At the end of this leave, Henry has to go home. He promised his sister. They have lunch before going there, and she questions whether he has a girlfriend and a reminder of Jane.
After enduring his sister’s driving, he’s back home.
First, his mother, second his brother, Harry, who’s changed, third, his father, who seems to accept they agree to disagree. Lastly, he meets Amanda, Harry’s long-suffering girlfriend, and she tells him Harry has changed.
It’s too good to be true, but he stays.
Everyone is walking on eggshells.
Here’s the thing. Henry has always used his family as an excuse to leave, rather than have to face their constant nagging, that he give up the sea, that he get over Jane, that he get a proper job and stop wasting his life.
It seems like forever that he had to endure his father’s disappointment. Harry had once shouldered that responsibility until he went to war and came back broken. It was just another excuse for Henry to leave because Harry had made life hell for him, simply because Henry was wasting opportunities he could now not have.
Until he realised that wasn’t the case, but he had to emerge from the sea of self-pity first.
Now Henry resents him because he has. It’s an odd situation.
For the last week before retirement, it was almost unmemorable.
I think I preferred it that way because the company was nothing like when I started, forty-five years ago. People said I should have been General Manager by now, but the truth was, I liked my ‘behind the scenes’ role better than taking on the responsibility of management.
Now, my role was obsolete. We no longer ran our own packing, dispatch and delivery service, each component of the department was slowly stripped away and outsourced, to the point now where we threw stuff into boxes and a couple of ruffians and a dilapidated truck came at the end of the day to take it all away.
Online. That was the catchword. There was no one over 21 in the company, except for me and the receptionist, who was also slated for retirement a week after me.
She, too, was obsolete. As an online store, there was no need to have a human interface, so I had no idea what she did with her day. I was meaning to ask, and that opportunity might just come sooner than I thought.
She just wandered into the tea room.
When she saw me sitting at the same table I had for the last forty-five years, she smiled. There was a spot for the dispatch teams, a spot for clerical, and once upon a time, the boys and girls had to sit at separate tables. Now, well, times have changed. Once, we all had uniforms, and everyone looked like they belonged. Now, it was difficult to tell the boys from the girls, and dress sense and decorum had long since disappeared. I wore mine, and Elsie wore hers, the last acts of defiance before we moved on.
She made her tea, the same as she had for many years, resisted the temptation of a doughnut, and then wandered over. She nodded to an empty chair opposite me, “May I?”
I nodded. She had more manners than all the others put together.
“Looking forward to retirement,” she asked.
“No. I have a big empty house that I’d rather not live in, and no one to share it with.” Mary, the woman I’d married, a company girl, and I had the privilege of living with had lasted forty-four of those years before succumbing to cancer, a year shy of beginning what we were calling our second life together. We had such plans, but plans were always destined to go awry.
“A shame,” she said. “Harry decided he didn’t want to wait to have a good time. Took off with a younger woman. A week later, he was dead. Bad heart, I’ll let you make of that what you will. Probably dodged a bullet, though.”
Pragmatic? Certainly practical.
“Do you have anything planned?” I asked.
“I’m going around the world in 80 days. Steam trains, steamships, hot air balloons, camels, elephants, and maybe even the proverbial slow boat to China. I saw a TV show, and even though you can probably do it in a day, even two, I like the idea of the longer the better. You?”
“We were going to Paris, Rome, Capri, but I can’t see the point of it now.”
“Well, there’s room for one more on our tour. You should come. It’s going to be wildly unpredictable, and at least there would be one familiar face. Give it some thought.”
I was giving it thought on the way back to my office, so much thought I bumped into Rodney, the boy who was about to take over my space.
I’d been asked to train him, but he told me quite emphatically there was nothing he could learn from an old fossil like me. Quite blunt and quite obnoxious. He was no different from the rest of them. Old people were simply the object of their scorn. It was not only me; Elsie also got her share of derision too. We were the dinosaurs.
I apologised, but that didn’t seem to placate him.
“Thank God you will be gone soon enough.”
“Yes, I will, and I’ll have plenty of time on my hands.”
He looked at me oddly. “You’re barking mad, you old geezer.” He gave me a sneer, then walked off.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” I said to his retreating back.
Rodney was typical of that younger generation that took everything for granted. His life was wrapped up in his cell phone, like many others, and once when he thought he lost it, he almost went to pieces.
Not that I had anything to do with what happened, but it did give me ideas.
I made it back to the loading dock just in time for the boss’s special delivery, a half dozen paintings worth nearly twenty million dollars, paintings that were going to be hung in his new house if it ever got finished. He had been forced to take delivery of them early and decided to use the walk-in safe the previous owners of the building, a bank, had installed.
Not that it had been used in a long time, other than a place where the younger employees went to ‘play’. They thought no one saw them, but it was obvious what they were doing. Not that it was any of my business, it was more or less the same some forty years before, only a little more dignified.
It was a fascinating anachronism from a bygone age, and reputed to never been cracked, although several had tried. Now, though, it would be a doddle for a master safecracker. If they knew what was in there, which no one but the boss, and several staff members, namely me and Rodney, did.
But I did warn the boss that he should have made better arrangements, but he was tight with his money, which seemed at odds with the way his wife spent it. The safe, like me, was also obsolete, and I hoped he understood it was no substitute for having them stored in a proper facility.
About a half hour before I was due to leave, I saw Rodney with two men in the alley behind the loading dock. There was a white anonymous van parked not far from them, and it must be one of the suppliers dropping off a late delivery.
There were several cartons sitting on the edge of the dock.
The two men had baseball caps pulled down to obscure their faces, to avoid being clearly seen by the CCTV camera facing up the alley. Of course, it was only my suspicious mind that thought they were deliberately trying to avoid being identified.
Rodney saw me approaching the end of the dock and finished his business with them and they turned and headed towards their van.
“Late delivery,” I asked, as he came up the steps beside the dock.
“None of your business, Richards. Isn’t it time for you to go home?”
“Another half hour. Paperwork to be done.”
“I can finish up for the day. You can go, I’ll cover for you.”
Very generous, but he’d never done it before, why start now? If there wasn’t twenty million dollars worth of paintings in the safe, I might have taken up the offer. I just muttered a ‘thankyou’; and went back to the office.
A few minutes after that, I called a friend who worked for the police and told him what I’d seen. It might be nothing, it might be something. I just thought someone should know, just in case we were robbed.
At office closing time, I got a phone call from Elsie, a rather strange call, asking me to come to the front reception area. It was no longer used because we never got visitors, and if there were customer issues, they had to complain ‘online’. She was insistent, so I went.
I could see Elsie at her desk, and five others, three girls and two boys, all dressed to leave for the day. Had the time clock failed again?”
When I reached the desk, I saw what the problem was. Three men in balaclavas holding guns pointed at the group. They were understandably frightened.
The nearest gunman looked at me. “You Richards?”
That was Rodney’s surname. My suspicious mind first identified two of the masked men as possibly the two Rodney had been talking to in the alley, and if they were looking for him, was he going to open the safe? Or simply help them?
“He’s out back, quite possibly gone for the day.”
A look passed between two of the men.
“You’ll do then.”
“For what?”
“Move,” he motioned for all of us to go back the way I had just come, towards the rear. “And make it snappy. We haven’t got all day.”
