Our Last Summer by Jennifer Joyce
Chapter 18
There’s no way I can concentrate on the film now. I need to go back, back to Little Heaton before the accident, but how? I’m not in control of this thing – whatever it is – and I could weep with frustration. I wasted so much time. Squandered the opportunity to save my best friend. Instead of whining about being back home, instead of pissing around on rope swings and bike rides, I should have been doing something to protect Ed, because there’s nothing I can do now, back on the plane in the present day. I need to get back but I don’t know how, or if I can. It’s been over an hour since I was plonked back on the plane and I haven’t heard even a murmur, let alone a full-on roar, and there hasn’t even been a hint of turbulence to suggest something is about to happen.
‘I give up.’ Dolly snatches her headphones off her ears and unplugs them from the socket, winding the wire around the headset and shoving them in the seat pocket. ‘I think they’re coming round with food anyway.’
My stomach rumbles as I’m hit by the smells wafting from the trollies making their way along the aisles. I didn’t eat breakfast this morning as I was too nervous about the journey home so the only things in my stomach right now are the cocktails I had in the airport bar and the tiny glass of wine from the drinks trolley a little while ago. Still, despite the grumbling stomach, my appetite has packed up and left. I can’t eat right now, not while I’ve got so many thoughts whizzing through my brain at a gazillion miles an hour.
‘Pasta or beef?’ The cabin crew member is grinning at me, her red lips stretched over super-white teeth. I’m about to turn down the meal when my stomach growls. Loudly. It would sound ridiculous if I claimed not to be hungry now.
‘Pasta.’ I force my lips to flick upwards. ‘Please.’ I take the tray and place it on my table, my stomach rumbling again as the smells reach my nostrils. I don’t know if it smells delicious or disgusting. Or somewhere in the middle.
‘Pasta or beef, sir?’
The guy beside me has finally stopped snoring and is looking up at the cabin crew member through bleary eyes. He yawns, his mouth cavernous, before he mumbles his response. He’s handed a tray and the trolley is dragged backwards to the next row of passengers.
I peel back the plastic cover on the pot of salad and nibble at a slice of tomato. It’s bland and is doing nothing to inspire the return of my appetite. I give a piece of lettuce a go, which, unsurprisingly, does nothing for me either, not even with the addition of the dressing. I give up and move on to the pasta, which smells pretty decent but tastes like cardboard with a sprinkling of cheese.
‘Not hungry?’ Dolly unscrews her mini bottle of water and takes a sip.
‘Not really.’ I admit defeat and place my knife and fork down on the tray.
‘It’s the nerves, I bet.’ Dolly gives me a sympathetic arm squeeze as she places her bottle of water on her tray. ‘But you’re doing really well. I flew out to Ohio with one of my girlfriends last fall and she was so scared of flying, she squeezed my hand the whole way. I thought she’d fractured a finger or two by the time we landed.’ I’m about to tell her that I’m not actually afraid of flying when she holds out a hand to flex her fingers and knocks the bottle of water over. ‘Oh, shoot!’ She springs into action, picking up the bottle and attempting to mop up the spilled water with the serviette provided. I hand my serviette over, which still isn’t enough. When I ask the snorer beside me if we can have his, he grunts in response, and I have no idea whether that’s a yes or a no.
Bong!
Dolly has reached up to press the assistance button as her tray is still swimming. She’s managed to rescue her pot of crumble and her cheese and biscuits, popping them onto my tray before they end up soaked. I turn to the snorer, to ask again for the serviette, but my voice is lost in the roar. My seat begins to shake and I’m filled with a mixture of fear and relief that it’s happening again.
My shoulder is aching against the hard ground beneath it and I’m cold, chilled right to the bone, as though I will never feel warmth again. There’s a weird, earthy smell – not unpleasant but not enjoyable either – and though it’s bright, there’s a greenish hue when I open my eyes. My brain is foggy and my mouth feels as though it’s lined with cotton wool as I try to swallow. I shift to ease the pain in my shoulder, stretching out my stiff limbs, and there’s a crinkle as whatever has been thrown over me moves. I wince as I sit up, squeezing my eyes shut against the brightness of the room for a moment, trying to compose myself. Everything hurts: cold bones, stiff muscles, thumping headache. I feel as though I’ve been hit by a lorry. A really, really big one that’s been filled with concrete.
‘Time’s it?’
My eyes are wide now as I twist around in search of the owner of the mumbled voice. There’s someone here. A man, lying on the floor, chest exposed and an arm flung over his face to shield his eyes. We’re in a sleeping bag, in a small tent, with sunlight streaming in through the fabric.
