Page 60 of I Know How This Ends

It’s cold, gray, gloomy.

I’m in my big pink coat, but I’ve had it years: wearing it every time it gets chilly. Even when Henry and I were still together.

He thought it was funny—as if I was trying to ward off what was coming with my sartorial choices—but I didn’t care. I would

wear my pink coat as often as I could, even when it was too warm for a coat, and I wear it still.

Just in case.

But my mind is elsewhere now: on other things.

I’m fifty-one, and my parents are getting old. My father’s sight is failing too, but we’re managing it. He’s inherited the

Alexa, the Kindle, the funny kettle, chopping board and giant TV remote with the huge buttons. He also has my mother, who

has remained sprightly and defiant and a little bit rude in the face of old age, so I guess that’s something to hold on to.

Winter is the beautiful young woman I knew she’d become—studying to be a vet, as she had determined—and remains my girl, my

soul, my whole heart. (She still has her panda, and sleeps with it when nobody is around.)

Eve eventually fell in love with and married one of Henry’s best friends—Sebastian, the one who wasn’t a doctor, who turned up at the pub all those years ago to watch me screech at Jules—and Gus is now a handsome young man with no spots, no basement, no computer games: just excellent manners and a huge extended family who love him immensely.

Polly left Peter a month after we started the show, and her children became part of the gang of smaller family members, Posy immediately bonding with Winnie, and the two older girls followed adoringly everywhere by Gus, Perry, Paige and Abi, Lily’s doppelg?nger little girl with bright red plaits.

Lil and Aaron divorced years ago—when Abi was three—but she’s incredibly happy too and part of the group again as much as

she ever was: still posting on Instagram, an inspiration for a different generation, with pure silver hair and a wardrobe

strangers fight over. Aaron is still Aaron: he’s dating a pretty thirty-two-year-old. He still thinks he’s going to be a rock

star. No surprises there.

Cheds is an international superstar, ancient, grumpy as all hell and enormous, and I still love him to pieces, even if he

has taken to sleeping on top of my head at night again, which is decidedly less comfortable than it was when he was a kitten.

It’s Jules I worry about most. She had cancer a couple of years ago, and she seems to have recovered—fought as we all knew

Jules would fight, swearing, with two fingers up—but I don’t know for sure: I haven’t seen.

Everything came true.

Every single vision I had—and continued to have—played out exactly as I had been shown. My grandfather died on New Year’s

Eve, peacefully, in his sleep, but not before he had met Henry and Winter and he finally got that walk. We took him to Brandon

Hill, to our special bench. He saw my happiness, just as he had said, and gave Winnie the final pull-out from his very last

calendar: the blackbird. She still has it; it’s on her wall at Bristol University. (Henry was thrilled, mostly because she

stayed close to home.) I think she knew, somehow, that even though she only met him once, my grandfather—this incredible,

magical human—was special. Not just to me, although obviously that too, but to everyone. That the light and joy and warmth

he had brought to the world wouldn’t leave just because he had.

And when Henry and I married—in those fields, surrounded by yellow and purple—I could feel my grandfather again: watching me.

I wondered, briefly, if maybe it was real.

If, somehow, one of his visions had connected him to me further than he was supposed to go: as if he had seen my happiness

there too. “ Maybe sometimes even when they’re gone ,” he’d said, and I thought about it a lot.

Because he was right again: Henry and I were happy .

So, so happy, for so, so long. What we had at the start—what had felt so strong, so immediate, as if it couldn’t get any better—just

grew deeper over the years, the roots of ourselves entwining around each other until they grew so thick, so solid, that it

felt like nothing could blow us over.

But it did.

As my job took off—as I slowly became one of the most recognizable faces on television, flying around the world, speaking

about rainbows at packed events—there was just less time to spend together. It was always, always the time. And as Henry got

through medical school again, started his residency at the hospital, graduated as a surgeon (mending lots of hearts, not just

mine) and began to make a mark on his profession as I knew he would, our daily schedules became totally opposite. Neither

of us wanted to make the other give up what they loved, so instead we held on. We started squabbling when we did see each

other—nit-picking, snapping, feeling tired and sad—and neither of us could find a way to stop.

Until Henry sat us down, three years ago now, and said what we both knew was coming: had known for a long time.

“It’s time,” he said.

“I know.” I put my head on his shoulder. “Right now?”

