by Femi Fadugba
He wasted no time accepting my thorny olive branch. ‘All right, let man set the scene,’ he said, wriggling his body into character. ‘A decade from now … you’re sittin on one of them red couches on centre stage. Then out of nowhere – bam! – your old team captain Maria runs in from behind the curtains. She’s smiling and shouting about how your husband – your buff, loving, faithful husband of four years – is actually the father of her brand-new baby boy.’
‘You’re really taking it there.’
‘Mind you, you’ve had three yutes for them man there; you decided to give up your footy career and everything. Meanwhile, he’s on his knees, pointing to the ring on your finger to remind you he would never cheat on you. The camera zooms in on your face and the home audience wonders: Will she take what he’s saying at face value? Will she allow him?’
‘Are you mad?’ I responded, sitting up. ‘First, I’d scratch up Maria’s face. Then, I’d get the DNA tests off Henry, and, even if they came back negative, I’d still physically choke the truth out of that waste lieutenant.’
It wasn’t clear who broke the silence first. But, after a minute of imagining the most ratchet moment in daytime-television history, we were both bent up in laughter.
‘Your response proves my point perfectly, though,’ he said, still creasing. Then, he took on an even, almost wary tone. ‘Everything we see is thanks to light. We rely on it so much that everything it shows us seems like the whole truth. And yet you don’t know a damn thing about this partner of yours. You never thought it might be worth scrolling through his text messages when he left his phone on the table? You never wondered how many other chicks light says “I love you” to?’
‘All right,’ I said, rubbing my neck. ‘No need to lay it on so thick. I get it: light is dodgy.’
‘Proper dodgy,’ he responded.
‘And I guess what you’re practically tryna tell me is that one of light’s dodgy secrets is that, no matter how fast you move alongside it, it will always be moving 300,000 kilometres per second faster than you.’
‘No. Matter. What.’ He hammered his finger into the table on each word. ‘I didn’t make that up to piss you off. It’s just a cold hard fact. People have done hundreds of experiments to prove it’s true. The Michelson–Morley experiment, the Kennedy–Thorndike tests, Ives–Stillwell. Look them up after this.’
He paused, chewed on his lip. Under the table, I spotted his trainer caps pointing straight up, like he was getting ready to launch through the ceiling with his next words. ‘Let there be light. Light was there from the beginning, but it wasn’t till Einstein came along that we bothered paying attention. He used maths to prove how dodgy light is, but, even today, we’re still finding out more, still scratching our heads at why it acts the way it does –’
‘This is that quantum-physics shit, innit?’ It was a wild guess, but also the go-to explainer for everything in films these days.
‘Nah, it’s actually Einstein’s theory of relativity,’ he said, being gentle so I wouldn’t feel shot down. ‘It’s all about space and time, and how they behave differently from different perspectives. It’s about the fact that everything’s relative.’
Amy, the weekday cleaner, poked her head through the door. ‘Sorry to interrupt, you two.’ With two minutes of lesson left, this was the worst possible time. ‘I know you live in Peckham, Rhia – just wanted to warn you to be extra careful going home. There was some news on the radio about a shooting around there. Thirteen dead. Bloodshed affiliates, apparently.’
‘Again.’ I sighed once she’d shut the door behind her.
‘D’you know him?’ Dr Esso asked with eager eyes. ‘Bloodshed?’
‘Of course,’ I replied, baffled that he’d asked and wondering why he cared. Everyone in the country knew about Bloodshed and his guys. His face came up on OppWatch so often he was in the opening credits. Realizing I might have missed the point, I clarified: ‘I mean, I don’t know him personally. Do you?’
‘Yeah,’ he said, toes back down. ‘When we were kids, though. He was active back then, to be honest. But not like this. Nothing like this. Anyway,’ he said in a lighter tone. ‘You’re from ends, innit, so you know I can’t say much more.’
Another heart-racing comment I’d have to ignore. At least for now. I was gripping the sides of my seat, fearing how far above my head I might be. The same man whose feet had gone dodgy when we’d first met, who kept a photo of my mum in his pouch, was also childhood mates with Xavier ‘Bloodshed’ Teno?
