The Start of Us
HANNAH EMERY

One More Chapter

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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2020

Copyright © Hannah Emery 2020

Cover design by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020

Cover images © Shutterstock.com

Hannah Emery asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008389017

Ebook Edition © 2020 ISBN: 9780008389000

Version: 2020-05-22

Content notices: child bereavement.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue: 7th September 2017

PART ONE

Chapter 1: September 2013

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11: 7th September 1997

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

PART TWO

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

PART THREE

Chapter 32: 7th September 2017

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48: 7th September 2017

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Epilogue: 7th September 2018

Acknowledgements

Also by Hannah Emery

About the Author

About the Publisher

For Hayley

Prologue
7th September 2017

I’ve seen another version of me.

I wonder what I’d be like, people sometimes think, if I hadn’t met that person when I did or missed that party or caught the train earlier or later or not at all. Who would I be if I’d refused that job instead of taken it, if I’d gone on the trip or if I’d stayed at home that day?

I don’t have to wonder this, because I have seen the other me. I have watched her dart between different countries whilst I stayed in the same place, ignore the job that I took, laugh on the day I thought grief would rip me into a thousand pieces.

And now, I am faced with a choice.

I stand at the kitchen window and stare out at the wilderness of our garden. The leathery green leaves twist and thrash against one another. Some of them are already edged with the gold of autumn. The wind is cold even though it’s only September. It screams through the gap between the glass and the battered wooden pane and I sigh and flick on the radio beside me.

The tension is still here in the room, hanging above me like a shimmering heat. The argument, yet another, looped around and around in tiresome knots.

I close my eyes, and feel the other life calling me, promising me answers and a way out. I picture him in Luigi’s, waiting for me. We haven’t been in a long time, but I know where he’ll sit: at the third table on the right, next to the wall with the picture of Charlie Chaplin above him. He’ll face the door. He will sit fiddling with the cutlery, his jaw set with tension. If I don’t arrive, he will put his head in his hands, tufts of his hair escaping through his fingers. He will sigh, and stand, nodding a goodbye to the staff, explaining nothing.

And after that I don’t know what he’ll do or what will happen, because I cannot imagine a life without him, a life where he hasn’t met me yet and hasn’t turned grey with sadness. But maybe that’s the whole problem. Maybe we are together too much and our shared pain has started to weather us both like the sea has weathered our house: splintering us, cracking the beautiful strength that we started out with.

PART ONE

Chapter 1
September 2013

When Mike picks me up for the engagement party, I am distracted and wrapped up in things that seem important at the time. That’s because I don’t know that everything is about to change, that time is about to be sliced into one of my many Befores and Afters.

Mike drives us from my flat along the promenade and we don’t talk much. We never talk much in the car because he always has his music too loud, so that the thuds of the beat wash away our words. I rest my head on the window, staring out at the soft pale blue of the sky. I’m worried that I don’t know many people going to the party. I am a reluctant party-goer and leave Mike to it when I can, but he persuaded me to come to this one. That’s who Mike is. He makes me socialise with his hundreds of acquaintances and stay up late when I have work the next day. He makes me eat out too much and spend my money on things I don’t need instead of saving it. He makes it easy enough to be persuaded and easy enough to stand politely in his shadow. I suppose it’s one of the things I like about being with him: he takes over and lets me blend into whatever crowd he’s entertaining.

But tonight, Mike is still unusually quiet as we get out of the car and enter the house. When I take off my boots, shards of heart-shaped confetti stick to my feet. I glance at the huge silver heart-shaped balloons that float around like extra guests and then look at Mike with a grimace. He nods quickly, awkwardly, and I wonder for a split second if his face is tense because he’s thinking of proposing to me soon, too. I laugh out loud at the thought, which is clearly ridiculous because it’s Mike, and then I realise I’ve probably downed the glass of Champagne that someone gave me at the front door far too quickly.

‘What’s funny?’ Mike asks me.

‘Oh, well I … nothing.’ A tall man I don’t know tops up my glass and I smile at him, say thank you, then take a sip. The man grins at me, then turns away and I look back at Mike.

‘Is something wrong?’ I ask Mike. He’s always been the first one to do shots at parties. He’s the opposite of me: a party boy who is happy to have all eyes on him. He never wants to stop drinking or dancing. On the way, I braced myself for him to hurl himself, on arrival, into amusing anecdotes and jokes at the light-hearted expense of other people. But there’s none of that tonight, just quiet nods in greeting to people he knows, small smiles instead of laughter.

He shakes his head, hands thrust deep into his pockets.

‘I still don’t know why you brought the car,’ I tell him as he shrugs. ‘Are you sure you don’t want a drink?’

‘Mike!’ Kevin, the host of the party slurs in greeting, clapping Mike on the back. ‘Jaegerbombs later. Yeah?’

Mike nods, but says nothing. Kevin carries on through to the kitchen, too preoccupied to notice or care that something is obviously wrong.

‘I wondered if you might be thinking of proposing,’ I admit, trying to do what Mike always does and lighten the mood with a joke. And it’s not just any joke; it’s our very own standing joke. All of our friends are doing this all of a sudden: throwing engagement parties and planning weddings and announcing Big Things with wide smiles and helium balloons. Mike and I are avoiding all of that, and it’s working for us.

Or maybe it’s not.

He pales and swallows, looks away.

‘Oh God, Mike? You’re not actually proposing, are you?’ I try to collect my panicked thoughts. I don’t want to get married. He knows that. And he doesn’t want to get married either. Or so I thought. I can’t hurt Mike. And that would hurt him beyond repair, wouldn’t it? Disregarding it as a joke? Saying no?

I touch his shoulder gently and he stands up.

‘I can’t talk about it now,’ he says, his voice flat. ‘Not in here.’

He looks at me, but his eyes don’t quite reach mine. I stand up, push my hair from my eyes, and take his hand. Is he ill? In debt? Why didn’t I know about this? I lead him upstairs to a bedroom that is painted a violent purple. The house is a maze: I don’t even know whose room it is, or if whomever it belongs to will mind us being in there, sitting on the matching purple duvet that hasn’t been made, but left in a wrinkled heap in the middle of the mattress.

‘Mike?’

And then I see that it’s not what I thought at all. He hasn’t hidden a solitaire in his pocket, and he wasn’t anxious about proposing to me. It’s not illness or debt or anything that I can support him with by being the girl who always laughs at his jokes. It’s something else, and as I watch Mike’s face, and see his eyes redden, it dawns on me exactly what’s happening.

As I realise it, he says it, and the pain is doubled.

‘I don’t want to be with you anymore, Erica.’

The Champagne I had when I arrived, when things were normal and okay and I was just someone at a party, threatens to flow back up. I cover my mouth with my hand. A piece of heart confetti sticks to the edge of my palm, glistens.

‘I’m sorry. I’ve tried. I can’t.’

And that’s it. Six words and it’s all over.

He opens the door and noises from the party drift in. A silver balloon floats past the door.

‘You can’t leave me here,’ I say. I see him reach in his pocket for something. His car keys.

‘You knew! You knew you were going to leave the party earlier than me, and that’s why you drove! Why did you even bring me?’

He shrugs. He’s pale and I know that he can’t want to do this to me. Yet here he is, still doing it. ‘I’m sorry, Erica.’

‘But we have to talk!’ I say. My voice doesn’t sound like mine and I’m vaguely aware that I need to reclaim it and sort out the pitch so that I don’t sound like someone who has no control. ‘Let’s go back to mine, and talk.’

‘I don’t want to, Erica.’

‘But I haven’t!’ We went on a weekend to London a few months ago. Did he know then? Does he have someone else? The dull thud of music from outside the room hurts my head and makes me feel dizzy. I lift a hand up to my temple, press it against my skin to try and numb the pain and the sensation that I might fall to the floor. ‘Why now?’

He shrugs. ‘I’ve just had enough. We’ve had some good times. But we’re just too different.’

‘But that’s good!’ I say. ‘Opposites attract!’ But even as I’m saying it, I’m wondering if it’s really true.

‘Nah. You’re happy around here, talking about old stuff and the museum and things … And anyway, I’m moving,’ Mike says next, abruptly, his eyes still focusing on something beyond me. ‘Kath, from the Cardiff branch, has offered me a position there. It’s just cover for a few weeks. Then after that I’m going to go abroad for a bit,’ he says, doing a ridiculous gesture with his hand to illustrate his flight, his travel, his vanishing from my life. It distracts me, and I almost don’t notice the flicker in his eyes. But then I see it, and I realise why.

Kath.

Kath, the manager of the Cardiff branch of the bank where Mike works, who saved the day by doing long-term cover at the Blackpool branch last year, who always looked me up and down at Mike’s work parties and threw her immaculate head back with constant, too-loud laughter.

I stare at him, at his blonde hair and the faintest acne scar on his forehead and the shadow of gold stubble on his jaw. I thought he was mine, but he’s not. The thought is sharp, but I am strangely numb to it.

‘So Kath doesn’t talk about old stuff? She doesn’t bore you like I do?’ I say, trying to sound cutting, like I have my act together, but my voice is thick with hurt.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘But you’re the one who took the museum job and stopped us travelling about. And I thought I could wait, but I can’t. I want to try something different right now, Erica. I’m fed up here. I’m bored.’

‘Bored? But my museum job is only for three months. And then after that, I—’

‘Well yeah,’ he interrupts, and I recall vaguely that him interrupting me is something that has irritated me before, but that it was a small irritation, and I never really properly registered it. Now it’s meaningless: a bubble floating before me and popping just as I reach out to touch it. ‘But then after that there will be another reason, won’t there? It’s fine. But it’s not for me. I want more, Erica. I literally cannot stay another second.’ He lowers his eyes and shifts away from me slightly as I try to take his hand. ‘Let me go.’

And then he’s gone from the room, keys jangling, off to Cardiff and Kath and a world where he will talk about his ex and falling out of love and being too bored to stay for another second.

The numbness in my mind spreads to my whole body, and I don’t follow him, or try to change his mind or make him stay. I sit on the bed, quite still, thinking about his words, unable to do anything with them other than hear them over and over again. And then after a few minutes, the numbness wears off. My tears are sudden and ugly, my breaths unable to keep up.

I don’t know how long I’ve been in the room, crying in strange, gulping episodes, huddled against the purple duvet, when the door opens and someone comes in. It’s the man who topped up my glass when I first arrived. I take in how he looks: perhaps early thirties, tall, dark hair, black-rimmed glasses and wide straight teeth … He raises his eyebrows and suddenly self-aware, I put my hand up to my streaming nose.

‘Sorry. I just came up to see if I can find my coat. But I can come back in a minute,’ he offers.

I wipe my throbbing eyes. ‘I don’t mind.’

He stands by the door looking concerned. ‘Do you want a drink?’

‘Actually, some tissues would be really good.’

He smiles and leaves the room, closing the door softly behind him before returning a few minutes later with a wad of toilet roll. He sits on the edge of the bed, drumming his hands on his knees.

