Coincidences (2 page)

‘Oh, mine was great!’ Charlotte
began to talk at length about the new film she was going to appear in, which
according to her was “sure to become a blockbuster”.

Alice breathed a sigh of relief
that she would not have to talk about her own weekend; all she could remember
about it was the nightmare, which seemed to be following her like a black cloud
above her head.

‘I’m playing a waitress. I’ve
actually got some lines! I’m so excited,’ gushed Charlotte. ‘I have to take an
order in a really posh restaurant from the two main actors. Can you believe it?
Obviously, they saw that I have star potential! I might be discovered and
become famous. Imagine, Alice, you’ll be able to say you knew me before I made
it!’

‘That’s nice,’ said Alice,
smiling, not having heard much of what Charlotte had said, her mind being
elsewhere.

‘You’re not even listening to
me, are you?’

‘Oh, sorry.’ Alice felt guilty
for offending her. ‘I was listening. Er... but I just noticed your dress, it’s
really nice, I was a bit distracted.’

‘Thanks!’ Charlotte beamed. ‘It
is nice, isn’t it? It’s designer.’ She went on to describe how she had chosen
her bright red nail varnish to match her dress and lipstick.

Alice’s concentration drifted
once again.

It wasn’t long before Charlotte
realised she didn’t have her full attention. ‘What’s wrong, Alice?’ She clicked
her fingers above Alice’s head as if to indicate that she needed to wake up.

Alice sighed and stood up.
‘Nothing’s wrong.’

‘You can tell me. It’s man
trouble, isn’t it, honey?’

Trust Charlotte to think
that.
‘No, don’t be silly. It’s nothing. I... I didn’t sleep well last
night, that’s all.’ She forced a smile. She had been thinking of her nightmare
again. It was as if the news of the plane crash this morning had triggered off
something in her mind. She noticed that she was able to remember more and more
of her nightmare as the day progressed. It bothered Alice that she now knew she
had dreamt of a plane crashing to land. The voice from the newsflash resounded
in her head.

At lunchtime, she was glad to
get out of the bookstore for some fresh air.

She’d arranged to meet a
university friend, Jenny, in
McDonald's
. When she arrived at the
restaurant, she was waiting for her outside.

‘Hi,’ said Jenny, taking off her
sunglasses. ‘How are you? You’re looking well.’ She was in a cheerful mood, as
usual, which helped to lift Alice’s gloom slightly.

‘Thanks, yeah, I’m fine,’ she
replied, her eyes unable to meet her friend’s.

The two girls entered the busy
restaurant and ordered their meals. They pushed through the crowds of lunchtime
customers and managed to find two empty seats close to the entrance.

Jenny Callum was Alice’s closest
friend at university. They usually studied together. Jenny had just returned
from a trip to France. She’d gone to Paris with her boyfriend, Frank, who was
also a student at the same university. The girls spent their lunch hour
chatting about Jenny’s holiday and looking at snaps, and they talked about
university and mutual friends.

‘Oh! I almost forgot! Guess what?’
exclaimed Jenny. ‘I found out from Frank that Andrew told one of his friends
that he fancies you.’

‘You’re kidding,’ said Alice,
blushing and trying not to choke on her hamburger. Alice had fancied Andrew for
a few months. He was tall, with dark, shoulder length hair, and striking blue
eyes. She had told Jenny in confidence that she liked him, not knowing that her
boyfriend knew some of Andrew’s friends.

‘It’s good news, isn’t it? I
swear, I didn’t say anything to Frank about you fancying Andrew.’

‘Good,’ said Alice, not really
knowing what to say. She felt embarrassed. ‘Don’t say anything to him.’

Jenny laughed.

By the end of her lunch hour,
Alice had managed to put the plane crash and her nightmare to the back of her
mind. Her disrupted night was once again like a distant memory.

***

Stephanie Turnbull was on her way home from work. At
fifty years of age, she was the owner and manager of a hairdressing salon in
East London. She had a journey of about forty minutes on the London Underground
to her flat in North London. Before getting on the Tube, she bought a copy of
the evening paper.

