Chapter Text
“I’m going to make you so happy. I promise…”
Beep… Beep… Beep… Beep…
The incessant rhythmic beeping needled Helen’s ears and her sore head. Had she slept through her alarm again? No, that wasn’t her alarm clock. Was it the fire alarm? Nothing was burning, though there was a overpowering smell of disinfectant and cleaning agents. A hospital? Everything was confused. Helen didn’t know where she was. All she knew was every inch of her was aching as if she had been hit by a van and then gutted like a fish.
No… like she’d fallen down the stairs.
The stairwell.
Helen had gone to the apartment of the Chairwoman for an interview for a PR job, only to find it was cruel trick. There was no job. It had all be a ruse by none of than Cruella de Vil’s evil sister – Lydia – to get her and Gerry there to do what the sad, spineless wanker didn’t have to balls to do: admit he had been having an affair for months with Lydia and had gotten her pregnant as well as Helen.
Every clue of his deception flashed through Helen’s mind – The Waterford crystal brandy glass – all those trips to the library – asking her to come with him to Dorset when he knew she wouldn’t be free what with holding down two jobs to support them – the noise in the hotel – the spontaneous guilt gift of flowers – phone calls from “Russell.”
The whole realisation had enveloped her. The lies, the gaslighting, the deceit, the humiliation.
Love is blind, but was Helen truly that blind?
And to add insult to serious injury, she had lost her baby. Helen could feel it… because she couldn’t feel it anymore.
She wanted to cry, if only the anaesthetic immobilising her body would let her express her grief with glass-shattering feeling.
And yet someone was crying. Someone was holding her as they sobbed softly near her head.
Gerry?
It didn’t smell like Gerry. It didn’t feel like Gerry.
Helen turned her head towards the sound, their foreheads brushing and forced her eyes open.
The man sniffled and raised his face to hers.
Definitely not Gerry.
Bright blue eyes, red from crying, gazing into her own to the depths of her soul, looking at her like she had just answered his prayers.
‘Helen?’ he whispered, his Scottish brogue like velvet silk. That voice... ‘Oh my god. Nurse –’ he twisted round to his seat to call urgently behind him, ‘Nurse! Can we get some help, please!’
He retuned his attention to Helen, stroking her hair, which Helen could feel was much shorter.
‘Helen? Can you hear me, my darling?’
His darling?
‘I’m… I’m sorry, I –’ Helen began weakly, feeling woozy.
‘No, no, no, don’t be sorry, Helen. This was my fault, all my fault. I should’ve let you cross the road safely. Christ, I should’ve let you use my phone to call Anna.’
‘Anna?’
Was Anna here? Maybe she could explain what was happening.
‘She’s on her way. She’ll be here soon. Oh, Helen. I was so afraid I’d lost you, too.’ He gently rested his hand on top of Helen’s, which was resting on her stomach. ‘How long had you known about the baby?’
‘Not long…’ said Helen honestly.
‘Was that what you were going to tell me? I’m really sorry, Helen. Truly.’
‘You weren’t to know. Gerry didn’t, how could you have known?’
For the first time, the man seemed to register that he and Helen weren’t on the same page, his eyes searching her face.
‘Did Anna tell you?’
The man was slowing going pale. ‘Helen? Please tell me you know who I am.’
Helen looked at the him, taking in every detail. Black hair. Beautiful blue eyes. An accent you wouldn’t soon forget. In a way he seemed almost familiar. But Helen would definitely remember him. And she didn’t. Which was a pity, because he seemed like someone really nice.
‘Who are you?’
A look of utter devastation crashed over him. But neither of them could say or do anything as the doctors and nurses had re-entered the hospital theatre and the dark-haired handsome stranger – “Mr Hammerton” – was being taken outside so that they could look after Helen. His eyes never left her face and they continued to stare at her through the window with heart-wrenching yearning, his fingertips pressed to the pane, looking as if they were separated by more than glass.
Settled in a private room, dressed in her grey dressing gown, Helen had been staring at her reflection in the mirror in her hands for a full twenty minutes. She was blonde! Chopped and bleached blonde! She had cuts on her cheek and forehead from where she had fallen. How much time had she lost?
