Operation Soulmate (28 page)

    “Gerry,” he said slowly. He knew from dealing with plenty of people over the years who were slightly ...unpredictable... that sometimes, if you spoke to them in just the right way, you could calm their fractured sensibilities and get them to be more lucid. “I’m going to ask you something now and I want you to be completely honest with me, before we take this any further.” Geraldine sighed.

     "Okay, Toby,” she said baffled by yet another Ben-sighting, upset slightly by Toby’s patronising tone and at the same time, just too tired to try to convince anyone else about
anything
, least of all her own sanity. It was already, at this point, hanging by a thin thread.

Geraldine winced as Toby continued to speak extremely gently.

     “Why do you think Ben would not want you to know his whereabouts?” At this point, she almost felt like crying. “I don’t
know
Toby,” she said, “I just... don’t... know...”

Toby seemed dissatisfied with her answer, and Geraldine, who was by now almost at her wit's end, took a deep breath and prepared to tell the raw truth in all its weird entirety. He’d left her no choice! She simply
had
to tell him now, however much it might hurt him in the short-term, otherwise there was just no hope for any of them. “Okay, look, he told me he was in love with this woman, someone called Lena, who’s a physiotherapist from Queens, and that he was going to New York to live with her and start a new chapter in his life. But I
know
he’s in love with
me
Toby...I can feel it. I just know he’s only with this woman because he’s hurt and he sees no other way out. He’s only with her to try to
forget
about
me
, you see. But I love him too, Toby, I just didn’t realise it all this time...You understand, don’t you Toby...you know... you knew he was in love with me, didn’t you? And that’s why he’s with this Lena...to try to forget me...But if I could just
see
him again...just ...
talk
to him...and tell him how I feel,
now.
.. He’s probably just here for a few days but just can’t face seeing me, knowing how he really feels about me ...because he
doesn’t
know I feel the same yet. Do you see what I mean?”

      There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. Toby was busy collecting the information and listening to some very loud alarm bells. Sure, he knew Ben had been attracted to Geraldine at some point, who wouldn't be! But the old,
leaving the country to start a new life,
story. That was serious. Even
he’d
never had to use that one before. That was guy-speak for ‘never,
ever
contact me again, crazy-lady.’

      “O...kay,” he said, “I see. Well not to worry then Gerry. Hey, it’s been nice catching up. You take care now. Take it easy.” He said, sweetly.

    “Listen, Toby, I know how strange it must all sound but, you see, oh God,” she said, taking another deep breath, “There’s so much I’ve wanted to say to
you
as well, for such a long time now. But then, when I phoned you that day and that woman answered.... Anyway, I went to see this woman, a past-life therapist...And... you are not going to believe what I saw, about us, you know, about you and me and one of the lives we’ve had together... Anyway, everything that’s happened between us, even this conversation we’re having now, and the way we’re behaving towards each other, it all makes perfect sense!!”

    None of it was making
any
sense to Toby and he considered himself to be a very open-minded guy. Plus, there was the fact that Geraldine had just said one of the two words that usually told him everything he needed to know about a woman ...
therapist
. Geraldine continued, excited, now that she could finally share some of her insights with Toby. “I can’t go into it all now,” she was saying, “but it would be great if we could meet up some time and I could maybe share some of this stuff with you. I think it might help you....you know with some of the issues you’re dealing with at the moment.” And there was the other word...
issues
...

    “Wow... Gerry... that sounds great,” he said. Why don’t I call you some time and we’ll try to fix something up. Oh...kay then; you take care now.” Geraldine stared at her phone, huffily.
Call ended.
Why?
Why
was the call ended, just when she was beginning to get somewhere? She suddenly felt exhausted. What was
wrong
with everyone?

