The watch-seller nods. ‘Great film.’
I try to process this new information. So, nothing I do in these revisited moments will be remembered by anyone but me? All this new stuff – Daphne getting to accept her award, us falling asleep together in my room the night of the play – it will be like none of it ever happened when – if – I finally get back to the present?
That means I can’t change anything. I can’t affect the future in any way. The Monopoly game with Mum flashes suddenly into my head. I had the idea that night that I might be able to stop what happens – that I might be able to stop her dying. And now I find out that I can’t. A throb of anger surges through me.
‘What’s the point of all this if I can’t actually change anything?’ I mutter. ‘Nothing I do here even matters!’
‘On the contrary,’ the old man says. ‘It matters very much. Other people won’t change as a result of all this, but you might.’ He leans towards me, pressing the tips of his fingers together to form a triangle. ‘Maybe you’ll end up with a clearer understanding of what you really want.’
‘Will I get back to the present eventually, then?’ I ask.
He breathes out through his nose, and I see his moustache hairs wriggle. ‘That’s complicated. It … depends.’
This time it’s me who thumps the table. ‘Can you please stop being so bloody vague?!’ I suddenly don’t even care that Harv is still here, staring at me as if I’ve completely lost my mind. ‘I need to know why this is happening to me!’
The old man just sighs. ‘You already know. Think back to that night in the pub: all the things you wanted to say to your friend here, but couldn’t.’
‘What things?’ Harv snaps.
It all pours back into my mind: Mum, Daphne, Alice. The regrets I’ve managed to accumulate over the years. That terrifying feeling that my life had ground to a halt and I didn’t know how to restart it.
‘But why is this …’ The words dry up, and I put my head in my hands. ‘What am I supposed to do?’
‘Just keep going,’ the old man says softly. ‘You’ll get there. That’s all I can tell you at this point. And now …’ He looks up at one of the many clocks on the wall. ‘You’d better be off. After all, you’ve got a date, if I’m not mistaken?’
His blue eyes twinkle at me again, and with a sudden jolt, I realise who it is he reminds me of: my grandad Jack. Mum’s father.
He died when I was twelve, so my memories of him are pretty sketchy: mainly based around that faded photo in the hallway at Mum’s house. But I do remember his hearty laugh, his bright blue eyes and his kind, crumpled smile: three things the watch-seller also possesses. His wild face fuzz makes it hard to pinpoint any further similarities, though: Grandad Jack was always clean-shaven.
The old man stands up from the table. ‘Time to go,’ he says. ‘But don’t worry: I’ll see you again.’
Harv and I stand blinking on the doorstep of 15 Foster Road. It’s dark now, and the street lights are flickering on, sending our shadows stretching down the steps to the pavement.
‘So,’ Harv says, ‘whenever you’re ready to explain what the hell just happened, I’m all ears.’
I puff my cheeks out. ‘He’s, erm … he’s a theatre bloke. Immersive theatre. My editor at Thump is thinking about interviewing him for the mag, and he wanted me to go along and check him out first. So you were sort of our guinea pig. Hope you don’t mind.’
Harv scratches his nose as he takes this in. ‘Right. OK. Well, I wouldn’t bother with the interview. He was rubbish. It didn’t make any sense. You were quite good, though.’ He thumps me on the back. ‘You’ve definitely come a long way since Marek’s play.’
I laugh.
‘I was genuinely freaked out back there for a second,’ he adds. ‘You’re lucky I’ve just hooked up with the hottest girl on the planet, or else I’d be pretty pissed off with you right now.’
He can’t help grinning as he says it, and it breaks my heart. I look at him – my best mate – standing on the threshold of a relationship that’s going to snap him in two. That’s going to bend him out of shape and change him completely. And now I know there’s nothing I can do about it. I can warn him, but it won’t make one bit of difference. No matter what I tell him in this moment, things will turn out exactly the same.
‘I’m sorry about earlier,’ I say. ‘On the phone. What I said about Liv. I’m happy that you’re happy.’
He nods, and I carry on. ‘I just … Whatever’s going to happen will happen. But I want you to know that I’ll always be here for you, man. I promise.’
I’m not quite sure why, but at that moment I pull him towards me into a tight hug. I feel his body tense up in my grip. But then he laughs and squeezes me back.
‘All right, cheers, man. Bit weird, but … cheers.’
We break out of the hug, and he points at the pub across the road. ‘So, what you saying, then? Pint?’
I look down at my watch, forgetting that it’s frozen. One minute to midnight: that’s when this day will disappear forever. But I can’t think of a better way to spend the next hour than by reconnecting with my pre-heartbreak, pre-Ryan-Gosling-six-pack best mate.
‘Yeah, why not?’ I tell him. ‘I’ve got time for a quick one before I go and meet Daphne.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
It’s just after seven, and I’m standing in the middle of Soho holding a huge bunch of red tulips.
I’m pretty much clueless when it comes to flowers, so I’ve chosen these purely because they were Mum’s favourite. But now, as I stand here opposite Daphne’s office, on what might be the busiest corner in central London, I’m starting to realise that as romantic gifts go, flowers are actually incredibly impractical. The delicate red bulbs are being constantly knocked this way and that by the shoulder-barging throng of pedestrians storming past me. There is no way these things are going to survive the whole evening.
Still, it’s the thought that counts, isn’t it? Hopefully.
Because midway through my pint with Harv, I made a decision. I decided that even though I don’t know what will happen in the future – even though I don’t know if Daff and I are really meant for each other – I can still make tonight right. In the real world, I ruined this special evening for her with my own stupid self-pity. So at least, in this alternate reality, I can try and make up for that. I can give her the night she deserved – even if she’ll never remember it.
The revolving doors start spinning and I see Daff emerging from the building with a few other people behind her. They all seem in pretty high spirits: laughing and back-slapping and hugging goodbye. I can see from here that Daff is clutching a chunky glass block that must be her Rising Star award. I give her a wave from across the crawling traffic, and she waves back, grinning.
The four years we’ve just skimmed over seem to have done nothing at all to her face; she looks just as young and fresh and happy as she did back in 2006. She’s wearing a smart dark blue shirt and tight black velvet skirt; and weirdly, I remember the outfit exactly from this night ten years ago. When she arrived at my flat, my first thought was to ask what she was so dressed up for. But then my own selfish problems squeezed that question straight back out of my head.