Who Stole My Life?

by C. P. IRVINE, IAN

  "I'm not an axe-murderer, I can promise you…" I'm her husband!

  I'm wasting my time. The more I press it, the more desperate I'm going to sound, and the less likely it'll be that she'll say anything positive to Sarah. The best thing to do now is to bow out gracefully and try and leave her with the best impression possible.

  "One last favour then, please?" I ask. "Can you tell me where you think the best place is around here that I could maybe take my dad fishing. He's in the car, over there, and I brought him along for a bit of moral support and the promise of an hour spent on the river."

  She turns and looks towards my car, seeing my dad asleep in the front seat.

  "You brought your dad?"

  "Yes, it's a nice day. Why not?"

  "Well, I suppose you could try down underneath the bridge…there's a few big pools there, and you often see people down there…"

  "Thanks." I pat Sam on the head a few times, smile at Mary, and start to back away, down the path. "…and I'm sorry to put you in an embarrassing position Mary. I didn't want to make you feel awkward. It's just that you were my last hope…"

  As I close the gate, she is opening the door to her house. I'm a few steps away down the road, when she calls after me, "Okay, I'll call Sarah tonight. But if you don't hear from her next week, I would just drop it. Okay?"

  I turn and shout back. "Fantastic!...And thank you, Mary."

  --------------------

  But Sarah doesn't call.

  That week.

  The next.

  Or the week after that.

  Chapter Forty

  Farewell

  .

  November turns into December, and I slowly begin to resign myself to the inevitable. There will be no Sarah. She has chosen not to contact me, and except for one last avenue of hope, I can think of no other way to find her.

  So, out of desperation, rather than anything else, I spend the last weekend in November driving round several more graveyards trying to see if I can find the grave of Sarah's mother-in-law, wherever it may be, and obviously assuming that she is already dead.

  The graveyards bring with them that darkness that always descends upon me whenever I go near them, but I know I have no choice and I strive to overcome the urge to run as far away as possible from them. Systematically I tick them off the list.

  But I come up with nothing, and eventually realize that it is a hopeless task. Who is to say that she isn't buried in Spain, or Norwich, or somewhere else? There are hundreds of graveyards in London. Hundreds. Without really knowing where she could be buried, I have no hope of finding her. I can't even find someone that is alive, so what chance do I have of finding someone when they're dead and not going anywhere fast.

  It snows in December. Heavily, and incessant, and soon we are in the midst of the coldest winter I can ever remember. Winter bites hard and Britain grinds to a halt. The snow, several feet deep in places, blankets the cities with a mantle of white, the like of which I have never seen before.

  It lasts two weeks, during which the only transport that functions reliably in London is the underground. Trains work only as far out as Wimbledon, and beyond that the tracks are covered beyond all help. Most people cannot make it into work, and few try. The schools close, and families find themselves with a long unplanned holiday.

  In the second week, when the snow stops and the sun comes out, something magical happens.

  Grown-ups rediscover the children hidden within us all. The streets turn into sledging tracks and skiing paths, and parents play with their children in the white manna, building snowmen and losing snowball fights to their sons and daughters who run around screaming and shouting, laughing and enjoying themselves like they haven't for many a year, the television and the Xbox a poor second to the magic white powder from the sky.

  During this time I get to know Allison and Elspeth better, and I endeavor to be the father they wish I was. I try hard, but when I hear them screaming with excitement as I chase them around the garden with two big white snowballs, I cannot stop thinking of Keira and Nicole. Memories which build a wall around my heart, and leave it cold and unloving.

  On the 28th of December I finally move into a separate bedroom from Jane. The result of a family Christmas which I find hard to endure. I find it difficult to continue to sleep in the same bed as her, the memories of Sarah, and Nicole and Keira unbearably strong, the smell of the pine needles on the Christmas tree bringing back far too many memories for me to run away or hide from. The dreams are becoming more frequent, and I can no longer endure the guilt I feel when I sometimes lie in bed with Jane in my arms, and think of Sarah.

  "Just for now," I say to her, promising that it is only a temporary measure. "I just think it's best for now."

  Jane takes it hard. She doesn't understand. And how can I expect her to?

  "Just for now…" I promise. But we both know it is a lie.

  --------------------

  Jan rolls into Feb, March comes and April showers rain down.

  My life has become my life. A funny thing to say, but that’s how it is. The life that I walked into one day has become my existence. I am resigned to live it as best I can. I have no other choice.

  Jane and I live together, the two children keeping us together, along with convention and a fear that to leave them would be wrong. In some ways I find myself making atonement towards them for the cruelty and mistreatment I discover that I had wrought upon them in my past. Not me, but, well, me. For it was I that had the affairs with other women, it was I that belittled Jane and slowly took away her confidence, and it was I that neglected the children when they needed me most.

