Past Imperfect

by Graham Debenham

part 9 of 10

His eyes snapped open.

He was in darkness and it took a second or two for his eyes to accustom themselves to the gloom. He sat up, blinked several times and looked around. He was back in his own bedroom in Croydon. A quick look at the alarm clock told him that he had only been asleep for a few minutes.

Cynthia lay beside him, breathing rhythmically. It was all over, and he was back in his own time. Or was this just another leap forward into what might have been?

He didn’t really care. As long as Cynthia was with him, he didn’t mind what the future held. He had relived the past and was totally unimpressed with what might have been. In fact, knowing how much he might have had to pay for success made him even more grateful for being something of a failure.

He lay back down with a smile. Maybe being a failure wasn’t so bad after all. His eyes had just closed when the phone rang. He sat up again and switched on the bedside lamp. The cordless phone was on his side of the bed, although most of the calls turned out to be for Cynthia. He reached out and took it from its cradle.

“Hello.”

“Oh hello Nigel, it’s David Sinclair; could I speak to Cynthia please?”

“Yes, just a moment David,” He reached across and shook Cynthia’s shoulder gently. She woke with a start. ”It’s all right darling,” he said softly. “It’s David, from Chambers. He wants to speak to you.”

She rolled over to face him. In the half-light she looked even more beautiful than ever. “What can he want at this time of night?” she asked, taking the handset.

“Yes, David,” she said in a tone that suggested ‘this had better be good’.

Nigel could hear David’s voice but couldn’t make out what he was saying. After several seconds, the frown on Cynthia’s face melted away and Nigel thought for a moment that she was going to burst into tears. “I see.” She replied in a hoarse tone. “I’ll be there first thing. Thank you for letting me know, David.”

She pressed the disconnect button and handed the phone back to Nigel. He turned over and replaced it on its cradle. When he turned back, she was crying. “Cynthia, what’s wrong?” he asked.

She leaned over and put her arms around him. Nigel frowned. This wasn’t like her at all. All through their married life she had been the strong one. He was always the one who cried his heart out at weddings and funerals. Some thought her emotionless but he knew the real Cynthia. She had emotions, but she always tried to keep them in check.

For her to shed tears at the receipt of a telephone call meant that it was grave news indeed.

He put his arms around her shoulders and pulled her to him. They lay back on the pillow and he could feel the hot tears even through his flannelette pyjamas.

He let her sob for a while before speaking. “What is it, darling?” he whispered.

She stopped sobbing and lifted her head. “It’s Sir Wallace.” She sniffed. “He’s dead.”

Nigel was shocked. Sir Wallace Binghamton, the reclusive head of Chambers. It was he who had given Cynthia her first job after leaving university. It was he who had mentored her throughout her career. It was even he who had steered Nigel back onto the straight and narrow in his other existence. And in all this time, Nigel had never even met the man.

Sir Wallace had been a very private man. He had never once attended one of Cynthia’s cocktail parties. He preferred his own company, hardly ever leaving his Buckinghamshire estate.

“How did he...?”

“Apparently it was a massive heart attack. The domestic staff didn’t think anything of it when he missed breakfast and lunch, but when he didn’t come down for dinner they went to check on him. They found him in bed.”

Nigel took her hand and gave her a comforting squeeze. “If it’s any consolation,” he whispered, “he probably passed peacefully in his sleep.”

She laid her head back on his chest. “I know,” she said softly. “But it doesn’t really make it any easier knowing that he died alone.”

“Of course it won’t be easy,” he agreed. “I mean, I never met him but I know he meant a lot to you.”

She looked up at him and smiled. “I talked to him about you all the time.”

“Nothing bad, I hope.” he replied, glad that she could still smile.

“No, it was all good,” she said. “You know, out of all the people who worked for him or knew him, I think you were the one person he would have liked to meet in person.”

“I’m flattered,” he replied. “If he’s anything like you’ve always described him, I think I would have liked to meet him too.”

She smiled again and laid her head back on his chest. “That would have been nice,” she said softly. “I think you would have liked Uncle Wally. He certainly would have liked you.”

“Yes I probably...” He stopped in mid-sentence. “Uncle who?”

She looked up at him. “Uncle Wally. He wasn’t my real uncle, of course, it was just a little pet name I had for him.”

Uncle Wally!

Could it possibly be? Could Sir Wallace Binghamton be the one common factor in this whole episode?

