Our Last Summer by Jennifer Joyce
Chapter 36
No time at all has passed really, but it feels like I’ve been standing out here forever, my hands clutching the handlebars of the rumbling motorbike. Sacha’s visor is down but I know he’s watching me, deciding what to do. He revs the engine, testing me. I stand my ground. I will do everything I can to stop this from happening again.
‘Elodie, what are you doing?’ Ed is leaning over so he can see past Sacha’s broad shoulders. ‘Get out of the way.’
I shake my head, wet hair whipping me in the face. The rain is pouring even harder now and I’m drenched. It’s running into my eyes and making them sting but I will not move.
‘You’re going to get hurt.’
My grip tightens on the handlebars. ‘And you’re going to get killed.’
Ed laughs, his head tipping back, raindrops tapping on his face. ‘Don’t be so dramatic.’
‘Don’t you be so reckless. Look at you! You’re about to ride off without a helmet, in poor conditions, with Sacha Nowak. He’s hardly the most responsible rider at the best of times. You’ve seen him tearing around the village. He’s an accident waiting to happen.’ Ed doesn’t look so amused now, but he still remains seated behind Sacha. ‘Think about it, Ed. Really think about what could happen. Yes, you’re angry with your grandad – and rightly so, the man’s a tosser – but is it worth losing your life for?’
Ed rolls his eyes but the movement is lacklustre, as though he can’t be bothered putting the effort in. ‘You’re being dramatic again.’
‘Think about it, Ed. Think about your mum. Jim. Me and Yvonne. And Dominic. He’s come all this way to see you, which will be a complete waste if you end up dead because you threw a strop.’
‘A strop?’ Ed’s mouth gapes as he points towards the street. ‘Did you hear what he said? He thinks I’m a danger as a Scout leader and youth worker. A danger to the kids. As though I’m a pervert. As though I’d ever …’ He shakes his head, and I’m pretty sure there are tears running alongside the raindrops on his cheeks.
‘But you know that isn’t true. Everyone knows that isn’t true. Don’t let one bigoted old tosser ruin your life.’
Ed curls his fingers into fists, roughly rubbing at his eyes.
‘Please, Ed. I’m begging you to get off that bike.’
He locks his gaze on mine, his shoulders rising as he heaves in a breath. He puffs it out, shaking his head, and my stomach drops to the ground. No. He’s saying no. He pats Sacha on the back: go.
But then he’s climbing off the motorbike. One foot is on solid ground, then the other. I want to rush at him, to throw my arms around him and hold him tight. Hold him safe. But I can’t move. Not until Sacha is safe too.
‘I’m not going anywhere.’ I stare at the visor, tightening my grip on the handlebars again. He revs the engine but I stand firm. Tomasz stands beside me. With me. He stoops to clutch the handlebars so we’re a united front.
‘We are not going anywhere.’
Sacha turns the engine off. We stay where we are, Sacha astride the motorbike, me standing in front of it, clutching it with all my might, Tomasz right there with me. I see Ed backing up against the wall of the pub, sliding down until he’s crouching, his face in his hand. I want to go to him, to comfort him, and I will, as soon as I know everyone is out of danger. Now the engine has shut off I can hear the commotion at the front of the pub, with Micha and Ronnie still shouting, this time at each other.
Sacha’s hand juts out and I flinch, but he’s simply flipping up his visor. ‘I need to find Yvonne. Explain. I swear, that baby isn’t mine.’ His eyes are fierce, boring into mine, and I’m shocked to find I believe him.
‘We will find her, but not like this.’
Sacha continues to stare at me for a moment, but then his gaze drops and he removes his helmet. ‘Have I messed everything up?’
‘I honestly don’t know.’ The fallout from Ronnie and Ed was brutal. Nothing was the same afterwards. But what would have happened if Sacha had been given the chance to talk to Yvonne, to Ronnie, his family, without the tragedy and turmoil of the accident? I have no idea, but maybe he’ll have the chance to find out.
‘I love her.’
I find myself believing Sacha Nowak for the second time in a matter of minutes. I think he does love her, despite his flaws, and I know Yvonne loves him. I tell Sacha this and I think he’s about to climb off the bike when I feel the rumble of the engine coursing through the handlebars and into my hands. It reverberates up my arms, into my shoulders and chest, and though I try to keep my grasp on the handlebars to stop him from taking off in pursuit of Yvonne, the noise is too intense and I let go, shoving my hands over my ears to block it out. I squeeze my eyes shut, grimacing against the powerful roar. Just when I think I’ve reached the point where I can’t take any more, that something has to give – my eardrums, my brain – the noise recedes until there’s nothing but a low hum and background chatter.
