Jamie Fewery Read online

  OUR LIFE IN A DAY

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  Jamie Fewery is an author, columnist and copywriter.

  During the past few years he has written for the Daily Telegraph, Five Dials and Wired, and works for a London-based marketing and creative agency. He lives in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire

  with his wife, and watches a lot of sport on the television.

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  JAMIE FEWERY

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  First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Orion Books an imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd

  Carmelite House, 50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  An Hachette UK Company

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  Copyright © Jamie Fewery 2018

  The moral right of Jamie Fewery to be identified as the

  author of this work has been asserted in accordance with

  the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

  stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the

  above publisher of this book.

  All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance

  to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is

  available from the British Library.

  ISBN (Export Trade Paperback) 978 1 4091 7903 0

  Typeset at The Spartan Press Ltd,

  Lymington, Hants

  Printed and bound by Clays Ltd,

  Elcograf S.p.A.

  www.orionbooks.co.uk

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  For Alice.

  Thank you for all the love, support and courage

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  PROLOGUE

  It wasn’t supposed to be a special evening. That, Tom assumed, would

  be tomorrow. On the actual day: 21st June. Ten years since they had

  met and walked home together in the small hours through the quiet,

  early-summer London streets.

  But when Tom opened the door to the flat they shared in West

  Hampstead, he knew right away that Esme had been planning this

  for a while. Everything was covered in her fingerprints. From the

  confetti, torn and chopped from pages of their favourite books and

  placed on top of the doorframe so that it would rain down on him

  as he stepped inside, and the hundreds of photos, clipped with tiny

  wooden pegs to brown string, so as to form a sort of pictorial bunting through the small hallway. To the album he could hear playing softly

  in the living room, the one they had danced to three years ago when

  they’d bought the place and it still smelled of the previous owner’s

  weed habit and boxer dog. Making Movies by Dire Straits – the only CD he could find in the forty or so boxes that dominated their small

  flat for months after they moved in.

  ‘Hello?’ he called out, dropping his bag at the foot of their coat

  rack and hanging up his lightweight black raincoat, still damp

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  from the summer shower he’d been caught in on the walk from the Overground station to Islay Gardens. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘In the lounge,’ she called back.

  The flat was so small that just three steps took Tom from the hallway

  into their living and dining room. Where Esme was waiting for him.

  She had dressed up, wearing a dark-blue cocktail dress and grey

  heels. Her face was made up just enough to accentuate her big,

  dark eyes and thin lips. Her mouth seemed ever ready to lift into

  a shining smile or collapse into a tearful frown. Her hair was in

  the pixie cut that had recently replaced her shoulder-length brown

  waves. Part of the ‘new Esme’ look she had decided to cultivate since

  her – their – difficult start to the year.

  ‘What’s all this, Es?’ he asked. ‘I thought we were just going to

  pack tonight.’

  ‘A surprise.’

  ‘Oh. So what, dinner?’

  ‘Not quite.’

  Tom looked around the room. A candle on the coffee table

  illuminated the off-white walls, the expensive wall clock showing

  7:03, and their couch, torn in strips down one side by their cat,

  Magnus, who had apparently never agreed with its deep red colour.

  In the corner she had set up their flimsy drop-leaf dining table for

  two. A bread basket sat in the middle, emulating a restaurant, and

  on Tom’s normal side was a small, wrapped gift. No more than a

  couple of inches square, and maybe a centimetre high.

  ‘Shit, Esme. I haven’t even wrapped your present yet,’ he said,

  feeling slightly guilty because a more accurate description would have been ‘haven’t even bought’. He was intending to do so tomorrow,

  before they set off west for their anniversary mini-break. She had

  booked a nice hotel in the Cotswolds on a whim. But for a while,

  celebrating their ten-year anniversary at all had been up in the air.

  Recently very little had gone as they’d wanted or planned.

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  ‘It’s not a present as such,’ she said. ‘Just an idea I had.’

  ‘An idea?’

  ‘Yes. Sort of. Tomorrow you’ll get your real present. Tonight, I’m

  giving you the gift of time travel.’

  She was being playful with him. Tom was sceptical.

  ‘Look, sit down. The first course is almost ready,’ she said.

  ‘Can I change first? You caught me off guard a bit and I look

  like shit,’ he said, glancing down at his tatty jeans (second-best pair), rain-soaked New Balance trainers and tired blue linen shirt. Along

  with everything else, he had been intending to sort out his hair

  tomorrow morning, getting the cheapest barber in North London

  to tidy his shapeless mop of brown hair and perhaps even trim his

  short, grey flecked beard.