And apparently obsessed with physics. He talked about equations the way most people talked about family, curling his fingers into twin pistols as he spoke, like he was ready to defend them.
‘Anyway, I guess that’s it for today,’ he said.
Get in the zone, Rhia, I shouted in my head. I’d buttered him up more than enough – it was now or never.
‘Before I forget.’ I cleared my throat, wiped my palms on my trackie bottoms. ‘During our brand-management class today, our teacher mentioned that, back in the twenties, teenagers used to do this thing on social media. I think they were called selfies? Basically when you stretch your arm out and take an awkward photo of yourself in a completely unironic way.’
‘Yeah.’ He was smiling and shaking his head. ‘A selfie.’
‘Well, for my homework I need a selfie with someone I know who was born before 2008.’
‘Cool,’ he said, taking a while to catch up. ‘Oh, shit – you want one with me, don’t you? Sorry, I don’t actually know how to use the camera on my phone –’
Before he could finish, I’d scuttered round to his side of the table, phone in hand. ‘Let’s use mine. Just hold it there and press any button when you’re ready.’ I couldn’t believe I was taking part in this bizarre tradition, but I knew it was for a greater cause. ‘I’ll be throwing up a peace sign. You can do whatever your ting was in the olden days.’
A couple seconds of open eyes were all I needed. I yanked the scanner from my pocket and held it just in front of his face as he squared up my camera. One, I counted silently, two –
‘Which button was it again?’ His eyes flicked away just as the light was due to turn green.
‘Any button!’ I replied, forgetting to rein myself in.
‘All right … Jesus.’ This time he counted down: ‘Let’s both say cheese in one …’
Please work, I was crying inside.
‘Two …’
Please!
‘Cheese!’
I barely registered the flash. Once the light on the scanner went green, I quickly slid the device back into my pocket, and felt my entire body sigh in relief. I still had to find someone who could retrieve his records with it, but I’d accomplished part one of the job. Now I had to get the hell out of here.
‘Before you go, Rhia.’ His voice made me jump as I was already twisting the doorknob. ‘I also had a bit of a random, somewhat theoretical question for you.’
I waited in silence, getting antsier with each passing second.
‘We talked for a while about the future today,’ he continued. ‘But what about the past?’
‘The past?’ I checked, wondering where this could possibly be going.
‘I guess my real question is: if you could go back in time – you know, to the past – and change things, would you?’
His question punched me with a force somehow bigger than the sum of his words. Maybe it was the fact it had arrived out of nowhere. Maybe it was his serious-as-death tone. Or maybe it was the question itself.
In what universe would I not want my mum alive and with me instead of dead and forgotten? My heart wanted to scream YES! in response. But my gut, which had sunk the moment he asked the question, knew it wasn’t that simple. I had no idea what a happy family life with Mum would even look like. And, most importantly, I still didn’t know or trust this man.
‘I’m not gonna lie,’ I lied. ‘I’ve never really thought about it.’ But he’d picked loose a thread of curi
osity that was now dangling between us, waiting to be pulled. ‘But how exactly is that related to the speed of light?’
‘Well …’ He shoved in one of his painful silences, and that was when I noticed he was wearing the same face he’d worn when I met him, the time I’d looked down at his feet and seen them shook. ‘Because light is the key to time travel,’ he continued. ‘And time travel is –’
He stopped before he could finish, before I could process what I was feeling, but well in time for his guard to slide right back up. ‘Let’s chat about this next time,’ he said, zipping his coat to the top.
And yet I had a feeling I knew exactly what he’d wanted to say. I might only just be seeing it, but the message – in all its warped, delusional logic – had been written on his heart all along. He’d found me on purpose. He was here on purpose. And the reason he was pushing me through these lessons, forcing me to understand every line of maths, was that he wanted me to believe what he saw as fact.
That time travel could be real.
CHAPTER 9
Esso · Now
‘Christ! Thank goodness you’re alive.’
