Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite! (15 page)

That's what I told myself. The part of me that lived in fear of her turning up, however, didn't get the memo. I continued to live in fear. It changed slightly when Baggins was born as I had something more important to think about, and it felt like Brin had more to lose from kicking me out. It would be tough, but I always thought that we'd get through it.

One night, not long after we'd moved down to the outskirts of Bristol to be close to Brin's family, I got a phone call. Two Feet. I hadn't spoken to him in a couple of years, and I had no idea how he got the number.

'Hello,' I said, lifting the phone.

'Fanque's dead,' said Two Feet by way of introduction.

'Shit, Two Feet,' I said. 'What happened?'

Fanque was the youngest of our old gang, and I don't suppose any of us had been that old back then.

'Topped herself in the bath,' he said.

He sounded like he might start crying.

'Shit,' I said again. 'When was this?'

It was the only thing I could think to say.

'Two days ago, man,' said Two Feet.

He started to cry.

I'd never known anyone who'd committed suicide before. By the time I hung up I wasn't really any the wiser, but I promised to go to the funeral.

Brin wasn't happy, and neither was I. I hadn't thought much about Fanque, and I still didn't. I'd never known her that well. What did worry me, though, was the thought that Jones would be at the funeral. Then, when Brin announced that she'd arranged for her mum to look after Baggins and that she'd be coming with me, I was even more concerned.

Naturally there was a lot of talk at the funeral about Fanque, but it was all about the old days. The Stand Alone days. Me and Henderson and Two Feet sitting in a corner, talking about the old times, like characters from a Springsteen song. Yet none of us had the time to go there the following morning for a coffee.

The Jigsaw Man never came. Neither did Jones. Some said she was appearing in the latest Tom Cruise movie, others that she was filming episodes of
Coronation Street
. I was just relieved she wasn't there, but spent the entire trip feeling nervous, waiting for her arrival.

No one seemed to know why Fanque had killed herself, but that didn't mean she wasn't dead.

The next time I worked myself into a renewed state of angst because of Jones was when I became attached to the agent who sent out the script of
The Jigsaw Man
. I imagined the script being picked up and turned into a film. Then I thought of the attention I'd get. That suddenly Jones and I would be in the same business. That the old gang – minus Fanque – would crawl from the shadows, amused and delighted about the Jigsaw Man, wanting to get back together. I felt as though I had authored my own destruction.

That particular worry slipped away with the script's singular lack of success. The curious instance of Marion Hightower, mystery film executive, did nothing to alter it, so convinced had I become that my film script was never going to become an actual film.

Nevertheless, the nagging fear and the nagging doubt were always there. We were in our eighteenth year of marriage, but what if Brin discovered my early infidelity? And then I thought myself off a plane and was sent back in time six months, and I never gave it any more thought. First there was six months of another me living and sleeping with my wife; and then there was some crazy, indeterminate period, during which she thought I was dead. Jones and me seemed unimportant at last.

I saw her on television once. An episode of
Spooks
. I was barely paying attention. I did a double take, and then there was no doubt. It was Jones. I stopped myself saying anything, and I think even stopped myself looking like I was watching. Brin never noticed.

And that was it for Jones. Sometimes when I think about her I ask myself who I'd rather have been with. If I had a choice, and no one needed to get hurt, which one of them would I have gone for? I always, always come down on the side of Brin.

Still lying after all these years.

*

I
want to like
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
. I really do. It's regularly recognised as the greatest album of all time, although I often wonder if that's in the same way that critics recognise
Citizen Kane
as the greatest movie of all time, but in private they'd actually admit that they prefer
The Empire Strikes Back
.

The album has that whole concept thing, of the Beatles being another band, and the sound is incredible, and if you consider this against even
Help
! from just a couple of years previously, which is basically an album of three-minute pop songs, you are just in awe of the progress they'd made. Yet, it's the songs themselves. Most of them are just all right, no better.

"Lovely Rita," "She's Leaving Home," "Fixing a Hole," "Getting Better," "Good Morning, Good Morning."

Relative to the astonishing catalogue of genius with which the Beatles left us, there's not a lot going for
Sgt. Pepper
. Even the better-known songs, such as "With A Little Help From My Friends", and "When I'm Sixty-Four", and "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" hardly rank amongst the Beatles' best.

They should never have left off "Strawberry Fields" and "Penny Lane" – recorded at the same time but released as a single. Ditch a couple of the others, and put them on, and straight away you've got a much better album. In addition, while George's "It's Only A Northern Song" eventually released on
Yellow Submarine
, isn't a world-beater, by God at least it's got some spunk about it and is oodles better than that bloody awful dirge on
Sgt. Pepper
.

Suppose George didn't think so.

Here's how
Sgt. Pepper
would have looked if I'd been in charge:

––––––––

S
ide 1:

––––––––

S
ide 2:

––––––––

N
obody asked me, although, just like with
The White Album
, I hadn't been born yet, so you know, there's that.

––––––––

T
he six months were up; the days of wandering were over. It was time to make a decision. I'd spent the bulk of the six months not only deferring that decision, but deferring even thinking about it. Whatever choice I made seemed inherently dangerous. It felt as though whatever I did, it had the potential to end up with me just disappearing in the blink of an eye. It seemed the only thing I could do was let events play out, and let the other me die in the crash, or think himself off the crash in some never-ending loop.

However, if that was the route I went down, there was no logical way in which I could just walk back into my home. I could literally walk back in, but at some point the police would come to tell Brin I was dead, and it would be me answering the door. The authorities were unlikely to see a miracle, more likely to see terrorism, regardless of the fact that I was just a guy who made coffee.

