The Other Us: the RONA winning perfect second chance romance to curl up with

I pull myself up straighter. ‘No. It’s nothing like that,’ I say, and I try not to blush when I remember the night before with Jude, when it almost had been very much like that, until I’d come to my senses and remembered I hadn’t actually broken up with Dan yet. Even the fact I’d kissed him made me feel horribly disloyal this morning.

‘Then what are you flipping well talking about?’

Even now he can’t quite bring himself to say the F-word. Even when I’m prising his heart from his chest and crushing it in my fingers. A part of me despises him for it.

‘I’m saying that I have feelings for someone else. Feelings I haven’t acted upon – ’ Dan snorts but I carry on undaunted. ‘Feelings that I shouldn’t be having if I’m ready to marry you.’

‘Jude?’ he whispers and his long frame crumples into the armchair nearby.

‘Yes,’ I say, and my voice is hoarse.

Dan shakes his head. ‘I always knew that guy was trouble …’

‘It wasn’t him. It was me … or at least it was that I found myself thinking about him all the time, even when I knew I shouldn’t.’

This is the most honest thing I’ve said to my husband in about five years. I also realise that maybe if I’d told him this in the future, maybe if he’d had the guts to tell me the same when his eye had started to wander, that we wouldn’t have ended up in the horrible situation we did, lying to each other every day by omission, pretending we were happy when really we were just coasting.

We talk then. Properly. Honestly. It’s not comfortable and I’m not sure it makes either of us feel any better, but when he walks me to the front door, I feel as if we’ve reached a shaky kind of resolution. Only time will tell if it holds or not.

And then I walk out of Dan’s house, out of his life, and into my new one, full of the hope only a future full of blank pages can bring.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I spend the rest of the day with Jude. Even though he should be revising and I should be putting the finishing touches to my final art piece. We catch the Tube into central London, wander through Portobello market hand in hand and then through Kensington Gardens. It’s odd, expecting to see the Princess Diana memorial fountain there then realising it isn’t because she’s still alive somewhere, miserable in her fabulous life.

As we amble past the spot it will one day occupy, Jude stops, turns and kisses me. I have the sudden urge to write to Diana, to tell her she only has one life to live and she might as well grab happiness while she can. No one knows how many days they have left. I also consider telling her to wear a seatbelt at all times, but as quickly as the idea comes into my head, I dismiss it. Even if I sent it, the letter would be intercepted and rammed into a shredder.

‘Come back to mine …’ Jude whispers in my ear. I pull away and smile at him. I feel like a different person today, someone to whom yesterday’s rules don’t apply. For the first time in years I feel free to do what I want instead of what I should. Number one on that list is Jude. I’m tired of being the good girl.

So that’s what I do. I spent a lazy, warm summer afternoon in bed with Jude, and as the sun starts to set I kiss him at his door and leave him. I’ve promised I’ll go and see Becca’s drama performance tonight.

She’s already left the flat when I get back. I’ve forgotten exactly what time she needed to leave for the studio theatre to get ready and I must have missed her. Since we hadn’t planned to go together but meet up after the show, I potter round the flat, changing into the dress I bought in Oxford Street and grabbing a cropped denim jacket.

Becca is too busy to come out from backstage before the performance, so I find a seat with a few of her drama friends that I remember being on a nodding basis with and I watch A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Becca is playing Titania.

Afterwards, I go and wait outside the main entrance. The small studio theatre is used by both the drama and the dance department and doesn’t have anything as posh as a stage door. Most of the rest of the cast have appeared, been told in megaphone-loud voices how wonderful they were by their friends and have drifted off to the bar by the time Becca appears.

She marches out, looking a little strange in her stonewashed jeans and hot-pink T-shirt but with her green-and-silver-glittery stage make-up still streaked across her face. She nods at me then sets off at a blistering pace down the narrow path that leads back towards the main buildings of the campus.

‘What’s up?’ I ask, trotting after her. ‘You were amazing! Best I’ve ever seen you do it! Don’t worry about that fluffed line in your first scene.’

Becca stops, turns and looks at me. ‘You think I’m worried about missing a line?’ she asks, placing her hands on her hips. The stage make-up has the effect of making her look even more ticked off.

‘Aren’t you?’

She shakes her head.

