Angel Avenue

by Sarah Michelle Lynch

  “There’s a reason why you became a teacher, Jules. Not because you like books, words, or bossing people about. Because you care, you care a lot. I never, not in a million years, ever thought a woman like you would look at me twice.”

  “Don’t say a word more. You’ll break my heart! That’s exactly where you’re wrong. If you ever say that to me, ever again, you’ll shatter me into a million pieces. I love you more than myself, more than life, more than this crusty, rusty, fusty old town, which embraced me and saved me.”

  He starts crying, his lips trembling madly.

  “Warrick, when I said you were an angel, I absolutely meant it. I still mean it. You’re not meant for this world. You’re better. You despair of its corruption, of its depravity and hopelessness. What you can’t rebuild, you still try to bridge. What you fail to brook, you lay down for. You belong in a place better than this but you’re a guardian, for now, hovering over these people. To tell you the truth, the reason I survived so many years without resorting to a wild life like my mother and father, is that I am of this world. I love this world and I need it. I’ve always needed it. To bind it with my soul is the only way I have survived. I am of this world. I fought back. I fought and fought and I never gave up. The world shaped me into a hardened rock, an immovable force. Your love, like a slip of silken heaven, draped me in comfort. Nobody may change me, and neither can I change you, but you gave me that consolation and it is to be remembered for now, tomorrow and forever. It’s binding. It’s everything. Eternal. Because we never asked for it, never sought it, and the memories we share may outdo anything that comes next. A window in time, a keyhole through history, and a love neither of us will ever forget.”

  “Jules,” he moans between tears.

  I walk to him and we hold each other, stood between the rotting tracks that used to carry people away. Now, they will carry me.

  This is where I will say goodbye.

  “You’re going, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I am,” I tell him.

  There can be no regrets.

  He buries into my hair and cries, really cries, wildly. He falls on the ground, howling with misery. I stand and watch.

  My lips are wobbling so badly but I say, “You’ve broken my heart. I can barely stand here next to you right now. You thought you had to protect me, when all the while, it has always been the other way round. But now, now… oh… it’s my turn. It’s mine. I need my time. So‒so‒ I have to go. I know you have never really wanted to, and I always have… I am going to take a journey, the one I’ve needed to for so long, but without you.

  “I don’t know for certain when I will be back. Or where I am going. Or how I will feel when I get back. All I know is, what will be, will be. It’s not fair that all my inexperienced love is swallowed up on you, when I’ve hardly known anything of life but pain and misery. I need memories that don’t revolve around hurt, anguish, betrayal. I have to do this, for me. You understand, don’t you? If you love me, I ask that you love me just a bit more, and wait for me.”

  He nods and seems relieved. He saved me after all.

  “Go,” he says, still on his knees. “Take the money. Please, take it.”

  Our stash for the wedding, honeymoon and beyond…

  I may fall down and never recover if I don’t leave now.

  I start running and I run, hard, until my lungs burn. I get home, I pack a case, and I take everything I need. I decide to email Jack on Monday. Fuck it. I resign.

  I steal off with Warrick’s car and I speed away into the snow-blanketed night. I don’t look back.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Jules

  From: jsimonovich@hotmail.com

  To: rickjones@hull.soc.co.uk

  Sent: December 25th, 13.14

  Rick,

  I hope this finds you safe, well and happy. I don’t know if you heard but after I left, I dropped Jack an email of resignation and he hit the metaphorical wall. I reminded him of all I had given to the job, all the embarrassment you and I had saved the school from, and he let me off. He said to be in touch when I come home.

  Truth is, I don’t know whether I will ever go back to teaching. It hurts less each day but it still kicks me in the gut every now and again. I left them in the lurch.

  By now you’ll have got your car back, I hope! It was a year ago now I dropped it at Heathrow and paid for a tow to bring it back home. I took our money and I will keep going until it runs out and I have to find a job again.

  My first port of call was Paris. I got a flight on a budget airline and a train ride after that, I began walking around the city and I didn’t stop for an entire month. I walked every street three times over. I visited the Le Louvre, Musée d’Orsay, La Basilique du Sacré Coeur, La Tour Eiffel…

  Okay, okay, I know I am showing off now. But I did also see the Notre Dame, the Moulin Rouge and the resting place of Oscar Wilde. I decided the only thing I could afford on the Champs Élysées was a pair of flip-flops totally unsuitable for winter. The Pompidou Centre, opera, Catacombs, Panthéon, Jardin du Luxembourg, Les Invalides, Place de la Concorde, Tuileries and Musée Rodin (you’d have loved that ‒ not).

  I saw and did lots, and it was a dream, but the best bits were the people I met, the meals I ate, the smells, the sounds, the sights. I loved every second.

  I moved on to Germany next and visited Berlin, Belsen, and Munich, before going on to do whistle-stop tours of Prague, Budapest, Helsinki and Athens.

  Then I got on a Quantas plane. I have been in Oz for eight months now. I work in a bar overlooking the Great Barrier Reef. The whole place is made from bamboo. I have free drinks, a book by the bar for quiet times and a sea to swim and explore when I am not on shift. The toilet water goes the opposite way and it’s like a different world here!