  ‘Fine. But hurry up. You’re already late.’

  Tom wondered how he could possibly be late for something he

  didn’t know was happening, but said nothing as he hurried into

  their bedroom to find the white cotton Oxford shirt Esme liked him

  in, and a new pair of jeans to replace the ones he’d been wearing

  al day.

  Looking at himself in the mirror and trying to pluck out the

  nose hair that had been annoying him all day, Tom wondered why

  she had done all this – despite it being typically Esme. Had she

  discovered something?

  Tom shook the question from his head. He was determined not

  to spoil the night. It was too important for both of them. Instead, he took a deep breath, then made his way into the living room where

  she was waiting at the table
, smiling.

  ‘So,’ he said, taking his seat. ‘Are you going to tell me what all

  this is about, then?’

  ‘Open it.’

  ‘This?’ He picked up the small parcel, and started to pick away

  at the Sellotape as she beamed at him.

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  Inside was a small stack of Post-It notes, on the front of which was written: Our Life in a Day, with a small drawing of a clock, stuck at twelve. It could be midnight or midday. Tom leafed through the

  small yellow pages, expecting to find a story or a little sketched flick book. Things that would be characteristically thoughtful of Esme.

  But each note was blank, except for a time and another smaller

  drawing of the clock.

  ‘Sorry, Es,’ he said. ‘I’m not really getting it.’

  ‘It’s a game.’

  ‘A game?’

  ‘Yes. I made it up. An Esme Simon creation. Especially for Tom

  Murray.’

  ‘And what happens in this game?’

  ‘Well, if you play it right, over the next couple of hours you’ll

  revisit every significant moment from the ten years we’ve spent

  together. You’ll experience every moment of us,’ she said, smiling at

  her own cleverness. ‘You see what I mean now? Time travel.’

  ‘Right,’ he said. Tom was surprised. This was the kind of thing

  the Esme of a few years ago would’ve done. But it was somewhat

  out of character of her now. ‘And are there any rules to this . . .

  time-travel game?’

  ‘Just one. The instructions are on the back.’

  Tom turned the stack over. Esme had taped a folded up piece of

  A5 paper to the Post-Its. He unfurled it and began to read.

  Welcome to Our Life in a Day. A new game devised by Esme

  Simon, for Tom Murray, to celebrate our ten years together.

  Each Post-It note represents an hour. You have to think of

  twenty-four of the most significant moments of our life together.

  One for each hour of the day.

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  There is only one rule: the moment had to have taken place roughly during the hour shown on the note. For example:

  3–4 a.m. When Esme had to pick me up from Milton Keynes

  station because I’m an idiot and fell asleep on a train (March

  2011, if you remember?).

  The game is only complete when you have a moment for every

  note. At which point you will receive your prize . . .

  Have fun! Love you, Es xxxx

  Tom looked up at Esme, her face lit by the candle between them

  and a broad, satisfied smile. He hesitated for a moment.

  What did he consider the twenty-four most significant hours

  of his and Esme’s relationship to be? What about the hours she’d

  forgotten, or the things she didn’t even know about? The things she

  couldn’t know about?

  Tom’s palms were clammy and he could feel his heart begin to

  beat a little faster. This gift could mean more than she might ever

  have expected. But only if he was able to tell the whole truth.

  He glanced at the deck again, and then back up at Esme.

  ‘Ready?’ she said.

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  PART 1

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  CHAPTER ONE

  2 – 3 am

  THE NIGHT WE MET

  June 2007 – Stockwell, London

  ‘So when are you leaving, then?’

  ‘I didn’t say I’m actually going to go,’ Tom said.

  ‘You literally just did.’

  Tom shook his head.

  ‘ “Part of me thinks the problem is London. I might move to

  Edinburgh,” ’ she said, mimicking his voice. ‘Verbatim quote. Besides, you don’t actually know anyone there. All of your friends are either

  here or in Lowestoft.’

  ‘My grandparents live in Leith.’

  ‘Oh good! And you, a twenty-six-year-old man, will spend your

  weekends and evenings hanging out with people three times your

  age. Tell me, Tom, how’s your bridge game?’

  ‘I said I might go. It means I’m not sure about it.’

  ‘Jesus, you’re difficult.’

  ‘I know,’ he said sadly, leaning up against the chipped, light blue

  kitchen worktop, careful to avoid the slick of stale spilled beer, and taking a sip from his half-full can of warm Diet Coke.