With three days to go I got on a train and headed south. Arrived in Bristol at eight in the evening and booked myself into a Travel Lodge in the centre of town. I didn't sleep that night. I didn't go out at all the next day. It looked grey outside. It may have rained the whole day. I'm not sure. I didn't move, apart from when I needed to go to the bathroom. I put the Do No Disturb sign on the door. No one knocked. Every time I went to the bathroom I drank a glass of water, and returned to sitting on the bed.

Now was the time to come up with the brilliant plan. I'd got through the six months, kept my head down, resisted the need to contact Brin and Baggins. I had made my last bet, and had enough money to keep me going until the day the plane took off. After that, I would have a decision to make. Or perhaps, before that. I didn't know yet. I couldn't even decide what I was trying to make a decision about. Couldn't get close.

I sat on the edge of the bed and tried to piece everything together. It was like doing a jigsaw without knowing what the picture looks like, nor indeed if there even was a picture. Perhaps there was just a collection of random pieces.

I missed Baggins more than I missed Brin. I'd felt guilty acknowledging that to myself at the start, but as time went on I realised there was little point in lying. I could see right through myself after all.

I wasn't sure what had gone wrong with Brin. I hated the thought that it was the lie I'd told from the very beginning – and not just the lie, but the 'what if' that forever plagued me – but perhaps it had finally caught up with us. Perhaps something had happened, which I didn't quite recognise, that had allowed her to understand me better.

Occasionally I wondered about just never going back. Was that an option? I liked to imagine that I was thinking about it purely on the basis that I had to consider everything. All options on the table. That was all.

There was this other guy living with my wife. What if she was happier with him? What if there was something slightly different about the guy that she liked? Weirdly, the thought of Brin being happier with someone else didn't seem to trouble me too much. Maybe I just didn't believe it, or maybe I was just relieved to think of me making her happy again, even if it wasn't actually me. However, I hated the thought of some other me dropping Baggins off at school, and playing games of Monopoly that seemed to last for hours and shouting along with her at
X-Factor
. So I didn't think about Baggins and the other me.

I sat for two days, until the time to take the active options that were open to me, such as stopping my other self getting on the plane, or killing my other self before he got there, was upon me. If I was going to do something positive, then it had to be now. I left the room with just that thought, and no determination.

What if I let my other self get on the plane, and then the plane didn't crash? I'd turn up at home, be sitting there having my dinner and having to explain why I'd decided not to take the flight, and then the other me would phone from LA to tell Brin about the trip. After six months alone, I couldn't face that impossible awkwardness.

I decided to go for a coffee at the Starbucks where I worked. I felt such a different person, it almost seemed like I could walk in there without any sort of disguise and not be recognised. I could stand in front of the other me and ask for a cappuccino and the other me would make it and think nothing of it.

Before leaving I stood in front of the mirror. I had planned ahead. Four weeks growth of beard. That was all. And I didn't even recognise the eyes. I wondered about my voice, I spoke so rarely.

I tried to speak standing in front of the mirror, but no words came out. I left the hotel, got on a bus to my corner of the city in the north-west and went to an outdoor clothing store, the kind of place in which I would regularly spend time but never money.

I was already wearing clothes the like of which I did not possess in my wardrobe. I had grown used to being someone else, the clothing had come naturally. I bought a pair of sunglasses and a tight woollen beanie. Put them both on, looked in the mirror. I didn't know who I was looking at, although I could have said the same thing back at the hotel.

When I got to the café I didn't hesitate. For the first time I wondered if I'd already lived through this moment, but from the other side. The last day I'd worked there Ruby had called in sick, and I'd had to fill in at the counter with Beth and Alex. Had I served a guy with a beard, sunglasses and a beanie pulled down over his forehead? The hat and glasses called for a bright, clear, cold winter's afternoon. It was inappropriately dull and grey and mild.

The other me was standing behind the bar. Alex was serving a young woman; Beth was walking around the café clearing up trays and cups and the detritus of muffins and croissants. I watched the scene for a few moments, taking it all in. The café was the same as I remembered it, which was presumably how it should have been. Why would anything have changed?

Was there anything about this specific day that struck a chord? Did I remember standing at the counter, waiting for the next customer, and that next customer being a guy in a beard and beanie who stood just inside the door for a few moments?

I approached the bar.

'Regular cappuccino to sit in, please,' I said. Didn't try to modify my voice at all. It was going to sound different to me anyway. Perhaps if I'd been speaking to one of the others.

'Certainly, sir,' I replied. 'Can I get you anything to eat?'

Shook my head.

'Would you like chocolate sprink—'

'No, thanks.'

'Two pounds seventy-five, please, sir.'

I handed the money over. I was always slightly and irrationally irritated when someone gave me a twenty pound note for a single coffee, like they were using me as a change machine, so I decided to test myself and handed over a twenty pound note. Could I recognise the flicker of resentment in my eyes, or was I the consummate professional I always thought I was?

Nothing there. A slight smile, a quick trip to the register, change handed back, and then I turned my back on myself and went to prepare the coffee.

I felt so detached from this other guy across the counter that this didn't feel weird. I was being served coffee, much in the same way as I'd been getting served coffee in various establishments for the previous six months.

When it was ready, I collected the cappuccino from the end of the counter and took a seat further back in the shop. One where I still had a good view of everything, so that I could watch myself and watch the others. Still nothing about the day seemed unusual. The surroundings were familiar of course, but nothing about the day itself made me feel like I had lived through it previously.