The Midnight Library - Matt Haig Page 0,29

friends, as it was highly probable that in this life Nora hadn’t gone to Bristol University. And even if she had, she wouldn’t have been doing the same course. It was a bit humbling to realise that, even though this Isabel Hirsh might never have met Nora Seed, she was still doing the same thing she was doing in Nora’s root life.

She also checked in on Dan. He was (seemingly) happily married to a spin-class instructor called Gina. ‘Gina Lord (née Sharpe)’. They’d had a wedding in Sicily.

Nora then googled ‘Nora Seed’.

Her Wikipedia page (she had a Wikipedia page!) informed her that she had indeed made it to the Olympics. Twice. And that she specialised in freestyle. She had won a gold medal for 800m freestyle, with a ridiculous time of eight minutes and five seconds, and had a silver for 400m.

This had been when she was twenty-two years old. She had won another silver medal when she was twenty-six, for her participation in a 4 x 100m relay. It got even more ridiculous when she read that she had briefly been the world record-holder for women’s 400m freestyle at the World Aquatic Championships. She had then retired from international competition.

She had retired at twenty-eight.

She apparently now worked for the BBC during their coverage of swimming events, had appeared on the TV show A Question of Sport, had written an autobiography called Sink or Swim, was an occasional assistant coach at British Swimming GB, and still swam for two hours every day.

She gave a lot of money to charitable causes – namely to Marie Curie Cancer Care – and she had organised a fundraising charity swimathon around Brighton Pier for the Marine Conservation Society. Since retiring from professional sport, she had swum the Channel twice.

There was a link to a TED talk she had given about the value of stamina in sport, and training, and life. It had over a million views. As she began to watch it, Nora felt as though she was watching someone else. This woman was confident, commanded the stage, had great posture, smiled naturally as she spoke, and managed to make the crowd smile and laugh and clap and nod their heads at all the right moments.

She had never imagined she could be like this, and tried to memorise what this other Nora was doing, but realised there was no way she would be able to.

‘People with stamina aren’t made any differently to anyone else,’ she was saying. ‘The only difference is they have a clear goal in mind, and a determination to get there. Stamina is essential to stay focused in a life filled with distraction. It is the ability to stick to a task when your body and mind are at their limit, the ability to keep your head down, swimming in your lane, without looking around, worrying who might overtake you . . .’

Who the hell was this person?

She skipped a little further into the video, and this other Nora was still talking with the confidence of a self-help Joan of Arc.

‘If you aim to be something you are not, you will always fail. Aim to be you. Aim to look and act and think like you. Aim to be the truest version of you. Embrace that you-ness. Endorse it. Love it. Work hard at it. And don’t give a second thought when people mock it or ridicule it. Most gossip is envy in disguise. Keep your head down. Keep your stamina. Keep swimming . . .’

‘Keep swimming,’ Nora mumbled, echoing this other self and wondering if the hotel had a pool.

The video disappeared and a second later her phone started to buzz.

A name appeared. ‘Nadia’.

She didn’t know any Nadias in her original life. She had no idea if seeing the name would have inspired this version of her with happy anticipation or sinking dread.

There was only one way to find out.

‘Hello?’

‘Sweetheart,’ came a voice she didn’t recognise. A voice that was close but not entirely warm. She had an accent. Maybe Russian. ‘I hope you are okay.’

‘Hi Nadia. Thanks. I’m fine. I’m just here in the hotel. Getting ready for a conference.’ She tried to sound jolly.

‘Oh yeah, the conference. Fifteen thousand pounds for a talk. Sounds good.’

It sounded ridiculous. But she also wondered how Nadia – whoever Nadia was – knew this.

‘Oh yeah.’

‘Joe told us.’

‘Joe?’

‘Yeah. Well, listen, I need to talk to you at some point about your father’s birthday.’

‘What?’

‘I know he’d love it if you could come up and