‘Unbelievable … So wrapped up in yourself you just don’t ever see!’

‘What?’ I say and my volume increases to match my level of confusion. ‘What don’t I see?’

Becca pokes me in the hollow between the top of my right boob and my shoulder with an acid-green fingernail. ‘You don’t know what I’m talking about? What planet are you on?’

I step back and rub the spot. It usually wouldn’t have been so bad, because Becca is a bit of a nail-biter, but she’s been adorned with long green plastic talons by the costume department. ‘Um … this one?’ I say tentatively. I’m getting that same reality’s-gone-screwy feeling I got when I first woke up here.

‘You broke up with Dan!’ she screams at me. ‘After he proposed, as well! What the hell’s wrong with you?’

I blink.

Oh.

I didn’t know she knew. I also didn’t know she’d take it so personally. It’s not her who’s broken up with him, after all! I stiffen and stand up straighter. ‘Nothing’s wrong with me, actually. Nothing at all.’

She throws her hands wide, shakes her head. My answer seems to have thrown her.

‘We’re not right for each other,’ I tell her, trying to keep my voice calm.

She gives me another one of those looks that tells me she thinks I’ve had an aneurysm or something. ‘Don’t be ridiculous! I’ve never seen two people more right for each other.’

‘Who told you?’

She inhales deeply through her nose as she stares at me. ‘Dan. He’s a mess.’

I feel a little kick of guilt down in my stomach, but I push it away. I’m being cruel to be kind, but I’m the only one who knows that. ‘He’ll thank me in the long run.’

Becca laughs, but it’s not her usual bubbly giggle. ‘What? For breaking his heart?’

I turn and start walking. ‘You’re just being dramatic now.’

I’m halted by Becca grabbing my arm, wrenching my shoulder in my socket. ‘What’s wrong with you, Mags? You’ve been acting really weird the last couple of weeks! You’ve changed.’

I pull my arm away from her and scowl. ‘How?’

‘You’re … you’re …’ She looks desperately at me, as if she really doesn’t want to let the next couple of words out of her mouth. ‘You’ve just started being really selfish.’

I blink again. Selfish?

Well, maybe it seems that way because I’m not being my usual doormat self – I’m not going along with what everybody else wants, letting life happen to me instead of taking it by the horns. I suppose if she wants to call that selfish then maybe I should let her. ‘You don’t understand.’

‘Then explain it to me.’

For a moment, I actually consider this. Could I tell her? Could I tell her everything? But then I imagine the words coming out of my mouth and what her reaction will be. For all her wafting around like an unearthly being this evening, Becca is probably one of the most grounded people I know. She’ll just get even angrier with me, thinking I’m making fun of the situation. ‘I can’t.’

Her expression hardens again. ‘Or won’t.’

A sudden drop in my stomach alerts me to the fact that this is a crucial moment, that I have to handle it right. Dan and Becca are my anchors in this world, my only connections to the life I’ve left behind. I’ve cut one loose and I really don’t want to lose the other.

‘Remember that time we went to that gig at the Hammersmith Apollo,’ I say, ‘and we were a little bit tipsy, and we got on the bus and dozed off on each other?’

Becca looks warily at me. ‘Yes?’

‘How we woke up and realised we were going the wrong way, that we needed to get off and change buses, or we’d end up in Islington instead of Putney?’

She nods.

‘Well, that’s what I felt my life was like. The destination was fine and all that, but I had that same sudden shock in the pit of my stomach – I wasn’t going the way I was supposed to be going. I know it seems drastic and all, but I had to do something before it was too late.’

I look at her, begging her to understand. She sighs and then we fall into step beside each other, making an unspoken decision to change direction and head for the bar. I know she’s confused and angry but I also know she’ll stand by me. She’s only being like this because she’s trying to protect me, trying to steer me down the path she thinks leads to happiness for me. Somehow, I’m just going to have to convince her that path doesn’t always lead to Dan.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I creep into the flat. It’s gone eleven and the lights are off in the hallway. I start to tiptoe past the living-room door when I hear a voice.

‘So who is he, then?’

I press my hand to my chest to stop my heart galloping right out of it. As I walk towards the slightly open door, I see blue light flickering on the walls. I push it open and find Becca inside, watching The Word with the sound turned right down, which, in my mind, is the only way to cope with it. I sit down beside Becca on the sofa and watch Terry Christian interview a scruffy-looking rocker whose name I can’t remember. ‘Who’s who?’

