My first choice is the Daily Mail. No particular reason, just that it was on the top of the pile. It proves to be an interesting choice. The headline leaps off the page and grabs my attention.
"President Colin Powell issues Syria and Iran with final warning".
President Colin Powell? Last I remember, President Obama was on the American throne. I read on.
'President Colin Powell today issued Syria and Iran with an ultimatum, warning both countries that they had until 12 pm on Saturday 24th September to declare an end to hostilities with Israel. In his strongest rhetoric yet, since being re-elected for a second term, President Powell warned that failure to comply would be viewed as a declaration of war on the United States and its allies, and that on Sunday morning, America would take whatever steps it considered necessary to end the month-old conflict. America already has 650,000 troops stationed in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and it is expected…"
Skipping a few paragraphs, I go to a photograph of Colin Powell standing beside Saddam Hussein. Underneath, the words; "General Colin Powell taking the unconditional surrender from President Hussein at the end of Desert Storm-Revisited, the code name for the second Gulf War in 1996."
What?
I abandon the article and look at the next page.
"Scottish Pound reaches new high against the English euro. Concerns grow over Scottish-English trade deficit."
I pick up another paper, and open it randomly on the fifth page, finding a big photograph of Princess Diana sunbathing on a boat somewhere in the Med, alongside a smaller photograph showing the burnt out, and torn and twisted metal remnants of what used to be the same boat, poking out of the water on the edge of a beach. Dominating the whole page, is the title. "Jury retires to consider verdict in the Diana Boat-Tragedy Enquiry." Underneath, "After an enquiry which has taken five years to complete, the Government Select committee in the public enquiry into the death of Princess Diana has finally retired to consider its verdict and prepare its report. The deliberations are expected to take a further three months, before the final report is compiled and presented by the Government select committee, which was appointed to investigate the death of Princess Diana in 1993."
"It is hoped that the report will finally explain the mysterious circumstances which lead to the death of the "People’s Princess", and is expected to confirm the circumstances leading to the unexplained explosion on board the boat on which Princess Diana was celebrating her engagement to Dodi El Fayed, son of the Harrods owner, Mohamed Al-Fayed …"
I look up. My mind is racing.
On the third page of the Times there is a small article that catches my attention. "Scotia Telecom appoint Cohen Advertising to lead development of a new mobile telecommunications brand." Underneath there is a photograph, a particularly ugly one, of Richard shaking hands with the Chairman of Scotia Telecom. There is a quote from Richard underneath in which he almost single-handedly takes credit for the whole deal by himself. Nowhere does he mention the team at Cohen Advertising, and my name isn't mentioned at all.
An article in the Guardian shows the latest photographs from America's second manned mission to Mars. I read this with great interest. When I was younger I always fancied being an astronaut, until the day I went to the science museum in London and saw the inside of the space suits, and how an astronaut had to go to the toilet into a bag that was wrapped around his leg. One bag for what came out the front, and another for what came out the back.
So we've been to Mars already, have we?
As the whisky goes down, and one glass become two, which then becomes three, I learn from the broadsheets about the new world I live in. A lot which I never believed possible. Yet, at the same time, I discover that my new world has a lot of problems. The Aids epidemic in the UK has reached epic proportions. One in a thousand people in the UK are now estimated to be HIV positive, one in ten thousand people have Hepatitis C, and cancer is now killing two out of every five adults over the age of fifty. The newly privatized health system is on the verge of collapse, and because of the increased popularity of improved public transport, and the inexcusable mismanagement of funds and resources, the privatized motorways are falling into such a poor state of disrepair that several will have to be renationalized, or else face closure.
Without doubt, the biggest problem in the UK at the moment would seem to be the Asylum situation. In 1996 Britain joined the European Monetary Union, and adopted the euro. Not long after that most of the Eastern European countries such as Slovakia, Poland and the Czech Republic also became member states, and their citizens were allowed to travel freely all around Europe. Britain, the only country in Europe to do so, immediately agreed to allow any of these new European citizens the right to work in the UK and the right to claim full benefits when they did so. The British Government was warned that there was an ethnic minority of gypsies in Eastern Europe that may immediately take advantage of the situation and travel en masse to the UK. The Government estimated that this would be in the order of 5000 people. The result was rather different. In 1997 alone, in the first year after membership for these countries was agreed, an estimated 150 000 gypsies arrived in the UK. Each year since then, another 125 000 arrived. A continuous stream of poverty, underprivileged, uneducated and unskilled workers, many with criminal records. All of them claiming benefit, few of them working, all of them demanding to be housed. Coupled with the increasing stream of non-European economic migrants, almost all of whom claimed asylum, the immigration system became overwhelmed and began to fall apart. And then when the situation deteriorated in the Middle East and West Africa a whole new tide of immigrants began to find their way onto British shores. No one could tell a genuine asylum seeker from a bogus one, and the meaning of the word 'asylum' got lost.