  I have lost count of the number of people who have commented upon the new me. The improved new me. The new caring, sensitive me.

  So the new caring sensitive me makes it my mission to build up Jane's confidence, to return to her the woman that I took away, and make her strong, reliant, and independent. In doing so I know that it is just a matter of time before one day she takes the decision to ask me to leave. A decision that will come probably sooner rather than later.

  By April she is a different person than the one I came to know last August. We become friends, and truth be told, once again I start to become attracted to her. But only physically. I feel the lust of old returning. The desire. The strange feelings in my loins when I see her bath, or shower, or when I notice how attractive she looks in a new dress, or when the light catches her eyes just right, and I see a sparkle there that was missing only six months before.

  Yet, this attraction I know now is only lust, and if there is any lesson I have learned over the past months, it is that lust and friendship are not enough. There must be something more for a relationship to work, something deeper, a connection, an understanding, a joining of the souls. Something that I only ever had with Sarah, but which I did not realize I had until too late. A magic which was once there, but which I lost, no, we both lost, when… but with this thought my thinking edges too close to the edge of the bottomless pit of despair, which once engulfed and almost drowned me. Almost.

  I managed to climb out of the misery eventually, we both did, but now, for the first time since Sarah's post-natal depression, I remember how lost I was, and I realize how much both of us suffered. And I see for the first time, that perhaps as a couple we never did recover after all.

  I must,...I have to..., understand why I started to lose interest in Sarah. Although every time I start to ever wonder about this, I start to remember feelings that are too painful to relive, to endure again…

  A tear forms in my eye, and I swallow hard, then cough. Time to look away again, to think on something new. I think instead about the time I used to travel in to work, wondering about the lives that other people lived. Wondering, day after day, how green the grass would be on the other side, but naively not realizing that there are many thousands of different types of grass. True, the grass I have now is green. But it is only a different shade of green. I realize now
that a person should be careful what they wish for, and I long for the strong, vivid green grass that I used to feel beneath my feet and picnic on with Sarah and my girls...

  Occasionally, in spite of myself, and truth be told, the blame does not lie entirely with me,---should there be guilt at all---, occasionally Jane and I have reached out to each other when passing in a room, or after a nice meal, or when the rain lashes against the window sill and inside the house there has been an abundance of warmth. Occasionally we have sought solace in each other's caress, and I have lost myself with Jane in the act of sex. Though not the act of love.

  The word love is one that I have learned to respect and guard, and when we have woken in the morning in each other's arms, I have often tasted the tear that has trickled from my eye, and suffered from the guilt I have felt from sleeping with Jane, who is not my wife, yet is.

  And so it is that the days and weeks turn to months, and the seasons swing around. When April appears, when the flowers begin to bud on the trees and the winter clouds begin to blow away, a new spring calls to us all.

  Then one day the sun shines, and my dad calls on the phone.

  "Let's go fishing," he says. "Let's go see Old Ralph!"

  --------------------

  It's Sunday morning, and we decide to make it a family affair. We load up Jane's car, and drive down to the Riverside, parking the car at the front of the pub, and carrying a large picnic down to the river bank. Dad and mum are already there. My dad already has three small fish in the net, and he pulls them out of the river to show the children, who squeal and run away. We all laugh.

  Jane and mum spread out the tartan rugs, and start to lay out the picnic. Dad and I chat, and I listen to my father recounting the tale of this morning's catches.

  It's soon lunchtime and we all stretch out and start the feast, washed down by a couple of beers from the cooler. Occasionally my dad looks across at the rod, checking to see it's still okay, and watching for a bite, the line cast out into the deep pool on the other side of the river. After lunch I stretch out on the grass and bask lazily in the sun. I close my eyes, and begin to sleep.

  I am woken roughly by the sound of my dad shouting with excitement.

  "James, James! Get yourself over here now. It's Ralph!"

  I jump to my feet, and rush to his side.

  "How do you know?" I ask.

  "It's him all right, son. Only he's that strong, and I can tell by the way he plays the line. He knows exactly what he's doing…You know, sometimes I can't make up my mind, if he's trying to catch me, or I'm trying to catch him."

  He's smiling, and as he works the line, pleasure is written all over his face. This is what he loves doing best.

  As I watch him in his eternal game of chess, a game of patience and cunning played between him and his old friend Ralph, I envy him. I have no such hobby that consumes me, that I enjoy as much as he obviously does this. Nothing that gets me out of bed at the weekend, and away from the house.

  For a whole hour I watch my father fight with his arch-rival. One moment he is reeling the line in fast, the next he lets it out slowly. In the depths of the water, Old Ralph moves up and down the river, making full use of his space and his territory.

