The night before Daniel is leaving for Berlin, we walk along the beach. The steely light of the moon is sharp in the autumn sky; the salty air stings our faces as we crunch along the frozen sand. He’s been busy the past few weeks, preparing to leave, but tonight we have the whole night together.
‘So, I’ve decided that before I leave for my flight, we need to know everything about each other.’
I feel a rush of happiness, tinged red with panic. We have spoken about surface things since the night of the storm: his knowledge of Berlin, the contract for my job. But now, underneath his words I can sense his need to know what happened. ‘Everything?’
‘Yep. I’m leaving in about fourteen hours. So I don’t have much time to judge. What’s not to love about that? We’ll start easy, don’t worry,’ he says, squeezing my fingers gently in his. ‘First album?’
I smile. ‘Okay. Let me think. I think it was The Wizard of Oz soundtrack on vinyl. It ended badly, though. I took it to my friend’s house and her brother snapped it. I’d only had it about a day. I was mortified, and my mum went mad at me. She’d told me not to take it round there but I didn’t listen.’
‘He snapped your first ever record? That’s harsh.’
‘I know. And every time I see that film, I think of my broken record and I’m sad all over again. Anyway. Your turn. Best day of your life so far?’
‘Wow, and I went with first album? That’s huge. I need to sit down and think about it.’ He pulls me down onto the sand and we huddle against the wind. ‘There’ve been a few good ones. I won a grand once. That was a pretty good day.’
‘How?’
‘I rang in to a radio competition.’
‘Ha! And I thought you were cool!’
‘I am cool. I won a thousand pounds; did you not hear that part?’
‘Okay, okay,’ I laugh, putting my head into his chest. ‘Which other days have been good then?’
‘The day I finished school was good. The day I started uni was pretty exciting. They’re all cliched ones, I suppose. There was another day that I went to a party, and some gorgeous girl was crying on me, mascara all over the place, tissues everywhere. That was up there with the best.’
‘It does sound pretty incredible when you put it like that. I can understand why you wanted to see me again.’
‘So?’ Daniel says to me. I shuffle even closer to his warmth and close my eyes. ‘What else can you tell me about yourself? I’m going, remember.’
‘Tonight is perfect,’ I murmur. ‘I don’t want to ruin it.’
‘You won’t.’
I listen the roar of the waves beside us. ‘You don’t know that. If I tell you everything, you’ll think I’m crazy.’
‘And then I’ll go to Berlin, so it won’t matter. And if you don’t tell me, I’ll think you’re crazy, and I’ll go to Berlin. No difference. So you might as well tell me. I want to know you properly, Erica.’
I groan, and Daniel puts both of his arms around me, and gently turns me around.
‘If you can’t tell me, then tell the Tower.’
I burst out laughing.
‘What?’ Daniel says. ‘You said yourself you’ve told Blackpool Tower all your secrets before. Why don’t you do it again? And I’ll just happen to hear you.’
I take a breath, stare up at the glow of the lights, the criss-crosses of iron that I used to stare out at every night from my bedroom window.
‘Okay,’ I say, shaking back my shoulders and trying to ignore the terror that is rippling through me, the desire to snap myself shut and protect myself. ‘Okay,’ I say again. ‘I’m just going to say it. I’m not like other people. I have strange episodes that are a little bit like time travelling, but I don’t always see the past. In fact, lately I’ve been seeing other places in the present, and my own life, but a different version of it. I disappear and seem to sort of teleport to these other times and places, and I never know how long I’m going to be gone for. My mum and Nicholas both know, but they are the only people who do. I’ve never told any of my friends, and I never told Mike because I never really wanted to and I suppose deep down I knew he wouldn’t have believed it or accepted it, and I suppose the reason that I am telling you is that deep down, I know, or I hope, you’ll do both.’ I finish talking and squeeze my eyes shut for a minute. When I open them, nothing is different. The Tower carries on flashing, the sand is cool and damp beneath me and the sea gently ebbs closer. And yet everything, surely, has changed.
‘Okay,’ Daniel says. He looks at me for a few minutes and I say nothing else. ‘So that night, in Luigi’s? That’s what happened?’ I can see him replaying the evening in his mind. ‘That’s how you escaped without actually escaping? You just vanished?’
‘It sounds unbelievable. I know it does. But yeah.’ I look away, not wanting to look him in the eye. I stare out to the endless sea, black and glittering.
‘Actually,’ Daniel says after a few seconds, ‘I read about something like this once. In the eighties, I think.’
‘Yes!’ I say excitedly. ‘There was another girl it happened to. She was called Helen; I remember that. I read about her in the newspaper. I’ve been thinking about her lately actually, wondering if it caused her the same kinds of problems with men these days. I’ve tried to look her up but she’s impossible to find. Maybe it’s stopped happening to her. Maybe I’m the only one now.’
Daniel laughs, the sound unexpected and comforting. ‘You know, the other night I thought of all sorts of scenarios, but I have to admit this wasn’t one of them. Damn. Can’t believe I didn’t guess right.’
I look down, scoop up the cool, damp sand in my fingers. ‘You believe me?’
‘Why would you lie about this?’
‘I wouldn’t. I just never thought anyone would believe me. I thought you’d get up and walk away, or tell me I was dreaming or imagining it, and I’d end up yelling and crying. All the times I imagined telling someone, I never thought it would be calm and quiet like this. I thought there would be some kind of big explosion or something. Shouting, at least. It’s such a big thing for me to tell you. It seems like it should be a big moment.’
‘I don’t know. The big moments are sometimes the smallest ones, aren’t they?’
I let the sand fall between my fingers and press it back down. ‘I suppose they are.’
‘So you can’t control when it happens?’
‘Not really. I can just about delay it. But that’s all.’
‘This is incredible,’ Daniel says. ‘You’re incredible.’
I tense, turn to him. ‘You can’t tell anyone. I don’t want people asking me questions, writing to newspapers and following me around.’
‘Of course I won’t tell anyone,’ Daniel says. ‘It’s not my secret to tell.’
We’re quiet for a moment, and I watch him as he thinks.
‘Are you trying to make sense of it?’ I ask him.
‘Not really. I’m wondering about this other version of your life you’ve seen, and if I’m in it, sweeping you off your feet and not having terrible timing and ending up in Berlin.’
I laugh. ‘You’re not in it, actually. Not yet, anyway.’
‘Yet?’
‘I’m sure you’ll appear. You have to. The other Erica seems to travel about a lot. I’m sure she’ll see you somewhere. Although I hope she doesn’t get to spend too much time with you. I’d be jealous.’
Daniel leans forward and kisses me. ‘At least we’d be getting it right in some other world.’
I sigh and lie back on the sand even though it is cool and damp; I feel a warmth flooding my insides. I can’t believe I’ve told someone my secret. I feel lighter than I have since I was a child.
‘You know what’s weird?’
‘Apart from your ability to transcend time and place?’
‘Yeah. Apart from that.’
‘What?’
‘I feel like if you were staying, there’s a chance I might not have told you.’
‘Really? Why?’
‘I was just so scared. I think you going away pushed me to do what I wouldn’t normally do. It gave me less time to worry about what I might lose.’
He holds up his hand, lacing his sandy fingers through mine. ‘Well then maybe things aren’t so wrong after all.’