‘Yep.’ I grinned.
He took a sip from his cup and looked away, out across the park.
‘What’s it like?’ he said.
‘What’s what like?’
‘In 2019.’
I hesitated. He’d already told me he didn’t want me to tell him anything about the future. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘I don’t know. It’s weird, thinking about the future. And most of the time I try not to. But it strikes me, tonight, that if we want to spend more time together, I should probably try and atleast understand a bit more about the world you’re living in.’ He shrugged. ‘You know all about mine.’
‘It’s probably not as different as you think,’ I said.
‘I bet it’s changed more than you realise.’ He looked at me. ‘I mean, your phone, for a start. I have a mobile phone, and honestly it feels pretty miraculous. But yours seems… I don’t know. Like something from another planet. So I guess I just want to know what else has changed.’
I let out a breath. What could I tell him? ‘Well, everyday life isn’t much different, but I guess work has changed a lot.’ I paused, thinking. ‘Everything is done on computers now, and nobody can imagine how we did our jobs without the internet and emails.’ I screwed up my nose, trying to remember 1999. ‘I guess that’s the same for you though, right?’
‘Not so much. I mean, the kids at school have PCs to work on if they want to, but only in the computer suite.’
‘God, yes, I forgot about that. We have laptops now. I take mine everywhere with me and can work on it wherever I am. And all the kids have them at school too.’
‘Wow. What else?’
I closed my eyes and tried to think. The biggest change for me in those twenty years was that I’d grown from a girl into a woman, but that wasn’t what Nick wanted to know. ‘The Queen is still alive,’ I said. ‘Boris Johnson is prime minister, and the UK is about to leave the EU.’
‘Wait what?’
‘Yep. It’s an unmitigated disaster, but that’s where we are.’ I wracked my brains. ‘I told you about Woolworths closing. Loads of shops have closed because people do most of their shopping online.’
‘The same way they do their dating then?’ he said. I glanced at him and smiled. ‘Yep, pretty much.’
‘It sounds like a soulless wasteland.’
I shuffled round to face him. ‘I guess it does, but it’s really not as bad as it sounds. In a lot of ways doing everything online makes life a bit easier. But the dating thing – yeah. It’s not for me, I realised.’
‘No, me neither.’
We fell into silence.
‘Actually, I don’t think I do want to know any more,’ he said. ‘Do you mind? It feels a bit weird.’
‘Course not.’
‘Do you ever think about whether you would have done things differently if you’d have known Greg was going to die?’
My breath caught in my throat. Where had that come from? I took my time to formulate an answer. ‘After he died, I thought about it all the time,’ I said, slowly. ‘I tortured myself, thinking about what I should have said or done differently, or about the things I wish we’d done but that we’d never got round to. But then I realised that’s the way to go mad. Because you can’t live with regrets and what-ifs. You can only live with what you’ve got and what you’ve done.’
‘You’re right.’ He ran his hand down his face. ‘I mean, I knew Dawn was dying, and yet there was nothing I would have changed about our last year together. So maybe not knowing the future is better, because you just live your life the way you want to, and do the things you feel are right.’
His hand met mine under the blanket and our fingers entwined. Heat filled me again and I moved closer to him, unable to think about anything else. He must have moved too because suddenly we were right beside each other, currents running between us, fizzing and sparking, and our noses almost touching. I could hear him breathing, feel the warmth of his breath on my face and I stared deep into his eyes. And then my vision was filled and his lips touched mine and it was everything, just me and Nick and nothing else anywhere in space and time.
Our bodies pressed together but it still wasn’t enough. I needed him closer. I climbed on top of him as his hands ran over my arms, across my chest, round my back. I pressed my palms against his chest and heard him take a sharp intake of breath, then slid one hand round the back of his head and pulled him closer. The need for him was urgent, primal, and the rest of the world fell away. I no longer cared that we were in the park, in a public place. I no longer wondered what people might see if they walked past, all my thoughts filled with nothing but him and feeling him closer. Besides, I felt safe in the knowledge that, even if they did come inside to find out what was going on, they wouldn’t be able to see both of us.
He pulled his lips away and breathed something into my neck. My body shuddered and I leaned down to hear him better.
‘Should we stop?’ he whispered, his voice hoarse.
