One thing is for sure. Now I’m in London, I know exactly what I have to do.
I am going to do what must be done, and I am going to do it right.
If I lost Kate, not because of something she did, but because of something I didn’t, then I’m going to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Chapter Eleven
Helen Boulding
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The next morning I awake feeling light and fresh, as if a large burden has been lifted from my shoulders.
Catching the train into work I feel full of energy, and I look around me with a new found love for life. The cloud that has been hanging over me for the past month has suddenly lifted, and everything seems so vivid once again.
I manage to find a seat in the carriage, a fantastic feat in itself since by the time I get on at Clapham Junction, -the last stop on the way into the city for almost all London bound trains-, there is normally never a spare place to be found. When I sit down, a big smile on my face for no obvious reason, just simply because I literally feel great and am exuding good will to all men, I find that my smile is immediately returned by a lovely blonde woman who is sitting opposite me. I look back and continue to smile directly at her, inadvertently probably making her feel a little uncomfortable. She blushes a little, and I realise that I am embarrassing her now, so I quickly look away, breaking the tension and letting her relax again. On the floor at my feet is a rather trampled copy of the free London paper, The Metro. Bending down, I pick it up and open its crumpled pages, feigning interest in reading its contents.
After a few moments, I lower the paper and peer over the top of the pages, trying to see the woman in front of me without being caught. She is looking away from me out of the window opposite. I quickly study her face, noting that she is very pretty, around my age or maybe a little older, with lovely green eyes. Then, possibly because her sixth sense feels my scrutiny, she turns her head back towards me and I find myself once again looking right into her eyes. This time it is I who feels uncomfortable, perhaps at being caught, or perhaps by the way she looks straight at me, almost into me: this time without her making any effort to look away again.
I quickly lift the paper up in front of me, cough, and then turn the page, and then also the next, and the next after that, digesting every single word of the each column, determined to avoid her gaze any further and prove to all concerned that I was in fact reading, and not staring.
When the train pulls into Waterloo a few minutes later, I am the last person to get up and leave the carriage, by which time the woman opposite has disappeared.
Arriving at work ten minutes early, my brightness and good mood is immediately noted by some of my new workmates. Ben, another manager in my group, laughs and jokingly enquires if I ‘got laid’ the night before. Without divulging anything I offer to get coffees, and soon return with a round of fresh caffeine for everyone in my team.
I continue to feel brilliant for the rest of the morning, breezing through my work load and managing to put together a whole new customer sales presentation before lunch. When I send it to James for comment, I get back a one-line answer: “Excellent work. Job well done.” Today, it’s all good.
In the canteen, I bump into Gail just as I am leaving to grab half an hour of fresh air. We chat for a minute, and when I mention that I am going to see a singer tonight called Helen Boulding playing a gig in a bar in London, she replies enthusiastically, “Helen Boulding? She’s one of my favourite singers! Can I come too?”
“Why not? I was just going by myself, but you’re welcome to come and bring Luke too if you want?” I reply, simultaneously surprised and disappointed that Gail has heard of Helen Boulding.
She looks at me, hesitating for a second before replying, “No, I think he’s busy tonight. I’ll come alone. Why don’t I meet you there just before it starts?”
“Eight o’clock? Outside the Borderline bar on Tottenham Court Road?”
“Fine. It’s a date,” she replies.
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It’s ten past nine, and Gail hasn’t turned up yet. I’ve waited over an hour for her. From downstairs I can hear that Helen has just started singing one of her best songs, “Housework”, and I decide that I am not going to miss her set for anyone. As I pay for my ticket at the door, and head downstairs into the dark, smoke filled bar in the cellars, I push back the disappointment I begin to feel welling up inside me.
Okay, so I know Gail has a boyfriend and it wasn’t really a date, but the first time I actually arrange to meet a woman in London, and she doesn’t show up. It isn’t exactly helping me to build my trust in women, is it?
Fortunately, by the time I have finished my first pint of lager, I am lost in the music, and am singing along to Helen’s latest single “If it hurts, it ain’t love.” “Exactly,” I say to myself under my breath, thinking of my recent fucked up relationship with Kate. In the end, it just hurt too much. So it definitely wasn’t love then, was it?
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Chapter Twelve
A New Start
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I am at the office early the next morning, a full day of work mentally mapped out in front of me.
After switching on my computer, I return from making myself a cup of tea to find my phone blinking, a little red light showing that I have a voice message waiting for me. I hit the green button while taking a sip of my tea, and listen to a message just left by Gail.
“Andrew, I’m really sorry about last night. Something came up. Give me a call and I’ll explain. Sorry. I hope you enjoyed the gig.”
I think about it for a second, but then delete the message and decide not to call her back.
The day whizzes by. I’m in a customer meeting for most of the time, busy extolling the virtues of one of our product ranges to a collection of managers from the IT department of a merchant bank in London. As the meeting draws to a close in the afternoon, James invites the customer and the marketing team out for a drink in one of the local pubs, and as I swing by my desk to pick up my jacket I quickly check my emails. There’s one from my sister wanting to find out if I listened to the tape, and there’s one from Gail-“Call me…Are you angry with me?”
