Authors: Michelle Slee
“Basically you’re telling me you’re having an affair with this Matt,” he had stated flatly at one point.
“No not at all. It’s not like that.”
“You’ve been to a pub with him Christine,” he replied, his voice controlled but his face betraying his fury.
“It’s nothing like that. The world is changing around me and in that world I’m married to him,” she replied.
“Do you realise how insane you sound?” he asked.
It was her turn to look hurt now.
“Yes of course I do,” she said, “Why do you think I’ve not told you up until now?”
“I think you’re having a breakdown,” he said eventually. “It’s your work. You’re doing too many hours and now this has happened. I always knew something like this would happen.”
“I’m not having a breakdown. I told you what Jim…Dr Priestley… said.”
“Don’t get me started on him,” said Damien, getting up to pace around. Suddenly he stopped and looked at her. “Have you given him any money?”
“What? No. What do you mean? He’s never asked me for any money.”
“Well I bet it’s only a matter of time,” he said. “They’re probably in it together – him and this Matt. They’re setting you up. Maybe, maybe… oh my God - what if they’re drugging you Chris?”
He knelt before her quickly, cupped her face with his hands and started examining her eyes. She pulled her head back. “Stop it Damien, just stop it.” She stood up. “They are not drugging me. Everything Matt and Jim have said is true. I have seen a different world and I know in that world I have a different life.”
“And is it a better life?” he said, standing before her. “Do you wish you were there with him now?”
“It’s not about him. I love you. I love my life with you.”
“You’re not answering the question. In fact here’s another question – do you love him? When you’re with him in that world do you love him?”
“Yes,” she said bluntly. “I do.” At this he turned away and walked into the kitchen. Slowly she followed. He
stood with his hands on the counter looking out over the garden. She walked back to the living room and sat back down. What was going to happen to them? She had
hurt him, she knew that. She had just admitted she was in love with another man. How could the two of them ever come back from that?
After a few minutes he came back into the living room, sat beside her and held her hand.
“I don’t know what’s happening with you Christine but I know I love you and I’m not losing you. Do you still love me?”
“Of course I do,” she said, squeezing his hand tightly, tears starting to roll down her face.
“Well then we’ll get through this together.”
“I…I…don’t want you to put me away somewhere,” she said, it was what she had been fearing all along. “I don’t want to be committed.”
He laughed softly. “No one is going to commit you. I told you…I’m not losing you. But,” he looked seriously at her, “You must see a doctor. We have to get to the bottom of this.”
“I have an appointment booked for Monday,” she admitted, “I wasn’t going to tell you.”
“I’m glad you have,” he said, and kissed her gently on the lips. She felt exhausted. She must have looked it too. “Why don’t you go upstairs for a lie down? I’m going to ring your mother,” he said.
“Why my mother?” she asked.
“Because I need to know more about the buzzing, the voices you heard as a child. It might be important.”
“She didn’t even know they were voices,” said Christine, “I didn’t tell them because I thought they’d think I was mad.”
“Well she needs to know now and I need to know what she remembers so that we make sure we tell the doctor everything.”
“Okay,” said Christine. She was too tired to argue more about this point, too tired now to argue about anything.
“And another thing, “ he said, “We need to tell the doctor about the fact we’ve not been able to have a baby.”
She went pale. “I don’t want to talk to the doctor about that,” she said.
He came towards her and put his arms around her waist. “I know you don’t Christine,” he said, “But don’t you see? That could be important too.”
“How? Why? Why would us not being able to conceive have anything to do with what is happening?”
“Because in this other life you have a child, a daughter, the one thing you’ve not been able to have in this life.”
She started to cry. She allowed him to hold her close. She buried her head in his shoulder and sobbed. Eventually he let her go and told her to go and lie down upstairs and that he’d be up later. And so she did.
The shivers were getting worse, she realised, as she lay in the darkening bedroom. She thought about what he’d said – that her failure to conceive might have something to do with what was happening. Could that be true? She thought of how she’d last seen Teresa this morning, eating sugar puffs and watching cartoons and her heart ached. What was happening now in that world? Had Teresa gone to Joey’s that afternoon? It was strange to think another version of herself was there experiencing all of that while she was here - her consciousness missing out on everything the other version was seeing. She missed Teresa, she realised that. She missed Matt too but didn’t want to go there, could barely bring herself to acknowledge that fact. It seemed more of a betrayal of Damien than missing a daughter they just hadn’t had together.
A daughter. It was at once an alien concept to her and one that was now as familiar to her as the very core of her being. She knew Teresa. Knew everything about her. She remembered her birth. It had been a home birth in a large birthing pool – water splashing over the edges onto the plastic sheet covering the floor when the contractions became too painful. Matt had been there with her throughout – rubbing her back and shoulders, holding her hand, doing everything the movies told him to do, none of it of any use. The midwife had fed her regular doses of gas and air and that had been the only thing that helped until the very end when nothing helped, the pain was all consuming and she couldn’t think straight anymore. And then she had arrived, her daughter, a tiny wriggling thing that Christine had loved instantly. And Matt had been the same, beaming with joy, the look of terror on his face changed to one of pure happiness. She remembered passing the baby to him. “Little Teresa,” he had whispered, looking down at his child. They had agreed on the name months before, when they had been told she was carrying a girl. Christine had slumped back in the birthing pool, exhausted but happy in a way she had never known before. And later that evening she had been warm and tucked up in bed, holding the baby in her arms, with Matt sitting on the edge of the bed and looking at them both and smiling, unable to stop smiling it seemed. It had been wonderful.