    Toby sat reeling from the effects of his phone-call with Geraldine. She’d seemed so lovely and stable when he’d first met her. Now, however, she just sounded dangerous. He shook his head, slowly. He’d had a lucky escape. He wasn’t even sure a friendship was such a good idea anymore. Indira was a good woman. At least her behaviour was relatively normal. So what if she was so marriage-and baby-hungry even after just a few months. That was just normal for most women. At least she had the honesty to be upfront about it. And she would probably actually
make
a great wife as well... one day... And she was certainly not interested in being with anyone else. She was completely devoted, albeit in a somewhat obsessive way, and at least, apart from her insane devotion to him, she seemed relatively sound of mind. He was tired of flighty women like Geraldine. Perhaps he just wasn’t used to this nice, calm, gentle and consistently enamoured type of woman. But surely, this was exactly what he needed.

      Toby admitted to himself that perhaps his call to Geraldine had been partly fuelled by an unconscious curiosity about,
the one that got away
. But it now occurred to him that, if past experience was anything to go by, one had usually allowed the ones that got away
get
away, for good reason!

      By the time she answered the phone, he had made up his mind. “Indie, honey,” he said, feeling almost a little shy as he spoke, “How would you feel about maybe hanging out at my place with me for the week, you know, just to see how things go...how we might ...get on.....maybe hanging out here more permanently....”

      “Oh, sweetie,” She said softly into the phone... “I’m going to treat you soooo nice...” Toby smiled, as he ended the call. It was what he needed now: someone who was most certainly and absolutely devoted.

Geraldine spent the rest of the evening trying to figure out where she had gone so horribly wrong with Ben that he might have felt the need to completely ignore her like this. Obviously he was in London to see a client who had flown him over for face-to-face coaching, and had probably decided to throw in a couple of impromptu appraisals with some of his regular phone clients at the same time. Maybe it was one of Lena’s stipulations that he didn’t contact her, perhaps, after a late-night confession from Ben about what Brogan now jokingly referred to as ‘pyjama-gate.’ But how could he find it so easy to just drop her like that, after everything they’d been through?

    When she fell into bed at around 9p.m., exhausted and slightly annoyed with Ben,
and
Lena,
and
Toby, Geraldine was only too happy to put an end to what had been a very challenging day, on all levels, all things considered!

     After what seemed like hours of tossing and turning in her bed, she suddenly found herself calling out into the solitary darkness,

    “Oh, God...please help me out here!!”

She had barely completed her desperate entreaty when she saw the old woman standing at the foot of her bed again. She sat up straight. Wow, the spirit world didn’t mess about! “Hello again,” she said, smiling hopefully. The old woman smiled back. This time Geraldine was going to get straight to the crux of the matter. “I know you’ve come to help me,” she said, “and thank you...
so
much, but I’m a bit frustrated about not being able to understand what you’re trying to tell me.”

    The woman smiled and nodded. She liked Geraldine. She was polite...and seemed nice. Geraldine continued to stare at her, waiting for some new communication that might perhaps enlighten her a bit more. “Well, can I at least know your name? ‘The woman at the end of my bed’ doesn’t have a great ring to it.” She said, smiling. The woman laughed. She turned away again and faced the wall. “No no, don’t go,” said Geraldine “You’re my last hope...” The woman stopped at the wall and beckoned her again, this time more forcefully. And this time, when she walked through the wall, Geraldine rushed out through the door at the same time, only to meet her on the other side, so to speak. The woman stood at the door to Ben’s room and beckoned again. Without even thinking, Geraldine bravely opened the door and stood in the doorway allowing the subtle lights of the moon and the streetlamp just outside Ben's window to stream in through his open curtains and cast a sobering glow into his empty room.

     The old woman stood by his bed and smiled before pointing towards Ben’s chest of drawers, across the other side of the room. Geraldine looked at her. She seemed a little more serious now. “Take a look,” She said, pointing to the bottom drawer. Words, finally!! Geraldine walked gingerly across the room and carefully opened the drawer, feeling inside, until her hand stumbled across something cold and metallic. She looked up at the woman and pulled out a small photograph in an ornate, silver frame. She stared at it but couldn’t see it properly in the strange light. The old woman applauded and smiled with unbridled glee. Geraldine stood up and held the object in both hands, sensing an energy of excitement emanating from it. The ghostly emissary touched the photograph lovingly and then gently stroked Geraldine’s cheek, before disappearing, just as suddenly as she’d arrived. Geraldine shuddered and then found herself grinning, as if the old woman had drawn a smile across her face.

