Time and Again

Extract

Maggie stopped. She had been wandering aimlessly with no route planned or destination in mind and yet, perhaps through coincidence or that old nonsense fate, or perhaps because her feet had a mind of their own, she now found herself in a very familiar spot. The little cowshed looked exactly as it had back when she had first seen it. This was the place where she and Tom had planned to meet, that meeting which in the end neither of them had attended. How different might her life – their lives – have been? If only she could turn the clock back.
She realised now she had been unconsciously avoiding this place since her arrival. It had been the one place she had most wanted to visit, the one she felt the most drawn to, and yet she knew what feelings it would bring up in her. Of regret, of guilt, of a life that could have been hers if only things had been different. Those feelings were there to be sure, the instant she laid eyes on the unassuming shed that meant so much in her personal history. But they remained only for the instant. They were replaced by a warm glow she hadn’t anticipated. This was, in a way, the single place on earth in which she had been happiest, and how could she look on it with anything but fond memories? Things hadn’t worked out as they were supposed to and nothing could change that, but equally nothing could change what had happened here. To be happy, if only for a brief while, is still worth something. Better to have loved and lost.
That had been the message of Magnus’s film, she now recalled, Time and Again. Better to love and lose again and again, better to suffer that separation over and over than to have never known the love of your life. And who in that situation would make a different choice? To part was always a wrench, but to love made it worthwhile. And there was always a chance this time it might work out. And what was life without taking the occasional chance?
“You too?”
Maggie started around and saw Tom approaching, hands in his pockets against the chill.
“I didn’t mean to end up here,” said Maggie. “I just did.”
“This is the first time I’ve been back up here,” said Tom.
Perhaps that should have surprised Maggie, since he had been living in the village for much of the intervening time, but she thought she probably would have done the same. He had thought he had let her down by not showing up, just as she had thought she had hurt him. Nobody wanted to be reminded of something like that. In fact they had just hurt themselves.
“Me neither.”
“Well, you’ve been busy faking a major archaeological discovery,” smiled Tom.
An icy wind blew and Maggie shivered as she smiled back.
“Do you want to go inside?” asked Tom.
“I guess we should now we’re here.”
Neither of them seemed very enthusiastic about the idea but in they went.
“I walked in on Magnus and Lisa talking,” said Tom, as they seated themselves on a convenient hay bale and took in their surroundings. “I don’t think the ‘getting an appeal’ side of the plan is going that well.”
“We got carried away with the fun bit,” said Maggie.
“What part of this has been fun?”
Maggie just looked at him and Tom smiled.
“Alright, yeah. Most of it has been fun.”
The unfinished thought that hung in the air between them was that even the stuff that hadn’t been fun (endless article writing for example) had been fun because of whom they were with.
“What happens if we don’t get the appeal do you think?” asked Maggie, more to keep the conversation on safe ground than out of curiosity.
“I guess the land is sold and we get a supermarket or some blocks of flats.”
“I meant what happens to us?”
“Us?” Was that hope she could hear in his voice as he uttered that single syllable.
“On the matter of defrauding the press.”
“Oh that.” Tom shrugged. “Not sure that anyone will care.”
“What if we’re successful?”
“Then people might care,” admitted Tom. “And we might end up doing some jail time.”
Maggie shook her head. “We really didn’t think this through.”
“It all seemed like fun.”
“Still, we’d have saved the village.”
“There is that.”
“You don’t sound too happy about it,” ventured Maggie.
“I don’t think it’s going to happen,” said Tom. “Red tape and big business always win.”
“And I thought you hadn’t changed,” said Maggie. Tom had never been a pessimist protestor, he had always believed in his own ability to change the world for the better. It was strange to hear such a downbeat prognosis from him.
“I learnt things don’t always go the way they’re supposed to.”
Maggie thought about this. Of course she had learnt the same thing and she had learnt it in the same way, and perhaps a week ago she would have said the same as Tom. But now…
“You know what?” Maggie spoke. “Just because your life doesn’t go the way you imagined it would doesn’t mean it goes badly. It can be equally good. Just different.”
Tom smiled. “I like that.”
“Do you think it’s true?”
“I do.”
Their eyes met and suddenly it was as if the intervening years had never happened. Their eyes had met then too, smiling brown eyes looking into unflinching green ones. The time fell away and they were two young people caught in a cowshed during a rainstorm, who had argued until they were hoarse, and then been unable to resist the powerful attraction that crackled between them.
They kissed. And again the years fell away. It didn’t matter how much had changed, in that moment nothing had changed, not where it mattered. The way they felt about each other was as powerful and as irresistible now as it had been back then.