“Not right now. Next week, maybe.” He kissed the top of my head. “We have to let go before we start hating each other, Meg.

You know that. If we’re going to give us any chance later, we have to do it now.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes.

Over the years, I had seen so many more visions—they’d started again as soon as we got back together—but none of them went past that last one, the one I’d told him about.

I’d seen Winter leave home and Henry graduate university with a first, top of his class (I didn’t tell him—not only had I promised, but he’d have been too smug).

I’d seen our fights—the big ones, and the little ones, some of which I brought up again before they’d even happened—and I’d seen Henry worry with me when Jules got sick, and me grieve with him when he lost his mum.

I didn’t tell him about that either: didn’t tell him to spend more time with her.

I didn’t need to. Henry had always lived his life as if it could all be over at any minute.

It was one of the things I loved most about him.

Love.

Because it’s still there: the love. Still wrapped around me, like roots.

It just couldn’t hold us up anymore.

“No regrets?” Henry had turned to me. “Not even now?”

We’d tried so hard to have a baby—even though I knew it wasn’t going to happen, had tried to warn him; he’d refused to listen—but

in the end, it didn’t seem to matter as much as it once did, for either of us. We were surrounded by children constantly—Winter,

Gus, Abi, Posy, Paige, Perry. All the love we had we poured into them, into each other, and it was enough.

With Henry, it was always, always enough.

“None.” I smiled at him. “You?”

“Nope.” He paused. “Actually—yes. We didn’t eat enough Italian food.”

We both started giggling.

“Oh,” I said. “I think we probably did.”

But that was three years ago now, and I’m not thinking about it as much anymore.

I still miss him, but I’m thinking about my stupid new haircut—everyone says it looks chic, but I’m sorry, I do not carry it off—and I’m thinking about my big offer of a new position as head of a children’s TV network.

I’m thinking about Jules—is she going to the scans like she says she is?

—and about Eve: she needs to worry less about running the entire school.

I’m thinking about my brand-new boots, which—frankly—are hurting like hell.

I’m thinking very, very guiltily about when was the last time I saw my parents: some things never change.

“Margot the Meteorologist!” I hear an excited squeak behind me. “It’s Margot the Meteorologist! Oh my gosh, can we have a

selfie?”

With gritted teeth, I close my eyes.

I’m fifty-one bloody years old, I do not want a selfie when I’m trying to get home before my ankles burst into blood blisters.

“Hello!” I turn round with a warm, welcoming smile: practiced, over the years. “Of course you can!”

Two fully grown adult women (they must have been children when I first started out—God I feel old ) take a selfie with me. I glance at it and make another mental note: stupid, stupid hair. Grow it out, immediately, Margot.

“Can you say it?” They stand in front of me, excited. “Just once? For us.”

“Together we will take the world by storm,” I say with a small smile, and they cheer.

Then they leave, waving, and I suddenly feel a little dizzy. Nauseous. As if the ground is starting to move. I look down at

my coat—alpaca, I know that now—and touch it with my hand. I look a little further down at my new boots: they were, in fact,

bloody expensive. Too expensive. An absolute travesty of a decision. And that’s when it starts: that feeling of déjà vu. I’ve

had it so many times, over the years, I became almost blasé about it. But not recently. Not since the big break-up: the real

one. This time, it feels new again. Scary, again.

I look down at my hand: my grandfather’s emerald, glinting.

It’s a hand I recognize—my hand, smaller, older—but I see it as if it’s new and I can feel Margot now: Other Margot. The person

I used to be. She’s here and I’m not scared anymore.

Curious, I turn toward my reflection in a shop window.

There I am, and I feel Margot’s shock: her horror at what we have become. Alright , I whisper to her in my head with a tiny smile. It’s not that bad. We’re actually considered quite “well preserved,” thank you very much.

And he’s here. I can feel it. Henry is here.

“Margot?”

Slowly, I turn around.

He’s older, but it’s not a shock because I grew old with him: watched every line appear, every crinkle deepen, his hair turn

steadily silver. He’s still beautiful, but I knew he would be. He always was.

“Henry,” I say, and feel my breath stop.

Winnie walks out of the shop next to us, and while I’m not surprised—I saw her last week, she’s going through problems with

her boyfriend—I can feel Other Margot’s heart-wrenching reaction: the love, the surprise, the confusion.

It’s OK , I whisper, but I know she can’t hear me.

I know, because I didn’t.