A lot it would seem; for apparently she had left Gerry and had been living with Anna, was running her own PR company, and had been seeing and was now engaged to Mr Hammerton. And the baby she had lost in this version of reality was his.
Helen was overwhelmed, like sitting an exam she hadn’t prepared for. Or been thrust onto stage to perform a play she hadn't rehearsed.
‘I don’t understand,’ she said shakily. ‘I don’t remember any of this. And where’s Gerry?’
‘Either gone off to lick his wounds or cooking up some way to ruin his other bairn’s life,’ said Anna contemptuously. ‘So, you don’t remember the last few weeks since you found out he was cheating on you? The day you lost your job?’
Helen shook her head. ‘I only found out tonight.’
Anna glanced worriedly at “Mr Hammerton”, who sat down in the chair next to Helen’s bed, the distance between them as wide as the Grand Canyon.
‘What do you remember?’ he asked her, his calm voice putting her at ease.
Helen closed her eyes, trying to hold on to what was real in her head. Maybe hoping to wake up from this nightmare. But then she would be returning to a living nightmare. Which fate, which reality, was more preferable?
‘Um… I went to work. On the way I bought more bottles of vodka to replace the ones I… borrowed without permission, but had every intention to supersede. I got sacked for it. Then I missed my train –’
‘Wait, wait. Hold. You missed the train? You’re sure?’
‘Yes, I’m sure! Embankment Underground! I got mugged trying to hail a cab and had to go to the hospital for stitches!’
‘So, you wouldn’t have arrived home in time to catch Gerry in bed with Lydia,’ said Anna.
Helen shook her head, trying to not let her imagination conjure up the image of Lydia straddling Gerry like Lady Shagging Godiva. She would've beaten the shit out of him if she had.
‘I think we’ve reached the fork in the road,’ said Mr Hammerton. ‘Go on, Helen. What happened to you after that?’
Helen continued. ‘Gerry took me out for drinks and curry. I had to get a two jobs working at the restaurant and the sandwich bar to keep a roof over our heads. Gerry was acting weird. Always at the library. I actually followed him, but he really did go there.’
‘Well, Helen, you’re hardly a ninja,’ said Anna. ‘And if you nearly caught him once, he’d want to cover his tracks.’
‘He went with Lydia to Dorset. He asked me, knowing I wouldn’t be able to. That was who I heard screaming on the phone. Then he came back early with flowers for me.’
‘Oh, that’s nice,’ said Mr Hammerton fairly.
Anna scoffed. ‘Gerry never gets Helen flowers when he’s meant to, let alone when he’s not meant to.’
‘Ah.’
‘Then I found out I’m… was pregnant. Anna and I celebrated with a drink – which was when I discovered you don’t drink brandy, Anna, because it makes you vomit. So I asked Gerry straight out if he was having an affair. Either he’s a really good liar or he was no longer seeing “her” which made it easier to lie by telling me the truth. I went to the apartment for the PR interview. Gerry was there… with Lydia. And she told me she was having Gerry’s baby. I ran. Gerry grabbed me on the stairs. And slipped and I fell… And then I woke in this… parallel universe?’
Anna and Mr Hammerton looked at each other, neither really knowing what to say.
Helen covered her prickling eyes with her hand. ‘Send in the men with the white coats.’
‘I’ll go get you some tea,’ said Anna gently, going outside.
This left Helen and Mr Hammerton alone together.
‘I’m really sorry, Helen,’ he said. ‘I can’t imagine how scary and confusing all this must be to you.’
Helen sniffed. ‘You think I’m mad, don’t you?’
Mr Hammerton shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think you’re mad at all. I’m mean… it is outlandish, I must admit. But from the sounds of it… if our lives have been happening in parallel to each other, and then converge at the accidents, it’s almost as if your soul may have crossed over from a timeline where we never met.’
‘And your Helen’s crossed over to mine?’
Mr Hammerton’s eyes filled with tears and bowed his head, remembering the flatline.
Helen's heart sank. ‘Or she just crossed over…’
To lose the love of your life who you were going to marry and your baby in one night was too cruel a fate. Even worse to have them here but not here.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Hammerton.’
‘You don’t have to be sorry for something that happened to you, Helen.’
He got to his feet so abruptly that Helen started.
‘I should go. And you should get some rest.’
‘Oh.’ Helen felt almost disappointed.