Diseases which had not been around in the UK for many years, many sexual, suddenly started to sweep through the population. The support services were overwhelmed, a housing crisis ensued, and the National Health Service collapsed. The labor government, struggling to repair it, was forced into accepting a radical program of privatization, which was completely unable to care for so many poor people. The taxpayer had to subsidize all of their treatment, as the immigrants couldn't pay for it themselves.
The school system made an attempt to cope with all the immigrant children, the majority of whom couldn't speak English, but soon found the bigger problem was not getting them a place, but rather keeping them in the school at all. Most of the immigrant children were not used to going to school, and they ran away at the first opportunity. Truancy levels went sky high, and petty crime shot through the roof in the areas where the children, who should have been at school, were roaming the streets, stealing both out of necessity for their families, and frustration with the new world they found themselves in. A world where the majority of children couldn't understand their new language, and where they felt isolated and unwanted.
Which was true. In the neighborhoods and areas where the new immigrants were housed, social unrest grew, caused both by the frustrations of the immigrants and the anger from the locals towards their new neighbors, who they perceived as unwanted spongers that abused the system and took as much as possible, giving nothing in return.
Bigotry - perhaps in some cases understandable, hatred, ethnic tensions, misunderstanding and mistrust, all grew to such a level that the summer of 2005 found frequent riots on the streets of Britain, which lead to the deaths of many people, and the destruction of hundreds of millions of euros worth of property.
Britain had never experienced such riots before, and although they wanted to, they were powerless to stop the influx of even more asylum seekers: under the European Constitution Britain had to accept anyone from any other member state, who wanted to come to this country.
At the beginning of 2006, exhausted by public criticism, and bleeding from the internal hemorrhaging of the party, from disillusioned MPs going over to the opposition, the government were finally forced into taking radical action. It started to bu
ild very large, institutionalized 'National Asylum Centers' on the outskirts of major cities. Immigrants arriving in the UK were only allowed to live within the confines of these walls, where whole mini-cities were created with their own churches and mosques, shops, entertainment centers and parks.
In this way, the government met its European obligations, but protected its own society from further erosion. Existing immigrants who failed to meet the new 'Nationality Laws' …(which decreed that everyone learn to speak fluent English, as well as a number of new governances which defined what 'English' meant, and how people had to behave in order to become 'anglicized'…), were rounded up and interned in the camps, or offered the right to return back to their own country of origin.
Conditions in the glorified concentration camps deteriorated, and soon people were voluntarily asking for repatriation in their thousands. Only in the past year has the immigration problem begun to lighten, and according to the press reports, three of the many National Asylum Centers were even able to close their doors, hopefully for the last time. Although the problem is still acute, it is now not expected to worsen. The aim is to control the situation and prevent further rioting and civil unrest, as more of the immigrants voluntarily decide to return home, and the situation slowly dissolves.
As I read, I think about what I saw in the area I used to think of as 'Canary Wharf' and what the taxi-driver told me that day as he drove from there to Scotia Telecom.
It is hard to imagine how bad things must have been in the UK in the past few years, and then I think of the Britain I know and have dreamt of, and how this problem is only just beginning to emerge there. Wherever that dream-world is.
Satiated with knowledge for now, I turn to the sports columns for some light relief. What is happening in the world of football? Who does David Beckham play for now, if at all?
Although I look in all the papers, his name does not crop up once. He is nowhere to be seen.
It's almost as if he had never played football at all.
I'm tired now. I have learned enough about my new surroundings for one night. Perhaps for a lifetime.
In this world there is as much hatred and disillusionment as the one I know. While so much seems to be different, in reality, nothing much has changed at all.
--------------------
The flames in the fireplace flicker and I lean forward, picking up the metal poker, and pushing back a lump of wood into the centre of the flames.
Settling back onto the sofa, I watch the edges of the wood glowing red in the centre of the fire, and return to my thoughts.
There was, is, a scar on Sarah's left cheek. A pretty reminder of her eleventh birthday when her parents bought her first bicycle. She couldn't ride yet, but that didn’t stop her carrying the bicycle out of the house when her parents weren’t watching, setting it down on the side of the road, and climbing aboard.
She managed to go three yards before the edge of the pavement came up to meet her smooth cheekbone, but thankfully there wasn't any real need for stitches.
I used to lie in bed beside her at night, gently tracing the discolored skin with my forefinger, following the tiny contour back and forward. It always made me smile.
Sometimes she would wake from whatever dreams she was having, and she would smile at me, look into my eyes for a moment or two, then go back to sleep, my finger still following the same soft sensuous path, back and forward.