  Twice, we refuel my dad with a bottle of cold beer. As the afternoon heats up, dad strips down to his vest, and soon the sweat is rolling off his head.

  At first we all watch, excited and full of anticipation. Is this going to be the day, after twenty years of waiting, that dad will catch Old Ralph? Not unexpectedly, the girls quickly get bored, and mum and Jane take them along the river bank, in search of some ice-cream.

  "There…There! Look!" My father suddenly cries aloud, pointing to the water on the other side of the river. "Look, you can see him on the surface."

  There is a splash, and I see a large fish thrash in the water. Then suddenly he jumps completely clear of the surface, clearly visible in all his majesty for a full second before he disappears back into the pool.

  "Wow. He's massive!" I shout aloud and laughing.

  "Bigger than before…he's grown…" my father shouts. "Blast! Bugger it! Bugger! He's jumped the line. He's free. The crafty beggar. He did that deliberately. Blast. He's gone."

  The look of disappointment on my father's face is acute. He sits down on the grass, and lies back, breathing heavily. Now the effort is over, I can see how tired he is, and how exhausted the battle has made him.

  "I almost had him. I almost had him. About twenty minutes ago, he was just about close enough to use the net. I can’t believe it. I really thought that today was going to be the day!" he exclaims, whilst gasping for breath, lying flat on his back.

  I sit down beside him, and offer him another cold beer. "So did I. I thought that this was going to be the day. I'm really sorry Dad. I really thought you'd caught him."

  Then he is all smiles, and he begins to laugh.

  "The crafty old beggar. He got away. I swear, that fish is cleverer than half the people I know." He says in between laughs. "Never mind, I think that was officially another draw. You know, in a way I'm glad he got away. It means the battle goes on…Anyway, what would I do if I did catch him? No, perhaps it's better this way. We both live to fight another day. Here's to you, Ralph. You crafty old bastard!" he shouts at the river, lifting the bottle to his mouth and gulping down the beer.

  --------------------

  The call came at 4.23 in the morning. The shrill tone of the phone ripping into my dream and tearing me away from the beach where I was playing in the surf with Nicole and Keira, throwing a ball back and forth between us and splashing in the waves.

  As I scramble for the phone, reaching out to the side table beside my bed, I become quickly alert.

  A phone call at this time in the morning can only be the bearer of bad news.

  It's my mum.

  "James…" She is in tears. I can hear her struggling for words, fighting an overpowering emotion. I jump up in bed, and flick the side light on. I know what is coming next. I have been here before. The same conversation, many years before.

  "James. Please come quickly…it's your father. He's not moving…I don't know what to do."

  "Is he still breathing?" I ask, already getting out of bed and grabbing my clothes, pulling on a pair of trousers.

  "I don’t know, I don't think so…he's lying face down."

  "Where?"

  "In the bathroom…he got up in the middle of the night and went to the toilet…he was taking ages, and he didn't answer when I called him…so I went to find him." The tears overcome her.

  "Have you called the ambulance?"

  "No…Just you. Oh, James, I'm scared…I think…I think he's dead!"

  I stop for a second. The inevitability of the words and their finality bring me to a halt. They were not unexpected. I knew they would come. But to hear them again…

  Now the nightmare starts. Except this time it is real.

  "Listen, mum. Listen to me. He may still be alive. I want you to pay careful attention to what I say. Please take a cushion and some blankets into the bathroom. Cover him up and keep him warm. Make sure you're warm too. Lift his head slightly and make sure his face is clear of the floor…

  "There's blood on his head…I think he hit it against the bath when he fell…"

  "Mum, I'll be there in five minutes. No more. Hold on. I'm going to call an ambulance now. I'm hanging up now…I'll be there soon."

  I call an ambulance, and tell them it's a heart attack. I run to Jane's bedroom. She is stirring, wakened by the sound of my loud voice on the phone, and my crashing around the bedroom trying to put on my clothes at the same time.

  "Jane. It's my dad. He's had a heart attack. I have to go. I'll call you as soon as I know anything…look after the kids…Stay here. There's nothing you can do for now..."

  I'm down the stairs and out the door within seconds. I take the Audi, and race through the suburban streets at seventy miles an hour. As I drive, my heart is beating out of contro
l, thoughts rushing through my head.

  When my dad died last time, I never made it to the hospital until he was gone. I never had a chance to say goodbye. To tell him I love him. "Please God, Please let me get to him in time!"

  I glance at the clock. 4.36 am. The dying time. Statistically speaking, more people die between the hours of four and five in the morning, than at any other time. The time when the human body is at its lowest ebb.

  I'm driving crazily and I know it, but I don't care. I have to get there.

  Minutes later I swing round into my mother's street, and screech to a halt, slamming the car door shut without locking it and running up the garden path. I fumble with a key in the door, and take the stairs two at a time.