Page 102 - The Midnight Library

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Nora tried to think how she could unlock their shared histor y. How she

could find out why, in this life, they were sitting together and getting along.
It might have been money, but her brother had never been particularly
money-motivated. And yes, sure, he’d obviously been upset when Nora
walked away from the deal with the record company but that had been

because he wanted to play guitar in e Labyrinths for the rest of his life and
be a rock star.
Aer dipping it a few times Nora let the teabag free in the water. ‘Do you
ever think of how our lives could have been different? You know, like if I had

never stuck with swimming?’
‘Not really.’
‘I mean, what do you think you’d be doing if you weren’t my manager?’
‘I manage other people too, you know.’

‘Well, yeah, of course I know that. Obviously.’
‘I suppose I probably wouldn’t be managing anyone without you. I mean,
you were the first. And you introduced me to Kai and then Natalie. And
then Eli, so . . .’

She nodded, as if she had any idea who Kai and Natalie and Eli were.
‘ True, but maybe you’d have found some other way.’
‘Who knows? Or maybe I’d still be in Manchester, I don’t know.’
‘Manchester?’

‘Yeah. You remember how much I loved it up there. At uni.’
It was really hard not to look surprised at any of this, at the fact that this
brother she was getting on with, and working with, was also someone who
went to university. In her root life her brother did A-levels and applied to go

to Manchester to do Histor y, but he never got the grades he needed,
probably because he was too busy getting stoned with Ravi ever y night. And
then decided he didn’t want to go to uni at all.
ey chatted a bit more.

At one point he became distracted by his phone.
Nora noticed his screensaver was of a radiant, handsome, smiling man
she had never seen before. She noticed her brother’s wedding ring and
feigned a neutral expression.

‘So, how’s married life?’
Joe smiled. It was a genuinely happy smile. She hadn’t seen him smile like
that for years. In her root life, Joe had always been unlucky in love. Although