IF ONLY
3.17
I groan into my pillow. Why, when you wake up in the night, the clock always says three-something? Two-something and it’s like a very late night. Four-something and you’ve not long to go. Three’s a killer though.
3.14
3.07
What? Didn’t it just say…
3.02.
I close my eyes. I’m mistaken, dreaming. Something.
2.30
Ah, I’ve read the two for a three. Idiot.
2.17
No, it is happening. I’m alert now. Her side of the bed is empty, cold. Laura’s. She’ll be asleep on the settee. I go for a pee, wait on the cold bathroom tiles. I feel foolish, but I count to sixty. A minute for a pee, a minute counting. The numbers should now have moved forward by two.
2.15
I sit on the edge of the bed; watch the glow-red digits.
2.14
2.13
I am naked. I sleep naked.
2.12
I try to figure things out.
2.11
A crazy faulty clock? Dunno. I decide to go for Laura and remember the argument. The row. Shouting, back and forth. I get a feeling in my chest like the after-effects of a punch. I hate myself. We watched a film; happy, everything fine and, out of nowhere, we rowed: the state of the place, money. If only she’d… The things we said. We rowed until I thought it ridiculous rowing at nearly two in the morning. I’d no more energy. Contempt in her look as I went to bed.
Except I didn’t. First I drew the curtains. I saw the rain had virtually stopped. Then I went to bed.
Three minutes to two.
2.00
A thought occurs. I look outside. It’s beginning to rain. I wait.
1.57
I am by the bedroom door ready to open it but cannot because if I open it now, right then, I might meet myself on the landing. Then what? I think, even worse, I could walk through the door and come face to face with me.
Nothing happens. Nothing happens because paradoxes can’t happen. Therefore… what? Therefore, I can get Laura. Show her the clock.
Not yet though.
1.28
Now.
Laura doesn’t look up or even speak.
I remember the curtains. They are open and it is raining harder. Naked, I cross the room and draw them.
How much longer?
1.27 (approx)
I sit down on my TV-watching chair. I shall wait. I say nothing about the clock, nothing of what is happening, of what I expect. We are silent Laura and me. The TV comes back on: the Amblin logo and the last note of theme music: Huey Lewis and the News Back In Time. I hit OFF instantly. Laura looks up, smiles. That was good, she says. It’s one of my favourites, Back to the Future.
Let’s go to bed, I say. How’d you get naked? she asks, puzzled. Then she adds, I was going to say something else, but I can’t think what now.
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