Past Present Future

by Alexander, N J.

  Beware the knave of hearts, else the cuckold become

  My blood ran cold.

  ‘That text relates to my Facebook! That has to be from the same person who sent the other one. But that was months ago…why would they send another now?’

  It infuriated me that whoever was doing this was trying to be smart with words. Just like the text before – it was sinister in style, only this time even more carefully constructed.

  ‘Never mind that…what does it mean, beware the Knave of Hearts?’ and he took the phone back.

  ‘What do you mean, what does it mean? – did you send the text?’ I snapped. I was tired of people messing with my head. Life was starting to feel like I was playing a game inside a bubble that was rapidly becoming starved of oxygen. If only I could have burst the bubble and let more air to my brain.

  ‘No, I didn’t! How could you think so? But what does it mean?’ he asked again.

  ‘It refers to the Knave of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland – he steals the tart. Jack of Hearts was my nickname for Anthony Hope – and I’m the tart,’ I said, trying to make my explanation sound quite normal. ‘Only me, you, Maddy, Lorna, Bruce and Steve even know about my game and only me and Maddy know about the significance of the Knave of Hearts, and you, if I did tell you that bit, I can’t quite remember. Maddy wouldn’t send it, because she was always trying to stop me playing my game with Anthony, in case I lost you.’

  ‘That was nice of her at least she’s—’

  I cut him short. ‘Lorna isn’t on Facebook, Maddy would not try to stir this all up again, Steve is in prison without the Internet and…the wording of the text isn’t Bruce’s style…’

  I turned to look at him. ‘I still think you’ve sent this text…only you and the media would use a word like cuckold…’ I said, holding up the phone. ‘So what else are you lying about?’

  He took the phone back. ‘Nothing. Your talking nonsense and everyone knows that word! Personally…I think that wanker has sent this text,’ he said defiantly.

  ‘Anthony? Why the hell would he send a text to you? You said yourself that if he was really interested in me he would have made more of an effort, even Maddy’s told you she’s thinks the game was in my head.’

  In fact, Maddy hadn’t even skirted round with her words when she said to us both that Anthony hadn’t got a clue I’d been stalking him.

  ‘Anthony wouldn’t have your number; my Facebook page has never revealed any telephone numbers. And my game had barely started when the first text came through around October last year. So…this can’t be from him,’ I argued.

  ‘I’m telling you it must be him. He knew where I worked; he could have called the office for it months ago, he could even have got it from the FSA. I was talking to him about my work that day at your Opus work do,’ He fired back.

  ‘I still think you’ve sent it…that was such a convoluted theory. You sent it from your other phone.’

  ‘I haven’t got that phone with me!’ Then he pulled it from one of the island drawers, and I stared at it with hatred, because it meant I still didn’t have an explanation.

  ‘So what telephone number has it come from? Try calling it.’

  ‘I can’t…there is no number,’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean there is no number? There has to be a number.’

  ‘Look no number.’

  I took the phone from him again, and studied it. ‘It says no recipient.’ I pushed it back into his hand with contempt this time. He obviously had no idea how fragile and confused my head was to play with me like this.

  ‘You are being ridiculous…it beeped when it came through on my phone…I was driving so I picked it up and saved it.’

  I thought for a second, then grabbed my phone, and typed in a text message; after I had finished, I sent it to Richard’s phone and when it came through, I saved it.

  ‘There see, that’s how it should appear if it had come through from another phone…you’ve done this…why the hell are you playing mind games with me?’ I spat.

  ‘I’m getting so angry with you. In fact, why don’t you just piss off with the idiot. I am telling you – I have done nothing but Save the text…send me another text.’

  ‘Fine,’ I sent another, and Richard’s phone bleeped after about thirty seconds. He clicked on ‘Save to Template’ this time.

  ‘There see. I’ve obviously hit the wrong Save button, I was driving and I hadn’t got my reading glasses on, and I’d hit Save To Template in error. Now do you believe me?’

  ‘I just don’t get it,’ I said.

  ‘I do…this text is from that wanker…who else would send a text message like this?’

  I took the phone back again and sent several text messages from my phone to his, saving to Template.

  If you Saved to Template, it then gave you two options: create a message using the Template, or create a Template and Save as a Draft; which would sit like the message on Richard’s phone saying ‘no recipient.’ So…Richard could have Saved as Template, like he was saying. But why wasn’t the original text sitting in the phone? I was baffled.

  ‘I’m telling you…that text is not from Anthony Hope. Whoever sent this text message must have been stalking my Facebook page for months. But they also have your mobile number so that would mean it was either one of your relatives or…’

  ‘Why would any of my relatives do that?’

  ‘Because I took you away from your wife…’

  ‘You didn’t take me away – I left…and surely they would just say something instead of hiding behind a text message.’

  ‘Fine – have it your way. There are some ex-staff members from Ilex on my Facebook too, they would know where to get your number, but they wouldn’t have a clue about Anthony Hope. They wouldn’t even know who he is.’

  I didn’t want to let it drop, because either Richard was lying or someone was stalking me, and had been stalking me for months. Suddenly, I felt like I couldn’t trust anyone, and Richard still refused to contact the police.

