by the discolouration brought by time. The hard-to-get-to and so
rarely hoovered corners of the room looked dirty and unkempt –
Tom’s shoddy work installing faux-wood skirting boards shown up
for what it was. The swirled Artex ceiling they’d never replaced was
now adorned with a single energy-efficient lightbulb.
‘I’d offer you a tea but I’ve just packed up the kettle.’
‘No problem. Last thing in, first thing out, eh?’
260
Our-Life-text-pp.indd 260
10/09/2018 17:07:32
‘Sorry?’
‘The kettle. Last thing in, first thing out. Always the way.’
‘Oh. Yes.’
‘Anyway. These things tend not to take that long. We’d probably
be done before it boils,’ Will said, failing to grasp the profundity of the day. ‘Just you, is it?’ he said, pul ing out three sheets of paper from his sparsely filled wallet.
‘Yes. Just me.’
‘Good good. So if you could just sign where the Xs are, that
would be perfection,’ he said, watching Tom rest the papers on his
knee to sign. ‘Then here for the maintenance,’ he pointed. ‘And this
one for the keys. Two sets, is it?’
Tom nodded, a little shell-shocked by the speed and heartlessness
of the process. Estate agents rarely afforded it the same importance
as their customers, and Will Mercer of Alder Estates was no different
in this regard.
‘Well, if you get them together, I’ll do my bits and give you the
copies.’
The keys were both on the pale blue tiled windowsill in the
kitchen, next to a large crack Esme used to cover with a permanently
dying basil plant.
He handed over the keys.
‘Thanking you,’ Will said, cheerfully. ‘Got a nice couple moving
in. Jack and Sooz. Spelled with a double O.’
Tom forced a smile at Will, who oddly seemed to now be waiting
for Tom to leave.
‘Do you need a moment? Say goodbye to the place and all that.’
‘No,’ Tom said after a second. ‘I should be fine,’ turning away
towards the kitchen.
‘Oh. Don’t forget this,’ Will said, holding up a dust pan and
brush. ‘Everyone always forgets something.’
Tom thanked Will and shook his hand, before picking up the last
261
Our-Life-text-pp.indd 261
10/09/2018 17:07:32
box from the kitchen and taking it out to the van. He pulled out a white shoebox and took it with him into the cab of the Transit. The
Esme box. He had planned to look through it before he left, but
Will’s early arrival scuppered the plan.
Inside was a stack of gig tickets, photographs, cheap holiday
mementos, and postcards. Most of the keepsakes were of a time
or occasion he could now remember little detail about. Esme had
a box, too – full of the exact same stuff. On the most basic level it
was ridiculous paraphernalia to keep around – and yet all impossible
to throw away.
Tom pushed a reel of fairground tokens to one side and found
what he was looking for. A small stack of Post-It notes, now a little
battered from months spent buffeting around in the bottom of his
satchel. Esme’s handwriting and drawing of a clock on the front.
The thing that nudged this new phase of their life into being. That
caused arguments and admissions. That made them both re-evaluate
their ten years together.
He began to flick through, wondering what the moments would
be. And about how lenient she would be about the exactness of time.
Tom had a decent enough memory, but he questioned how sure
he could be that it was precisely 4 a.m. that their tent caved in under the pressure of all that water on their disastrous camping trip. Maybe Esme could help him verify. Though more likely it was the moments
she was urging him to remember, not the exact time they took place.
He found himself thinking back to the night they had met in
Stockwell. Ali’s superhero fancy-dress party. The two of them the only ones to ignore the directive to turn up in costume. Esme because she
didn’t want to. Tom because he wasn’t sure if he’d make it past the
threshold. He thought back to how Annabel had encouraged him
to go and talk to her.
It’s Esme, right?
Right. And you’re Tom?
262
Our-Life-text-pp.indd 262
10/09/2018 17:07:32
The first words they spoke to each other. Fol owed by his terrible joke about shoes.
Instinctively, Tom knew it would be the first of the memories in
the game. But what else would join it?
Some hours would be easy to pick. Some would be a little harder.
After all, a life together can’t be solely defined by happy times, can it? Just as important are the challenges, the hardships that enable a
couple to develop the hard shell that sees them through the years.
His relapses into depression. Tamas’s death. The proposal. That night
in Liverpool.
He questioned whether or not it was possible to quantify the
moments that define a relationship while it is still in progress. Or
only once the line has been drawn under something, when it’s easier
to deconstruct.
Then again, he thought, maybe Esme knew that. Was she trying
to draw a line under something with the game?
Part of him wanted to screw the Post-Its up and throw them out
of the window. But instead he placed them in his jacket pocket. They
would go into the top drawer of his desk. A constant reminder of
what they had, and what he lost.