Of course, as I am coming to understand is par for the course in London, the ‘one quick drink’ soon turns into a second and then a third, with the option for a curry, and another few drinks afterwards.
With fresh memories of my weekend hangover, I manage to escape after the curry, and get home just before 10pm, nevertheless still slightly the worse for wear.
“Your sister called,” Guy shouts from his bedroom as soon as I walk in the door.
“When?”
“About 8.30. She told me to make sure I got you to call her back. She’s quite bossy, isn’t she?”
“No kidding,” I reply, retreating to the bedroom with the phone from the hall. There’s no avoiding it so I might as well get it over with.
“So how do you feel?” Hannah asks me, after I have explained to her that it’s really over, and that Kate doesn’t really want to see me again.
“At first I felt really relieved, I mean that it’s finally over. It probably gave me more closure than it did her. But then, later on today I thought about her for the first time,…and I almost even missed her…, it was really strange.”
“Did she you tell you why she did it? Who the other guy was?”
Should I tell her this?...Probably not, but I do anyway.
“She said it was a lot my fault. That I pushed her away because I don’t trust women.”
“And did you?” she asks.
“Let’s not talk about it. I know there’s a few things I have to deal with, and I will. But in my own time, okay?”
“But you won’t do anything stupid? Will you? I mean, you’re not going to go and…”
“Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t,” I interrupt her again. “The f
act is, I’m in London now, and whilst I’m here, I may as well do it. Even Kate thinks I should. It was the last thing she said to me before I destroyed the tape.”
There is silence at the other end of the phone.
“…Andrew, I really don’t think it’s a good idea. If dad knew, you know he’d be mad.”
“Well, he isn’t going to find out is he?” I reply, just a little too quickly, and immediately regret it.
For a moment I think I can hear Hannah crying. But then she coughs, breathes in deeply and ends the conversation.
“Whatever…I just don’t think it’s a good idea. You know I don’t. But I can’t exactly stop you, can I? Just promise me, that if you do do anything, you’ll never tell me what happens. Ever.”
“Are you serious?” I ask, surprised.
“I’ve never been more serious,” she insists. “Do what you have to, Andrew, but keep me out of it, okay?”
I hesitate.
“Promise me Andrew. I mean it!” she insists.
And as usual, I give in to Hannah.
“I promise.”
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Sleep doesn’t come easy to me tonight. I have been on what I can best describe as a ‘high’ all day, and now I lie awake on my bed, staring at the ceiling and listening to the sound of the motorbikes and cars going by on the street below. For some reason, tonight they sound very loud, and I wonder why I have not noticed them before. I find myself thinking about Kate again. I also notice that when I think of her now, it is not with anger, but actually with some degree of fondness. It’s not just that I miss her, but for the first time, I miss us. What we had. And I wish that we still had it.
I’m a little confused.
It is a long time before I finally manage to drift off, and I only realise that I am asleep, when I notice that I am flying,...a particularly favourite nocturnal past time of mine. Escapism in its purest form.
I am flying high above some strange town that I do not recognise, soaring on the thermals that rise from its warm buildings. I concentrate for a moment on the tiny little figures I see far below me in the street, and by slightly bringing in my extended arms, angling my head down and lifting my legs up behind me, I swoop down towards the street far below.
With the wind rushing past my ears and my clothes billowing all around me, I soar effortlessly between some tall buildings. With a small inflexion of my arms,-spreading them back out slightly from my sides-, I instantly regain control of my descent, and I level off the angle of approach and glide over the traffic beneath me about thirty metres above the ground. The traffic crawls below, and I see people looking up at me, some little children waving upwards and jumping up and down excitedly as they watch me flying over their heads. Having seen enough, I look again towards the blue sky above, and straining my neck a little backwards, I swoop upwards and rapidly once more gain altitude.
Soon I am flying high and free, all my earthly troubles left far, far below…
Only then, through thick foggy clouds do I notice that my mobile phone is ringing. Its thin, repetitive screeching dragging me slowly awake.
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A feeling of dread immediately fills me, and in an instant the pleasure of the dream is lost. I look at the faint glowing green numbers blinking on the display on my hi-fi system across my room. It’s 4.32am. A call this late can only be bad news.
“Hello,” I mumble into the handset, wiping my left hand across my face whilst screwing my eyes up, as if in an invisible protest to the person who has just woken me up.
“Andrew,” the voice of my sister says. “…Dad is dead…”
I’m instantly fully awake.
“What? What are you talking about?” I almost stutter, sitting up and hitting the light switch beside my bed.
“Dad is dead, Andrew. He’s gone!”
I close my eyes, and shake my head, desperately trying to shake off the fogginess that is weighing me down.
