Joe and Ewan had quite enjoyed Last Chance Saloon.
A little while later, and to everyone’s surprise, Nora took a left turn out of the safe environs of pop culture and cut to the chase with her brother.
‘Did you ever get pissed off with me? You know, for backing out of the band?’
‘That was years ago, sis. Lot of water under the bridge since then.’
‘You wanted to be a rock star, though.’
‘He still is a rock star,’ said Ewan, laughing. ‘But he’s all mine.’
‘I always feel like I let you down, Joe.’
‘Well, don’t . . . But I feel like I let you down too. Because I was such an idiot . . . I was horrid to you for a little while.’
These words felt like a tonic she had been waiting years to hear. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ she managed.
‘Before I was with Ewan, I was so dumb about mental health. I thought panic attacks were a big nothing . . . You know, mind over matter. Man up, sis. But then when Ewan started having them, I understood how real they are.’
‘It wasn’t just the panic attacks. It just felt wrong. I don’t know . . . For what it’s worth, I think you’re happier in this life than the one where you’re’ - she nearly said dead - ‘in the band.’
Her brother smiled and looked at Ewan. She doubted he believed it, but Nora had to accept that – as she now knew only too well – some truths were just impossible to see.
Tricycle
As the weeks went by, Nora began to feel something remarkable start to happen.
She began to remember aspects of her life that she had never actually lived.
For instance, one day someone she had never known in her root life – a friend she had apparently known while studying and teaching at the university – phoned her about meeting for lunch. And as the caller ‘Lara’ came up on the phone, a name came to her – ‘Lara Bryan’ – and she pictured her completely, and somehow knew her partner was called Mo, and that they had a baby called Aldous. And then she met her and had all these things confirmed.
This sort-of déjà-vu happened increasingly. Yes, of course there were the occasional slip-ups she made – like ‘forgetting’ Ash had asthma (which he tried to keep under control via running):
‘How long have you had it?’
‘Since I was seven.’
‘Oh yes, of course. I thought you’d said eczema.’
‘Nora, are you okay?’
‘Yes. Um, fine. It’s just I had some wine with Lara at lunch and I feel a bit spaced out.’
But slowly, these slip-ups became less frequent. It was as though each day was a piece fitting into a puzzle and, with each piece added, it became easier to know what the absent pieces were going to look like.
Whereas in every other life she had been continually grasping for clues and feeling like she was acting, in this one she increasingly found that the more she relaxed into it, the more things came to her.
Nora also loved spending time with Molly.
The cosy anarchy of her playing in her bedroom, or the delicate bonding that happened at story time, reading the simple magical brilliance of The Tiger Who Came to Tea, or hanging out in the garden.
‘Watch me, Mummy,’ said Molly, as she pedalled away on her tricycle one Saturday morning. ‘Mummy, look! Are you watching?’
‘That’s very good, Molly. Good pedalling.’
‘Mummy, look! Zoomy!’
‘Go, Molly!’
But then the front wheel of the tricycle slipped off the lawn and down into the flowerbed. Molly fell off and knocked her head hard on a small rock. Nora rushed over and picked her up and had a look at her. Molly was clearly hurt, with a scrape on her forehead, the skin grazed and bleeding, but she didn’t want to show it even as her chin wobbled.
‘I’m all right,’ she said slowly, in a voice as fragile as porcelain. ‘I’m all right. I’m all right. I’m all right. I’m all right.’ Each ‘all right’ got progressively closer to tears, then horse-shoed back around to calm again. For all her nocturnal fears about bears, she had a resilience to her that Nora couldn’t help but admire and be inspired by. This little human being had come from her, was in some way a part of her, and if she had hidden strength then maybe Nora did too.
Nora hugged her. ‘It’s all right, baby . . . My brave girl. It’s okay. How does it feel