‘I had no idea,’ I say. I should elaborate, but I don’t have the words or the energy.

‘I just saw the guy that you arrived with leave. Mike, is it? I’m guessing he’s not coming back?’

I shake my head. ‘Why would he bring me here and do that?’

‘I’m really not sure,’ the man says, even though the answer lingers between us, unspoken. Mike is a coward and if he’d broken up with me at my flat, he would have had to talk about it and I would have shouted and clung to him and not let him out of the door. I would have talked about our plans to see the world together, and asked him to just wait for me to finish my three-month job at the museum. But he didn’t want me to do that.

‘He’s moving away,’ I say. ‘Cardiff and then travelling. I think he’s got someone else.’ I hear my own words and cringe at how open I’m being with this complete stranger. I’d never usually tell anyone something so personal. Maybe I’m a different version of myself now.

The man shakes his head. ‘I’m so sorry. It was poor form, doing this at a party. So as cliched as it sounds, you’re probably better off without him.’

I stare past him, trying to think, but every tangled thought leads back to Mike. I vaguely recognise a fear from my childhood snaking through my blood. Being alone and having nobody to hide behind. That’s how things will be again now. ‘I thought I’d always have him.’ My voice shakes so much that I’m surprised he can work out what I’ve said. It crosses my mind that having Mike was different to wanting him and that my words might be giving away more than I even thought I knew, but the man doesn’t seem to notice.

He stands up and I think for a minute he’s going to leave the room, but he doesn’t. He just has an apparent inability to sit still for more than a few seconds at a time. ‘Well then, I suppose all you can do is find a different life to live. See what else there is, other than him.’

I close my eyes. ‘We were going to travel together. Have adventures. Why couldn’t he just wait so that we could stick to our plan?’

‘You can still have a plan. Just not with him.’

‘You seem very sure.’ I sniff, then regret it because of the ugly sound it makes in front of this polite stranger. There’s something convincing about his words, and I wonder if he’s speaking from experience.

‘I am sure. I’m an architect. It’s my job to think about the bigger picture. Buildings, life, it’s all the same. Each tiny detail impacts on another and that sometimes causes real problems. You start off drawing one building, but then you find something out that changes a small detail on your plan. So the building has to change into something different. You can’t just carry on as though it hasn’t happened.’

‘Because the building will collapse,’ I finish, my breathing more even now, my tears suspended.

‘Well, yeah. Or it might just not be the best version of itself. You have to move with the changes and build something else.’

‘It makes sense,’ I say slowly. ‘But it’s frightening when your whole plan changes.’

He nods. ‘I know. Especially when you’ve invested so much. You know, he’s making a big mistake.’

‘You don’t even know me.’

‘I know. I’m talking about Cardiff.’

I manage a smile, try to block non-boring Kath from my mind.

‘You don’t have to sit here with me,’ I tell him. ‘Weren’t you going home? You came in here looking for your coat, didn’t you?’

‘I don’t have to go. I’m working tomorrow so was going to head off, but I might stay for a bit. What are you going to do? This is Em’s room I think, and she’s passed out in the living room. I doubt she will make it to bed. So I think you can stay in here for a bit if you want.’

I nod. I can’t face the party again yet, people looking at my swollen eyes and tracks of mascara and wondering what’s happened to me. But then I picture my flat and feel like it belongs to somebody else who had everything worked out. I don’t want to go there either. I want to press pause.

‘Are you sure you don’t want a drink?’

I sigh. ‘It’s my birthday on Friday,’ I find myself saying in answer, even though I’m not entirely sure why.

‘Well, that kind of answers my question,’ he says. ‘Tell you what, I’ll stay for a bit. I’ll get you a drink and if you don’t want it, I’ll have it.’ He’s gone before I can protest.

He returns to the bedroom a few minutes later with a glass of Champagne.

‘Thank you. I don’t even know your name. I’m Erica. I don’t really know anyone here. Mike’s friends with Kevin, which is why we came.’

He grins. ‘Daniel.’ He sips his own wine, red, and makes a face as if to say it tastes better than he thought it would. ‘I used to work with Em years ago, and she’s Kevin and Sophie’s housemate. I barely know anyone here. I wasn’t going to come, actually.’

‘I didn’t want to either. But I’m glad you did.’ I take a sip of Champagne. ‘I’m not sure I’m glad I did though. And I’m not sure I should be drinking Champagne. It hardly seems like the time for celebration.’

‘It’s the perfect time for a celebration. You’re looking for your other life, remember. Your new building. It’s the beginning.’ He clinks his glass against mine and the sound rings in my ears, making me feel dizzy.

‘Cheers, then,’ I say. Tears threaten again, so I down the drink. Daniel takes the empty glass from me, disappearing back to the kitchen. He brings me more Champagne and then says he will come back in a bit to see how I’m doing. I sip at it and close my eyes, but dizziness pulls at me again so I sit up and then wander out into the kitchen where I help myself to some lemonade, gulping it down until my mouth is fuzzy with sugar. There is hardly anyone awake now: bodies huddled, limbs tangled, breathing heavy and even. I make my way back to the room that belongs to Em, the girl I don’t even know, who has a purple duvet and doesn’t make her bed, then I lie down.

That’s when it happens. I have lost control. I’m not strong enough to stop it, and even if I were, it hasn’t happened to me for years so it takes me by surprise. The duvet collapses from beneath me, the purple walls cave in and the world as I know it spins and shifts.

Chapter 2

I am thrown into the other world so hard that I can feel my insides slam against my skin. It’s like a rollercoaster multiplied by a million. My breaths are sharp, fast, painful.

As I always used to be, once I reach where I’m going I am glued to the spot. I force my senses to catch up with the rest of me, and try to look around, take in where I am. Glossy brochures are lined up on the shelves, the air is sweet with a manufactured scent of coconut, and posters of yellow sands and palm trees and aeroplanes swooping through blue skies line the walls.

It’s been years since I was thrown into another time and place. It first happened to me when I was a child: a terrifying visit to the past where I could hear people and smell their perfume but they couldn’t see me. I wanted to believe it was a dream, but my mum’s anger at my unexplained disappearance from our house the whole time I was in the other world told me otherwise. I know that the bedroom from the party I have just left behind will be empty, the purple bed as though I had never sat on it. The powerful dizziness that washed over me tonight should have been a warning because that’s how it always used to start. But the breakup with Mike, the alcohol and the fright at the prospect of a different life without somebody all masked the feeling that I always used to recognise within seconds.

But this isn’t the same as it used to be. As I finally gather breath, I know that something is different. When this happened to me as a child, I always saw things that had happened in the past. People looked different and were surrounded by strange colours and trends that I’d only ever seen in pictures. Everything seemed as though it had been seeped in low light, as though I was watching a film that wasn’t quite tuned. But what I’m looking at now is bright, modern and clear. If it’s the past, it’s the recent past.

The woman at the desk just in front of me sighs as she taps her keyboard. Her acrylic nails clack against the keys. She glances up before checking the silver mobile phone on the desk beside her. She obviously can’t see me. I try to think about who she might be, and why I’m here, watching her, but my mind is uncooperative: sticky and slow with the shock of being here, of what’s just happened with Mike.

I have never been able to move or able to reach out and touch the people I can see, and I am stuck in one position now too. I turn my head slightly, the only movement I can make, to look out of the travel agent’s window. I can make out cobbled streets, and I don’t think it’s Blackpool but that only tells me where I am not.

And then I see someone else who makes my heart stop.

She leans against the counter of what seems to be a currency change bureau and flips through a brochure, her eyes flitting over words, focusing on the shiny images of creamy sands and fluorescent blue seas.

It’s me. Or somebody identical to me.

It’s another Erica who has the same bone structure, the same fine dark hair and long fringe that falls into her face and green eyes and one stray freckle on her left cheek, as I do. But this Erica has a coloured braid in her hair, a sign of a recent trip abroad, an urge to change her look and shout about the fun she had. Her face is relaxed, her skin glowing. The tip of her nose is slightly pink as though she missed it with the sun cream, which I always do.

‘Looking for your next trip already, Erica?’ asks the woman who still clacks away at her computer as she talks. The sound of someone saying my name jolts me. I want to shout out, to say something, but nothing will come out of my mouth. I am mute, not really here.

The other Erica looks at her colleague and shrugs, a small sideways smile on her lips. Do I smile like that? Discomfort pulls at me as I watch her mannerisms that must be mine too. I can’t bear to see myself from so many angles at once but can’t stop looking either. How can you know yourself so well yet so little?

‘Maybe,’ she answers her colleague, her voice making me prickle with a self-awareness so intense I can barely stand it. It’s a sound that is foreign and mine all at once. ‘I’m thinking Australia. Or maybe Thailand. Just me and a backpack.’

‘You’ve only just got back to Yorkshire,’ the woman says, shaking her head and checking her phone again.

Yorkshire. The sound of the place I left so long ago quickens my pulse and I take a deep breath. There is so much that I don’t understand, but Erica is talking again and I can’t miss a second of it.

‘So what? It’s my twenty-eighth birthday next week.’ Erica wrinkles her nose and I put my hand up to my own nose self-consciously. ‘It’ll be my present to myself. I’ve saved for years. And I promised myself I’d see as much of the world as I can by the time I’m thirty. So I owe it to myself.’ As she speaks, she looks straight at me, as though she knows I am watching her, as though she knows I haven’t done any of the travelling that seems so important to everyone else. I try to back away, panicked at the thought of our identical eyes meeting. My limbs won’t move, but still I try to summon the power to try to make them. I squeeze my eyes shut to try and concentrate all my energy on stepping backwards, and as I do, overwhelming dizziness drags me down, making me fall. As I plunge through different worlds, scrambling to try and place my feet upon something solid, another scene flashes before me. A flash of road. A motorway sign.

And then I am flung back into Em’s bedroom, onto the soft tangle of purple that I left behind.

I sit up and place my hand on my chest, trying to steady my breaths. My legs are weak and nausea swirls through me. I stumble over to the window, lifting the heavy patterned curtains. It’s still dark outside, but that tells me nothing really: I could have been gone hours or minutes. It felt like I was there for only seconds, but I know from when I used to disappear like this that seconds in one world can be hours in another.

As I stare out into the backyard of the house I’m in, beyond to row upon row of terraced Victorian houses and bins and gates and children’s slides and cars all coated in the blue darkness of the night, I think about what I have just seen. The words I listened to whisper again and again in my mind until they take a shape and meaning of their own.

I was in Yorkshire, the place that I left when I was twelve years old and have never returned to. But the other Erica who lived there said that it was her twenty-eighth birthday next week, which means that whatever world I saw, whatever parallel universe it was, it wasn’t the past or the future. It was now.