‘Babe?’ His arm moves, sliding away from his face until it’s just his hand covering his eyes, his fingers and thumb rubbing them vigorously. ‘What time is it?’
‘Er, I don’t know.’ My voice is raspy. Barely even there. I look around the small space for my phone. Or a glass of water.
‘Too early.’ He rolls over, his arm back over his face, his back to me. He has a mole on the back of his neck. It’s tiny, almost heart-shaped, and I want to reach out and touch it.
There’s movement from outside the tent and I can make out a figure crouching by the canvas.
‘Knock, knock.’ There’s a whoosh and brighter sunlight bursts into the tent as it’s unzipped. ‘You’re not shagging, are you?’
Yvonne is crouched on the other side of the opening, one hand covering her eyes while the other still holds on to the zip. She’s wearing a denim skirt and a white T-shirt with writing printed on the front in pink, and a pair of black utility boots. Her hair has been cut into a choppy bob and dyed a silvery platinum blonde, and there’s a pair of hexagonal-lensed sunglasses perched on top of her head.
‘Nah.’ The bloke beside me pulls the sleeping bag over his shoulder. ‘Too early.’
‘It’s never too early for a good shag. Or even a bad shag.’ Yvonne pulls the zip open a bit more. ‘You getting up? We want to grab some breakfast.’
‘Time is it?’ I search for my phone as my tent-mate asks the question again. There’s a rucksack next to the sleeping bag with a pair of jeans spilling out of it.
‘Nearly ten.’ Yvonne stands up, so I can only see her legs now.
‘Too early.’ The sleeping bag is dragged over my tent-mate’s head. Otis’s head. My ex-boyfriend. Current boyfriend if I’ve time-travelled again. ‘We only went to bed four hours ago.’
‘I know. My head’s banging.’ Outside the tent, Yvonne’s boot rubs up and down her calf. ‘It was a great night though, wasn’t it? Probably shouldn’t have had all those shots though.’ She crouches down again and sticks her head into the tent. ‘Are you coming with us or not? I need food. Now.’
It’s the summer after the tattoo, six years in the past, and I’d been seeing Otis for nearly seven months. We met at a New Year’s Eve night at a club in town, just before the countdown, and we were snogging before Big Ben’s bongs. Otis is twenty-nine. He works in HR for a manufacturing company and he likes football, live gigs and his pug, Arnold. He doesn’t live in Little Heaton – which was a major attraction – and house-shares with a police officer and a shop assistant. Arnold was originally his ex-girlfriend’s dog, but when she moved out, her new place didn’t allow pets and so Otis adopted him as his own.
‘All right, all right.’ Otis groans as he whips the sleeping bag away. He’s only wearing a pair of boxer shorts, which isn’t a bad look, actually. Living outside Little Heaton wasn’t the only attraction.
‘Jeez, give a girl a bit of warning.’ Yvonne stands up, so only her legs are visible again.
‘Don’t worry, the goods are tucked away.’ Otis grabs a pair of jeans and shoves his legs into the them. The tent really is quite small, so he has to stoop to pull them up over his hips. I’ve slept in a pair of shorts and a vest top and I change the shorts for the jeans spilling out of my rucksack, using the sleeping bag as cover, before hunting out my wash bag and a clean outfit. I find my phone too, and I scroll through the photos as I wait in the queue for the loo. Surprisingly, Heather is in most of my latest pics, sticking her tongue out at the camera as she perches on Ed’s lap or grins as she holds up bottles of beer or colourful shots. With some careful questioning of Yvonne as we wait outside the shower block, I learn that we’re on day two of a music festival, which I definitely didn’t attend first time round, and I’ve missed out on seeing the Happy Mondays and Franz Ferdinand, which is ultra-annoying.
I feel slightly better once I’ve had a good wash, brushed my teeth and changed into clean clothes. I’ve slipped on a pair of sandals, but I realise my mistake when I see the state of the path. No wonder Yvonne’s wearing boots – the path seems to have been swallowed by a bog after heavy rainfall. I’d quite like to nip back to the tent to shove my wellies on but Yvonne’s having none of it – ‘I’m staaaaaarving’ – and so I’m forced to tread as carefully as I can through the mud. My feet are filthy by the time we make it to the food stands but I’m not at all bothered as I’m hit by a wall of deliciousness and my gurgling stomach lets me know that I’m ravenous.
Otis had gone ahead while I changed, and he’s sitting with Ed, Heather and Tomasz. My heart flutters when I see Tomasz sitting there, laughing at something my sister has said, and my stomach fills with butterflies when I think about the possibility of not only saving Ed with this time travel thing but saving myself too. I can allow myself to love, to be loved, and I don’t have to let go. Ever. This is my second chance, and this time I won’t mess it all up.