She sat up. The bedroom was cold and dark. Damien still hadn’t come upstairs and she felt a small stab of resentment that he hadn’t come to see how she was. She got out of bed and walked to the top of the stairs and listened. She couldn’t hear his voice anymore, he must have finished talking to her mother. She crept down three steps and looked into the living room. She could see in through the glass of the door. Damien was sat on the sofa head in hands. It looked like he was crying. His shoulders were shaking. She turned around and walked back up the stairs and into the bedroom. She climbed into bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. She felt so alone. And he must have felt that way too she realised. She wanted to go down and comfort him but she couldn’t. She didn’t have any words that could give him comfort. Yes they could go to the doctor. Yes they could run all the tests in the world. Yes they could even talk about the trouble they were having conceiving (although she did not want to do that- did not want to do that at all). But what would it solve? Nothing. Because Christine knew, knew with an absolute certainty, that what was happening to her was not anything medicine could sort and no gamut of tests and machines would uncover it, solve it or fix it. What was happening was real and she didn’t know if anything could stop it. She was shifting between two universes and was now living two lives. And, as she slowly drifted off to sleep, one nagging thought caught at the edge of her mind – why in this world did she miss the other universe while in the other universe she was already starting to forget her life here? What did that mean?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
They sat in the waiting room. Their appointment was for 9.30 and it was only 9.15 but they had wanted to get there early. Christine flicked through a magazine and tried to be interested in the articles, but it was impossible. Nothing that she was reading had any relevance to her and her life now. How could it?
It had been a difficult night. Damien had eventually come to bed, an hour or so after Christine had left him alone downstairs. She had pretended to be asleep when he came into the bedroom. He got undressed in the dark and slid under the sheets. She felt him lightly kiss the back of her neck but then he turned the other way, so they were lying there back to back. It took her a while to get off to sleep. She wasn’t sure how long he lay there but his breathing never seemed to hit its usual deep rhythmic stride.
Sunday had passed in a blur. There was a mutual but unacknowledged agreement not to speak about the issue and just get through the day. They read the papers, made a roast dinner, Damien watched the football while Christine caught up with some work. By evening they were both exhausted from the strain of everything unspoken and went to bed early, both anxious about what the next day would bring.
In the morning when she awoke he was already out of bed. She had a shower to freshen up. She caught a glimpse of herself in the bathroom mirror. Her face was pale and thin. She roughly applied her favourite moisturiser to try to bring some life back to her skin and dried her hair in the bedroom.
When she went downstairs Damien had made breakfast - coffee and toast were ready on the table. She gave him a kiss on the cheek and he hugged her silently in return. Then they sat together and ate their breakfast, the radio quietly playing in the background.
It was only when they were getting ready to leave that Damien spoke.
“I’ve been thinking – I want to meet Dr Priestley.”
She looked at him. “Okay. But he’s only going to tell you what I’ve told you.”
“I don’t care. I want to meet him and I want to ask him some questions. I want to see what he’s playing at.”
“Please don’t start that again Damien,” she said wearily. “I don’t think he’s playing at anything, I’ve told you that. I believe everything he’s told me. It’s all based on science after all.”
“Science. With respect Chris what do you know about physics – you’ve never even studied it.”
She bristled. “I might not have studied it but I’m not stupid and can understand scientific theories. Give me some credit please.”
He just looked at her. She knew what he was thinking. How could he give her any credit when she was talking about alternate universes, multiple lives and a child she’d never had. She knew she sounded insane. But part of her was still affronted. No matter how understandable his confusion and doubts he was supposed to love her unequivocally. He was supposed to believe in her always. Where was the faith and trust now?
But she was expecting too much. She liked to think that had he come to her with the same tale that she’d have had an open mind, that she would not have jumped to conclusions, that she would have suspended judgement. But she knew that was simply not true. If he had told her that he was in love with another woman in another universe and together they had a child it would have destroyed her.
A buzzing in her pocket shook her from her reverie. She looked at her mobile. It was a text from her mother. In the usual way her mother was edging around the subject, not wanting to let on how much Damien had told her. She had written simply, “Hope you’re okay. Good luck with the doctor. I’m only a phone call away if you need me.”
Christine sighed. She couldn’t even think of ringing her mother right now. The image of her mother in the universe happy with her stepfather was too strong, too clear. She realised she hadn’t seen her father in that universe yet. What did that mean? It was all so random, the things she had seen. Part of her was anxious to get back there, to explore more, but immediately she felt guilty at that thought. To want to go back there was to want to leave Damien, the version of her mother and father in this universe, her whole life here. Is that what she wanted?
As if in answer the phone rang. Damien was already out the front door. “Are you getting that?” he asked. She thought a moment. It was probably her mother after all. Pointless avoiding it – she should speak to her and get it out of the way.
“It’s probably my mother,” she shouted out to him. “I’ll tell her we’re on our way out.”
“Okay,” he said, “I’ll just warm up the car.”
She picked up the phone.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hello,” said a familiar voice.
“Matt,” she whispered, excited in spite of herself. Instinctively she pulled the front door shut so she’d have warning if Damien came back into the house.
“How are you?” he asked.
She slumped down onto the seat by the phone. How to answer that?
“I’m okay,” she said, suddenly feeling sad and alone. “How are you?”
“Missing you,” he said simply, “But then I always miss you these days.”
She realised she was missing him too but couldn’t say it. Instead she nodded silently and waited to see if he’d say anything else.
“What do you remember from the weekend – in our world I mean?”
Our world. Is that what they were calling it now she wondered. It made sense though. It fitted.
“I remember being over my mother’s Friday night and finding out that she and my father divorced years ago. Then I remember forgetting about this life and the rest just seemed like my normal life. I had tea over Mum’s then had wine with you and you said…”
“I said I’d been feeling weird all day,” he interrupted.