A Matter of Time

Hey. My Mum’s dying. Wanna date me?

Yeah, it’s not one I’d start with either. So I haven’t.

Mum told me, anyway, not to put my life on hold just because she’s ill. She said Tam, the ravens of memory fly around the universe, they don’t roost in the tower. She’s always coming out with stuff like that. Mama looked at her, said she hoped the ravens of memory would still be interested in Sunday dinner. Mama carried me, gave birth to me, and neither of us deal in myths. Although, after sixteen years of Mum’s bedtime chats, daily affirmations and homemade herbal tea infusions - I understand the language, even if I don’t speak it.

So I went to Youth Conservationists like everything was normal, my contribution to the Big Butterfly Count primed in my notes (thanks to Mum’s rewilding: six Gatekeepers, three Red Admirals, two Large Whites). One thing I hadn’t been counting on, that week, was Wyvern.

No one I like has ever actually been interested in me. I guess he was impressed by my enormous butterfly count.

Honestly, I’m terrified.

Me: Ok, top 5 places to time travel. What’s yours?

(He types for a while)

(I write ‘It was a stupid question, forget about it’ four times, and delete it four times)

Wy: I have questions -

The list of questions is quite comprehensive. Can he come back? Will he change anything? Is he a real person or just a ghost?

I chuck the terms into AI and ask it to produce a contract, which I send to him.

Me: These are your terms. I hope you accept them.

(He types for a while)

(I write ‘I wasn’t making fun of you’ five times, in some variation, and delete it five times)

Wy: Okay, mine are probably pretentious but here they are anyway. 5. 1999, to tell everyone the millennium bug isn’t coming. 4. 1933, New York, to see Billie Holiday sing before she was famous. 3. The Carboniferous period (dragonflies the size of crows!). 2. The place where my house is, five hundred years ago. 1. My choice in reality - no times before the day I joined Young Conservationists.

(I heart the message)

Me: Pretentiousness is just a word used by someone when they want to make you feel bad for what you like. I’d never say that. And I’ll be right there with you in the Carboniferous period.

Mum pokes her head in the door, mug in hand. I jolt.

‘Oh, hey,’ I say. Then, ‘Cheese!’

I hold the phone up, she returns a warm smile.

‘It’s like living with paparazzi, Tamsin,’ she chides. ‘Although -’ clears her throat, ‘- I’m the one being nosey. Heard you laughing?’

She hovers, expectant.

‘Funny meme,’ I say, pretending to look for it again. ‘S’gone now.’

‘Must have been especially rude, if you want to hide it from me,’ she says. ‘Selfish I have to say, when you know those are my favourites.’

‘You didn’t even knock!’

She smirks slightly - not unfriendly, just this face she makes when she’s thought of some joke she shouldn’t really say to her own child. Her filter is not decency - it’s Mama. It was probably something about death. She keeps trying to joke about it.

She finally lands on something appropriate. ‘I’m forgetting my boundaries. Your laughter cast a spell, and I followed. Hardly my fault. But I’ll leave you to it.’

She leaves, smiling, closing the door behind her.

These two timelines - Mum and Wy - don’t belong in the same head. They run alongside each other, but the thought of them meeting is like watching two trains tilt toward each other at full speed. In sci-fi stories, when timelines collide, worlds explode.

* * *

I’ve spent £300 on cameras. All my savings. I didn’t ask before I put them up. Mum comes into my room (she knocks this time).

‘Why has my downstairs turned into a land of stars?’

She gives me a hard stare.

‘I’m being blinked at from every corner, Tamsin. Explain this madness.’

‘I just thought,’ I begin, ‘that in those old family videos of you, when you were a kid, they go on and on, don’t they? It’s like a whole portrait. I just have little snippets.’

‘Yes, the old videos are awful,’ says Mum. ‘They make my life look tedious and dreary. When it’s been extravagantly wonderful. Except, well, the obvious.’

‘Maybe I just wanted a bit of drear,’ I say.

One is on top of the fridge, angled toward the kitchen table. Mum calls it ‘the all-seeing eye of Panasonic’. Mama says I could have at least consulted her on a brand that matched the décor.

Dinner is leftover dhal that’s been reheated at least twice. Mum insists it brings out the best in the flavours, and Mama says that’s just the bacteria getting into her brain. Mum’s a bit better behaved than usual, and Mama keeps checking her reflection in the dark oven glass.

Mama says: ‘How have the symptoms been today?’

It’s a dangerous question to ask at dinner. Mum could spare us more detail than she does. But today she waves her hand, says ‘Fine, fine, nothing to report.’

* * *

Wy asks me about my time travel top five.