I adjust my focus and see my reflection in the tall sash window. I see my puffed eyes and my pale skin, the fear from Mike ending things etched, somehow, into my features. I thought my disappearances that could happen any time I was alone, the blinding headaches and dizziness followed by the terror of the ground falling from beneath me, were behind me. The last one was years ago, and before tonight they had taken on the vague, uncertain shape of very first memories, the kind with no start or end or evidence for. I wonder, hot panic snaking its way through my body why they have returned here, and now. And I wonder when the other Erica’s life ended, and this one that I am living began.

Chapter 3

I’m woken the next day by the buzzer of my flat. My head is heavy, my mouth dry. My first thought is that last night my strange vision of the other me, and Mike ending things, was surely all a dream. A nightmare, I correct myself. I lurch the small distance from my bedroom to the front door. My eyes are sore with crying and the weight of anxiety and hurt slowly settles in my stomach like a rock. So, I realise, the Mike episode definitely happened.

But the disappearance can’t have been real. I can’t be going through this all over again. I’ve grown out of it. I shake off the images of the other Erica in the travel agent’s that still float in my mind. I try to distract myself from seeing her tanned face, its every crease so familiar, by talking myself through what must have happened. I probably fell asleep for a few hours, because Daniel came back into Em’s room as I stood at the window. It was about 3am then, and he phoned a cab to bring me home. I fell into my bed still fully clothed, peeling my boots off and throwing them across the room. I slept some more, which made the events of last night seem even more surreal. And so now, as I twist open the silver latch, it seems likely that I just drank a lot at the party and had a strange dream. Nothing more happened.

‘Good night?’ my friend Zoe asks as she stalks past me into my flat. She turns back and frowns at me as I stand motionless instead of following her. ‘Why are you wearing yesterday’s clothes?’ She looks more closely at me: my crumpled black dress, yesterday’s makeup smeared by tears.

‘Oh, God, Erica. What’s happened?’

I crumble, sobs forcing their way out of my aching body as I give an outline of the story Mike gave me. I need to let him go. He’s known for a while. Kath.

Zoe’s face is white. Nobody expected this to happen. I can see that everybody I tell will gasp like Zoe, their eyes wide and their faces ashen as I tell them what I tell her: that Mike’s made up his mind, he’s living our life without me in it, he’s fallen for somebody else who won’t bore him by staying in one place for too long.

‘I honestly had no idea he’d do this. What a bastard,’ Zoe says as she makes tea. She shakes her head. ‘Well. Look at it this way. You can focus on your job now. And maybe get something similar when your contract runs out. You don’t need to go away. It was Mike pushing you to do that.’

I think of the other version of me that I saw, or dreamt – surely dreamt – and what she said about travelling and try to ignore the nausea that accompanies the memory. I promised myself I’d see as much of the world as I can by the time I’m thirty. So I owe it to myself. Then I think of Daniel, the man at the party, making me toast my new future … So much happened last night that a lot of it is blurred together, but his words about buildings and changing plans are bright in my mind.

‘Well, maybe I will go abroad and see different places. Maybe it isn’t because of Mike that I want to go away. I could do it on my own.’

Zoe looks uncertain, takes a sip of her tea. ‘Do you really think it’s for you? No offense, Erica, but you only just moved out of your mum’s house a few years ago. You don’t really strike me as the lone traveller type. You were just going along with Mike, weren’t you?’

‘Maybe. To be completely honest,’ I say, looking down into my mug, because I feel like I’m never completely honest with Zoe, ‘I know I’ve always avoided moving. I hated it so much the first time, when we first came here to Blackpool.’ And I couldn’t trust myself to be alone in a strange place, I add silently.

Until I met Mike, my disappearances were too frequent, too unpredictable and frightening, for me to be alone. As long as somebody could see me, I wouldn’t disappear. But when they started happening less often, and then stopped altogether a few years ago, I decided that I could finally move on and rent my own flat. I swallow down my anxiety. It was a dream. ‘But now,’ I continue quickly, ‘life is passing me by. I think it’s time for me to be a bit braver. I owe it to myself.’ I parrot the other version of me, feeling self-conscious, as though by speaking the same words she did, our two worlds will brush against one another and cause an electric surge, a jolt or a buzz of energy. But nothing happens. Zoe leans forward, oblivious, and bangs her mug down on the coffee table.

‘You don’t need to change just because Mike told you to. You two were really different.’

‘That’s what he said. I always thought that was a good thing.’

‘Well, whether it was or not, you’re fine as you are.’

I smile. ‘Thanks. But thinking about travelling isn’t for Mike. It’s for me. I think on some level, I’m meant to be somewhere else.’

Zoe rolls her eyes. ‘Oh no, don’t go all meaning of life on me. If you’re sure about it though …’ she thinks for a minute, then takes her phone from her bag, jabbing at the buttons before handing it to me. ‘Here you go. There’s Nina’s number.’

‘Nina?’

‘Yes, Nina. You know, my cousin Jen’s friend?’

I try to think, to pull a memory of Nina to the front of my heavy mind. I picture her: white-blonde hair, even whiter teeth, a smattering of piercings.

‘She’s going to Thailand soon. Jen was saying the other day that Nina’s been trying to make Jen put off her nurse training for a year and go with her. She doesn’t want to go alone. But Jen’s set on staying here now. You could go with Nina instead, if you really wanted to.’

I nod and press call.

***

The conversation with Nina is short, slightly stilted at first, an awkward mix of silences and moments where we both speak at the same time so that neither of our words can be heard.

‘I heard you’re wanting a travelling bud—’

‘How’s the museu—’

‘Oh sorry!’

‘Sorry, go on,’

It goes on like this for a few minutes, until Nina bores of the small talk.

‘Did you mention the travelling?’

‘Yeah. I’m with Zoe. She said you want someone to go with?’

‘Yep,’ she says simply.

‘Okay. Well, the thought of going alone scares me a bit too, to be honest. I’ve only looked into the basics before. I was going to go with, uh, Mike, my erm … Well anyway, now I’m not with him and so I don’t really know where to start.’

‘You split up with Mike? God, sorry. Why?’

‘Oh,’ I say, waving my hand in the air pointlessly. ‘Long story. But it’d be good to chat about where you’re going, if you’ve found anywhere to work and things like that.’

‘Yeah, okay. I’m working my last shift at Coffee Mansion next week. Everyone gets free coffee for friends when it’s their last shift. If you want, I’ll let you know when I get my rota and you can come in.’

‘Okay,’ I say. ‘I will.’

***

It’s Friday. My birthday.

‘I think I’d rather stay in tonight, you know,’ I say on the phone to my brother Nicholas when he calls to wish me happy birthday. Nicholas and his wife Amelia are driving up from Oxford today and we’re going out for dinner later on. The past few days have shaken me and I want to snap shut, refuse to let anyone in. I can’t really face the idea of going out where I might know people who will ask questions about why I’m not out with Mike on my birthday.

‘Not an option,’ Nicholas says. ‘I’ve promised Amelia a pub crawl around the finest of Blackpool’s bars. And Phoebe is looking forward to a night in with Mum.’

I smile, relenting. I’ve only seen my niece a few times since she was born last year, and the thought of her sweet, ripe skin and feathery blonde hair lifts me and makes me feel bolder somehow.

‘I’m so excited to see her.’

‘Oh great. It’s like this everywhere we go now. All about Phoebe. I think I might pop her in a taxi to Blackpool and stay here in bed for a few days. Catch up on sleep.’

I laugh. ‘No, don’t do that. I need to see you too.’ The image of the other Erica fills my mind, unbidden, and I ache to tell Nicholas about it. But I don’t. If I tell him, he might try to persuade me that it was real, and I can’t believe that right now. I can’t process the possibility that this might be happening to me again, because I can’t let it stop me from making the plans I should have made so long ago but was too scared to.

‘Well,’ he says, ‘we’ve just got a few more billion things to pack for Phoebe and then we’ll be on our way. We’ll see you at Mum’s, okay? She’ll give you a ring when we get there.’

We say goodbye and I wander into my bedroom and make the bed, pulling the covers straight. It’s ten in the morning. Nicholas won’t be here until about six. I have taken the whole of next week off work and the days stretch out before me. I pick up my mobile phone. The thought that I could text Mike flits through my mind like a brittle leaf in the wind. But no. I won’t do that. And I won’t give up on the day either. It’s my birthday. It’s a day to celebrate, not wallow.

I will go for a walk along the promenade. The rush of salty air never fails to make me feel better. It’s the reason I live in this tiny, boxy flat that has magnolia walls and magnolia carpets and the sound of a furious, howling baby from upstairs at regular intervals all through the day and night: I want to be near the sea. I was too angry to appreciate it when I was twelve and we first moved here. Mum and Dad had just split up, and Blackpool represented an enforced change that I didn’t want to be a part of. But Mum grew up here, so when she was finding somewhere new for us to live, she felt drawn to it. Now, the sea with its constant ebbs and flows, its power and sense of freedom, has become something that I take pleasure in. I looked around so many flats, and was uninspired by every single one except this one, which looks out onto the grassy walkway and grey waves of North Shore beach.

Just as I’m pulling on my black trainers, my phone buzzes in my hand. People keep texting to ask me if Mike is spoiling me, if he’s bought me anything nice. They don’t know not to ask that, because I still haven’t told many people that he’s gone, and he obviously hasn’t either. Not that he ever bought me anything nice. He was more of a joke gift kind of person.

I wait a few minutes before opening the text. When I do, I see that it’s from Daniel. I vaguely remember telling him it was my birthday today. He has my number because he made me text him to say I got home okay in the early hours of the other morning, after he called me a taxi home from the party.

Happy bday. Daniel x

I’m not sure why but Daniel has had a strange presence in my mind over the past few days. His words and kindness have been a welcome distraction from the stinging memory of what happened with Mike. I’ve thought of getting in touch with him a couple of times but I haven’t wanted to bother him after I took over his night at the party. Now, I hesitate for a moment then press the ‘call’ button above his message. He sounds surprised when he answers.

‘Thanks for the text,’ I say.

‘That’s okay.’

‘Most people are asking what Mike bought me. It was nice to get a text that didn’t ask me that.’

‘Why, what did he get you?’

It’s a bad joke, but I smile anyway. ‘You know too well. You suffered the brunt.’

‘Not really. I’m glad I was there. What are you doing today, anyway?’

I lie back on my bed, staring up at the ceiling, the cracks in the wallpaper, the ugly green lightshade that I’ve never changed because my path with Mike never veered near home improvement aisles.

DIY? Really? Mike would have said if I’d suggested it. He would have made me go out to the pub instead. But that was a good thing, wasn’t it? As Mike fades out of my mind as soon as he entered it, I realise that Daniel is still waiting for me to answer.

‘My brother’s coming later with his wife. We’re going out,’ I tell him.

‘Sounds good. Where are you going?’

‘I don’t know. I was meant to book somewhere.’ Everywhere seems a bit tainted now. Every restaurant that I like is now a restaurant that reminds me of Mike.

‘I tried a nice new Italian last week. It’s right in the town centre, opposite the Winter Gardens.’

