I keep having these dreams, these dreams where I'm flying. Where I'll climb out of my window and leap off of my windowsill and stay balanced in the air, soaring past through the decades, through 2000 and OJ Simpson and Bill Clinton and Peace Protests until I touch down into the 1960s where I belong. Where John will meet me by the water and we'll go out to eat at a cafe and then the mood is right and we go home and put our shoes in the nook by the door, and maybe we'll take some ice cream from the freezer and eat it while looking out the window or while we read next to each other in bed.
My room is like an asylum, but I do not want to leave. It looks even more like an asylum that all the Beatles things are gone—Paul, who now has a rip down his beautiful face, the books, CDs, everything. I've been living in the skinny jeans and band tee that I wore to the doctor's office, and now that I'm lying in bed, I am wearing nothing but the band t-shirt, the jeans flung somewhere in the corner of my colorless room. Fleetwood Mac, the shirt says. They are back in their places, the game has reset.
There is a knock at the door. I grunt accepted entrance.
My mother comes inside, wearing a Cath Kidston apron. "Cora, do you really want to get rid of..." she hesitates, knowing I've been touchy about this in the past few days. "...All these Beatles things?"
I nod.
She comes over and pulls at the covers gently. "Cora, love, you really did a one eighty. What happened here? I'm concerned about you."
It would take so long to tell her and it hurts whenever I try. "It's fine, mum."
"I'm doing some cleaning. I could take the Beatles things to the charity shop if you want. Although perhaps you might be able to sell them online or something of that sort."
"Thanks, mum. Leave it."
She turns to leave. I think about it. The thrift store seems to be a good idea. Then I wouldn't have to think about—! I nearly scream, my heart pounding with excitement, so hard and fast that I sit bolt upright, eyes wide. The thrift shop.
Martin. Martin. He would have to tell me that I am not crazy.
And then I stop and think, a cold fear creeping up my spine. What if he tells me that I am crazy? That he has never seen me in my life and that...
I stand and pace, needing to get this sudden energy out. If I did go and see Martin... If I did go out and risk it all... what if it never happened? Then I was a lunatic, it was all in my brain.
But if it did happen...
I exited my room and walked into the washroom, staring at my reflection in the mirror. I did not look any different, but I knew that there was a light in my eyes that I did not see in myself before. I reached out and took the small metal backed brush from its glass and ran it through my hair, and then tied it up with a scrunchie.
What the fuck is a scrunchie?
"Shut up, Macca," I scold into thin air.
On the tube to the thrift shop, clutching my CD player and a Rubber Soul CD, hands fiddling nervously with everything. I sit like a rock, holding onto the pole. In the olden days, I would have taken the bus. But this is not the olden days. The thrift shop approaches with every step I take. I stand before the door and it's open, inviting, advertising a sale.
"Cora," someone says as I walk inside.
It's Danny. I haven't seen him since the 1960s, and it's startling. I walk inside, he looks so, so familiar it aches. But he's not wearing the coat he was wearing in 1961. He's dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, a long skinny tie randomly hanging from his neck.
"Danny," I say. It does not sound like me. "Avril Lavigne called. She wants her tie back."
He looks at me for a split second and then raises his eyebrows. "Cora. Cora, Cora. What about you? Whereabouts are the contents of your corduroy wardrobe or classic Dr. Martens?" He looks down, suddenly uncomfortable.
"In with the old and out with the new," I say, and I scan his features for any signs of recognition, continuing to produce noises from my mouth. "Working hard or hardly working?"
"You tell me," he says, making a little note on the notepad at the counter, and I can tell he's surprised to hear me speak to him. Any animosity I feel towards him is now slipping away. He did tell me to leave John, but ultimately it was of my own doing. I walk toward the counter, my eyes drawn to a small metal pair of earrings in lime green and fuchsia. My trained eye caught it as vintage and I stared at it for a few seconds. That pair of earrings had a past. Perhaps a soldier bought them for his girlfriend and she kept them for many years. Perhaps they were a gift for a teenager who kept them in the attic until they grew old. Perhaps they were donations from a girl who had visited the past and now wanted to forget all about it.
