‘It did to me too. It felt kind of… other-worldly.’ She shook her head. ‘That’s not right. It’s almost impossible to describe.’
‘Impossible’s the word.’ I sat forward and dropped my head down. The floor was covered in bird poo and litter, and one of the slats of the bench was loose beneath my thigh. ‘Tell me what you see,’ I said.
‘What I see?’
I looked at her. Her face was stricken. I knew how she felt. ‘Tell me what the bandstand looks like, to you. Tell me what you can see in the park. What the weather’s like. Anything.’
She looked away from me and cast her eyes around her. ‘The bandstand is painted white and the railings are dark green. There’s a bit of graffiti up there—’ she pointed to the roof above my head ‘—but other than that it’s in pretty good nick.’ She looked out across the park. ‘It’s still light but it’ll be dark soon. There’s a threat of rain. There’s a rose garden all around the bandstand, and although only some of them are in bloom at the moment, I bet in the summer it looks spectacular. There are a couple of men over there by that tree doing some sort of tai chi, and a few kids in the playground over there.’ I glanced to where she was pointing but said nothing. She looked back at me. ‘You see the same, right?’
I shook my head, then looked up. ‘The roof here is covered in graffiti, and there’s barely any paint left on the wood or the metal. This bench,’ I said, patting the rickety slats, ‘is in danger of falling apart and I’d be amazed if it didn’t have woodworm or dry rot or something,’ I looked out across the park. ‘It’s a bright evening and the sun has only just gone behind the trees. There’s no rose garden, I can’t see anyone doing any kind of tai chi butthere are a couple of kids kicking a football around.’ I looked back at her. ‘I can’t see a playground either.’
We stared at each other as the implications of what we’d just discovered sank in.
The impossible seemed, somehow, to be possible.
‘I’ve got an idea,’ I said, picking up my rucksack. I stuck my hand in the front pocket and pulled out my keys. The keyring was a small, foldaway pocketknife. ‘I’m going to go over there and etch something in that tree.’
‘What will that do?’
‘You’ll see.’ Before she could ask anything else I stepped off the bandstand and marched across to the tree a few metres away. I reached as high as I could and carved each of our initials and the date into the bark, big enough to see from the ground. I folded the knife back into its case and turned around – and stopped dead. Because the bandstand was empty. I looked around to see where Emma had gone but she was nowhere to be seen. I ran back and leapt onto the platform – and there she was, sitting on the bench, staring at me.
‘Where did you go?’ I said, breathless.
‘I was here all the time,’ she replied, her voice a whisper. ‘But I couldn’t see you either.’
‘You mean…’
‘We’re only together inside this bandstand.’ She stood. ‘Wait here and you’ll see what I mean.’
Sure enough, the moment she stepped off the wooden slats of the bandstand floor, she disappeared, as if she’d never been there at all. Would she come back? I glanced down and noticed she’d left her bag, which was a good sign. I could hardly breathe as I waited. It felt like she’d been gone for ages. But I had no way of seeing what she was up to, or of knowing whether she was going to return.
Finally, just as I began to think she’d given up on me, she reappeared, her face flushed.
‘“EV and NF, 2nd April 1999”,’ she said, excitement in her voice. ‘It’s there, Nick, the etching on the tree.’
‘My God,’ I said. I laughed out loud as it hit me. ‘I can’t actually believe this.’
‘Me neither.’ She sat back down beside me and I held my hand out and pressed it against her arm. The moment we touched a spark shot through me and I could see the same had happened to her. I pulled away and then did it again, and the same thing happened again.
‘This is mad,’ she said.
‘You’re telling me.’ I tried it one more time. ‘It’s like the air around us is charged,’ I said, as a jolt went through me. ‘Like atoms and the atmosphere and God only knows what else have caused some sort of weird chemical reaction and created this… this time slip where only you and I exist.’
She gasped, making me jump. ‘That explains the sweets!’ she said, clapping her hand over her mouth.
‘What do you mean? What sweets?’
‘The sweets you had, in the Woolworths bag.’
‘What about them?’
Her eyes widened. ‘Woolworths closed down in 2004. I knew there was something weird about it when I saw them.’
I rubbed my face with my hands. I needed a drink, but I didn’t have anything with me and I wasn’t going to risk leaving yet, not before we’d worked things out a little more. What if the time slip disappeared and we never saw each other again?
‘Do you want to know anything?’ she said.
‘Like what?’
