Page 29 of Wrong Place Wrong Time

She rubs at her eyes for a minute, trying to think. Come on, she tells herself. You’re a smart woman. This isn’t so hard. It’s time as you know it, only backwards.

‘You win an award in two days,’ she says, thinking of the story she saw about him when he hadn’t answered her. ‘For your work on black holes.’

When she opens her eyes, Andy has paused, his coffee halfway to his mouth, the Styrofoam cup made elliptical by the pressure of his grip. His mouth is open, his eyes on hers. ‘The Penny Jameson?’

‘I think so? I saw it while googling you.’

‘I win?’

Jen feels a petty, triumphant little spark light within her. There. ‘You do.’

‘That award is embargoed. I know I’m shortlisted. But nobody else does. It isn’t –’ he gets his phone out and types quietly for a second, then replaces it, face down, on the table. ‘That information is not in the public domain.’

‘Well, I’m glad.’

‘All right then, Jen,’ he says. ‘You have my attention.’

‘Good.’

‘How interesting.’ Andy sucks his bottom lip into his mouth. He drums his fingers on the back of his phone.

‘So: is it scientifically possible?’ she asks him.

He spreads his hands wide, then repositions them around his cup. ‘We don’t know,’ he says. ‘Science is much more of an art than you’d think. What you say violates Einstein’s law of general relativity – but who’s to say his theorem should control our life? Time travel isn’t proven to be impossible,’ he says. ‘If you can get above the speed of light …’

‘Yes, yes, a gravitational force a thousand times my body weight, right?’

‘Exactly.’

‘But – I didn’t feel anything like that. Can I ask – do you think I went forwards, too, in time? So, somewhere, I’m living the life where Todd was arrested?’

‘You think there may be more than one of you?’

‘I guess so.’

‘Hang on.’ He takes the knife from the cutlery pot sitting next to them. ‘Can you use this?’

‘Use it?’

‘A tiny papercut.’ He leaves the rest implicit.

Jen swallows. ‘I see. Okay.’ She takes the knife and makes – quite honestly – the most pathetic shallow cut along the side of her finger. Barely a scour.

‘Deeper,’ he says.

Jen directs the knife further into her cut. A bead of blood escapes. ‘Okay,’ she says, blotting it with a tissue. ‘Okay?’ She looks down at the wound, a centimetre long.

‘If that cut isn’t there tomorrow … I’d say you’re waking up in yesterday’s body, each day. You move from Monday to Sunday to Saturday.’

‘Rather than time-travelling?’

‘Right. Tell me.’ He sits forward. ‘Did you experience any kind of – compressing sensation when this happened? Or only the déjà vu?’

‘Only the déjà vu.’

‘How curious. The panic you felt for your son … do you think it caused that feeling?’

‘I don’t know,’ Jen says softly, almost to herself. ‘It’s mad. It’s so mad. I don’t understand it. I haven’t yet telephoned you. I do – later in the week. I leave loads of messages.’

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