‘A new place sounds perfect.’

‘I think it’s called Luigi’s.’

‘Thanks, Daniel. I’ll look it up.’ I pause, listening to static, reluctant to let our conversation come to an end. ‘Did you really have to work on Sunday, after the party?’ I ask. ‘It was late when we were talking and I was ordering you to get me drinks and tissues. And then you were still there in the early hours, phoning me a taxi. I hope you got through the next day okay.’

‘Oh, I was fine. I was just finishing off some plans, so I was working from home. And I liked doing the drink and tissue runs. Although next time I see you, I hope you cry less.’

‘I’ll try my best.’ The thought of seeing Daniel again makes something in me fizz, and then I think of Mike again, and the fizzing evaporates. ‘Anyway,’ I say, ‘I should let you go, and stop interrupting your work.’

‘No. I’ve got what I needed to do finished so I’ve got the rest of the day off. Is your brother getting there soon?’

‘Oh, no. He’s driving from Oxford and he has a one-year-old with him, so I think he might have to make a few stops.’

‘Well, I was meant to play football over in Manchester later, but I’m awful at it. And between you and me, I don’t actually really like it that much. So if you want to do something, we can. Totally up to you.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yeah. Really sure. I’ve never even scored a goal.’

‘I meant about doing something.’

‘I’m sure.’

I stand up, wander over to my window and look beyond the grassy walkways, the churning waves in the distance. The sun is bright and high, the sky marred only by a few wisps of cloud. I love September and the way it can be summer one day, autumn the next. Today is one of those days that could shape itself into anything. I’m about to say just one word. It’ll take only one moment. But as I do, I feel the undercurrent of possibility – a tiny seed blooming into something bright that will change my landscape forever.

‘Yes.’

Chapter 4

‘Is he in love with you?’ Amelia asks, eyeing me over her wine glass.

It’s almost nine o’clock. We’ve been in Luigi’s for an hour or so, eating slowly and lazily: pleasantly oily garlic bread, silky pasta and crisp salad. I’ve had two glasses of red wine and feel strangely detached from the last few days, as though they happened to someone I was watching.

It happened again tonight. As I waited for Nicholas to pick me up, spritzing myself with my favourite perfume, the bottle dropped from my hand onto my carpet, my head feeling as though it would burst with pressure and pain. I saw a stretch of road, debris scattered along it. And then I was back, the sweet fragrance that clouded around me suddenly too much to bear, burning my eyes and making me heave. I was gone for only a few seconds, but I missed long enough of the song that was playing on the radio to make it clear that I couldn’t dismiss what had happened at the party as a dream for much longer. It was one thing when this had happened to me as a child, and it hadn’t been easy then. It affected my friendships and made me scared to become too close to anyone in case they found out my secret. But fear of what this might mean for me now, for living on my own and my job and the rest of my life, has been pulling at me all evening.

‘Who, Mike?’ I tear apart a piece of garlic bread and dip it into my pasta sauce. ‘Well, he sent one of his friends round to my flat today to pick up an Oasis CD, a toastie machine, and some socks. And I haven’t actually spoken to him since we split up. So it doesn’t seem as though he’s in love with me, does it?’

‘No, not Mike. Forget about Mike. I meant Daniel. He must have put a lot of effort into today.’

I put the garlic bread down, wipe the oil from my fingers and fan myself with the napkin, suddenly too warm. Amelia is right. Daniel picked me up soon after we’d spoken on the phone this morning and drove us to Lake Windermere. We talked all the way there, about the party, what we knew about Kevin and Sophie, our jobs and our friends and lives. Daniel parked the car a little way from the centre, and we bought ice creams on the walk towards the lake. The air was sharp with the late summer heat, salty and sweet with chips and freshly fried donuts. Daniel was energetic, his quick stride making me rush to keep up. In the end I laughed, breathless, and asked him to slow down, and he took my hand, told me to yank him back if he went too quickly and left me behind.

‘I’m glad I’ve seen you again today,’ I said to him as we sat on a bench that faced out towards the glittering lake, eating our ice creams. ‘Otherwise you’d have just thought of me as the strange crying girl from the party. Nobody wants to be that girl.’

Daniel wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, erasing a trace of vanilla I’d noticed a few minutes before. ‘We’ve all been there. I’ve had a bad breakup in the past. It’s just that I wasn’t at a party, so nobody saw me at the worst bit. You were just unlucky.’

‘I don’t know. I definitely feel unlucky being dumped. But I can’t help feeling like it was lucky, in the end, that I was at the party when it happened. You made me feel better. So I’m glad I went. I bet you didn’t have someone to let you cry on them.’

Daniel shook his head and took out his chocolate flake before biting it in half. ‘I didn’t.’

‘Well, it really helped me. I want to say that I’ll repay the favour someday. But hopefully I won’t need to.’ I looked straight out at the water, at the boats, at the children throwing grains of food for the ducks onto the smooth pebbles, and then glanced sideways at Daniel.

‘Here’s hoping. I like to think I learnt from what happened with my ex and would do a better job of things next time. But you never quite know, do you?’

‘You really don’t. Are you over it?’ I asked.

‘What, the breakup? Yes. Completely. It didn’t take as long as I thought it would. She ended it. Went off with some guy she’d met in the supermarket.’

‘You’re joking? I didn’t think people actually met in supermarket aisles.’

‘Nope, me neither, until then. Thought I was safe when she popped out for milk.’ He laughs. ‘But things were all wrong with us anyway. I just didn’t realise it until after she was gone and I felt more like me than I had done when I was with her, if that makes sense.’

‘It does,’ I said. We sat quietly for a bit, the sun-scorched bench warm beneath us. ‘What aisle was it?’ I asked after a few minutes.

He laughed. ‘I asked her that. She said it was the magazines.’

I shook my head. ‘I’m so sorry. That’s awful. If I were with someone like you, I’d never let anyone else chat me up at the magazines. Or anywhere, come to think of it.’ My face was suddenly too warm, tingling with the surprise of being so upfront with Daniel, with myself.

Daniel grinned and jumped up from the bench, his hand outstretched for mine. ‘You don’t know that. You never know who you might meet in the knitting magazines section.’

I laughed. ‘I don’t buy knitting magazines!’

He laughed too, moved his hand closer to mine. ‘Well then, I might be safe after all. Come on. You have an important decision to make. Boat trip or back home.’

***

‘Daniel isn’t in love with me at all,’ I say to Amelia now in the restaurant, the memories dissipating in my mind as I speak. ‘We didn’t even really know each other until today. I think he’s just a nice guy. He saw how upset I was at the party and wanted to check I was okay. And he knew it was my birthday. Plus, he wanted to get out of this football thing, so it worked for him too.’ My words rattle on and on, even though in my mind I’m willing myself to shut up.

‘Well, I’m glad you went with him,’ Nicholas cuts in as soon as I pause. ‘It’s only right that you were spoilt a bit today. It sounds like it was just what you needed.’

‘Of course it was,’ Amelia says with a grin. ‘She was swept off her feet! I, on the other hand, have spent most of the day in motorway services changing nappies in filthy toilets. We must have stopped about six times. You should definitely make the most of having a day of romance.’

I shake my head, laughing in spite of myself. ‘Anyway. Enough about me. What do you think Phoebe’s up to?’ I ask her. ‘I bet Mum’s spoiling her. We’ve all been so excited to see her.’

We chat about Phoebe for a while, and then Amelia takes her phone out of her bag to check it for messages. ‘I’ve not heard from your mum, actually. I wonder if Phoebe is asleep yet,’ she says. ‘I think I’ll pop outside where it’s a bit quieter and ring, just to make sure all’s okay.’

When she’s gone I smile at Nicholas. ‘It’s so good to see you. Thanks for coming all this way for my birthday. It means a lot. I know how busy you are. It’ll be lovely to spend a bit of time with Phoebe tomorrow.’

My brother grins back at me. ‘It’s great to see you too. It’s just a shame it couldn’t be for longer. But I was lucky I got out early today. No chance of getting in late on Monday. My timetable is awful.’ He yawns and I laugh.

‘If that’s how you feel about your lessons, I dread to think how your students feel.’

Nicholas laughs too, rolling his eyes at my predictable humour. He has taught maths at a public school in Oxford for years now, and is head of department. I’ve always joked about his lessons, as we are so different that I can’t imagine what he could possibly do to make maths engaging. His status at the school, his constant string of Outstandings and 100 per cent pass rates make my jokes funny because obviously, somehow he manages it.

‘I think it’s happening again,’ I say next, my voice quietening.

Nicholas doesn’t need to ask what. His laugh stops, and his blue eyes widen.

‘I’m scared, Nick. I tried to tell myself that I was dreaming, and was almost managing to believe it. It was quite easy not to think about it too much because I was so preoccupied by what had happened with Mike. But then it happened again tonight, just before we came out. It wasn’t for long. But I’m having to admit to myself that it’s happening again.’

Nicholas puts his fork down. ‘What did you see? When did you go back to?’

I shake my head. ‘It wasn’t the past I watched. It seems to be a different kind of thing now. I think I saw myself, in an alternative life.’

‘Wow,’ Nicholas says leaning forward, the weak light of the candle in the centre of the table making his face glow. ‘A parallel universe?’

‘Yes. It was another version of me, and I think I saw what I’d be doing if I’d made different choices. It seemed like I was in Yorkshire. That was the other day. Tonight I just saw a glimpse of a road, and I couldn’t tell if it was the past or the present. Nothing happened. There were no people there. And I was only gone for a couple of seconds.’

‘I can’t believe it’s happening again. It’s been years, hasn’t it?’

I nod. ‘Yes. I didn’t do it at all when I was with Mike.’

‘And what was the other version of you doing?’

‘It was only a glimpse, really. But I got the feeling that she was more adventurous than I am. She was working in a travel agent’s, and it seemed like that’s what she was into. Travelling the world and seeing new things.’

‘And were you with Mike in this … alternate universe?’

I put my fork down. ‘I don’t know for sure, but I didn’t seem to be.’ Just me and a backpack.

Nicholas leans back again. ‘So do you think you saw it to help you make choices, now that it’s over with Mike?’

I think for a minute. ‘I haven’t managed to work out why it’s started happening again yet. I’ve been worrying more about what will happen if I keep disappearing. When it used to happen, it was only ever school that I missed. And because I knew it would only happen when I was alone, I just stayed with Mum or my friends as much as I could. Then before I met Mike, just before it stopped, I was at college. It hardly mattered that I missed the beginning of a few lessons. But now, it’s different. I have my job, and a life. It’s making me think I shouldn’t have moved out of Mum’s or taken a job where I am alone sometimes.’ I finish the last of my wine, and push my glass away.

‘Try not to panic. Maybe it’s just because you’ve split up with Mike that it’s jump-started the disappearances again. It might just happen to you now and again when you’re going through something.’