“Meg!” Winter bounds toward me. “What are you doing here? Oh my God, did I get the date wrong? I thought we were meeting tomorrow?

Have you heard from Gus? The little bugger won’t answer my texts. I’m probably not cool enough to talk to anymore. I just

saw Posy for coffee. How’s Aunty Eve? Jules? Lil? Did you do that thing in the end? Or decide against it? I’m so busy with

uni, I’ve barely had time to catch up with anyone. I’ve become so boring.”

It’s the same, exactly the same, apart from I’m me now.

Winnie starts laughing and pulls back so she can kiss my cheek. “Sorry, too many questions. We can talk about it tomorrow

in full .”

I know how my friends are, and why Gus isn’t replying (he has a weird crush on Winter, which creeps me out, but I suppose

they’re not related and she is gorgeous). I know that I’m veering away from the network job—I want to do more meteorology, go back to my roots, slow it all

down—and I know that this is my daughter.

But I feel Other Margot’s shock, her fear, her confusion, and I stand there patiently while she takes it all in.

“Meg?” Winnie calls me Meg most of the time—sometimes “Mama” when she’s sad or hungover. “What’s wrong?”

Licking my lips, I turn to Henry again. I look down at his hands, and he’s not wearing his ring—just as I knew he wouldn’t

be; we divorced years ago—but I feel the pain all over again, and I feel my past pain, all of it at once.

“Hi,” Henry says softly. “How are you?”

Please , I tell Margot silently. Please, don’t ruin this for me.

I feel her pull herself together and smile bravely.

Good girl.

“Yeah. I’m OK. You?”

“Yeah. Good. Surgery’s a bit manic, but you know how it is.”

I do know: I know exactly , because it’s one of the reasons we’re not together anymore.

“Yeah.” I nod. “I know how it is.”

Henry is still watching me with that careful, clear-eyed expression—the one I know so well, have seen so many times, carved

into the base of me like a heart into a tree—and I feel our love for him together: mine, and hers.

“It’s nice to see you,” I say as my eyes fill with tears and I quickly brush them away. “Sorry. It’s... just cold.”

Still making excuses not to cry in front of anyone: no change there.

Henry nods. “It’s nice to see you too, Margot.”

It happens again— Margot , not Meg, not Megalodon—and suddenly I’m scared, I’m terrified, because this is it, this is probably our last meeting. I

don’t have any more visions after this and if it doesn’t go right, I may never see him again.

My chin abruptly crumples and Winter wraps her arms around me.

“It’s you, isn’t it,” she whispers, pulling away and putting a hand on either side of my face, just as her dad does: as if

I’m too precious to hold in one in case I break. “It is. It’s you. You’re Other Margot.”

I’m not—I haven’t been for some time—but I was.

And I needed that, then.

I need it now.

“ Thank you ,” she murmurs, even though I know now that Henry can hear it. “For literally everything . I’m so sorry I’m going to be such a brat as a teenager. Hold on tight, Meg. I love you and I don’t mean any of it.”

I nod. I know, baby girl. I know.

Then I look back at Henry, because I don’t know what’s coming. This is the real future now: a part I’ve not seen, a place

I’ve never been. And all I know as I look at his face is that I love him as much now as I ever did.

“This is it,” Henry says quietly. “Isn’t it.”

I feel Other Margot slip away, back into the past.

It’s just me left now. Me and Henry.

“Yes.” I nod. “This is it.”

“I can tell.” He smiles. “The pink coat. I saw you a mile off.”

“Well.” I look down at myself and shove my hands in my pockets. “That was kind of the plan. Couldn’t risk you missing me,

could I? Not after all the fuss I made about this one.”

We smile at each other and I quietly touch the small blue marble I have kept with me at all times over the years: the marble

that would have let me know that there was still hope years ago, if Other Margot had simply reached for it sooner.

“I’m just gonna...” Winter clears her throat. “Go and do something less incredibly in the way. Love you, Meg.”

She hops closer, kisses my cheek and disappears back into the shop.

“So...” I step forward. “I guess we made it.”

“I guess we did.” Henry grins. “So now what?”

“I don’t know.” I blink a few times. “For the first time in a long time, I don’t bloody know, Henry. I don’t know anything

at all.”

Henry laughs and it’s him and it’s us and it’s always been us.

“Good.” He smiles broadly and holds out his hand. “Because I do know, Meg. So now it’s my turn.”

* * * * *