Authors: Michelle Slee
“Yes,” she whispered. “You were feeling something but you didn’t know what.”
“What happened the next day?” he asked, “I remember sitting with Teresa watching TV and you going out running but I came back almost right away after that.”
She heard Damien beep the horn outside, impatient.
“Matt, I’m sorry, I’ve got to go.” She didn’t mention where she was going. She didn’t want him knowing that she was going to the doctors. And she
didn’t want to tell him that Damien now knew about all this, although she would have to tell him soon she knew that (an unwelcome image of Damien arriving at the office, demanding to speak to Matt and causing a scene came into her head).
“When can we see each other?” he asked. “Things are changing. I seem to be jumping at the same time as you and we’re both forgetting this life when we’re there – it must mean something.”
“I’ll see you in work tomorrow,” she said.
“Will you though?” he asked. “You said that before but you never did.”
“I know.” The horn sounded again. “I went to see Dr Priestley.”
“You did? What did he tell you?”
“Everything. Look Matt I promise I’ll come and see you tomorrow and we’ll have a proper talk about everything. We need to work out what we can do.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Take care of yourself.”
“You too,” she said softly, and hung up the phone.
She went out to the car. Damien was pointing at his watch. “Sorry, sorry,” she said, getting into the car.
“Your mother?” he asked, giving her a look.
“Yes,” she said, turning away.
They drove in silence. She absentmindedly watched the cars passing by, the pedestrians walking the pavements, the magpies on the lampposts. Life was carrying on as normal but how could that be?
She thought of Matt and his life in this universe. He had a wife and son, yet in the other world he had her and their daughter. How did he reconcile the two? How did he live in both lives and keep his sanity? Or did he she wondered. Both times she’d seen him recently in this life he’d looked intense and stressed. That wasn’t the Matt she knew from the other life, the Matt she had known since the sixth form, the Matt who took everything in his stride.
She stopped short. She was remembering so much more about the other life now, even in this life. She looked over at Damien, almost trying to remind herself that she was in this life and that he was real. She thought about how they had met and how important he had been to her from the start. She thought about the arguments her relationship with Damien had caused, how it had almost torn her family apart, and reminded herself that it had been worth it, he had been worth it. She saw the black of his hair, the curve of his jaw, the rough stubble on his cheek and she felt the same familiar yearning she felt whenever she looked at him. She loved him, she told herself again.
And yet…yet… that other life now had its grip on her because it was as real as this one. For every familiar street and house they passed now on their way to the surgery there was another version in the other universe that was just as familiar to her. How could she live in both? Could she live in both?
She pondered it seriously. There were people who loved more than one person, who led double lives. Could she do that? She had never been unfaithful. Was she being unfaithful now? She had a marriage certificate in another life that told her no – she could even remember the drawer in which she kept it.
She sighed and leaned back against the seat. It was impossible to think this through, impossible to make sense of it.
When they arrived at the surgery she felt a lurch of fear and apprehension. She hated seeing doctors. And now here they were, still waiting to go in although it was 9.40, the magazine unread in her lap and Christine dreading having to find the words to explain what was happening. For how could she find the words? There were no words for this.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Eventually the buzzer sounded - the doctor was ready for them. As they walked down to his office Damien grabbed her hand and squeezed it. Gratefully she squeezed back.
The doctor, Dr Collins, was a young man, in his early thirties. He was not one of the usual doctors in the surgery
- he had been called in today because Dr Williams was ill. He smiled at them both as they walked in and gestured for them to take a seat. Christine felt sick. She had no idea what to say. She desperately fought the urge to run out of the surgery, to run far away from this place.
“What appears to be the problem?” asked the doctor, glancing at the electronic records on his screen. Christine hadn’t been to see the doctor for over three years. Then it had been for a severe bout of tonsilitus – two minutes in the surgery - prescription for antibiotics, pain killers and throat spray - and then she was out.
She had a feeling this was going to be different.