The rain has stopped. I’m somehow dry again, my hair no longer plastered against my skull, and it isn’t my hands covering my ears, it’s a pair of headphones.
I’m on the plane. Back in the present. Dolly isn’t sitting in her seat next to me, though the snoring guy is still tucked under his blanket on my left. I feel disorientated, my brain fuzzy and my stomach swirling, the two sets of memories fighting each other: Sacha and Ed tearing off into the rain and Sacha, still on the bike but with his helmet off while Ed slouches against the wall.
The nausea increases and I reach for the paper bag, just in case. It eases off after a moment, not completely, but enough so that I don’t think I’m about to hurl. Still, I shuffle across onto Dolly’s seat and poke my head out into the aisle. The light indicating that the loo is engaged is on. I keep hold of the paper bag because the nausea doesn’t seem to be lifting quite as quickly as previous jaunts back and forth in time.
I move back into my own seat and try to figure out what is happening. Did I manage to stop Sacha from riding off? And if I did, why am I still on the plane? Because if the accident didn’t happen and I stayed in Little Heaton with Tomasz, I shouldn’t be flying back to the UK for Heather’s wedding. I should already be there, living happily ever after with him.
I concentrate on the night of the accident, trying to drag new memories out. Sacha was still on the bike but he’d turned the engine off. I thought he’d started it again but I’m pretty sure the roar was down to being hauled back to the present day.
But what if it wasn’t?
What if he had started the engine? What if he’d torn off out of the village, lost control on the bend all over again? And what if Ed had pulled himself together enough to climb back onto the bike? Has it all been for nothing?
The nausea rises again. I open the bag. Shuffle along the seat to check if the loo is still engaged. The light is off but there’s a woman inching down the aisle towards me so I remain seated. I hope she passes quickly because I really do feel like I’m going to be sick and I’d rather do that in the privacy of the little loo than here, in my seat, aiming into a paper bag.
The woman stops when she reaches me. ‘Did you want to get out?’
I nod, not trusting myself to open my mouth to speak, and shuffle out of the seat. I move as quickly as I can along the aisle and lock myself in the loo. I take a few deep breaths and the nausea recedes, though it doesn’t leave completely. Once I’m convinced I’m not about to be sick, I return to my seat. Dolly’s back. I can see her elbow poking out as she rests her arm on the armrest. But as I reach the seat, I realise it isn’t Dolly. It’s the woman from the loo, who stopped to let me out into the aisle. I check the seats, to make sure I haven’t gone too far along the aisle, but there’s my bag tucked under the seat, my cardi bunched up in the pocket, the man under the blanket in the next seat.
The woman moves out into the aisle and I waddle along the small gap between the seats. Bizarrely, she sits down in Dolly’s seat again.
‘Still feeling off?’ The woman nods at the paper bag I’m still clutching, and she tilts her head to one side as she pats my arm gently. ‘Won’t be too much longer now though. We’re nearly halfway there.’ She isn’t American like Dolly. She’s got a northern accent. Yorkshire, maybe. ‘Try and have a little sleep. It makes it go quicker.’
Who is this woman? We’ve never met before, yet she’s chatting as though we have. And why has she commandeered Dolly’s seat?
Emily.
The name pops into my head. Emily, married mum of two. She was seated separately from her husband and kids. She’s very happy about it.
We have met. Right here on this flight. It’s a bit hazy but I remember it now. But what about Dolly? Did I make her up? A fear-induced hallucination? And if I dreamed Dolly up, maybe I made the rest up in my head too. The time-travelling. Revisiting summers of the past. Tomasz. Ed. Maybe I didn’t save him at all. Maybe I’ve been sitting here this whole time, daydreaming a fantasy life. A life where my best friend wasn’t killed in a road traffic accident. A life where I didn’t try to outrun my grief, where I didn’t push everyone away.
It didn’t happen. Of course it didn’t happen. People don’t flit back in time. You can’t change the past, no matter how much you wish you could.
It didn’t happen.
Tomasz and I didn’t live happily ever after.
Ed isn’t living his best life. He’s dead. I didn’t save him. I didn’t save any of us.
And now I really am going to throw up.