Twinned (12 page)

Beth

I wake shortly before the 5.30 am alarm sounds. I slept so deeply that I don’t remember any dreams at all. I dress quickly in the clothes I put out the night before. Richard snores softly as I leave the room. My heart is thumping in my chest.

When I get to the gym it’s 6.45 am. I make my way straight to the changing room. It’s deserted. I close the wooden stall door and sit on the narrow bench. I still my mind. Close my eyes and wait. And wait.

Nothing. Each time a thought pops into my head I let it pass. Still nothing. Fifteen minutes later and my head hurts. I decide to go for a swim. Something must have come up, I think. It could be anything. Perhaps he fell asleep on the sofa, or had to look after Harry. I try not to be disappointed. But I am.

I tie my hair up so it won’t get wet and swim six slow lengths, then rest at the side of the pool, lazily circling my legs. I do another four lengths then rest again. A slim, dark haired woman in a yellow bikini comes out of the changing rooms, walks across the tiles and lowers herself into the water, flinching slightly at the temperature and throwing me a quick smile before she begins a confident breast-stroke to the opposite end of the pool.

The clock on the wall tells me it’s time to leave. I get out and go back to the changing room to get dressed.

I feel like crying, I don’t know why. Big, hopeless, lonely tears threaten to roll out of my eyes and down my cheeks. I blink them back, sniffing. It’s silly to be sad; I knew this was going to happen from time to time. I’m sure he must have a good reason. I’m sure he’s as disappointed as I am.

I get in the car to drive to work and for once I don’t listen to Joel’s music. I put on a CD that I bought in America, it’s a new singer-songwriter called Lindi Ortega. Her music suits my mood completely and her voice is
amazing
.

Work is a great distraction. In fact my editor, Marcus, asks me to handle development of a new section of the magazine to appeal to women of a certain age who want, as he puts it, "Gardening, Pinot Grigio and books about sex with a 19th Century Lover in tight trousers".

"The grey pound with a pulse is a hugely untapped market for advertisers," he explains. "Just think about all these internet-savvy grandmas going online to order their pelvic floor exercisers."

He laughs at how funny he thinks he is.

The thought makes me sick. Hell, he makes me sick. However, it's an opportunity. I start to research the section immediately by arranging a focus group with some Women’s Institute members who came in for a makeover last month. All the while I am busy I'm not thinking about Joel, which is great.

Joel

Georgia did a pregnancy test and it confirmed what she thought. We are having baby number two. I whoop and yell with her, "Yes!"
I remind myself that this is what we wanted. Inside I am so confused but I know I can’t show it. Georgia mulls over whether she should tell anyone. She is talking so fast that I can’t concentrate on breathing in and out. I feel trapped.

“So?” she says, grabbing me by the shoulders forcefully.

“You’re so quiet Joelly, whaddya thinking buddy?”

“Huh?”

“Boy or Girl????” she squeals, doing a silly dance and running on the spot with excitement.

“Gotta call my mom,” she yells as she runs into the hall. “I won’t tell the girls but I gotta tell her, she’ll be upset if she finds out I didn’t tell her straightaway.” Her voice disappears and tails off. I think about my mom and dad, who will never meet baby two.

I collapse down on the sofa.

Then I try to force a smile. You can’t be sad about a baby, I think to myself. Come on, man. You’re married. You have one great kid. You always wanted more.

Sitting there, hearing Georgia start to gabble then squeal to her mom on the phone in the other room, the answer comes to me. I know it’s cowardly. I know it is. I just need some space in my head from Beth and Georgia; some new experiences and unfamiliar faces. What I need is an impromptu trip with the band. Somewhere that’s not connected to Georgia or Beth. South America perhaps. No, even better, Japan. I love Japan.

It’s time to get back on the road. Grab some time to find myself again.

I grab my cell and start dialing.

“Japan?” Shrieks Marti, our manager. “Too expensive!” Have you seen the exchange rate? And the distance... my God we’d have to ship a ton of stuff and for what? What exactly is in Japan that you haven’t seen
already, my friend?”

He sparks up a cigarette in his office and draws heavily on it. Smoke curls up towards the sensor in the ceiling. Then, as if he suddenly realizes it’s a 'No Smoking' building for the first time (as he seems to do every time he lights up in here) Marti races to open the window and he leans right out. The sudden sounds of the city open my mind but choke up my thoughts.

He takes a drag and continues.

“You know, if you want to get away from it all...” he raises an eyebrow, “I may have just the thing. Pass me that letter,” he waves at the corner of his desk, which is strewn with paperwork.

“The one with the Radio Power header. Left a bit. Under that - Yeah, that one.”

