by Dani Atkins
‘Shut up,’ I hissed, acutely embarrassed at the attention he was drawing upon us. ‘It was only a theory.’
Eventually, when the tears had stopped rolling down his cheeks, he managed to control himself long enough to say, as though in dire warning: ‘And that’s what happens when you spend your entire youth reading nothing but Stephen King novels!’
There was a tension in the car that couldn’t be ignored. It sat between us like a third passenger all the way from London to Great Bishopsford. In the end we both abandoned conversation, preferring instead to pretend that the silence we were travelling in was companionable, rather than strained and awkward. But we were just fooling ourselves. For the first time in… well, actually in for ever… I couldn’t speak freely or easily with Jimmy. If I’d have known that my actions would tear so deeply into our friendship I would never have done or said anything. But that wisdom only came with the benefit of hindsight.
And it had all been going so well. How did everything get ruined in such a short period of time?
We’d left the restaurant in good spirits, surprisingly so, considering the emotional traumas of the day. It had just started to snow as we began the short walk back to the hotel, and the soft white sprinkling falling around us, combined with the twinkling Christmas lights laced in the avenue of trees, made everything look somehow magical.
The pavements were already becoming icy and Jimmy took my arm without comment after the second near-slip, which threatened to leave me in a crumpled heap beside the road.
‘It’s these shoes,’ I protested, as his arm reached out with lightning speed, catching and steadying me before I managed to totally embarrass myself. ‘My other wardrobe was much more sensible.’
Jimmy chose not to remind me that my ‘other wardrobe’ was in fact, imaginary, but commented instead, ‘It’s not the shoes. It’s you. You’re a liability – you need constant looking after.’
‘Well, isn’t that what policemen are supposed to do? Isn’t that your motto: “protect and serve”?’
Jimmy laughed. ‘I think you’ll find that’s just the American police.’
‘I stand corrected,’ I murmured at the precise moment that I once again lost my footing and almost fell.
‘Really? From what I can see, it looks like you can hardly stand at all!’
We were both still laughing when we entered the warm and brightly lit hotel foyer.
We parted company in the hallway outside our adjacent rooms, but before saying goodnight, I reached up to hug him tightly.
‘Thank you for being with me today,’ I whispered in his ear. ‘I was wrong, I couldn’t have done this by myself. I’m so glad you came with me.’
His response was the gentlest of smiles, then he bent down and kissed me softly upon the lips. I drew back slightly, a little surprised, but while there was immeasurable warmth in his eyes, there was no fire. It was a kiss which said you’re welcome; don’t mention it; anytime. It was wholly appropriate and completely innocent. So why was it that, when we slid our respective pass cards into the locks and entered our rooms, I was left feeling as though I had wanted that kiss to say something else entirely?
I thought it would take me ages to fall asleep. I thought I would be replaying the day and all its outcomes over and over in my mind on an endless spool. But the combination of the wine we had drunk with dinner and sheer nervous exhaustion must have overtaken me, for I drifted off into oblivion within minutes of my head nestling onto the pillow. And for several hours I slept soundly, deeply and untroubled.
The dream began pleasantly enough. I was lying somewhere warm and relaxing, on a beach, I thought, and although I couldn’t quite make out his words, I could hear my father talking nearby. In my dream I kept meaning to say something, to ask him something, but I was so overcome by a delicious lassitude that to stir, even an inch, from the warm enveloping sand was all too much of an effort.
And then it all abruptly changed, in that bizarre way that dreams do. The beach was gone, and so too was my father. I was back in time, back to the night of the car accident, only this time it wasn’t Matt who had seen the approaching car heading towards us, it was me.
I knew what I had to do but when I opened my mouth to shout out a warning, no words came out, no sound at all. Frantically I tried to get everyone’s attention, but each one of them was deeply engrossed in conversation with someone else at the table, and despite my hysterical gesticulations, still no one but me was aware of the imminent danger. The waiters were laying our plates of food before us, refilling our wine glasses, while death hurtled towards us at around sixty miles an hour.
