Times and Places

by Keith Anthony

  “We deserve this,” she smiled.

  “Yes, I think we do,” he replied, his tension almost visibly evaporating above him, like morning dew rising from a hedge.

  “Explore or unpack?” Sylvie asked, but she was already opening the bags and assigning him cupboard space, so Fergus simply joined in. Soon both were busy emptying their cases and putting their clothes away, either hanging garments in wardrobes or tucking them away in drawers, he half wondering if they would ever find anything again.

  They finished just in time to attend a muster drill, which simultaneously instilled both confidence and nervousness: the former because the crew clearly knew what they were doing, the latter because many of the passengers evidently did not. With their broken English, the staff had difficulty explaining the intricacies of lifejackets and escape routes to pensioners who appeared unsteady enough on their feet while mustering in the stability of a port, let alone while going down in a storm. Fergus and Sylvie, however, simply noted where their lifeboat was situated and how they should fasten their own vests, laughing as they practised putting them on, until they were both sure they would know what to do in the unlikely event of disaster. Thereafter, they put the exercise out of their minds, even he understanding that there were some things it did no good to worry about.

  By the time they had done all this, the ship was just getting underway. It was already dark, but both felt they should go out on deck for departure. In truth, there was not a great deal to see, no bands playing rousing tunes and no excited crowds waving them off with cheers and ticker tape. Instead, the ship manoeuvred quietly out of its berth and made its way slowly through the gloom of the Solent towards the flickering lights of the Isle of Wight. A low key departure maybe, but, despite its modesty, the beginning of an adventure that would take them deep into the Atlantic, to the Azores, south to Cape Verde and then back home via the Canaries and Madeira… some six thousand miles over twenty-one full days, eleven of which would – and here was the highlight for both husband and wife – be entirely at sea.

  “Happy holiday Fergus,” said Sylvie reaching for her husband’s hand.

  “Happy holiday,” he replied, gazing dreamily into the distance.

  Nearby, a crew member emerged from below and took down the red and green striped flag of the cruise line which had been flying from the stern, packing it away neatly in a large storage box, before disappearing again down a chained-off stairway. Clearly there was nothing further to see.

  “Come on, you’re getting cold.” Fergus led his wife to the door leading back into the ship and heaved it open against the wind for her to step through.

  “Let’s explore!”

  2

  London – Late June 2006

  Justine had been conceived outdoors on a balmy evening, amidst the beauty and risk of an only half hidden nook on a Cornish headland, to the accompaniment of the Atlantic waves crashing on the rocks below… she was the welcome result of an expression of love.

  If her creation had been idyllic, her demise, almost exactly twenty-five years later, was tragically mundane. As so often is the case with sudden deaths, the day had begun without hint of the horror to follow and, leaving the house to a slightly fumbled paternal embrace and to her mother’s promise of vegetable lasagne for supper, Justine was surprised only by the unfamiliar freshness in the air, after what, until then, had been an oppressively hot week. And so, at half past seven, she was waiting at the station, shivering slightly in the unexpected chill and unknowingly entering the last hour of her life at the same time as her train entered the platform, its headlight shining brightly, but unnecessarily, on this Midsummer’s morning.

  Justine was new to commuting and still took a secret pride in feeling different from her fellow travellers. They huddled in groups in the places where decades of experience had taught them the train doors would open and where, like hatchlings scrabbling over food, they would discreetly jostle for the chance of a seat. She had been amazed the first time she had witnessed this. It had reminded her of childhood days when the village boys had fought each morning to get the best seats on their school bus, a heaving mass of struggling bodies by the door, with the driver usually appearing bored, gazing wearily out of the windscreen until this daily ‘survival of the fittest’ was finally over and he could pull away. Justine had always felt relieved to be a girl as she watched this little battle, while waiting for her own lift to school. Commuting had echoes of this, though here the women were just as determined as the men, and Justine was resolved not to be a part of it.

  So, as usual, she was last to board the train. Normally there were seats left, though only those difficult to reach ones: the place by the window the other side of someone reading or sleeping by the aisle; or else the seat taken up by bags belonging to someone looking the other way, making it awkward for Justine to ask they be removed. If she did, nevertheless, approach such people, they would immediately let her sit down, as if they had all the time been willing and had only needed to be asked. Occasionally she did have to stand, but she preferred that to joining the daily edging for position on the station platform. She wondered if she would still feel that way if, like many on board the train, she commuted for years and years, decades even… She hoped she wouldn’t have to. She didn’t.

  Justine was untypical for her age in never making or receiving calls on public transport and quickly feeling impatient and intolerant of those who did. The so-called ‘quiet coach’ had at first seemed the obvious answer, but she had soon learned that there were almost as many phone calls there – tedious, self important, one way discussions about presentations, sales pitches and meetings – only here they were all the more annoying for taking place in a part of the train where there should have been peace and quiet.