"Can I help you?" Someone else asks behind me. I know that voice, but when I look around to see him, it's even more startling than it was to see Danny. "Martin."
He opens his mouth to say something and then thinks the better of it. My lips are pressed together, taking in his sweater, his matching slacks, his glasses and white hair and confused expression. "Miss, can I help you?"
I feel something break inside me. Does he recognize me? My knees feel faint and I clutch the counter. "Martin, please can I speak to you?"
He doesn't answer yes or no, but beckons me to follow him into the back office. The small pile of things on the ground are still there, where John and I found the book. I lower myself into a plush green chair. Martin slowly closes the door behind him and makes his way to his seat, but doesn't sit and instead places his hand gently on the desk, gazing gently at me. I watch him and can't help but let a small sob escape me, watching him, now someone who looked completely different, but was the same old Martin I knew so long ago.
"I know who you are, Cora. I was wondering when you stop by."
"Martin?"
"You, Cora, you who first came into the library that day, so determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, you who helped me to John's after I got roughed up that night, you remember that, I'm sure. Judging by why you're here, I daresay you've just gotten back from that little trip."
I don't even jolt to attention. I just keep on crying because it is such a relief to hear someone say it. To hear someone say that they were there with you and they believe you. A shared experience together.
"But how," I say thickly. "How is it possible?"
He ignores this. "You, Cora... you making the choice to leave. How..." he paused on the word before spitting it out. "Admirable. In some sense it's like..."
"You're the same Martin," I said after a pause.
"I am the same," he said, and I could've sworn his voice was as thick as mine. "I am the same. I just look different."
"I am different," I said. "But I look the same. I look the goddamned same. Look at me, cursing like a sailor, getting high—this does not happen overnight. But how do you remember it, Martin? You'd better not be pulling my leg."
He nodded. "I remember it all, Cora. You know, they say there are many universes. Alternate universes. Could it have been that somehow we crossed into each other's paths? Somehow we flew across decades and into each others's lives?"
I stared at him.
"You tell me." He sat, and I realized how long he had been standing and blushed. "History says you weren't there. But you know you were there, and I knew you were there. Now where does that leave us?"
"Only in us," I said slowly. "Only we know. Once we refuse to believe it or forget about it—"
"—or die," Martin said.
"Then it's gone." I wiped the edge of my eye with the crumpled up napkin in my hand. "No one can confirm it happened."
"What about John?" Martin asked, cocking his head at me and I swear I saw Young Martin with his gingham shirt looking at me across a coffee by the Mersey river. "Do you think he remembers?"
"I haven't read any of his books but I guarantee nothing has changed. I guarantee nothing about me has been mentioned at all," I said.
"But because it didn't happen, does that mean it wasn't true?"
The love I felt so strongly for John, how I gave it all up for him. It was in my blood. I took a shuddering breath. "What do I do now, Martin?"
His fingers intertwined into a clasp and he leaned forward. "Oh, Cora. I don't know."
"I just want to be with him again," I said. He nodded. I noted how much this room reminded me of the photography room back at Liverpool and I locked eyes with Martin, who looked away, embarrassed, as if he was thinking the same thing.
"I can forget about it if you want," he said.
"Why on earth would I want to forget about something like this?" I said quietly. "Something like meeting the Beatles. Something like loving someone unconditionally and then having the sensation of leaving them torn across your skin. Something like watching everything you love die. This is why we all die in the end. If someone was immortal, that is the greatest suffering." I reached over to lightly toss my tissue into the bin next to the desk.
"You've certainly made me feel better about dying," he said with a dry smile and then stood. "I'll be outside, Cora. I think you need some time alone to process this."
I stood and suddenly hugged him, hearing him express a little oh! like he would have done fifty three years ago. "Dear, dear Cora. I'm quite fond of you, you know."
