Past Present Future

by Alexander, N J.

  ‘Ah, I get it,’ said Dad and Richard continued to busy himself with topping up the tea.

  ‘Good, so at what point do you accept concurrent events as more than coincidental? How many times does the dice have to throw up a six before you are picking it up to see if it’s because the weight is unevenly distributed. And then, at what point do you say it’s something more than a coincidence,’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know…I’d probably smash the dice open,’ said Dad.

  ‘Take a look at this,’ I said, as I drew the infinity symbol on the paper. ‘Look at what happens when I use simple gematria to convert the letters of DOTD into numbers. It makes D equal 4, O is 15, T equals 20 and D is 4 again.’

  ‘Each loop of the symbol is weighted at half of 8, the cosmic balance, and where “X” sits at the centre of the symbol, there is 152 – February 15th – the very same numbers in the quadratic equation. The zero doesn’t really count because it’s nought or nothing.’ Dad took the drawing from me.

  ‘Can’t you see how strange this is? Since the tap on the shoulder, everything I have drawn or have been led to is connected only to a very specific set of numbers. And not only that, there are literally billions and billions of things I could have drawn from my subconscious brain. But I swear there is something about these numbers: 8 and 512, or 152 whichever way it runs. There is something about the 8 multiplied by 8, or “X” squared; or raised to the power of two. This is because when the quadratic equation is written as an unsolved puzzle, it is the “X” which has to be solved. Only, in this case, I already know that “X” is 8 which is to be raised to the power of 2.’

  ‘I must admit it is strange. The probability of this happening must be pretty high. But finding meaning in numbers is pseudo-mathematics, you can try to find number patterns and meanings in anything,’ said Dad, who spent his days using proper maths in engineering.

  ‘I agree with you up to a point; there are lots of people offering to tell people what their life means in numbers, and I’m aware that numerology is very popular, but this little lot makes perfect sense to me – and I am untrained in all of this. These numbers are connected to my past, but something tells me they’re also connected to the future; otherwise, what was the point of being made to pay attention to something?’

  By now, I was starting to feel quite smug that I’d managed to explain everything without including any reference to Anthony Hope, and the feeling that whatever all this was, he was the ultimate connection.

  ‘I want to show you something from the Bible. I was reading it yesterday.’ I said and went and pulled it off the study bookshelf; it had finished up sitting somewhere between Being Jordan and an encyclopaedia on the world’s greatest philosophers.

  ‘It’s the Vine and The Branches. You need to read it from here, Dad,’ I said now back in the kitchen. I pointed to 15:20. ‘Read it all the way to the bottom, and then tell me what you think it means.’

  ‘See, I told you…she’s going to be off to join some cult or other,’ Richard said, laughing.

  ‘You’re being ridiculous even saying it,’ I sniped.

  ‘Do you need Valium, are you depressed?’ Mum finally joined in the conversation from the far end of the table.

  ‘No I don’t need a Valium. I am not depressed at all.’

  I couldn’t believe my own mother was telling me to take Valium. The whole scenario would have been funny if I wasn’t for the fact I was feeling so sad. But longing for another man is not the same as depression, stress or anxiety.

  ‘You’re spending too much time on your own. You need to get back to work or…something,’ Mum said, which opened up the whole debate of my not being able to work, the study I was doing for nine exams, and the care I gave to William and Elyse. I could add a job to that workload, but William and Elyse would be paying the price. I fought back with positivity.

  ‘Anyway, the two tax exams I’ve got to take, I’m going to do through a place in the City that runs professional courses. I start studying for them in January, and I’ll sit the exams in June. So that won’t be in isolation – I’ll be with other students.’ Grandmama agreed that it was a good idea as Dad put down the Bible.

  ‘Well?’ I said, raising my eyebrows; the Botox had all but worn off.

  ‘The Bible is open to interpretation; the passages can mean lots of different things to different people. Here…you read it, Jackie,’ and he slid the Bible to the far end of the table.

  Mum pulled it towards her, took two glances at it before virtually tossing it aside; another indication that I was stressing her out. But her dismissal also landed her at the wrath of Grandmama’s tongue.

  ‘You’re not like our Nicole. You’re not a deep thinker.’

  Mum’s face was a picture. Clearly she didn’t know whether to defend herself at the risk of insulting me.

  But Grandmama was my saviour. She let no one, not even mum attack me. Even Maddy with her mouth was wise enough to tread carefully around her, when it came to me. So I safely offered my interpretation. ‘God cuts off every branch of the vine that bears no fruit, the others he prunes to make them more fruitful. So my current interpretation is that it is, like the credit crunch, the greed was no good for us. The world money tree has severely had its branches cut off, so efficiently it could have been done with a chain saw. But we still have to keep faith in God. We (mankind) need to have faith that he knows what is best for us. What is best for us is to love each other. Like it goes on to say in this bit at the bottom:

  My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because servants do not know their master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit – fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. This is my command: Love each other.