And it was then I saw that, incongruously, on the wall behind me was a large bright red emergency button. I slammed my hand down hard upon it and the responding beep of the alarm filled the air. Yet still no one moved. I struggled to get out of my chair but I was every bit as much imprisoned by the table as I had been on that actual night. Why couldn’t they hear the alarm? To me, the continual piercing bleep was so loud it was almost a deafening klaxon, but my friends remained oblivious as they sat at the table and waited for death to join them.
As the approaching car hurtled towards us, I relived the moment that had haunted so many of my dreams over the past five years, and then, finally, I found my voice. I screamed, not once but several times, and only stopped when the sound of breaking glass exploded all around me.
Only it wasn’t glass, it was the china base of the bedside lamp which my thrashing arm had knocked from the nightstand.
I sat up, hearing the thunderous pounding of my heart, waiting for it to slow down. Only the pounding wasn’t slowing down at all; if anything it was getting louder, and as I swam to the surface of full consciousness I could hear my name being called out urgently from Jimmy as he all but took the door off its hinges with his frenzied hammering.
Still not entirely awake, I swung my legs off the bed and stood up, only to sit sharply back down again as the sole of my foot encountered one of the broken shards of china. I swore loudly at the shock and pain and clambered over the bed to reach the door before Jimmy succeeded in waking up every other occupant of the floor.
We would have been a peculiar sight to any onlooker who happened to be passing down the corridor at two o’clock in the morning. Fortunately there was no one around to see Jimmy, with his hair awry, standing semi-dressed on the threshold to my room. He had at least taken the time to pull on a pair of jeans, but I noticed that, like me, he too was barefooted.
He strode purposely into my room.
‘Are you all right? I heard you screaming.’ His eyes raked the room, looking for the cause of my terrified cries, and there was no disguising the alarm in his tone, which struck me as odd, for aren’t policeman trained to stay cool in an emergency?
‘Nightmare,’ I said succinctly, hopping over to the room’s only armchair to avoid standing on my damaged foot.
His sigh of relief seemed to empty his body of the tension that had obviously been coursing through it.
‘Oh God, is that all? I thought you were being murdered in here. And then when I heard that crashing sound…’
‘I had a little argument with the bedside lamp.’
It was then that he noticed the way I was cradling my left foot in my hand, while a slow but persistent trickle of blood oozed from the deep cut on the sole.
‘Rachel you’re hurt! What happened?’
Not for the first time I wondered if he was really in the right line of work. His powers of deduction seemed flawed, to say the least.
‘I stood on one of the broken bits of lamp in my hurry to get to the door before you broke it down.’
I knew that I must have sounded a little ungrateful but the nightmare still had me in its thrall and my foot was actually very sore. Instantly he was by my chair, gently prising my hands away from my injured foot.
‘Here, let me take a look.’
Gingerly, I laid my left foot in his outstretched hand, already preparing to wince
at his touch, but he was infinitely gentle as he supported my heel in his palm, examining the wound which was still bleeding quite profusely.
‘Let’s get this cleaned up,’ he announced getting to his feet. ‘I don’t think there is anything in the cut, but we need better light than in here to be sure.’
Before I realised his intention, he had bent and scooped me into his arms and was carrying me towards the bathroom.
‘I can walk,’ I protested. ‘Or hop.’
He ignored my comments and kicked the bathroom door ajar with his foot and flicked on the light. As he looked around for somewhere to deposit me, I was acutely aware of the unfamiliar, although not unpleasant, sensation of being held against his naked chest. Less agreeable was the realisation that my nightdress was incredibly short and, as a result of my nightmare, was clinging revealingly to my sweat-dampened body. I tried to pull down on the hem but only succeeded in displaying even more of my cleavage by doing so. Fortunately, Jimmy’s attention was all on my foot.
