He shook his head. ‘Not completely. But—’ he held his finger up to stop me speaking ‘—I do think there must be some other, more likely explanation for what’s happening. And I’m going to help you find it.’
‘I’ve thought of everything. You know me. I’m logical. Sensible. I don’t believe things easily.’
‘I know that. Usually.’
‘But?’
When his eyes flicked away from me I knew what he was going to say. ‘You still think this is grief talking, don’t you?’
He shrugged. ‘I honestly don’t know, Nicky. I just don’t think we should rule it out, that’s all.’
I nodded. I hadn’t convinced him yet, but it was a start.
Even though Emma and I had worked out that the bandstand was the only place we could see each other and be together, I still got a knot of anxiety in my chest every time I approached it and saw there was no one there. What if this was it? What if whatever wormhole had temporarily existed here had closed up and we’d never be able to see each other again?
The relief I felt every time I stepped up onto the raised floor of the bandstand and saw Emma waiting for me was so intense it could have knocked me over.
Today, as I walked through the park in the blazing sunshine, I was thinking about what I wanted to talk to her about. I’d been trawling through the books I’d borrowed from the school library but they hadn’t helped me at all, so a couple of days ago I’d gone to the main library in town to see if I could find anything on the internet. I remembered Emma telling me that she could access the internet wherever she was on that phone she carried around and wondered what that would be like – would it make life easier or would it be really intrusive?
I’d spent a couple of hours searching for information about time slips, time travel and anything else I could think of. And although most of it had been hopeless, supporting the theory that time slips were believed to simply be a made-up plot device for novels and films, I did come away with one thing to suggest to Emma.
‘Hey,’ she said, standing as I stepped into the bandstand. It was a warm evening where I was, but she was bundled up in a jacket and scarf. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and her cheeks were pink as though she’d run here. I stood still for a moment, unsure what to do next.
She stepped towards me and the air shifted.
‘It’s good to see you,’ she said. She nodded at my bare arms. ‘You’re making me feel cold.’
‘It’s a beautiful evening here,’ I said. ‘I wish you could see it.’
‘So do I.’
We sat down, a couple of feet apart. Above our heads – or at least my head – the leaves rustled in the breeze, and beams of sunlight poked through the holes in the roof. Emma looked grey, tendrils of hair whipping round her face in the strong wind. Her hand rested on the bench between us, and I reachedout tentatively and wrapped my fingers round hers. As our skin touched, she gasped. ‘I’ll never get bored of that feeling,’ she said, a smile spreading across her face. Our fingers were threaded together, hers cold to the touch.
‘You brought your violin,’ she said, nodding down at the case I’d rested by my feet.
‘I did.’ I smiled. ‘I realised I forgot to play it for you the other day and I never like to break a promise.’
‘Will you play it now?’
‘Right now?’
She shrugged. ‘There’s no time like the present.’
I had so many things I needed to say to her, things to tell her. And yet she was right. There really was no time like the present, especially when you had no idea whether you’d have a future. I leaned down and picked up my violin case and clicked it open. As I saw it nestled there in the blue velvet, my stomach rolled over, and my hand hovered above it, unsure.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I haven’t played this since…’
‘Since Dawn died,’ she finished, gently.
I nodded, swallowed down the lump in my throat.
‘If you can’t, it doesn’t matter.’
I shook my head. ‘No. It does matter.’
I needed to get over this, move on. Carefully, I cradled the neck of the violin, lifted it, then tucked it under my chin. I picked up the bow, took a deep breath, then started playing. I didn’t look at Emma, just stared out into the park as I dragged the bow back and forth across the strings. It sounded slightly out of tune, but I didn’t want to stop. I hadn’t decided until I started what I was going to play, but as soon as the notes began I knew exactly what to play. ‘I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing’ by Aerosmith, a song Dawn had loved and that I’d learned the violin part for especially to play to her. I wasn’t sure whether Emma would recognise it.
