Who's That Girl (13 page)

'Oh, hi, Charlotte.' Beatrice breaks off from her conversation as I approach. 'This is Patrick.'

Throwing out her hand as if to say, 'Ta-dah,' like a magician, she looks at me, her eyes sparkling. I know that look. She fancies him, and she's drunk.

Or, as Beatrice likes to put it, 'a little squiffy.'

Patrick and I exchange pleasantries. He's wearing a blazer and checked shirt, under which I can see the outline of a white vest.

'He works for
Golfing Weekly
.' She beams, playing with her pearls like some people play with their hair. She smiles eagerly at Patrick. 'Isn't that exciting?'

Patrick chuckles in an attempt at modesty.

'So you're a keen golfer?' I ask, making conversation.

'I play off seven,' he says knowledgeably.

'Wow, that's amazing,' coos Beatrice, leaning closer with what is supposed to be a surreptitious move and is instead a clunking great big sideways shuffle. Subtlety is not Beatrice's strong point. She hangs at his elbow, looking up towards his shiny, pink face.

'And my wife plays off five, so we like to make a lot of golfing trips. The Algarve's our particular favourite.'

'Wife?' repeats Beatrice, her mouth hanging open like a carp's.

'Yes. She's semi-professional,' he adds proudly.

There's a beat.

'I'm sorry, will you ladies excuse me?' Patrick smiles politely. 'I've just spotted a colleague.' He disappears into the crowd.

I glance at Beatrice. She looks crestfallen.

'Oh, well,' she says, forcing a smile, 'never mind.'

I can tell she's upset, but she'll never admit it. Stiff upper lip and all that. In fact Beatrice could probably plunge thirty thousand feet in an aeroplane, crash into the ocean and find herself surrounded by man-eating sharks and she'd still say, 'Oh, -well, never mind.'

Polishing off the rest of her champagne, she plucks another flute from a passing tray. 'So, tell me, how was the facial?' she asks, swiftly changing the subject and trying to be all cheery.
Deeply disturbing
, I want to reply, but instead I settle for, 'Very educational,' and pass her the bag Suki gave me. 'I got you some free samples,' I say, trying to perk her up.

'For me?' Pressing her hand to her chest, she looks at me as if I've just given her diamonds. 'Ooh, Charlotte, you shouldn't have!'

'Beatrice, they were free,' I point out. 'Free samples usually are.'

'Well, I know, but still…' Putting down her champagne glass, she dives on the bag and starts pulling out products. 'A body lotion… foot scrub… a moisturiser. Oh, goodee, I need some new moisturiser. I've totally run out of the Pond's Cold Cream Granny gave me.' She starts reading off the back label, ' "Turn back the clock with this luxury moisturiser, which erases fine lines with our specially patented formula, leaving your face looking and feeling ten years younger." ' She gives a little snort. 'Well, that's nonsense.'

'Mmm, yes, I know,' I murmur absently. I'm still feeling perturbed about my facial.

'No moisturiser can make you look ten years younger. It's impossible.'

'Mmm, yes.' Digging out my compact, I peer at my skin. It doesn't look that bad, but still.

'I don't care whether it's made of crushed pearls from the Adriatic or not…'

Hurriedly I start powdering my cheeks and forehead.

'… there's only one thing that's going to make me look twenty-one again and that's time travel.'

Out of the blue I get the weirdest feeling. 'What did you just say?' I ask, abruptly zoning back in and snapping my compact shut.

'I said, "I don't care if it's made of crushed pearls from the Adriatic—"'

'No, not that bit,' I say quickly.

Beatrice frowns. 'Gosh, I can't remember.'

'You said something about being twenty-one again,' I prompt, my stomach fluttering.

'Oh, yes, I was talking about time travel.' She nods matter-of-factly. Putting the products back in the bag, she takes a swig of champagne. 'Though strictly speaking if you
were
to travel back through the frontiers of time, you wouldn't
look
like you were twenty-one; you'd
meet
yourself when you were twenty-one.'

I suddenly feel really light-headed, dizzy almost.

'But you know Stephen Hawking says time travel isn't possible,' she continues, and then laughs.

'Otherwise we'd all be run over from tourists from the future.'

