Cyndi Lauper: ‘Time After Time’
It was late on Boxing Day by the time I got round to listening to the tape I’d found in my father’s house. Greg and I had spent the day drinking coffee in our dressing gowns, and I’d been for a walk to clear my head. At about three o’clock Greg suddenly announced he was going for a run.
‘A run?’ Greg hadn’t been for a run for at least a year. As his gambling addiction had taken hold, early evening jogs and bike rides had slowly gone out of the window as he holed himself up in his room for hours on end. This was quite a turn-round.
‘Yep. New year, new me,’ he said, lacing up his slightly tatty trainers.
‘It’s not New Year yet.’
‘I know.’ He patted his belly. ‘But it’s never too soon to try and get rid of this paunch.’
I eyed him suspiciously, ignoring the fact that he obviously didn’t have a hint of a belly. ‘But you hate running. You said you were never doing it again.’
He sat down next to me and placed his hand on my leg. ‘I do hate running. But I think it will help me, when I feel the urge to gamble.’
I met his gaze. ‘Do you feel the urge now?’
He nodded. ‘Always.’
‘Well then I won’t stop you.’ I removed his hand from my thigh and stood, pulling my cardigan tighter round me.
When the door shut behind him, I waited a couple of minutes to make sure he wasn’t about to change his mind and come straight back home again, then, when I was sure the coast was clear, I raced upstairs and retrieved the tape from my knicker drawer where I’d stashed it the previous evening after we’d got home from Dad’s. Luckily, thanks to my job, I had an old tape recorder as well as a CD player just in case the songs my patients wanted to listen to were only on ancient cassettes, so I pulled it out of my holdall and plugged it in, then slipped the first cassette inside – the one Adam had made me all those years ago. I rewound it to the beginning. It felt important, somehow, to listen to it in the order in which it was intended. Then I pressed play…
The opening notes of ‘Heart-Shaped Box’ soared into the room and I smiled. I could picture exactly where we’d been when this had played for the first time: at the pub down the road. I was back there in an instant. I let the song play out, and then another song, and another, getting more and more lost in the memories, of me and Adam, young and in love.
I snapped my eyes open and pressed stop then sat for a moment, as an idea occurred to me. It wasn’t doing me any good, listening to this: all it was doing was making me feel even more confused. But it could be useful, perhaps, in helping to unlock some memories for Adam. If the music was sending me back in time, surely it might be able to do the same for him too? I removed the tape from the recorder, placed it back into its case and tucked it into my bag for later. Then I picked up Mum’s tape, the one from the mystery ‘J’, and placed that inside and pressed play.
Instantly, the opening bars to ‘Time After Time’ by Cyndi Lauper started, and I smiled. Mum had always loved this song so I wasn’t surprised to find it on here. As the song played I took a closer look at the tape case, pulling the cardboard insert out to see if there was anything else written on it. I unravelled it and there, tucked inside, was a small piece of paper, folded several times. I picked it up and carefully opened it up, my heart thumping. What was I going to find? Would there be something Mum would never have wanted me or anyone else to see? Should I put it away and forget about it, pretend I’d never found it?
But I knew I wasn’t going to do that.
Finally, I opened it fully. The paper was fragile and thin, so I gently smoothed it out on the carpet and read the words which were written in the same blocky handwriting as before.
Penny.
If you find this note, it means you have to say yes.
Marry me, and not him.
Say you will.
I adore you.
J xx
J? Who on earth was J? And why was he telling my mum to marry him instead of someone else? Was the someone else my dad? It must have been. I’d never heard her mention anyone else other than my dad, but then why would she? She must have been very young – after all, she’d married Dad when she was only twenty-one.
My mind raced with possibilities. Who could this ‘J’ be? And how different would my life have been if she’d have said yes to him and not my dad?
Maybe this tape could be the key to unlocking Mum’s memories at last. It had to be worth a try.
‘Are you sure you don’t know who he is?’ Rose said, after I’d filled her in on what I’d found. It was two days after Christmas and I’d popped round for a quick drink and to tell her all about my Christmas Day discoveries.
‘Positive.’
‘The cheeky little minx,’ Sam said, handing me a full-to-the-brim glass of gin and tonic. I took a sip and almost spat it back out again. ‘Christ, is there any tonic in here at all?’ I spluttered, blood rushing to my head with the unadulterated hit of alcohol.
‘A splash.’ Sam grinned, holding his glass up. ‘Cheers.’