‘You can call me if you need anything. OK?’
Mr Hammerton moved around the bed towards the door.
Helen didn’t know what to do, what to say. She didn’t want him to go, but she didn’t know him. And she didn’t feel like being the other woman, even though the other woman was herself.
Automatically, she made a motion as if to run her hand through her hair, forgetting she was shorn. The action dislodged her earring, which fell to the floor. Mr Hammerton stooped and picked it up, holding it out to Helen in a parody of a proposal.
Helen reached out to take it back. Their fingers brushing together.
Electricity.
In a flash, she saw again Mr Hammerton picking up her dropped earring in the lift and giving it to her… She saw her catching the train and sitting down next to him… chatting to each other on the way up from the Fulham Broadway Station… “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition”… Milkshakes at Fat Boy’s Diner… Dinner at Clive’s… Setting up her own PR company that launched Clive’s restaurant… The boat race with purple and white shirts… Their first kiss on a boat on the River Thames in view of Albert Bridge… Every kiss, every smile, every laugh, every touch, their bodies becoming one… Their misunderstanding leading to their break-up and make-up in the rain on her favourite bridge…
“This is almost certainly the worst segue in the history of romance but… I bought you something.”
He held up the ring box.
“A box,” said Helen.
“Yeah, well, you know – I was going to buy you a book, but Anna tells me you’ve already got one.”
They looked deeply at each other.
“Permission to engage the enemy, Sir?”
Helen looked at him, making a life decision. “Granted.”
They smiled and kissed, falling into each other’s arms.
Then they were walking arm-in-arm down the street, before Helen stopped and stood in front of him, holding his collar.
“James… There’s something I have to tell you.”
“What?”
Helen saw the phone box across the street. “Actually, I should just phone Anna and tell her I’m OK.”
“Mind if I stay here? She scares me. What do you want to tell me?”
“Wait there. I’ll tell you in a minute. See if you can find somewhere to sit.”
She kissed him deeply, staring lovingly into his eyes. She walked out into the road. Behind her James called to her:
“Helen?”
Halfway across the road she turned to look back at her fiancé and the father of her child.
James smiled. “I love you.”
Helen returned the smile as the squealing sound of a vehicle came behind her. Then the smile on James face vanished to be replaced by a look of abject terror –
“HELEN!!!!”
The blare of a horn, blinding headlights, the screech of tyres and a sudden impact.
So that was how Helen Quilley’s story ended in this life. Fate was cruel. Why give her the better path, why give her James, and then end it before it had already begun? And so brutally? Unless that was the point… in seeing that other life, she could see things will get better. She had reached her lowest point and now there was only up from here. She could have a career, an extended circle of great friends, and the love of a truly good man. She could be happy.
Helen put a hand to her chest, feeling an overwhelming sense of déjà ressenti, before she realised that her future happiness was heading for the door.
‘Wait,’ she said.
Unaware of her epiphany and lost in his own grief, James Hammerton reached for the doorhandle.
‘James, wait,’ Helen pleaded. She couldn't bear another what-if scenario if she just let him leave.
James froze. This other Helen had never used his name before. He stared at her reflection in the glass window of the door, as if seeing her from another world. Through the looking glass. She wasn’t his Helen, and yet there was a spark of his Helen in her eyes that hadn’t been there a moment ago.
James looked back. ‘Helen?’
‘I… I remember.’
James could barely breathe, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
‘I… I saw the life we had here, if only I had caught the train.’ Helen bit her lip. ‘I don’t know where we go from here. I don’t want to be a confusion in your life, James. I would never dream of replacing Helen – me – us? I don’t –’ Helen groaned hopelessly. ‘Oh, help.’
This was a disaster.
James returned to her bedside. ‘What do you need?’
Helen placed her hand on his. ‘You.’
James smiled and placed his other hand on top of hers. ‘You’ll always have me,’ he promised. ‘We’ll figure it out, Helen. One day at a time.’ He wiped a happy tear from her cheek. ‘Remember what the Monty Python boys say?’
Helen rolled her eyes. ‘Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.’
They shared a tearful chuckle and settled into companiable silence. By the time Anna returned with the tea, Helen and James were resting their foreheads together and holding hands. She had no idea what had happened while she had been away, but something told her they would be just fine.