"Lovely Rita," "She's Leaving Home," "Fixing a Hole," "Getting Better," "Good Morning, Good Morning."
Relative to the astonishing catalogue of genius with which the Beatles left us, there's not a lot going for Sgt. Pepper. Even the better-known songs, such as "With A Little Help From My Friends", and "When I'm Sixty-Four", and "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" hardly rank amongst the Beatles' best.
They should never have left off "Strawberry Fields" and "Penny Lane" – recorded at the same time but released as a single. Ditch a couple of the others, and put them on, and straight away you've got a much better album. In addition, while George's "It's Only A Northern Song" eventually released on Yellow Submarine, isn't a world-beater, by God at least it's got some spunk about it and is oodles better than that bloody awful dirge on Sgt. Pepper.
Suppose George didn't think so.
Here's how Sgt. Pepper would have looked if I'd been in charge:
Side 1:
1. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band
2. With A Little Help From My Friends
3. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
4. It's Only A Northern Song
5. Fixing A Hole
6. Being For The Benefit of Mr Kite!
7. Penny Lane
Side 2:
8. Strawberry Fields Forever
9. When I'm Sixty-Four
10. Lovely Rita
11. Good Morning, Good Morning
12. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (reprise)
13. A Day In The Life
Nobody asked me, although, just like with The White Album, I hadn't been born yet, so you know, there's that.
21
The six months were up; the days of wandering were over. It was time to make a decision. I'd spent the bulk of the six months not only deferring that decision, but deferring even thinking about it. Whatever choice I made seemed inherently dangerous. It felt as though whatever I did, it had the potential to end up with me just disappearing in the blink of an eye. It seemed the only thing I could do was let events play out, and let the other me die in the crash, or think himself off the crash in some never-ending loop.
However, if that was the route I went down, there was no logical way in which I could just walk back into my home. I could literally walk back in, but at some point the police would come to tell Brin I was dead, and it would be me answering the door. The authorities were unlikely to see a miracle, more likely to see terrorism, regardless of the fact that I was just a guy who made coffee.
With three days to go I got on a train and headed south. Arrived in Bristol at eight in the evening and booked myself into a Travel Lodge in the centre of town. I didn't sleep that night. I didn't go out at all the next day. It looked grey outside. It may have rained the whole day. I'm not sure. I didn't move, apart from when I needed to go to the bathroom. I put the Do No Disturb sign on the door. No one knocked. Every time I went to the bathroom I drank a glass of water, and returned to sitting on the bed.
Now was the time to come up with the brilliant plan. I'd got through the six months, kept my head down, resisted the need to contact Brin and Baggins. I had made my last bet, and had enough money to keep me going until the day the plane took off. After that, I would have a decision to make. Or perhaps, before that. I didn't know yet. I couldn't even decide what I was trying to make a decision about. Couldn't get close.
I sat on the edge of the bed and tried to piece everything together. It was like doing a jigsaw without knowing what the picture looks like, nor indeed if there even was a picture. Perhaps there was just a collection of random pieces.
I missed Baggins more than I missed Brin. I'd felt guilty acknowledging that to myself at the start, but as time went on I realised there was little point in lying. I could see right through myself after all.
I wasn't sure what had gone wrong with Brin. I hated the thought that it was the lie I'd told from the very beginning – and not just the lie, but the 'what if' that forever plagued me – but perhaps it had finally caught up with us. Perhaps something had happened, which I didn't quite recognise, that had allowed her to understand me better.
Occasionally I wondered about just never going back. Was that an option? I liked to imagine that I was thinking about it purely on the basis that I had to consider everything. All options on the table. That was all.
There was this other guy living with my wife. What if she was happier with him? What if there was something slightly different about the guy that she liked? Weirdly, the thought of Brin being happier with someone else didn't seem to trouble me too much. Maybe I just didn't believe it, or maybe I was just relieved to think of me making her happy again, even if it wasn't actually me. However, I hated the thought of some other me dropping Baggins off at school, and playing games of Monopoly that seemed to last for hours and shouting along with her at X-Factor. So I didn't think about Baggins and the other me.
I sat for two days, until the time to take the active options that were open to me, such as stopping my other self getting on the plane, or killing my other self before he got there, was upon me. If I was going to do something positive, then it had to be now. I left the room with just that thought, and no determination.
What if I let my other self get on the plane, and then the plane didn't crash? I'd turn up at home, be sitting there having my dinner and having to explain why I'd decided not to take the flight, and then the other me would phone from LA to tell Brin about the trip. After six months alone, I couldn't face that impossible awkwardness.
I decided to go for a coffee at the Starbucks where I worked. I felt such a different person, it almost seemed like I could walk in there without any sort of disguise and not be recognised. I could stand in front of the other me and ask for a cappuccino and the other me would make it and think nothing of it.
Before leaving I stood in front of the mirror. I had planned ahead. Four weeks growth of beard. That was all. And I didn't even recognise the eyes. I wondered about my voice, I spoke so rarely.
