‘Oh, Henry, how did we manage to live such a lie?’ she sobbed.
‘A lie?’ repeated Henry.
Henry had never told a lie in his life.
‘What on earth do you mean?’ he asked, knowing the answer wouldn’t be forthcoming.
Imogen stood up, dropped the baby clothes onto the bed and opened the wardrobe door. Henry stared in amazement. He could see quite clearly from his place on the bed that inside the wardrobe were not their clothes, but instead their bedroom as it had been many years earlier.
Chapter Twenty-Three
‘Oh, right,’ said Henry.
Nothing surprised him any more, and it seemed quite natural for him to walk into his wardrobe and come face to face with himself many years earlier.
The bed was rumpled. Henry didn’t recognise the duvet cover at first and then he remembered. They’d bought it at Argos. It had been all they could afford. A flowery thing, which Henry had joked made their bedroom look like a B&B. The curtains were drawn but they were so flimsy that the light from an outside streetlamp seemed to flood the room. Henry had complained that the light woke him too early and Imogen had gone out and bought new curtains as soon as she had been paid. Henry always remembered that. They still had those curtains.
There’s a reason for all this, Henry thought, glancing at the clock on the bedside cabinet. It was two in the morning.
His younger self was sleeping soundly. He envied that Henry of many years ago. Not for him waking up dead, thought Henry. He looked content lying there with his arm draped over his wife. He stepped onto the new shag pile carpet, amazed at how clean it was. He hadn’t been aware of just how grubby it had become. One forgets, thought Henry. We really should get it professionally steamed when all this business is over. It must be full of germs. He was drawn back to the bed where Imogen stirred and moaned gently. His sleeping younger self grunted and then turned over. I’ve always been a good sleeper, Henry thought proudly. Imogen wrestled with the bedcovers and then sat bolt upright in bed, her eyes wide and alarmed.
‘Can you see me?’ he asked excitedly.
Imogen clenched her stomach and bit hard on her lip as though to stop herself from crying out.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Henry.
Imogen turned to the younger Henry lying beside her and then crept carefully from the bed. Henry looked into her young unlined face. Her hair was tangled and hung messily around her face, but it didn’t mar her prettiness. How we’ve both changed, thought Henry, glancing back at the sleeping Henry with his full head of hair. Imogen leant over the side of the bed and let out a little sob.
‘Imogen, what’s wrong?’ Henry asked again.
Her face creased in pain and Henry felt useless. He turned to his younger self and tried to shake him awake but it was futile. Henry’s hand just flailed through thin air. He followed Imogen across the hall and into their pale green bathroom. Well, this hasn’t changed much at all, thought Henry. Aside from the towels being different, the room was identical to the one he’d taken his shower in this morning. Imogen fell onto the toilet seat, her face white and drawn.
‘Good heavens, what’s happening Imogen?’ Henry asked. ‘What can I do?’
Stupid question, he thought. Surely, he could do nothing now. This had already happened. It was totally out of his hands.
He walked back into the bedroom, but young Henry annoyingly was still sleeping, his snores filling the room. Do I still snore like that? Henry wondered. He ought to get his sinuses seen to if that were the case.
‘Oh, Henry,’ he sighed. ‘Why don’t you wake up?’
Back in the bathroom Imogen was kneeling on the floor staring into the toilet bowl, fear in her eyes. He followed her gaze and gasped at the sight of all the blood. As she knelt Henry saw the blood trickle down her thighs and splatter onto the floor, spilling into the cracks of the tiles
‘Oh no, Imogen what is it?’
He tried to grab her hand, to comfort her but it was fruitless. Imogen clung to the toilet bowl and wept. Henry sat beside her and allowed himself to weep also. Meanwhile, his younger self slept on, oblivious.
‘So much blood,’ said Henry, disturbed. ‘Did you see a doctor?’
He couldn’t remember Imogen ever being ill, apart from the odd headache and period cramp. She would sometimes get them quite badly.
A sudden memory flashed into his head.
‘Oh goodness,’ he muttered,
There was that time. Her period had been very heavy and painful. He’d completely forgotten about that. She’d said that perhaps she ought to go to the doctor and Henry had agreed. She had looked pale and tired, he remembered. She’d stayed home from work. Imogen never took time off work. It was a bad one, Henry had thought at the time and he’d then dismissed it from his mind as a woman problem and had promptly forgotten all about it. He’d never even asked her about the doctor visit and Imogen hadn’t mentioned it. The days continued as normal and Henry had never given it another thought, until now.
‘My baby,’ Imogen moaned as though she knew Henry was beside her.
