I close my eyes and try to make the thoughts stop. The carriage is warm, and the gentle rocking of the train soon begins to soothe my troubled mind, and I fall asleep.
--------------------
I awake with a start, my arms folded across my chest, and my head hanging forward at an awkward angle, a trail of glistening saliva dribbling out of the corner of my mouth. A guard is banging on the window from the outside of the train, and looking up I quickly see that the train is empty apart from me.
I jump to my feet and move to the electronic doors, which the guard is just opening for me.
"Lucky I spotted you mate, otherwise you may have ended up back in Portsmouth." he smiles and laughs at me.
"Thanks." I say sheepishly, before disappearing fast along the platform.
Something is troubling me now. Something is prodding at the corners of my mind. Something which I was dreaming about on the train, and which is now trying to fight its way into consciousness. But what? What is it?
Needing the fresh air, I walk across the Thames and up the Embankment to work, still troubled by my dream, whatever it was.
By the time I get to the Strand, I realize it has something to do with Jane although just what I can't get yet, no matter how much I focus on it.
"Morning Alice," I say as I walk past reception and up the stairs to my office, not stopping to pick up my mail. I'll let Claire get it later.
It's got something to do with Jane? But what's that got to do with finding Sarah? How can that help…?
As I reach the door to my office it hits me like a hammer between the eyes.
So how did I originally find Jane then? How, when stupidly I started to dream of Jane instead of Sarah, how did I go about tracking her down?
Facebook. That’s how!
Swinging the office door closed behind me, I drop down into my seat and switch on the computer, waiting forever for it to boot up. Logging onto the company network, I hit the 'Search' button on the toolbar. I type in Google, wondering while I wait, if Google is one of the things that has successfully made the cross-over from my world to this, mentally crossing my fingers that it still exists.
Fantastic, …it does.
I type in ‘Facebook’, hit the return key and hold my breath.
Website not found.
I type in the title again, just in case I had typed it wrong the first time around.
Website not found.
Blast...
Maybe it's called something else in this world? I remember that before Facebook there was Friends Reunited, so I try this, also with no luck.
I pull myself closer to the keyboard, and rattle off a sequence of names into the search engine.
‘School & friends’, then ‘School Reunion’ and ‘Old School friends.’
Blank. Blank. Blank.
I try a hundred different combinations. All blank. Website not found. Try again.
Just then Claire walks into the room, carrying my mail and a cup of tea.
"Good morning James…"
"Claire, If I have a student friend who I've lost contact with, but now want to find, can you think of any way to find them on the internet?" I interrupt her, speaking but continuing to type on the keyboard.
She puts down my tea on my desk and comes round to stand behind me, peering over my shoulder.
"You mean, like, if you wanted to track down someone you knew long ago, maybe your best friend at school, or someone you fancied, and whom you want to get in contact with again now?" She says, leaning forward, so that I can feel the heat from her chest against my cheek.
"Yes. Exactly. Do you know of any website that can help me track an old friend down?"
"No." she replies. "No, I don’t. But it's a bloody good idea though. You could make a fortune doing that…" She steps back, and walks around to the front of my desk, sitting down in the seat opposite me.
"I mean, really. That's a fantastic idea James. Brilliant! How come nobody else has ever thought of it? You could make a million doing a website like that. You could call it "Find-a-friend" or something like that…wow…When did you think of that?"
"I didn't," I reply, without looking up. "I'm just looking for someone, that’s all…"
She utters something back, but I don't hear her. I'm still typing at the keyboard, refusing to give up. I ignore her and she eventually gets up and walks out of the office, now thinking in a world of her own.
Shit. What am I going to do now? What can I do if Facebook and Friends Reunited or Myspace or anything like that don't exist?
After an hour of trying the most obscure combinations of different words, I give up. The Friends Reunited website obviously hasn't been invented yet, and there's nothing else that comes close to doing what I need. Claire eventually returns, bringing in my diary, and we sit down to organize the rest of my day. Still wrapped up in my own thoughts, I postpone my appointments for the rest of the morning, freeing up some time to think.
I've got to take a structured approach to this. Think man, think. What do I know about Sarah that can help me find her?
Pulling out a blank piece of paper, I start to write down as much as I can about her early life, about the things she did before I met her. Anything that might give me a lead to go on, that might provide some continuity from her past to her present, wherever that may be now and anything that might be able to give me some clues to help track her down.
Closing my eyes, I bring up a mental picture of Sarah, trying to remember everything she ever told me about herself.