  I put the Bible down on the table.

  We were a non-churchgoing family. As a child, Sundays had always been Gymkhana day, topped off with a Chinese takeaway in the evening, so reading the Bible out loud around the table had just rendered my family entirely speechless. The silence brought forward the sound of the lounge television.

  Richard smugly raised his eyebrows; Mum definitely looked like the one in need of Valium. Grandmama broke the silence. ‘What led you to that then?’

  ‘Pomana…Vines…15:20,’ I said, knowing that the tenuous link would make little sense to them, but it definitely made sense to me.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  I rested the weight of my body against my thigh as I knelt, taking pleasure from the hot water bouncing off my back. Richard always moaned about the length of time I spent in the shower. But it wasn’t just the shampooing, conditioning, exfoliating and whatnot, it was also one of my favourite places to think.

  Using my right index finger, I cut through heavily formed steam on the glass panel to trace an eight. Droplets of water burst to form straight lines of water that ran down like teardrops on a face. New steam formed over the eight and it slowly vanished. Then I wrote the full equation: 8(X)2 –512 = 0 Underneath I wrote X cross, X Chi.

  I whispered to myself: “X” raised to the power of two, but nowhere raised to a higher power – nowhere or is something trying to tell me that the no. as in ‘number’ is where something is raised to a higher power?

  My scribbles vanished again in the newly formed steam. Lewis Carroll Christchurch, I then wrote. Was my ghost Lewis Carroll? Was that such a mad thought? And why does it all equal “zero?” This time I traced a large zero. Was “zero” the hole I had gone and dropped myself into with Anthony Hope? On the adjacent panel using the index finger on my left hand I wrote cuckold. What am I missing here? I whispered. I was still none- the-wiser. I turned the shower off and stepped out of the cubicle, then wrapped a towel round my wet
body. Just as I grabbed my hairbrush off the shelf, my mobile rang.

  Still clinging to the towel, I ran across the carpet, leaving behind wet footprints and dropped my hairbrush on the way. I heard Dad’s voice. Dad on the other end of a phone on a workday had completely thrown me. Something must be wrong with Mum, I thought.

  ‘Friendship,’ he said.

  ‘What about it?’ I said, baffled.

  ‘That biblical passage – it’s about friendship. I read it again in my Bible when I got home last night.’

  He said his goodbyes and left me to my thoughts: whether it is friendship, love or lust; these are nothing but emotions and feelings that we can rationalise. Yet, because we lack the resolve to brush them aside, emotions have the power to cripple us.

  As I watched Elyse on her swimming lesson, being equally crippled by the poolside sub-tropical heat, I thought about Dad’s words from the day before. The other mothers attempted friendly conversation, but their words and smiles were interrupting my thoughts; so I listened to them through a long, dark tunnel.

  My eyes were so tearful and it felt like as though I’d got something wedged in the back of my throat. I could no longer bear the heavy brick sitting stubbornly on my chest. But I knew once Elyse was dropped off at school, I would sit at the computer and type a letter to Anthony Hope. I had finally taken on board Maddy’s words of wisdom and accepted that I could never be with him, and I needed to stop reading into messages on his Facebook that gave me false hope of living happily ever after with him.

  I hated the idea of removing hope in every context of the word, but more than anything, I hated the thought of him never knowing what I felt for him and the attraction I’d always held.

  By just stopping communication, giving no explanation, I would effectively be dismissing him as insignificant. But I knew that the letter would be the end.

  I dropped Elyse off at school and got back to the house in the late morning. I ignored the aftermath of the breakfast rush and entered the study to start typing. The moment I started typing the tears finally came, but I persevered through the blurred vision.

  27th November 2008

  Anthony

  I am really sorry but cannot continue to play games with you, as they are slowly destroying me. Putting my feelings in writing is not something I have ever done before and it is smashing my heart into one million pieces by doing so. I’m not even sure whether you are still playing games with me.

  I will openly admit that I was attracted to you from the first day I saw you – you have danger written all over you. You then had a string of girlfriends and I thought my instincts were right. Then one day you were sitting reading a book and the title took me by surprise – I felt myself fall there and then. It was something I fought hard to conceal and kept it buried inside.

  Aside from my feelings towards you I was with a man (Richard) who had put himself through hell to be with me.

  Fate also intervened and I fell pregnant. At this stage all of my choices were removed and I had to leave Opus and you behind.

  I never forgot you and assumed you eventually went back home. It wasn’t until my company collapsed earlier this year that you started to once again hit my consciousness.

  I spoke to Maddy about you. This being the first time I had spoken to anyone about the feelings I’d fought.