He lowered me onto the edge of the bath and used the shower attachment to slowly cascade water over my foot and ankle. It stung a little at first, but I didn’t dare fidget too much, trying as I was to maintain what little modesty I had left with one leg lifted over the edge of the tub. Never before had I felt in such desperate need of underwear.
Under the soothing rivulets of water and the fluorescent bathroom lighting, Jimmy took careful stock of the wound and when he had determined that it was clean of foreign objects, he pressed firmly down on the cut to staunch the flow of blood. The bathroom was tiny, no doubt designed for single occupancy only, so we were by necessity very close together. So close that I could hear when his breathing, instead of slowing down now the initial panic was over, began to increase in pace. I knew then that it wasn’t just me who was aware of the intimacy of the moment. With his thumb still covering the cut, his fingers were moving in slow almost imperceptible circles upon my ankle. I didn’t know if he realised what he was doing, whether the caress was intentional or not, but his actions weren’t helping my heart to resume its normal rhythm.
Something new was happening here, and the very air in the small enclosed room seemed to pulsate with a heady and unfathomable emotion. Jimmy looked up and there was something in his eyes I had never seen before; he would have recognised it though, for it was reflected back at him on my own face. The moment seemed endless and we remained locked within its intensity, neither daring to speak or move for fear of breaking the fragile cocoon around us.
‘Jimmy,’ I breathed uncertainly, reaching out a hand to touch his chest. My fingertips rested there only a moment, just long enough to feel the strong pulse of his heartbeat reverberating against them and then, with a determined shake of his head, as though denying what was happening, he got roughly to his feet. He took several moments longer than necessary to return the shower to its stand and shut off the water, but when he turned to look at me once more there was nothing in his face to betray his emotions. The fragile interlude between us might never have been.
‘I think it’s stopped bleeding now but you should probably put a plaster on it, if you have one.’
‘Uh-huh.’ Switching from intimacy to practicality in a matter of seconds had done nothing to improve my ability to articulate.
He left me then to dry my foot and dress the wound, while he returned to the bedroom and busied himself methodically clearing the carpet of broken china.
I watched him in silence from the bathroom doorway, fascinated by the display of his muscled arms and back as he bent to his task. I knew then that my feelings for him had strayed off the path of friendship, and I wanted so badly to reach out to him that it felt like a physical ache. But every bit as clearly, I could see that Jimmy did not reciprocate those feelings. Whatever territory we had almost ventured into a few minutes ago, was clearly somewhere Jimmy didn’t want to go. If I pushed it, I could lose him for ever and I couldn’t cope with that again.
‘There,’ he said, straightening to his feet. ‘I think I’ve got it all, just watch where you walk.’
‘Thank you.’ My voice was a little subdued but I don’t know if he noticed. What he did notice, however, was my sudden involuntary shiver in the coolness of the bedroom. He came over and put an arm around my shoulders.
‘God, Rachel, you’re freezing. Have you got a dressing gown or something?’
I shook my head. I’d only packed the bare essentials and I certainly hadn’t been expecting company in the middle of the night.
‘Well let’s get you back into bed before you catch a cold.’
He bent as though to carry me again but I ducked from his grip and hobbled the short distance over to the bed. He gave a small laugh at what he thought was my stubbornness, and I was happy to let him believe it was that. Far better to have him think I was being pig-headed than for him to realise the effect his proximity was suddenly having on me.
I scrambled under the blankets, the coverage they provided being even more welcome than their warmth. To my surprise Jimmy didn’t appear to be in any hurry to return to his own room and settled himself down to sit on top of the covers beside me on the bed.
‘So what was this nightmare about then, the one that made you decide to trash the room like a rock star?’
I gave a small smile. ‘Oh, nothing really.’
‘It didn’t sound like nothing to me. You really scared me, you know.’
I looked into his face and knew he was telling the truth. He might not precisely share my feelings, but there was no doubting that he did care for me.