In the picture that immediately pops into my head, Sarah is laughing, running slowly away from me down the garden path towards the swing at the bottom of the back garden where Keira is calling for mummy to push her. I have a camera in my hand, and as I call her name to get her attention for the photograph, she turns and smiles, looking so beautiful, her eyes flashing in the sunlight, her skin rosy and fresh. As she comes round to face me I can see that she is heavily pregnant, and I start to smile at the thought, although the feeling is quickly replaced by something new,...an odd feeling, something which quickly becomes unpleasant. I begin to feel uncomfortable. Suddenly, Sarah doesn't look so beautiful anymore. Puzzled, I open my eyes and let the light wipe the memory clean. That was odd…
Breathing deeply and closing my eyes again, other memories begin to flow, and I begin to write down bits of information, facts about her life, pieces of the jigsaw that I may be able to put together.
She was born in 1972. 15th February. Went to Rosedean Secondary Modern. I can't remember what primary school she went to. Maybe she never told me. Her parents, George and Martha, were both English. They divorced when she was young, about twelve I think, and she went to live with her father. Grumpy old bastard. Never liked me. In fact, I think he hated me. George Turnstone had a hang-up about life, and was always blaming his crap existence on other people. Fact was, that was why his wife packed up and left him. She'd had enough of his negativity, and had to escape. She moved to Spain and died about five years ago. Her body was shipped back to the UK, and buried in a graveyard near Richmond, where she was born and brought up. Sarah used to go and visit her grave every year on the anniversary of her death. Without fail. A bunch of tall Irises, her mother's favorite flowers, and a freshly lit candle always adorned the grave when she left. Every year…without fail…Unfortunately, that was every year on the 6th of July, almost ten months away until her next visit. No, I can't wait that long.
As soon as Sarah was old enough she escaped from her father and moved to London, where she started to study History at Kings College, then to teacher training college in Mitcham. She always wanted to be a teacher and help people learn what made us what we are today.
"History..." she used to say, "... is alive. It never dies, it reaches out to us from the past and influences every single thing we do each day. If we don't understand our past, we'll never find our way into the future…"
Her words seem strangely prophetic now.
Dedicated a
s she was, after leaving college she strove for two years to get a job in London teaching history, but couldn't. There just weren't any jobs. So she started working as a PA in a Law firm, then moved from one company to another, moving up the food chain. I met her whilst she was working at the same firm I was, a fledgling Telecoms company that never really went anywhere.
Her best friend was Mary, a girl she met at college, one of the few girls on the course who got a job in teaching. Last I heard she was Head Teacher in Chemistry at some school somewhere north of Birmingham… Ironbridge. That was it...birthplace of the industrial revolution and location of the world’s first iron bridge. I remember Sarah telling me all about it once when we went to visit Mary.
A plan of attack slowly materializes on the paper in front of me.
1: Find father and visit him. Get contact address from him for where Sarah is now.
2: Visit graveyard where mother is buried. Try to see if I can get contact address from curator of graveyard.
3: Contact Rosedean Secondary Modern. Maybe they have some alumni scheme?
4: Likewise for Kings College.
5: Ditto for Teacher training college.
6: Try finding her best friend in Telford. Maybe she's still working at the same old school?
7: Check to see if Centric Telecom still exists. If it does, maybe they have a record of Sarah working there.
The last one on the list is a long shot and I know it. Centric Telecom is the company where we first met, but it went bust two years later. In this world, maybe it still exists, but even if it does, who's to say that Sarah ever worked there, and that even if she did, ten years later what chance is there that the HR department would still remember her and be prepared to pass over her contact details to me.
Suddenly a thought hits me, and I turn to the keyboard.
Why not just type in her name into the search field and see if it comes back with anything? Maybe if she became a history teacher in this world, she might have authored some paper or other, or appear in some article where her name might be picked up?
Entering her name into the search field on Google, I hit return and hold my breath. For a few seconds I do not breathe. Could it be this simple?
Five entries found.
My hands are suddenly shaking, and I click on the first entry.
"Cooking Made Simple" by Sarah Turnstone.
A big picture appears on the screen of a fat woman dressed in a white apron and a big white hat. She obviously loves to cook. But unless something has gone horribly wrong with Sarah's metabolism and hair color, it's definitely not her.
"Cooking for the Blind" by Sarah Turnstone.
Nope.
"Cooking for…"
Sadly I realize that none of them offer any hope. It’s not going to be that simple after all.
Chapter Twenty Four
Tuesday
.
The drive up to Norwich brings back a lot of memories. Good memories, although at the time I just didn't realize how good they were. I never dreamed that I would look back so fondly on the times I used to make the journey with Sarah, with Nicole and Keira screaming and crying in the back seats, complaining how boring it was and asking incessantly, "Daddy, are we there yet?"
