‘I’m going to call George,’ Tess says, when I don’t respond because I’m too busy counting how many beats per minute my heart is running at.
Too many is the simple answer. I don’t need to be doing this right now. It’s a waste of time. It’s preventing me from existing in the moment.
Even though the second hand of the clock I’m staring at hasn’t reached twelve, I stop short of taking a proper recording. For the first time in my life living is more important than checking I’m alive.
‘I’ll call George,’ I say. ‘I’ve created this mess. I’ll explain it to him.’ I want to be the one who speaks to him, knowing he’ll understand.
Forgetting to take a coat or anything practical, I leave Tess to host the rest of the speed-dating event now the disruption is over.
The delay of attempting to take my pulse is only fifty-three seconds. Clearly too many as I’m unable to locate any red velvet jackets to follow outside. I was hoping it would be like the first time I lost Clive and he was sitting outside the café. That he’ll be slightly out of view and easy to find.
I call George. Crossing the road, I’m careful to pay enough attention to not get run over.
‘Are you free? Can you come to the café?’ I ask as I glance every which way to try to catch sight of Clive or Nancy.
‘What’s happened?’
‘Clive met Nancy.’
He knew that was the plan, but somehow it needs clarifying.
‘And?’
‘I think I might be responsible for their hearts breaking all over again.’
I cry at that moment. Unexpected sobs take over. They say lightning doesn’t strike twice. And yet here I am… Living proof that sometimes one scar can cause another.
50
Clive
There wasn’t a sign of Nancy. Oddly, it made Clive think again that perhaps she was a figment of his imagination. That he might be caught in the middle of another delirium episode.
As luck would have it, he managed to hail a taxi and asked it to trawl the surrounding streets to see if they were able to catch sight of her. The taxi driver was very accommodating, following Clive’s instructions as they both kept their eyes peeled for the woman in a top the same colour as Clive’s suit.
‘Your wife, is it?’ the driver asked as he turned another corner.
‘Almost.’ Clive wasn’t sure if he was talking about then or now. ‘Can you take me to the Guildford Gardens allotments? She might head there.’
He thought there was a vague chance she might go somewhere familiar. But in all honesty he didn’t know where Nancy would have headed. He knew nothing of her life and if she wasn’t able to fill him in he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it from anyone else. Certainly not at the moment when he was trying to process what was going on. At least if he went to the allotment it would give him the chance to try and remember again.
As it was late afternoon when he arrived at the allotments, it was busier than it had been on his last couple of visits. He wasn’t in allotment attire, but being the first shed past the entrance gave him the chance to slip away before anyone noticed him. He didn’t need to have a conversation about whether someone should plant mange tout right now.
Equally, as he slipped past his compost pile and round into his shed, he didn’t know what he needed right now. In a lot of ways a good cry would do him some good, but there was too much shock in his system for any tears to come loose just yet. It would be nice to go back and live those five minutes all over again. If he’d have known from the start, if the recognition had been instant, he would have been able to express how much he loved her. As he breathed in the musky wooden scents of his shed, he hoped it would be calming, but it only made the loss more acute.
Now all he was left with was wondering where Nancy was. Would he ever see her again? Were those five minutes the only ones he would get?
At least he knew she was alive. That those scenes his mind had created were complete fabrication. The body. The blood on the carpet tiles. The mark on the door. They were all made up.
His brief moment of gathering his thoughts in his shed were cut short