Sunday, January 01, 2006

31 :

The sound of someone crying is one of the cruellest sounds in the world.

The sound of it is the worst thing in the world. It’s a statement. A finger jabbing at you, exposing your impotence. You can’t control things anymore. Things are beyond influence. Whatever happens now, you’re strapped in, and you’ve got to follow the ride until it stops. You can’t make it better. You can’t even do anything that comes even near making it better.

The sobbing gulps of heartbreak, the stolen, short asthmatic breaths are nothing but a cruel poke at your pride.

Jesus, I wanted to hold her. I wanted to do something, anything. Even if it wouldn’t improve things, the very act of doing something would make me feel better.

She wasn’t breathing. Just short, scared, panicky gasps. I was worried.

What the fuck had happened?

“Listen, listen, close your eyes, take deep breaths, calm calm.” I tried to reassure her. Everything would be alright. I was here. I would look after her. She was safe.

“But I’m not safe.” she said.

“What do you mean you’re not safe?” Think, boy, think. “I’m here. Nothing bad will happen to you. I’m here for you.”

Words came out like bullets. Faster than I could think.

Already we were so deep into each other, and it hadn’t been long since we met. Only three weeks. Maybe too deep. Crisis brings people together in our times of doubt. It accelerates relationships in their early stages. When you’re just getting to know each other there is a reticence to get that involved, because a relationship is a journey, and when you’re just starting off, its not that far to turn back.

This would bring us together, telescope our love.

And then we lost cabin pressure.

“He’s found me.”

Outside there is silence. More than silence : a complete lack of any sound. The wind, the birds, the cars and plans and trains have all ceased to exist. The air has been sucked out of things. Life won’t be the same again.

“What?”

Jesus, I’m fucking stupid. I say the dumbest things sometimes. But this is shock. In shock you become a retard - able only to react in the broadest brushstrokes, the stupidest reflex actions.

I knew what she meant. I knew who she was talking about. But how?

“He’s found me. You know.” Gasp. Breaths. A Sob. “Him.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that, I mean, who the fuck else were you talking about? But that matters not.

“How the fuck....? Are you Okay?”

Of course she wasn’t Okay. But what do you say? “How fucked up are you then?” of course not.

Don’t lose it. Be cool. Keep your shit together.

“I’m safe. He’s not here. But he has been. He left a rose and a note.”

A black flower. Five small words, written in that distinctive scrawl. Words sprawled apart, yet together, letters that looked somehow wrong on the page. And breaths that punctuated the words like punches.

“Til Death Us Do Part.”

She never told me what those five words were. I’m sure that if she wanted to tell me, she would’ve. I was biding my time. I would find out. Everything unfolds, unravels in time. All secrets become known. All mistakes become clear. Everything becomes clear.

Time is the greatest healer – every wound heals in time. But some wounds always leave a scar. Always on the arms. Always on the noses. Always on my mind.

She was calming down slightly. But not much. The kind of exhausted, resigned calm. The kind that comes only from not being able to be scared anymore. But this was fear. Raw, animal fear. Naked, scared, alone in car headlights fear. Pissing-your-pants on your knees in the darkness with a gun at the back of your neck fear. The stage of exhaustion that is beyond fear.

“Ok, listen. Get your bags. Pack them. I’m coming over and you’re moving into mine now. He can’t find you there.”

I’m an emotional narcoleptic. Extreme emotions exhaust me. I just want to retreat. Hide. Run away. And sometimes you can’t. Sometimes you have no choice.

Love makes decisions the brain cannot ever explain. But this was the right thing to do, the only thing to do. Anything else wasn’t an option. I had to do this. To not do that would be a disgrace as a human being. I am not a hero. Heroes are not heroes. They are ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, doing the only thing they can think of.

I picked up my land line and dialled a number that was scrawled on a post-it note on the kitchen noticeboard. I gave my address and booked a cab. It would be 15 minutes. It takes 40 minutes to get there in normal traffic. 30 if you rush.

The taxi would rush. Because it needed to. This was an emergency.

This is the control tower to flight 26-02-79. Hold on. Be strong. We’re going to land this plane together. I had to bring her down. Talk her down from the height to safety. Put on the oxygen mask. Keep calm. Don’t panic. Fear is the killer. Fear kills everything.

I had 45 minutes to keep her safe. Talk her through everything. This wasn’t an evacuation. It was an emergency.

I packed my wallet, plugged my phone in to recharge so it could keep going for the next few minutes, grabbed a coat and paced up and down the room in a state of anxiety until the taxi came. I was waiting for the obnoxious stab of the taxi horn from the car park downstairs.

Heroes aren’t born : they are forged through crisis. We just respond to circumstance, and if circumstances demand that we do brave things, then brave we are, but brave we have always been.

I talked her through everything she needed to do. Pack your clothes into bags. Pick up all your bank statements and credit cards. Leave nothing that could ever be misused. Get your toothbrush. Remember socks and underwear. Remember to write a note to Charlotte and Sarah and tell them that you’re OK and will contact them.

Packing up your life in 45 minutes is near enough impossible. Something always gets left behind. But I had to try. The big problem was bags. Cardboard boxes. Things to put things in.

Shit. I forgot to pack any boxes in my hurry. We’d have to come back, but the most important thing was getting out alive. That’s why I kept her on the phone for every second of my journey. If I couldn’t hear her I had no way of knowing she was safe.

Normally she was really smart. Not calculating, but clever. Always knew the right thing to do. I was (I admit, I know, it sounds crap), a little in awe of her.

This was the first time I’d seen even a chink in that armour. And I was scared.

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