Joe and Dianne Through The Looking Glass

Chapter 9 - Samba Week

Alice sighed, picked up the damp cloth and began to wipe the counter. The after school rush had finally fizzled out; the last gingerbread teddy leaving the café in the sticky clasp of an alarmingly self-possessed five year old and Alice relished the silence which had descended on the room. Her head felt like it was buzzing with a tangle of unprocessed thoughts and she needed a bit of time to unpick them. Foremost in her mind was the absence of her mysterious couple. Since they had disappeared into the taxi the previous Monday, just like a fairy tale come true, there had been no sign of them in the café at all. It was as if their magical transformation into a prince and princess had marked the end of the story and they had been whisked back into the story book from which they had originally been released. She had considered asking the other two women who worked shifts in the café if they had seen them but couldn't get her head round how to even start this enquiry without sounding more than a little unhinged. Perhaps, she reasoned, she should feel satisfied with finally seeing them in decent clothes as a conclusion to her brief involvement in two stranger's lives but try as she might she just couldn't bring herself to draw a line in this way: there were too many unanswered questions, too many loose ends that didn't make sense....she didn't feel they had reached the end of their story yet and it felt unfinished and uncomfortable to be deprived of a proper ending. It was all a little disconcerting and this combined with the effect of reading The Time Traveler's Wife had made her feel a little detached from reality. Alice found that books which touched her deep down often made this kind of impact on her, like she had one foot in the real world and one in the book and sometimes it was hard to remember which world was the one in which she truly belonged. The Time Traveller's Wife had been one such book.

She had found herself looking forward to the meeting of the book group and last night had braved Louisa's immaculate townhouse with less anxiety and more confidence than previously. To her surprise, she had been greeted with enthusiasm and soon found herself explaining just why the book had touched her so greatly. Something in Henry and Clare's story had spoken to Alice. It had reminded her so much of what it had been like caring for Matthew, just like being married to a time traveller she had never quite known which version of Matthew she should expect each day. His dementia meant that one minute you were keeping company with a vulnerable child, the next a man who thought it was still 1960. Some days he wouldn't recognise her at all and would treat her like a frightening stranger but hours later he would be holding her hand and telling her that he'd always loved her. Just like Clare, she grew to long for and dread in equal measure the diminishing visits of the real Matthew. Holding him in her arms for the precious minutes when he was almost back to his old self was such a blessing but knowing that this might just be the last time was also a curse. As she tried to explain the parallels she had drawn with her own experience Alice felt tears begin to well up. Embarrassed, she had looked up to apologise to this room full of people she barely knew only to find acceptance and empathy echoed back at her. It was strange, Alice thought, that bonds could be built so quickly between people when everyone was willing to step out from behind the mask they were wearing and just be real for a few minutes.

The ping of the door brought her back to the here and now and Alice found herself face to face with the couple who had been occupying her thoughts. Back in their gym clothes and looking in need of both refreshment and a shower, the pair selected quite an array of snacks of the noticeably sugary variety and having collected their drinks sat down wearily at their usual table. The contrast with her last star dusted encounter with them couldn't have been more pronounced and it wasn't just the return of their scruffy appearance: that last evening they had looked like the world stretched out before them, theirs for the taking and yet now they looked somehow defeated. Alice realised she had never fully understood the expression "the weight of the world on their shoulders" until today. The two of them did truly look as if an extremely heavy weight was bearing down on them, as if some shared concern had finally caught up with them and they couldn't see a way out of the situation in which they found themselves. It was so unusual to see them downhearted that Alice was quite worried about them.