As time slowly begins to fill in the widening space between the night dad died and now, thoughts of making 'the jump' are still ever-present. I still dream, almost every night, of my children and Sarah, and my little house where I used to live, but there is little I can do about it. I continue to travel on the Jubilee Line at every possibility, and I feel frustration when nothing happens. The opportunity to 'jump' seems highly elusive. Perhaps it will never happen again. So instead, I focus on the future in this world. And Sarah.
A week after the burial, I go back to the graveyard, carrying two bunches of flowers. First of all, I go to see my dad's grave. We have already decided on the headstone, and the epitaph that will go on it: black, polished granite, with little flecks of mica that will catch the sunlight and sparkle, the words in the stone glistening gold and etched deep into the granite so that they will not fade with time.
"Here lies Charles Edward Quinn.
Father, Friend, and Fisherman.
Born 5th September 1947
Died 8th April 2013
Much missed by his wife and family."
Except for the dates, it will be the same epitaph as he had on his other stone, which was also black polished granite.
I imagine how the stone will look, and laugh when I remember how I once overheard my mother arguing with my father one night, a long time ago. My father had read a joke in the paper, an epitaph on some cartoon, which said,
"Here lies Joe Smith, Hypochondriac and worrier.
I told you I was ill! "
And, in between laughs, he was suggesting that he should have the same thing written on his gravestone. "Over my dead body," my mum had argued. "No, over mine." he had replied.
Well, my mum won, as she always does. Instead, he got the respectable epitaph he deserved. Both in this world and the other.
After placing the flowers gently on the ground where the headstone will go, after a few minutes of silent thought, I wander over to the grave of Sarah's mother.
Last week, after the funeral, there was so much emotion going through my head, that I hadn’t noticed if there was a vase at the base of the stone. But thinking about it over the past couple of days, I was sure that there would be one. And I knew that if there was one, there would be some dead irises in it. Sarah's mother's favorite flowers. Which Sarah always made an annual pilgrimage to replace on the anniversary of her mother’s death. One visit each year. Which in this world will be on the 4th of June.
Less than seven weeks away.
As I approach the headstone, my heart leaps as I see the vase, lying on its side, blown over by the wind. I kneel down, lifting it up and setting it down firmly again, steadying it with a small rock. Taking out the dead irises, I lie them neatly at the base of the headstone, and replace them with my large bouquet of carnations. Her next favourite flowers.
They look good.
I stand by the grave for a while, full of hope. I close my eyes and try to think of Sarah. I see her face fill my mind.
She is smiling.
Then slowly, she starts to move away from me, running towards the swing at the bottom of the garden…
I open my eyes quickly, my heart beginning to race… It’s the vision again, that same sequence of memory that starts to run whenever I conjure up Sarah's face in my mind. I know what will happen next. I know that any moment now a rush of emotion will hit me, and I will start to feel bad. Very bad.
Feeling a little unsteady, I move towards Sarah's mother’s headstone, and steady myself on the cold granite, catching my breath.
"Why?" I almost shout aloud. "What is it that makes me so scared? And why do my feelings for Sarah change so dramatically as the sequence rolls forward? Is my subconscious trying to tell me something?"
Clenching my fists into tight balls, I wrap my arms around my chest, and throw my head back to the sky. I know what I have to do. The only way to find out what scares me so much is to let the sequence finish, to go where it is going, and to ride the wave of fear until I see what lies on the other side.
So I close my eyes, picture Sarah again, and a moment later she is running down the garden path towards Keira, who is, like before, crying for her mummy to push her on the swing.
I call to her. "Turn around, smile at the camera!"
Sarah turns.
The fear, the dread, the sadness hits me like a wave.
Sarah is pregnant.
My fists tighten more, the muscles in my arm straining with the pressure, my eyelids flickering as I fight the urge to open them and let it all end.
I fall to my knees, still riding the wave.
…Sarah is facing me now. Large, beaming with happiness, so motherly, her pregnancy almost full term…Keira behind her…
And then it happens. I hear another voice. Behind me.
"Daddy. Daddy…wait…photograph me too…"
It’s the voice of little Nicole.
Chapter Forty Three
The Dome Bash
.
Two weeks later Jane and I are on the train on the way into London. Tonight is going to be the first of several large events that we have put together to be staged at the Dome, the first of a programme in which we will re-launch the Dome as the Entertainment venue for London, for concerts, stage-shows, and large conferences.
And what better way to start than with a Concert to launch the campaign for the British Olympics in London, with all the money raised going to a new charity providing sponsorship to encourage and support future British Olympians. The concert has taken months to organize, and will be attended by King Harry, Sting, Elton John, the Mayor of London, a string of famous world athletes, and a host of entertainers and singers taken from the current West End musicals.