No one moved.
He aimed his gun at the roof and pulled the trigger. The sound of the gun was deafening, and part of the roof fell down.
“I won’t ask again.”
Elsie went first, the five others next, and then me, but not with several prods from one of the gunmen. I was hoping it wasn’t a hair trigger, or I’d get accidentally shot.
When we got to the safe door, he stopped us, put the others to one side with one of the gunmen watching them, and said to me, “I want you to open the safe.”
“It needs a key.”
“It’s in the top drawer over there. Get and it no funny stuff.”
Rodney, or someone, had told them everything they needed to know. It was the only reason he could know about the paintings. Rodney was conspicuous by his absence, though, and has asked me to go early, could not have envisaged I’d still be there to help them.
Had he planned it this way to absolve himself of blame?
“If I refuse.”
“That would be dumb. We’ll start shooting the hostages. Make no mistake, we will kill them if we have to,” he turned the gun on one of them, then just a fraction wider and pulled the trigger. Two girls screamed.
“OK, OK. I get it.” I did as I was told.
The door was very heavy and needed two people to move it. When the lock was open, I turned the wheel to disengage the bolts then stood back so two of the three could pull the door open. From there it took only five minutes to take the paintings.
When the operation was over, the leader motioned towards the inside of the safe. “Everyone inside.”
“Not a good idea,” I said. “Shut the door and lock it, there’s no oxygen. We won’t last longer than two hours.”
“Then pray someone comes to find you. In, or die prematurely out here.”
No one wanted to die so we all went into the safe. As he closed the door, one of his friends yelled out to wait, then a few seconds after that Rodney was pushed in, and the door closed The lock then made that clunking sound when it was engaged and that was it. Six juniors and two seniors in a dark space. The girls were close to hysteria. The boys were not far behind them.
Then a torch light, from one of the cell phones lit up a small space. We were all gathered just inside the door, but there was a lot of room inside, about the size of the kitchen. There were boxes sitting against the wall, too heavy to clear out when I had cleaned and swept the inside in preparation for the paintings.
Janine, one of the girls, said, “Is it true we’re going to run out of air?”
“Eventually. I suggest none of you goes into hysterics, it will use up the air far quicker than if we just sit still and wait.”
Elsie had already found a box to sit on, and I sat next to her. She didn’t have a cell phone, so I gave her mine after I put the torchlight on. She seemed oddly unfazed by the turn of events.
“We could use the phone and call the police, or someone to come and get us out.” James, I think. He was new. He had his cell phone in his hand. “Hell, no. No signal. What the…”
“The walls are two feet thick, with metal padding, and the door is eight inches thick steel, I’m not surprised there’s no signal,” I said.
“You’ve been here forever; you should be able to get us out of here.” Janine was probably the brightest of the six.
“That would be normally the case if we used the safe, but we don’t and haven’t, and this is the first time I’ve seen inside it for a long time. Not unlike some of you.”
They all put on their innocent faces. I didn’t really care.
Rodney had been trying to get a signal on his cell phone, walking around the inside, constantly checking for a signal. He would not get one.
“Did you read the induction manual like I asked you, Rodney,“ I asked him as he sidled past me?
“What induction manual?”
“The one that I said had instructions on how to get out of the safe if you got accidentally locked in. It apparently happened a lot to the previous owners.”
“You didn’t say anything about a safe.”
No, I probably didn’t, but dropping Rodney into the collective dismay would take their minds off their predicament.
“Anyone got a signal,” He yelled out.
No one had.
Half an hour passed, and it was interesting to watch people who had no practical experience in problem-solving. Nor did they understand, as a group, they had a better chance of survival, than individually.
The girls cried for a few minutes, the shock of their situation, and what might happen finally dawning on them. They were certainly critical of the boys who didn’t know what to do, other than twirl the locking wheel one way then the other, a waste of time unless the key had been used. Two and three of them tried to push the door, though I was not sure what they were hoping to achieve.
By the end of that half hour, they were all sitting, conserving oxygen, and silently analysing how they were unlucky enough to get into this mess.
I looked at Elsie. She had the right idea, she was asleep, or pretending to be. It was a good idea if we ran out of air. It wasn’t going to be pretty when it happened. I remembered one of two times we had sneaked in here ourselves, all those years ago.
Then, suddenly Janine asked, “How did the thieves know there were paintings here?”
Time was one of those enemies, you were able to think, over and over, on a single topic.
Rodney said, “Someone told them. It could be any one of us. I doubt the boss would tell anyone.”
I was not so sure. He was having liquidity problems and the insurance on those paintings would solve a lot of those problems.
We went through all the ‘it wasn’t me’s’, until it got to Rodney who was quite emphatic it wasn’t him.”
“So, those men out in the alley before, Rodney, the two who looked exactly like two of the thieves, you didn’t tell them everything they needed to know?”
“I can see what you’re doing. Took the opportunity to top up your retirement plan, and now we’re all going to die because of your greed.”
It sounded plausible, and it got the desired result, the others were not looking at him as the guilty one.
I shrugged. “Well, we’ll soon find out.”
An hour and a half after being locked in, the air was getting depleted, and breathing was getting more difficult.
I was floating on the edge of consciousness, and Elsie had dozed off which would help her rather than hinder her.
The others were in various stages of panic, but to their credit, there were no histrionics.
Other ten minutes, I heard the key in the lock, and the bolt being moved. A minute after that the door opened accompanied by a whistling sound as the air was sucked out, and more breathable air replaced it.
Everyone was too weak to move.
My friend, the policeman, came in and surveyed the bodies, all now in various stages of recovery. Rodney was getting up off the floor when he took him by the arm. “I have a few questions,” he said, then escorted him outside.
Elsie woke and looked at me, then the open door. “What happened?”
“A rescue.”
“Good. Didn’t want to end my days in this room.”
When we exited the safe, the boss was there. He apologised to each of the five, Elsie, them me. He said the thieves had been caught, and identified Rodney as the informant, and they were all under arrest.
The paintings were on their way to a more secure location.
He pulled me aside, and asked, “What made you call the police? No one else noticed anything.”
“It’s an old fossil thing. We notice things because our noses are not buried in technology. We don’t trust everybody, and certainly, anyone new hanging around a fortune in paintings. I guess I’ll never change.”
“Don’t. And thanks. I’ve made arrangements for a supplement to your final payment in appreciation.”
“Thank you, sir”
It turned out to be enough to join Elsie on what I discovered was called the ‘obsolete tour’.
At the end of this leave, Henry has to go home. He promised his sister. They have lunch before going there, and she questions whether he has a girlfriend and a reminder of Jane.
After enduring his sister’s driving, he’s back home.
First, his mother, second his brother, Harry, who’s changed, third, his father, who seems to accept they agree to disagree. Lastly, he meets Amanda, Harry’s long-suffering girlfriend, and she tells him Harry has changed.
It’s too good to be true, but he stays.
Everyone is walking on eggshells.
Here’s the thing. Henry has always used his family as an excuse to leave, rather than have to face their constant nagging, that he give up the sea, that he get over Jane, that he get a proper job and stop wasting his life.
It seems like forever that he had to endure his father’s disappointment. Harry had once shouldered that responsibility until he went to war and came back broken. It was just another excuse for Henry to leave because Harry had made life hell for him, simply because Henry was wasting opportunities he could now not have.