We sit for a minute, watching Amelia hover in the doorway of the restaurant as she talks on the phone, an unspoken deal between us to change the subject as soon as she heads back towards us.

‘Anyway, I suppose it has made me think about my decisions, in a way. I think Mike was right about me. I need to do something interesting. There shouldn’t be anything stopping me now, should there? I’m going to get out in the world, and leave Blackpool behind.’

Nicholas narrows his eyes at me. ‘What about your job?’

‘I love my job,’ I say, picking my fork up and spearing a piece of pasta. ‘But my contract was only for three months. And that’s only if I can last that long, if this keeps happening to me.’ I lift the pasta to my lips. It’s cold and gluey now and I chew, forcing it down.

‘But it might not keep happening. And if it does then you’ll find a way to work around it. You don’t have to travel just because Mike told you that you should. It’s a bit cliched, isn’t it? Going off and finding yourself when you have a perfectly nice life here?’

‘There’s another life for me, though. One where I’m not too scared to do anything.’

‘There are thousands of lives for everyone. The only difference is that you’ve somehow seen one of yours. Come on Erica, you of all people should know it’s not that simple. Whatever alternate universe you’ve seen a few minutes of, it wasn’t your life. So you can’t make your life now exactly the same as that one. You won’t be able to work out where it started and the one you’re living now ended.’

Amelia comes back as Nicholas and I stare at each other, our teenage selves strangely brought to life by discussing what we always used to discuss when we were younger.

‘Phoebe’s fine,’ she announces breathlessly. ‘She isn’t asleep. But she isn’t screaming the house down either. So that’s good. What did I miss?’

‘Erica was just telling me that she might be going travelling,’ Nicholas tells her as she sits back down with us.

Amelia smiles at me. ‘Really? Where are you heading?’

‘I’m not sure. There’s a friend of a friend who’s going to Thailand. I might go with her if I can get things in place quickly enough.’

‘Wow. But what about your new man?’ she says with a wink.

I shake my head. ‘My new man probably has a wife or a criminal record he hasn’t told me about. The nice ones normally do. Come on, let’s go and get a drink somewhere.’ I reach in my bag for my purse, and pull out something wrapped in soft blue tissue paper.

‘Is this from you two?’ I ask Nicholas and Amelia. ‘It’s not mine. I didn’t know it was in here.’

They frown, shake their heads, as confused as I am, until I unwrap the paper to reveal a magnet in the shape of a boat.

I burst out laughing. ‘It’s from Daniel. He must have bought it for me and put it in my bag without me seeing. We looked at these in the gift shop today in the Lakes and he joked that he was going to buy me one for my birthday so that I’d remember our boat trip.’ Like I’d forget it, I find myself thinking. The balmy heat of the afternoon, the lazy gliding of the boat, the way Daniel bought our tickets and batted away my offer of money, the stark differences between him and Mike, who would have rolled his eyes at the whole day: the prices of a boat trip, the predictable ice cream on a bench, the lack of beer and friends and music.

‘That’s cute. And totally what a man who’s in love with you would do,’ says Amelia with a raised eyebrow. ‘But what the hell. There’ll be men who fall in love with you in Thailand too.’

‘Cheers to that,’ I say as we clink together our glasses.

Chapter 5

‘So, Erica Silver, there’s something I want to know about you. It’s an important question, so I want you to think very seriously about your answer,’ Daniel says. It’s the second time I’ve spoken to him since our day out. ‘Are you into amusement arcades?’

He called me just as I was arriving back at my flat after meeting Zoe. I think for a moment as I take my keys from my bag and wander from the warm afternoon air into my tiny hallway. ‘Well, I haven’t been to one since I was about eight. But yeah, I think I could give it a go.’

‘Excellent.’

I laugh. ‘Are you going to tell me why this is excellent?’

‘Oh, it’s excellent because I have ten pounds worth of vouchers for the finest arcade on the prom. I had a meeting with the council this morning and they gave me some freebies.’

‘Aw. You saw slot-machine vouchers and thought of me,’ I say, smiling. ‘I’m not sure how to take that.’

‘Oh, it’s a definite compliment. I’ve never said it to anyone else. I can do my work around whenever is good for you.’

I have wanted to see Daniel again since my birthday, and even thought of suggesting it when I called him to thank him for the gesture with the magnet in my bag. But a quiet fear of what he might think, of seeming too full-on, especially so soon after breaking up with Mike, stopped me. Daniel, I think with a smile, has no such fear. I walk into the kitchen and take the magnet from my fridge. I hold it up to my face, press the cheap edges to my lips, before hastily putting it back just in case someone, somewhere, is watching.

‘Any day,’ I tell him. ‘Any day at all.’

***

We go on Tuesday. September has brought autumn suddenly as it sometimes does, carrying with it jagged grey skies and a sharp trace of coolness in the air. We hurry from a downpour into the arcade’s brassy smell of pennies and damp carpet and chips, and within about twenty minutes, we’ve spent all of the vouchers that Daniel split between us.

‘It’s quite worrying how easily ten pounds disappeared in there,’ I say afterwards as we sit in a cafe in town with steaming coffees and slices of chocolate cake. ‘I think they really should have given you more. Cheapskates.’

Daniel reaches into his pocket and drops some more vouchers onto the table. ‘They gave us a few other ones, too. Some were only valid for a day though. And some are clearly just for people with kids.’

‘Look at this one!’ I say, pulling a Blackpool Tower voucher from the crumpled pile.

‘Oh, I think that one’s run out,’ Daniel says, waving his hand.

‘No, it hasn’t! It’s valid till tomorrow! We can do it all! Ballroom, top of the Tower, everything. This is amazing!’ I grin at him. ‘I’m free for the rest of the day,’ I add, brave for a moment.

Daniel cranes his neck, looks out of the cafe’s steamed window into the bleak street beyond. ‘It’s still throwing it down. We won’t be able to see much from the top in this.’

‘I don’t mind. I love the Tower,’ I tell him, feeling nervous that he doesn’t seem too keen. ‘I’ve been to the ballroom, but not all the way to the top for years. You know, when I first moved here, it was really hard. I’d left all my friends behind. I knew nobody and I was only twelve. But then I realised I could see Blackpool Tower from my bedroom window. And somehow, it made things better. I …’ I stop, laughing and putting my head in my hands.

‘Go on. You can’t stop there!’ Daniel says.

I shake my head. ‘I have to. It’s too embarrassing. I’ve never told anybody this.’

‘If you tell me, we can go to the top of the Tower right now,’ he says.

I squirm. ‘Fine,’ I say, pushing my hair from my face. ‘I used to talk to it.’

‘To the Tower?’ he says, markedly hiding a broad smile.

‘Yes. To the Tower. I told you, I had no friends, and it was like a friend to me. I used to sit on my windowsill and chat to it. I told it about school, and how much I missed home, and the about the boys I liked. And so now, when I look at it, I feel like it knows me. I kind of feel like we’re still old friends.’

Daniel smiles at me, and grabs my hand from across the table so that the vouchers dance across the wood like butterflies. ‘You’re completely crazy.’

‘You’re just jealous that the Tower knows all my secrets.’

‘Then maybe I’ll speak to it too. Maybe it’ll tell me them. I’d love to know your crushes.’

‘I can’t believe I told you that,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘I’ve never told anyone.’

‘Really?’ Daniel asks as he begins to pile up our saucers and plates. ‘Not even Mike?’

‘No way. I never would have told him anything like that! I think I pretended to be normal with him.’

‘No wonder it didn’t last.’

I laugh, and swat him as we get up and leave our table, the neatly stacked plates and cake crumbs whisked away instantly by a waiter, as though we were never there.

***

‘I love it here so much’ I say as we wander through the Tower a few minutes later. ‘It reminds me of an old lady. One of those people you can tell used to be so beautiful.’

‘It is pretty special,’ he says. ‘I loved the aquarium in here when I was little.’

‘Me too!’ I say. ‘I used to come every summer with my brother.’

‘I came every summer holiday too. We might have been here together before, you know. Do you ever think about things like that?’

I nod. ‘Always.’ I don’t say anything else, and try to push thoughts of my other life from my mind.

‘I think it’s the history of places like this that make you think all sorts of things about who’s been here before, and what paths have crossed. You can almost feel the past. It’s pretty cool.’

I glance across at Daniel. ‘I’ve never met anyone who thinks like that before.’ I try to say it nonchalantly, and I don’t want to keep bringing Mike up, so I don’t add that Mike would never have come to Blackpool Tower with me, even though I was always trying to persuade him. I even came on my own once. He met his friends in a pub on the prom while I was here. I remember the explosion of laughter from them when I returned to him and said I’d had a wonderful time wandering around alone and drinking coffee in the ballroom. Mike had looked pained, as though he’d wanted to tell them to be quiet but didn’t quite dare.

‘Do you reckon it’s haunted in here?’ Daniel asks as we enter the ballroom.

I turn to him, excited to tell him what I learnt recently when researching the Tower ghosts for a display at Blackpool Museum, where I work. ‘Yes! I’ve just done some reading about that. Apparently this is the most haunted part of the Tower. The man whose idea it all was, and who started the project up to build it, apparently couldn’t bear to leave. So many people have seen him here. And there are other ghosts, too.’

Daniel smiles. ‘Well, it figures. This ballroom wouldn’t be a terrible place to spend eternity. Especially if you knew it wouldn’t have existed without you.’

I look up to the intricate gold ceiling and stalls, the glittering chandeliers above us. ‘I know. It’s the most amazing room I’ve ever been in.’

‘It puts all my projects to shame,’ Daniel says. ‘Although it’s kind of inspiring. Maybe I will put lots of extravagant gilding on my next plan.’

‘What is it?’

‘It’s an office block in Preston.’

I laugh. ‘Then you definitely should. Offices need more gold. Got to keep the workers happy.’

We sit for a while, watching the dancers glide across the gleaming floor.

‘I bet you know loads about Blackpool because of your job at the museum,’ Daniel says. ‘Give me another fact about the ballroom.’

I think for a minute, then my eyes wander to the stage. ‘See up there, the inscription below the carvings?’

Daniel looks up, and narrows his eyes. ‘Yeah. What does it say?’

‘It says, “bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear”. It’s Shakespeare.’

‘Okay,’ says Daniel. ‘I was always better at maths than English. What does it mean?’

I stare at the stage for a minute, thinking about the words. ‘I take it to mean, if you give me a chance to talk, I will tell you something incredible.’

Daniel nods, and our eyes meet.

‘Come on,’ I say, suddenly flustered. ‘Let’s go up to the top.’

***

The steep iron staircases that we climb to the very top of the Tower, the whipping wind and the adrenaline of the sheer height, all contrast sharply with the ornate glamour of the ballroom. Daniel is quiet as I chatter on about everything we can see: the slopes of the rollercoasters on the Pleasure Beach; the silver sea that blurs into the sky.

‘I always try and find my mum’s house,’ I say, leaning against the netting to squint at the thousands of rooftops. ‘But it’s impossible.’

