She stepped back out onto Shakespeare Road with her bag and her chess set and she really didnโt know what to do.ย ๎ขere were tingles through her body. Not quite pins and needles. More that strange, fuzzy static feeling she had felt before when she was nearing the end of a particular existence.
Trying to ignore the feeling in her body, she headed in the vague direction of the car park. She passed her old garden ๏ฌat at 33A Bancro๎ย Avenue. A man she had never seen before was taking a box of recycling out. She thought of the lovely house in Cambridge she now had and couldnโt help but compare it to this shabby ๏ฌat on a litter-strewn street.ย ๎ขe tingles subsided a little. She passed Mr Banerjeeโs house, or what had been Mr Banerjeeโs house, and saw the only owned house on the street that hadnโt been divided into ๏ฌats, though now it looked very di๏ฌerent.ย ๎ขe small front lawn was overgrown, and there was no sign of the clematis or busy lizzies in pots that Nora had watered for him last summer when heโd been recovering from his hip surgery.
On the pavement she noticed a couple of crumpled lager cans.
She saw a woman with a blonde bob and tanned skin walking towards her on the pavement with two small children in a double pushchair. She looked exhausted. It was the woman she had spoken to in the newsagentโs the day she had decided to die.ย ๎ขe one who had seemed happy and relaxed. Kerry-Anne. She hadnโt noticed Nora because one child was wailing and she was trying to pacify the distressed, red-cheeked boy by waving a plastic dinosaur in front of him.
Me and Jake were like rabbits but we got there. Two little terrors. But worth it, yโknow? I just feel complete. I could show you some pictures . .ย .
๎ขen Kerry-Anne looked up and saw Nora. โI know you, donโt I? Is it Nora?โ
โYes.โ
โHi Nora.โ
โHi Kerry-Anne.โ
โYou remember my name? Oh wow. I was inย aweย of you in school. You seemed to have it all. Did you ever make the Olympics?โ
โYes, actually. Kind of. One me did. But it wasnโt what I wanted it to be.
But then, what is? Right?โ
Kerry-Anne seemed momentarily confused. And then her son threw the dinosaur onto the pavement and it landed next to one of the crumpled cans. โRight.โ
Nora picked up the dinosaur โ a stegosaurus, on close inspection โ and handed it to Kerry-Anne, who smiled her gratitude and headed into the house that should have belonged to Mr Banerjee, just as the boy descended into a full tantrum.
โBye,โ said Nora. โYeah. Bye.โ
And Nora wondered what the di๏ฌerence had been. What had forced Mr Banerjee to go to the care home heโd been determined not to go to? She was the only di๏ฌerence between the two Mr Banerjees but whatย wasย that di๏ฌerence? What had she done? Set up an online shop? Picked up his prescription a few times?
Never underestimate the big importance of small things, Mrs Elm had said.
You must always remember that.
She stared at her own window. She thought of herself in her root life, hovering between life and death in her bedroom โ equidistant, as it were. And, for the ๏ฌrst time, Nora worried about herself as if she was actually someone else. Not just another version of her, but a di๏ฌerent actual person. As though ๏ฌnally, through all the experiences of life she now had, she had become someone who pitied her former self. Not in self-pity, because she was a di๏ฌerent self now.
๎ขen someone appeared at her own window. A woman who wasnโt her, holding a cat that wasnโt Voltaire.
๎ขis was her hope, anyway, even as she began to feel faint and fuzzy again. She headed into town. Walked down the high street.
Yes, she was di๏ฌerent now. She was stronger. She had untapped things inside her.ย ๎ขings she might never have known about if sheโd never sung in an arena or fought o๏ฌย a polar bear or felt so much love and fear and courage.
๎ขere was a commotion outside Boots. Two boys were being arrested by police o๏ฌcers as a nearby store detective spoke into a walkie-talkie.
She recognised one of the boys and went up to him. โLeo?โ
A police o๏ฌcer motioned for her to back away. โWho are you?โ Leo asked.
โIโโ Nora realised she couldnโt say โyour piano teacherโ. And she realised how mad it was, given the fraught context, to say what she was about to say. But still, she said it. โDo you have music lessons?โ
Leo looked down as the handcu๏ฌs were put on him. โI ainโt done no music lessons . . .โ
His voice had lost its bravado.
๎ขe police o๏ฌcer was frustrated now. โPlease, miss, leave this to us.โ โHeโs a good kid,โ Nora told him. โPlease donโt be too hard on him.โ
โWell, this good kid just stole two hundred quidโs worth from there. And has also just been found to be in possession of a concealed weapon.โ
โWeapon?โ
โA knife.โ
โNo.ย ๎ขere must be some mix-up. Heโs not that sort of kid.โ
โHear that,โ the police o๏ฌcer said to his colleague. โLady here thinks our friend Leoย ๎ขompson isnโt the kind of kid to get into trouble.โ
๎ขe other police o๏ฌcer laughed. โHeโs always in and out of bother, this one.โ
โNow, please,โ the ๏ฌrst police o๏ฌcer said, โlet us do our jobs here . . .โ โOf course,โ said Nora, โof course. Do everything they say, Leo . . .โ He looked at her as if sheโd been sent as a practical joke.
A few years ago his mum Doreen had come into Stringย ๎ขeory to buy her son a cheap keyboard. Sheโd been worried about his behaviour at school and heโd expressed an interest in music and so she wanted to get him piano lessons. Nora explained she had an electric piano, and could play, but had no formal teacher training. Doreen had explained she didnโt have much money but they struck a deal, and Nora had enjoyed her Tuesday evenings teaching
Leo the di๏ฌerence between major and minor seventh chords and thought he was a great boy, eager to learn.
Doreen had seen Leo was โgetting caught up in the wrong setโ, but when he got into music he started doing well in other things too. And suddenly he wasnโt getting into trouble with teachers any more, and heโd play everything from Chopin through Scott Joplin to Frank Ocean and John Legend and Rex Orange County with the same care and commitment.
Something Mrs Elm had said on an early visit to the Midnight Library came to her.
Every life contains many millions of decisions. Some big, some small. But every time one decision is taken over another, the outcomes di๏ฌer. An irreversible variation occurs, which in turn leads to further variations . .ย .
In this timeline right now, the one where she had studied a Masterโs at Cambridge, and married Ash and had a baby, she hadnโt been in String
๎ขeory on the day four years ago when Doreen and Leo came by. In this timeline, Doreen never found a music teacher who was cheap enough, and so Leo never persisted with music for long enough to realise he had a talent. He never sat there, side-by-side with Nora on a Tuesday evening, pursuing a passion that he extended at home, producing his own tunes.
Nora felt herself weaken. Not just tingles and fuzziness but something stronger, a sense of plunging into nothingness, accompanied by a brief darkening of her vision. A feeling of another Nora right there in the wings, ready to pick up where this one le๎ย o๏ฌ. Her brain ready to ๏ฌll in the gaps and have a perfectly legitimate reason to be on a day trip to Bedford, and to ๏ฌll in every absence as if she was here the whole time.
Worried she knew what it meant, she turned away from Leo and his friend as they were escorted away to the police car, the eyes of the whole of Bedford high street upon them, and she started to quicken her pace towards the car park.
๎ปis is a good life . . .ย ๎ปis is a good life . . .ย ๎ปis is a good life . .ย .