  I am planning to trek into the desert with a group of girls I met. We’re sharing the expense of a camper van for three weeks and I am told the dark of the Australian desert is like the dark of nowhere else on Earth.

  Christmas Day prompted me to write you this email and you might think it strange that instead of turkey, we’re barbecuing spatchcock Jamaican chicken with salad, baked potatoes and corn dogs.

  I love it here. It feels carefree. I feel free.

  After our trek across the desert, I am planning to fly to New Zealand and work on one of the vineyards on a short visa. I want to see all the sights and breathe the mountain air. I want to see LA, Vegas and San Fran after that and of course, New York. The Bucket List is endless.

  I will come back, one day, when either funds or your fire in my heart runs out. I won’t be the same, neither will you, but maybe we might meet again. You never know.

  Short but sweet. I think we know why I don’t write more often.

  All my love, Jules xxx

  Chapter Fifty

  Jules

  There’s a grand left in my account. I have been saving it for my last stop, New York. It’s time to go. After that, my money’s all dried up and I should probably find a proper job again.

  I thought a month in Paris might be enough. Four weeks enabled me to shake off so many ghosts already. However, I had made a massive sacrifice to do this, so I decided I was going to do it properly.

  I now feel entirely different to the person I once was. I feel free, light, I feel happy. I am lifted of my demons. I had to break free of my life to do that, though. I gave up on my pupils. I gave up on Warrick. Who knows? He may have found someone else by now. I wouldn’t blame him if he has.

  An email from my star student Liza revealed that her parents fostered and took Hetty under their wing. They are best friends. Liza is now studying English and Hetty is doing a degree in social work. I expect she calls on Warrick’s advice. I hope she does anyway.

  There have been no other men. Even though I am the other side of the world, existing with different people and without the constraints of my old life (the ones I put up around myself) I still think of him so often. Every day, I lay in bed remember
ing how Warrick held me, kissed me, how we fought and loved so hard.

  Now I have travelled, I can appreciate what I had in that crusty, fusty old town. I lived on the edge of the world, in a place not privileged, not pretty. A place sometimes a law unto itself, a corner of the country so cut-off. I found a home not in a house, not in a school or with friends, but with one man willing to lay down with me and not ask for anything else. That place brought us two together and how could I ever not love it so dearly?

  We inevitably grew to want more, to want each other, and I was ready to give up my life for him. Instead, he gave up his for me. To make the world a better place. He stayed behind, allowing me to explore, to breathe.

  You see, all the while I was growing up, I never had a day without worry. I had this perpetual weight on my shoulders. When will I eat next? How will I explain that I don’t have a gym kit? When will the day come when I can finally wear clothes that aren’t second-hand? I used to secretly feel jealous and hurt when Warrick told me of the beautiful times he and his family shared.

  That mentality of survival is something very hard to let go of. I didn’t have a childhood. I had that weight of trying to survive hanging over me, and I was still doing that, even when I was with Warrick. Surviving when I knew his mind was troubled by regrets and fears. Pushing my own worries and fears to the back of my mind to keep the status quo.

  So, I have seen. I have breathed. I have lived a life these past few years without worries and cares. I’ve moved about, dossed on sofas, in crummy caravans. I have slept on the beach and smelt new smells that will remain in my memory a lifetime. I have seen several wonders of the world and I have learnt to be at peace with myself. I have tossed off pain and wretchedness and splashed those painful memories with colours of the rainbow. I have crammed my mind with so much new history and culture. I have laid on beaches on four different continents, and each, entirely individual.

  I’ve been invited to try out for amateur ballet in many countries. I declined, every time. Ballet was Mum’s love, not mine. She shared it with me and I will love her eternally for that, but my own love is words, and teaching the power of them. Without words, I may not have survived.

  ***

  Standing in front of Macy’s on December 23rd, I stare into the epic, centrepiece window display. A living scene of nativity moves and plays in front of me. My eyes are blinded by glittering, twinkling lights, reds and greens so rich. The brutal cold of the evening air burns my lungs and I revel in that, as well as the toxicity of petroleum and oil pouring from put-upon vehicles bustling through the rampant streets. I take the scene and the smells deep into my belly and try to bind it with my atoms, my molecules, making it part of me.

  I’ve spent a week in a hostel, every night seen a new random play, every day a walk somewhere I never planned to be but ended up exploring.

  There’s a scramble for a taxi behind me and it makes me laugh as I continue to stare at the window. I see from the reflections two men, each with huge bags of shopping, wrestling for the handle of a yellow cab.

  I walk inside the store, purchase one last gift ‒ a snow globe with the city skyline inside ‒ and I take my rucksack to the airport.

  Epilogue

  Warrick

  She’s been gone three years now. I’ve thought of her every single day. I’ve cried, I’ve mourned, I’ve yearned. I understand why she had to go and I don’t hate her. I couldn’t, not even for a second.