  ‘People couldn’t care less,’ she had concluded to herself with an irritation untypical of her usual good nature, before chuckling at the echoes of her father’s grumpiness in her own thoughts. She rapidly adapted and, after a few days, accepted that trains were rarely now the havens of calm from the outside world that once they had seemed. Instead, she learned to while away her journeys listening softly to music in her earphones, daydreaming and perfecting the art of letting any intruding chatter pass her by. If she could not avoid the loudest conversations (and she noted volume of speech was almost always in direct proportion to dullness of content), she could, at least, be grateful that her working world – dance – seemed so much more interesting and colourful than theirs.

  Today she had found a seat and, unusually, everyone sat in silence, some dozing, some reading, the only noise the quiet tap tapping of a woman across the way on her laptop, and of course the train itself rattling down the track. As she looked around, Justine quite unexpectedly felt a surge of compassion for her fellow travellers and a certain warmth in their commute shared. She smiled to herself, remembering a happy trip to Penzance she had taken with her father some thirteen years earlier, it felt in another lifetime, which had begun with the run down this very line. She loved the Chilterns and wondered whether she would ever grow tired of the scenery on this route as, the occasional station rushing past, the train shot across fields, through woodland and tunnels, passed over viaducts and raced on towards London.

  She switched on her music and a song began to play in her headphones, ‘Roam’ by Summer Martins:

  “It’s just one year ago since she went away,

  It feels like forever and like yesterday,

  She was so full of colour, the world has turned grey,

  And feels small when it once seemed so vast.

  No it doesn’t ring true but her absence is real,

  You’re still wanting to call her to say how you feel,

  But she’s no longer with you and you can’t conceal

  How she haunts you, this ghost from your past.”

  Justine had actually met Summer eight months previously because she had been se
lected to dance in the video accompanying this very song. Even though she had only been performing in the background, it had still been a big break and she had been thrilled when it had gone on to be a hit. Justine the commuter danced out the routine again in her mind, as the familiar words and tune played into her ears against the competing rhythms of the train.

  Looking out of the window at the next station, she noticed a young man and woman standing facing each other, both holding on to one cup of coffee between them, allowing it to heat their hands on this first, fresher morning, each releasing it occasionally to enable the other to take a sip. She smiled to herself again, warmed by this intimacy, and, as she did so, the man caught a glimpse of her and smiled back, prompting his girlfriend also to look. She didn’t appear resentful of her partner’s interaction with an unknown woman through a train window… quite the contrary, she seemed at ease and content. Justine was pleased for her, for them both.

  Lost in these thoughts as the train pulled away, Justine twisted a lock of her hair, appreciating how lucky she too was to be so content. More than content, she was happy. On the day she was to die, she felt vibrantly alive: she was dancing for a career, practising for a London show, and, in the first seven days of rehearsal, she had easily held her own amongst her colleagues, even gaining the praise of the director. More importantly, she had Jones. Yes, she was twenty-four and back living at home, but that did not matter: she loved her mother and father and adored the old house in which she had grown up. She always pitied those who bemoaned their parents. Had they all been as awful as claimed? She remembered once meeting a woman who had ferociously criticised her mother whilst simultaneously eulogising about her toddler son playing with a toy lorry just a few feet away. Justine had wondered how hurt this woman would be if, one day, he disparaged her the same way.

  Yes, marriage, children, parenthood… at twenty-four these thoughts were beginning to bubble to the front of Justine’s mind: she felt sure Jones was the right man for her and was quietly confident the feeling was reciprocated, though she didn’t allow the fantasy to run away with itself. However, as the train reached the suburbs, life was certainly looking and feeling good and she was grateful.

  Just after twenty past eight the train pulled into Marylebone station. Justine, as always, allowed those who wanted to hurry to do so, before she herself gathered her belongings and stepped off the train. She strode down the platform to the automatic barriers, where she put her season ticket to a gate. It rudely snatched it from her fingers, spitting it out a second later and opening just long enough to allow a begrudging exit, before closing fiercely behind her. Remembering to post a small package in an old fashioned red pillar-box on her way, she crossed the main concourse to the echo of announcements bouncing off the station walls, either detailing the next train services or pleading for passengers to keep their belongings with them at all times. All the while, her fellow commuters swarmed around her, the majority diving down into the Underground and on to offices across the Capital, while a few queued for coffees first, to take with them. She held her breath as she passed through the huddled group of smokers at the station entrance, then spluttered because, misjudging when it was safe to breathe again, she inhaled a cloud of smoke blown out by a man lighting up a few paces ahead of her. He briefly turned around, irritated and assuming she was making a point with her coughing. Justine recomposed herself and finally reached the bus stop where she waited, sniffing for any lingering smell of nicotine in her clothes and dimly aware that the usual crowd of people was not waiting there with her.

  She preferred taking buses to the tube – true, there was always someone having a loud mobile phone conversation on board them too, in English or in one of the many other languages spoken in London, the common factor always its volume. Nevertheless, the bus felt safe while, at rush hour, the Underground heaved and lurched like a threatening beast, with immense crowds filling the platforms and squeezing on to the trains. Anyway, there still felt something special about riding the top floor of a London double-decker bus; at least there did for Justine.

