Coincidences (4 page)

As she turned around, she saw
her bus disappearing into the distance; she hadn’t even heard it arrive...

***

Whilst Charlotte was busy serving the customer, Alice
folded the newspaper and placed it out of sight under the counter, wanting to
avoid any further discussion about the photograph. Charlotte turned to face
Alice when her customer had left, and her eyes searched the counter, looking
for the newspaper.

‘I’ve been invited to a party,’
said Alice, hoping that this would distract her.

‘Oh? Tell all!’ Charlotte sat on
a stool facing her, waiting for her to continue.

Alice blushed as she remembered
that Andrew would be at the party. She coughed to try to hide her
embarrassment. ‘It’s a friend’s birthday party.’

‘What are you going to wear? Now
let’s see... do you have a gold dress? It would set off your eyes so well, and
you look so good in dresses. You should wear them more. You’re always in jeans.
And you’ll need to wear make-up. I bet there’ll be lots of boys at the party,
right? You want to look your best. It’s time we got you a boyfriend.’

‘Well, Andrew will be there,’
said Alice turning away towards the counter, hoping she hadn’t turned too red.

‘Is he that boy you fancy? All
the more reason for you to dress up and try to catch his eye. Don’t worry, I’ll
give you some great tips. He won’t be able to resist you.’

Charlotte chatted away happily,
dishing out advice to Alice in between serving customers. She soon forgot about
the picture in the newspaper, and so did Alice; her mind far away dreaming of
Andrew.

***

Alice passed by the newsagent’s on her way home. Once
more, she felt overwhelmed by the feeling that she had to find out more about
the plane crash and about the girl on the front page. She decided to buy a copy
of the newspaper.

When she got home, she scoured
the newspaper, reading every word of the story about the plane crash survivors.
She wasn’t sure what she was hoping to see written in the paper, but was left
feeling disappointed. The only mention of Jane Forester, apart from her
photograph on the front page with the other survivors, was a quote from her,
when asked about her experience.
‘It was very frightening. We thought we
would all die.’
The paper described her as “traumatised” and “tearful”.
Alice read the paragraph at least three times, and then stared at the
photograph again. She took the newspaper with her into the kitchen to prepare
her dinner.

As she stood stirring her pasta,
her mind was going over the possibility of Jane Forester being related to her
father. She knew her father’s parents lived in America—she had heard her mother
talk about it when she was younger. She was sure she could remember her mother
saying that they lived in Boston. But the information was very fuzzy in her
mind, almost as if she had made it up to suit her purpose. Could she ask her
mother about it? She felt unsure. If it was true, perhaps Jane Forester had
been to Boston to visit her grandparents and was returning when the plane
crashed. Or, could Jane be an American cousin? Maybe her father had brothers or
sisters in America. The newspaper had not said whether she was American or
British. Alice felt excited, but also slightly confused and disconcerted
because she didn’t like the way she seemed to have developed a fascination with
the plane crash and this girl. A splash of boiling water hit her hand and she
was awoken from her daydream to see that the water in her pasta had started to
boil over while her mind was miles away. She shook her head as she turned down
the heat.

Just as she sat down at the
table to eat her dinner, the telephone rang.

‘Hello, darling, it’s me.’

‘Oh, hi, Mum. How are you?’

‘I’m fine. I was just calling to
make sure you’re okay.’

‘Yeah, I’m fine.’

‘Good. Listen, I’m sorry I
couldn’t spend much time with you yesterday. I feel bad.’

‘Oh, that’s okay.’

‘Are you working tomorrow,
Alice?’

‘No.’

‘Great, why don’t you come over
and spend the day with me? I’m not going in to the salon; I’m taking a couple
of days off.’

‘Okay, great, because I was
meaning to come and see you anyway. I’ll come over at about ten, is that okay?’

‘Yes, that’s fine. I’ll see you
then. Bye.’