With one last look back at the house, Tom turned the ignition
on the van. A drivetime DJ was, for some reason, allowing a child
to introduce the six o’clock news. He changed the station, put the
van into gear, and drove away.
263
Our-Life-text-pp.indd 263
10/09/2018 17:07:32
Our-Life-text-pp.indd 264
10/09/2018 17:07:32
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
11 pm – Midnight
OUR LIFE IN A DAY – FINALLY
June 2018 – Barcelona
Tom took a seat on one of the benches on the northern part of La
Rambla Catalunya. All around him restaurants were beginning their
shutdown for the night, turning away late diners or trying to chivvy
out those taking their time. The city was still busy though: tourists
flitting from bar to bar or strolling idly back to hotels; street sellers stil trying to flog the occasional fake Barcelona shirt with MESSI 10
on the back. Locals peered out of high windows at the city below.
From inside his bag he pulled a padded envelope containing the
letter, the notebook, and, nestled at the bottom, the small stack of
Post-It notes that had sat in his desk drawer ever since he’d moved
out.
Until today, when they would return to the person who had
created them.
Our Life in a Day. Illustrated with those little clocks. The scrawled
introduction to the game on the crumpled A5 notepaper.
Tom held the deck of Post-Its, beaten at the edges. He leafed
through every one. All twenty-four hours.
Next was the notebook. He’d bought it especially for this. A bright
red leather thing containing page upon page of half-remembered
265
Our-Life-text-pp.indd 265
10/09/2018 17:07:33
conversations, notes, memories and things she’d told him. A selective history of their time together written hour by hour – as complete as
Tom’s memory would allow.
Aside from the occasional piece of sheet music, it was probably
the only thing Tom had handwritten in years. And now he finally
had some time to spare, he began to read through the entries.
Was this it? Everything? The definitive list? It had taken him
a several months to compile it – and pages of scrap paper full of
potential additions and removals. Entire lists of twenty-four moments
that were different from the ones he now held in front of him.
Most of the hours he had thought about adding were happy
moments. But that kind of list would be dishonest – to him, to her,
to them.
No, this was it. Tom was fairly sure that he was more or less
accurate on the times these things happened. And as he had compiled
the final list that morning, sitting in a café in Barcelona’s Gothic
Quarter giving each hour a reference on the relevant Post-It note,
Tom had found profound joy and deep melancholy in reliving his
life with Esme Simon.
But the game wasn’t done yet. There was one hour left to com-
plete.
He checked his watch. Only twenty minutes until what would
have been their eleventh anniversary.
To occupy the time, Tom reached into his bag and took out
her letter. It had arrived at the end of January, almost six months
after they had left their home in West Hampstead. Delivered to the
one-bedroom flat he was renting in an old Georgian townhouse near
Charlotte Square in Edinburgh.
He remembered finding it in the cluttered mail tray shared by all
four flats; the initial shock at seeing her handwriting; the butterflies he felt at what might be inside.
And the bitter sadness at what he knew it would be.
266
Our-Life-text-pp.indd 266
10/09/2018 17:07:33
He had taken it back to his little kitchen/living room/diner, sitting down to read as Scottish rain beat hard against the rattling
windows of the flat.
Dear Tom,
You asked me why. Why we couldn’t carry on. Why I
couldn’t move past it.
At the time I couldn’t adequately answer, or put into words
how I felt. All I knew was that it was wrong for me to feel
the way I did about you and that a big part of the thing that
made us us died that day. And once that thing was gone I
didn’t think we’d ever be able to get it back.
Now with a little distance I know I was right. As awful as
it was at the time, we made the best decision, if not the easiest.
I can also tell you why I decided that it was the end.
There was always something that bound us together. In
hindsight, I suppose it was honesty. Sometimes it took you a
little while to tell me things about your past and who you were.
But I never thought for a moment that you’d keep things from
me like you did. It might not sound like much now it’s written
down. Though the more I think about it, the more I realise
that it was our cornerstone. When that went, we went with it.
There was no other choice for us, Tom. I’m really sorry about
that. Sometimes love isn’t enough. No matter how much we
hope it is.
Anyway. I don’t want this to be a sad letter. I want to say
some nice things about you, too. In the hope that you’re moving
on and having a good life. Because you deserve it.
Now listen up, Tom Murray. You are an excellent person.
You are kind and funny and good hearted. You are a bit
disorganised and ramshackle, but in an entirely lovely way. And
you aren’t bad looking, as they go.