  All of our lives are quietly counting down to their ends and, as the final minutes of hers ticked away, Justine wondered why no buses were coming and why nobody else was waiting there. Eventually, she looked up and noticed the little yellow sack with black writing which had been placed over the top of the post. It read:

  “Bus Stop Out Of Use.”

  For a moment she felt foolish, standing there all on her own, and she looked around to see if anyone was watching, but the world was uninterested in her embarrassment. She briefly wondered what to do, before picking up her bag and deciding to walk the short distance to another stop, on a different route, just around the corner.

  No sooner had she set off than it started to rain. She had got used to the recent fine June weather and was only wearing a blouse and a light jacket. She certainly had not thought to bring an umbrella. Still, her aversion to the tube was stronger than her dislike of a summer shower, so she put her head down, quickened her pace and kept going. All she needed to do was walk a hundred yards, turn left at the junction, then another fifty and she would be there.

  As she approached that next street, she noticed a woman walking towards her, from the left, pushing a double buggy – twins perhaps? Stepping out from the corner, Justine looked closer to see if she could glimpse the babies she was already imagining, tucked up safely behind their rain covering. She never saw them. Instead, a cyclist, swerving to overtake the pushchair, rode into her at speed. Justine didn’t know what had hit her, spinning round for a moment as she hopelessly sought to keep her balance, before falling and striking her head with great force on the pavement.

  The improbability of the accident only added to the sense of disbelief felt by those she left behind: it would not have occurred had the bus stop been open, had she taken the Underground, had she not had her head down against the rain, had the woman with the twins been moments earlier or later, had the cyclist not been on the pavement. These and so many other things had needed to align. How could it have happened? It seemed so unlikely – and yet somehow it had.

  Such questions were to torture her parents over coming years, and Jones too, but they were not to distress Justine herself, as she was no longer there. Perhaps she had returned to wherever she had come from that balmy evening some twenty-five years previously, on that headland against which, even as her spirit departed from a coldly indifferent London street, the waves continued to wash timelessly, and for whom Justine’s lifespan had been but a fleeting moment.

  3

  English Channel – Sunday 20th November 2016

  Their first full day at sea started with both Fergus and Sylvie waking slowly, gradually becoming aware of the motion of the ship, gently rising and falling, as it approached the mouth of the English Channel and the beginning of the Atlantic. Above them, shining through a gap in the curtains, a light reflection from the sea danced playfully on the ceiling. They had slept soundly, perhaps the combination of this rocking motion, a bottle of Merlot with their evening meal and a late night, having attended the ‘Welcome Show’ in the Poseidon Theatre.

  The show had begun with the ‘Cruise Director’, a professionally jolly woman in her thirties, presenting various members of the ship’s company to the passengers. Noticing the large number of crew on stage, each eagerly anticipating their own turn to step forward, Sylvie had wondered grimly quite how long this process might take.

  “And this, ladies and gentlemen, is Jennifer,” the Cruise Director announced, making a sweeping gesture stage left towards an awkward-looking young woman wearing black-framed spectacles near, but not quite in, the shadows. “Jennifer is a very hard worker, she is responsible for the library and she also hosts the quizzes and… and… and what else do you do Jennifer?”

  There was a brief pause while the self-conscious young woman said something out of range of a microphone – the thick lenses of her glasses occasion
ally flashing brightly in the spotlight – so the audience was obliged to wait in suspense for her answer, which was subsequently passed on with a flourish:

  “Ahhhh yes, of course, she also teaches crafts at ten o’clock every day in the art room on deck three. Jennifer won’t mind me telling you, ladies and gentlemen, that she is a real chatterbox and that there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that she likes more than to talk away those long sea days. So when you see her about the ship, please do stop and introduce yourself, she’d love to hear your news and, of course, she’ll let you in on all the crew gossip too.”

  Jennifer seemed to squirm and to inch a little further into the stage left gloom, removing her glasses, perhaps hoping she might not subsequently be recognised. It was hard to tell in the dim lighting there, but Sylvie thought she looked horrified at the prospect of finding herself cornered in such inescapable conversations… but she couldn’t be sure. In fact, on the whole cruise, Sylvie was never to see Jennifer again and Fergus was only to encounter her fleetingly once, which made them both think that, as well as being a very hard worker, Jennifer also kept a very low profile.

  Meanwhile, the next crew member was already being introduced with a similarly extravagant arm gesture, this time stage right towards a neatly dressed man in his early thirties, smiling a grin so broad that Fergus worried it might actually hurt:

  “And this, ladies and gentlemen, is Gavin… he is also a very hard worker…” It transpired that Gavin was the manager of the Tours Office and, as he jumped enthusiastically into the spotlight, waving both arms high above his perfectly coiffured head, it was clear he had none of Jennifer’s inhibitions. Fergus could not help but conclude that Gavin looked the more likely chatterbox and that the timid librarian would probably be much happier left only to the company of her books.