I tried to speak standing in front of the mirror, but no words came out. I left the hotel, got on a bus to my corner of the city in the north-west and went to an outdoor clothing store, the kind of place in which I would regularly spend time but never money.
I was already wearing clothes the like of which I did not possess in my wardrobe. I had grown used to being someone else, the clothing had come naturally. I bought a pair of sunglasses and a tight woollen beanie. Put them both on, looked in the mirror. I didn't know who I was looking at, although I could have said the same thing back at the hotel.
When I got to the café I didn't hesitate. For the first time I wondered if I'd already lived through this moment, but from the other side. The last day I'd worked there Ruby had called in sick, and I'd had to fill in at the counter with Beth and Alex. Had I served a guy with a beard, sunglasses and a beanie pulled down over his forehead? The hat and glasses called for a bright, clear, cold winter's afternoon. It was inappropriately dull and grey and mild.
The other me was standing behind the bar. Alex was serving a young woman; Beth was walking around the café clearing up trays and cups and the detritus of muffins and croissants. I watched the scene for a few moments, taking it all in. The café was the same as I remembered it, which was presumably how it should have been. Why would anything have changed?
Was there anything about this specific day that struck a chord? Did I remember standing at the counter, waiting for the next customer, and that next customer being a guy in a beard and beanie who stood just inside the door for a few moments?
I approached the bar.
'Regular cappuccino to sit in, please,' I said. Didn't try to modify my voice at all. It was going to sound different to me anyway. Perhaps if I'd been speaking to one of the others.
'Certainly, sir,' I replied. 'Can I get you anything to eat?'
Shook my head.
'Would you like chocolate sprink—'
'No, thanks.'
'Two pound
s seventy-five, please, sir.'
I handed the money over. I was always slightly and irrationally irritated when someone gave me a twenty pound note for a single coffee, like they were using me as a change machine, so I decided to test myself and handed over a twenty pound note. Could I recognise the flicker of resentment in my eyes, or was I the consummate professional I always thought I was?
Nothing there. A slight smile, a quick trip to the register, change handed back, and then I turned my back on myself and went to prepare the coffee.
I felt so detached from this other guy across the counter that this didn't feel weird. I was being served coffee, much in the same way as I'd been getting served coffee in various establishments for the previous six months.
When it was ready, I collected the cappuccino from the end of the counter and took a seat further back in the shop. One where I still had a good view of everything, so that I could watch myself and watch the others. Still nothing about the day seemed unusual. The surroundings were familiar of course, but nothing about the day itself made me feel like I had lived through it previously.
Nevertheless, the time had come. I had finally put myself in contact with the other me. From now until the plane took off the following morning I was in a position to change things. To kill him. To stop him getting on the plane.
The door opened and a man entered on his own. He was wearing a worn, light-coloured suit, buttoned all the way up to the neck. There was a familiarity about his face, although I wasn't sure what it was. Unshaven, something of a moustache. Of course, six months previously I had served him coffee, and that moment came back to me as he stood at the counter.
Beth was about to walk past him, carrying two empty cups; he would let her pass, then he would ask me for an espresso macchiato. A woman was about to enter the café with an older lady who was probably her mother. The younger woman would be pushing a pram, and the baby would be howling. Shortly before the women were served, and before the man left, the child would suddenly stop crying.
Behind the counter it had been a scene like any other. A guy comes in for coffee. A family of three, three generations, the kid crying. Sitting over here, however, able to observe them rather than serve them, there were a couple of notable things as the family entered and the cries of the child filled the café.
The man had a presence about him, and his suit was a curious outfit, the colour of which was hard to determine. It might once have been pale green, yet strangely, there was something about him that made you not want to look at him. Something slightly disturbing, as though he oughtn't to have been there.
After the other me had taken his money, handed back the change, made the coffee and was just about to pass it over the counter, the child abruptly stopped crying. The mother and grandmother had been arguing about it, whether or not to placate the kid with a muffin, then suddenly he wasn't crying anymore.
Sitting where I was now, however, I could see what happened. The guy in the faded light green suit turned and looked down at the child, facing my way as he did so. He caught the child's eyes, and then without moving his lips, or making any sound whatsoever, he said, 'Hey, kid! Zip it, will ya?'
I don't know how he did that, yet I heard him. I don't think anyone else did, as no one glanced over. The women looked down at the child to see what had happened. I couldn't see the kid from where I was sitting, but they seemed happy that he'd stopped crying. Nothing seemed amiss. Except the guy in the suit had just spoken without saying anything, and had somehow got the child to stop crying in an instant.
He looked up at me. The same eyes that had just silenced the child. The same dead eyes. I wondered if he was going to say something to me without speaking. 'Hey, pal! Stop staring!'
Nothing.
He held my gaze for a few seconds. Nothing more. A look that was dark, and so knowing. That was the thing. I had gone through life anonymously for six months. I'd been invisible. No one had seen me unless I'd been standing directly before them; and then, no one had seen through me.