‘Cheers you two. And Happy Christmas.’
Despite the paint-stripper-like qualities of the drink, I took another sip and let the alcohol spread through my body, relaxing every limb. I’d felt like a wound-up toy recently and was so grateful to have these two to talk to whenever I needed – even if they did tell me the truth a little too easily.
‘I guess you’ll never know who this J was now then?’ Rose said, a frown creasing her forehead.
I shuffled to sit up and placed my elbows on my knees. ‘That’s just it. I wondered whether there might actually be a way to find out.’
‘Ooh I love a mystery; tell me more,’ Sam said. His eyes shone with delight.
‘You know I play Mum songs to try and get her to remember things?’ I began.
‘Yep.’
‘Well, I always stick to the same songs – you know, the ones I know she loves, tunes that remind her of Dad, or of me, or of happy times, because I don’t want anything to freak her out. I’ve spent hours carefully curating Mum’s playlist so nothing takes her by surprise or upsets her too much. But what if, for a change, I played her some of the songs from this tape, the ones she might not have heard for years, to see if it helps her to remember who this J is?’
Rose scrutinised me for so long I wondered whether she’d even heard what I’d said. Eventually, she spoke, her words slow and deliberate. ‘The thing is, Erin, don’t you think she would have mentioned him before, if he’d been anyone important? I mean, your mum never really knows what day and time it is these days, and her mind definitely has no filter, so it’s not as if she could deliberately stop herself talking about someone to protect yours or your dad’s feelings, even if she wanted to.’
‘She sounds like me,’ Sam said, grinning.
‘What, no filter?’
‘Yup.’ He took another sip and gave an innocent look. I rolled my eyes and turned back to Rose.
‘I’ve thought about that. But what if – I dunno. What if she’d locked this J away in her mind until she almost had forgotten about him? I mean, our minds do this sort of thing all the time. Sometimes in response to trauma, sometimes just to protect us from feelings that might hurt us. But what if I played her some of these songs, and because her mind is more pliable than most, she does remember?’
‘I suppose so,’ Rose said, cautiously. ‘But I still don’t really understand why you need to know so desperately?’
I sighed. Rose had a point. Why did I feel such an urgent need to know who this mystery ‘J’ was? Was it because of the things Dad had said to me about never knowing why Mum had chosen him, or because of the turmoil my mind was in about my own self-inflicted mess?
‘I’m just nosy I suppose,’ I said.
‘Me too,’ Sam said, sloshing his drink around so the ice cubes clinked in the glass.
I sighed. The truth was, my instinct was to stay well clear of letting Mum listen to any of these songs. And yet there was something about the note I’d found hidden in the tape that made me need to find out who this man was, and that made me wonder whether this wasn’t the key to getting my mum back: music made Mum open up, it lifted her out of her broken mind and let her believe she was somewhere else, sometime else. It made her happy; it made her Penny again.
What if one of these songs could do that, and unlock the secret of this mystery man at the same time?
My thoughts were interrupted by a tug at my neck. Sam was leaning over me, pulling at something.
‘What’s this?’
It took me a second to realise what he was talking about and my heart stopped. Oh shit.
‘It’s a necklace,’ I said, trying to hide the wobble in my voice.
‘I can see that smarty pants. It’s new though, isn’t it? Who bought that for you? It can’t have been Greg.’
Poor Greg. Lovely as he was, he wasn’t the world’s most creative present buyer, usually opting for something practical like a pair of walking boots or a hairdryer over something useless but thoughtful.
‘Okay, it wasn’t Greg.’
Rose was intrigued now too, and was peering at it questioningly.
‘Oh my God, it’s from Adam isn’t it? You’ve seen him again!’ Sam smacked the sofa, which emitted a cloud of dust.
‘No!’
‘It is; you’ve gone bright red.’ Sam wriggled round to face me and leaned his elbows on his knees, legs crossed. ‘Come on Donnelly. Spill. What’s going on with you and sexy rock star Adam Bowers?’
Despite these two having been my best friends for so long, the time I’d been spending with Adam was something I’d wanted to keep to myself for a while longer. I hadn’t wanted it to be analysed, to make it more or less than it actually was. I’d wanted to hold it to myself, to keep it secret just a little bit longer, because the more we talked about it the more obvious it would be to us all that what I was doing was wrong.
‘I helped him, that’s all.’
Sam waited, not saying a word. I crumbled first.