  It’s Christmas Eve and a pint with my dad in our pub. We’re watching the sports channel on the TV and I am half listening to what he’s saying to me. Mostly, I am thinking about another dreaded Christmas Day spent eating reformed chicken breast and frozen vegetables my father has cremated in his roasting pan.

  Joe is now playing for City’s youth team and he’s set for a promising career. I feel incredibly proud yet tentative. Anna split with her husband and wanted to get back with me but I told her it was never going to happen. Too much water under the bridge. It would be for all the wrong reasons that we would get back together. Joe is of an age now where he understands and he knows I am here, whenever he needs me. He calls me sometimes from the tour bus and tells me how nervous he is. I settle him with proud excitement, telling him how privileged he is. I feel lucky I get to be part of that.

  I am still in social work and now a senior manager in this area, but my work takes me all over the country in fact. I get hit on at conferences or regional meets but it’s like I have gone back to how I was before. I don’t want women, only her. I keep our place neat and tidy and well-maintained, and her name is still on the deed as part-owner.

  Time has made it all the more clear, it’s only ever been Jules. She took my breath away the moment we met. I can’t imagine us never being together again.

  One day…

  “That lad who’s just been transferred is a right rough ’un, i’nt he?” Dad comments.

  “He right is.” I only go into accent with my dad. Rest of the time I have to sound concise and professional. “Gonna get himself a fine in the first week, I reckon.”

  “Aye lad, aye,” my dad says.

  We comment on the Test Match cricket and the wacky Boxing Day fixtures we’d hedge our bets on. I am organised to go to the races on Boxing Day with everyone at work, but I might miss it and stay in bed instead. The job takes it out of me sometimes.

  When we leave the pub, I say goodbye to my father outside the door and watch him walk away. I pull on my gloves and see a sight I don’t think is real. I focus and see it is.

  I feel just like I did that first day we met. Awkward, impulsive and reckless. Those legs are shrouded in leopard-print tights and large Docs. My heart might be seen pounding its way through my chest on close inspection.

  I check the street and cross the road, charging over the tarmac in leaps and bounds. There she is, the dream I have longed for, stood right outside the live music venue that used to be an Italian.

  I reach her and just as I do, the snow starts to fall. Large, fluffy clumps fall all around. It’s been otherwise dry today and just the weather for it to settle and create a White Christmas.

  Her head is bowed and her face is hidden beneath a large black hood. She’s not yet looked up though I reckon she will have spotted my feet. Her hands are behind her back and she’s resting back against the corner, like she’s waiting for something.

  “Would you like some help, Miss? You look like you need to be walked home.”

  She raises her eyes, grey and clear, her face tanned and radiant. She’s not changed much at all, except for a nose stud and a small tattoo behind her ear. I smile in anticipation of learning about her travels and her new additions.

  “I could do with a burger. Haven’t had any good cow in months,” she exclaims in a slightly different accent.

  “That can be arranged, I believe.”

  She struggles to fight back a broad smile while I pick her enormous rucksack off the ground and complain about its weight.

  “Trust me, the only clothes I have are the ones on my back. That’s all your presents in there! Had to come home. No room anymore,” she smirks.

  I stare flabbergasted and she takes my arm, chortling in my ear as she kisses me hello on the cheek. She still riles the lothario inside me and the warmth instigated by her kiss spreads throughout my body.

  Then when I am least expecting her to, she runs off and shouts, “Last one home’s a rotten…”

  I complain and try to keep up, despite carrying her sodding sack. However, a thought spurs me on.

  I know that when we get inside, it won’t be civilised, it won’t be pretty, but it’ll be just us.

  Jules and Warrick’s story continues in…

  Sarah Michelle Lynch’s follow-up novel to the heart-warming Angel Avenue asks: are there ghosts that chase us or are we chasing ghosts? How does the human mind overcome trauma? Even if you think you’re cured, is there any backlash?

  At first, the next chapter in Warrick and Jules’ story see
ms picture-perfect. Marriage. Children. New home. Fresh start. If only there wasn’t a ghost still lurking from the past, a ghost so tangible they can almost touch it.

  The ghost haunting Jules and Warrick throws up so many questions, including what made Warrick the man he is? Why did Jules’ father not tell her he was dying? Why did Jules ignore her compulsion to dance for so many years and why do some people end up all alone, without anyone to care for them?

  This seasonal morality tale will do more than make you think and feel – it will leave you breathless.

  Visit Amazon to find out more: Click here

  About the Author

  Sarah Michelle Lynch wakes up in the morning and the first thing on her mind is words and the possibility of reading and writing more and more words. She is a little bit obsessed.

  A career in journalism preceded Sarah’s writing career as an Independent author and despite an offer to get published, Sarah found it very difficult to let go of the freedom, variety and creativity self-publishing allows her.

  When Sarah’s not reading words, she’s editing them, and when she’s not editing she’s writing. These days, to earn her right to write, she freelances as an editor.

  www.sarahmichellelynch.net

  Acknowledgements

  As always, thank you to my husband and editor Andrew. You hurt my brain sometimes but I am sure I hurt yours harder. Thank you also to Serena’s four grandparents – each had very difficult childhoods.