After standing for fifteen
minutes, lodged uncomfortably between a huddle of rush hour passengers,
Stephanie managed to get a seat on the train. The heat in the carriage was
unbearable and the air was thin; thankfully she had a bit of air space now that
she had finally sat down. Her feet were killing her from standing in the salon
all day.

The worst part of the day for
her was always the journey to and from work. There was never any space to move
in the overcrowded trains. It was especially uncomfortable during the summer
months when the temperature inside the carriages would far exceed the
temperature on the streets. She stared at the briefcase belonging to a harassed-looking
man in a business suit. He was standing just in front of her, trying to avoid
hitting her on the head with his briefcase each time the train jolted. On days
like this she regretted selling her car and opting for Tube travel to work.

No sooner had she sat down, she
had to get up again to change onto the Northern Line train to continue her
journey. Luckily, the next train was not as full and she managed to sit down
upon boarding the carriage. She began to read her newspaper. The headline on
the front page read:
“Air Disaster: Forty Feared Dead.”
With interest,
she read about the desperate attempts to locate survivors of the crash. The
ill-fated jet had plunged into the Atlantic Ocean in the early hours of the
morning. Stephanie noticed a picture of a young girl being carried out of the
sea to safety, her hair dripping with water. It was a dramatic scene with smoke
in the background. Sitting on the Tube train, staring at the picture, Stephanie
began to think of her own daughter, Alice, and a tear came to her eye. The girl
in the picture looked about the same age as Alice. She prayed the girl would be
all right.

Her thoughts turned to Alice
now, as she closed the newspaper and placed it on her lap. Stephanie was
forever worrying about her daughter ever since she moved out of the family home
six months ago. Stephanie had been against the move, but Alice had said she
wanted her independence. The more she tried to dissuade her, the more
determined she had been to move out.

It had proved very difficult for
Stephanie to adjust to living without her daughter. She almost felt abandoned.
Living on her own was something she had never done. She had gone from living
with her parents, to moving in with Roger, Alice’s father, when they married.
Roger had left home when Alice was only eighteen months old. Alice was her only
child. Even though she had not moved very far away and visited often, Stephanie
still felt a great sense of loss. She had built her world around her daughter.
One of the causes of friction in her marriage had been the fact that she was
unable to have children; when Alice came along it had been nothing short of a
miracle as far as Stephanie was concerned. She’d been so grateful and felt so
happy and privileged to have a daughter, she wanted to keep her by her side for
ever. She just didn’t feel ready to let go of her only child yet—not after she
had gone to such lengths for her to be born.

***

Stephanie arrived home at 7.45 p.m. Slumping onto her
favourite armchair, she put her feet up onto the coffee table and kicked off
her shoes. Reaching over to the side table, she grabbed the telephone and
dialled her daughter’s number.

‘Hello,’ said the familiar voice
on the other end of the phone line.

‘Hello, darling, it’s Mummy,’
said Stephanie. ‘How are you? I haven’t seen you for a few days.’

‘Oh, I’m fine, you don’t have to
worry about me.’

‘But I do worry. I’m your
mother, that’s my job.’ Stephanie caught sight of the newspaper lying on the
coffee table where she’d left it when she’d walked into the room. ‘Did you hear
about that terrible plane crash?’

There was silence on the phone
line.

‘Alice? Are you still there?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well anyway, there was a
picture in the paper of a girl who looked about the same age as you, being
rescued from the crash. She looked so young and helpless, she reminded me of
you. That’s when I started to think about you and realised we haven’t spoken
for a few days.’

Alice had almost forgotten about
the nightmare and the fear she’d felt, but the phone call had brought it all
back, and she found she was unable to reply.

‘Alice?’

‘Yes... Listen, Mum, I’ll come
and see you tomorrow at the salon. I’m not working tomorrow.’

‘Okay, sweetie.’

