I slip my trainers on and storm out of the flat.
With the sun shining and my feet pounding the pavement at a brisk pace, I try to clear Marcus from my mind. I focus on nothing more than putting one foot in front of the other, much like I did on the treadmill during my early days at Broadhall. There is something inherently calming in the repetition and I wallow in the mindlessness of it. This is my therapy. My way to shut out the noise from an ever-growing list of questions that constantly loop in my head.
I wander aimlessly for over two hours, until my feet start to throb. I don’t mind the pain. I quite like the feeling of aching limbs and tired muscles brought on by exercise. It’s a different feeling from the random aches and pains my body used to endure every morning when I led a sedentary lifestyle. However, my body is telling me it’s probably time to return to the flat.
By the time I get back, it’s nearly four o’clock. Any remnants of my hangover are long gone but it’s not so easy to shake the vision of a young Marcus lying on his death bed. It’s so vivid I can see his face, gaunt and pale, and his body, emaciated. He looks scared. Terrified. I don’t consciously recall creating this vision but it’s there nonetheless. The work of my pernicious imagination, again.
The vision is so real I can only banish it by telling myself that maybe tomorrow, once the computer is working, I’ll be able to go back. I’ll relive that Sunday and ensure I never have a conversation with Marcus. He won’t go to London and he’ll never contract that hideous disease. He’ll continue to be a complete twat though, but at least he won’t be a dead twat.
I know, deep down, the chances of being able to return are slim, but I’d rather focus on that slim chance than dwell on Marcus’s actual fate and the accompanying visions.
To keep my mind distracted, I put the TV on and scan through the channels. I settle on watching a game show and it proves to be an effective antidote. The idiocy of the contestants beggars belief and the show ends, not unsurprisingly, with the final contestant not knowing the currency of Poland is the zloty. It’s a staple question of the pub quiz, for crying out loud. But no amount of shouting at the screen can help the fool and he fails to win the five-hundred-quid prize.
I scan the channels again, and find another game show, and another raft of fuckwits. Pamela from Bristol doesn’t know there are one thousand metres in a kilometre, and Darren from Portsmouth is convinced a thesaurus is a type of dinosaur. I watch for another half-hour, and can’t help but wonder how the contestant actually manage to find their way out of the house each morning, such is their stupidity. Where do they get these people?
The closing titles finally roll, prompting me to get on with preparations for my trip to Lucy’s house.
I head into the bedroom and search for clean clothes. I should probably have done some washing by now, but I’ll forgive myself on the grounds I’ve had a few more pressing matters to address in the last few days. I manage to find a clean pair of jeans and boxer shorts, and a black polo shirt.
With my attire sorted, I have a shave and then stand in the shower until the hot water runs cold. It’s gone six o’clock by the time I return to the bathroom mirror. I take a minute to inspect my reflection, and my tousled hair. Back in my former life I used to have it cut short every four weeks, but it’s now been over two months since it last saw a pair of scissors. I quite like it. It’s messy but not untidy, almost like I’ve deliberately styled it that way. Another benefit to longer hair is that my receding hairline isn’t so obvious.
I cover my body with deodorant and get dressed. A final inspection in the mirror and I’m good to go. Lucy’s house is about half-an-hour away but I don’t want to arrive in a sweaty mess so I give myself a forty-minute window for the walk.
With so much happening since we met up on Saturday night, I’ve barely had chance to think about Lucy. I use the two mile walk to think back to our first date, and contemplate what lies ahead this evening. It still feels surreal. We were friends for years but I never believed that our friendship could develop into something more. Yet here I am now, on my way to her house with possibly more than a snog on the cards.
For the next few hours I intend to forget about time-travel and troublesome computers.
Tonight I intend to make up for lost time.
21
Partridge Lane is situated in one of the oldest, and most tranquil parts of Farndale. Originally, the lane was once no more than a farm track so it’s barely wide enough for two cars to pass and there’s no pavement. Thankfully, very little traffic passes this way so I can walk down the centre of the lane towards number eleven without fear of being run over. Again.