It promises to be a fantastic evening and we are both really looking forward to it. I'm proud of what has been organized by my team, along with help from the Dome, and the British Olympic organisation.
We arrive at Waterloo, and decide to walk across the bridge and enjoy the beautiful, warm evening, instead of catching the Jubilee Line straight up to Hyde Park.
Recently Jane and I have been getting along well, and our relationship has been very cordial. No more arguments---not that there were many in the first place---, and we have been laughing and speaking about important subjects, not just about the children. I can see her confidence building, and I like it. She is blossoming, becoming a better Jane, and I sense that she can feel it too. She likes the new her.
Jane walks beside me, arm-in-arm. We walk through the station, down to the river’s edge, and then up on to the bridge. The view is wonderful. A good evening to be up in the London Eye. The sun is on the way down, the sunset flooding the river with incandescent oranges and yellows, which bounce off the undulating surface and wash over the buildings all around, the vista becoming one single, vast Monet landscape. Boats are passing by underneath, people waving from the upper decks, people in evening dress walking along the embankment, making their way to concerts or theatres on the South Bank.
As we cross the bridge, passing the spot at the top of the stairs where I habitually hurry past to avoid the "Good Evening, have you got any spare change?", followed by the standard "THANK you, And HAVE a GOOD EVENING", delivered in that ultimate line of pure sarcasm that they all seem to master, it dawns on me that I have never once been accosted by a single beggar since I arrived in this new world.
Not once since last August have I passed someone crouched beneath a blanket at the top of the stairs, stroking a dog, and nursing an almost empty can of cider. Not once I have been offered a "Big Issue" and not once has someone paraded up and down the night train from Waterloo to Surbiton, saying "Excuse me Ladies and Gentleman, I'm not going to ask you for any spare change, but can you lend me a tenner till next Tuesday? I need just a few pounds to get into the shelter for tonight?"
What, you mean the shelter that officially closed an hour ago?
I'm dying to ask Jane what's happened to all the beggars? Has she ever heard of th
e Big Issue? Surely, the problem hasn't just gone away?
I can't believe I haven't noticed it before.
But I can't ask her about it and I can't mention it. So I just have to pretend as if it is normal, and just add it to the growing list of differences between my world and this.
When we get to the other side of the river, we cross 'underneath the arches' and walk up the pedestrian precinct to Charing Cross Tube station, then down into the Jubilee Line.
The trains are almost empty. The rush hour is gone, and most people tonight are taking advantage of the beautiful evening and are walking to wherever they are going.
A tube arrives, we let an old lady off, and we get into a carriage in the middle of the train.
For what seems like the thousandth time since my big "C" day, I nervously watch as the doors on the Tube begin to close. A moment of anticipation, while a swarm of butterflies fly around my stomach.
Then the doors close, a lurch forward, and the tube disappears into blackness.
Nothing.
By now, I am used to it, and the moment of hope disappears instantly and is replaced with conversation with Jane. I have almost given up hope of anything happening again. It may never do. And the momentary pulse of expectation followed by the continuation of my life in this world, is as automatic to me now, as the sound of air hissing from the doors when they close, and nothing happening.
It's just another normal evening. Except not quite.
It's not every evening you get to meet Elton John or Sting or Andrew Lloyd-Webber. In fact, I must admit that this is probably the only time in my entire life, ---and I can take my pick from two---, that I have partied with the stars. But at the after-show party, I mingle with them as if it's an everyday occurrence, laughing and joking, and resisting the incredible temptation to whip out a ballpoint pen and ask someone to sign a napkin. Not for me, please, but for a friend, you understand…
Jane of course, is ecstatic.
"I can't believe I just shook hands with the King!" she says, still almost speechless, a whole hour after we are introduced to King Harry.
"He's just a normal human being," I say," ...except for the fact he's richer than almost any other human being on the planet." I still find it amusing that the freckled 'ginger' from Eton is now the head of the European Monarchy. How on earth did that happen?
Call me a Republican. And call him a Publican. After all, that's where he has spent most of his life so far. Drinking beer, and chasing women.
'Nuffsaid.
Except Jane won't let it lie, and we end up in a group of semi-plastered guests, all wearing Black Tie and Evening Gowns, discussing the ultimate question: "The King? Parasite and tax-dodger, or the Ultimate Ambassador for British tourism and trade?"
Knowing that Jane and I will never agree on this one, I side-step the group and wander round the inside of the Dome, swiping another couple of sparkling champagne flutes from a nearby passing waiter.