Perhaps other people actually didn't find Sarah as pretty as I did, and maybe, there were even some that perhaps found her rather plain. But for me, there was never a single moment since we first met in the sandwich shop that I didn't find myself drawn to her.
Which makes me ask myself the question for the first time, but properly, just why it was that I started to look elsewhere? What madness was it that drove me to the Facebook website, and started me on the path to my own self-destruction?
A good question, but one which I should have asked myself long ago. Not sitting here, now, in Jane's house. For a while I ponder the answer, then get up, putting the fireguard around the dying flames, and go to bed.
Somewhere within me I must already know the answer.
But as I start to think about it, like so many times before, I realize that it is still too painful to remember.
Chapter Twenty
Déjà Vu
.
Surbiton has always been the busiest suburb of London. The people who live here are a curious breed. We are city dwellers who need the buzz of the city, but cannot stand to live there. So we live on the fringes of the countryside and the outskirts of the noisy metropolis. One toe in one world, and another in the other.
I'm no stranger to the London commute. I've done it for years. Every day the same routine: hurry to station - train delayed or cancelled - fight for place on platform - fight for place on train - try to sleep if you have a seat, or spend thirty minutes staring at people’s faces if you have to stand all the way into London - arrive late at Waterloo - rush for tube…etc.
So, today, when I'm standing on the platform waiting for my next train, why is there so much space around me? I look up at the electronic departure board. There are already six trains showing in the next thirty minutes. One direct train to the centre every nine minutes, non-stop all the way.
What?
Where are the delays? Where are the cancellations?
The first non-stop train arrives. Twelve spotless, fresh blue painted shiny carriages, that look like something straight from the 22nd Century. The electronic doors open beside white markers on the platform that indicate where the entrances to the train will be, and the waiting passengers calmly walk on and take a seat. There are enough spaces for everyone. There is no fuss, no commotion, no one fighting for a place.
I sit down by the window. The bright red seat is comfortable, rather plush, and I relax. No one is standing. I look around at the faces of my fellow passengers. Some people are talking to each other. One is laughing. A few people are smiling. The latent stress and tension that usually fills the air, is simply not there.
Unheard of.
Just before the doors close a young woman rushes out from the coffee shop on the platform and jumps aboard. She walks in, looks around her, sees me, smiles, and sits down opposite.
She is an attractive girl, nice make-up which compliments her features, and a smart suit. She's clutching a cardboard cup of expensive Columbian coffee. As she lifts off the lid from her coffee, and takes a sip, she smiles at me again.
Her face is so familiar, so…Yes, I recognize her now. The woman who sometimes sits on the 8.12am opposite me in my dream, the woman with the caffeine addiction, who I last saw last Monday morning when I caught the train…
I shake my head slightly and turn to look out of the window, wiping the memory from my mind and starting to think of today's work.
"James, hi, ignoring me today or what?" she says, leaning forward in her chair, a twinge of laughter on the edge of her words.
"Sorry," I say, turning to her, a little embarrassed. "No, I wasn't, how are you?"
I hadn't thought about this. I will obviously know lots of people who I will have forgotten. I'm going to meet people in the street who I may have known for years, but who will be like complete strangers to me. I will walk past people, not knowing that they are a good friend, or even an ex-girlfriend or lover.
What do I say to these people, when they stop me and ask me why I'm ignoring them?
"Oh, I'm fine." She says, sitting forwards a little. "Did you hear about Samantha?"
Samantha?
"No?"
"She was fired. Last Friday. Can you believe that? She has an affair with the boss, and when she ends it, he fires her! It happened just like you said it would..."
Frankly, I don't even know the girl, but it doesn't surprise me at all.
"So…what are you doing about Jane, then?" she asks, a little quieter.
"What do you mean?" My heart beats a little faster.
"Ha
ve you told her yet?"
"Told her what?" I ask.
"About…," she hesitates. "No…no, you asked me not to mention it. You were drunk when you told me, and maybe it's best if I just forget it." She pauses again. "...But if you want any more advice, just ask me, all right?"
She leans forward and touches me on the knee at the same time as she says 'okay?', exaggerating her smile as she speaks.
How do I know this woman? What does she know about me? And moreover, it's only been a few seconds of absolutely riveting conversation, but already I find myself asking the question, "Do I really want to know this woman?"
Probably not. In fact, by the time we arrive at Waterloo, the problem of trying to figure out what I should say to her, hasn't really occurred again, mainly because she has talked non-stop all the way. I'm not a religious man, but I find myself praying that this woman is not a really close friend of mine. I couldn’t stand it. Thankfully, when we get off the train, she has to catch a tube, and I decide to walk.
Who Stole My Life? Page 14