Page 71 of Rewrite the Stars
I take the phone out and with it comes the piece of paper Tom handed me just moments earlier in the bar when we met outside the bathroom. I’d forgotten all about it. That in itself is a revelation when I think of how I’d longed for any sort of message from him for so long, always wondering what if, where he was and if I should have been with him.
I unfold the paper, noticing it’s not a receipt as I’d thought but a small yellow flyer with the name and address of someone called Dianna Thompson at a record company on one side, but with Tom’s message to me on the back.
Tomorrow, I read.12.15 flight to London (chartered). Just me and you, Charlie. It’s always been you. Meet me there if you want to try again, Tom xx
I blink back shock as I reread his words. He is asking me to try again? He’s asking me to go to London with him tomorrow?
No, Tom! No, no no! My head begins to spin and I scrunch up the paper into a tight ball. I’m just about to throw it, hoping the wind will catch it and take it away, but a dog barking at my ankles makes me freeze with my arm in the air.
‘Get down, Bouncer! Down! I’m so sorry, love. He won’t touch you!’ says the owner over the dog’s rough and aggressive snarls.
I always think it crazy when a dog owner says that as their pet sniffs and barks at someone. How does she know for sure he won’t touch me? I lift my feet off the ground and curl into a ball. I stay that way. I can’t move with fear.
And Bouncer? I could think of another name for him! He’s a large, black, sheepdog type and if he wasn’t barking at me like I’d just stolen his bone, I might find him a lot more endearing.
The lady struggles with the dog’s lead and sits down on the bench beside me, which seems to work in calming old Bouncer down at last.
‘There, there, it’s OK,’ she says and at first I think she’s talking to me. ‘No one’s going to hurt you. There’s room for us all, isn’t there?’
I glance out of the side of my eye to see Bouncer, puffing and panting as his owner pats his head, and I realize I’m holding onto the edge of the bench for dear life. That was a lot more unexpected and frightening than I even realized. I go to get up from the bench, feeling like I’ve sat somewhere I shouldn’t have in the first place. I’m still holding Tom’s message in my right hand.
‘No, please don’t go on our accord, please!’ says the lady. I turn to look at her properly now. She has a very kind face, a familiar face that looks like I should know her from somewhere. ‘You looked like you were so peaceful there. I’m so sorry to have disturbed you, but Bouncer thinks he owns this old bench. It’s where we used to sit when there were three of us. It’s just the two of us now, though.’
I have a new respect for Bouncer now and we look at each other having called a truce.
‘Your husband?’ I ask her. ‘I’m sorry.’
She puts a gloved hand briefly on my arm.
‘It’s OK, my dear, he had a long and fruitful life and we enjoyed every moment of it,’ she tells me. ‘We sang, we danced, we laughed, we cried, we argued and we disagreed. We fell out a lot, but we never fell out of love. I think that’s the secret.’
I think of Jack and how we hardly ever fall out at all. I think of Tom and how I didn’t like what I saw right now, and of the message in my hand asking me to give him one more chance, once again throwing me into an absolute spin. Why am I even contemplating this? I’ve made up my mind.
‘You know, life goes by in a blink and we spend far too much time wondering if we’re doing it right,’ the old lady goes on. She’s on quite a roll now but I’m enjoying what she has to say. ‘All that time wasted, wondering what if when we could be moving on and progressing, working towards our own destiny instead of always looking back. Jack was a great believer in letting things be your history, but he always said to focus on your destiny. He used to remind me of that almost every day when I dared to let the little things from my past get me down.’
I do a double-take.
‘My husband is called Jack too,’ I tell her, feeling warmth in my belly that calms me down at the coincidence. ‘I’ve spent far too long wasting time on wondering “what if”. In fact, I came here to put some of my history to bed. I’m Charlotte, by the way.’
I reach out and shake the lady’s woollen gloved hand.
‘Peggy,’ she says to me. She’s in her late seventies, I’d guess, and her hair is covered in a bottle-green neck scarf tied round her chin. When I study her face I see lines that I know could tell tales that would make us all sit up and listen.
‘Imagine if all the time you spent wondering “what if” had been spent on looking at what you already have, instead of what you haven’t got,’ says Peggy.
I straighten out the note from Tom and look at the words he wrote to me not too long ago. Another me would take the chance, thinking this was a message of fate. I don’t know why, but I hand it to the lady beside me to show her what it says.
‘This man is Tom? You said your husband’s name is Jack?’ she says, handing it back to me. Bouncer barks again at the sound of his old master’s name. ‘You still have a choice, you know, Charlotte. No matter how long you feel you have travelled in the wrong direction, you still have the choice to turn around. It’s all up to you.’
I put the piece of paper back into my handbag and stand up, then let out a deep breath that comes from the tips of my toes. I yawn and cover my mouth with the back of my hand.
‘I’m going to find a bed for the night,’ I say to Peggy. ‘Thanks for your words of wisdom and for your company. Oh, and sorry for sitting on Jack’s bench.’
I say this to the dog and playfully ruffle his hair. He looks up at me with big sad black eyes, telling me that even though Jack’s wife is trying her best to move on with her loss, they both still have a long way to go.
‘I’m sure my Jack and I aren’t the only lovers who sat on this bench watching the world go by and filling our hearts with hopes and dreams,’ she says, with a twinkle in her eye. ‘Maybe you sat here too with him?’
I bite my lip. I did, of course.