When Alice hung up the phone,
she regretted not telling her mother about her nightmare, but at the same time,
she knew her mother would only worry even more about her if she told her. It
was probably best to keep quiet.

***

Alice did not sleep well that night. Each time she
drifted off to sleep, she would see herself screaming or unable to breathe
under water. Alternately, she would see a plane crashing to land with great
flames and smoke consuming the atmosphere. Eventually, she decided to try to
stay awake. Turning on her bedside lamp, she stared at the ceiling and tried to
think of other things. She thought about her meeting with Jenny and for a while
she felt better remembering what she’d said about Andrew. Her mood lifted as
she began to imagine what it would be like meeting Andrew again after the
summer break from university. Feeling less frightened, she turned off the table
lamp and tried to get some sleep.

Chapter Two

Tuesday 12th August 1997

Alice woke up at 9 a.m. Upon waking, she remembered her
nightmares. It seemed impossible for her to forget about the plane crash, no
matter how hard she tried. It was like an obsession, haunting her mind, ever
since she heard the newsflash on the radio.

She went into the kitchen to
make her breakfast, and switched on the radio, as usual. She listened intently
for some more news about the plane crash; perhaps if she had some more details
she would be able to work out why it had affected her so. But there was no
mention of it in the news. It was “yesterday’s news” to everyone else, but felt
so ingrained in her mind. Sighing with frustration, she opened the fridge door
and saw that she had run out of milk. She had meant to buy some yesterday. It
bothered her that this incident was now getting in the way of her
concentration, making her forget to do things. It was as if, no matter what
else she was doing, some part of her brain was constantly thinking about her
nightmare and the plane crash—like a track on a CD on repeat playback.

She sat down at the kitchen
table after making some toast for breakfast. As she looked through the local
newspaper, she remembered her mother telling her that yesterday’s paper
contained a news story about the plane crash. Alice felt a compulsion to find
that newspaper and read all about it. Picking up the last slice of toast from
her plate and grabbing her bag, as if in a mad rush for an appointment, she
hurried out of the front door.

Once on the Tube train, she
noticed that a few people were reading newspapers. She tried to see if any of
the papers contained stories about the crash, but it was difficult to tell. A
middle-aged woman, wearing a floral-patterned summer dress, got on at the next
stop and sat next to her. The woman opened a copy of the
Daily Mail
.
Alice saw that there was something about the crash on the front page. She
leaned forward, trying to read the story, but this movement seemed to annoy the
woman, who took a sharp sideways glance towards Alice. The woman then sighed and
moved further along the Tube train, quite a few seats away from her, so it was
impossible for her to read anything. Feeling embarrassed, Alice spent the rest
of the journey staring at the floor.

Arriving at her mother’s flat,
Alice opened the door using the key her mother had insisted she retain when she
left home. Upon entering the flat, she walked into the living room and spotted
the newspaper lying on the coffee table. When she picked it up, her eyes
immediately fixed on the picture of a young girl being rescued from the crash.
She remembered her mother mentioning it. Alice stared at the picture. It was
grainy and slightly out of focus, but she couldn’t help noticing that the girl
bore a resemblance to her. She began to read the news story with heightened
interest.

“Flight 764, took off from Boston USA at 11.45 p.m.
GMT, and was a direct flight to London Heathrow. The pilot reported some
trouble with the engine just ten minutes before the recorded time of the crash.
This is still under investigation. The plane was to make an emergency landing,
but lost control and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in the early hours of
Monday morning.”

There was no mention of the exact time of the crash.
Alice felt she would be able to relax a bit now. As there was nothing in
writing to say it had occurred at 12.15 a.m., she told herself that it was
quite possible she had misheard the newsflash on the radio. She placed the
newspaper back onto the table and made her way out of the flat.

***

Alice arrived at
Stephanie’s
, her mother’s
hairdressing salon, just as her mother was getting ready to leave for lunch.

‘Oh, Alice, darling, you look so
tired. You haven’t been looking after yourself, have you?’ The words bombarded
her as soon as she stepped through the salon door.