"Stu?", I call, spying him in the middle of the arena, surrounded by a gaggle of beauties. I hand him a fresh glass, and drag him off to the side, and soon we are discussing the old days again, chatting about our old girlfriends, and reliving our uni conquests.
--------------------
About two o'clock, the party starts to wind down, and Jane and I decide to leave. My mother is sleeping over at our house tonight, babysitting the kids, so we're in no rush to get home, but I'm tired, and I want to catch the tube back to Waterloo.
Which is another of the positive differences that has pleasantly surprised me about my new London. Twenty-four hour drinking licenses, so you can always find a decent pub whenever you go out, no matter what time of day, and transport links that run throughout the night, and which don't shut down and leave people stranded in the middle of the city, pissed and with no way to get home.
In other words, this London is a truly cosmopolitan city, right up there beside Paris, and Rome. You can enjoy it at any time of the day or night, and you're never under pressure to drink two pints of beer quickly before closing time, before you run for the last train, and find yourself bursting for the toilet and nowhere to go when the old train breaks down half-way between Waterloo and Clapham Junction.
This London has come of age.
So why do I still miss the old one?
By now the alcohol has begun to wear off, and I am almost sober. Jane, on the other hand, is quite merry. Which is putting it diplomatically. Pissed as a fart, would be a more accurate description. So we walk down into the tube station, her giggling away and me supporting her with one arm around her waist and the other holding onto her hand.
When a tube finally arrives, we climb onto an almost empty train, and sit down in a seat close to the door, on the opposite side of the carriage, not because I choose to, but because that is where Jane quickly falls. I sit down beside her, prop her up, and she nuzzles in against me. She is wrapped around my arm, cuddling it, her eyes closed, and contentment written all over her face. She has had a good evening.
The tube pulls into Green Park, and the only other people in the carriage get off. We pull away, and hurtle off towards Charing Cross, where the platform is a little more busy, and a motley ensemble of drunk Londoners and red-eyed tourists clamber aboard. Only two people get into our carriage, a man and woman, who sit as far away from us as possible, and proceed to start kissing as soon as they sit down.
A tingle goes down the back of my neck, and I feel slightly strange. I look up, immediately alert. I know this feeling.
The doors are beginning to close.
Quick. Find the name of the tube station. Where…where…Yes! There it is…Charing Cross. Charing Cross. Yes, there! The words are beginning to shimmer, to change…
Already it is happening. Time slowing down. Beginning to freeze.
The doors are half of the way closed, but now moving almost imperceptibly slowly.
I glance across at the couple, still kissing each other at the other end of the carriage, but already they have become mannequins, joined at the mouth, their tongues stuck deep into each other's throats, frozen saliva glistening on the edges of their tongues, the man's hand motionless and solid, the fingers of his hand caressing the woman's right breast underneath her jumper.
I react instantly. This is the moment I have been waiting for and anticipating every day that I have travelled on the Jubilee Line for the past five months. This is it…
Already I can see onto the platform outside, the friendly, much missed colors and design of Westminster station platform, two people walking past the open doors. In the other world. My world.
Without further thought I lunge forward, surging upwards from my seat, the path between me and the open doors clear, and unimpeded.
I leap up, but am immediately jerked back down into my seat. I turn in panic, pulling at my arm, realizing with horror that Jane, frozen solid and immovable, is firmly latched onto my arm, in a death-like grip that I cannot shake off, violently as I try.
I look back to the door, the sign on the wall outside "Westminster", clear and steady. The doors half-open, but frozen still. An open gateway back into my world.
I pull again, as hard as I can, but nothing gives. I'm left panting loudly, my own loud breathing the only sound I can hear. Around me everything else is eerily quiet.
I am trapped in a soundless void. Lost in a world of deathly, cold, silence.
"Shit!" I shout, turning to Jane, contorting myself and pulling, pushing, jerking, trying everything and anything to free myself from her.
Her eyes are closed and she seems totally oblivious to my attempts to break free and escape. Her face and body, wax-like in appearance, neither alive, nor dead.
"Jane, please let me go. Please…" I beg of her.
But she cannot hear me.
And then the sound of the doors beginning to move again.
Closing.
Accelerating together.
I turn quickly and watch in a mixture of pure panic, horror and in
describable frustration as the two metal doors meet in the middle.
Suddenly a wall of sound hits me, and I fall forward onto the floor, my arm whipping itself free from Jane's grip. Jane falls sideways onto the padded seat where I was just sitting and wakes with a jolt.
The couple further down the carriage momentarily break off from their passionate fumbling, and glance over at me sprawling on the dirty carriage floor.
Who Stole My Life? Page 35