Until he realised that wasn’t the case, but he had to emerge from the sea of self-pity first.
Now Henry resents him because he has. It’s an odd situation.
Michelle is dreaming about the many ways she can dispose of her boss, Emile, and equally ticking them off the list when reality sets in.
It’s another long night, and a customer, one with a difference, and he has this strange request, that she try a concoction he’s invented to embarrass the boy who stole his girlfriend.
It’s an opportunity and another brink in the wall.
Despaired that Henry hasn’t discovered her hidden missive, she starts staking out the Henshaw house to see when he returns, and he does not turn up. She cannot keep going there lest Felix gets suspicious. She calls on the phone but gets no answers.
Next time she arrives at his house Harry is there waiting and they talk.
It’s not the conversation she wants to have, or hear, and realises that it’s going to be a lot more difficult to get Henry back.
A talk with Emile, she tries to set his mind at rest that she wants to escape again, and he leaves unsatisfied.
She realises that she has to deal with Felix first. But, on the other hand, she would be testing the drops given to her by a client, and if it works, another part of the plan might come to fruition.
She also knows she needs another way to communicate with Henry.
Michelle is dreaming about the many ways she can dispose of her boss, Emile, and equally ticking them off the list when reality sets in.
It’s another long night, and a customer, one with a difference, and he has this strange request, that she try a concoction he’s invented to embarrass the boy who stole his girlfriend.
It’s an opportunity and another brink in the wall.
Despaired that Henry hasn’t discovered her hidden missive, she starts staking out the Henshaw house to see when he returns, and he does not turn up. She cannot keep going there lest Felix gets suspicious. She calls on the phone but gets no answers.
Next time she arrives at his house Harry is there waiting and they talk.
It’s not the conversation she wants to have, or hear, and realises that it’s going to be a lot more difficult to get Henry back.
A talk with Emile, she tries to set his mind at rest that she wants to escape again, and he leaves unsatisfied.
She realises that she has to deal with Felix first. But, on the other hand, she would be testing the drops given to her by a client, and if it works, another part of the plan might come to fruition.
She also knows she needs another way to communicate with Henry.
I don’t know, at first, what it was that brought back a raft of memories that had been long forgotten, I had woken up in an ambulance on its way to a hospital, and by the way, in which it was moving at breakneck speed, siren wailing, it had on be for a very good reason.
“He’s awake,” a nearby voice yelled near me, and then a face hovered before my eyes, “How do you feel.”
It was an odd question because I felt fine. “OK. I guess. What happened?”
For a minute or so, he checked my vitals and asked, “Do you know who you are?” I gave him my name, which matched my ID, and then my address, which was also correct. He asked me where I was, and got it right too. “You can slow down; I’ll tell them it’s not urgent.”
He made a phone call to the hospital, then turned back to me.
“You had a fall, hit your head on the concrete sidewalk, and started having a fit. When we arrived, you were unconscious, and the signs indicated you had gone into a coma. It was a situation that could have gone anyway, which is why we were trying to get you to the hospital as soon as possible. You need to get an MRI as soon as possible.”
“But I feel fine.”
“That may well be the case, but what happened to you can have ramifications later. You have suffered a heavy knock to your head.”
It was not as if I could feel anything, so I reached up to feel for any indication of the accident and touched a bandage, covering what felt like a big lump. I could not feel any pain when I touched it. “Should I feel something?”
“You should, yes. We have not administered any pain medication, so it should be very sore. It’s a fairly large gash. You say there is no pain?”
“No.”
Not right then, but about five minutes later, I started having blurred vision. The paramedic went back to checking my vitals, and as he was taking blood pressure I started shaking, and moments after that, I passed out.
When I woke up, I was home, in my room, overlooking the stables, and beyond that the hills. Montana. How did I get there?
Everything was exactly as I remembered it, the rodeo curtains, the breeze coming through the open window, the aroma of newly mown grass after the rain wafting in, accompanied by the rustle of the curtains. Summer, my favourite part of the year.
And yet, I could not be here, because after my parents died, the farm was sold to pay of the mountain of debt they’d accumulated, and sadly the reason why they were no longer alive.
I slipped off the covers and went over to the window. Exactly as it was when I returned after graduating from university, just before my father and I was going to make repairs to the roof. I remember that exact time in my life. I had just broken up with the girl I had planned to spend the rest of my life with, and, heartbroken, I’d come home to be miserable.
There was a pounding on the door. “Get up now, lazy bones, there are chores to be done.” Suzie, my older sister, never took crap from me, had no aspirations of getting a university degree, ‘What use would it be in running a farm?’, was always at me since I was six, and had more than once thrown cold water over me, in the morning.
“I’m up,” I yelled back, a reflex action. This must all be in my imagination. The last time I’d seen Suzie, it was when I took her to the airport, off to find peace and tranquillity in Tuscany, and was still there with a friend.
But it was my room, and those were my clothes in the dresser, and … Oh. My. God!
My imagination was in overdrive. I looked exactly like my 23-year-old self. That reflection in the mirror was startling. I touched my face, and it seemed real.
Another bang on the door made me jump. The door opened and Suzie put her head in. “Good, you’re up. You just saved yourself a lot of grief.”
She looked so young, so happy, a far cry from the woman she was now, broken by a man we all thought the world of, but turned out to be a monster. I’d often wished I could go back and change things as we all did.
I crossed the room and gave her a huge hug. It felt real.
“What was that for?” She was taken aback by an action that, back then, I would not have contemplated. Our relationship, then, had been rocky at best.
“You know I love you to pieces, sis, and I don’t think I’ve taken the time or made the effort to tell you.”
“I know that. You don’t have to say anything.”
“Too many things are left unsaid.”
“You’re going batty, I can see that now. That fall off the roof of the barn has affected you, though I have to say this version of you is an improvement. Oh, and by the way, I asked Samantha to come over today, so be nice. She’s had a hard time of it while you’re away and you were good friends once.”
Samantha. The girl I dated all through middle school, the one I was supposed to end up with, everyone had said so, except she had other ideas and chose the local football hero instead. It was around about the time I came back that he was killed in a car accident, though rumours had it, it was not an accident. It would be interesting to see her again. The last time I saw her, it was when she ditched me rather unceremoniously.
“You know me, friends with everyone.”
“She dumped you, and you hate her. I get it, but there’s enough water under that bridge. Later.”
I just remembered that fall off the roof, too, showing off, and paying for it. I didn’t break anything, but I had landed rather hard, and shaken a few things up. The bump on the head hadn’t helped either. I shrugged and pulled out work clothes. It was going to be an interesting day.
At the breakfast table, Mom in her usual manner had everything out and just finished up the last of the cooking. I missed her breakfasts, in fact, I missed that first thing in the morning with family, the food, and, well, just the moments I realised much later I’d taken for granted.
Dad was there, his usual gruff, and jovial, self, complaining about everything that was going wrong, from the tractor to the crops in the south paddock, the lack of rain, and having to pump water from the dam.
When I left for college, we needed help and that’s how Walter Fisk came into our lives, particularly into Suzie’s. He called in one day, in his battered Ford truck asking if there was any employment available in the area, and because I was not there, Dad hired him. He was, at first, a hard worker, and then, once he had charmed Suzie, changed. The first time I met him I took an instant dislike to him, and he knew it. It was why he then spent the time I was away to break the relationship I had with my sister.
