I frown.
Is that the Haywater Bridge? I pop up onto my tiptoes and look across the road. It’s the same view. He was here?
I unfold the letter, reading it quickly, while also trying to savour his words.
Dear Alice,
I think I might be losing my shit.
‘You and me both,’ I say into the room, leaning against the window ledge.
I went to your place today.
So I’m not wrong – hewashere. But not in my time.
I stood there, at the address where I imagined your front door to be. Don’t know why, but I always thought it’d be red, like the colour of your lipstick that night, but there was nowt there but a set of sad garages.
It could mean a few things. Obviously the first thing that springs to mind is that this was a polite way of blowing me off, but I think you’d have just said it to my face if that were the case. Anyway, I’m hoping that the number you wrote down was wrong, or I smudged the eyeliner when I put it in my pocket, but… and this is going to sound like a load of shite, but I felt connected somehow, like you were there, standing in front of me, laughing at me standing in a puddle like a knobhead, instead of four garages with cracked blue doors and some broken slabs with weeds making a last-ditch attempt at life. I almost started knocking on doors, asking if anyone knew you: dark hair, chin lifted like she can take on anything that the world can throw at her, soft laugh… Kate talked me out of that, told me I was acting like I was inTaxi Driver.
My throat closes; he could be describing exactly what I’ve been doing, going to his address, searching for him, that strange pull linking us together somehow across time.
I’ve just got back and found myself walking the streets, stepping towards the mural I painted of you… Did I tell you that? Aye. I didn’t mean to paint you, I just picked up my brush and there you were, staring back at me from the wall on the corner of the road.
I sit down on the sofa, the paper shaking in my hands. Spence tried to talk me out of it. He said that it could have been anyone, but I can’t deny how I feel. That it was me he met. Somehow. As impossible as it sounds. The research next to me blinks up from my notebook. The spidergram I’d made and, in its centre: Time Walking/Metaphorical Time Travel.
It’s like knowing you, even for a short time, made me realise something. I don’t fit here. Not really. I don’t think I ever have.
He sounds so lost. So lonely. Despite how much family he has close by, regardless that he seems to have a good friend in Kate… he’s just like me.
Dad always says I’m away with the fairies. Maybe he’s right. Still, there was something about that spot, like even though you weren’t there, I was in the right place. You’d have a blinding view. We went for a walk over the bridge, found that little pub down the road. No pickled eggs, mind. Nothing beats a pickled egg shuck up inside a bag of Walkers ready salted. Still, they did a cracking pie and mash. Anyway, here’s a photo Kate took of me, so if by some flaming miracle you get this, you’ll know I did try to find you.
I look at the photo again, trace the curve of his angular face. Take in his clothes. He’s wearing a white T-shirt beneath whatlooks like a black Harrington jacket, red tartan inside just visible as it sits just above the waist of a pair of loose black jeans.
I know you probably won’t get this, but if you do, write back… just so I know it was all real.
Michael.
I read the letter three more times, each time his words striking an even deeper chord inside, then grab my keys.
* * *
I tap gently on Spence’s classroom door and walk in, the photo and letter in my hand.
‘He was here, in 1985. Look!’ Spence glances up over his glasses, startled then confused.
‘How did you get in?’ He leans back in his seat and drops his pen down onto the desk.
‘I told them I was your sister.’ I close the door behind me and hurry forward. ‘Ofsted would have a field day at how easy it was, by the way. Anyway… I got another letter. From Michael.’
He gestures to the papers scattered over his desk. ‘You do know I have about fifteen essays on Hamlet to mark this morning, right?’
‘I’ll be out of your hair soon, but I had to tell you and…’ I waft the photo in front of him like I’m about to cast a spell with my wand. ‘He sent me a photo.’ I sit on the edge of his desk as he tries to move the paper aside.
‘Jesus, Al, let me…’ He leans forward, trying to salvage the papers.
‘Sorry.’ I shift as he moves them aside. I hand him the photo, practically vibrating with energy. ‘Dishy, right?’
He glances up with tired eyes. ‘Um…’
