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Chapter 1
At first it had freaked him out big time, he had tried to style it, only to find it back the original way in the morning, he’d even had it all shaved off, but it was back to it’s current length and style when he woke the next morning. He had learnt to live with it, thinking that at least it was a fairly non-descript hairstyle, and not some fucking style nightmare such as pink streaks or dodgy weave in dreads. As for the rest of him, it didn’t seem to matter what he did nothing changed, no matter what he ate or drank, every morning he was exactly the same, almost as if he was living some kind of permanent groundhog day, but with the actual date, and his life moving on.
He thought back to the woman, and thought back to the first time he had seen her. They were in some kind of strange white room, white as far as the eye could see, with a strange lighting method that threw no shadows, it was difficult to try and estimate how big the room was as there was no contrast to use to get a judgement. The only things in the room that weren’t white were their heads, their own and those of another 4 people. He hadn’t seen any of the other faces at all in the last 5 years, but had seen the woman at regular intervals. Always in front of him, as if escaping, always the same, from the first time in Kuala Lumpur, just a few days after he found himself awake in his apartment with no recollection of how he got there, through 4 different continents, in his home town of Philadelphia, and now here in his latest client’s home of London.
He had spent much time thinking whether it really was the same person, as there was no pattern, to the location, or to the frequency of sightings. It had been 3 months since the previous sighting, just a short hop away in Manchester, where he’d been a guest of his previous client at the commonwealth games, which in itself hadn’t been bad, just that with no Americans there it was hardly world class competition. The longest gap had been about a year which had ended with that sighting in Manchester, the shortest being just a day, between her being in his hometown, and then in San Francisco the very next day. The shock of that one had caused him to come to a grinding halt, and as his consciousness returned to him, he turned to see the tram was only a couple of hundred yards away. He had ran like a maniac after the tram, and caught up with it just as it was leaving it’s next scheduled stop, the good thing being that he could still get on even though it was moving. The seat that had only moments before housed the woman was empty, and she was not on the tram, he had jumped off and raced back to the stop, but there was no sign of the woman in any direction. If only he hadn’t frozen he might have been able to speak to her, though there was a large part of his consciousness that wondered whether he had just imagined it.
The rush of air and noise that greeted the arrival of a tube hit him, and he flashed back to the present. How long had he been stood there motionless, it seemed like an eternity, but looking at his watch indicated only 3 minutes had gone since he had arrived on the platform. People were staring at him, and he wondered what he had done while his mind was elsewhere to attract the attention, it had happened before, but only on a couple of occasions. He jumped on to the tube and occupied a seat next to an extremely attractive brunette, partly just because of that, and partly because of its convenient location near to the doors.
For a reason he couldn’t explain he always felt the need to be as near to an exit as he possibly could, almost as if he could make an escape at any moment, though by nature he was a rational calm man, recent years had added an edge to him that, although unnoticeable to strangers, had been picked up by those who knew him reasonably well. His closest associates, he found it difficult to go the whole enchilada and call them friends, as he couldn’t bring himself to confide in them, could pinpoint the change in him to roughly 5 years ago, and had tried to get inside him to help, but who could help, and who would have believed what he had to tell them. It was probably a good job that he had no surviving family members that he knew of, as to deny bloodlines would have been a lot tougher.
He casually glanced at the woman sat next to him, his initial estimation being somewhat off the mark. Extremely attractive was somewhat of an understatement; her hair was perfectly coiffured into a bob that allowed her striking features to be accentuated. Well-mascaraed eyelashes outlined the kind of perfectly green eyes that you could drown in. The remaining make up was minimal, with just a hint of pink lip-gloss, on full, but not pouting lips, and a perfectly formed nose. She was slim, but not one of those horrible stick like creatures that graced so many a magazine cover, and wore a tailored cream suit, with a knee length skirt that showed shapely legs. Underneath was a smart white blouse that made the image of a perfect businesswoman, though still allowing her full feminity to show through. If he hadn’t been such a tongue-tied fool when it came to women he might have tried to declare his undying love there and then. However, she looked back at him, catching him looking at her, and he reddened visibly and turned away.
