All stories

'Bye

Time travelling. What nonsense.

I’m not a morning person. Not at all and he’d forgotten to put the lid on the toothpaste again, so it had oozed out over the sink. And the back door was unlocked. And his shoes were right slap bang in the middle of the hall floor, so I nearly fell over them when I went through. I scraped the knife around the bottom of the marmite only to realise that he’d put the empty jar back in the cupboard.

I stomped up the stairs and got dressed without looking at him. He grinned lazily from inside the duvet.

“Come back to bed?”

“I can’t I have to be in work soon.”

He sighed, but tried again: “That necklace is pretty”

“Thanks”

“You’re cross?”

“Everything is in a mess - there’s toothpaste everywhere and I nearly killed myself on your stupid shoes - again!”

“Oh fuck, I’m really sorry…”

“Yeah, well. Anyway, I’ll be back later tonight, so I won’t see you till sevenish - alright?”

“Where are you heading?”

I sighed and turned around to look at him.

“It’s in the calendar - I’m having a drink after work with the girls, remember?! Is that OK with you?”

“Yeah, it’s fine, of course, I…” I looked away again to fasten my earrings impatiently.

“I have to go to work now. I’ll see you tonight.” He reached out a hand to touch me, but I pretended I didn’t see it and walked past him and down the stairs.

“Bye, love - I’ll see you later.” I didn’t answer. I slammed the door and fumed the whole way to work. Of course by the time I’d gotten in, warmed up and had a coffee, my irritation had melted away and I felt pretty stupid. I picked up my phone and sent him a quick message:

“Sorry - terrible mood this morning. Food later?”

But there was no answer. Strange, he was usually pretty good at getting back. Must be busy at work. I shrugged and put my phone away. I didn’t look at it again until it rang an hour later. And that was when I started to think about time travel.

There wasn’t anything that they could do, it had all happened so fast and it was all over so soon. Just at the end of our street. It took a long, long time for it to sink in that I was never going to see him again.

Somehow it seemed like too much to ask to travel back in time so that it never happened, so that I could have somehow warned him, or so that he could have known that the driver wasn’t going to look before turning into the road and into him on his bike. That was weirdly unrealistic - you can’t change the events of the past with a wish.

But the thought of travelling back in time and simply deciding to say ‘goodbye’ as I left seemed so hopelessly close that it felt like madness that I couldn’t just do it.

My anger was white hot, and it warmed me better than all the stamping as I paced next to Dad’s Morris. I wanted to see them chased from their adulterous bothy by vengeful missiles and waving sticks of some outraged church walking group.

What I got was Dad upright and proper, and Mrs Scott only rumpled because of the wind that cut the clifftop. I thought about Mum and how she went to the kitchen to bash pans about if ever her name came up.

She broke step when she saw me but Dad kept them both moving without missing a beat.

He said, ‘You get on home now, son.’

So I yelled. The way they stood there, no hint of shame.

Grimness spread across Dad’s face, but it was Mrs Scott that slapped me.

She said, ‘I don’t care for that.’

Then she turned to my father and fired rapid Norwegian at him. She drowned his reply and then it happened, the old man cracked. He threw his arms in the air and stalked away.

She smiled wanly, and said, ‘Let’s go sit in the car.’

---

As I shivered and felt a little sick she filled the car with smoke from her cigarette, sat there without her coat, seeming not to feel the cold. So soft her voice I almost missed it when she spoke.

‘We used to be together, your father and I. Lovers back home, and lovers here. But in wartime so was everyone.”

She paused so long I thought that was it, then she said, ‘And then there was Erik.’

She waited for me to get it, before smiling patiently, and said, ‘You were named for him, Erik. Your father’s best friend. Who loved me too.’

‘He didn’t make it out?’

‘No, he left Norway, curse God.’

She put a hand up to her necklace, running the silver links through her fingers.

‘His mother’s, and he gave it to me in hope. But I was a good Jewish girl and your father a good Jewish boy.’

She found another cigarette but didn’t light it, holding it in fingers that now maybe trembled a little.

‘They took us to the village hall, tied us only with rope, thank God! Erik cut us loose, using the pocket knife your father carries still. Thirteen of us, men, women and children. And Erik. Poor Erik. The only one of us to get hit, not badly, but enough that they caught him. They patched him up, and then.’

She crumpled the cigarette inside her fist.

‘They said to him, since you like Jews so much, why don’t you spend some time with them?’

Her fingers were at the necklace again, and she looked at me with eyes that shone.

‘Isn’t it worth one day in the calendar? June twelfth once a year, the day we got away. Just to come together and talk about him, and thank him for our lives. Our family’s lives. It’s worth a day, isn’t it?’

Anna felt sick, her stomach was clenched so tightly it ached. People were filing into the room like a flock of brightly coloured birds, chattering away, their beady eyes glancing quickly about. Anna shrank back into the chair, trying to blend into the surroundings. She'd worn the plainest dress she could reasonably wear without drawing attention to herself. It was grey, not a soft dove grey, but grey like a common pigeon. She shifted nervously in her seat and tugged at the hem pulling it down further over her knees.

Anna had been counting down the days, crossing them off on her calendar since she'd got the invitation. Alan's wedding, her beloved step-brother. She hadn't seen him in over a year, not since their father's funeral. Anna could barely bring herself to look at Alan that day. She'd felt the sadness rolling off of him like thunder as they stood together in the rain, so she’d slipped away after the burial to avoid it. Every day since she'd thought about him. She longed to go back and take his hand and sink down into the grief with him, but she could no more have brought herself to do that than to have held her hand in flames.

Anna straightened the knife and fork in front of her for the tenth time. Alan and Wendy entered the room, beaming at the collected guests as they made their way to the top table. They looked so happy, almost other-worldly. As they say down Alan's eyes wondered over the crowd and finally rested on Anna. He smiled and looked to go to say something, but then turned back to Wendy. Anna's heart beat so fast in her chest, she felt for a moment like a fish on a hook gasping for air. She reached up and laid a hand over the necklace she wore. It was a row of small shiny periwinkles, strung together a piece of silver string she'd found in the Christmas decorations box.

Anna had found the shells whilst out walking with her father many years ago. It was her favourite memory. He'd drilled tiny holes in them so she could make them into beads. She'd worn them all day. When Alan had come home that evening, long after their father had gone to bed, Anna had sat up with him while he made toast to ward off a hangover. Anna had told him of the long walk on the beach and had proudly showed him the necklace she'd made. Alan had leant over and ran his fingers gently over the delicate shells about her throat. His face was so close to hers she could have just closed her eyes at that moment, but instead she’d turned and fled upstairs.

Now she sat at the wedding, the rest of the crowd cooing at the bride and groom. Her hand dropped from the necklace and she clasped her arms around herself.