The If Game by Catherine Storr Page A

might have been if something different had happened?’
    â€˜I don’t understand.’
    â€˜I mean, suppose a long time ago you did something that sort of pinned you down to being here like this. Being you. And if it had happened differently, you might be in Australia with those people. And they think you are really there. It’s sort of another you.’
    â€˜You mean there are two of me?’
    â€˜In a way, I suppose so. Only this here is more real, so you don’t know about the other life except when you go through one of those doors. Then you find out you’re there. But of course you wouldn’t know anything about it because most of the time you’re here.’
    â€˜Sounds crazy.’
    â€˜I knew you’d say that,’ she said.
    He found that he did not want to hurt her feelings. ‘I don’t mean you’re crazy. Only I don’t see how it would work.’
    â€˜I don’t either. Only I’ve always wondered if it couldn’t. My dad . . .’ She stopped.
    â€˜Your dad what?’
    â€˜He could have been in the team. Playing football.’
    â€˜Which team?’ Stephen asked.
    She told him and he gasped. ‘He must have been really good.’
    â€˜He was. Only he had an accident to his knee. They did an operation and they said he could go back and play again, but if he got hurt again, that’d be it. It’d be much more serious. So he had to decide what to do.’
    â€˜Didn’t he go on playing?’
    â€˜No. He said it wasn’t worth the risk.’
    â€˜Not to play in that team? He must be crazy!’ Stephen said, hardly able to believe that it wouldn’t have been worth any risk.
    â€˜No, he isn’t! You’ve no right to say that! You don’t know anything about it,’ Alex said, flaring up.
    â€˜I know about football,’ Stephen said.
    â€˜But you don’t know my dad.’
    Stephen nearly said, ‘And I don’t want to.’ To know a man who could have been one of those heroes and who had turned down the chance just because of a little accident to his knee? He said, ‘You don’t understand about football.’
    â€˜How d’you know I don’t?’
    â€˜Because you’re a girl.’
    â€˜That’s all you know. Girls can know about football just as well as boys. They can play it too.’
    â€˜Not generally, they don’t.’
    They stared at each other, both furious. Then suddenly, Stephen felt bad. He had no right to criticize her dad, whom he didn’t even know. He wouldn’t have liked it if she’d started telling him where his own dad was wrong. He said, ‘It must have been hard for him.’
    â€˜Yes, it was.’ She was still angry.
    â€˜He might have been famous! He’d have made thousands of pounds! Millions, probably.’
    â€˜That’s what my mum and I play the “If” game about. We say, “Where would we be now if Dad had gone on playing?”’
    â€˜Where d’you think you’d be?’
    â€˜No idea. We’d have a lot more money than we do now, that’s for sure.’
    â€˜Don’t you wish he hadn’t decided not to?’
    â€˜I’m not sure. I suppose we’d have been famous too. My mum says she wouldn’t have liked that.’
    â€˜She’d have liked being rich, wouldn’t she?’
    â€˜Suppose so. Anyway, I only told you so you’d see what I meant. Sometimes I imagine there’s another one of me living in a huge house with lots of money, and Dad being famous. That’s why I thought perhaps there’s really another one of you living somewhere.’
    â€˜In Australia, you mean?’
    â€˜I suppose it could be. Do you think your dad ever thought of going out there?’
    â€˜I shouldn’t think so.’ But something Dad had said, months ago, sounded in Stephen’s mind. He’d said something about the other