Daniel nods and turns to read a sign that says we’re 412 feet up. It’s busy, and as I make my way round to the other side, I’m jostled by groups of people taking pictures and shouting to each other about the height, the view, the wind.

‘Not much to do once you get up here, is there?’ Daniel says, his hands stuffed in his pockets.

‘No. But it’s still brilliant. Thanks for coming with me,’ I say, and before I can stop myself, I am putting my arms around him, hugging him, taking in the pleasant warmth of his body, the inky scent of his aftershave. He takes his hands from his pockets, puts his arms around me, hugging me back, and his lips press against my head.

‘You’re so welcome. Come on,’ he says as I reluctantly draw away from him. ‘Let’s go and find you another ugly magnet from the shop. I won’t rest until your fridge is completely covered.’

After Daniel has bought me a magnet in the shape of a Blackpool tram, we leave the Tower and step back into the bustle of the town, straight into a man who claps Daniel on the back.

‘Long time no see!’ he shouts, a bead of spittle flying from his lips and landing on my shoulder.

Daniel pats him on the back too, more gently. ‘Erica, this is Bob. I’ve worked with him a few times,’ he says, giving me a quick look that tells me everything I need to know about Bob and what Daniel thinks of him.

‘Have you made him go in the Tower?’ Bob asks me, jerking his head towards the entrance.

I nod, still burning with excitement from hugging Daniel before, and the exhilaration of being so high. ‘We’ve just been up to the top.’

Bob frowns and gives Daniel an exaggeratedly confused look. ‘You got him to go up more than a few stairs?’ he asks me. ‘How on earth did you manage that?’

There is a silence between us, and all we can hear is the swish of the wind, the touts of street sellers, the snippets of conversation as people walk past. Daniel is looking at Bob as though he wants him to disappear, his feelings about him not quite as skilfully subtle now.

‘Had a function at the Tower with him once,’ Bob says, jabbing Daniel in the side. ‘We all went to the top, of course. Except, Mr Heights Phobia here turned green at the thought of it. Wouldn’t entertain it. He was terrified. Almost cried like a girl when we were saying we’d carry him up there!’ He leans forward, winks at me. ‘He stayed in the burger bar on safe ground. Suppose if we’d looked like you, we’d have done a better job of persuading him to join us.’

I turn to look at Daniel, not understanding for a second, but then something clicks completely into place and it is as though someone has turned a light on and everything is a brighter, lighter shade of yellow.

‘You know, we have a booking for dinner,’ Daniel says, looking at his watch, which is an old fashioned one with a brown strap, something Mike wouldn’t be seen dead in. ‘We’ll have to go.’

I nod mutely and wave a brief goodbye to Bob as Daniel takes my arm and guides me away. When we are at a safe distance, on the colourful commotion of the promenade, I stop and turn to him.

‘A dinner booking?’ I say. ‘First I’ve heard about it.’

He reddens slightly. ‘Oh, Bob would have us talking all day if we let him.’

I look at him for a moment before speaking. ‘Are you really scared of heights?’

Daniel grimaces. ‘Well, yeah. Pretty terrified actually.’

I reach out to him, touch his arm. ‘So why did you go up there with me? Why didn’t you just tell me no?’

He looks at me and grins, his face still a shade deeper than usual. ‘You wanted to go up so much. You said the Tower used to be your friend. How could I possibly tell you no?’

I don’t answer him, just stare at his face, which is suddenly the most perfect face I’ve ever seen, and savour a rush of pure happiness. It’s the thrill of opening an unexpected gift, pulling off the paper and knowing, hoping you know, what’s underneath: something you’ve longed for but never thought you’d have.

I lean forward and kiss him lightly on the lips. It’s over in a second but I want it to last forever.

‘Thank you.’

Chapter 6

‘Do you have plans on Friday night?’ Daniel asks me as we pull up outside my flat later that day. We decided that as we’d told Bob we had a dinner booking, we should really eat together too. We went to a tiny bistro and ordered huge steaming shanks of lamb and crisp roast potatoes. We talked about our families, our childhood homes, wading through the past in that detached way you do when you meet someone new. It’s late now we’ve reached my flat, the sunset casting the streets in a pale glow. I pause before answering, trying in vain to stretch out the day.

‘I do. Although I feel like I’m going to want to change them,’ I say.

‘Damn. Someone got to you first. What are you up to?’

‘I’m meeting up with someone called Nina. I don’t know her that well, but she’s about to go and do some travelling. I want to quiz her about it. She wants someone to go with,’ I say, the idea of joining Nina suddenly at odds with the comfort and easy happiness of the day I’ve spent with Daniel. ‘I might go with her.’ Might? I think to myself. I was so definite that travelling was what I wanted, and after a day out with Daniel I’m changing my mind?

I study Daniel’s face for a clue to tell me how he feels, wait for him to look crestfallen or perhaps beg me not to go, but his features don’t change. ‘Oh?’ he says evenly, ‘where’s she thinking of going?’

‘Thailand. You know, I’m building something new,’ I say, referring to Daniel’s pep talk when we met at the party.

‘Who told you to do that? Must have been an idiot if he’s the one making you go.’

I smile at him. ‘Nah. He wasn’t all bad. Terrible taste in magnets, though.’

‘Well, then you’re best moving far away from him.’

‘You think?’

‘Yep.’

‘I can see Nina another time. What were you thinking of doing on Friday?’

‘There’s fireworks on the promenade. But honestly, I just thought that if you had nothing on, we could go. I don’t expect you to change your plans.’

‘I know you don’t. But I want to. Nina won’t be bothered. She said she could see me on Saturday morning so I’ll just do that instead.’ I glance across at him. ‘It really makes no difference,’ I say, more to myself than him, but I don’t believe it for a second because already I can feel the chasm between myself and the other Erica, another thousand Ericas, shift minutely with my change of plan.

Daniel taps his fingers on the steering wheel. ‘Excellent. If you’re sure. I’d like to do something that doesn’t involve me trying to hide the fact that I have a horrible phobia.’

‘Not scared of loud bangs, are you?’ I joke.

He laughs. ‘Nope. All my secrets are out now. Nothing else you need to know.’

We are quiet for a moment, and Daniel takes my hand. ‘I did honestly mean what I said at the party,’ he says. ‘You really have to do what you want to. Don’t stop for anyone.’

I smile. I want to do the exact opposite of what he is telling me to do: to invite him in, to be with him for longer, to never see Nina again, to stop everything except him. But I can’t do that because that would obviously be some kind of cliched rebound if I changed everything for someone so soon after what’s just happened with Mike. I look at Daniel’s face, his even features and his black hair that’s slightly curly from the rain and his high cheekbones, his pale, smooth skin.

‘I’ll see you on Friday then,’ I say to him as I peel myself from the car and wonder if ‘rebound’ is even a real thing.

***

‘So what got you interested in going travelling?’ asks Daniel on Friday night. We’re wandering along the promenade before the fireworks start. The air is chilled and I pull my black wool jacket tighter around myself even though I spent over half an hour choosing what to wear. In the end, I went for a black dress and black tights with my chunky boots.

‘Well, it was Mike who started it. We looked at places like Thailand together a lot. He wanted to go more than me. I’ve always been a bit scared of going away.’

‘So you’ve never travelled before?’ asks Daniel.

‘No. Have you?’

‘I’ve been to Europe a few times with friends. Nothing major. It was a while ago now though. My fear of heights kind of affects how I feel about flying so I haven’t been to many different places.’

‘Well, you’ve been more adventurous than me,’ I admit. ‘I even did my degree locally. I’ve barely been out of Blackpool since I moved here.’

‘You like it here though, don’t you? The history of the town?’

I nod, and stare out at the black waves that glitter with the lights from the pier. ‘Yeah. I do, and that’s why the museum is my perfect job. I was so excited when it came up, but I got the feeling Mike didn’t even want me to apply for it. I think he knew it’d make me put off travelling yet again.’

‘I thought you said the job is only a three-month contract?’

‘It is.’

‘Oh. So Mike’s pretty spoilt.’ Daniel glances at me from the corner of his eye, wondering if he’s gone too far.

I laugh. ‘He was a bit. I suppose it’s not his fault, though. He really wanted to get away, and I’m starting to see that it was fair in a way. We wanted different things. Like you said, if you really want to do something, you shouldn’t stop for anyone.’

‘I suppose it depends who it is.’

I turn to look at Daniel just as he looks over at me. As our eyes meet, I see a glint in his that makes me feel as though a tiny firework has just erupted in my chest.

‘Well, I’m glad now that Mike didn’t wait for me,’ I tell Daniel, and my words are fast, falling over one another. Take a breath, Erica, I think, smiling to myself. ‘That night when we first met, there’s no way I would have believed I would think like this so soon. But I’m in a different place to where I was. I’m seeing things so differently to how I have done for years.’

‘I know what you mean. I think I felt the same when it ended with Sarah.’

‘Sarah of the magazine aisle?’

Daniel laughs. ‘Yep. Her. I think when I was with her, I couldn’t see anything properly. Then I had to change places I suppose, and it was horrible and difficult because moving and change always is. But now my view is better, somehow.’

‘Yes!’ I say. ‘You make it sound so simple.’

We walk for a little longer before Daniel speaks again. ‘So anyway, you were saying about the travelling. Even though it was Mike’s idea to start with, has it turned out to be something you want to do after all?’

I sigh. ‘I don’t even really know,’ I admit. ‘I think I’ve just been feeling a bit lost since Mike ended things. Even now I can see it was probably for the best, I do still feel like I should have a new focus once the museum job is over. I’ve spent so long wanting to just stay here. I’m not that adventurous really, and I always had a bit of a problem with being on my own. But now …’

Even in a crowd of people, with the beat of music thumping from speakers above us, Daniel hears me more than Mike ever did. I watch him as he thinks about my words, turns them over in his mind. ‘What about now? Do you like being on your own more?’

The first firework explodes and I watch the sky burst into a hundred different shades of green and pink. I think of the danger that has flooded back to me since I started disappearing again last week at the party, the dread of being alone and falling into another time, the raw fear of clawing at the present to try and stay and having nothing to hold on. When Zoe gave me Nina’s number, and I decided that I should go travelling, I was still hoping that the disappearance and seeing the other Erica was a dream. But now, it’s clear that it wasn’t. Terror grips me and I swallow it down and stride forward. ‘Not really. But I’ve decided that I should do it anyway. I want to show myself that I can be adventurous and do all the big, amazing things that other people do. But I don’t know about my reasons, really. I don’t know if it’s just a bit of a knee-jerk reaction to Mike telling me I’m boring.’

Daniel shakes his head and grimaces. ‘You know, I sometimes wish we could re-live that party. I could have beaten him up when you first arrived instead of giving him a drink.’