I was sitting at the table when he came in. I hadn’t realised he was welcome at the breakfast table, and it marked a turning point in his acceptance, almost into the family. I’d forgotten quite a lot about his time at the farm. It was only several years later when the damage was done, that we learned who he really was, a thoroughly bad man by the name of Walter Reinhart who had murdered his wife and disappeared, only to turn up on our doorstep. It wasn’t until he nearly murdered Suzie that we realised his true nature.
“Morning all.” His eyes stopped at me, and his expression changed for just a second. “David.”
“Walter.” It was a pity all of this was running in my imagination, or I’d go into town and see the sheriff and tell him about Fisk. Just seeing him brought all the old memories back, and it made me angry, so much so that I lost my appetite, and couldn’t sit at the same table with him.
I went past him as he sat down, and muttered, “Don’t get too comfortable, Reinhart.”
He grabbed my arm, stopping me from leaving, the expression on his face now one of fear. “What did you say?”
“You heard me.”
“I think you have me confused with someone else.”
“If you say so. Now, I would like my arm back, Walter.”
Suzie had noticed that something was happening between us, and said, “I hope you two are not going to be tiresome, again. I thought we got past all that nonsense.”
“There’s nothing going on here, is there Walter?”
He let go of my arm. “No, nothing.”
In my imaginary world, I had just scored a small victory.
I went outside into the fresh morning air, something else that I missed greatly after leaving home. The mornings were never the same in the city, with no open spaces to speak of and everyone living on top of each other.
And in a city with millions of people, it was ironic that I never felt more alone than I did back home.
Perhaps my mind had had enough of being where I was and had decided to put me back to a time when I had a chance to make a difference in my life. This moment in time was when I made several regrettable decisions, each of which eventually set me on a path to where I was now.
It was not what I had envisaged my life would turn out like, then or now.
Perhaps I was taking stock, going over the choices and seeing what life might have been like.
I walked slowly towards the barn. I could see materials and tools scattered around in my father’s usual haphazard manner, mine too for that matter. We were in the middle of patching the roof, a job long overdue, and it must be just after I fell off the roof. Luckily, I’d landed on a haystack next to it, but though it softened the fall it still hurt.
I could feel the aches and pains from it still.
Inside the barn, I knew what I was looking for. Grandfather’s Indian motorcycle was the only thing he left in his will to me. I loved that bike and used to go out on it whenever I could. I also remembered that Walter stole it when he finally left, and I never saw it again.
I had to do something about that.
I pulled the tarpaulin cover off it and checked it had fuel, then wheeled it out. A minute later I was off, deciding to go into town. I was still undecided about telling the sheriff about Walter.
About five miles up the road I saw Samantha and her truck on the side of the road, hood up. She heard the bike and turned to see who it was, then waved.
I stopped.
I hadn’t seen her for a long time, much less the in those years following my return. I remember when I came back I was bitter and said some regrettable things. I had a chance to change that.
“David.”
“Samantha.” I switched off the bike and it was suddenly eerily quiet.
“You know I get worried when you ride that thing. I never think it’s safe.”
“One ride and you hated it, Sam. You should embrace the freedom.” It had been a constant basis for conflict between us, neither willing to back down. I realised then that I was still annoyed, and it showed in my tone. Had I learned nothing?
“I’m sorry. I should have listened to your concerns, and I was a little selfish when I didn’t.”
She looked at me as if to say, ‘Who the hell are you, and what have you done with David?’
“You were right though. I should. Perhaps you might consider giving me another opportunity. I know I haven’t been as understanding as I could have been.”
I shrugged. We were both making an effort. “It was what it was. We were young, first love is like that, I guess. What’s up?”
“It just stopped. And you know me, I’m hopeless at everything.”
I got off the bike and had a look. I was not much of a mechanic, but living on a farm you got a rudimentary knowledge of everything, so basic problems I could solve. This one was a loose cable that had come away. I put it back and then asked her to start the car, which it did.
“Are you coming back to the farm,” she asked.
“Yeah, just getting some air before I get back to work. Falling off the roof sort of changes your perspective, especially when you consider what the consequences could have been. It just feels like the world is closing in on me lately.”
She got out of the truck, came over and have me a hug. At that moment a whole raft of memories returned. I kissed her and she kissed me back, and suddenly it felt like we had never been apart.
“I never stopped loving you Sam.” It seemed the right time and the right thing to say.
“I know. I always knew you were the one, but I was young and stupid. I learned my lesson, and it won’t happen again. If you still want me.”
I smiled. Was it that easy to fix?
“I do, very much.” I kissed her again. “Let’s start again. Hello. My name is David Westbrook. What’s yours?”
She smiled back. “Samantha Bailey.”
“Well, Samantha, I like you a lot. Would you be interested in going on a date?”
“Just tell me where and when.”
“Do you like motorbikes?”
“I do now.”
“Good. I’ll see you back at the farm and when my father had finished flogging me to death, I’ll take you to a place I know that has the best burgers in the county.”
After another hug, a tear, perhaps two, she left. I watched until she disappeared out of sight.
…
It was going to be a good day.
I went to the sheriff’s office; Mike was a good friend of my father’s as he was to all the residents of our little town.
I told him about Walter Fisk and his other name, and that I suspected he was a murderer sought by the Sacramento police. Mike had an assistant who was clever enough to access police records from all over the country and found the information on Walter, and the wanted poster photograph was almost an exact copy of the man we had working for us.
He asked me how I knew, and I said a friend of mine was working on an assignment for his forensic science degree and had pulled up a number of cases by wanted posters and seen Walters among them. That and the fact I always thought he was not who he said he was.
Job done; I went home.
Back on the roof, I was careful. Working with my father again was special and I savoured the time together. I hadn’t really wanted to get stuck on the farm, seeing what it had done to him, and his father before him. Farming was a rough business given everything that could go wrong, and I didn’t want that responsibility.
But maybe with Suzie, who had always said she would never leave, between us, we could make it work. Especially if we adopted an idea I had read about back in the city. Time would tell.
Suzie, and Samantha, a farm girl herself, came back from the northern paddocks where we had cattle; and she had been taking feed for them because the grass was getting a little thin after a prolonged dry period.
Then they brought lunch to us, sitting at the table where we’d often have a BBQ Saturday night and inviting the neighbours over. Sam sat next to me and it didn’t go unnoticed. Suzie was pleased but didn’t state the obvious.
I thought that was the moment to tell them my plan for the future. I also knew that from this point on things were only going to get worse, my father getting ill, the drought, Walter, and my departure all compounding onto the terrible end to everything I knew and cared about.
“I have an idea which as some of you know can be a bad thing, but thus might be another string in the bow for the farm. I read a while back that one of the schools back east was considering introducing a farm stay for their students, say for a week or fortnight to get a feel for what happened, other than believing all food came from a supermarket.
“I thought about a dozen bunkhouses down by the river with a mess hall, classrooms, and stables would make that a reality. You know how many schools there are, and we have everything right here. Just think about it. It could become a very good income stream.”
Suzie looked surprised. “You thought of that all by yourself?”
“I am capable of thinking, you know.”
“It’s a good idea. Dad, what do you think?”