She looked at Damien before speaking. He nodded for her to start.
“I’ve been having some problems,” she said, “Seeing some things.”
The doctor looked at her, “What sort of things?”
She hesitated then began. She told him everything that had happened over the past few weeks. On occasion the doctor wrote down a few notes but mostly he just listened, his face expressionless. It was only when she mentioned Dr Priestley that he spoke at last.
“Dr Priestley, Jim Priestley?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, “He teaches physics at the university.”
“Yes I know Jim,” he said, “Not well but we do know each other. Did he send you to me today?”
“No,” said Christine, “He doesn’t know I’m here.”
The doctor looked at her a moment, a puzzled expression on his face.
“How well do you know him?” asked Damien, “I’m worried about some of the things he’s been telling my wife.”
“Well I’ve also read some of his papers,” said the doctor, “I have an interest in his research area.”
Damien leaned forward. “He’s been feeding my wife a lot of nonsense about multiple universes and parallel lives. Why would he be doing this?”
Dr Collins held up his hand. “Let me hear everything Christine has to say Damien, then we’ll talk it through.”
So she continued, telling him about the events leading right up to the present day. Some things she left out of course – in particular the way she felt when she was with Matt and Teresa, and of course her feelings when she was away from them. But everything else she told him, feeling embarrassed and humiliated all the way through but knowing that she had to tell him, for Damien's sake at least.
When she had finished he looked at her a moment before speaking. “What you’re saying is unusual to say the least. But there are tests I can arrange to have done. Tests to see if there’s anything physiological going on. But….” He hesitated, looking from Christine to Damien. He seemed reluctant to speak.
“What is it doctor?” said Christine.
Without speaking he got up and went to his bag. He pulled out a book, came back and handed it to her. It was written by Jim Priestley.
“I picked this up this morning from my bookshelf. I can’t say why. I read it years ago. But for some reason I brought it with me today
- to a surgery
I’ve never worked in before, on a day that I meet you and hear your story. It just strikes me as odd, that’s all.”
“What are you saying doctor?” interrupted Damien angrily. “You sound as crazy as the rest of them.”
The doctor looked at Damien. “I have never come across anything like this before. I will arrange for Christine to have every scan I can think of.
That will taken time but I will arrange for it to be done. But I have an open mind too. I have read Jim Priestley’s research on electrons and the possibilities of multiple universes. If he is saying that something like that is happening, something that can be explained by the laws of quantum physics, then I’m enough of a scientist to say we have to look at that possibility too.”
He took a breath. He seemed quite shaken himself. He sat down and looked at them both. He didn’t seem to know what else to say.
Damien had no such uncertainties. “Doctor, I can’t believe what you’re saying. My wife is seeing things, as a child she heard things, she is stressed with work, with…,” he looked at Christine, then continued, “…with other things too. Surely that’s what’s causing this. You can’t seriously be expecting me to believe any of this quantum nonsense.”
The doctor sighed. Christine looked away. Again she felt let down by Damien, but again she knew she was being unfair.
The doctor spoke. “What I’m suggesting is you go to see Jim Priestley yourself Damien and hear what he has to say. And I think we should also run some other tests. As well as the usual scans.”
“What sort of tests?” asked Christine.
“I think we need to monitor your body and brain activity in your day-to-day life and see if we can detect any signs of change when…if…you next shift.”
“Have you heard yourself doctor, you sound insane,” exclaimed Damien.
“Wait,” said Christine, “Why is that such a bad idea Damien? We could learn something from that. I know things are happening differently in each world. When I jump back things have moved on here but I have no recollection of them. When I jump there things have changed too. But …but… the memories do come back there and are getting stronger. What if something in me is physically changing when I’m there in a way that could be measured?” She was excited at the idea of these tests - at last there was something practical she could be doing to try to understand this better.
“Are you listening to yourself?” Damien shouted. “You’re talking about jumping, shifting, other worlds, memories of things that haven’t happened.”
