?”
“Yes,” I said. “I suppose we could.”
I went up to bed shortly after, making sure I locked the bedroom door before climbing in between the clean sheets that Elsie had put on that morning. Despite the early hour I was genuinely exhausted. Looking after four children was certainly no easy thing.
It seemed no time before I was opening my eyes and sitting up in bed as Jessica. Frankie was delighted to see me up, and ran in circles around me barking as I opened the front door, letting in a blast of cold air while she shot out into the garden to sniff around and do her business.
I brought in my pint of semiskimmed milk, smiling as I thought of the five pints a day that was ordered in the Richardson household. Even my refrigerator suddenly looked tiny compared to the large American model in Lauren’s home, which dispensed ice cubes at the touch of a button and ice-cold water from a filter.
Calling Frankie back indoors, I put the kettle on while looking through the meager pile of mail. There was an advertisement for cheap pizzas; two letters from charities I had already supported this month; and a hand-addressed envelope I recognized immediately as being in Mum’s writing.
Tearing open the envelope, I found a get-well card inside with a note from Mum saying she hoped I was keeping warm and eating properly. We had never been a particularly close family, but her long-distance fussing was a way of making me feel she cared. I wondered vaguely whether if she knew I was the mother of four children she’d still treat me like a child myself.
The cupboard was looking particularly bare, and I made a mental note that I must go shopping for supplies. Just because I was Jessica only half the time didn’t mean I should starve myself. Each of the bodies I was occupying needed feeding and grooming properly in the time I was in them, because they were both having to live simultaneously full and active lives. It was only my consciousness they were sharing between them. It would be all too easy to neglect one or the other of my selves because I had only just eaten or bathed in my other life. I just hoped that the normal physical prompts of a rumbling stomach or the unclean feeling of needing to bathe or brush my teeth would override any mental perception that those tasks had recently been performed and therefore didn’t need doing again.
I breakfasted on muesli and part of my pint of milk, fed Frankie, and watered my indoor plants. As I was pulling on a pair of comfy jeans, I wondered how I could get some of my wardrobe to Lauren. I knew that her choice in clothes was not helping me to settle into her role. I needed casual, comfortable clothing for her at least some of the time. I reckoned she and I were similar in size, because although she was older than me and had had four children, she’d made much more effort to keep in shape. If I was being totally honest with myself, I knew I wanted the comfort of having some of my own possessions in that other life, and I also wanted an excuse to try a little experiment.
After rummaging in one of the kitchen drawers, I came up with the spare front-door key to my flat. Then, taking some Blu-Tack, I went outside and attached the key to the back of the rain gutter in the paved courtyard. When I’d completed the task to my satisfaction, happy that no one would come across it by mistake and that it couldn’t fall off, I went and fetched Frankie’s lead and took her for a long walk.
On the way home I bought some baguettes, cold meats, and salad from the local shop, then sat in my favorite chair and tried to read my book. Frankie was dozing by my feet, and the sound of her even breathing and the ticking of the sitting room clock echoed loudly in the quiet of the room. I was enjoying the lack of activity and quiet afforded by my single life and wondered if Lauren ever found the time to read.
I jumped when the doorbell rang, dropping the book on Frankie’s head as she scrambled to her feet and raced to the front door. Following more slowly, I tried to quell my racing heart. I stood inside the door, smoothing my jeans down my thighs and running trembling fingers through my hair, before plucking up the courage to open it.
Dan stood there, smiling hesitantly as if not sure of his welcome. I smiled widely in return, not to put him at his ease but because I couldn’t help myself.
“Am I forgiven?” I asked as he stepped over the threshold and took me into his arms.
He nuzzled my neck and breathed deeply as if drowning in the scent of my skin. I reached out a foot and kicked the door closed as we tumbled toward the couch, Frankie bounding madly beside us. Everything about Dan excited me. I loved the way his hand held mine while we made love, the smell of the shampoo in his hair, the look in his eyes as he called out my name. My earlier uncertainties about the wisdom of Jessica having a relationship while everything else was going on were soon soothed away by Dan, and I knew without a doubt that I had fallen head over heels in love with him.
Later, when we were eating the filled baguettes and drinking hot sweet tea to refuel our exhausted and tingling bodies, he asked me how I was feeling.
“Right now, I feel more alive than I’ve ever felt in my life,” I replied, still unable to stop smiling when I looked at him.
“I meant, have you had any more of those turns?” he said, returning my smile with a grin.
