Charlie
kept the promise he had made to himself and stopped taking Dr Clarke’s
pills. He gave the pub that Twig liked
to do business in a wide berth, believing that if he avoided temptation, then
the chances of a repeat of Thursday’s incident would be vastly reduced.
As
he put more and more days between himself and the event, it became easier to
think of as nothing more than a particularly vivid dream. A chemical and emotional hiccup. After a while, Charlie had all but forgotten
the entire episode.
It
was almost three weeks later that it happened for a second time. Charlie had just bid Kat goodnight after a
curious dinner which she had insisted was Persian, but looked and tasted more like
Indian food would if it just stopped trying.
Charlie slumped down on the sofa with a beer, intending to flick through
the channels until he came across some post-watershed foreign film that showed
a little flesh. But when he reached for
the remote, he touched nothingness. He
could feel neither the sofa nor the floor beneath him. There was only blackness, and silence.
When
Charlie felt something solid beneath his feet, he opened his eyes which he
hadn’t even realised were squeezed closed.
He was surprised by how little
surprise he felt at being back in Yoko’s; this time, he had been deposited in
the red corridor leading into the main club.
Thankfully, he didn’t appear to have been sick as a result of this
latest trip.
He
looked down, and sure enough, he was wearing the creased shirt and leather
jacket from three years ago. Even his
shoes carried the same stains from numerous spilled beers. Charlie walked slowly into the club, passing
two young men who were engaged in the age-old ritual of mutual shoving, and
scanned the room, knowing she would be here somewhere.
And sure enough, there Alicia was,
dancing with her girlfriends to Joy Division, although Charlie knew for a fact
that none of them would recognise this song beyond its use in remixes,
samples and other bastardised efforts. "Love Will Tear Us
Apart". A little on the nose, Charlie thought, not to mention out of
the ordinary for Yoko’s on a Saturday night, when the edgiest fare one could
expect was “Bohemian Rhapsody”.
Alicia tossed her hair in that
rehearsed, stripper-like way of hers, and he could tell she had spotted him
from the corner of her eye. She waited
for the song to finish before retrieving her tiny handbag from the small pile
in the middle of their group and sauntering across the dance floor towards
him. She looked less angry than the last
time – had he arrived at a different point in the evening? Charlie glanced down at his wrist, but it was
no use; he had never been the type of guy to wear a watch.
Alicia greeted him with a peck on
the cheek, then took a small, expectant step back.
“Now I just know there’s a
perfectly reasonable explanation for why you’re so late.”
“Almost certainly,” Charlie said,
old habits easing his tied tongue. “And
as soon as I think of one, I’ll tell you.”
Alicia frowned to cover up her
involuntary smile.
“Stop me if you you’ve heard this
one before,” he continued, “but did it hurt?”
“If the next words out of your
mouth are ‘when you fell from heaven’, I may have to leave immediately.”
“Then my lips are sealed.”
“Let’s not be too hasty,” she interjected.
“You know how fond I am of your lips.”
“Why don’t you remind me?”
He pulled her into his arms and
kissed her. Alicia kissed him back,
completely unaware that from his perspective, this was their first kiss, their
first embrace, in over one thousand days and nights. This was more than a simple dream or
memory. Charlie knew his mind was
incapable of recreating the smell of Alicia that night, the perfume and smoke
and sweat. She was real, and she was
here; he could feel the heat and weight of her in his arms, on his lips.
Except…
Except, Charlie knew that this was
not how things had played out that night.
He had arrived late, Alicia had been furious, and the spiteful row that
followed had cracked their relationship open, allowing every tiny annoyance and
resentment to come spilling out. She had
been unable to hold in any longer how much her friends pitied and mocked her
for having to forever hang on, waiting for him to grow up. He had decided to bring up the exact number
of her close friends who happened to be male, succeeding in calling her a whore
without ever uttering the hateful word.
Remembering that bitter truth was all
it took, it appeared, to break the spell.
Charlie could physically feel
Alicia vanishing from his arms as the strobe lights, drunken revellers and
humid din of the club gave way to his living room once more.
“No!” He exclaimed, turning to
punch the nearest wall. Not satisfied
with the first jolt of pain, he did this again, and then again, continuing to
drive his fist into the wall until both his knuckles and the plaster were
spattered with blood. She had been right
there. He had spoken to her, kissed her for heaven’s sake; how could
she simply be gone again? It felt
wrong. Beyond unfair, it was obscene.
Charlie sank to the floor, cradled
his wounded hand, and made a mental list, exploring every possible explanation
for what was happening to him. It turned
out to be, inevitably, a rather short list:
1. I am
actually, physically, travelling back in time.
2. I am going
mental.
He was naturally inclined to
believe the second one and get on the phone to the funny farm straight away,
but something stopped him. Something about the way Alicia's hair had
smelled. Like coconuts and nicotine. If he inhaled deeply enough,
he was almost sure he could still detect it.
Or at least, he thought he could.
Charlie dismissed the idea temporarily as he rose from the floor and
went in search of a bandage for his hand.
He could be certain of only one thing.
If time travel really existed, then it was purely as a means for the
universe to play a cruel joke on him.
He switched on the battered radio
on the kitchen windowsill before putting his hand under the cold tap. The Pixies were playing on whatever obscure,
too cool for school radio station he had tuned it to months before. “Where Is My Mind?” Charlie swiftly turned the radio off before
it could offer any answers.
~
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