‘Bye, Mum.’ Alice placed the
handset back onto the telephone and as she did so, she felt the sharp pain in
her right arm again, starting from the wrist and ending at the elbow. She
screamed out loud and grabbed her arm. This time the pain lasted for about ten
seconds and she could hardly bear it. Her arm felt stiff. She rocked backwards
and forwards until the pain stopped. When it did stop, her mind was filled with
concern. There had been no reason for the pain and it had come on so suddenly
without warning. The day before, when it had happened, she thought it was
because she had stretched her arm too far reaching for the table, but she had
not had to stretch her arm at all when she replaced the handset just now—the
telephone was right in front of her.

She sat at the kitchen table,
hesitating to pick up her fork to continue eating her meal, half-expecting the
pain to return; she was on edge as if waiting for it. But it seemed to have
disappeared as quickly as it had come. She slowly flexed her arm and it felt
fine, so she decided to try to put it to the back of her mind.

As she ate her pasta, she
flicked through the rest of the newspaper, trying to avoid the story about Jane
Forester, but thoughts of her father taunted her mind. She wanted to find out
more about him. Would her mother be willing to talk about him? In the past
eighteen years, she had hardly spoken a word to Alice about him. The odd bits
of information Alice did have had been gleaned from listening in to her
mother’s conversations with her friends. As the years went by, her mother had
lost touch with people who had known her when she was married. Whenever Alice
had asked her mother about him in the past, she had found ways to skirt around
the subject. She’d told Alice that the reason her father left was because they
had drifted apart. In the past few years, Alice had been busy with her studies
and her friends, so she had not been concerned about her absent father; she had
settled into a pattern in her life and felt quite happy as she was. She’d
always told herself that his rejection had never really affected her because
she was just too young when he left home for it to have had an impact on her
life. It was hard for her to relate to those people she would see on daytime
chat shows who wanted to find their long-lost parents; his absence had not left
a hole in her life. But now, suddenly, some part of her had been awakened, the
curiosity too loud to be ignored.

As she lay in bed that night,
she resolved to try to find a way to ask her mother about Roger Forester, the
man who had once been a part of their lives. After tossing and turning in
anticipation of what information she might uncover, she eventually drifted off
to sleep. She dreamt she was in a large building, which looked like a hospital,
and she saw a long needle. A doctor was trying to find a vein to give her an
injection. She saw herself screaming. She woke up to find that she was actually
screaming and grabbing her right arm. The pain had returned, but as soon as she
realised what was going on, it subsided. She felt afraid to go back to sleep in
case the pain came back again.

Chapter Four

Thursday 14th August 1997

Alice telephoned the doctors’ surgery in the morning to
book an appointment to see her GP, Dr. Small. There was an appointment
available for 3 p.m. that day. After booking it, she set out to meet her
mother.

As Alice ascended the stairs at
the Tube station, she saw a newspaper salesman standing outside. She then
remembered that she’d forgotten to bring yesterday’s newspaper with her. It
would have been easier to explain to her mother why she wanted to find her
father if she could have shown her the picture of Jane Forester. Having the
newspaper with her would have helped her to bring up the subject.

For a moment, she thought about
going home to get the newspaper. As she stood, unmoving at the top of the Tube
station exit, unsure what to do, busy commuters rushed past her. One man said
‘Sorry’, when his briefcase hit her leg; this roused her from her rumination.
She noticed how everyone seemed to be in a hurry to get somewhere. This focused
her mind on the time. It was 10 a.m. Her mother would be wondering where she
was, and she didn’t really feel like taking the Tube back home again. Shrugging
her shoulders, she realised that she wouldn’t be able to talk to her mother
about her father today. In a way, it brought a sense of relief; part of her
didn’t quite feel ready to ask her mother about him.

Alice found her mother in the kitchen, eating breakfast.
Stephanie was wearing a long peach-coloured silk dressing gown. ‘Darling!’ she
exclaimed as Alice walked into the room. She stood up, still holding a slice of
toast, and gave her daughter a hug and kiss. ‘How are you?’

‘I’m fine, Mum. How are you?’

‘Oh, I’m okay.’ Stephanie sat
back at the kitchen table and gestured for Alice to sit next to her. ‘I’ve
decided to treat myself to a couple of days off work. We’re not busy at the
moment. Have some toast, Alice.’ She pointed to the pile of toast on the
table—much too much for her to eat alone. It was obvious she had prepared extra
for Alice, always worried that she didn’t eat enough.

