The Two Lives of Lydia Bird(35)

‘Your loss,’ I say, flicking him with the tea towel.

He catches my hand and reels me in. ‘You know I’m kidding, right?’

‘You better be,’ I say, and he kisses me, laughing.

I’m laughing too, and then I’m not because our kiss slips from messing around to serious, from tepid to scorching, from I’m sorry to I want you.

‘The bath …’ I murmur when his fingers reach for the waistband of my jeans.

‘You need to take your clothes off anyway,’ he says, popping the button. ‘I ran it hot so you might want to give it a few minutes to cool down.’

‘Is that right?’ I say, bunching his T-shirt in my hand to pull him closer.

He tugs my zip down and any last thoughts of the bath leave my head.

Later, as I finally get to have my bath, I think back over the afternoon Freddie and I have spent together. I’m coming to realize that even in the relatively short time since the accident I’ve already started to fundamentally change. I’ve had to lose my blinkers in order to survive, and the girl I am now sees the world – both my worlds – in a slightly different way to the girl I used to be. I’m ninety-nine per cent familiar in this life – I’m walking in my own footsteps after all – yet somehow it’s as if my shoes don’t quite fit. It’s nothing and everything, a small irritation against my heel, but I recently saw (on daytime TV, of course) a piece about a woman who ignored a blister on her heel and ended up with blood poisoning that very nearly finished her off. It is terribly difficult to spend time here in this life with Freddie while also being aware of my life without him, so I come to a decision. When I am here, I’m consciously not going to think about my other life. I am not going to waste any more precious time questioning things the girl I am here just wouldn’t be bothered by.





Saturday 20 October


I’m sitting at the kitchen table, coffee beside me. Turpin was here when I came down; he wolfed his food and made a bolt for the door. No one could accuse him of being clingy, but I don’t begrudge him. I could have chosen Betty, but Turpin’s take-it-or-leave-it outlook struck a chord with me.

As is often the case, I feel hung-over, an after-effect of the tablets and time spent with Freddie in the invisible world next door. What am I doing there right now, I wonder? Probably not much different to what I’m doing here, lazing around still in my PJs.

It’s amazing, scary even, how quickly my brain has adapted to living between worlds. In the first weeks it was difficult to keep the two timelines separate, but like most things, practice makes perfect. I’ve been coming and going now for five months or more and with every passing visit it becomes easier to rationalize and compartmentalize the two.

The other place isn’t an exact copy of my life here except with Freddie still in it; it’s a different version of my life altogether. But I do know that if he were still with me, he’d be accompanying me tonight to Dawn’s wedding reception instead of Jonah. I’ve seen Jonah a couple of times since the great cat mission. We’ve developed a handover routine of sorts at Freddie’s grave – he goes early on Saturday, I go later, and in the middle we sit for a few minutes and talk about nothing and everything. What we’re actually doing is mending our friendship, or trying to anyway, because we’re important to each other, we always have been. We have so many shared memories. So many Freddie memories. We all visited the Bayeux Tapestry as teenagers, a school trip to Normandy that mostly involved long coach journeys, illicit alcohol and ill-advised teenage choices. Much of the trip has thankfully been exiled to the fog of youth, but my one enduring memory is the visit to the tapestry itself. It seemed unfathomably long to me at the time, countless heroes and villains, bloody conquests and battles lost, rich with kings, queens, knights and fallen soldiers. The tapestry of my life is starting to feel similarly littered: my mum and Elle the heroes, Freddie the fallen soldier.

‘Ready?’

The taxi has just deposited us outside the wedding venue and my nerves are jangling louder than the bracelets Elle gave me to go with the green dress I bought when we were shopping in town a few weeks ago.

‘Honestly, not really,’ I say. ‘But this is Dawn’s big day and I promised I’d be here.’

Jonah nods, not quite meeting my eye.

‘Dress is nice.’ He sounds awkward, and I feel it. But I know he’s trying to boost my confidence, so I try to raise a smile.

‘Thanks for making an effort too,’ I say, acknowledging Jonah’s dark shirt and his attempt to tame his hair. He’s happiest in battered jeans and T-shirt, so it’s a jolt to see him scrubbed up. He nods, then puts his hand on my back and reaches for the door.

‘Come on. We can do this.’

‘You look beautiful,’ I say, careful not to leave a lipstick mark on Dawn’s cheek as I kiss her.

Her eyes are drawn to Jonah beside me, and then she squeezes my hands in hers. ‘Thank you for coming. I know it can’t be easy.’

She means because we both began wedding planning at the same time, excitedly flicking through Bride magazines in our lunch breaks. I paint a resolute smile on my face and squeeze her fingers right back.

‘I wouldn’t have missed it for the world,’ I say, and I mean it. Dawn hasn’t had it easy; her mum died when she was a child and the rest of her family couldn’t afford to make the journey up from Plymouth. Her new motherin-law makes her life difficult too, always on hand with a criticism of Dawn’s mothering skills.