Past Present Future

by Alexander, N J.

  In the early morning I crouched on the study floor, flicking through an old copy of the book that a relative had given to William when he was a not much more than a baby.

  Anthony’s sister’s album made sense now: my computer screen was my window or looking glass that saw directly into Anthony’s world and vice-versa. And Alice is the little girl who falls down a hole and emerges on the other side of the world and has to take a bite from the cake with Eat Me written on it, so that she can grow tall enough to reach the golden key to open the locked door.

  Should I be having my cake and eating it? Was I like Alice…the little girl so reluctant to grow up that she disappears into another world? I was certainly reluctant to grow up and grow old.

  I’d been trying so hard to live in the real world with my accountancy exams, and now, after weeks of barely leaving the house, I’d gone and bloody well fallen down a rabbit hole. And instead of graciously, sensibly, climbing back out of it and retrieving my disregarded, moral compass on my way back home, I was always drumming my fingers against a keyboard; waiting patiently for the magic key to open that tiny door into the world of the Mad Hatter, Queen of Hearts, Cheshire Cat and Mr Anthony Hope.

  It did make sense that Anthony Hope was using his sister and that story to lure me in.

  As expected when I ran this theory past Maddy, I was greeted with a: ‘you’re a complete fucking nutter.’ But, as a consequence of trying to smoke Anthony out with something more solid and less cryptic – both our Walls were starting to look like the workings of the insane dedicated to the love of Alice in Wonderland.

  As a consequence of my theory I’d been ashamedly continually hitting the refresh button on my permanently open Facebook. It could have been rain or sunshine outside. I had no idea as I hadn’t bothered to open the shutters in the garden room. The real world was holding less and less interest.

  Anthony was in Paris with his girlfriend. So my heart felt like it was in a slow state of twisted torture. I was still allowing it to open up, only to find it contorting in confusion.

  I imagined him with me, but like one of those scratch edits in a movie, my dream was continually being knocked sideways by the thought of him laughing, holding and kissing his girlfriend in a way that only new couples do. I imagined them sitting in one of the many Parisian cafes, climbing the Eiffel tower, taking a taxi through the Arc de Triomphe, discussing pictures in the Louvre and generally strolling round a city I’d never been to.

  I thought of Anthony’s long, fluid strides covering the ground effortlessly.

  I remember watching him walk. Despite his height, he was very erect, and his pace fast and purposeful. He had natural grace. For some reason, my thoughts turned to his hands. I remember being fascinated by them when I saw him playing his guitar. Unlike Richards’s square powerful hands, Anthony’s fingers were long, but the smoothness was broken by a callus, caused by hours and hours of playing his beloved guitar. My thoughts lingered longer than they should on his fingers.

  I hit the refresh button once more on my Facebook, just in case he had finally returned. But, for once, it wasn’t Anthony who had grabbed my attention – it was Maddy with her Status Update.

  15:44 MD Maddy is so MAD!!!! May explode in to a million pieces!

  I sat and laughed at that before I posted a comment…

  15:47 Madd’y’onna Madd’y’onna…tick tick tick…Steve fucked up then? ;-)

  A few minutes later she’d added another comment…

  15:50 WHY CANT HE LEAVE MY STUFF ALONE!!!!!!!!!

  I could hear the rage…

  I could hear the rage

  15:53 Might just leave you to sort this one out…bye x

  15:57 BOOM!

  I gave her a call.

  ‘Okay, what’s wrong?’

  ‘What is wrong? That fucking twat has taken my car keys, fucked off to London all day on a job and I can’t go anywhere, because he can’t remember where he’s gone and put the spare keys. I’ve been stuck in the house all fucking day. GOD I’M SO MAD.’

  ‘Erm…’ I said, trying very hard not to laugh. The thought of Maddy being trapped in the house all day was enough to send her over the edge. It was a wonder she’d not smoked herself to death. ‘Do you need me to collect Henry for you?’

  ‘No, my brother’s doing it. Seriously I’m going to kill Steve when he gets home.’