“It will cost money we don’t have.” The man was ever practical, quite often the devil’s advocate.
“Then what if I get a journalist to come down and go through the plan, show him everything, and get him to sell it for you. At least it will gauge reaction, and if it’s positive…”
“One of your cronies?” Suzie asked.
“He’s a good journalist and he owes me a favour. I’ll call him later.”
Dad shrugged. To him, it was about the money. Not the idea, which was sound and would work, if there was a market. Secretly I think he was pleased with me, trying to find ways to keep the farm.
The day ended on a date and perhaps for the first time in a long time, I felt content. I had, in my imagination, corrected everything that had gone wrong in my life, and just before I fell asleep, I wished that it could go on forever.
…
I felt a hand roughly shaking me by the shoulder, and a voice in the background saying rather loudly, “David, David, wake up, wake up.”
I put my hand out to grasp the hand that was shaking me while trying to open my eyes and wake from, well, I had no idea what it was.
It felt like I was drowning.
Then, eyes open I was staring directly at Samantha’s face. Only she was 30 years older than the last time I saw her.
“Sam?’
“David. Oh God, I thought I’d lost you. She leaned down and kissed me then hugged me which was difficult.
I was in a hospital bed with cables and tubes everywhere.
“What…”
“You’ve been in a coma. You hit your head on the sidewalk and one minute you were fine, the next, we didn’t know if you were going to live or die.”
My other hand was being held and I looked over to see Suzie equally as concerned.
“Suzie? Why are you here? You live in Tuscany?”
She looked blankly at me as if I was mad. “Where did that come from? I came up from the farm the moment Sam told me what happened. Some second honeymoon you two are having.”
“What? This is all wrong. None of this is real.”
I was back in another nightmare where I was being tormented by the same two protagonists as in the last. But why were they here and what was this second honeymoon business.
Samantha looked concerned, perhaps a little scared. I was too because it seemed I was not back in the ambulance on my to the hospital for other reasons. And that life didn’t have either Suzie or Samantha in it.
Suzie came into view. “You should not be overly worried if none of this is familiar to you. We were told by the doctor that you might have difficulty remembering anything, but that wouldn’t last forever. So, a quick recap may or may not help. You’ve been married to Sam for thirty years, and you have three children, not here of course, I’m now running the farm, that was a great idea of yours and it’s all we do these days, Mom and Dad retired to Florida like they always intended, and you and Sam work with me.”
“Walter?”
“He was arrested and charged with murder. God, that was a bullet dodged. That was your diligence too, David, and I cannot thank you enough.”
“How long have I been out of it then?”
“About a month. We’ve been rather frantic I can tell you.”
A coma? It had seemed very real to me.
The problem was my life had been nothing like this one, but coincidentally it was the one I had always wanted and had dreamed of often. It wasn’t possible I could have gone back in time, so what really happened?
Suddenly around me, alarms were going off and there was a sudden movement of people coming into the room. One minute I was conscious, the next I found myself in a white room, sitting at a table with a bearded man.
St Peter at the pearly gates? Was I dying?
“David, David, David.” His tone had just the right amount of disapproval and, what was it, disappointment. “You are given a second chance and you’re not grasping it with both hands.”
“I don’t understand.”
“That’s been your problem all your life, looking for meaning in something that just is. Are you going to stop procrastinating, and just go back and live your life, the life you have been given? You do not want to miss out on being a grandfather, do you? To go back, a simple yes or no will suffice.”
I didn’t want to think what a no might do, so it had to be a yes. I had no idea what was happening to me, but it was the life I always wanted, to be with Samantha, and have my sister back to her old self again. Whether or not I had intervened, and made it so, was moot. I had hit my head, and basically, everything in it was scrambled anyway.
“Yes.”
“Good. Now don’t come back, not until it’s your time.”
…
There was relief written all over the faces in that room, of the doctors, the nurses, a dozen other spectators, and the two who mattered the most to me. Samantha was holding my hand and I squeezed it, and moments later, opened my eyes. Perhaps I was still dazzled by the white room, but I could have easily confused her with an angel.
“You’re back.”
“Did I go somewhere?” Did she know what had been happening to me?
“I think it might have been that place just before you leave this mortal earth. You weren’t dead, but I think it was touch and go. I’m glad you came back. Our life together is not over yet, and there are so many experiences we have to look forward to.”
“Like being grandparents?”
“How do you know that? I only just got a text message not five minutes ago.”
“I have connections. Don’t worry. I’m back now, and I’m not going anywhere. I think what happened to me was the universe telling me not to be an ass. I’m sure I did something wrong.”
“Well, you’re right about being an ass, but we all have our quirks. We’re together now, as it should be.”
It’s time for Michelle to return to the snake pit, her nickname for the Parlour she had been sent to work, and the only good thing about it, she is reunited with her two friends, Angie and Millie.
She’s also back to dulling the senses with the drugs left at the house, and when Felix comes to make sure she is ready to return, he realises she has gone back to her old ways. He is not pleased.
Henry is getting to the end of another tour, with a few weeks to go, and is admiring the sunset from the bridge. The captain, hoping he does not have to put him off the ship, finds that a talk to the Chief Officer has put him back on track.
At least one of them is happy.
Henry is still trying to reconcile the girl he met in Morganville with the girl he met last break and finds no suitable answers, just a whole host more questions.
Perhaps he should accept that he doesn’t understand women and one in particular.
I don’t know, at first, what it was that brought back a raft of memories that had been long forgotten, I had woken up in an ambulance on its way to a hospital, and by the way, in which it was moving at breakneck speed, siren wailing, it had on be for a very good reason.
“He’s awake,” a nearby voice yelled near me, and then a face hovered before my eyes, “How do you feel.”
It was an odd question because I felt fine. “OK. I guess. What happened?”
For a minute or so, he checked my vitals and asked, “Do you know who you are?” I gave him my name, which matched my ID, and then my address, which was also correct. He asked me where I was, and got it right too. “You can slow down; I’ll tell them it’s not urgent.”
He made a phone call to the hospital, then turned back to me.
“You had a fall, hit your head on the concrete sidewalk, and started having a fit. When we arrived, you were unconscious, and the signs indicated you had gone into a coma. It was a situation that could have gone anyway, which is why we were trying to get you to the hospital as soon as possible. You need to get an MRI as soon as possible.”
“But I feel fine.”
“That may well be the case, but what happened to you can have ramifications later. You have suffered a heavy knock to your head.”
It was not as if I could feel anything, so I reached up to feel for any indication of the accident and touched a bandage, covering what felt like a big lump. I could not feel any pain when I touched it. “Should I feel something?”
“You should, yes. We have not administered any pain medication, so it should be very sore. It’s a fairly large gash. You say there is no pain?”
“No.”
Not right then, but about five minutes later, I started having blurred vision. The paramedic went back to checking my vitals, and as he was taking blood pressure I started shaking, and moments after that, I passed out.
When I woke up, I was home, in my room, overlooking the stables, and beyond that the hills. Montana. How did I get there?
Everything was exactly as I remembered it, the rodeo curtains, the breeze coming through the open window, the aroma of newly mown grass after the rain wafting in, accompanied by the rustle of the curtains. Summer, my favourite part of the year.