I can feel her looking at me. ‘You know who. The guy … the new guy.’

I keep my mouth closed and continue to stare at the TV. Maybe I should have sneaked around more with Jude. Maybe I should have waited a little longer after ditching Dan to dive straight into a new relationship. I can’t even use the excuse that I’m young and impulsive. On the outside, maybe, but not on the inside. It’s just that I spent a whole lifetime waiting to feel like this, a whole life of waiting, full stop. Waiting to feel important. Waiting to feel special. I can’t wait any more. I just can’t.

While most people have no idea I’m seeing anyone, I should have known it wouldn’t take Becca long. It’s been two weeks now since I split with Dan and I’m spending a lot of my free time at Jude’s. Partly because he lives with Dom, whose parents pay for his rent and it’s a heck of a lot nicer than this dump, and partly because I’ve been avoiding having exactly this conversation with Becca.

‘Maggie?’ she prompts softly when I don’t answer.

I breathe in deeply. I’m not sure if I’m ready for this. I was only just feeling we’ve been getting back to normal after I turned Dan down. She seems to have become very protective of him all of a sudden.

‘Take a wild guess,’ I mutter, keeping my eyes trained on the singer on the television, who is now yelling at the audience. He makes a few choice hand gestures and then throws his drink over the people in the front row.

Even though the TV’s turned down, the air seems to become even more still, more quiet, all of a sudden. ‘Please tell me you’re joking,’ Becca finally says.

I shake my head and risk looking her direction.

‘No,’ she says, her voice firm and low, as if she can change the truth by being determined enough about it. ‘You are not seeing Jude the Jerk again!’

‘I am,’ I reply, just as firm and determined. ‘And he’s not a jerk.’

She lets out a dry laugh. ‘That was your name for him, remember? Not mine!’

‘This time it’s different, Becs.’

She shakes her head wearily. ‘You chose him – the guy that broke your heart then used it to mop the floor – over Dan? I really don’t get it.’

‘I know,’ is all I can say back. I know she doesn’t get it. I also know if I try to tell her the truth, she’ll have me locked up in a mental asylum. Becca’s a really down-to-earth sort. She doesn’t believe in ghosts or God or even horoscopes. She won’t even watch Quantum Leap, for goodness’ sake!

‘Poor Dan,’ she says, shaking her head.

That’s another reason I’ve been avoiding the flat recently. Every time she looks at me, I get the sense I’m guilty of something. And I’m not. I realised Dan wasn’t the one for me and I broke it off. Even without the whole insane time-hopping thing, it was the right thing to do.

I know I won’t be happy with him.

Not properly. It’ll look that way for a time, but then it’ll die. Not quickly and cleanly in a nuclear bust-up but slowly, almost imperceptibly, until we’re drowning in our own stagnation and we don’t know it. ‘I don’t expect you to understand,’ I say calmly, ‘but I would like you to respect my choice.’

Becca closes her mouth and her jaw tenses. ‘He’s going to break your heart again, I hope you know that. Once a selfish womaniser, always a selfish womaniser …’

I stand up and glance at the TV screen. The scruffy rocker is gone, replaced by a group of desperate wannabes who are trying to prove they’ll do anything to be on TV by having a full body wax on camera. ‘I’m sorry if you don’t understand, Becs, but he makes me happy.’

She stares at the unfolding horror on the TV as long as she can, before wincing and then looking away. ‘It’s up to you if you decide to flush your life down the toilet, I suppose.’

‘I’m not,’ I say softly, but I know she doesn’t believe me. To be honest, I can’t blame her. If you’d talked to the real twenty-one-year-old me back then, she’d have said exactly the same as Becca.

She turns and looks at me full on. Really looks at me. I start to feel uncomfortable under her scrutiny, as if she can see past the youthful varnish to the real, older me underneath, but then she turns away. ‘Lately, I feel as if I just don’t know you any more,’ she says as I stand up and head for my bedroom.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The next morning, even before I open my eyes, I feel my stomach rolling slightly. It feels as if the room is moving around me. I bury my head under the pillow and try to go back to sleep.

