I get changed into one of this Bethany’s softest pairs of pyjamas and settle under a blanket on the sofa. I always feel better under a blanket. Even in the middle of summer. There’s something about the weight of a blanket over me, pulling me down to earth just enough to feel like I won’t float off at any moment.
Last Christmas Cesca bought me a surprise present. ‘It’s not exactly useful right now,’ she’d said before doing a drumroll on the arm of the sofa. ‘But in the summer you can think back to Christmas Cesca and realize you were a bit of an ungrateful bitch at the time because I absolutely promise you are going to love this.’ She had placed the perfectly wrapped gift into my hands, her smile filling her whole face.
It was a summer blanket. One specially designed to keep you cool. In May, when we had the first heatwave of the year, I pulled it from the box at the bottom of my wardrobe. Ten minutes later I was in heaven. I called her immediately.
‘See, I told you it was perfect,’ she’d said.
But this Cesca didn’t buy me a summer blanket. So I burrow under a winter one anyway, ignoring the heat. Comfort is more important right now.
I wish Cesca was here.
It’s almost midnight when I remember the notebook, now hidden under a bowl of melted ice cream and a rather larger number of supermarket own brand chocolate wrappers than I’d really like to admit. The notebook is the first thing I checked in every other universe, but I still haven’t even looked here.
I slip it out from under the vestiges of my shame and settle back against the cushion before I crack it open. It’s the first time I’ve seen this Bethany’s handwriting and it’s subtly different to mine. Surely that would be a constant? Something that transcended time and place? I understand each universe is the result of a different set of scenarios playing out in my life – I mean that is literally the basis of multiverse theory and we all know it even just from popular culture. Yes, I am supposedly going to write a book about what they get wrong, but even so, Spider-Man has done wonders for the general population’s understanding of theoretical physics. And it’s helped to take my job from ‘seriously you do what now?’ to ‘oh, that’s kind of cool’ and I’m hugely grateful for that.
This Bethany’s handwriting is far neater than my own, more precise, with the letters a uniform height and a tiny ‘O’ instead of a dot for Is and a slanting line for crossing Ts. I remember one of the guys in the office started dating this woman last year who ran a calligraphy party company – it was billed as the perfect activity for hen parties and baby showers. I turned down the offer of an afternoon team-building session because it sounded duller than a very dull thing – and I’m a scientist so generally have a high boredom threshold. But I wonder if this Bethany took her up on the offer and then spent far too much time practising. I guess it must have kept her off that damn shopping app for a few moments though.
I study her writing a bit more closely. It’s almost uncanny to look at, so similar but also so different. I shudder despitethe warmth and wrap the blanket more tightly around myself as if to stop a cold wind blowing in.
As anticipated, because this does at least seem to be a constant, there is no sign of the theorem that came to me that night after the whole falling over in front of Tyler incident. I groan at the mere memory. Although, it didn’t happen here, did it? Or did it? I lean my head back. It’s all so complicated. So thoroughly impossible to track and know and how can I keep all of these different Bethanys inside me at the same time? Is it ‘Bethanys’? Or ‘Bethanies’? You’d say ‘puppies’ not ‘puppys’. But then again, I’m sure it’s the Kennedys. I do a quick google but that just makes me more confused. Well, I guess there isn’t really a technical right answer for how you pluralize yourself anyway. I’m going to go with Bethanys. It feels less wrong somehow. I feel like my head is about to explode.
But – just like I have always done in these types of situations when life threatens to overwhelm me and I can feel panic rising in my chest and I think I might spontaneously combust right here in my seat – I take a deep breath. And I flip to a fresh page in the notebook and I write out the theorem. Finding a soothing rhythm in the numbers, the calculations. Trusting that maths and order and logic will help me.Theyreally are a constant. I think that’s part of the attraction, why I decided on physics and not on something else like medicine or veterinary practice. They have too many unexpected outcomes, too many times when you do everything right and yet still the patient is lost. With physics, input is equal to output and there is no deviation. No unexpected items in the bagging area and all of that.
Well, except that I now seem to be jumping through different universes, increasingly diverging universes as well, with no ability to stop myself, or get home.
Perhaps I should have been a vet.
Chapter Ten
I wake up at six a.m. still in the embrace of the 400-thread-count sheets. This is the longest I’ve stayed in one place. Is there a chance this is it? The end of the line?
A tiny bloom of hope lodges in my chest. If I can stop moving then I can have enough time to figure this out, especially with Tyler to help me. Two brains are better than one and all of that. Checking my diary shows I have another free day work-wise, not exactly unusual but certainly welcome at this moment. I fire off a message to Tyler and then slide out of bed.
This Bethany has the poshest range of shower gels and hair care products I’ve ever seen. It’s like a five-star hotel in the bathroom. The hibiscus-water shampoo promises to leave my long dark hair sleek and weightless and I’m inclined to believe it really can work miracles. I choose a peach body wash that foams luxuriously, the scent perfectly blending with the shampoo so the whole experience leaves me feeling like I’ve stepped back in time into a branch of the Body Shop.
‘Morning, Alesha,’ I chirp at the shocked face of my assistant. Her eyes widen even further as I hand over the caramelmacchiato I picked up for her from the fancy independent coffee place on the corner. They charge almost eight pounds for a drink and so we don’t go there very often.
‘Err …’ Alesha stares at me like I’ve grown another head. ‘Who are you and where is the real Bethany?’
‘Can’t I get my assistant a coffee?’ I ask innocently, even though she is so close to the truth of the situation.
‘The coffee I can maybe get on board with,’ she says. ‘Thanks, by the way,’ she adds as she raises the cup towards me. ‘But the thing that makes me really suspicious is that you’re here and it isn’t even eight thirty.’ She narrows her eyes at me.
‘Busy day,’ I say and then start to walk towards my own office. ‘Lots to do, all that jazz!’
‘You’re weirding me out, Ms Raven,’ Alesha says to my retreating back.
Tyler arrives an hour later. Alesha knocks on the door to my office, her face a horrified mask. ‘You have a visitor,’ she says with trepidation.
‘Does he have coffee?’ I ask.
‘Oh, um, I …’ Alesha has no idea how to respond.
‘I invited Tyler,’ I tell her and she visibly relaxes.
‘Oh,’ she says simply, but I can tell she’s desperate to come inside the office, close the door and ask a million questions about what the hell is really going on.
‘I promise to fill you in later,’ I tell her. ‘But just send him in.’