'Well, of course it's not possible,' I scoff, quickly recovering. It must be the champagne, I tell myself, using a pamphlet to fan myself. And it is really stuffy in here.

'However, the theory of general relativity does suggest scientific grounds for thinking time travel could be possible in certain unusual scenarios,' she adds as an afterthought. I stare at her in disbelief. 'What? You're saying you
believe
in time travel?' I always knew Beatrice was a bit ditzy, but totally goo-goo-ga-ga? 'Come on, you're joking, right?'

'Actually no, I'm not joking,' she refutes stiffly, pursing her lips. 'According to the rules of physics, there are several ways it could be theoretically feasible. For example, there are some quantum physicists who believe every historical event spawns a new universe for every possible outcome, resulting in a number of alternate histories.' She pauses to take a swig of champagne.

'This is rooted in the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics formulated by the physicist Hugh Everett in 1957, an alternative to the Copenhagen interpretation originally formulated by Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg around 1927.'

Er, hello?

'Can you say that again, but in English this time?' I ask, completely lost.

'Think of it like this.' Putting down her champagne glass, she reaches over to a passing waitress.

'Excuse me.' She smiles, grabbing a handful of mini-quiches, before turning back to me and spreading out her napkin on a nearby table. 'Rather than a universe,' she explains, placing a miniquiche in the middle, 'it's a multiverse.' She continues dotting several more mini-quiches around it. 'And together these multiverses comprise all of physical reality. The different universes within a multiverse are called parallel universes.' She picks up a mini-quiche and waves it at me.

'Imagine this is a parallel universe,' she suggests, her face serious.

'Um… OK.' I nod dubiously.

'It's existing at the same time as all these other parallel universes.' She gestures to all the other mini-quiches. 'And you can travel between them, see?'

I stare, bewildered, at the mini-quiches, trying to grapple with the information. For someone who dropped physics in favour of creative writing it's all rather confusing. Actually, make that
very
confusing.

'But then of course there's the other theories that include travelling faster than the speed of light, moving large amounts of physical matter, which releases energy and can cause a crack in time, or the use of cosmic strings or traversable wormholes,' she says nonchalantly, helping herself to a parallel universe. Sorry, I mean a mini-quiche.

'A wormhole?' I repeat, my mouth twitching.

Well, I'm sorry, but I can't take this seriously. What next? Dr Who's Tardis?

'You know, like a portal.' She shrugs. 'Or some kind of tunnel that allows you to travel from one time' - with her finger she traces a line across the napkin - 'to another.'

Suddenly I get that weird fluttering feeling again in my stomach and a cog in my brain turns. No, but that's just crazy, I tell myself firmly, dismissing the thought before it's even fully formed. In fact it's more than crazy. It's totally ludicrous.

'I know. Even I don't understand it properly,' she soothes, misinterpreting my silence and patting my arm in consolation. 'And if I try to explain it in more detail, I'm afraid your head will explode, or implode, depending on what universe we are currently in and the particular wavefunction collapse laws,' she adds, frowning. 'Saying that, I loved
Back to the Future
, didn't you?'

Draining her glass, she smiles brightly. 'Another glass of bubbly?'

Chapter Twelve

Making my excuses, I leave Beatrice drinking champagne and sneak out of the launch party early. I drive home feeling unsettled, like on a hot summer's day, just before a storm, when the air gets all charged and seems to prickle with electricity and anticipation, and you're filled with a strange mixture of excitement and apprehension, knowing something is going to happen. Waiting. Watching. Wondering.

Which is ridiculous, as nothing is going to happen, I think sharply. Nothing at all. It's another warm evening and as usual the rush-hour is in full swing. Motorists with their windows wound down and elbows sticking out jostle for every inch of tarmac, while on the pavements pedestrians hurry and scurry like worker ants towards the tube. Following the signs for the diversion, I turn on the radio. A DJ's chirpy banter wafts out of my speakers, filling the space around me with jokes and jingles and call-ins, and I listen, glad of the distraction. For about thirty seconds.

Then before I know it my mind is wandering back to the launch like a guest reluctant to leave, sidling over to my earlier conversation with Beatrice. Her words start playing in my head: '… be possible in certain unusual scenarios… parallel universes… moving large amounts of physical matter… tunnel that allows you to travel from one time to another.'