Once, to try and liven up the trip, I taught the girls how to sing "Stop the Car I need a Wee-Wee", one of the songs we all used to sing as kids when we went on the Sunday school picnic to the countryside. Keira and Nicole loved it, and sang it over and over again. And I mean over and over again. They wouldn't stop. After an hour, it was driving Sarah and me up the wall, and we had to bribe them with sweeties just to shut them up.
Fond memories. Memories which I would give everything to have back now.
Sarah's father lived in the centre of town, in a private road of listed terraced cottages. Each one had a painted front, blue, white or a dark red, …dating back to the start of the eighteenth century. The effect wasn't as bad as it sounded, and in fact the houses and location were considered 'very desirable'.
Not too sure what I was going to say to him, and not even sure that he would be living there, I knocked on the door. A minute or two passed before there were any sounds of life from inside the house but eventually I was greeted by a deep voice shouting "Who's there?"
This was the difficult part. What should I say? In this world, Sarah has never met me, and I have never met her father. He doesn't know me from Adam.
"Mr Turnstone? Hi, I'm a friend of Sarah's from university. I was wondering if we could chat for a minute?"
The sound of a chain rattling, and a lock being unbolted. The door is ajar on the end of a chain, and a wizened old face pokes through the gap, eyes squinting at me from the darkness of the hallway.
"I don't know you. What do you want?" he croaks in a deeper voice than I can ever remember him having before.
"Mr Turnstone, I'm sorry for disturbing you, but I am a friend of Sarah's from university, and we've lost contact. I'm trying to track her down. I was wondering…I was hoping you might be able to help put me back in contact with her again…"
"Sarah?" he cuts me short.
There is a pregnant pause, and for a few seconds I am scared stiff that he will confirm my ultimate fears by saying that he has never heard of her. That in this world, Sarah does not exist.
"Sarah?" He repeats.
The door closes and the sound of the chain being unhooked. A second later the door opens again.
Mr Turnstone steps into the doorway, eyeing me up and down. He looks older than when I last saw him, and he appears unkempt, three days of white stubble poking out of the end of his chin and around his jaw. A smell of dampness, an unclean smell, assaults me as a draught carries it out from the hallway. My spirits sink. The house is in a bad way, and it looks like Mr Turnstone hasn't washed in a long time. He looks awful. There's no way that Sarah would let him get into this state if she were alive.
"Sarah?" He repeats for the third time, almost absent-mindedly. "Can't help you lad. Sarah and I don't talk any more. Haven't seen her for years."
My heart leaps.
"So she's alive then?"
"Alive? Of course she is. Look, what do you want?"
"I just want to find her, that’s all… I haven't seen her for ages…" I try to explain.
"Well, neither have I. I can't help you. I'm sorry." He turns in the doorway, slowly, as if he is struggling with the onset of the years. Resting a hand on the doorframe he steps back into the darkness, before turning again cautiously to close the door behind him.
Refusing to accept defeat so easily, I step forward, and put a hand on the door.
"Mr Turnstone? Can I just ask where she lives? …and if she's married?" The question slips out before I can stop it, catching even me unawares.
His tired mournful eyes examine me for a second. But then with a surprising show of strength which catches me by surprise, he swiftly closes the door in my face, leaving me standing on the doorstep staring at the tarnished, brass doorknocker which almost scratches my nose.
"Married?" he mutters from the other side of the door, just loud enough for me to hear. "Not any more she isn't. Not any more…"
Flicking open the letter box with my fingers, I bend down and speak through it, hope surging anew.
"Where does she live? Where can I find her?"
"Blowed if I know. Haven't spoken to her in years," he replies. "Last I heard she lived in London. Now bugger off and leave an old man in peace. 'Else I'll call the police."
London?
As I walk down the street back to the NCP where I parked my car, I realize I'm not much further forward.
On the other hand I do know two things I didn't know before.
She does exist.
And she's not married.
As well as the fact that Sarah's father is even more of a grumpy bastard now than he ever was before. And he still doesn't like me.
Chapter Twenty Five
Wednesday
.
&nb
sp; Driving to the station in the morning on the way to work, I feel strangely elated. Almost excited. The confirmation yesterday that Sarah does exist, the likelihood that she is not married, both fill me with hope.
For a moment though, the excitement is tinged with a feeling of dread, as I think briefly about something that happened on Monday: the moment when I was trying to picture Sarah in my mind, and I saw her walking away from me down the garden path… At first I had been so happy at the memory, but when she turned towards me, and I saw that she was pregnant, I had suddenly felt so uneasy? Why?
Who Stole My Life? Page 18