And yet, I could not be here, because after my parents died, the farm was sold to pay of the mountain of debt they’d accumulated, and sadly the reason why they were no longer alive.
I slipped off the covers and went over to the window. Exactly as it was when I returned after graduating from university, just before my father and I was going to make repairs to the roof. I remember that exact time in my life. I had just broken up with the girl I had planned to spend the rest of my life with, and, heartbroken, I’d come home to be miserable.
There was a pounding on the door. “Get up now, lazy bones, there are chores to be done.” Suzie, my older sister, never took crap from me, had no aspirations of getting a university degree, ‘What use would it be in running a farm?’, was always at me since I was six, and had more than once thrown cold water over me, in the morning.
“I’m up,” I yelled back, a reflex action. This must all be in my imagination. The last time I’d seen Suzie, it was when I took her to the airport, off to find peace and tranquillity in Tuscany, and was still there with a friend.
But it was my room, and those were my clothes in the dresser, and … Oh. My. God!
My imagination was in overdrive. I looked exactly like my 23-year-old self. That reflection in the mirror was startling. I touched my face, and it seemed real.
Another bang on the door made me jump. The door opened and Suzie put her head in. “Good, you’re up. You just saved yourself a lot of grief.”
She looked so young, so happy, a far cry from the woman she was now, broken by a man we all thought the world of, but turned out to be a monster. I’d often wished I could go back and change things as we all did.
I crossed the room and gave her a huge hug. It felt real.
“What was that for?” She was taken aback by an action that, back then, I would not have contemplated. Our relationship, then, had been rocky at best.
“You know I love you to pieces, sis, and I don’t think I’ve taken the time or made the effort to tell you.”
“I know that. You don’t have to say anything.”
“Too many things are left unsaid.”
“You’re going batty, I can see that now. That fall off the roof of the barn has affected you, though I have to say this version of you is an improvement. Oh, and by the way, I asked Samantha to come over today, so be nice. She’s had a hard time of it while you’re away and you were good friends once.”
Samantha. The girl I dated all through middle school, the one I was supposed to end up with, everyone had said so, except she had other ideas and chose the local football hero instead. It was around about the time I came back that he was killed in a car accident, though rumours had it, it was not an accident. It would be interesting to see her again. The last time I saw her, it was when she ditched me rather unceremoniously.
“You know me, friends with everyone.”
“She dumped you, and you hate her. I get it, but there’s enough water under that bridge. Later.”
I just remembered that fall off the roof, too, showing off, and paying for it. I didn’t break anything, but I had landed rather hard, and shaken a few things up. The bump on the head hadn’t helped either. I shrugged and pulled out work clothes. It was going to be an interesting day.
At the breakfast table, Mom in her usual manner had everything out and just finished up the last of the cooking. I missed her breakfasts, in fact, I missed that first thing in the morning with family, the food, and, well, just the moments I realised much later I’d taken for granted.
Dad was there, his usual gruff, and jovial, self, complaining about everything that was going wrong, from the tractor to the crops in the south paddock, the lack of rain, and having to pump water from the dam.
When I left for college, we needed help and that’s how Walter Fisk came into our lives, particularly into Suzie’s. He called in one day, in his battered Ford truck asking if there was any employment available in the area, and because I was not there, Dad hired him. He was, at first, a hard worker, and then, once he had charmed Suzie, changed. The first time I met him I took an instant dislike to him, and he knew it. It was why he then spent the time I was away to break the relationship I had with my sister.
I was sitting at the table when he came in. I hadn’t realised he was welcome at the breakfast table, and it marked a turning point in his acceptance, almost into the family. I’d forgotten quite a lot about his time at the farm. It was only several years later when the damage was done, that we learned who he really was, a thoroughly bad man by the name of Walter Reinhart who had murdered his wife and disappeared, only to turn up on our doorstep. It wasn’t until he nearly murdered Suzie that we realised his true nature.
“Morning all.” His eyes stopped at me, and his expression changed for just a second. “David.”
“Walter.” It was a pity all of this was running in my imagination, or I’d go into town and see the sheriff and tell him about Fisk. Just seeing him brought all the old memories back, and it made me angry, so much so that I lost my appetite, and couldn’t sit at the same table with him.
I went past him as he sat down, and muttered, “Don’t get too comfortable, Reinhart.”
He grabbed my arm, stopping me from leaving, the expression on his face now one of fear. “What did you say?”
“You heard me.”
“I think you have me confused with someone else.”
“If you say so. Now, I would like my arm back, Walter.”
Suzie had noticed that something was happening between us, and said, “I hope you two are not going to be tiresome, again. I thought we got past all that nonsense.”
“There’s nothing going on here, is there Walter?”
He let go of my arm. “No, nothing.”
In my imaginary world, I had just scored a small victory.
I went outside into the fresh morning air, something else that I missed greatly after leaving home. The mornings were never the same in the city, with no open spaces to speak of and everyone living on top of each other.
And in a city with millions of people, it was ironic that I never felt more alone than I did back home.
Perhaps my mind had had enough of being where I was and had decided to put me back to a time when I had a chance to make a difference in my life. This moment in time was when I made several regrettable decisions, each of which eventually set me on a path to where I was now.
It was not what I had envisaged my life would turn out like, then or now.
Perhaps I was taking stock, going over the choices and seeing what life might have been like.
I walked slowly towards the barn. I could see materials and tools scattered around in my father’s usual haphazard manner, mine too for that matter. We were in the middle of patching the roof, a job long overdue, and it must be just after I fell off the roof. Luckily, I’d landed on a haystack next to it, but though it softened the fall it still hurt.
I could feel the aches and pains from it still.
Inside the barn, I knew what I was looking for. Grandfather’s Indian motorcycle was the only thing he left in his will to me. I loved that bike and used to go out on it whenever I could. I also remembered that Walter stole it when he finally left, and I never saw it again.
I had to do something about that.
I pulled the tarpaulin cover off it and checked it had fuel, then wheeled it out. A minute later I was off, deciding to go into town. I was still undecided about telling the sheriff about Walter.
About five miles up the road I saw Samantha and her truck on the side of the road, hood up. She heard the bike and turned to see who it was, then waved.
I stopped.
I hadn’t seen her for a long time, much less the in those years following my return. I remember when I came back I was bitter and said some regrettable things. I had a chance to change that.
“David.”
“Samantha.” I switched off the bike and it was suddenly eerily quiet.
“You know I get worried when you ride that thing. I never think it’s safe.”
“One ride and you hated it, Sam. You should embrace the freedom.” It had been a constant basis for conflict between us, neither willing to back down. I realised then that I was still annoyed, and it showed in my tone. Had I learned nothing?
“I’m sorry. I should have listened to your concerns, and I was a little selfish when I didn’t.”
She looked at me as if to say, ‘Who the hell are you, and what have you done with David?’
“You were right though. I should. Perhaps you might consider giving me another opportunity. I know I haven’t been as understanding as I could have been.”
I shrugged. We were both making an effort. “It was what it was. We were young, first love is like that, I guess. What’s up?”
“It just stopped. And you know me, I’m hopeless at everything.”
I got off the bike and had a look. I was not much of a mechanic, but living on a farm you got a rudimentary knowledge of everything, so basic problems I could solve. This one was a loose cable that had come away. I put it back and then asked her to start the car, which it did.