She smiled to herself and looked away again, obviously used to drawing admiring glances, and confident enough in herself not to be overly bothered by it, and therefore able to brush it off. Embarrassed by being caught, in effect, staring, and his obvious reddening, he looked up at the map of the underground that was positioned above the seat opposite him, and tried to concentrate on that. Despite the concentration on the mass of different coloured overlapping lines occupying his visual senses, he couldn’t help but notice the sweet smell emanating from the woman next to him. It was the only perfume that he recognised, and for that matter remotely liked the smell of, and no matter when it was, or where he was, it always invaded his consciousness and made him stop what he was doing to see where the smell was coming from.
He always hoped that he would turn and find that it came from his first fiancé and greatest love Claire Fallenfant, who always wore Eternity, and a lot of the time wouldn’t wear anything else. He drifted away, his memory caught up with visions of Claire, he closed his eyes and thought back to their time together, remembering everything about her, her smell, the way she looked, the way they made love, the way she smiled.
But that had all changed, the pain had started not long after her 23rd birthday, just a few months after they had been engaged. At first she had not really thought about it seriously, and hadn’t mentioned it to him, then as the pain increased she stopped smiling. He selfishly blamed himself for making her unhappy, not thinking that there might be something wrong with her that didn’t involve him. They started rowing about little things, until one day she let it slip about the pain in her back that was troubling her so much. She told him that it had been hurting for nearly 3 months, and he persuaded her to go to her doctor. She was in turn referred to an orthopaedic clinic specializing in back pain. She was diagnosed as having a malignant Vertebral column tumour, which had spread there from some, until then undetected breast cancer. A course of Chemotherapy was started immediately to send the breast cancer into remission, and was successful, but the pressure on the spinal column caused by the tumour was still causing her great pain, and it was decided to operate to remove the tumour. Unfortunately due to complications from the operation caused by her having an extremely weak heart, she died of a heart attack on the operating table.
He didn’t speak to anyone for months after, the feeling of guilt refusing to leave. His only correspondence being with Trebling software, who he was working for as a freelance computer programmer. His speciality being the animation of human motion, and he was busy doing the coding for Trebling’s blockbuster summer release Sacrilege, a role playing game involving a priest, of all things. At least being freelance he didn’t have to go in as long as he sent in regular updates. He had plenty of time to do just that, as he seemed unable to sleep, sometimes 3 or 4 days would go by and he wouldn’t have been anywhere near his bed. He refused to speak to his “friends” and after 2 months most of them had given up on him. They no longer rang or came to try and visit. It was during the testing stage for Sacrilege that he had the idea that would change his life. The idea was so simple yet so brilliant it cleared his mind of everything and his mourning period for Claire ended, All he seemed to remember of her now, was her pained expression from her last few months.
He opened his eyes, and wondered how long he had been drifting. The tube was now in daylight, and just leaving Osterley, he looked up at the map to find himself only 5 stops from Heathrow, the journey had gone quicker than expected, and he had been drifting all the way from just after Russell Square, some 15 or so stops earlier. He glanced to his side, and was somewhat surprised to see the woman still there, and still smiling. It hit him like Tyson blow; the woman sat next to him was so obviously a more beautiful version of Claire, only one that smiled. He closed his eyes again, rubbed them and then reopened them and turned to look at the woman again. It was true, it wasn’t just the olfactory sensation of the Eternity and the memory of Claire that it had triggered, the woman looked enough like Claire did that he was surprised that he hadn’t noticed it immediately. The features were more outstanding, and the hairstyle different, but the likeness was almost spooky.
She turned and looked at him again, and this time he didn’t look away, their eyes locked, and they held each other’s gaze for what seemed like an eternity, but what was in reality only a few seconds. He found himself smiling, but was unable to bring himself to speak. Her smiled broadened and a small laugh tumbled from within her. She opened her mouth and started to speak, but from the moment she started to speak, he couldn’t be sure of a single thing that she said, he was vaguely aware that she had called him by his name, which didn’t even register as being a surprise, what had stunned him was the voice, it was Claire speaking to him, the Philadelphia accent was there, though somewhat anglicised, but the pitch and tone were exactly the same. He felt like he was going to suffocate, was he imagining it all, unless he could snap out of his trance and speak he couldn’t be sure.