Alice took one slice, even
though she wasn’t hungry, so as not to offend her.

‘So, Alice, what shall we do
today? We can go shopping; I could buy you some new clothes. Or, we could go to
the cinema; there’s a new romantic comedy I want to see... what’s it called?
Oh, I’ll remember in a minute. Or, we could go to the park.’ Stephanie leaned
to look out of the window as if to check the weather. ‘It would be a pity to
miss out on catching a bit of sun. It looks like it’s going to be a warm day
again today.’

‘I don’t mind. Anywhere you want
to go. But I have to be back early. I’ve got a doctor’s appointment at three.’
Almost as soon as she’d said it, Alice wished she could take the words back.
She saw her mother’s face drop. Ever since Alice had been a young girl,
Stephanie had worried too much about her, fearing the worst every time she had
a bit of a temperature. Alice was kicking herself for mentioning the doctor’s
appointment; her mother would now be imagining all sorts of things—it was bound
to ruin her day.

‘Why? What for? What’s wrong?’
Her mother’s eyes penetrated deep into her own.

‘It’s nothing, Mum, just a
routine trip. Um... a blood pressure check.’ Would that ease her mother’s
concern?

‘There’s nothing routine about a
blood pressure check. Oh my God! I’ll come with you. Do you feel okay?’

It seemed that her little white
lie had only made things worse. ‘You don’t have to come with me. I just got a
pain in my arm a couple of days ago and it came back yesterday—’

‘A pain in the arm? Which arm?’
Stephanie’s eyes were open so wide, Alice could see the whites all around them.
‘A pain in the arm could be your heart. Is that why they want to take your
blood pressure?’

‘They don’t want to take my
blood pressure.’

‘But you said—’

‘I know; I only said that so you
wouldn’t worry.’

‘Let me see your arm, where was
the pain?’ She took Alice’s left arm and rolled up her sleeve.

‘It’s the other arm,’ said Alice
tugging her arm away and rolling her sleeve down.

Her mother instantly took her
other arm, only for Alice to pull it away. ‘Please don’t fuss, Mum. I think I
just pulled a muscle or something. I’ll be okay.’

‘Does it hurt?’ asked her
mother, her face full of concern.

‘No. The pain comes and goes. I
shouldn’t have said anything; you always worry too much about everything.’

‘Of course I do; I’m your
mother. You’ll understand when you have children of your own.’ Stephanie
finished drinking her coffee. ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you
to the doctor?’ she asked, after five silent minutes had passed. Her mind had
obviously still been ticking away, imagining what could be wrong with Alice.

‘No. I’m not a child.’

‘Right, I’ll go and get changed,
then we’ll go out. I won’t be a minute.’ Stephanie disappeared into her bedroom.

Alice started to clear away the
breakfast plates. There were a few old photographs displayed in one of the
glass cabinets above the dishwasher. The photographs caught Alice’s eye as she
was placing the plates and cups into the dishwasher. She had seen the
photographs a hundred times but they somehow seemed more significant at the
moment. Her mind went back to something Sophie Bairns had said at work the week
before:

‘You see that painting up there,’ said Sophie,
pointing behind her to the canvas depicting an old cottage by a stream. It was
a fairly run of the mill type of painting, hung above the counter where they
served the customers. Alice hardly ever noticed it.

Alice looked at the painting
and smiled at Sophie. ‘It’s nice,’ she said, as if seeing it for the first
time.

Sophie nodded. ‘Yes, it is.
The funny thing is, no one ever notices it; but today everyone has been saying
to me, “that’s a nice painting”. Isn’t it odd?’ Sophie laughed it off as
another customer walked up to the counter.

Odd. That’s how it felt to Alice now, looking at the
photographs that had been in the background for years, but which now screamed
out for attention. Two of the photographs were of Alice from her school days,
the other was a picture of Alice with her mother, taken a few years ago. It
suddenly occurred to her that, as far as she could recall, she had never seen
any photographs of her father.
That
was definitely “odd”; after all, her
parents had been together for years.