Another deep drag.

Oh how I miss smoking.

I look at the letter. Radio Power is a top station across Europe and wants us to play a “unique and special live set in an exclusive mystery location, to be disclosed on arrival in..."
– oh God –
"London.”

Marti clocks my expression.

“Just thinking out loud,” he pacifies. “You like London. We all like London. It’s a cheaper flight than Japan and the station will pay accommodation, there’ll be no need to take so much kit either, ” says Marti, flicking his ash, some of which lands on a bird that's perched on the sill below.

He is a shit. He is also an effective manager. That’s as good as it gets, I muse. Our previous manager was even worse; he was on the take from day one.

“I reckon it’s Abbey Road studios...” he says, idly letting the significance of that sink in. He knows I have a Beatles passion and that Abbey Road has always been a dream of mine. Pushing out thoughts of Beth – and Georgia – I am sorely tempted to say “Yes”. However, being the coward I am, I decide to leave it to fate.

“Find out if it is Abbey Road, Marti. We’re not going all that way just to play somewhere we’ve already played.” I pause to think. “If it’s Abbey Road, run it past the boys, Marti. Run it past ‘em.”

Beth

It’s been a week. One hundred and sixty eight hours of loneliness in my head.

I am bereft.

I can’t sleep;
I can’t be bothered to eat properly. I have regular shooting pains up and down my arms and in my chest, I don’t know why. Every day, all day, I am reaching out to him with my mind, trying to feel the connection again. And it’s crazy because there is nothing there but empty space. I scan the news sites, wondering if – God forbid – he is dead. No news. No updates on any web site about anyone in the band. Nothing at all.

Another week passes. I give up with going to the gym but I let Richard think I’m still working out there each morning. Instead I just park up and listen to music.

Richard is being very distant. He is preoccupied with work and is on the phone to his assistant constantly but at least that means he doesn’t notice my mood. One evening he doesn’t come home at all. From 10.30 pm I am trying to call him pretty much constantly but the phone is switched off. When he finally calls me it is one am. He says he missed the last train home. I am pretty angry and suggest he could have got a taxi. He sounds drunk and I can hear people laughing. He says he is staying at Nick’s.

I can’t sleep. I am a zombie. No emotions anymore, nothing at all apart from the pains, which are joined by awful stomach cramps and a constant headache between my eyes. I watch the sun rise from my bed, the mists roll across the fields in the distance and I imagine Joel walking towards me. But it’s not real.

I get dressed and washed and I leave the house at six am. I drive to the viewing point, right up the top of the hill and I sit in my car listening to Joel’s songs and trying to connect again until it’s time to go to work.

And then I start to
feel
something.

Anger.

At first I was upset. Then I was convinced he was dead. Now I am angry. Really bloody angry. I wasted so much energy on this man. For nothing.

I risked my marriage, my sanity – and he doesn’t love me. He probably never did. He hasn’t got in touch. Not even one lousy attempt.

With a cold feeling that starts in my heart and sends my pulse racing, it strikes me that all this time I could have just been mad. What evidence do I really have, after all?

I have been so stupid. So stupid.

Defiantly, I change my playlist from Joel’s band to Christina Aguilera. The orchestral beginning of "Fighter" begins to play.

As the song powers up, I remember. The letter! I need to see the letter again. To see his handwriting. To try to connect with something tangible in my hands.

I start the engine and race home, driving so fast I can barely make the turns, my wheels bumping against the kerb, tyres thrust down into potholes and kicking up dust from the gutter.

Suddenly, there is a huge lorry pulling out in front of me, it’s there in the road ahead and then just stops. SHIT! I’m going too fast, I’m swerving but there are people to my left so I whip the wheel round to the right and start to lose control
– “SHIIIII...”

Joel

I
see a girl standing about a meter away from the canyon’s edge. I can’t make out who it is but I am scared she might fall. She steps forward, poised, ready to jump. I try to shout but I can’t make a sound.

I look down. I have no legs. I have no body.

Jesus, my spirit or whatever 'I' am is floating invisibly in the air. A sudden clap of thunder terrifies me. I feel myself start to panic and as I try to take a deep breath in to calm myself, I realise:

I am not breathing!

A few seconds stretch like hours then suddenly I am back in my body, laying on the tour bus bunk, gasping for breath. I sit up, coughing on my own spit. Nobody says anything though they look at me strangely. I lay back down. What happened there?

I was dreaming and perhaps on some level trying to connect with Beth. I’d been feeling guilty because of the way I’d left things. It’s been three weeks since I ‘saw’ her last and now we are racing through the British countryside, having just met with a producer for a quick chat about possibly working with him on our next album.