He felt like he’d fell from a great height into a freezing cold pool of water. All his senses were numb, and yet screaming at him at the same time. He couldn’t breath, he tried but no air came, there was just a moist taste and smell of salt, his lungs felt like they were going to explode. He tried to look around, but everywhere he turned everything was dark and blurry, he couldn’t hear sounds as they were being made, he only heard them as hollow vibrations, all his senses actually felt exactly the same as if he was actually underwater, and in danger of drowning. He became vaguely aware of something shaking him.
His senses began to return and he realised it wasn’t something, but someone - the woman. The smell of her Eternity invaded his nostrils, and snapped him back to the land of the living. His eyes opened wide, and he managed to take that first gasping breath, just as he would have done if he were emerging from beneath the water of a swimming pool, after a long time. From the corner of his eye he saw that the tube was stopped at a station, and as if he had been given an electric shock, he jumped up, grabbed his bag and dived from the tube just as the doors were shutting, amazing himself in the process, both with the speed of movement, and with the fact that he had had the presence of mind to remember his bag.
He turned as he heard the woman shout “Wait!”, but it was too late, the doors had already shut, and the tube was starting it’s slow build up of speed as it pulled away. He looked around and found that he was at Hatton Cross, and was surprised to find the tube had travelled four stops in what seemed no time at all, especially at this end of the line where the stations were further apart. How long must he have been in a trance state this time? He found a seat on the platform. He needed time to pull himself together. In the space of less than 40 minutes his mind had descended into the kind of panic and desperation that three years and thirty thousand dollars worth of therapy had taken to remove.
It wasn’t that he had seen the mystery woman on the tube before the one he had boarded, that had happened enough times by now for that to be of minor consequence. Yes he’d love to actually speak to the woman, and see if she knew any more about that white room, and what had happened during those eleven days, but he was fairly certain that it wasn’t supposed to be. There was a reason why he just kept missing her, and he was sure that it would become apparent at some stage, but it wasn’t worth worrying about now.
He was also fairly sure that it wasn’t the Eternity thing, god knows how many times he had smelt it in the nine years since Claire’s death, and although it normally bought about brief thoughts of her, more than often it was gone in seconds, and he just carried on. For some reason today, it had triggered a drift away that had lasted the best part of half an hour. He wondered whether his subconscious had been well ahead of his senses and realised that the attractive brunette he had sat next to on the tube was so spookily similar to Claire, that when his olfactory senses kicked in, it triggered a larger flashback than he had ever experienced.
The look-alike had really freaked him out, and he remembered that it was her starting to speak to him, and sounding exactly like Claire as well, that had triggered sensory shutdown, he vaguely recalled that while he was slipping into his mental paralysis that she had called him by his name. He wondered how the hell she knew it, he was certain that they had never met before, and although he was becoming a known face in Philadelphia, it wasn’t as if he had national, let alone international recognition. He thought that it must have been the combination of events that had caused him to lose it completely and then bolt from the tube like a crazy man, which he supposed was what he had been like.
He let another tube pass, as he still had just about enough time to check in, he would get the next one, as he didn’t want the look-alike to be waiting for him as he got off the tube at Heathrow, nor did he want to still be here, if for some reason she came back to look for him.
He got on the next tube and completed the, now short, journey to Heathrow, there was no one on the platform, and he rushed through to the check in gate, just as it was about to close. He checked his bag and made his way to the departure gate. The plane to Philadelphia International Airport was already boarding, but he knew that as a first class passenger, he didn’t have to rush to fight for a decent seat, as it would have been prebooked. He always had a central aisle seat, which allowed him to sit next to someone else as opposed to a side seat, which meant he would be sat by himself. He always liked to talk to someone new, and hoped that he would get some interesting conversation.
He got through the departure gate with the minimum of fuss, and boarded the plane. He had no hand luggage, to stow, and he liked to keep his jacket on until after the plane had taken off. He found his seat and sat down. He turned to his right to see who he was sat next to, and his heart almost stopped, he was sat next to his mystery woman, he looked straight ahead, and tried to control his breathing, he couldn’t believe that he would actually get the chance to speak to her. This thought was interrupted by someone calling his name from the left of him. He turned slowly with a sense of dread, knowing that he would find the look-alike in the seat across the aisle. Even though he knew it, it didn’t make the shock any less, the pain hit him, a blinding white light filled his head, and he fainted.