267
Our-Life-text-pp.indd 267
10/09/2018 17:07:33
For ten years you made me very happy. And while I know it was very sad when that stopped, ten years is a bloody long
time! Ten years is two and a half World Cups. Six super moons.
Eighty bank holidays. You literally made me happy for a month
of Sundays. (Can you tell I’ve been Googling?)
What I am trying to say is that you don’t make someone
happy by accident. You do it because you are wonderful. The
fact that we didn’t make it doesn’t change a thing about that.
Before I sign off, I want to say one last thing. That day, in
the Cotswolds, when it became clear it was over, you told me
that I was your reason to live, and that made me angry and
upset. I now know what I should have said is that YOU are
your reason to live, Tom.
You are.
Please don’t ever forget that.
So be happy. Be content. Fall in love again. Bloody hell, you
can even get married if you want to! (Joke. Too soon?)
Miss you.
Love you.
Esme x
Tom inhaled deeply, folding the letter and placing it back in his
bag. The first time he’d read it, he had spent the next hour in tears, lying on the couch, reading her words over and again until they
were almost memorised. Since then, he’d been through it a hundred
times or more, the heartbreak it elicited gradually reducing with each read as he tried to compose a suitable reply. His bin quickly filled
up with screwed-up balls of paper – all abandoned letters back to
Esme. Nothing worked. No combination of words was sufficient.
Until that morning, when he had risen early for a run around
Parc de Joan Miró, before returning to the Airbnb apartment to
finally write back to her.
Our-Life-text-pp.indd 268
10/09/2018 17:07:33
Checking his watch, Tom saw that he still had a few of minutes left of the hour. He took his letter out from the envelope and looked
over it one last time, then copied it into the notebook under 11 p.m.
to midnight.
Esme,
Thank you for the letter. And sorry it’s taken me so long to
reply. To tell you the truth, for a long while I couldn’t find the words.
Then I realised that maybe a letter wasn’t the right answer
anyway.
So here goes something else.
Today – as I sit here reading my own awful handwriting –
would’ve been our 11th anniversary. Exactly one year ago, you
gave me a little stack of Post-It notes, a game called Our Life
in a Day. A game that we never played.
Well, I finally played it, Es.
Inside this envelope you’ll find it all. A notebook full of my
scrawls. Our Life in a Day . Eleven years (!!!) of us. The good bits, the bad bits, the fun bits and the hard bits.
A not-so-new game by Esme Simon, finally completed by
Tom Murray.
I think I’ve picked the right twenty-four. You might
disagree. Either way, doing this – playing your game – has
made me realise that as well as saying sorry for what became of
us, I need to say something else:
Thank you, Esme.
Thank you for every happy moment, every kindness, every
time you made
me feel better about myself and every special
moment we shared together. It might sound corny (probably
is), but you made me a better person. Whatever else happened
between us, I will always love you for that.
269
Our-Life-text-pp.indd 269
10/09/2018 17:07:33
In your letter you said you hoped I was happy, that I was moving on. Well, I am pleased to say that I am getting there.
This year I went back to university (no, not the same one). I
am going to finish what I started fifteen years ago and actually
become a proper qualified music teacher. No more dodgy jobs
and gigging around. Tom Murray is growing up (finally).
More importantly, I want you to know that I’m well. I’m
happy. I see a counsellor every week. I talk to people when I
need to. I’m accepting who I am and what I have. I don’t think
I would’ve done any of that without you.
You probably know there are a million things I could’ve
done differently. One for every minute in the day. I could’ve
talked more, shared more, done more. I’m trying not to regret
things, Es. But there’ll always be one thing in the back of my
mind.
That morning, after Ali’s party. We were on your doorstep
and I almost shared it all. Everything. I always think how
different things might’ve been if I had.
Maybe everything would be the same. Maybe it wouldn’t.
Either way, I know that I lost you, you didn’t lose me.
Anyway. All I have left to say is that I love you. And I
will always love you. I hope you are happy and thriving and
wonderful. The world is a good place with Esme Simon in it.
Love,
Tom x
The hour was almost up.
Tom dropped the stack of Post-Its into the envelope. Then closed
the notebook. Across the front he wrote: OUR LIFE IN A DAY.
FINALLY. And placed it inside, sealing the flap shut. He knew she would read every word. But what would she think? Part of him was
270
Our-Life-text-pp.indd 270
10/09/2018 17:07:33
desperate to talk to her about it. Another part didn’t ever want to know.
As the watch on his wrist buzzed, Tom got up from the bench,
took the envelope to the post box across the square and, with one
last check of the stamp and Esme’s new address in Dulwich, he
pushed it inside.
He looked down at his watch just as the hour changed.
It was the start of another day.