  I was silently glad that I wasn’t in Steve’s shoes – his evening was going to be miserable. ‘Well…if you need anything, call me, but I need to go and get William and Elyse, it’s already late. I’ll speak to you later once you and your car keys are lovingly reunited,’ and I disconnected the call thinking that had Richard driven off with my car keys today, I wouldn’t have even noticed until teatime.

  At 17:34, an hour or so later, I was pondering over Anthony’s latest Status…

  Anthony says there is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness ;)

  He was back from his break.

  I pulled a quotation book off one of the study shelves behind me, making a mental note that I needed to sort them all out. Half of the books had been pulled off by William and Elyse and were scattered all over the floor. I flicked through the pages, thinking that the book would come in handy one day – I was sure I’d heard these words somewhere before.

  I started with Love Quotes and couldn’t see it there, then moved onto Madness, and still couldn’t see it. I was just about to type it into Google, which is what I should have done in the first place, when Maddy popped up with an Instant Message on Chat.

  Have you seen your little friend Anthony Hope’s status?

  Yes…I think it relates to our postings

  I posted my reply, thankful that the smug tone behind my voice didn’t translate on IM.

  Yeah me too…it’s a quote by Friedrich Nietsche. German guy – think he’s dead. I Googled it for you.

  Coincidence that mad or madness crops up between us and turns up on his page…don’t you think?

  Tis a weird coincidence…must admit x

  Thank you x

  Having got the answer I wanted from her that meant she was at last starting to see things my way – I needed now to sit and think because, once again, Anthony Hope appeared to be tangling me up with his girlfriend. Why did it have to have a wink on the end? It seemed like he’d taken something off Maddy’s Wall – the word ‘mad’ – to acknowledge my most recent Status which had said that there were more than two players in this game. So it now appeared as though he’d gone and pulled the extra player into the game.

  What is he trying to do to me…other than turn me into a screwed up ball that is crippled by unleashed sexual tension.

  My head screamed.

  I heard Richard enter the front door, jumped off the PC and sheepishly followed him into the kitchen, making a point of asking him about his day, but I barely heard his words as I struggled to mentally pull myself out of Wonderland.

  The next day I found myself flicking through the photos Anthony Hope had added within a few hours of returning from his Paris break.

  I closed them down quickly – I didn’t need to see them, they were exactly how I’d imagined they would be.

  It was his lean long arms around my waist I wanted, and to be the girl in his photos. I also mentally noted that his girlfriend was very tall, standing probably only four or five inches below him. It was also bugging me that I didn’t know what she did for a living. If she popped up as a doctor, vet or lawyer at that point, I think it would have been more than I could stand.

  Despite the photos, my gut instinct told me that he was watching me closely; studying my every move on Facebook. If I posted a lovey-dovey album of me and Richard, would that have meant that I wasn’t closely watching Anthony Hope? The answer was no…so I was still determined to drive Anthony out from his cover.

  Even if that meant my measures were starting to feel like the actions of that the psychotic bunny boiler in Fatal Attraction.


  I had spent most of the day freezing in our local Wonderland with Maddy and the kids. The whole place had been themed for Halloween and the final straw came after I got off the carousel and walked straight into a bin full of slime and frogs. At that point I left.

  We drove home and I let William and Elyse into the house, before unloading coats and empty chocolate and crisp wrappers off the car floor. No matter how many carrier bags I put in there for them, they never use them. I stood warming my hands on the radiator in the kitchen, facing the glass dining-table, which I noticed was still covered in smears from breakfast. The car journey had been too short to thaw my hands and I wanted them to warm quickly, because I was itching to tackle the pumpkins with my newly acquired pumpkin tools.

  However, I got really upset when I couldn’t find the WWE pumpkin templates. I rummaged through all the kitchen drawers, making another mental note that I really needed to clear them out at some stage. I accused William of moving them, called Richard and accused him of moving them, and finally located them at the back of the oak unit that surrounded our American-style fridge freezer. I didn’t even remember putting them there.

  William and Elyse were standing excitedly either side of me as I stuck the template to the pumpkin. At that point, I remembered Maddy saying how difficult it was to cut into pumpkins, but I wasn’t too concerned about it.