My mind flicks back to yesterday - driving past the diggers moving all that earth, being diverted, turning down that side street and going under the underpass, which I suppose is sort of like a tunnel…

Right, that's enough. I screech my imagination to a halt. Like I said, it's totally ridiculous. OK, so Beatrice did some mind-bogglingly brainy maths and physics degree at Cambridge, but time travel? Honestly, what next? UFOs and little green men?

But what about the date on the parking ticket
? interrupts a voice in my head. Stress, remember? I tell myself firmly. I was flustered and misread the date. If I hadn't dropped the ticket, I could check it now, prove to myself I had made a mistake, and that would be the end of it.

And the fact she looked just like you did when you were twenty-one?

Mistaken identity. Happens all the time. In fact I once pinched Miles's bottom when he was queueing to buy popcorn at the cinema. Only it wasn't his bottom. It belonged to someone else's boyfriend, and believe me, that someone else wasn't very happy.

And drove your car?

Coincidence.

Which was scrapped?

No, it wasn't. Dad was wrong.

And lived in your old house?

For God's sake, what is this? An interrogation? Shut up, why don't you?

Right, that's it. I'm not listening to this nonsense any more, I tell myself decisively. Rattled, I reach for the volume button on the stereo, turning it up until the music is blasting out of my speakers. Which is a bit embarrassing, as it's Avril Lavigne and a few people are staring, as I've got the roof down. Oh, bugger it. So what? I'm going to listen to this song and stare straight ahead and not even think about how she reversed into that lamp-post just like I—

Shit. I've done it again.

I tug my mind back firmly, but it's like a restless child and I can't get it to sit still. Before I know it, it's wandering back to play with those questions. I know there's logical, rational explanation for all of it. I know that.

And yet.

Doubt flickers, like lightning on the skyline, momentarily illuminating a qualm lurking deep down inside of me.

What if by some weird, freaky, inexplicable chance I really
did
see myself at the traffic lights? If at that diversion my world collided with that when I was twenty-one, driving to and from work in my old VW Beetle? And what if somehow I managed to follow myself back to 1997?

Honestly, Charlotte, that one glass of champagne really did go to your head, didn't it? I realise, grabbing hold of my over-active imagination by the scruff of its neck. This isn't
Back to the
bloody
Future
. This is real life. My name's not Michael J. Fox; I don't drive a DeLorean. I'm Charlotte; I run a PR company and drive a Beetle. And let's face it, with the traffic in London, I can't have been doing more than thirty.

My attention is distracted by a street up ahead. I recognise that street. It's the one I turned down yesterday when I followed the old Beetle…

I look away quickly. OK, enough of that. What was I thinking about? Oh, yes, stupid things. But I'm not going to think about those any more, I tell myself, brushing them away firmly. I'm going to think about something else. Like, for example, how I'm going to take the doctor's advice and run a relaxing bubble bath when I get home. Maybe even listen to that CD Mum sent me. Light an aromatherapy candle.

Shall I turn off
? A little voice pops into my head.

No, of course not, I think sharply. I'm going straight home.

It'll only take ten minutes.

I hesitate, my resolve wavering. Which is stupid as, like I said, this is all nonsense. You don't drive down a street one day and discover yourself back where you were ten years ago, and I hardly think I need to prove that by driving down there again, do I? I feel a flash of amusement at the mere suggestion.

Plus let's imagine for a second that it was somehow magically possible,
which of course it isn't
, the truth is, I don't want to bump into myself when I was twenty-one, thanks very much. I left that girl behind years ago. Why would I want to meet her again today?

Like someone pressing 'play' on a tape-recorder, I suddenly hear Suki: 'Eighty-five per cent of sun-damage is caused before the age of twenty-five.' I get an image of me aged twenty-one sunbathing topless in my back garden, basting myself in Hawaiian Tropic and rotating myself on my towel like a pig on a spit.

OK, I take that back.

Slamming on the brakes, I swerve right across the road and shoot off down the street. Five minutes later I reach Kilmaine Terrace and I'm already regretting my decision. It's one thing imagining doing something, it's another actually doing it.