“I don’t suppose you’ve got any photographs of him, have you?” Nigel asked.

Cynthia looked at him, puzzled by this new interest in her mentor. “I think I’ve got some old ones in the study somewhere.”

“Could I have a look at them?” he asked.

“What, now?”

“It’s all right,” he added. “You stay here; I’ll go and get them.”

She looked at him quizzically. “They’re in the top right-hand drawer of the desk.”

Nigel hopped out of bed and was across the bedroom before she had finished the sentence. “Back in a jiffy,” he called through the closing door.

He sprinted down the stairs and into the study. Rushing across to the desk, he switched on the banker’s lamp and sat down. The bottom right-hand drawer was always kept locked. Not that Cynthia distrusted Nigel, it was just the drawer where she kept the most confidential of papers. Besides, all married couples should have some secrets.

He opened the top drawer and rummaged through hastily. There were more than a few photographs scattered about. Some were recent; Digital photos taken at various cocktail evenings. Nigel was conspicuous by his absence from most of them. He didn’t consider himself photogenic.

The vast majority though, were old, mostly 35mm, although there were several old black and white snapshots. He gathered them all together and dropped them onto the desk.

As he spread them over the blotter, he stopped. Slowly he picked up one of the old photos and held it under the light.

It was old, early ’60s. It showed Nigel, Cynthia and Nigel’s dad, standing in front of a lime-green Ford Anglia. Nigel and Cynthia were wearing their Taplow Street Comprehensive uniforms, for the first time.

It was the photo that Doreen had taken on his first day of school. The second first day, that is.

He looked at the photo for a few seconds before placing it carefully back in the drawer. He would have time to think about the ramifications of his brief sojourn into the past at a later date. At the moment, he had to find a picture of Uncle Wally.

And there it was; poking out from beneath an embarrassing snapshot of Nigel at Cynthia’s 21st birthday party.

It was a 35mm colour photo, taken at the Inns of Court some time ago. Judging from the framed document that Cynthia was holding, and the broad smile on her face, it was when she had passed her Bar exams.

But it was the other person in the photo who immediately grabbed Nigel’s attention. It wasn’t just the man’s immaculate grey pin striped suit. Neither was it the crisp white shirt and grey tie. But, as soon as Nigel saw the perfectly coiffed silver hair and neatly trimmed beard, he knew whom he was looking at.

Wally.

Nigel was still looking at the photo when Cynthia entered the study. She walked up to the desk and placed her hands on Nigel’s shoulders.

“That was when I passed the Bar,” she said sadly. “Uncle Wally was so proud of me.”

“So was I,” Nigel said quietly, reaching up and holding one of her hands.

“I thought you’d never met him?”

“I hadn’t,” he replied.

“So how did you pick out this photo from all the rest?”

He smiled. “I just looked for the one person I’d never met.”

“I don’t think we ever had a conversation that didn’t have you in it somewhere,” she said, tearfully. “I think he must have known more about you than anybody else.”

“Do they know what time he... I mean when he...?

“The doctor thinks it was around eight a.m. They won’t know for certain until the post-mortem.”

Eight a.m. That would be roughly when they were leaving Balham Station.

They stayed in the study for a while, reminiscing over some of the old photos and laughing at others. Then they put them all back in the drawer, turned off the lamp and went upstairs.

“I suppose there will be a lot for you to do in the next few days,” Nigel said as they climbed back into bed.

“Yes, I’ll have to go into Chambers tomorrow to sort things out, make arrangements for... you know.”

“Of course. Will you be catching the 7:37 with me?”

“Yes,” she said, resting her head on his shoulder and placing her arm across his chest. “I don’t think I could face the journey alone.”

She closed her eyes and soon Nigel could hear her rhythmic breathing, indicating that she was asleep.

He lay awake for along time, going over the events of the past forty-odd years. He wasn’t a great believer in the paranormal, but what had just happened to him couldn’t be explained away as just a dream. Besides, he had definitely been awake this morning at eight o’clock, when a dead man had engaged him in conversation.

Perhaps Sir Wallace Binghamton was trying to show him that, in spite of his perceived failures, he was still a better man than he might have been.

Or maybe he just wanted to get Nigel to snap out of his loser mentality, if only briefly. Either way, he had seen his alternate future and it didn’t appeal to him at all.

He knew now that no matter how bad you think your life is, it could always have been worse. He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.

* * *

Proceed to part 10...