  William looked on impressed as the Undertaker started to take shape.

  I then cut out the last piece and we all stood back in admiration of my skill. I felt quite pleased with myself – clearly I wasn’t as dumb as Maddy! Then I set about cutting out Ray Mysterio for Elyse.

  My fingers were starting to feel sore, but Elyse’s Ray Mysterio was starting to look good, if not better. I only had the outer edge to complete and fuuuuuck! I’d mixed up the black with the white and in my hand was a perfect intricately carved out face; in the pumpkin was a perfect round hole. William, protectively clutching his own pumpkin, fell about laughing. I told him off then explained to Elyse that hers was a very special lantern.

  ‘We just need to find a candle and it will be perfect,’ I futilely tried, but she wasn’t buying into my vision. Her little, perfect, kitten-like face, looked up at me, just as it started to contort with the tears running down her cheeks.

  ‘Where’s the face? I wanted a face,’ she wailed in a heartbroken sob, her little head barely reaching above the island as she looked at my huge mistake. William cracked up once more and Elyse lunged at him in a red-faced rage.

  I stood, fingers throbbing, and took a deep breath.

  ‘Right…shoes back on and get in the car.’

  ‘Why?’ William, despite being reprimanded, was still unable to stop giggling at Elyse’s misfortune.

  ‘Just get your shoes on please.’

  ‘I can’t, I can’t undo my laces,’ and I took the trainers from him and examined the string of knots that more resembled a masterpiece created from Scooby string. ‘Just get in the car as you are, we haven’t got time to undo them, and we haven’t got time to find the others.’

  ‘Can I have a mazagine?’ Elyse asked, through sniffles.

  ‘Mag a zine…say mag a zine.’

  ‘Mag a zine.’

  ‘And again…’

  ‘Mag a zine.’

  ‘Good…now say Magazine.’

  ‘Mazagine. So…can I have one pwease.’

  ‘Elyse, I give up. And no…we are getting you another pumpkin. Now get in the car quickly…please.’

  Having got a replacement from the veg store in the next village, I decided to show my hands some mercy by playing this one safe, sticking to the less intricate, conventional pumpkin face. I carved out tiny triangles to form the cross of the eyes, a triangle nose, and then that was when I had the brainwave. I hurriedly emptied the plastic toy boxes in the garden room, all observed by a puzzled William, and then I triumphantly pulled out a tiny plastic frog, perfect for Halloween. I grabbed the camera off the top of the freestanding unit in the kitchen and placed the frog in front of the mouth-less Ray Mysterio.

  ‘Mummy, why are you taking a picture of my pumpkin and my frog?’

  ‘Move your head William – it’s in the way, good boy, you’ll see what I’m doing in a minute,’ I said, as I pressed the camera button down. ‘Right then Elyse, let’s cut the mouth out of Ray.’ I said, as I picked the tools back up to create a simple wide smile.

  ‘Can I have it, can I have it now Mummy?’

  ‘In two secs, Elyse. I just want to take another picture. Right here…hold the frog’ I said, as I handed it to William.

  I then placed the now smiling Undertaker next to Ray and took another shot, minus the frog.

  ‘There…done,’ I said satisfied, as I finally handed Elyse her pumpkin. ‘Right…do you want to see the pictures? …Ready?’ I asked. ‘There is Ray Mysterio, The Undertaker and little froggy. And now…Ray is now smiling because he’s eaten the little froggy,’ I smiled as I explained it to them, thinking this was no worse than anything they watched on The Simpsons.

  Elyse didn’t really get it, but happily wandered off with her pumpkin. William liked it so much that he took the camera and flicked through the pictures several more times. The next day I loaded them onto my Facebook, with a little caption on the one without the frog:

  Oh dear :-)

  My ridiculous theory, using an equally ridiculous method, was that if Hope was watching my posts, and he had picked up on my fear of frogs, then this album would strike a chord with him, and yet another manufactured coincidence would pop up on his Facebook. And if nothing appeared that related to it, then, well, I would be proven wrong and he would be none the wiser as to what I’d been doing.