“Damien,” interrupted the doctor, “Can’t you approach this with an open mind?”
“I came here looking for medical help and support,” said Damien angrily, “But instead you’re just as much a crank as that Dr Priestley. Are they giving away science degrees these days?”
“Damien!” said Christine, “Don’t speak to Dr Collins like that.”
“It’s okay Christine, I can understand how frustrating this is for Damien.” The doctor stood up, walked to the window and looked outside for a moment. Then turning back he said to Damien, “You have a choice to make. You can either give your wife the benefit of the doubt and work with her, Jim and myself to get to the bottom of this. Or you can close your mind off to all of this and deny your wife the support she needs and for you the chance to find out that this world might be different, very different, from what you think of it. Now what is it to be?”
Damien was silent for a moment. Then he stood up and walked over to Christine. He knelt down before her. He put his arms around her and drew her close. They stayed like that for several seconds. Then he pulled away, stood up
and said to the doctor, “I will always support my wife. I love her and I believe in her. If I need to have an open mind to prove that then I will. I will do everything I can. But if you hurt her, if you cause her to come to any harm whatsoever, then you will have me to deal with, I promise you that.”
The doctor nodded.
Christine stood up, held Damien’s hand and then turned to the doctor. “So how do I get wired up for these tests?”
“That’s the easy bit,” he said. He walked over to the phone and dialled a number. He spoke to someone for a few minutes, giving instructions, then hung up the phone. “You need to go from here to the hospital, the neurology department. They’ll be expecting you. They will give you two devices. One of them looks like a hearing aid but it’s far more powerful than that. It’s a very small device that sits in your ear and monitors your brain activity. The other fits to your chest. It can monitor your heart rate,
blood pressure and other physical changes. You’ll need to wear both devices until it next happens and then we’ll analyse them, see if they tell us anything.”
“Okay,” said Christine getting up to leave, anxious to get to the neurology department to pick up the equipment.
“Before you both leave there’s one more thing,” said Dr Collins. “I want your permission to speak to Jim Priestley about what’s happening. I need to understand more about his theories about this in terms of quantum physics.”
“That’s fine,” said Christine, “I’m happy for you to discuss it with him.”
“And I want to discuss with him the possibility of one more thing…just an idea but something that might help.”
“What is it?” Christine asked.
“I want to find out if it would be possible to induce a shift,” he said.
“Induce a shift?” said Damien.
“Yes. From everything Christine has said these seem to happen randomly and it’s going to be difficult for us to study anything random. But if we can control when and how this happens that could be a different story.”
Christine suddenly felt like a laboratory rat. Did he just want to poke and prod her, to treat her as an exciting new experiment. She felt Damien reach for her hand and knew that he was thinking the same thing. Dr Collins must have read both their minds. He came up to them. “I’m sorry. I’m getting carried away. It’s so strange it was me you got to see today. I really am an admirer of Jim Priestley’s work. I do want to know more about what’s happening to you. I didn’t expect anything like this today when I came into work and yes, the idea of being involved in this excites me. But I am first and foremost a doctor and my ultimate concern is to protect and care for my patients – that’s you Christine. I won’t do anything to jeopardise your well being. I want to help you.”
He spoke sincerely and part of Christine felt reassured. But another nagging voice still had doubts. How could he possibly know what would jeopardise her when they were talking about things that questioned the very fabric of reality? Could a consciousness continue to move from universe to universe without at some point breaking down or collapsing in on itself? How could he possibly know the answer to that?
But she knew he spoke from the heart and right now he was someone who wanted to help. Together the four of them – she, Damien, Dr Priestley and Dr Collins (and Matt of course, whispered the same inner voice, don’t forget Matt) could work on this together, try to understand it and then …and then what she again asked herself? Where was all this heading? And that was the question she could not answer. She did not know where things were heading, and worst of all,
even as she took Damien’s hand, she realised she did not know where she wanted them to head.