Me: 5. The Carboniferous period, to hang out with you and the dragonflies. 4. Saga times, to hear the stories and see the ravens. Mum’s obsessed with it. 3. Birdsong in ancient wild Britain. 2. To see Mum and Mama when they were children. I know you’ll think this one’s cheating but let’s call it 2a and 2b. 1. The day before the last time I got bad news.

Wy: Bad news? You okay? I thought something seemed off today.

Me: Bad news for sure. No honeycomb ice cream at the park, remember?

(He types, pauses. Types, pauses. No message appears.)

I hear Mum’s footsteps in the hallway and a moment later there she is - leaning against the doorframe. She looks at the light blinking on the bedside table. ‘Don’t you blink at me while I’m talking to my daughter,’ she says, mock-scolding.

She holds out her phone, brings it over to me.

‘I found this.’

On the screen I can see myself - I’m dressed up in a sailor suit, the world’s youngest mariner, with Mum behind me on a blanket in the garden. Toys are scattered around us: a whale, a crab, a squeaky octopus I still have today.

‘Five. Whole. Minutes,’ she says, beaming. ‘Leaves the snippets in the dust. I’ll send it to you.’

In the clip, Mama’s filming Mum playing pretend with me. The blanket was a boat: we saw whales, islands, met stormy seas, and at the end Mum became a pirate, sweeping me off the boat and into her arms. The footage had been uploaded from an old camera which jolted and jerked, more like a bumpy car ride than the high seas. And when Mum swept me into her arms, it seemed like she was still in frame for a moment longer than I expected. The camera hung on, just a moment longer than it should.

* * *

I’ve filled two hard drives. I tell Mum it’s for ‘posterity’. She said posterity shouldn’t be involved when she forgets to take her towel to the shower.

‘A posterior for posterity,’ I say. She manages a wry smile and asks no more - I am learning from her.

She’s been quieter lately. When she smiles for photos now, sometimes she doesn’t show her teeth; occasionally it’s just a stretch of the lips.

Mama says, ‘Why don’t you go and sit with her? Spend the time now instead of later?’ She motions her head towards the cameras.

I look for her, but she’s in bed. I stand in the doorway, not sure if she’s very still or just paused. I get this feeling when things are too still, for too long, this kind of bass dread. Impossible to get in nature. It’s like the opposite of a force, a kind of human-made, un-gravity of stillness.

The two timelines keep moving. Wy keeps messaging. I’m nudged out of this dread moment by the arrival of a voicenote, which I take to my room to listen.

The usual caveat - ‘Here’s your daily GeekCast. Wy’s been avoiding his coursework again. I’m back on butterflies today.’

I smiled.

‘I watched a video you’d like - there was this scientist talking about the Monarch butterfly migration. The ones born in late summer are called a ‘super generation’, and instead of living two weeks like their ancestors, they can live up to nine months, so they can make a journey from Canada all the way to Mexico. It’s triggered by day length, cooler temperatures, less milkweed and nectar - the right moment is fleeting and irreversible.’

There’s a pause.

‘I’m trying not to sound pressure-y, here. It’s just -’

He laughs.

‘I feel like, if I’m a butterfly, then like, the milkweed’s getting low -’

He gets the giggles. It’s infectious.

‘I thought butterflies would be sweet, but it’s gone a bit weird. Bit like when you look at one up close. I just want to say I like you Tam. I feel like you’ve shared so much and, you know, autumn’s getting closer and all that, and - and I’m confused about whether it’s the right time for you.

‘So, er, this is the end of GeekCast! I hope you enjoyed my facts!’

If I had wings they would be twitching, tentatively testing flight. I held my hands to my head, the hum of the timelines running through me, only a few words lying between me and the breakdown of worlds.

* * *

The camera feed is blank. I reboot the programme - nothing. The hallway feels empty. I blink up at the corner, and nothing blinks back.

I check the wire. Fine. Battery. Fine.

The little switch at the back is turned off.

Can’t be done by mistake.

Mum’s in the kitchen with her head in her hands, elbows on the table like she’s holding herself up. I check the cameras. Off, off, off.

‘Did you turn them off?’ I ask.

She looks up, slow, eyes pink. ‘Yes Tam, I did.’

‘But if I don’t record it I’ll … forget,’ I say, and that’s all I can say.

‘I know how you feel,’ she says. ‘But I couldn’t stand it anymore. It’s not your fault, love. I want you to have what you need, but - I feel like there are better ways.’

‘I was going to back it up this weekend,’ I say, my voice rising. ‘You should have told me -’

She reaches for my hand. ‘I’m sorry. I should have told you. I meant to, I did. But you don’t need every second, everywhere.’

I want to scream. I do. I do.

‘I’m sure I’ve got the ingredients for something better,’ she taps her head, ‘somewhere in here.’

If I move, I will scream, or cry. So I stand still, like a leveret before a fox, heart hammering as she embraces me, tells me she loves me, and to go to bed.