      She ran to switch the light on and sat looking at the picture, searching for clues, knowing that it somehow contained the answers for which she’d been searching. It was an image of the same old woman standing next to Ben, smiling. Then it struck her. Of course! The old woman was Ben’s grandmother. Geraldine had never met her, while she was still alive. She’d died just before she and Ben had met, but she was sure, now, that she’d seen the photograph before. It was one of Ben’s most treasured possessions. She shook her head in disbelief. She sat staring at it for a while longer, and then suddenly, purely on impulse, she opened up the back of the frame and gently removed the photograph.

      There was writing on the back, but the ink was slightly smudged. She peered at it and brought it closer to her face. Just close enough to read the words,
Me with Lena, January 2011
. Geraldine fell onto a corner of Ben’s bed, with tears of realisation suddenly prickling her eyes. Lena!!!
This
was Lena!!! Ugh!! The first name that had come into Ben’s head when he’d been making up his fictitious girlfriend and had clearly been put on the spot about it!!
This
was Lena, Ben’s grandmother who lived in Queen’s
Park
and had, of course...
been
...a physiotherapist!!! Geraldine sat and cried with relief, in between the laughter and irritation at Ben’s sheer audacity. He was just too much in love with her to possibly have found someone else so quickly! It was so obvious now, almost as if the photograph contained a download of his entire consciousness. There was no, other, Lena. There never
had
been. She was sure of it! She was still unsure at this point,
why
he’d concocted the whole myth, but she knew for certain, that
this
Lena had come to let her in on his bizarre little secret.

      Geraldine laughed and cried, as waves of relief flooded her body and her exhausted consciousness. She was just about to go back to trying to figure out what it would all mean now, in the comfort of her own bed, when she noticed that something must have fallen out onto the floor as she’d opened up the frame. She picked it up and looked at it. It was a small, white, envelope simply addressed
To
Gerry.
She tore it open with trembling fingers and read it, slowly, savouring each word.

Dear Gerry, Darling Gerry,

Love and Light of my life, if you’ve found this letter, you’ll know by now that there’s no Lena, well at least not one I’m in love with ...in that way. Did she lead you to it? I asked her to...

You might also have guessed that I still love you with the same aching desire you must surely have felt on at least one occasio
n

Sorry I didn’t have the guts to give this to you myself or to leave it for you when I left. I just knew you might not be ready to hear the truth so soon and I didn’t want you to do that Gerry thing, of rashly chasing after something that suddenly becomes unavailable....just because it suddenly becomes unavailable.

I wanted you to have time to realise how much you love me. ;-)

I wanted us both to have time to think...about things.

       “Geraldine could feel the tears falling now as she struggled to read, through the haze.”

So yes, there it is, I am desperately, hopelessly in love with you... and I know without a doubt that there will never be anyone who’s as perfect for me as you are.

So I’ve joined the foreign legion, no, I’m just kidding......Anyway, I just thought you should know how I feel.

I know there’s a chance that you might never find this letter, but in some strange way, I needed to write in anyway... I’m sure you’d understand that. I needed to document these feelings so they wouldn’t be lost forever, somewhere in time. I wanted to feel the pen on the page expressing to you what I've failed to express so many times.. for what it’s worth. 

I think on some level, I’ve always loved you, since the very beginning. I just got so fed up of seeing you with all those guys and being your dating coach... and of you not seeing me ...in that way. It was too painful. So I had to get away from you. Please forgive me...

Anyway, on the bright side, if you do find this letter, wow!! All this life-after-death and psychic stuff.... I’ll totally believe it now!