I’ve only ever been to Lucy’s house a handful of times, and not for a few years. But my memory serves me well as I stand in front of her quaint cottage, which looks unchanged from my last visit. The cottage once belonged to her grandfather and Lucy inherited it when he passed away. She’d never have been able to afford such a sought-after home on her RolpheTech wages.
I open the gate and make my way up a narrow path alongside the small front garden. To me, the garden looks overgrown, but I think Lucy has gone for that cottage-garden look by crowding the space with an abundance of wild plants with colourful flowers. One thing is for sure, everything would be dead within a week if it was under my care so I shouldn’t judge.
I step up to a hardwood front door, gloss painted letterbox red. It’s probably older than the home I used to own. I rap the brass knocker and shuffle nervously on the spot as I wait. A few seconds pass and the door opens.
“Hiya. Come on in,” Lucy says enthusiastically.
I step inside the hall and she kisses me on the cheek. I remain motionless to avoid another clash of heads.
“You look amazing,” I gush, suddenly feeling very under-dressed.
“Aw, thank you. Let’s go through to the kitchen shall we?”
She turns and walks away. I pause for a moment to appreciate her svelte form, framed in a short summer dress. The delicate, light-blue fabric clings to her curves, leaving little to my imagination. I put my tongue back in and follow.
The kitchen, and indeed the entire ground floor of the cottage, are nothing like I remember. It would seem Lucy’s business is doing well enough to fund some major renovations. Both the poky kitchen and dining room that used to occupy the rear of the building are gone. In their place is an open-plan room that stretches the full width of the cottage. A shaker-style kitchen with pale cream units occupies half the space, with a chunky, cherry wood dining table sat in the centre of the other half. A set of bi-fold doors are tucked away so the dining area is completely open to the garden beyond.
“This is so much better, Lucy,” I mindlessly remark.
“Better?”
“Sorry. I mean…nice. It’s so nice,” I splutter.
Idiot.
“I had it done earlier this year. The place was a bomb-site for a month but it was worth it.”
Seemingly happy to overlook my odd comment, she grabs a bottle of white wine from the fridge and places it on an island along with two glasses.
“Wine okay?”
“Perfect. Thanks.”
She fills both glasses and carries them over to the dining table. I take that as invitation to sit and Lucy follows suit.
“I’ve prepped a sushi salad for dinner. Hope that’s okay?”
“Sounds lovely.”
I take a sip of wine, cold and tart. We sit and share awkward glances at one another, like teenagers at a school disco.
“Shall I put some music on?” Lucy asks. “What do you like?”
I’d guess she actually wants to fill the uncomfortable silence. The atmosphere feels a little strained. Maybe, in the cold, sober light of day, some of my revelations from Saturday evening are playing on her mind. I did throw her a few curve balls. I need to fill in a few of the gaps I left behind.
“I’m quite partial to a bit of James Blunt.”
I hate James Blunt.
“Tha
t’s amazing,” she squeals. “I love James Blunt. I’ve got all his albums.”
I knew that, of course. It was a great icebreaker but I’ve just condemned myself to at least three hours of James Blunt. Bollocks.
“Great,” I reply with little conviction.
Lucy darts back into the kitchen and switches on a CD player. She returns to the table as the first track begins.
“What’s your favourite album of his?” she asks.
Shit.
“Um, Back to Bedlam, I think.”
It’s the only one of Blunt’s albums I know.
“Mine too. I’ll never get bored of listening to it.”
I already am.
“I can’t believe it’s been fourteen years since it came out. Seems like only yesterday,” she adds.
She takes a sip of wine, seemingly deep in thought.
“Can I ask you a question, Craig?”
“Sure.”
“This memory problem of yours. How come you can remember things like the name of songs and albums?”