I burst out laughing. ‘That would have been quite a welcome. I kind of preferred the Champagne. I had a toast to make, remember? The start of my new life.’ My words are lost in the score of a bright blue rocket above us, and I lean into Daniel as I watch. We huddle together for a few minutes and watch the fireworks, until there is a pause in the ripples of colour and sound.

‘What about you?’ I ask him. ‘Were you like this when you broke up with Sarah? Did you suddenly want to make plans?’

He thinks for a minute. ‘Not really. My plans stayed the same. Well, other than that I thought I’d end up marrying her. We were never engaged,’ he adds hurriedly. ‘But you just assume when you’re with someone for a while, don’t you?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. I never thought I’d marry Mike. We always said we’d avoid it,’ I tell him as the show restarts and another firework blooms above us.

‘Oh, a non-believer,’ Daniel says, smirking.

I jab him gently in the side, feel the warmth of his body from beneath his jacket. ‘It’s not that I don’t believe in it. I just don’t really like big weddings. And I know this is a bit negative, but I just don’t think marriage tends to end well.’

‘Nothing ends well!’ he exclaims as we start to walk again, picking our way through all the people who are still watching the sky, waiting for more. ‘All endings are horrible. If you only ever thought of the end of something, you’d never start anything, would you?’

I consider this as we weave through the children waving cheap plastic wands, the friends huddled together gazing up at the splitting sky, the hamburger sellers with their sizzling carts. We’re the only ones in the crowd who are walking. He’s moving faster than I am again, and I reach out and pull him back until he slows down.

‘So do you want to get married?’

‘Tonight?’ He looks at his watch. ‘Bit late. We probably wouldn’t be able to get it all organised in time. Nice idea though. I’m flattered.’

I roll my eyes and try to smother my laugh.

‘What are you laughing at? You’d marry me.’

‘Would I?’

‘Course you would. If you weren’t going off to see the world with Nina, then you’d fall head over heels for me, and I’d have to remind you, one day, that you weren’t even going to get married. But you wouldn’t even be listening because you’d be too busy trying on veils and big white dresses and tiaras—’

‘I would not wear a tiara,’ I say. ‘I don’t like the idea of people looking at me. Plus, I always wear black, never ever white. I am definitely not a bride type of girl.’

‘Yes, you’d definitely wear a tiara. And a huge dress. Not necessarily white. But not black either.’ We have stopped walking now, and he is grinning at me, facing me as he talks, his words in and out of focus with the squeals and bangs of the fireworks above us. ‘And I’d think of this night, the one when you swore you wouldn’t ever get married because of how it might end.’

The fireworks finish in a dramatic finale, and everybody is suddenly moving around us impatiently, wanting to carry on with their lives now that there is no spectacle for them, but we stand still, frozen in our own time and moment. Daniel steps towards me, and his lips press against mine until we are jostled apart. My hair whips in front of my face and Daniel pushes it away with his hand, his fingers brushing my cheek and leaving behind a pleasant flush of heat.

You could make me stay, I think.

I know, he seems to say as we stand and stare at each other, giddy with the euphoria of the night. We’re on the edge of something and we can feel it – the safe soft ground behind us; the sharp, steep drop in front that would take our breath away.

***

We move from the promenade to a sticky, busy bar where we drink warm white wine from glasses with remnants of old lipstick pressed onto the rims. Daniel pulls a face and wipes them with his sleeve, critiques the temperature of the wine, its acidity. But I don’t care about the wine or travelling or being boring or brave. I don’t care about anything other than drinking in every single moment of tonight: the warm, subtle buzz from spending time with Daniel, the thump of the music that vibrates in my body, the kisses and the blurred taxi ride and the press of Daniel’s weight against mine, the taste of him as we fall through the door to my flat, melting into one.

***

Daniel sleeps as soon as it’s over, throwing himself back onto the pillows and sighing, taking my hand and lacing my fingers through his, his eyes closed and his breathing even and deep. I drift in and out of sleep. I think fleetingly of Mike, his hard abdomen that he proudly sculpted at the gym every night, the glistening blonde hairs springing up from his stomach and thighs that always looked so angelic and childlike that they unsettled me slightly. Daniel’s body hair is a stark black against his pale skin. He sleeps silently, smoothly. I curve my body up against his, the warmth of his skin spreading into mine, pleasure curling inside me.

***

I get up early on Saturday to go and meet Nina, trying to ignore my pounding head and my stomach full of cheap wine and the unexpected feelings of desire for this man who I barely know that slip over and under one another like eels.

I’ve arranged to meet Nina in the coffee shop where she works at nine-thirty, which now seems horribly regrettable. But I’ve already cancelled her once. I shouldn’t do it again. Plus, I remind myself as I drag myself from Daniel’s warmth, regardless of how I started to doubt my reasons for wanting to go with Nina last night, it is something I’ve decided that I want to do. I would almost be cancelling myself, the very concept of which reminds me of the other Erica and makes me nauseous, so I shower and get dressed quickly and with as little thought given to the day as possible.

I whisper to Daniel that I’m going, and he nods vaguely but doesn’t wake. I have a hazy but definite memory of him telling me last night that he had a meeting at eleven today in town, and that we could maybe meet for lunch if I was still around when he was done. As I walk from the bus stop to the coffee shop, I take out my phone. He’ll be up now, maybe back at his place. So why hasn’t he messaged me? I imagine him doing all the things I haven’t seen him do, and if I go travelling might never see him do, like stretching in bed before getting up, shaking a can of deodorant and wincing at the cold as he sprays it, eating toast (or cereal? Both? Nothing?), taking short sips of hot coffee, glancing every now and again at morning television as he buttons up his shirt.

Stop it, I try to tell myself. Focus on meeting Nina. Last night was just one night. Daniel seems wonderful, but I barely know him.

Still.

It’s already different to what I had with Mike – sweeter and more intense, a delicious ice cream so cold that it hurts my brain and stops me from thinking straight. I have to be careful, because even if it’s not a rebound, I need to be brave enough to go and have the adventures I have promised myself. I wanted to do it, and my disappearances starting again have made me feel too cautious.

Falling for Daniel, I tell Nina, even considering staying here for him, would just be giving myself an excuse not to be brave and go away.

‘Would it?’ Nina asks, although from the bored look on her face I can tell she doesn’t really care either way.

I look down at my napkin. ‘I don’t know. I thought I knew everything about myself. But now I’m second guessing every decision. Which could all be completely irrelevant anyway, because he still hasn’t messaged me.’

She frowns. She’s having second thoughts about travelling with me because she thinks from this short burst of time with me that I’m the kind of person who vomits up all sorts of feelings every time I’m with a stranger. But I’m not that person. I wasn’t, anyway. I hate people knowing too much about me. How has Daniel, with his surprisingly broad shoulders and black chest hairs and warm skin changed that so suddenly?

‘He’ll message you, I’m sure. Sounds like he’s pretty into you. But the thing for me is, are you coming with me? To Thailand?’

Thailand.

‘It suddenly seems so far away,’ I admit to Nina and she rolls her eyes, snaps a sugar sachet back and forth before tearing it open and dumping it into her half-drunk coffee.

‘Well, yeah. That’s kind of the point. Look, either come or have your fling. You can’t do both. Which would you rather do?’

The question, a simple one in principle, has only the effect of the word fling sending a surge of warm pleasure through me as I am reminded of last night. I’m so busy reliving his warmth and his lips on mine and his hands in my hair, so busy itching to check my phone, relenting, pulling it out from the clutter of my handbag and seeing a glorious double green flash that signals a new message, that I barely even hear my own words.

‘I don’t know.’

Chapter 7

On Monday, when I let myself into the front door of Blackpool Museum, it feels like a whole lifetime has passed. I gently tear the Post-it messages from my computer screen and scan through them: people to call, emails to compose, things to collect. I picture myself as I left the museum before my time off just over a week ago. I didn’t even know Daniel properly then: he was just the man I met at the party. After worrying yesterday when I met Nina that he wasn’t going to get in touch with me, we messaged all day and saw each other for lunch. I smile as I think of it, a warm rush of the memory of him burning through me. I switch on my computer and take my notepad and pen from my duffel bag and then hear Katie, the curator, bustling in through the door.

‘Hello stranger!’ She grins as she makes her way over to me. ‘I missed you! Have you had a good birthday week off?’

‘Well, it wasn’t quite what I expected. It definitely wasn’t all bad, though.’ I don’t know Katie that well, and didn’t tell her when Mike ended things with me. I certainly don’t want to launch into the depths of my feelings about Daniel.

Fortunately, Katie doesn’t seem to want to know much more. ‘Fabulous!’ she gives a bright laugh. ‘Life would be boring if it was always what you expected.’

‘I think you’re probably right about that.’

‘You’ve missed all sorts of excitement here, you know. I have a proposition,’ she says as she takes off her denim jacket and throws it over her chair.

‘Really? About what?’

She beams an excited scarlet-lipstick smile. ‘I’ve fought and fought. It’s been going on for weeks, but I didn’t dare say anything until it was for sure. The council have funded your job for another year! And they have agreed to make it an assistant curator post. You can be involved in the spring exhibition I was telling you about!’ She waves her hands about above her head in celebration, still grinning. Then she stops and frowns at me. ‘You do want it, don’t you? Please say you do! If not, I can advertise it …’ she lets her sentence fizzle out and arches her left eyebrow expectantly.

‘I would love it,’ I begin, trying to ignore the clear sense of relief that is blooming inside me. If I have a renewed contract here, Daniel here, then there is no reason to leave.

Katie frowns. ‘I can sense a “but”. Please don’t let there be a “but”.’

I smile. ‘But …’ It’s not that simple. I have to follow through with my plans. Plus, if my disappearances are back, then they won’t work with a job. They won’t work with Daniel either. Staying here and working at the museum wouldn’t be excuses to make things easier for myself, I realise now as Katie stares at me expectantly. It would probably be the riskiest option to take. I could vanish at any point and let people down without being able to give them an explanation why. It could start to happen as frequently as it did when I was a child. ‘You’ve just given me a lot to think about,’ I tell Katie eventually. ‘I’ve been thinking of going away, trying something new. I met up with someone yesterday who wants me to go to Thailand with her.’

‘Oh, we can cover a holiday,’ Katie says, dismissing this with a bejewelled hand.

‘But I was going to go for a year,’ I say, seeing Katie’s face fall. ‘Not that this doesn’t sound amazing. And I am so grateful to you. I will definitely think about it.’

‘Okay,’ Katie says. She squeezes me on the shoulder ‘I’ll be gutted if you leave, but I do understand. Take a few days to think about it. But think hard. I feel like you’re definitely the right person for the job.’

***

I try to work productively during the morning. There’s a press release that Katie has asked me to prepare to promote the Tower ghost exhibition, and all the emails that I’ve received whilst I’ve been off need responses. I type slowly, the decision I need to make looming in the back of my mind. At lunch time, I go for a walk along the promenade, hoping that the fresh blast of air will help to clear my head like it usually does. The day is clean and bright, the autumn crispness that I felt the other day piercing through the wind.