I’m sure your twin flame is out there, somewhere, and when you find him, I wish you so much love and happiness. If he loves you even half as much as I do, you’ll be fine, because even that much is still more than enough to make it work!! By the way, have you read your list recently?

You’ve probably guessed by now that I’m not in New York either, I’m staying with Danny. There was a spare room at his place and he said I could stay for a while, till I find somewhere.

Hope you had a great birthday. Sorry about the fibs, and thanks for letting me off the hook with Operation Soulmate. I couldn’t marry you for a bet. I’d want it to be for real and “Why the heck not?”?  These are not the first words I ever want to hear after proposing to someone...

Love you forever

B x

Geraldine sat on the bed feeling stunned. Ben
was
still in London, he
did
love her and there was no whirlwind courtship with anyone called Lena...or anyone else for that matter. For the first time ever, across all directions of time and space, there were no obstacles to their coming together. And talk about Divine intervention! “Thank you Lena,” she whispered quietly, “wherever you are...” Geraldine, felt a sudden wave of warmth filling her entire being as she sat in a moment of gratitude and awe, wondering at the mysterious ways of the many multi-faceted universes and their inhabitants.

      Without thinking, she rushed to the phone to call Danny’s number. Was it too late to call? Ten was
fairly
late, but in a situation like this, surely, she could be forgiven. She had no idea where Danny’s place was. Her only hope was to call him and pray that Ben might answer the phone and save her the embarrassment of having to deal with Danny himself, at such a delicate time.

     The answering machine picked up the call.
“Hi,”
said Danny’s cheerfully compelling voice,
“There’s no one here to take your call just now. You can leave a message for Danny Richards or Ben Wright, after the tone. Have a productive day and stay out of trouble!”
She smiled involuntarily.
Where
were
they? She quickly dialled Ben’s old, (
London)
mobile number? Why hadn’t she thought of that in the first place? She’d been so used to thinking he was in New York it just hadn’t even occurred to her. She was
bound
to reach him on that number. She pressed the button nervously, her apprehension gathering momentum with each new, failed attempt at contact. Ben’s phone went straight through to voicemail. Somehow, after reading his letter, she’d almost imagined him sitting by the phone waiting for her to call. He and Danny were probably out somewhere doing guy-stuff. This was completely maddening! Surely this was that moment in the movies when she would rush around to Danny’s place, and Ben (who would undoubtedly be waiting for her at the door, holding flowers or an engagement ring or some such, an intelligently playful expression briefly crossing his handsome face) would allow her to simply throw herself into his arms for a passionate kiss, before they both quickly morphed into a mad-cap montage of glamorous but mad-cap stills from their inevitable, mad-cap wedding day! Geraldine wanted to scream. Why wasn’t anyone answering their phone? She was just about to call Brogan, when her phone began to vibrate. The screen said Ben. Finally!

     “Hello,” she said, quietly. “Ben?”

     “Hi Gerry, it’s Danny.....I’m just answering Ben’s calls because, well, he can’t really answer them himself at the moment. Gerry, I’m really,
really
sorry, but Ben’s been involved in accident.”

   “Oh my God, no Danny, nooooooo.” Geraldine wailed helplessly into the phone. How could this be happening?! How could fate be so cruel?

   “I know. It’s pretty bad. I’ve just spent the whole evening with him at the hospital. It only happened a few hours ago. I wanted to call you sooner; I know it’s what Ben would have wanted.”

   “Stop talking about him as if he’s dead...or dying...” She almost screamed now. She was delirious and shaking, as the tears gushed out unhindered. Her whole body was shaking uncontrollably. “Oh God!! Da...nny.....do ...you... think I can go and see ...h...him...?” she said, between sobs “...please.”

   “Well, visiting hours are officially over but, I think under the circumstances, it might be okay. Do you want me to come and get you?

    “Y... yes, yes, p...ple ...ease Danny. Thank....you.”