  Someone, somewhere, knew the truth about these two text messages.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  18th May 2010

  I explained my story to Juliet Taylor, an ex-national journalist who now made a living from selling real-life stories to newspapers and magazines.

  I found her on the Internet – I liked her photo, she looked kind and like she would be sympathetic to my story. This was my brainwave to find a way to the top of the literary slush pile that gave me a less than one per cent chance of surviving the shredder. My theory was to generate interest in the story, prior to sending it off to a publisher.

  Juliet was like I expected and gentle with her questioning. She was also massively switched on, without the condescending tone evident in many male journalists.

  Her probing pushed me to the tears that I’d been holding back since Anthony knocked me off Facebook. For some reason I didn’t feel as though I had any right to cry over him anymore. I’d been a willing participant in the game and always knew how it would end.

  I finished my convoluted tale, putting the conversation back into Juliet’s court.

  ‘I have to say…’ and she kept me hanging.

  The bottom of my stomach felt like it could drop any second because I knew what was coming next. I’d heard it all before: my mind flashed back to a conversation with a down market tabloid newspaper journalist over the Christmas holidays. I’d had Razorlight’s Wire to Wire playing in the background at the time and, while sipping a snowball cocktail, I answered questions like: ‘…did you have sex with him?’ I had to say no. ‘So…did you ever actually meet up? And the answer I gave again was, no. In the end he said, ‘well in that case, I don’t think we have a story,’ and rudely hung up. There was another email in my Inbox from a news agency that said, “…sorry we don’t deal with fiction.” I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry – they thought my life was fiction! Their rejections swirled around in my head as Juliet kept up with the suspense. I
felt my hand gripping the handset tighter and tighter. Then she finally spoke.

  ‘…I find this story truly fascinating.’

  For one who had a tendency not to show tactile emotion, I wanted to hug her.

  ‘You’re clearly an intelligent woman and yet you embark on the fantasy that this man is playing with you on Facebook… and—’

  She called me intelligent! This meant a lot because I was starting to feel as thick as a brick…and then my head turned to the fantasy bit.

  ‘No, no it wasn’t a fantasy, the game actually happened…it’s the other weird stuff I have no explanation for, but I have a statistician in the USA calculating the probability, or rather the improbability as he’s called it, for the sequence of events for those bits.’

  ‘But, Nicole, the game, you don’t sound convinced it happened when you’re explaining it.’

  ‘I swear that the game did happen, but you need to read my book, it’s not complete, but it will help you to understand it better.’

  I couldn’t even begin to explain to her that I was starting to feel like one of those characters in a children’s story who embarks on an adventure, but is left with nothing but a single object as a reminder that it wasn’t all a dream. My papers, my book, were proof that it wasn’t something I’d dreamt up. But it didn’t help that Maddy kept saying that he was never playing a game with me. I suppose it was a bit like when you return from a holiday – you know it happened but it no longer feels real.

  ‘Email the book, and I’ll read it…but I only want to read it if you are certain you want to go ahead with publicity for the story…otherwise I will have wasted my time.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure I want to go ahead. I’ll email what I’ve written so far.’

  ‘Great, but give me a few days to get back to you. I think we will protect Anthony’s identity; it’s not really fair to expose him. And will I be able to speak to Richard at some stage?’

  ‘Yes…he’ll speak to you. I did tell him that I’d sent a brief email to your company.’

  ‘How did he take it when you told him about your game?’

  ‘I’ve hurt him and he feels second place to a fantasy,’ I said.

  I desperately wanted to ask why she wished to speak to Richard, but was too intimidated. I scribbled down her personal email on a scrap of paper from the study desk, then we said our polite goodbyes. I placed the phone back on the base with a satisfied smile. At last someone was listening to me.

  Juliet called Richard on his mobile, before she called me about a week later. All she wanted from him was to make sure that I was strong enough to cope with the publicity. Richard told her that I would be fine with it.

  Several hours later the home phone rang. For once I picked up the call like it was a hot brick. Juliet was the first person besides Maddy to read what I’d written so far. Her opinion was crucial to me and waiting for her response felt far worse than holding exam results in a sealed envelope.

  What if she thinks I’m too thick to write a book…that I am not really as intelligent as she thinks?

  ‘Nicole, I’ve read your book and…’

  It’s like being a contestant on a talent show, I thought.

  Then she spoke again, ‘I think you write really well, lots of interesting detail. Plus, you have good recall for conversation, and I love the link you make to Alice in Wonderland. I think this book has got a lot of potential, but…’

  God she was killing me with her pauses, I’d almost completed a lap of the coffee table.

  ‘Nicole, I’m still not convinced that he was playing a game with you,’ she said finally.

  So that was why she’s said it’s well written, she was softening her punch,

  ‘I still think you imagined it.’

  I couldn’t speak, I’d been holding my breath while pacing and now I needed to take in air. I tried to avoid an audible gulp. I manage a weak, ‘Okay.’

  She continued to speak. I turned my mouth away from the phone, trying to regulate my breathing again.

  ‘I think you were so unhappy and bored at the time. You had an awful lot of stress in your life, and I think you had a mental breakdown.’

