I’m not quite sure where the natural end is, though, and historically I tend to somewhat overplay my hand, so I decide to stop before I get carried away and Will starts simply responding with “ha.”
Beaming with triumph, I put my phone away and drift happily past the (headless) lion and the three (headless) Nereids to Room 18: the so-called Elgin Marbles. Then I slowly follow the carvings around the room in the route I always take: left to right. The frieze originally ran round the Parthenon, and broke all contemporary rules. Instead of carvings depicting gods and goddesses, it showed normal Athenians: men on horseback, women strolling, a few casually seated individuals who don’t seem to understand the point of a procession.
It doesn’t matter how often I come here, I fall in love with ancient Greece a little more every time. It’s so vivid, so alive. So weird and imaginative and strangely detailed. Even with key body parts missing, these feel like real people with real stories: lines drawn in marble instead of sand.
Working clockwise, I linger for a few minutes—as I always do—at the South Metopes, which depict the epic battle between the centaurs and the Lapiths. They’re square stones, almost three-dimensional, and they remind me a little of Batman cartoons: here a punch, there a slap, pow, crack, bam.
Then I reach the East Pediment and my heart rate speeds up.
I can only assume that the giddy, breathless way I feel about these statues is how normal humans feel about spotting a gathering of A-list movie stars in the local Starbucks. There’s Helios, god of the sun, riding his horses into the day, and his sister Selene, goddess of the moon, riding hers away. Heracles is there with his famed Nemean lion skin, right next to Demeter, the goddess of the harvest, and her daughter Persephone, split goddess of spring and queen of the Underworld. Aphrodite and her mother, the Titan Dione, are elegantly draped across a chair, positioned next to the handsome sky father, king god and original fuckboy, Zeus.
And at the very center is Athena, the guardian of Athens and the birthday girl around whom they’ve all gathered. It’s the beautiful, the immortal and the divine, casually hanging out together as if they’re on a yacht in Cannes. I cannot understand why there aren’t glossy magazines detailing the goings-on, outfits and gossip of each of the Greek deities instead: that would be something I’d collect the hell out of.
I’m just peering more closely at the exquisite folds in Aphrodite’s marble dress—she might be the most beautiful goddess, but I’m not a fan, I blame her for the entire Troy debacle—when my hairline suddenly prickles, as if I’ve touched something electric.
Frowning, I turn around and study the room carefully.
An old man is leaning on his walking stick; a lady is carrying a baby in a sling like a broken arm; a small boy is screaming at his harassed father: “Pig! I want to see pig!” There’s a student, sketching in a red notepad; a slightly paunchy man in a tight gray suit, making a business call on his phone so that his voice bounces straight off the marble like a rubber ball.
My stomach abruptly folds in half.
And a young woman of twenty-nine years old, arms crossed, staring at one of the Metopes: a Lapith, kneeing a centaur neatly in the balls. Her jacket is long and gray and her hair is dark and cropped—the backs of her ears stick out a little—and I can’t see her full face but I know it’s her like I know I’m me and something in me unravels, as if the red string I’ve been holding on to so tightly has abruptly rolled away.
“Daddy, why is that lady hiding?” A boy points a grubby finger in my face. His shrill little voice cuts through my earplugs like a machete through marshmallow. “Is she playing hide-and-seek? You said we can’t do that here.”
Flustered, I peer over the top of the huge pediment I now inexplicably find myself crouched behind: how much time did I undo this time?
The room is empty again, but I am not.
Something has exploded inside me, the way the Ottomans accidentally blew up the Parthenon in the 1600s. All the tiny pieces of myself I brought here to reassemble have scattered and I don’t know how to retrieve them. This museum was my safe space, the one place I didn’t think she’d be, and I don’t know where to go now. This is what happens when you store gunpowder where it shouldn’t be stored: one wrong move and the damage is extensive.
I cannot just carry on with my day, as if I’m not in ruins.