  Blue jumped on the sofa, accidentally caught the remote and switched on the TV. I watched a body being removed from a Victorian terrace cordoned off by the police. It was old news footage from 2005 and a male voice spoke over the images: “A 22-year-old man has been arrested after Charlotte Hadley was found stabbed to death at her home in Manchester.” The clip ended and cut back to a studio shot of some daytime chat show I’d never heard of.

  “Obviously the Charlotte Hadley case was extremely tragic, but Jane, can you tell us how wide the definition of stalking extends?”

  The presenter, an immaculately dressed middle-aged woman, spoke to a younger dark-haired lady on a sofa. The words Dr Jane Tondal, Psychiatrist appeared at the bottom of the screen. She had obviously been warned not to slouch prior to going on air and appeared uncomfortably straight and rigid. I was about to switch off – but then decided to listen to the psychiatrists answer instead.

  “Basically…a stalker is someone who watches you all of the time, and who phones, texts, turns up at your workplace or home uninvited; even communicates with you through social networking sites,” she went on.

  “Why do they do it?” The presenter asked.

  “For lots of different reasons. The Love Obsessed Stalker, for example, may not have a relationship with their victim, but, like their description, they become obsessed with them. They have a fanatical love for them and will go to great lengths to obtain information on their target; they’ll even get friends to help them. They may believe they are destined to be with their victim, if only their victim could see it. Very often this type of stalker suffers from some mental disorder as was found in the Charlotte Hadley case. Her killer was later diagnosed with dissociate identity disorder or better know as multiple personality disorder. But the stalking began after Charlotte broke off their relationship.”

  “I once remember reading something about stalkers believing that their victim is communicating through some kind of special coded communication. Have I got that right?”

  “Yes…that’s the Delusional Stalker you are referring to. Very often this type will stalk celebrities or people generally out of their social reach. The relationship doesn’t really exist beyond the stalkers own mind. Their imaginary world is a far better place. Even things like the victim’s choice of car regis
tration can be bizarrely read into as being coded communication to acknowledge their secret love. In 2006, FTAC, the Fixated Threat Assessment Centre was set up to help deal with this type of crime. It’s a combined mental-health and police unit.”

  “Are most stalker’s dangerous?”

  “They’re not all dangerous…The problem is some stalkers don’t realise what they’re doing is intimidating or threatening. But then there are some who set out to be precisely that…they want revenge – they intend to cause fear to their victim and they believe they’ve been wronged in some way. It can often feel like slow rape for the victim or in Charlotte’s case result in death.”

  “This is all very fascinating and worthy of more discussion. But unfortunately we have to go to commercial…After the break we’ll be…”

  I turned the TV off. The psychiatrist’s comments left me feeling uncomfortable.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Status: 31st October 2008 09:01

  Nicole feels like a dream child moving through a land of wonders wild and new.

  ‘While we’re over this way, do you want to call in to see the new signage on the showroom?’ Richard asked, as he turned his face to me, before focusing back on the road ahead. He’d taken the day off work, because it was half-term and we were on our way back home after spending the morning buying new sleeping bags for the Halloween sleepover at the steelworks, which was to take place later that night.

  ‘Why? Have the new occupants moved in then?’ I asked this because I thought Richard must have forgotten to tell me that the new tenant was finally in our old showroom.

  I did know that he’d at long last sorted out the ongoing issue with the lease on the premises; the lawyers acting on behalf of the proprietor wanted Richard to still be the guarantor for the new tenant. Richard had flipped out in a meeting with a bunch of lawyers at the twelfth hour. He told them that they could do what the fuck they liked, but he would go bankrupt before he would agree to pay someone else’s rent on the place – if it turned out they couldn’t afford it. In the end, the new tenant agreed to provide the underlying guarantee; the way it should have been all along. The whole thing was ridiculous and yet another sign of the current lack of confidence in the business world. How great it would be if Richard could get the bank and other legal issues off his back with such petulance, I thought. But Richard wanting to show me the signage was why I’d assumed the new tenant had already opened up shop.