"Thank you, Mr. Jonesey," I said and released him.
"Call if you need me," Martin said and he quietly shut the door behind me.
I stared at the pile of objects before me. I saw myself get up and root through the items, looking for a familiar red object, but in reality, I did not move. Instead, I picked up the CD player next to me and plugged it into the wall, taking the CD out of its case and popping it into the player.
I once had a girl
Or should I say she once had me
She showed me her room
Isn't it good, Norwegian wood?
Isn't it good, Norwegian...
I hated and loved hearing his voice.
I swear, I swear to God, I will never be the same.
I mean that. People say that all the time, that people change them and they will never be the same, but John reached deep inside of me and felt parts that I didn't even know existed, not only physically but also emotionally.
This, this is what I've been doing for the past few weeks, trying to erase him completely out of my memory, but his face is as clear as ever. It's almost as if his sharp features, like his aquiline nose I loved so much, cut into the parts of me that were trying to rid myself of his image. Paul is a blur now, like his angelic, beautiful face, but John's acidity remains, biting like acid, stinging like acid.
And when I awoke I was alone
This bird had flown
So I lit a fire
Isn't it good, Norwegian wood?
John and I were in Strawberry Fields.
Yes, plural, Strawberry Fields, I knew because we were sitting on a picnic blanket with a wicker basket with rice and curry, sandwiches, and a flask of slightly spiked lemonade. A bag of San's Dumplings sat next to the flask. The fields were rolling. It was like we were sitting in a field of water, just expansive all around us.
"Are you all right, love?" I asked him.
He turned toward me and it scared me for a minute because he was six years older. Wearing a yellow embroidered coat, his white sneakers set aside next to the picnic blanket, socked feet stemming from striped pants. A shirt with lace embellishments under the coat.
"Never been better." He smiled and raised a cig to his lips. He had grown so thin, his face almost gaunt. "I'm glad to be here with you."
"Will you... where..."
"My song came alive, love."
"How—how long do we have together?" I asked, my words tripping over each other. "John—I don't want to lose you again—"
"Like you did six years ago? Left me hanging on the telephone line?" There was no animosity to his voice, and he raised the cigarette to his lips and took a deep drag, looking into the distance. "Oh, John, I'm so sorry, John, it was the only way. If this meant—"
"I don't want it to end this way," he cut in. "I could be as high as a kite now. It's 1967. Am I in the loo, tripping on acid before Paul yells at me to get my arse in and do another take? But you, look at you. Wearing exactly what you did the day you left. Brian was scared, ye know. He's never seen me break apart like that the day ye left."
I couldn't stand him sitting without touching me. "Hold me, please."
"I would have rather drowned in golden champagne with you, love, then go back to the real world." His hands found the sash of my dress and I felt his fingers gently touching the fabric and I breathed out, release. "It's so nice, sitting here."
"How long do we have?"
"Don't ask that."
I sat and let him have me, he looked and felt so different, not the same twenty-one year old he was. His fingers had more experience, his face had been through so much, his glasses were unrecognizable as I took them off and gently placed them on the gingham blanket so I could get a good look at his brown eyes and trace my finger down his nose.
I'm not entirely sure how long we had, sitting there and being with each other on the blanket, getting to see John with such relief, but it was pulling at my insides. His mouth pulled away from mine, his eyes heavy and glazed, but pink flushes in his cheeks.
"I need to go now," he whispered.
"Please don't," I said. "We have some time."
"I need to leave," he said. "Someone is calling me."
"You don't care about that shite," I laughed into his neck. "You never did."
"I have to grow up sometime, Cora," he said. "Old Johnny can't stay a boy forever."
"Okay," I said so quietly that all I heard were my lips pressing gently together. "I have to go too. Let's go together. On the count of three?"
"You got it."
"I love you, Johnny," I said.
He kissed me one last time and I savored it, memorizing the position of his body, his lips, his touch. "I love you, Cora."
"One, two...—"
"—"
"—"