Lights beginning to flicker, I uncurl like a wood louse and walk with dignity toward the exit: my own breath in my ears, the colors around me starting to separate like ink and oil. How did she find me here? Was it a coincidence, or did she hunt me down? Either way, this place is no longer safe. It’s not a place I can rest anymore. There are too many emotions, hidden inside. It feels like somewhere that could detonate at any given moment.
Outside, I take out my earplugs and lean against the museum wall.
I am full of dust and noise.
Getting my phone out, I type her number from memory and write:
I’m sorry too
I stare at it for a few seconds, debating the consequences.
There aren’t any. I don’t want to unlock that box; I don’t want to let out everything inside it. It must be kept away from me, at all costs. But if there’s ever a moment to send a text you know you’re immediately going to regret, it’s probably the moment just before you potentially delete the entire universe.
Swallowing, I press SEND and close my eyes.
When I open them again the text has gone and the sky is pink and the day has started again.
16
You’ve probably heard the story of Sisyphus.
A famously clever man, when Thanatos (Death) came to collect him, Sisyphus convinced him to chain himself up instead. With Death thus trapped in his house and unable to do his job, everybody on earth stopped dying. When war became pointless, a furious Ares released Death himself and sent Sisyphus to Zeus for bad behavior. As punishment for daring to outwit a god, Sisyphus was forced to push an enormous boulder up a hill. Every time it got near the top, the boulder would roll back down again and he’d have to start from the beginning.
Over and over and over again, for all eternity.
And I have clearly made someone very angry indeed, because this is now exactly what happens to Friday.
I fall asleep on the tube and end up in Walthamstow. Undo.
I make it to work and send a press release with my client’s website spelled wrong to fifty journalists. Undo.
I drop a full bowl of porridge on my keyboard. Undo.
I save a budgetary report to a folder in the morning that by the afternoon I can’t for the life of me find again. Undo.
I leave my bag full of highly confidential client information in the café while I’m buying my banana muffin. Undo.
I kick a watercooler in frustration and accidentally break it. Undo.
I accidentally swear at Barry. Undo.
By 11:00 a.m., I have been fired three times and I’ve broken at least three pieces of office equipment, cursed at two colleagues, eaten four banana muffins and five cheese sandwiches, had twelve cups of coffee and am no longer capable of keeping track of what has been done and what has been undone. All I know for sure is that this Friday is lasting forever, and obviously I say that every Friday, but for the first time in my life I mean it literally.
“Cassandra!” Barry yells. “Where the hell is Cassandra Dankworth?”
Exhausted, I stare down at my body: genuinely concerned for a moment that all of my messing around with time has also erased me.
“I’m standing right here,” I say from directly behind him.
“Oh. Well, there’s no need to sneak around like that.” My boss turns round and glares at me, florid as a runner. “I don’t want to hear any more ridiculous excuses for why you can’t attend this Idea Hurricane, Cassie.”
“I don’t have any excuses,” I admit. “I’ve used them all up.”
This is my fourth identical brainstorm and I’m starting to feel caught in time, as if I’m in a rotating Debenhams door. Dizzy, I glance up at the clock. Every single time, Barry yells “Cassandra! Where the hell is Cassandra Dankworth?” and thirty seconds later, Anton says:
“Idea Hurricane!”
Right on time, he stands up and claps his hands together like a PE teacher. “See you in three! There will be doughnuts!”
And Grace says: “The glazed ones?”
And Amir says: “I like the éclair-doughnut hybrids. Who brings them in? Does anyone know? I want to get some for my girlfriend.”
It’s like being stuck in the most boring play ever written, except nobody will let me nap and all the fire exits are locked.
“Cass—”
“Yes, I’ll make notes.” Without thinking, I nudge the wastepaper basket slightly to the left just as a balled-up piece of paper comes flying through the air behind me; I refuse to pick it up from the floor one more time. It hits the middle of the bin with a satisfying rattle. Then I pick up my pen and notepad—doodled and undoodled and doodled again like some kind of cosmic Etch A Sketch—and grab the chair from behind my desk.