I know she is close. Too close for comfort.

But this dream thing... I am curious. Who was that girl? Was it Beth? What is going on?

I’m almost too scared to try it again. But I do. This time I can’t even settle in one place. It’s like I am floating in a vast black tunnel full of stars. It’s beautiful and silent. There is nothing to touch, nothing to hold onto and no sign of Beth. Again, it starts to freak me out when I can’t feel my body breathing. I panic and end up back in the bunk, defeated.

The coach slows and stops. I look out of the window and see that we are stopped on a typical British 'A' road. I hear sirens and see an ambulance trying to squeeze past our coach. Jeez. We're gonna be late.

I put in my earphones and shut my eyes.

Beth

I wake up, groggy. Everything is sideways. The world is making no visual sense. I hurt all over. There is a strange noise, which I realise is coming from my throat. I am moaning, a scream with
no power behind it. My chest is squashed so tight against the steering wheel, an airbag in my face. I can't move my legs. Something starts to hiss.

Oh God what have I done?

Joel

Marti taps me on the shoulder; I open my eyes and remove my earphones. "The road ahead is blocked mate, some car bounced off a truck. There's an ambulance and some police."

"OK," I mumble. "Any idea how much longer?"

"Dunno, mate. I reckon it could be a while. There's someone trapped in the car. I just had a look, the fire brigade are on their way to cut ‘em out," he adds.

It's typical of Marti to get involved and know everything. He's a nosy bastard.

"Anyway, Joel, mate. I woke you up 'cos the guys saw a pub over the road and they want to go for a beer and something to eat. It opens at 11 but I've knocked on the door and the manager is happy to open early for us." A kindred spirit of Marti's, I think ruefully. More than happy to capitalise on the misfortune of others.

"Anyway the band reckon no one will recognise them without you, so they were gonna leave you asleep. But I thought you might be hungry?"

"Starving," I reply.

What to do? A beer sounds like heaven.

"Well no paps will know you’re here,” adds Marti, a twinkle in his eye.

"Wait for me," I say. I get up, straighten myself out and check myself out in a mirror, just in case there are any cameras. My hair is a mess. Tousled would be a polite description. Marti and I exit the coach and wander over to the pub, our eyes drawn to the scene of devastation to our left.

A lorry has pulled over with its hazards on. A small red car is on its side, having hit and gone through the low wall in front of a house then carved up the front garden, coming to rest wrapped round a lamp post. There are bricks strewn all around. The car is about three feet shorter than it should be. A paramedic is tending to someone in the car.

We enter the pub. The guys are there already and causing a stir amongst the staff and a couple of other people who I guess are other stranded drivers. It's only 10 am but the beer is served regardless of English licensing laws. It seems that the novelty of a crash and a rock band in the building overrules normal practice.

From my limited experience over the years, the 'George and Dragon' looks like a typical English village public house. It has dried hops hanging from the beams on the ceiling, tacked up there with pins. It has tarnished brass light fixtures, a heavily varnished, slightly sticky bar and an exposed brick fireplace. There are yellowed photos on the walls and it smells kinda musty. The sun streaming through the small windows exposes a ton of dust hanging in the air.

"Cool," says Deff, our lead guitarist, who's nicknamed Deff because he practically
is
deaf nowadays. He takes a sip from a beer which the pump proclaims is called 'Old Fart'. How quaint.

Marti ushers us out to the pub garden and we sit at a table under a gazebo. It's turning into quite a sunny day. Unfortunately, sitting out here gives us a prime view of the accident, which makes me feel a bit ghoulish.

The fire truck turns up. We try not to stare but we are all watching from time to time as the boys talk about the flight over. Stevo is telling Deff about the hot air stewardess and what he would have liked to do with her. Mark starts singing Jace Everett's 'Do Bad Things with You'.

They are all laughing while I zone out, watching the grass blowing in the breeze and listening to the goings on across the road. I'm thinking it would be almost pleasantly warm if not for the cold breeze. I take a sip of beer and I wonder how Georgia is, working back to what time it is in San Diego. Three am...

And then a stabbing pain across my eyes stops me from thinking, breathing or seeing. I spill my beer putting it down clumsily onto the table. The worst pain I have ever felt passes through my head momentarily. Oh my God, I don't know what's happening.

Then all of a sudden - at the exact moment that Marti asks if I am OK - it's gone. I realise I am up on my feet and already sprinting to the low fence that borders the garden, leaping over it and dashing out across the road towards the small red car. The guys are yelling behind me but I don't have time to answer them.

Because I know.

I just know.