I contemplated telling him the truth. If I loved this man, perhaps I should trust him. But how could he be expected to believe such a story? Surely he’d simply
put me down as a weirdo and keep his distance. What normal man in his right mind would want to continue a relationship with a woman who claimed to have been split apart by lightning and to be currently inhabiting two different bodies at almost the same time? Not to mention the small matter of a time-shift being involved.
“No.”
“Let’s hope yesterday was an end to them,” he said, licking mayonnaise off my fingertips.
I thought of Teddy and his nightmares and grimaced. Somehow I had the feeling that the “turns” might not yet be completely gone.
“I was wondering,” he said, staring searchingly into my face with his penetratingly blue eyes, “if you’d like to come back to my place to meet my father? The old boy has sussed something major is happening in my life and has been asking me questions.”
“I’d like that,” I told him. “When did you have in mind?”
“What about this evening?”
I thought of the Saturday-morning late sleep. Karen would be there to see to Teddy and the other children and Grant would be around to collect Sophie from her sleepover. I needn’t surface until midmorning if necessary, which meant I could stay up as late as eleven o’clock if I wanted.
“That sounds great.”
We drove to a beauty spot in the afternoon and walked hand in hand in the sunshine with Frankie at our heels. Before last weekend’s thunderstorm it had been a wet but sunny summer, and now the trees were turning glorious shades of red, amber, and gold. We wandered through a beech wood, the ground carpeted in orange, the gray of the beech trunks twisting and turning upward through the amber canopy and into the clear blue sky.
“It’s hard to believe we’re in late October,” I murmured as I scuffed through the fallen leaves with my boots.
“Clocks go back on Sunday.”
“Oh no!”
Dan gave me a sharp look. “What’s so bad about that?”
I thought of trying to calculate what time I’d need to go to bed on Saturday evening to be up at the right time on Sunday for the children with the added complication of an hour’s time change.
“Nothing really, it always throws me off, that’s all. I don’t know why.”
“You are a strange person sometimes, Jessica Taylor,” he said, squeezing my hand. “But I wouldn’t want you any other way.”
I squeezed his back, but the joy had gone out of my day. I didn’t want to dwell too much on my other life when I was with Dan. It seemed dishonest somehow, almost as if I were cheating on him. I was lying, after all; I had another life he didn’t know about, and although this was my immediate reality, I couldn’t forget about Grant and the children completely.
“Bessie would have enjoyed this walk,” I said, kicking at a couple of fallen beechnuts still encased in their brown shells. “Why didn’t you bring her along?”
“Dad gets lonely if I take her out with me every day. Yesterday he went to the Day Center, but today he would have been on his own all day. He gets depressed if he’s alone for too long.”
“How old is your father?”
“He’ll be seventy-five next week.”
“You were a late baby,” I commented, doing the sums in my head.
“He married four times,” Dan explained. “I have numerous half sisters and brothers scattered across England and Ireland. I’m his youngest child.”
“What about your mother? Did he leave her?”
“You could say she left us. She died of cancer when I was only four. Dad left a lot of angry family behind in Ireland when he married my mother, a sweet young English girl from Surrey. Mum’s family didn’t think much of Dad, either, so there was no family to park me with when she died. Dad stayed here and brought me up by himself.”
I thought of Toby and Teddy and how awful it was for a four-year-old to lose his mother.
“I’m sorry, Dan.”
“Don’t be. Dad and I have always gotten by just fine.”
We were almost back to the car when Dan pulled me to him and kissed me hard on the mouth. “Don’t let Dad put you off by telling you what a Jack the Lad I’ve been in the past. I swear there’s never been anyone like you, Jessica.”
We drove straight to Dan’s house, which wasn’t far outside Epsom, probably only fifteen or so minutes from my own flat. The house was a typical mock-Tudor residence in a quiet residential road full of three-bedroom properties.
Dan pulled his car up in the gravel driveway and unlocked the front door, calling to his father as he did so. “Dad! I’m home. I’ve brought someone to meet you.”
Bessie bounded out of the front room, nearly bowling me over in her excitement, and I was glad we’d left Frankie in the car, giving Bessie a chance to calm down.
“I’m in here, lad,” came a broad Irish accent from the front room. “Did you say you’ve brought someone with you now?”
I followed Dan into the front room to find an elderly man ensconced in a large armchair watching the television. His rheumy eyes lit up when he saw me, and he tried to get to his feet.
“Please, don’t get up, Mr. Brennan,” I said hurriedly. I went toward him, holding out my hand. “I’m Jessica Taylor.”