Ugh. Hangovers.

But as I lie here I think back to the night before. Jude and I had gone out to dinner and I’d had a couple of glasses of wine, but nothing more, and I remember being fairly lucid when Becca and I had our argument about him. Surely I didn’t drink enough to –

There’s a loud noise above my head. My eyes pop open. The roof is low, only a couple of feet away, and I can hear someone walking around on it. I try and focus on the ceiling as I hear someone calling my name.

It’s Jude. Jude is calling my name.

He sounds happy, which is nice, but what’s he doing here in my flat with Becca? I’m not sure she’s ready to face him yet; her loyalty to Dan is still so strong. And how has my bed become a top bunk overnight, my face so close to the ceiling? I also don’t remember that skylight.

‘Meg?’ I hear him yell. He’s no longer above me now, but further away. I can hear a door banging, other noises I can’t identify. ‘We’ve brought breakfast!’

Breakfast. Now there’s something I can get a handle on, I think, as I stare up through the rectangular skylight with the rounded edges. The sky beyond is blue and crystal clear and I suddenly notice there’s a silver handle at the bottom. I reach for it and push it open with my fingertips.

Instantly, the smell of river water hits me, which is weird, because the Thames is at least half a mile away from the flat I share with Becca, and even so, this water smells fresh and blue, not muddy and eel-grey. Without thinking about it, I put my feet on my mattress and stand up, pushing the skylight open with my head as I do so. What I see outside causes my legs to lose all co-ordination and I crumple not only back down onto the mattress but off the bed and I end up in a tangled heap on a hard wooden floor. I seem to be jammed into a tiny triangular space I don’t recognise.

There’s the sound of footsteps rushing towards me, echoing as if we’re in a large box, and then the door opens and I see three faces peering down at me. One of them is Jude’s.

‘Are you OK?’ he says as he offers me a hand.

I latch onto his upside-down face. It’s the only thing that’s made sense since I woke up. ‘I think so,’ I mutter. ‘Don’t know what happened …’

‘You fell out of bed, you muppet,’ the girl behind Jude says. Her long, wavy, blonde hair is hanging past her face as she smiles at me, slightly bent over.

I grab Jude’s hand and he pulls me up. As I find some balance on my wobbly legs, I hear the other person – a guy – say, ‘Well, it was quite a heavy session last night …’

Jude chuckles. ‘And we now have empirical evidence Meg can’t hold her G&Ts.’

I frown at him as I pull my ‘Choose Life’ nightshirt further down my thighs with my free hand. I hate gin and tonic. And I certainly didn’t have any last night. And who are these people, anyway, grinning at me like loons, like we’re all part of some in-joke?

But then I think about what I saw outside.

Instead of chimney pots and TV aerials, low-hanging grey cloud and leafy beech trees, there is blue sky – lots of it – streaked with wispy clouds. And there are mountains. There aren’t supposed to be any mountains in Putney.

I look down at my bare thighs again and that’s when it hits me.

I’ve done it again.

Moved. Jumped. Shifted. Whatever you want to call it …

My knees get a strange crunchy feeling, like fresh cotton wool balls out the packet, and I head floorwards a second time. It’s only Jude’s grip on my arm that saves me.

‘Come on, you …’ he says and plants a kiss on top of my head before hauling me through a narrow door. I stub my toe on the raised threshold and yelp. Jude and the onlookers just laugh again. ‘We’ve got cheese and rolls and meat. And Cameron is going to make his famous espresso if we can get the galley stove to light.’

I sit on a bench with a padded cushion and all the pieces of information that have been hurtling at me since I opened my eyes suddenly snap together to form a complete picture: I’m on a boat. A sailboat. And the room I was in is the cabin at the front, hence the strange shape, and the skylight is actually a hatch. I feel myself relax a little and I breathe out.

Are we in the South of France? That’s where Jude said he was going after the end of term. I think about the mountain I saw, towering over the marina so high it seemed as if it might topple down on us at any moment. I think about the shape of the buildings on the shore, their square towers and terracotta-tiled roofs.

No, not France. Italy, maybe. Although how we ended up here is anyone’s guess.

And how long since I last remember anything? One month? Two?

I’m obviously supposed to know these other two people. From the state of the main cabin – clothes littered around the floor and beer cans and full ashtrays on any available flat surface – I get the sense we’ve been living together on this boat for more than a day or two.