“Are you coming back to the farm,” she asked.
“Yeah, just getting some air before I get back to work. Falling off the roof sort of changes your perspective, especially when you consider what the consequences could have been. It just feels like the world is closing in on me lately.”
She got out of the truck, came over and have me a hug. At that moment a whole raft of memories returned. I kissed her and she kissed me back, and suddenly it felt like we had never been apart.
“I never stopped loving you Sam.” It seemed the right time and the right thing to say.
“I know. I always knew you were the one, but I was young and stupid. I learned my lesson, and it won’t happen again. If you still want me.”
I smiled. Was it that easy to fix?
“I do, very much.” I kissed her again. “Let’s start again. Hello. My name is David Westbrook. What’s yours?”
She smiled back. “Samantha Bailey.”
“Well, Samantha, I like you a lot. Would you be interested in going on a date?”
“Just tell me where and when.”
“Do you like motorbikes?”
“I do now.”
“Good. I’ll see you back at the farm and when my father had finished flogging me to death, I’ll take you to a place I know that has the best burgers in the county.”
After another hug, a tear, perhaps two, she left. I watched until she disappeared out of sight.
…
It was going to be a good day.
I went to the sheriff’s office; Mike was a good friend of my father’s as he was to all the residents of our little town.
I told him about Walter Fisk and his other name, and that I suspected he was a murderer sought by the Sacramento police. Mike had an assistant who was clever enough to access police records from all over the country and found the information on Walter, and the wanted poster photograph was almost an exact copy of the man we had working for us.
He asked me how I knew, and I said a friend of mine was working on an assignment for his forensic science degree and had pulled up a number of cases by wanted posters and seen Walters among them. That and the fact I always thought he was not who he said he was.
Job done; I went home.
Back on the roof, I was careful. Working with my father again was special and I savoured the time together. I hadn’t really wanted to get stuck on the farm, seeing what it had done to him, and his father before him. Farming was a rough business given everything that could go wrong, and I didn’t want that responsibility.
But maybe with Suzie, who had always said she would never leave, between us, we could make it work. Especially if we adopted an idea I had read about back in the city. Time would tell.
Suzie, and Samantha, a farm girl herself, came back from the northern paddocks where we had cattle; and she had been taking feed for them because the grass was getting a little thin after a prolonged dry period.
Then they brought lunch to us, sitting at the table where we’d often have a BBQ Saturday night and inviting the neighbours over. Sam sat next to me and it didn’t go unnoticed. Suzie was pleased but didn’t state the obvious.
I thought that was the moment to tell them my plan for the future. I also knew that from this point on things were only going to get worse, my father getting ill, the drought, Walter, and my departure all compounding onto the terrible end to everything I knew and cared about.
“I have an idea which as some of you know can be a bad thing, but thus might be another string in the bow for the farm. I read a while back that one of the schools back east was considering introducing a farm stay for their students, say for a week or fortnight to get a feel for what happened, other than believing all food came from a supermarket.
“I thought about a dozen bunkhouses down by the river with a mess hall, classrooms, and stables would make that a reality. You know how many schools there are, and we have everything right here. Just think about it. It could become a very good income stream.”
Suzie looked surprised. “You thought of that all by yourself?”
“I am capable of thinking, you know.”
“It’s a good idea. Dad, what do you think?”
“It will cost money we don’t have.” The man was ever practical, quite often the devil’s advocate.
“Then what if I get a journalist to come down and go through the plan, show him everything, and get him to sell it for you. At least it will gauge reaction, and if it’s positive…”
“One of your cronies?” Suzie asked.
“He’s a good journalist and he owes me a favour. I’ll call him later.”
Dad shrugged. To him, it was about the money. Not the idea, which was sound and would work, if there was a market. Secretly I think he was pleased with me, trying to find ways to keep the farm.
The day ended on a date and perhaps for the first time in a long time, I felt content. I had, in my imagination, corrected everything that had gone wrong in my life, and just before I fell asleep, I wished that it could go on forever.
…
I felt a hand roughly shaking me by the shoulder, and a voice in the background saying rather loudly, “David, David, wake up, wake up.”
I put my hand out to grasp the hand that was shaking me while trying to open my eyes and wake from, well, I had no idea what it was.
It felt like I was drowning.
Then, eyes open I was staring directly at Samantha’s face. Only she was 30 years older than the last time I saw her.
“Sam?’
“David. Oh God, I thought I’d lost you. She leaned down and kissed me then hugged me which was difficult.
I was in a hospital bed with cables and tubes everywhere.
“What…”
“You’ve been in a coma. You hit your head on the sidewalk and one minute you were fine, the next, we didn’t know if you were going to live or die.”
My other hand was being held and I looked over to see Suzie equally as concerned.
“Suzie? Why are you here? You live in Tuscany?”
She looked blankly at me as if I was mad. “Where did that come from? I came up from the farm the moment Sam told me what happened. Some second honeymoon you two are having.”
“What? This is all wrong. None of this is real.”
I was back in another nightmare where I was being tormented by the same two protagonists as in the last. But why were they here and what was this second honeymoon business.
Samantha looked concerned, perhaps a little scared. I was too because it seemed I was not back in the ambulance on my to the hospital for other reasons. And that life didn’t have either Suzie or Samantha in it.
Suzie came into view. “You should not be overly worried if none of this is familiar to you. We were told by the doctor that you might have difficulty remembering anything, but that wouldn’t last forever. So, a quick recap may or may not help. You’ve been married to Sam for thirty years, and you have three children, not here of course, I’m now running the farm, that was a great idea of yours and it’s all we do these days, Mom and Dad retired to Florida like they always intended, and you and Sam work with me.”
“Walter?”
“He was arrested and charged with murder. God, that was a bullet dodged. That was your diligence too, David, and I cannot thank you enough.”
“How long have I been out of it then?”
“About a month. We’ve been rather frantic I can tell you.”
A coma? It had seemed very real to me.
The problem was my life had been nothing like this one, but coincidentally it was the one I had always wanted and had dreamed of often. It wasn’t possible I could have gone back in time, so what really happened?
Suddenly around me, alarms were going off and there was a sudden movement of people coming into the room. One minute I was conscious, the next I found myself in a white room, sitting at a table with a bearded man.
St Peter at the pearly gates? Was I dying?
“David, David, David.” His tone had just the right amount of disapproval and, what was it, disappointment. “You are given a second chance and you’re not grasping it with both hands.”
“I don’t understand.”
“That’s been your problem all your life, looking for meaning in something that just is. Are you going to stop procrastinating, and just go back and live your life, the life you have been given? You do not want to miss out on being a grandfather, do you? To go back, a simple yes or no will suffice.”
I didn’t want to think what a no might do, so it had to be a yes. I had no idea what was happening to me, but it was the life I always wanted, to be with Samantha, and have my sister back to her old self again. Whether or not I had intervened, and made it so, was moot. I had hit my head, and basically, everything in it was scrambled anyway.
“Yes.”
“Good. Now don’t come back, not until it’s your time.”
…
There was relief written all over the faces in that room, of the doctors, the nurses, a dozen other spectators, and the two who mattered the most to me. Samantha was holding my hand and I squeezed it, and moments later, opened my eyes. Perhaps I was still dazzled by the white room, but I could have easily confused her with an angel.
“You’re back.”