  ‘Sorry,’ Annabel said, touching his arm in sympathy. ‘Probably

  shouldn’t have said that.’

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  Tom smiled. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could stick the party. The music was a terrible mix of nineties indie and execrable

  house courtesy of Ali’s friend Mem, who had offered his DJ skills for

  the evening, claiming that he had turned down a slot at Fabric to

  do so. The lounge was full of Ali’s ad agency workmates, who were

  doing lines of cheap cocaine off of a framed replica of Magritte’s

  Golconda that belonged to the landlord. While the ‘roof terrace’

  (or more accurately ‘the roof’) had been taken over by an amateur

  photographer, who was insisting that partygoers hold an empty frame

  in front of their faces for him to capture their portraits against a

  naff backdrop of the London skyline. And, worst of all, Tom was in

  a minority of two oddballs who’d chosen not to wear fancy dress,

  surrounded by upwards of fifty people dressed as Iron/Super/Bat/

  Spider/Bananaman, three as Wonder Woman and a bloke who’d

  covered himself in painted green sponge to become the Hulk – a

  decision he seemed to regret more with each passing hour.

  According to Annabel (herself dressed as someone called Jean

  Grey) the only other ‘normal’ at the party was Esme Simon: a friend

  of Ali’s and former girlfriend of his flatmate, Angry Matt – a drum-

  mer for a moderately successful hardcore rock band, whose relentless

  touring schedule meant he’d been absent from the flat for the last

  eleven months.

  Esme was pretty. Her hair was shoulder length, wavy and dark

  brown. Her eyes gave life not just to her face, but to her whole body.

  She hadn’t stopped smiling for the entire evening, despite the fact

  that she was wearing jeans, red Converse and a checked shirt, while

  all around her were poor facsimiles of the incredible, the amazing

  and the invincible.

  However, according to Annabel, who had noticed Tom looking

  at her, Esme was ‘not right for you’.

  ‘Hang on,’ Tom said. ‘One: why? Two: who said I was even

  interested in her anyway?’

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  ‘Right. One: she’s constantly upbeat. Unlike you. One-point-five: she’s too good.’

  ‘What do you mean, good? he said, echoing Annabel’s tone,

  making good sound a quality to be avoided rather than aspired to.

  ‘She does, like, child speech therapy or something. A nice thing.

  Devotes her life to helping others. You’re a sel
fish artiste.’

  ‘I’m not sure a covers-band-musician-slash-teacher could be

  termed an artiste. But fine. Anyway. I don’t see how those particular

  two types of people are incompatible.’

  Annabel sighed. Tom could tell she was preparing one of her

  well-meaning ‘lessons’. She was always looking out for him, which

  often meant telling him not to do certain things. Though given

  recent events, that was probably fair enough.

  ‘Okay, what?’ Tom said.

  ‘It’s not just about whether you’d be a good fit. It’s whether this,’

  she said, obliquely gesturing at Esme then back at Tom, ‘would be

  a good idea. After everything.’

  ‘I think you’re reading far too much into a couple of exchanged

  glances at a party.’

  ‘I’m just saying my piece. I’d be a bad friend if I didn’t.’

  ‘And your piece is?’

  ‘That you’re too vulnerable. I know you think you’re alright now.

  But it’s barely been two months.’

  Tom said nothing. There was a little more than a kernel of truth

  in what Annabel was saying. But he had a long and not-too-proud

  history of ignoring the red flags friends and family raised on his

  behalf. For better or worse.

  ‘Don’t worry.’

  ‘I do worry. Because I can tell that you like her. You’ve only

  listened to half of what I’ve said when she’s in view.’

  ‘Who are you to judge, anyway?’

  Annabel sighed, visibly irritated by him.

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  ‘Tom. How long have I known you? Fourteen years?’

  ‘’Bout that.’

  ‘And during that time, how many functional relationships have

  you had?’

  ‘One. No, two.’

  ‘The correct answer is zero, Tom. Zero.’

  ‘You liked Tansy. Everyone liked Tansy.’

  ‘Except you.’

  Tom said nothing to this. It was, of course, perfectly true. Tansy

  had been his first serious girlfriend, in a relationship lasting just six months of the early noughties. Like Annabel and himself, Tansy was

  from Lowestoft on the Suffolk coast. Her parents ran a doughnut

  and tea stand on the pier, which was rumoured to reuse teabags up

  to three times during the lean winters when holidaymakers were

  scarce. Tom and Tansy had met at sixth-form college, struck up a

  frosty friendship, based mainly on ribbing each other before, during

  and after lessons. Eventually the friendship became a relationship,