“So you’re the bit o’ stuff that’s kept my lad from his work,” he said, his eyes twinkling at me from under bushy gray eyebrows. “The business won’t run itself, but I can see why Dan might want it to try.”
He looked up to where Dan was hovering in the doorway. “Did you bring my beer?”
“I’ll fetch it later, Dad. I thought we might have a cup of tea. Jessica doesn’t drink.”
“The saints preserve us! You’ve chosen a wee lass that doesn’t like the hard stuff? What were you thinking of, boy? She’ll have you on the wagon before you can say ‘Jack Daniel’s.’”
“I’ve no objection to anyone else having a drink,” I told him firmly. “I’m just trying to keep a clear head at the moment.”
“Is it a control freak you are, not liking to be under the influence?”
I contemplated this remark, wondering if it might not be rather too near the truth.
“I’ll go and put the kettle on,” Dan muttered, and he escaped into the kitchen, where I could hear him clattering about with the tea-making things.
The old man turned to me and grinned. “You’ve got the boy all in a dither and no mistake, lass. I hope you’ll let him down gently when the time comes.”
“I hope I won’t have to let him down at all, Mr. Brennan,” I said. “And if he’s anything like his father I’m sure he can look after himself.”
The old man stared at me for a moment then started to laugh. “You can call me Pat, lassie. To be sure, I think you and I might get along just fine.”
By the time Dan returned, balancing three mugs, I was sitting on the couch and Pat and I were getting along like old friends. Bessie had come to sit by my feet, and we must have painted a picture of sheer amicability because Dan grinned happily when he saw us and took the seat at my side.
“Pat has been telling me how you’re a magnet to women,” I said with a look of mock disapproval.
“Dad, I told you not to tell stories,” Dan said, placing a mug in his father’s hand and handing another to me. “You know I haven’t had a serious girlfriend in two years.”
“That’s not for the want of them throwing themselves at your feet, now,” Pat said. “It’s just you didn’t fancy picking any of them up.”
“I was waiting for the right one,” Dan said, giving me a sideways look.
“As long as she doesn’t end up breaking your heart, lad,” Pat said, returning his attention to the television set.
While the old man watched the TV, Dan gave me a guided tour of the house. Two of the upstairs rooms were obviously the bedrooms of Dan and his father, but Dan had turned the third one into an office. There was a black-and-white photograph of a pretty young woman in a silver frame on Dan’s desk.
“Is that your mother?”
“Yes. Dad doesn’t like to be reminded of her, s
o I keep it in here.”
“Why doesn’t he want to remember her? I thought he loved her.”
“It was a terrible situation for all of us,” Dan said, gazing sadly at the picture of his lost mother. “She had a tumor in her brain. For the last six months of her life she didn’t know who or where she was. Some days she’d talk wildly about being in the wrong body and at other times she’d sit silently for hours at a time. Dad can’t bear to remember her like that, so he tries not to remember her at all.”
“That’s awful, Dan. I’m so sorry.”
I stared at the picture above Dan’s desk with a sinking heart. Now I knew I would never be able to tell Dan about my situation. If I tried to tell him what was happening to me he’d assume I was going mad, like his mother. My secret would have to stay hidden from him forever if I wanted Dan to be a part of my life.
chapter eleven
For me, the pleasure had gone out of the evening after Dan’s revelation about his mother. We ordered takeout and rented a DVD. Dan didn’t want to leave Pat on his own for the evening and I could see that he was devoted to his father. The three of us ate together in the front room while Patrick made derisive comments about our choice of film.
My thoughts were in turmoil as I tried to concentrate on the screen. After my reluctance to make a commitment in my previous relationship with Stephen, or with anyone since, it seemed so unfair that now I wanted to throw myself body and soul into this relationship with Dan but there were so many obstacles stacking up against us. Just when I’d decided to trust Dan with my secret, the knowledge of his mother’s illness loomed between us like an impossible stumbling block.
It seemed incongruous that it was the parent who was no longer alive who presented the biggest hurdle, I thought, as my eyes stared unseeingly at the TV screen. Patrick himself wasn’t a problem. Although he was dependent on his son, he seemed to like me and I him, and I felt we could get along reasonably comfortably together. I chewed on the rather rubbery chicken madras, my eyes still fixed on the screen, and hoped that nothing would happen in the early hours of the Richardson household that might endanger this fragile new relationship. If I collapsed in front of Patrick he would probably immediately think of what had happened with his own young wife, and my copybook would be well and truly blotted.