‘He asked me if we could try and find some of his memories with music, and I agreed.’ I kept my eyes trained on my hands in front of me. ‘I mean, it is my job.’
‘Okaaay. And you’re sure there’s absolutely no other reason why you’d want to help him?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Mm hmm,’ Sam said. ‘So, where did it happen, this little therapy session?’
‘At his house.’
‘His house as in the Bower House?! You went there for this professional assessment?’
I nodded.
‘And were his parents there?’
‘Yes, they were.’ I looked at them both defiantly. ‘There’s nothing more to this you know. You’re making a drama out of nothing.’
‘Oh come on Erin, we all know it’s not nothing. Sexy Adam comes back into town years after breaking your heart, and which, by the way, you never got over.’ I was about to object but he held his hand up to stop me. ‘And by some miracle he’s forgotten everything that happened between you, and you’re spending time with him and helping him… and you’re telling me you don’t feel anything for him at all, aside from a professional relationship?’
I let out a long breath and held my hands up. ‘Okay, busted. Of course I feel something for him. But there’s nothing going on, I swear. I wouldn’t do that to Greg.’
‘Not even for Adam?’
‘No!’
‘Okay, okay.’ He leaned further forward. ‘So, tell me more about this meeting. When was it?’
‘Christmas Eve.’
‘Interesting. Where?’
‘I already said, at his house.’
‘Which room?’
‘His bedroom…’
‘Ah ha!’
‘Sam, leave her alone,’ Rose interjected.
‘What? I’m only getting to the bottom of it because she’s so reluctant to tell us, her two very best friends in the whole wide world and the two people who know as much about her as she knows about herself, the truth.’ He turned back to me, his voice softer this time. ‘Seriously E, what’s going on? Are you considering cheating on Greg?’
I should have denied it. I should have said no, of course not, I loved Greg.
But I knew, and they both knew, how things had been between us for the last few months and we all also knew how I had always felt about Adam. My lack of reply spoke volumes.
‘Oh E, you need to be careful,’ Sam said.
‘I am being careful. I’m not doing anything wrong, I swear.’
His look stopped me in my tracks, and Rose reached for me, placing her hand on my forearm.
‘We remember,’ she said. I was about to object but the look in her eyes made me think twice. ‘Me and Sam were both there when you were with Adam, and afterwards, when you split up. He didn’t—’ She stopped and glanced at Sam as if looking for reassurance about what she was about to say next. ‘The thing is, E, we’re worried about you. We both think that you…’ She coughed. ‘We think you only remember the good times. That you look back at the time when you were with Adam as being the best months of your life, and as him being the best thing that ever happened to you. But we were there, remember? We saw how it really was.’
‘What do you mean, how it really was?’ I spat the last words, feeling my hackles rise.
‘What Rose means, E, is that Adam could be a shit sometimes, that he didn’t always treat you very well, and we worry that you’ve forgotten that,’ Sam interjected. ‘We love you and we would never tell you what to do, but you know that me and Rose were both relieved when you and Adam split up and you met Greg. He was – is – much more deserving of you.’
I stilled for a moment, trying to absorb Sam’s words. I wanted to feel angry, to shout at them both that they had it all wrong, that Adam had been the love of my life. I also wanted to tell them that of course I remembered Adam hadn’t been perfect. But the truth was that, since his return, I had mainly only remembered how passionate our relationship had been, how intensely I’d loved him. But Rose and Sam were right. When I took off the rose-tinted glasses I remembered that Adam hadn’t always treated me as well as he should have done. Sometimes he’d be distant, dismissing me when he was with the rest of his band, or when there were other girls around; other times he was downright rude to me in front of his friends, belittling me and making me feel like a silly little girl. How could I have forgotten those times so easily?
Shame flooded my body.
‘You’re right,’ I said weakly. ‘But he’s changed, I swear.’
‘Erin—’ Sam started, but I cut him off.
‘Really Sam. I promise. He’s softer than he used to be. He’s grown up I guess. And the accident, it‘s made him more – gentle. Kinder.’
‘Okay. But remember you haven’t seen him for eighteen years. You don’t have any idea what he’s really like these days. And you’d be a total fool to throw away your marriage for someone like Adam.' He swallowed and corrected himself. ‘I mean like the old Adam.’
‘I’m not planning to throw my marriage away. At least not for him,’ I said.
But as the words left my mouth, I realised I didn’t know for certain whether they were true.