  I then joined Facebook, and found myself trawling pages to find you. I foolishly thought that if I added you as a friend, I could look at you without you ever knowing my feelings – I’ve truly blown that one! Maddy added you as a friend, not at my request, but I think as a means of watching over me. I have never asked why she did that. But in your crowded space I thought you would not even notice my presence so it was no big deal. But then some of your Facebook Status Updates hit me hard.

  Over the last weeks I have fallen harder than ever and it is now causing me to withdraw from Richard. I cannot explain to him what is happening to me. He speaks to me and I don’t hear him. It is like I am locked in my own world. He is continually asking me if everything is okay and wanting continual reassurance that I love him. Richard is a kind, loving man who holds my heart in a different way. We don’t kiss; we haven’t kissed like two people should for over ten years and he never questions it. I guess I love him like a best friend.

  But now, I’ve allowed the floodgates to open to you and that’s where my problem is. I am trapped here. If there were only me I would walk out of my front door now with just the clothes on my back. But there isn’t just me. I have William and Elyse. If I left Richard my conscience would only allow me to walk away with nothing. To take my love and take financially would be too much.

  This means I have no way of supporting myself and William and Elyse in a way that they are used to. Being with you would require money. Where you live, and the way you live. Without it you would be destroyed by domesticity. In short, without a miracle (lottery win) I am unable to go anywhere. Eight years ago it was just me, now it’s not, but you will always have my heart.

  You will always be my greatest love story; I could never bring myself to read the old novel by Anthony Hope, I stumbled across a few weeks ago because I am too afraid to read the ending. I just wish I could have had the fairy tale with you.

  I made discoveries that all seemed to indicate that I should be with you. I was somehow guided to them. They have no meaning alone but only with you in the equation. My circumstances prevent me from being with you, so they must be for you alone. If you ever want them I will give them to you. Maybe my life is intended to be one of sacrifice. Who knows? But I do know this is a one-sided letter; making assumptions that you have feelings for me. I don’t know whether you do or don’t? Regardless, I feel I have had to send this letter because I would regret not telling you. I once again ask you not to remove me as a friend, and let me become the passive observer of your life. The last thing I ask is that you give me a truthful account of why you chose to play games with me. By the way, your Irish girlfriend is very beautiful.

  Love you forever

  Nicole x

  It was going to have to be sent to his private email because Facebook inconveniently didn’t accept attachments. My first ever letter to a man and the second time I’d let Anthony slip through my fingers, like he was a pile of worthless sand. I eventually stopped procrastinating, but the second I hit Send – I regretted it – I should have remained silent.

  I sat motionless agonising over the word “love”. I should not have used that word, but “…lust after you”, wouldn’t have been right either.

  I was sure that my feelings were more than lust, but how could I really know? I’d never allowed myself the chance to find out. In a few hours, he would read it, and I would be swiftly removed as his friend. What had possessed me to send it?

  There was a part of me that hoped he would listen to my words and not delete me, but deep down, he would have to be insane not to, after a confession like mine. There was no point him keeping me as a friend. It was like the “Game Over” had finally popped up on my computer game, all my lives were used up, and I’d made myself look an utter fool. I felt utterly wretched in the process.

  The phone rang. I picked it up and hurled it against the desk, the battery fell out, but I swear it was still ringing in my ears.

  The tears kept on coming for several hours, until I got into the car to fetch William and Elyse from school. I avoided eye contact with the occasional passing parent, because of my blotchy red face and puffed up piggy eyes. I listened to William and Elyse enthusiastically telling me about their day on the way home, and fired a few sums at William; mental arithmetic was his favourite pastime in the car – he had Richard’s freaky head for fast maths.

  My own head still had that heavy aftermath from sobbing, which always hits like a hangover. Suddenly William and Elyse stopped being jovial and started bickering over car space. ‘Mummy…Wiwyam’s legs are in my space, he’s touching me.’

  ‘William, sit up straight please,’ I said, as I glanc
ed at him through the rear-view mirror.

  ‘I’m not doing nothing.’

  ‘I’m not doing anything, not I’m not doing nothing. Sit up straight please.’

  ‘Mummy…he’s still got his legs in my space.’

  ‘But I’m tired, Mum.’

  ‘William, just move your legs please, and stay in your own space. Stop winding her up.

  Elyse, I saw that, don’t you dare pinch him. If I could reach you bo—’ and then they kicked off into an almighty row with an insane level of noise that my head was not prepared to take.

  ‘Just shut up the pair of you. Shut up!!! I’m trying to drive,’ I heard myself yell.

  It was like the yell of childbirth – like it had come from the mouth of someone else. At that moment I just wanted to stop the car, get out and kick in every panel of it in. I wanted to take every ounce of frustration out on the car.

  ‘Mum, you need to take a chill pill,’ William said calmly, as though they hadn’t been making noise at all, and as if I was the only one losing it.

  ‘William, just stop it…please,’ I said, with remorse for being angry with them. My turmoil over Anthony was not their fault. Our numbers may have collided, but our worlds were simply too far apart.