A perfectly reasonable question. It’s a real shame I haven’t considered a perfectly reasonable answer.
“I wish I knew. Some things are there, others aren’t. It’s difficult to explain.”
She nods slowly. I know her well enough to tell she’s not convinced. I need to come up with a better explanation.
“Have you ever got so drunk you don’t remember much, the next day?” I ask.
“Once or twice.”
“And did you remember fragments of the evening, like flashbacks?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“So you know, for example, you were in a bar, but you might not remember which bar. Or you remember getting in a cab but can’t recall the colour, or what the driver looked like.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, that’s what my memory is like. It hasn’t been wiped clean like a computer hard drive. It’s just been corrupted so I can’t remember the specific details of my life.”
She pauses for a moment to digest my almost plausible explanation.
“So, you won’t have forgotten me by tomorrow lunchtime then?” she says with a smile.
I lean across the table and kiss her softly on the lips. I then withdraw but keep my face close to hers, our eyes locked.
“I’d say you’re pretty unforgettable.”
She gently strokes my cheek with the tips of her fingers and her smile widens.
“That’s the right answer,” she whispers before we kiss again, a little more passionately this time.
For the first time in my life, I’m grateful for the music of James Blunt. It proved to be the icebreaker I hoped, and after an hour of effortless chat and two bottles of wine, we finally get around to dinner.
Lucy heads over to the kitchen and dances between the fridge and two ceramic bowls on the work surface. After a few minutes, she brings the bowls over and places one of them in front of me. The sushi salad is beautifully prepared.
She takes a seat and passes me a bottle of what I assume is some sort of vinaigrette dressing. I give the bottle a shake over my salad and pass it back to Lucy. She proceeds to douse her salad with the dark liquid. I suddenly get a faint whiff of an odd smell, like a salmon on the turn. I put it down to something in the salad and we chat for a moment about our mutual appreciation of healthy food. I stab a generous forkful of salad and Lucy mirrors my action. Almost in sync, we both take our first mouthful of the lovingly prepared meal. Our eyes meet across the table and we hold one another’s gaze as we chew our food.
I would love to say it was a tender, romantic moment. And it was, right up until the point where I register a taste akin to a tramp’s perineum. I struggle not to gag as my eyes bulge and my nostrils flare. In any other circumstance, I’d have already projected the content of my mouth across the table, but even I know spitting raw fish at your host falls below acceptable standards of etiquette. I fight hard to swallow the filth.
Across the table, the chair is now empty. Lucy has plumped for a more direct solution, and is currently gagging over the kitchen sink.
I take a large gulp of wine and swill it around my mouth in an effort to remove the oily residue of whatever I poured on my salad. I’m no culinary expert, but I’m fairly certain it wasn’t vinaigrette.
Lucy gingerly extracts her head from the kitchen sink and turns to face me.
“I’m…so…sorry.”
It’s a fleeting appearance. She spins back to the sink and dry retches, several times.
She tries again, and slowly turns around.
“Oh, god, Craig…what must you think of me?”
“I’m actually thinking you might want to consider a different brand of vinaigrette. What was that?”
“Extract of anchovy,” she groans while trying to stifle a burp.
“Oh.”
She shuffles across the kitchen, opens a cupboard, and pulls out a bottle. It’s the same size and shape as the one on the table, and contains a similar dark fluid. Even the labels are the same colour.
“This is the vinaigrette,” she says, holding the bottle aloft. “I blame the alcohol for impairing my senses.”
She slams the bottle on the side and returns to the table, taking a large gulp of wine as she sits back down. I can’t help but feel sorry for her.
“On the plus side, I’ll definitely have no trouble remembering our first meal.”
She struggles to fight back a smile.
“Cheese and pickle sandwich?” she asks.
“That will do nicely. I don’t think I’ll risk the pickle though.”
“Fair point,” she chuckles. “One cheese sandwich coming up.”
