The Three Horseshoes

      Nora was standing outside in crisp, clean air. But unlike in Bedford, it wasn’t raining here.

      ‘Where am I?’ she whispered to herself.

      There was a small row of quaint stone terraced houses on the other side of the gently curving road. Quiet, old houses, with all their lights off, nestled at the edge of a village before fading into the stillness of the countryside. A clear sky, an expanse of dotted stars, a waning crescent moon. The smell of fields. The two-way twit-twoo of tawny owls. And then quiet again. A quiet that had a presence, that was a force in the air.

      Weird.

      She had been in Bedford. Then in that strange library. And now she was here, on a pretty village road. Without hardly even moving.

      On this side of the road, golden light filtered out of a downstairs window. She looked up and saw an elegantly painted pub sign creaking softly in the wind. Overlapping horseshoes underneath carefully italicised words: The Three Horseshoes.

      In front of her, there was a chalkboard standing on the pavement. She recognised her own handwriting, at its neatest.

      THE THREE HORSESHOES

      Tuesday Night – Quiz Night

      8.30 p.m.

      ‘True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.’

      – Socrates (after losing our quiz!!!!)

      This was a life where she put four exclamation marks in a row. That was probably what happier, less uptight people did.

      A promising omen.

      She looked down at what she was wearing. A denim shirt with sleeves rolled halfway up her forearms and jeans and wedge-heeled shoes, none of which she wore in her actual life. She had goose-bumps from the cold, and clearly wasn’t dressed to be outside for long.

      There were two rings on her ring finger. Her old sapphire engagement ring was there – the same one she had taken off, through trembles and tears, over a year ago – accompanied by a simple silver wedding band.

      Crackers.

      She was wearing a watch. Not a digital one, in this life. An elegant, slender analogue one, with Roman numerals. It was about a minute after midnight.

       How is this happening?

      Her hands were smoother in this life. Maybe she used hand cream. Her nails shone with clear polish. There was some comfort in seeing the familiar small mole on her left hand.

      Footsteps crunched on gravel. Someone was heading towards her down the driveway. A man, visible from the light of the pub windows and the solitary streetlamp. A man with rosy cheeks and grey Dickensian whiskers and a wax jacket. A Toby jug made flesh. He seemed, from his overly careful gait, to be slightly drunk.

      ‘Goodnight, Nora. I’ll be back on Friday. For the folk singer. Dan said he’s a good one.’

      In this life she probably knew the man’s name. ‘Right. Yes, of course. Friday. It should be a great night.’

      At least her voice sounded like her. She watched as the man crossed the road, looking left and right a few times despite the clear absence of traffic, and disappearing down a lane between the cottages.

      It was really happening. This was actually it. This was the pub life. This was the dream made reality.

      ‘This is so very weird,’ she said into the night. ‘So. Very. Weird.’

      A group of three left the pub then too. Two women and a man. They smiled at Nora as they walked past.

      ‘We’ll win next time,’ one of the women said.

      ‘Yes,’ replied Nora. ‘There’s always a next time.’

      She walked up to the pub and peeked through the window. It seemed empty inside, but the lights were still on. That group must have been the last to leave.

      The pub looked very inviting. Warm and characterful. Small tables and timber beams and a wagon wheel attached to a wall. A rich red carpet and a wood-panelled bar full of an impressive array of beer pumps.

      She stepped away from the window and saw a sign just beyond the pub, past where the pavement became grass.

      Quickly, she trotted over and read what it said.

      LITTLEWORTH

      Welcomes Careful Drivers

      Then she noticed in the top centre of the sign a little coat of arms around which orbited the words Oxfordshire County Council.

      ‘We did it,’ she whispered into the country air. ‘We actually did it.’

      This was the dream Dan had first mentioned to her while walking by the Seine in Paris, eating macarons they had bought on the Boulevard Saint-Michel.

      A dream not of Paris but of rural England, where they would live together.

      A pub in the Oxfordshire countryside.

      When Nora’s mum’s cancer aggressively returned, reaching her lymph nodes and rapidly colonising her body, that dream was put on hold and Dan moved with her from London back to Bedford. Her mum had known of their engagement and had planned to stay alive long enough for the wedding. She had died four months too soon.

      Maybe this was it. Maybe this was the life. Maybe this was first-time lucky, or second-time lucky.

      She allowed herself an apprehensive smile.

      She walked back along the path and crunched over the gravel, heading towards the side door the drunken, whiskery man in the wax jacket had recently departed from. She took a deep breath and stepped inside.

      It was warm.

      And quiet.

      She was in some kind of hallway or corridor. Terracotta floor tiles. Low wood panelling and, above, wallpaper full of illustrations of sycamore leaves.

      She walked down the little corridor and into the main pub area which she had peeked at through the window. She jumped as a cat appeared out of nowhere.

      An elegant, angular chocolate Burmese purring away. She bent down and stroked it and looked at the engraved name on the disc attached to