‘Sorry,’ I apologised, not really knowing if I was saying it for worrying him; for what happened in the bathroom; or for any and all future transgressions. ‘The dream was the usual one. Usual for me, that is. I was dreaming about the night of the car accident.’
‘Does that happen a lot?’
I nodded sadly.
‘Ever since the accident?’
‘Ever since you died,’ I corrected.
We were both silent then, temporarily lost for words at the improbability of my statement.
‘But why are you still dreaming it now?’ Jimmy asked suddenly, turning on his side, the better to see my face. ‘Why now, when you know it didn’t really happen like that?’
I shook my head miserably. ‘I don’t know.’
But then a thought occurred to me, a really obvious one. For the thing I didn’t know, what I was really in the dark about, was what had actually happened on that fateful night. Because that was when reality had split into two different realms for me. Perhaps when I understood what had actually transpired, the imaginary second life would lose all substance and disappear like the mirage everyone said that it was.
‘Tell me everything. Tell me what you remember about that night, from the moment we sat down at that table.’
Jimmy read the need to know in my voice and, as though to protect me from the truth, should it turn out to be painful, he put an arm around my shoulders before beginning.
His story was just as I remembered it being. Even the air of camaraderie and friendship came to life again at his recollections. I didn’t interrupt at all until he mentioned the penny he had given me.
‘I kept that!’ I cried out involuntarily, before correcting myself. ‘Or rather, in my other life I did. I kept it in my jewellery box. I couldn’t throw it away, it seemed like my last link with you.’
He smiled, but said nothing. And then another thought occurred to me.
‘And we’d made arrangements for the following day. I remember that now. You’d asked me to go round the next day to see you and you’d sounded really mysterious about it. I wondered about that for years. What had you wanted to talk about?’
Was it the light, or had his cheeks really deepened in colour at my question?
‘Oh I don’t know. I can’t remember after all this time.’
I let it go without comment, not wanting to divert him from his tale. But I couldn’t help wonder why h
e had just lied to me.
The story continued true to my memories until we reached the point when we had all begun the frantic dash from the table to escape the oncoming car.
‘… and we all managed to get clear of the window before the guy drove into it.’
‘But I was stuck. I couldn’t get free, a chair was blocking me in. Didn’t it happen that way?’
He was silent for a moment, seeming to almost weigh up what to tell me.
‘It all happened so quickly, it’s hard to say. Perhaps you were the last to get clear.’
There was something he was glossing over here and I wasn’t about to let it rest.
‘No. I wasn’t the last. My dad said that you got hurt, so obviously you were still near the window when the car crashed through. What happened?’
I realised then what he was reluctant to tell me.
‘It is as I remember it, isn’t it? You came back for me. You pulled me clear.’
He looked strangely embarrassed to admit it.
‘We all kind of helped each other get away.’
I shook my head. I could still see it so clearly: everyone had moved back, everyone had been safe, everyone but me. But one of them had come back to rescue me.
‘You saved my life.’
For a moment it looked like he was going to continue to deny it, but then he heard the certainty in my voice and went instead for humour.
‘I couldn’t let you die and take my lucky penny with you.’
But I wasn’t going to let him divert me.
‘You saved my life.’
His answer this time lost all flippancy, and with desperate honesty he replied, ‘How could I do anything else?’
I didn’t know what to say. There are no words to cover that sort of gratitude; to repay that kind of debt.
‘And you got hurt.’
I raised my hand and lifted the hair away from his forehead, revealing a small white jagged scar that ran down from his hairline to the level of his eye.
‘It’s so like mine,’ I breathed in wonder. ‘The one I thought I had,’ I corrected. ‘Except mine was deeper, longer.’ I let my finger trace the line of his scar. ‘Mine went down here,’ my finger ran over his cheek, catching slightly on the roughness of bristle, ‘and then went to here.’ My finger continued to etch the blueprint of the remembered scar, but instead of stilling where my disfigurement had ended, I continued to trace a pathway to his mouth, coming to rest upon his slightly parted lips.