Now this guy in a light, worn suit and ragged moustache was seeing everything. He knew I was a guy who had been living a nothing life for six months, and was about to come to the fulcrum of that six months. What had it all been for?
I remembered then that when I'd turned to give him his coffee, he'd been staring off across the café, seemingly preoccupied. I hadn't followed his gaze.
'That's your espresso macchiato, sir,' I said. I heard myself.
He was breaking the stare even before I spoke to him, as though he could sense the coffee at his back. He turned, said, 'Thanks,' lifted the coffee and walked out the café. As he was leaving he held the door for a group of four teenagers in the uniform of the local private school, then suddenly there was noise and laughter, and the child started crying again and the other me was standing at the counter waiting for the next order.
I had to follow him. I knew I had to follow him. That guy, whoever he was, had walked out the door and had taken something with him. I could feel it in a way that I couldn't explain. When he was in the room there was some hint of an explanation about what had gone on, but that explanation had walked out there with him.
I sat still and did not move.
*
Twenty-four hours later I was back in the same place. My Starbucks. I had gone back to the hotel, and prevaricated long into the night. I could not make myself take any one of the positive actions open to me.
I sat on the edge of the bed staring at the wall of the hotel, thoughts running in directions beyond counting. And I thought of the man who had entered the café and spoken to the crying child without saying a word. Not just that he had spoken to the kid, but the kid had listened. There is a long way between telling a child to stop crying and it actually happening.
I don't think I slept. Couldn't be sure, but it never felt like it. I sat there until the morning. At around about the time that the plane would be taking off, I returned to my café. I felt sure this man would be in again, and this time I would follow him out. The fact was that the point of no return had passed. The plane was gone, my other self would be on that plane. I had no idea whether or not he'd be able to think himself away from the crash, in the manner in which I'd done.
I had done nothing to save him, nor any of the others who were to take that flight.
The guy was back at almost exactly the same time as the previous day, although this time his suit looked a little darker. He asked for an espresso macchiato to go, gave a quick survey of the café as he waited, and then handed over the cash and turned to leave. At the door he stopped, and looked back over his shoulder.
He stared right at me. Not right through me.
'It's time to come in,' he said. The same voice as the day before, although not with the same censure he'd used on the child. Again, however, his lips did not move. His voice was inside my head.
He walked out and closed the door. I looked at the back of his head until he disappeared.
So this was it. Six months came down to this. The other me was on the plane to nowhere, and I had to make my mind up shortly in any case. I was going to have to do something, even if it was walk away and never see Baggins again, something that was not going to happen.
I looked at the clock on the wall opposite the counter. My plane would be in the air, but was still some hours short of crashing. The time when I would need to start checking the news was still several hours away.
I took a last sip of coffee then stood quickly and followed the guy in the suit out of the café. Door closed behind me, and turned to my right. The day was again mild, grey. I couldn't immediately see him, even though the street was not too crowded. I headed off quickly, my eyes searching for the suit amongst the pedestrians. Suddenly spotted him on the other side of the road, turning off into a side street, a street that I could see would immediately be a much quieter thoroughfare off the main road. A small street with no shops.
Despite the look the guy had given me, the stare that had burrow
ed right inside me, I didn't fear being led down a dark alleyway. Finally, after six months of drifting, I had something to cling on to. I maybe didn't have an answer, but I had an avenue to walk down. It seemed better to be led, as there was a purpose implicit in it that I did not have when making my own decisions.
I crossed the road and quickly turned the corner into the side street without bothering to check it out first. It felt right. Suddenly, and recklessly, I didn't care what I was walking into.
The street was quiet and dark, the buildings high-sided on either side. There were a few parked cars, no sign of a shop entrance or even a door for the first sixty or seventy yards. It was a no through road, bollards at the far end blocking the entrance to the street that ran perpendicular at its far end.
There was no sign of the man in the suit. Yet, although there was a way for pedestrians to get through, there was still something about the street that said it was closed off. City life ended here. Nothing beyond. Choosing to walk down here was making a decision about the nature of your future. Walking down here meant you were walking away. Giving up.
What an absurd thought! It was just a street. I stopped and looked over my shoulder at the main street, not more than fifteen yards behind me. Life went on. My café was just across the road. Funny that in all the years I'd worked there, I'd hardly paid any attention to this side street. I knew it was there, but I'd barely even looked down it. It was just a small street going nowhere. Now I wondered if it had made me not look down it. Had the street itself repelled me?
I kept walking. It seemed strange that the man with the suit had managed to get to the end of the street and turn away so quickly. Perhaps he'd already got to a door, or he was sitting in one of the cars.
I waited for an engine to start, then I noticed that there was a black BMW with people sitting inside. Three of them, facing away from me. Two in the front, one in the back. I knew straight away that the man in the back was the one I'd followed. I approached the car quickly, not knowing what I was going to do, but confident that something was going to happen and that, whatever it was, it was going to solve the problem I had avoided thinking about for the previous six months.
Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite! Page 12