“Did I go somewhere?” Did she know what had been happening to me?
“I think it might have been that place just before you leave this mortal earth. You weren’t dead, but I think it was touch and go. I’m glad you came back. Our life together is not over yet, and there are so many experiences we have to look forward to.”
“Like being grandparents?”
“How do you know that? I only just got a text message not five minutes ago.”
“I have connections. Don’t worry. I’m back now, and I’m not going anywhere. I think what happened to me was the universe telling me not to be an ass. I’m sure I did something wrong.”
“Well, you’re right about being an ass, but we all have our quirks. We’re together now, as it should be.”
It’s time for Michelle to return to the snake pit, her nickname for the Parlour she had been sent to work, and the only good thing about it, she is reunited with her two friends, Angie and Millie.
She’s also back to dulling the senses with the drugs left at the house, and when Felix comes to make sure she is ready to return, he realises she has gone back to her old ways. He is not pleased.
Henry is getting to the end of another tour, with a few weeks to go, and is admiring the sunset from the bridge. The captain, hoping he does not have to put him off the ship, finds that a talk to the Chief Officer has put him back on track.
At least one of them is happy.
Henry is still trying to reconcile the girl he met in Morganville with the girl he met last break and finds no suitable answers, just a whole host more questions.
Perhaps he should accept that he doesn’t understand women and one in particular.
It was just a simple conversation, or so I thought.
You know how it is, stuck in a long queue, waiting for service when you strike up a conversation with the person in front of the person or behind. Random strangers, never seen before, perhaps will never see again.
The plane had arrived late, along with the three others in quick succession, all with over 300 passengers, and being that time of night, not so many service staff. The line was quite literally a mile long and not moving very fast.
It was apparent the person in front of me, who looked like a university professor, had to be somewhere else and was getting impatient.
“This is ridiculous. You would have thought they’d know about the hold-ups, that every plane would arrive at the same time, and make the appropriate adjustments.”
It was a common sense thing, but apparently not deemed so by airport management. It was the same the world over.
“At least you won’t have to wait for your baggage. It’ll be on the carousel by the time we get out of here.”
He sighed, pulled out a cell phone, and dialled a number, most likely the person picking him up. They didn’t answer, and as he jammed his finger on the disconnect button, he muttered, “Fiddlesticks.”
One second, I was thinking what an odd thing to say, the next, nothing.
When I opened my eyes I was looking at a roof, in unfamiliar surroundings, with two ambulance staff leaning over me, saying, “Mr Giles, Mr Giles,” while gently shaking me by the shoulder.
My first thought was, who was Mr Giles? I looked at one, “Where am I?”
“JFK airport, New York.”
“How, why, when?”
“You collapsed, waiting in line to pass through immigration. The security staff called us.”
“Who is Mr Glies?”
“That’s you.”
“No, it isn’t. My name is Jeremy Watkins.”
“Not according to your passport and ticket information. Samuel Giles.”
No. I’ve never heard of him. Nor did I have any idea why I was in New York, where I came from or why I was there. Seeing the guards surrounding me, I realized airport security staff were naturally paranoid about terrorist attacks, and given my situation, I had just become a number one suspect.
This was not going to end well.
Within five minutes of saying what I’d just said, I was taken to a room somewhere within the innards of the airport, the paramedics having determined there was nothing physically wrong with me, saying it was just a reaction to a long flight, tiredness, and stress from waiting.
All the time, I’d been flanked by three airport security staff, followed by two uniformed officers of the NYPD. When I got to the room, a man was waiting. He looked as tired as I felt. My baggage was on one side of the room, and it had been thoroughly searched. The paramedics’ work was done, and they left. The airport security guards were also dismissed, but the two uniformed officers remained, one in the room and one outside the room. If I tried to escape, I would not get very far.
He pointed to a seat opposite him, and I assumed I was meant to sit. Once I had, he said, “Now, Mr Giles slash Watkins, just who the hell are you?”
I didn’t think he was from the FBI, but just to make sure I asked, “Who are you?”
He glared at me, perhaps considering he didn’t have to tell me anything, then changed his mind. “Detective Barnsdale, NYPD. Someone up there,” he pointed to the roof, “Decided to make this my lucky day. Make it easy for both of us. I’d tend to believe you were hallucinating if you’d banged your head when you collapsed, but the medics tell me you didn’t. I can only assume this is some sort of prank. If it is, then I suggest you give it up. Otherwise, if I escalate this, it’s going to get ugly.”
If he was trying to scare me, it was working. “My name is Jeremy Watkins. If you have access to the internet, you can look me up. I’m an author, not exactly a runaway best-seller, but I make enough. I don’t know how I got here, or why I’m here, and as much in the dark as you why my documents say I’m someone else.”
He brought out his cell phone and pushed a few buttons, typed in my name, and waited. Then, his expression changed, and another glare at me. “OK, it looks like you. Give me some titles of your books.”
“It happened in Syracuse, the end is nigh, and the girl with blue eyes.”
A shake of the head. “Not exactly conclusive proof. You could have looked it up and remembered them. But you look exactly like him.”
He went back to his phone and picked up the driver’s licence with that name and address and typed that name in. Another expression change, one that suggested he’d found nothing. “So you are telling me you know nothing about this Sidney Giles from Houston. It’s your photo, and this licence looks real. And this boarding pass says you came in from Houston.”
“I can’t explain it. No.”
He sighed. “OK. Take me through your last 24 hours. What do you remember?”
That was the problem, I could not remember anything beyond the fact I had just finished a class where I’d been trying to get completely disinterested teenagers to write a story about their ideal day out, and being met with derision. The bell rang and they all left, leaving me somewhat shattered, sitting at the desk contemplating why I’d chosen this career path.
Then Marjorie, the other English teacher who had conducted my orientation, came in and asked me how my first class went. I couldn’t remember what I said, but the next memory was in a bar, she was there, and we were talking about writing, and the fact she was hoping to finish her first book soon, and was asking if I wanted to read it.
“I’m not sure if it’s the last 24 hours, but I’m apparently a new teacher at a college in Syracuse somewhere, who took his first class, not very successfully, I might add.”
“Nothing to indicate how you got to Houston, and then here?”
Another memory popped into my head, a rather disconcerting one. I was with Marjorie, and we were talking about writing thrillers and how sometimes she playacted her character’s roles, the latest, an assassin who had been hypnotised believing she was someone else entirely, fitted out with a complete change of identity and then travelling to a particular city to carry out her assignment. Who said art imitated life? This was the other way around.
“You remembered something, didn’t you?”
“I think whatever it was, it’s just a figment of my writer’s mind. It’s too far out there to be believable.”
“Try me.”
“Apparently, I was discussing aspects of another author’s latest work in progress, where the main character is hypnotised into thinking they are someone else. That’s just too far-fetched, isn’t it?”
The detective picked up his phone and called security and asked if there was any CCTV of the incident. Five minutes later, a guard came with an inadequate and handed it to him. “It’s your lucky day,” he said.
The detective looked at the footage not once but about ten times. “The coverage shows you talking to the man ahead of you in the queue, and then suddenly just collapse. I’m sure he says something to you, a word that sounds like Fiddlesticks.”
The next thing I knew, he was shaking me by the shoulder, and I was on the floor, totally disorientated.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 