Lucy heads over to the kitchen and returns five minutes later with our substitute dinner. As cheese sandwiches go, it’s a particularly nice one.
With food consumed, I offer to do the washing up while Lucy empties our bowls into the bin, her face puckered like she’s extracting the contents of a heavily-soiled nappy. As I wash up, Lucy dries, and we settle in to a comfortable routine almost as if we’re an old married couple. We chat idly about nothing in particular, and sip more wine while James Blunt wails away in the background. It strikes me this is just the type of domestic bliss I never experienced with Megan. Doing things together, no matter how menial, and simply enjoying each other’s company. It feels like the most natural thing in the world.
Once the kitchen is spic-and-span, we retire to the cosy lounge at the front of the cottage, a fourth bottle of wine and our glasses in hand. It’s a small room but beautifully decorated in warm pastel shades. The main focal point is an open fireplace with an ornate art-deco style mirror hung above. It feels like the perfect room to spend cold winter evenings, snuggled up in front of a roaring log fire.
Lucy sits down on one of the two soft leather couches, and pats the space next to her. I don’t need asking twice. We talk a little more, and kiss a lot. Inevitably, things become more heated and our kissing is accompanied by some full-on groping. Just as things approach boiling point, Lucy breaks from my clutches and informs me she needs to visit the bathroom. It’s no great surprise considering how much wine we’ve necked. She flashes me a smile and disappears upstairs.
I stretch out on the couch and bathe in a self-contented glow. Sat in silence, it doesn’t take long for my mind to start analysing the situation. For all the horrors of the last eleven months, or indeed my life before, have I ever felt this content? No, I don’t think I have. My mind drifts towards my previous life and imagines what it could have been if I’d lived with Lucy rather than Megan. Would I have still felt so resentful, so unfulfilled, so unloved? I doubt it.
In hindsight I don’t think it matters what might have been. The only reason I’m sat here now is because I’m no longer a fat oaf. Why would somebody as attractive as Lucy have ever given me a second glance? What could I have possibly offered her? No, it’s delusional to think I had any chance with Lucy in my former life. But I’m here now, with Lu
cy, and maybe this is my silver lining.
As I conclude my deliberation, the lounge door wafts silently open. Lucy is stood in the doorway — her smile is still present, her dress isn’t.
22
I scramble to sit upright so I can get a proper view of her white nightshirt, unbuttoned to her navel, the hem barely reaching the top of her thighs. My hanging tongue reappears.
She takes three slow, seductive steps into the room. “I was wondering if you’d like to see the improvements I made upstairs?”
Is that a euphemism? Is she asking me to inspect her tits? Regardless, I nod and slowly get up from the couch.
Lucy holds out her hand and I clasp it in mine. She turns and leads me from the lounge, up the stairs and into her bedroom. The curtains are already closed but sufficient light leaks through to afford me an encouraging view of Lucy’s scantily-clad body. I have precious little interest in the interior design.
She stands in front of me and places her palms on my chest. With a gentle nudge, she pushes me backwards onto the bed and clambers on beside me. I’m about to pull her towards me but she suddenly grabs my wrist and holds it hanging in the air.
“Tell me I’m not about to do something I live to regret,” she says, her expression expectant.
I free my wrist and shuffle onto my side.
“Why would you think that?”
“Experience,” she replies.
It’s a valid point, and I wonder if this version of Lucy is as unlucky in love as her counterpart from my previous life. She only ever had three relationships in all the time I knew her. I never wanted to know the details but none of them ended well, the last one in particular. I met him once; a smarmy tosser called Julian. They dated for about eight months and he was controlling, overbearing. He appeared to delight in undermining her confidence, and she became increasingly withdrawn as their relationship developed.
I want to reassure Lucy I’m nothing like Julian. I want her to know she’s my soul mate. Sadly, I can’t profess to either.
Beyond Broadhall (The '86 Fix Book 2) Page 17