She turns off the light as she leaves, the kitchen abruptly cast into dark, the camera’s eye still dead.

* * *

Wy is explaining this thing he’s heard about on a podcast - how ideas appear in different places at once, even when the people involved never meet. Calculus, telescopes, evolution, Dennis the Menace. He says maybe thought works like ecosystems.

Me: So it’s not genius, it’s right time, right place?

Wy: It’s genius AND right time, right place.

Me: When will I get a Wy voicenote about wrong time, wrong place?

Wy: Like bullets which got invented before guns. True fact.

Me: Like that.

Me: And the fact my Mum’s dying.

(Typing, pause. Typing, pause.)

He calls me.

‘Tam - are you serious?’

‘Yes.’

‘You just found out?’

‘No.’

‘I didn’t realise. How did I not know?’

I snort.

‘Sorry. I’m sorry. It’s just - of course you didn’t. I’ve worked very hard to keep it from you.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ he says. I knew he’d say that. It’s not wrong, but it’s not right, either.

This is where the timelines collide.

I’d heard Mum have conversations, occasionally, with people about this. In the absence of anything else, I stole from her.

‘I know you probably feel weird about what to say,’ I said. ‘There’s honestly nothing right you can say in this moment, so say anything.’

There’s another pause. Then, offended, he says, ‘I can’t believe you were about to deny me the chance to meet your Mum. Who, by the scraps I’ve heard, is a magical being.’

And with a confession and a joke, the timelines meet under the same sky, and the world keeps its shape.

So I keep talking. I tell him about the cameras. The blinking lights in every corner, every room watching her, and how I thought I could hold on that way. How she turned them off, without even telling me first.

When I finish, he says, ‘And did she come back to you? With something better?’

She hadn’t.

‘You know - ’ he made it sound like it had just occurred to him, but with the theatrics of a children’s TV presenter, ‘- I don’t think memory works like that anyway.’

‘How’s it supposed to work then?’ I ask.

He hesitates. ‘I watched a TED Talk about it once. Memory’s not a camera, I think it’s more like a story you’re retelling, every time you bring something to mind.’

‘Thank you, professor,’ I say. ‘But that sounds worse. As if we never truly remember anyone at all.’

‘Maybe - er - just ignore the link I sent you,’ he says.

‘I like that you sent it,’ I say. ‘Even though I might not watch it.’

‘Maybe I can come to yours,’ he says, ‘watch the one about Monarch butterflies. And bore your Mum with my facts.’

* * *

The mourners are gone but the house still smells of flowers and incense - ferns, camomile, miscanthus, vases on every countertop. Mama was exhausted - Wy offered to do the clearing up, and she went up to bed.

Wy sits cross-legged on the living room rug. I’m lying with my head in his lap, he’s tracing circles in my hair.

‘There’s something I didn’t tell you,’ I say. ‘In the end, she did come up with something.’

‘Oh?’

‘Few weeks ago. She came into my room. She said, “I’ve thought of something better”.’

I take a steadying breath, trying not to put myself back in the moment. I want to get to the end of the story.

‘She took my phone and put it aside. Sat on the edge of my bed, told me to lie down and close my eyes. She said, We’re going to the land of the stars. Then she whispered: it’s a metaphor. I laughed, opened my eyes, and she’s like - Okay serious now.

‘I could feel her voice move through me - warm, anaesthetising. She said, When you get lost, look up and remember this. It’s a black, glittering canvas. We’re all making meaning, seeking direction, from these blinking lights of memory.’

‘Walk with me through a nebula. You see it? The sounds, the pictures, the words in your head - they’ll flare and fade, now immense, and then nothing at all.

‘Every one you hold is real - even the ones that slip away when you reach for them. The half-remembered ones. The ones you make up later. The ones where you just know what I’d say, even though I’m not there.

‘I saw them as she spoke - flickers of light, each one a version of her, darting across time.

‘Those are all me, she said. Just as true as the me on the microchip, all of them.

The version you need will always be there, she said. And the one you can’t remember - she’s there too, and she’s okay with it.

‘And I was totally in that sky - in her words, with her voice. I got it. Who I am to her, who she is to me, might be more real than anything I could ever put in front of a camera.

‘You’re weightless, she said, and I was. Held, safe, in the blown-open space and time of the cosmos.

‘Who I am to you now, she said, is more important to me than who I am to me.'

I stopped speaking. We didn’t say anything. He wiped my tears gently on his jumper sleeve.

‘She didn’t tell you a story,’ he said. ‘She got inside the telling.’

Earlier we’d all gone up the hill - the one where she walked, and sang, and thought - to scatter her ashes. Mama had timed it perfectly for golden hour. Just when the first few stars would be blinking into the evening, and the butterflies hang upside down underleaf.