I love it here, I remind myself, as I take in the grand arched windows of the Tower across the road, the tangle of rollercoasters and rides ahead, the illuminations which rock dangerously in the wind. I love the job, and I can still feel the warm, sweet excitement and flattery of Katie trying so hard to get me the permanent position.

And then there is Daniel. As I force myself through the sharp, salty air, I try to remove him and the way he looks at me, the way he faced his fear of heights just for me, from the decision I have to make.

Mike wouldn’t even have gone to B&Q for me if I’d wanted him to, let alone faced his fear.

But I didn’t want Mike to do that for me, did I? I’d been fine being with him because we only really circled one another; we never lived together, never got bogged down with shared money or the toll of bills or children or DIY. Mike made it so easy never to want those things with him.

I stop walking and stand still on the promenade, in the same spot that Daniel kissed me only a few days ago. People weave around me and the sea rushes towards me as I stand and stare out at the grey beach.

The two disappearances I have had in the last week have brought back everything I felt when I was twelve when they first started happening. I can taste the metallic rush of overwhelming fear that stops my heart and makes my senses strangely still: fear of dropping from the world and missing out on everything I love, fear of getting back and having to answer all the questions I don’t want anyone to ask.

Where have you been, Erica?

Why do you never want to go anywhere on your own, Erica?

Why did you not turn up for the sleepover, Erica?

Why are you lying to me, Erica?

Eventually, I had to get used to answering the questions, at shaking off people’s strange glances when I returned somewhere after vanishing for hours with no explanation, with my hair wet with rain even though it was a clear day. I had to stay with people as much as possible at the same time as being anonymous enough that they didn’t care or notice if I disappeared for hours when I went to the toilet. And then I met Mike and slotted keenly into a life where we shared little more than a bed at the weekends, where we were constantly at parties with crowds who wouldn’t have known whether I was there or not. The disappearances stopped but I never changed back into someone who opened up to anyone else because the residual fear still dripped slowly into everything I did. Because it stopped happening, I never told Mike that I was different to other people. Even if it had happened whilst I’d been with him, I wouldn’t have needed to tell him where I’d been because I’m sure he would never have asked. If I was late or unreliable then it would have just reaffirmed that we were living a cool, uncomplicated lifestyle unrestricted by all the things he hated.

I think of the other Erica I’ve seen: carefree, sun-kissed, happy. I don’t know for sure but I would bet that she doesn’t have disappearances like I do. It’s in the angle of her head, the volume of her voice, the way she looks straight into people’s eyes, which I stopped doing years ago. If I am brave enough to go ahead with the travelling, to try and lose the old fear that has returned to me in the last few weeks, then maybe I could be more like her.

I could change.

I take my phone out to tap out a quick message to Daniel as the wind pulls my hair around my face and tugs at my jacket. Then I turn my back to the rollercoasters and swinging lights, and walk briskly, against the wind, to the museum.

Chapter 8

Later that night, I sit in Luigi’s for the second time in a month. It’s busy, and waiters scurry around me holding laden trays high above their heads, but for me time seems to be ticking so slowly that it makes me feel fidgety. When I stood on the promenade earlier today and messaged Daniel to ask him to meet me, he said he’d be here at eight. I got the tram to town early so it feels like I’ve already been waiting a while. It’s almost twenty past and with every fragile tick of the clock, doubt pulls away at me more and more.

Perhaps, I think as I fiddle with the cutlery, he’s not coming. And then my decision will have no impact on him anyway. I glance outside at the darkening sky that threatens a storm.

‘Drink?’ An impatient waiter who has already been over once looks down at me again, pad and biro poised.

I order a glass of water and thank the waiter as he brings it over and pours it over the crackling ice. I take a sip of it and check my phone. I remind myself that he was about ten minutes late to pick me up the day we went to the Tower. Maybe he’s just the kind of person who is constantly running behind.

And then before I can wonder any more, in a rush of fresh air and apologies, Daniel is standing in front of me.

‘I’m really sorry,’ he says a little breathlessly. ‘I promised myself that I would try to curb my lateness for you. But then I had a flat tyre. Had to change it. Then I got oil on my shirt. So I had to change that.’ He laughs. ‘What a start to the night. Anyway. How are you? Everything okay?’

Even as I look up at him, the person I was when I was with Mike, the Erica who sat back and let everyone else talk, who never gave much away, seems to fray at the edges. Electric excitement pulses through me as the words I’m about to say float around in my mind like dancers in the wings. I’m staying here. I have already told Nina that I won’t be joining her, and felt the soft ripple of distance between myself and the other Erica. I don’t know if it’s the right decision. But in the end, the decision was the best kind to make: the kind that won’t go away and is impossible to ignore. The kind that you just have to make, whether it’s the right one or not. Still, now, as he shrugs off his jacket and tosses it over his chair, the excitement is laced with fear. I swallow it down.

‘I’m great,’ I tell him, standing up and kissing his cheek. ‘You’re cold.’

‘There’s going to be a storm tonight. The wind’s really picking up,’ he says as he sits down. ‘You liked it in here when you came with your brother then?’

‘Yes. It’s lovely,’ I say, but my words are suddenly slurred, blurring together. Daniel frowns at me and I take a gulp of water.

Frustration climbs inside me as I realize what is happening, that this is stronger than anything I ever felt when I was a teenager. Then, being with people was enough to stop it. Not here, I tell myself firmly. Not tonight.

‘Erica? Are you okay?’

I nod, smile, and ignore the hammering in my head, Daniel’s face flashing before me.

‘I’m glad you asked me to meet you tonight. Today’s been a bit of a strange one for me, actually,’ he says.

‘Why?’ I manage, but even one word is difficult to get out.

He sighs and opens his menu. ‘The funding for that office block in Preston’s been pulled. It was a big job, and we were lucky to get it. I’m sure something else will come up though. There’s actually another one in the pipeline, so really we might even …’

I try to listen as he talks, but his words tear into fragments and lose all meaning because dizziness rages through me and I have an overwhelming, animal urge to run. I can think of nothing but leaving Daniel and our little table with its red chequered tablecloth, and going somewhere by myself so that I can be lost to another place and time. I grip the table so hard my knuckles turn white. Stay calm, I tell myself, trying to quell the frenzied flutter of panic that rises inside me. It has never happened in front of someone before, so surely it won’t now. I see Daniel frown, pause, but I can’t speak to him. I am fading, and I wonder fleetingly if he can tell, if my skin is turning translucent and ghost-like in front of him.

I force my eyes to focus on what’s around me – the Charlie Chaplin prints above the table, the soft flicker of the candle, the basket of rustic bread that has been placed down in front of us – trying to take it all in and somehow pin myself to the present. I try and try to force myself to stay. I nod as he says something and reach out for my water, my hand like lead. As my fingers touch the tip of the cool glass, I am brought back from the brink of disappearing, my head rushing as my senses return and the ringing in my ears is replaced with Daniel’s voice.

‘So yeah, I’m glad that you said about meeting because I really wanted to—’

I stand up before his words begin to blur again. I know this won’t go away. ‘I’m so sorry. I need to pop to the ladies’,’ I tell him. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’

But I’m not back in a minute, and when I do return to where I was sitting, Daniel has gone. The restaurant is empty and closed. It’s the end of the night. I must have been gone for hours. I hear a member of staff in the kitchen and creep to the locked front door, turning the latch and slipping out silently as I think about what I saw.

Chapter 9

I was in my old house, the soft green backdrop of Yorkshire hills outside the kitchen window.

The Erica who I saw for the first time the other day sat on a wooden dining chair that I recognised from Mum’s house, that I categorically knew had been packed up sixteen years ago onto a van and taken to Blackpool. She wore the same travel agent’s uniform as she had when I had seen her last time and typed on a PC which was set up in the corner of the lounge.

That lounge. I breathed a silent, invisible sigh. I had been longing to return to that room ever since I’d been pulled away from it all those years ago. It was the lounge of my childhood: of cartoons and play fighting and dens with Nicholas, of sleeping on the sofa when I was off school with the flu; the lounge of Christmas mornings and first-day-of-school photos. It looked predictably smaller than I remembered it and fuller somehow: a glossy fire surround took up the centre of the room where a smaller gas fire used to hang from the wall, DVDs lined shelves above the television, and the walls were busy with photos in frames. I tried to pull myself towards the photographs, but my body was as dull as in sleep. I could make out two figures in most of them, blurred in orange-tinted film. Although I had only ever seen one of them in my life, as I squinted hard at the pictures, I realised that they were my parents’ wedding photographs.

I was forced to tear my eyes from them when my dad appeared in the room with the other Erica and crouched next to the computer where she sat, his hair dotted with grey.

What was this life?

‘More job searching?’ he asked. His voice made my eyes sting – not just the sound of it which I have barely heard in so long, but the casual closeness that we – they – seemed to have.

Erica nodded, clicking on a link that had caught her attention. ‘This one’s fine, look. A bar job.’

‘In Phuket?’

‘Yep. I told you I was serious about going away.’

My dad took hold of the mouse and clicked off the job advert, moving the cursor to another link. ‘Plenty of jobs here in the UK. Look.’

Erica laughed and snatched the mouse back, rolling her eyes and scrolling straight past the job I know so well.

Assistant curator at Blackpool Museum

‘No way. No backing out now. You’re the one who has always told me to make the most of my life, and see the world. God, if I had a pound for every time you told me you’d have gone travelling if you’d been free and single for longer! You can’t go back on all that now I’m actually going ahead with it.’

‘I know, I know. Ignore me. I just can’t believe you’re actually going to leave.’ My dad laughed, put his hand to his heart in theatrical mourning and I smiled at his humour, something I’d forgotten. How easy it is to forget all the little things that people do when you don’t see them anymore: the way they yawn or write or hold their car keys. I ached to move closer to him, to see him, this version of him who never gave up on us.

‘Yes, ignore him. Whatever he’s saying, ignore him.’ The tone was light, and Erica glanced up and smirked as my mum walked into the room.

‘Always,’ Erica replied drily as she typed quickly into another search box. I stared at her, the identicality and otherness too strange to process. My side profile that I hadn’t particularly liked before, was now somebody else’s too: chin a little too emphasised, eyes squinting at the screen, black hair with an annoying kink hanging down her back. She glanced up, and I followed her gaze to my mum, who was talking again.

‘He says he’d have gone away and had adventures. But really, would he have coped without us all?’ she said, picking up a cup from the table and wandering from the room.

‘Obviously not,’ Erica said absently as her eyes returned to the screen and she clicked on another bar job.

As I stood, like a ghost watching over its loved ones, I felt the ground shifting beneath my feet. I wanted to hold on, to stay and somehow melt into this other life where there was so much that I’d spent so long grieving for when I was younger, so much I didn’t understand, but I couldn’t grasp anything to hold on to. I slipped away, and plunged back into the deserted toilets of Luigi’s.

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