‘Here.’ The girl plonks a mug of water down in front of me. ‘You look like you could do with this.’

She reminds me of Amanda de Cadanet, all swooshy blonde hair and private-school accent, and I consider for a second that I might just be having a rather intense nightmare brought on by watching the The Word while I talked with Becca last night, but then the boat lurches as the wake of a passing ferry slaps against the hull, sending my hand shooting for the table in front of me to steady myself, and I dismiss the idea.

No. This is real. At least, as real as the last ‘jump’ was, anyway.

I sip the water and it seems to help. ‘Thanks …’ I croak, trailing off because I realise I don’t know the girl’s name.

Jude offers me a round, crusty roll and I tear it open with my hands and stuff a healthy helping of ham and slices of pale-yellow cheese inside. The biting, the chewing, the swallowing that follows helps anchor me to this day, this time, more firmly. By the time I finish breakfast I almost feel normal again.

‘So what’s the plan for today?’ I ask and look round, hopefully. Maybe I can play detective and piece the rest of what I want to know together if I’m clever about it.

They all look at me, then look at each other, then burst out laughing again. I feel my hackles rise.

‘It was your idea!’ the nameless guy says. ‘Wow. Those G&Ts really did their job, didn’t they?’

‘Humour me,’ I say, not sounding very humorous at all.

‘We were going to sail down to the island. You know, the one with the palazzo? See if we can moor off one of the beaches.’

I nod as if I know what he’s talking about. ‘Of course we were,’ I say, as if everything is completely normal. ‘When are we setting sail?’

‘Soon as we’re all ready,’ he replies.

I nod again and stand up. ‘Better get dressed then.’ I’ve decided that short sentences and concrete facts are my best friends right now.

As I throw on a stripy T-shirt and some shorts, find some blue-and-white plimsolls I don’t recognise but assume are mine, because my socks, which I do recognise, are stuffed into them, I let the questions come.

Why? I think to myself. Why did it happen again? Was it something I did, something I said? Something I wished really hard in my heart? Part of me hoped it was, because then at least there’d be some rhyme or reason to this … whatever it is. At least I’d have some control, even if I have to work out what the trigger is. The thought it might just all be random doesn’t sit well with me.

And I’ve missed so much! Saying goodbye to all my uni friends – for the second time, anyway, but I’d been looking forward to that bit – the summer ball, graduation … Those were some of my best memories of my time at Oaklands, yet I’ve skipped straight over them.

I peer at myself in the little mirror attached to the inside of the cupboard door. The awful fringe is longer, but not quite long enough to tuck behind my ears, which leaves me looking like an old English sheepdog. I think about the blonde’s effortless honey waves and wonder I can learn enough Italian to get myself a haircut.

We cast off less than half an hour later. By perusing some navigational maps left on a tiny desk to the side of the stairs that lead up to the cockpit, I manage to work out we’re on Lake Garda. I have a vague idea of this being somewhere in the north of Italy, but I’m not exactly sure where. When I get up into the cockpit and sit down on the moulded bench next to Jude, who is confidently manning the tiller, I check out the position of the sun and decide we’re heading south. I refer to the mental snapshot I made of the map and decide we must have been moored somewhere near either Riva or Torbole and are now heading down to where the lake broadens and the mountains become less rugged.

It takes longer than I expect to travel the distance. Hours. But then the only experience I have of boats is the kind with pedals that you can rent by the half hour on a pond in the middle of a park. The sun is right overhead by the time we spot the tiny island Cameron was talking about.

Cameron Lombard, that’s right. I’ve worked out who he is now, and this is indeed his boat. Well, his dad’s boat, to be more precise. Cam is the son of a sporting-goods tycoon and, from what I gather, he’s enjoying an extended gap year after finishing uni two summers ago and has spent most of it bumming round Europe. If I have to admit it, I’m slightly intimidated by Cameron. He’s got that kind of confidence that makes him seem invincible, makes every decision seem like the best plan ever rather than a whim of the moment.

Thankfully, his girlfriend, Isabelle, or Issie – I’m not sure of her surname yet – is much less terrifying, if no less confident. She’s laid back and friendly and talks to me as if we’ve known each other for years.