“What do you mean he’s dead?” I ask, not understanding what she’s trying to say.
“I mean just that…Andrew, …Dad…he’s dead! He’s gone.”
For a moment I wonder if this is part of a nightmare, if I am still dreaming, but then Hannah says my name again and I realise this is only too real.
“Andrew,…”
“Hannah,” I interrupt her. “Dad’s been dead for three years! What are you saying…? Are you alright? Are you crying?” I ask, worried that my sister is going through one of her bad patches again.
“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. But I can’t sleep. I’m worried about you and I’ve just been thinking over and over again about what you were saying earlier.”
“About what? What was I saying?”
“Listen Andrew, I don’t think that I have the right to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do. I know why you went to London, we both do, and it’s true that Dad would be mad if he knew what you were thinking of doing,…but you’re right. He’ll never know. He’s gone. And it’s not about him anymore. It’s about us. The living. Not the dead. We have to live life the best way we know how, and each of us has to do what we believe is the right thing to help make sure we live our lives fully,…and truthfully.”
“So, what are you saying Hannah?” I ask, not believing what I am hearing.
“What I am saying Andrew,” she continues, “is that having thought about it some more, I think you are doing the right thing after all. Kate knew it, you know it, and now I know it too. But dad never will, and what he won’t know, can’t upset him. And I’ve change my mind….I want you to tell me everything that happens, and how it goes. You promise?”
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And so, for the second time that night, I make another promise to my big sister.
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My father is dead, and I cannot sleep. So I get up and walk to the kitchen, opening Guys food cupboard and taking out the whisky bottle I know he has hidden there. I pour myself a large glass of malt and sit down, pulling up another chair opposite me so that I can put my feet up. Taking a small sip of the golden liquid, I wrap both my hands around the glass, cupping it in my hands with my thumbs hovering over its edge.
Memories of my father coming flooding back. Good memories. Memories that make me smile. I do not cry. Instead my mind searches the happy reflections in the liquid in my glass, and once again I am with him. Hannah has not yet got over his loss, and I know she struggles with the empty hole in her life that his death has left behind. I cried for a year, perhaps more, off and on, until I realised that life had to go on and that like my father had once got over the death of his father, I too had to accept the passing of my own. Since then, my memories of him are not accompanied by sadness, but of the happiness that he brought both my sister and I for so many years. I swallow some whisky. Remembering.
The past few days have been full of self-discovery, and perhaps now too, there is something more I have to face.
Myself.
I look across the kitchen to the mirror beside the door, hanging so passively on the wall, and I see a tired young man. My hair, brown and short, is sticking up on one side of my head, but flat on the other where I have tried to sleep on my side. I reach up and smooth it down, at the same time sitting up straight and peering across the room at the face that glares back at me.
Green eyes, high cheekbones, a thin face with the characteristic Jardine chiselled chin. At the ripe old age of twenty-six I look probably about three years younger than I am. I once saw a photograph of my father when he was about my age now, and the similarity to the man I have become is quite striking. I am my father’s son.
I smile at the thought. It makes me proud.
Guy coughs from his bedroom, and for a moment I worry that the light in the kitchen may be sneaking under his door and disturbing him, so I switch it off. It takes a minute or two, but slowly my eyes adjust to the darkness, and I can see again.
I can see, for example, that there are things
I need to sort out and face if I am to become more like the man I want to be. There are things that I must know about myself that only I can discover. And I know that I must listen to the voices of my sister and friends that tell that me that relationships are made by two people, not one, and that my apparent luck of trust in women was there before Kate slept with someone else, and may even have been a contributing factor to pushing her away from me. As it may have been with my girlfriend before her.
I look at the glass of whisky, now half empty, and mentally decide that from now on the glass must be half full. Things have to change. For the better. And I acknowledge to myself that if they are to change, it starts with me. Now.
I swallow the rest of the whisky in a single gulp, a fire igniting at the back of my throat and burning downwards into my stomach. I close my eyes and enjoy the sensation, wallowing in the feeling of warmth and security that immediately follows it.
Getting up, I rinse the glass under the tap, dry it and put it back in the cupboard, then walk back to my bedroom. As I open my door, close it behind me and climb under the covers on my bed, I promise myself that from this point forward, it will all be different. The past is the past, and from now on I will trust more. With each new person that I meet, I’m going to stop looking for all the reasons why I shouldn’t trust them, and instead try to see all the reasons why I should.
Chapter Thirteen
Thursday Evening
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The next evening I am lying on my bed reading “Marrying Slovakia” when Guy pops his head round my door. “Sal’s going to bed now. Fancy a wee dram?”
I follow him through to the kitchen, and he hands me over a glass with one hand, whilst holding and staring at the bottle in the other. There is a quizzical look upon his face. “That’s funny, I thought there was more than this,” I hear him mumble to himself. He turns to me and raises his glass.
The Sleeping Truth : A Romantic Thriller (Omnibus Edition containing both Book One and Book Two) Page 5