I couldn’t have put it better myself.
The voice came from an oval blur hovering above me. I crossed my fingers, hoping the air I was breathing was made with real earthly oxygen. Once my eyes cleared, my prayers were answered: it was the chaperone lady, kneeling over me and smiling. Each one of her individual features was a smidgen off: her eyes looked almost too round; her nose was stick-thin at the base; and her lips, although nice and full, were chapped on every goddamn edge. But somehow it all came together in a peng package.
It had been just a dream.
As more detail came into view, I saw bodies of all shapes standing over me. On my back and spread across the tarmac, I felt like I was watching my own wake – paralysed in an open coffin while strangers looked down, mourned, then walked on again.
‘I saw your eyes turning this dark shade of grey – I was seconds away from giving you mouth-to-mouth!’ the chaperone said, laughing, with her manicured fingers resting on her windpipe.
‘You were?’ I responded.
Seeing her cheeks redden, I wished I could go back in time and choose two slightly less thirsty words as my first ones.
Focus, Esso. My school shirt was drenched in sweat, reminding me how scorching it had been in that dreamworld. Despite it being below zero on the street, the juju energy of that place had somehow followed me and the scream of ‘Preston! No!’ still rang in my ears. I shook my head and searched for memories from just before the crash. Once the first one arrived, the rest flooded in fast, along with a minute’s worth of heartbeats. It had only been a dream. Surely it had only been a dream.
‘Where’s Preston?’ I asked the chaperone.
Her face tangled. ‘Who?’
I wasn’t sure what to say next, how to explain. So, instead of trying and failing, I scanned the crowd myself in case there was anyone who looked remotely Asian in it – ideally a young boy under five feet. A group of children were standing at the entrance of an alleyway roughly twenty metres down the road. I squinted for a gap between their bodies and found what I’d been searching for.
He was at the centre of the crowd, same bowl cut and corduroy trousers, though his tie had come loose into two strands down his chest. The same boy who’d almost got me killed was now jumping around, re-enacting the car-crash scene, starting with a slo-mo sprint on the spot, then a swan dive with arms fanned out like a keeper.
I saved him, I realized. I actually saved him! Plus, I was alive. Considering how badly things could have played out, no one could blame me for feeling as wavy as I was.
But my excitement disappeared the second I recognized where he was standing. Now, in the clear light of day, I could see it was the same narrow alleyway from that dream of D and Bloodshed coming for me in a hailstorm.
But if the vision of Preston getting splattered by an SUV hadn’t come true, why would that one? Surely that scary dream of D and Bloodshed was just my subconscious trying to tell me that I still had serious danger in the real world to look forward to. In the real world, I just got hit by a Range Rover, and the ride to Guy’s Hospital – only a short walk from the biggest T.A.S. estate – could be my last. The real world needed me to get off my ass. And fast.
The chaperone lady was waving her hands in front of my eyes to steal back my attention. ‘I just have to say, what you did was incredibly brave. You saved his life.’ She scanned around to see if anyone was in earshot, then said, ‘You probably saved my job as well.’
‘Can you help me up, please?’ I asked her.
‘Of course. Of course.’
I grabbed her extended arm, and she wrapped her free one round my shoulders. I could hear my polyester shirt peeling off the wet tarmac, and my back clicking as my spine curled its way up. A man in the crowd, seeing I was struggling, shuffled forward to help. He was bald, cheerful and enormous, with a pair of stonewashed jeans and a matching jacket that he was rocking like Commercial Way was his catwalk.
‘Why are you babying dis guy? Come on and gerr’up, my friend,’ he said, yanking me to my feet. He was definitely Ghanaian or Nigerian. He had that square-head-hench-shoulders combo that Ghanaians kept on lock, but then again, he pronounced his t’s like they were r’s – just like this one fresh Nigerian kid at school. He was the smartest kid in our class by a hood-mile but had us in stitches when he’d say stuff like ‘we jus’ wanna parry’ and ‘we’re jus’ poppin borrels’.