  ‘But you haven’t got the whole story. You’ve only got a little beyond the Lewis Carroll quote. It’s not until later on that the game with him becomes more evident,’ I said, thinking how can she not possibly see that a Lewis Carroll quote popping up after my direct reference to him, was too much of a coincidence to be anything else? And the Alice in Wonderland…it wasn’t me who even started with that theme. That’s what I saw from his side of the Wall, so to speak. It was that dice thing again. How many times did it have to throw up a six – a million?

  ‘I’m sorry Nicole; obviously I haven’t got the entire story here. But based on what I do have, I really don’t think he was communicating with you, really I don’t. And obsessing about numbers – that is usually a sign of a mental breakdown.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m sure I’ve read or seen something about number madness before,’ I said, thinking that I wasn’t obsessing about any old numbers, only these specific numbers that were all connected. And it wasn’t the numbers driving me mad – it was the coincidences with them. Was that the same thing? I didn’t know. I wasn’t an expert in such matters. How could Deepak Chopra be held a hero by world leaders for writing about Synchrodestiny and I be hailed as a nut job for considering the same things as remotely possible?

  ‘But, as I’ve said, I do think this story has potential, and I’m definitely interested in it. Would you be prepared to allow a psychiatrist to give an opinion in the feature?’

  I almost wanted to laugh.

  ‘Yes I would, all I want to do is get the story out there. I want to invite different opinions. That’s the whole purpose of me writing the book. May be I’ll go down as the craziest woman on the planet,’ I heard myself laugh uncomfortably.

  Juliet paused again. She was obviously thinking up a tactful response.

  ‘You certainly have an interesting mind,’ she said.

  In any normal circumstances I would find being called bonkers in a serious way by a complete stranger offensive, but I liked her. I liked her because her mind was sharp enough to cut through my rambling explanation of a game and get to the crux of the story in the first place, and she had gone to the trouble of reading my book. The worst insult she could have thrown at me would be that she found my story boring.

  I also had to accept, like Virginia Wolf once said: “…one goes down into the well and nothing protects one from the assault of the truth”. A breakdown could be the truth – that could be what I’d written – the confession from the eye of a mental crash.

  We finished the conversation with me agreeing to get back in touch, once I’d completed the manuscript.

  I then ran up to the third floor to find Richard, who since his bankruptcy had taken to researching potential target companies, ready for when he could work again. Maddy had taken to calling him Saddam.

  ‘Do you think I’ve had a mental breakdown?’

  Richard swivelled round in the chair to face me. He removed his reading glasses.

  ‘No why?’

  ‘So you’ve never seen me behaving like I’m going completely off the rails?’

  ‘No…sometimes you do and say funny things, but you’ve always done that. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Juliet, the journalist, thinks my numbers thing, and the game with Anthony was the result of a mental breakdown. She still doesn’t believe he was communicating with me and that the whole thing was in my imagination. Richard, she even asked if I’d considered getting counselling for it.’

  ‘Well…your game with Anthony was out of character for you – I always had you down as more loyal. Obviously, I don’t know whether he was or wasn’t…I haven’t read your book yet. The numbers stuff is a set of really strange coincidences that defy reason…but no, I don’t think you have had a breakdown. I don’t think you need counselling.’

  ‘Hmm…’ and I hovered
in the door way, silently pondering.

  I was sure people who had breakdowns gave up on life; they didn’t want to get out of bed, they let their appearance slide and wandered around looking like tramps, or they sat rocking back and forth in some corner. But I was none of those things. Then I looked down at my clothes I’d chucked on in a hurry: greying T-shirt, jeans with a hole in the knee, and a cardigan Richard called a rug, but it was warm, or rather it was making me sweat since I’d paced four miles on the phone with Juliet and sprinted up three flights of stairs. But these were like a dust sheet, because I was too busy trying to get my book finished and revise for my last exam, I considered. These clothes weren’t indicative of a breakdown because my physical self was well-maintained.

  ‘So…what else did Juliet say?’

  ‘That’s she’s definitely interested in the story and she wants to travel from London to do the interview. She must seriously think it’s got mileage because normally she only bothers to interview people over the phone. She wants to take pictures of us too. But now I’ve put the phone down…I’m not so sure about that,’ I said. ‘They might make me look very weak and vulnerable with the way they style the photo…it will make me look small next to you…make me look capable of being easily unhinged.’ Capable of being a stalker. For Christsake, I’ve even sent him a letter and called on him unexpectedly, all in innocence. But is that going to matter?

  ‘Well only you can decide that,’ Richard said, not party to my thoughts.

  I left Richard to it and wandered back downstairs to call Maddy. She found Juliet’s opinion highly entertaining because she’d agreed with her; the game never happened. She did say that I had seemed a bit stressed out, so I could possibly have had one, but admitted that she’d been too busy stressing and obsessing about her own stuff and she may not have noticed what I was going through.

  I called Mum and put the same question to her.

  She said I did seem edgy after I was tapped on the shoulder, but no she couldn’t see that I’d had an actual breakdown. Then I thought back to the day that mum suggested I take Valium!