Giant speech clouds condensed around the man’s lips: ‘How are you feeling? Is your body hurr-ing? Your upper leg? Your lower leg?’ He and the chaperone leaned in for the gruesome details.
‘I’m all right, you know.’ My mind was already on the third and final demerit I was about to collect for being late to school. ‘My hip feels a bit sore, head’s kinda light. But nothing serious.’
The most English smile possible appeared on the chaperone’s face. A smile that was polite and caring on the surface, but underneath said: ‘You do not have a say in this; you are an idiot.’
‘An ambulance is on the way.’ She held her careful smile. ‘Once it arrives, we’ll call your parents, so they know which hospital you’re headed to.’
‘Safe,’ I said, and while scanning for an easy exit, I happened to notice one paigon in the crowd ahead. His leather jacket was zipped to his nose, so only the top of his face was visible. But it was a face I could never forget. Staring at him triggered a flashback to before the crash: him playing on his phone while me and junior ran for our little lives. At first he froze, part of him clearly wanting to leg it. But, after a long sigh, he waded through the mass of onlookers towards me.
‘Bruv, sorry about that – I was trying to slow down, but I didn’t see you till the last second.’ He kicked away the one-legged pigeon picking at his feet, but it came hopping right back. It was one of those intimidating pigeons that you only get in places like Peckham and Pakistan. The pigeons that make you walk round them like they have right of way.
He continued talking down at me in the same shifty and surprisingly high-pitched tone he’d started with: ‘Honestly, mate, I’m just glad you’re good. Going hospital would have been long, still.’ He looked at the divot in his bonnet, then back at my leg as if comparing the damage on each object. ‘Next time, just make sure you look both ways before crossing, innit.’
I knew – from seeing everyone zoom in on my forehead at the same time – that the vein that ran across my forehead was thumping. If I’d been hot before, I was doused in flames now.
Say something, Esso. Anything. You can’t let this dickhead par you like that, I thought. Don’t let him just shirk the blame.
The crowd had grown to fifteen, maybe twenty, the nearest ones standing by for my response. But, as usual, I was too rattled to redeem myself – all my best comebacks tended to pop up in my head a week after they were needed. I closed my gaping mouth and stood quiet while my righteous anger m
elted into shame. And, as the disappointed crowd started to disperse, I felt a tug at my sleeve that couldn’t have come at a better time.
‘Thanks,’ the tug said. I looked down, and it was him – the boy I’d saved. He spoke in a mellow whistle, sweet enough to soothe a serial killer. Even his bowl cut, which would have looked ridiculous on any other human being, just seemed to add to his glow.
‘That’s all right, man,’ I replied, bending down. ‘Lucky neither of us got too banged up, get me?’
Another paranoid thought popped into my head. And, once it latched, it refused to make space for anything else. I had to ask him. I was already sure; I just needed to be extra sure.
‘By the way, your name’s not Preston, is it?’
The big man in denim – still standing between me and the chaperone lady – burst out laughing, and cut in before the kid had a chance to respond. ‘What kind of nonsense name is Preston?’ he asked, personally insulted for the boy. ‘My friend, look at his face. We both know they don’t do such foolishness in China.’
The chaperone lady stormed in, making herself a protective barrier in front of him. ‘He’s barely nine years old. And you think it’s acceptable to make such blatantly racist comments? You should be ashamed of yourself.’
‘Racist?’ He drew the word out while jerking his head back like he’d been punched. ‘Me? Racist?! Is it not you who walked all these white children safely to the side of the road, where they could be singing and dancing nicely? And then you left this Chinese boy to die in the street?’
‘My name’s Tom, actually,’ the boy threw in calmly. ‘And I’m Vietnamese.’
‘Yes, yes, I know,’ the big man responded. ‘But my main point still stands.’
The chaperone lady’s mouth hung open. Her bag of comebacks must have had a hole in the bottom, because she had nothing to add.
What a damn mess, I thought. Of course his name wasn’t Preston. Of course he was alive. Of course it was just a goddamn dream. The big man might have been wrong in every other way, but he’d been right to call me an idiot.
