Story starts at 2:54
'My wife died four years ago.' Stephen just said it. Six little words which spoke pages and pages of pain and suffering. He didn't add any more. He used to in the early days. He used to go on and on about how wonderful she was, the events of her death. Those words had been for him, however – not for the listener. He didn't want anybody else saying they felt sorry for him. Those six words were enough. Time to change the subject.
'I really enjoyed our time at school. I mean, the time you were there. I was sorry when you left.'
Stephen felt a little anxious he was giving too much information. But it was true. School hadn't been the best time of his life, as some people say it is. He had even suffered from bullying previously. But then Jane arrived, and life became happier. He fell in love with her. They weren't even teenagers – just twelve years old. They hardly spoke to each other, really. Stephen just liked to look at her, be close to her, totally by chance usually, in the dinner queue, for instance.
Then in French lessons, he sat next to her every class, but only because the teacher made all the pupils sit girl – boy, girl – boy so they would behave better. How he looked forward to those classes – twice a week. He helped her with the exercises, as she found them difficult, and sometimes they both laughed together because she had invented a comic phrase in French.
Then there had been the school Christmas party – one of the most wonderful days of his life.
'I wasn't the greatest student on Earth, was I?' she said, as she looked hard into her cocktail. 'It was great having you around. You were good fun. It made life easier. My dad was in the air force. Always travelling around, going from one school to another. It was impossible to make real friends. Then there was you. You were so easy-going. I was so glad I met you.'
So she had remembered the French classes too. They obviously had been more important to her than Stephen had known. Stephen felt his heart beating more quickly.
'My husband stays away for long periods,' Jane said suddenly. She stood up and began to walk around the room. 'I sometimes wonder… No, I'm pretty sure, really, he's seeing someone else.' She sat down quickly again next to Stephen. He realised it had been difficult for her to say that. But she had told him. She obviously trusted him.
'Are you sure you don't want a cocktail? It's no bother. It's already mixed. Piña colada,' she said with sad smile.
'Yes, please! I would,' Stephen replied rather too quickly. It was a way of sharing something with Jane, like a laugh over something silly in French.
She got up and went to the kitchen, and Stephen could hear her, pouring broken ice into a glass. She came back into the living room, and then stopped and put the glass on a table.
'I've just thought of something!' she said.
She looked at a bookcase on one side of the room and went over to it. Then she pulled out something that looked like a photograph album. She picked up the glass, came back to the sofa and sat back down next to Stephen. This time pressing against him.
'Photos,' she said quietly as though it were some dark secret. 'Of our school!'
'Really!' said Stephen. 'Where did you get those? I mean, we didn't really bring cameras to school much in those days, did we?'
'They were taken by the school photographer. The ones they took at school events for the local newspaper. You know, like the Christmas party,' she answered. 'The school gave them to me when I left. I just kept the ones I liked.'
She turned to the first photos. The Christmas party. Jane and Stephen smiled at the bad quality photos of Jane and her girlfriends looking rather embarrassed but happy into the camera. All in their school uniforms, wearing colourful paper hats and drinking lemonade.
It was a strange experience for Stephen. Those faces looking at him from the past. A moment in time caught on paper. But much more, somehow. It was like freezing a moment of life. Each face belonging to a real person with different hopes and feelings. Yet, although the faces were frozen, the photograph is just a tiny part of a longer, sadder story. There was something those girls all had in common: none of them knew what would happen next. Not even what would happen the following second after the photo had been taken, what would happen later that day, what future life was waiting for them. So now, it was hard for Stephen to see the happiness there, instead, he saw a sadness because life would never give them their childhood dreams.
Stephen was careful how he said the following words:
'I think I remember we sat next to each other at the Christmas party, didn't we?' That had been a moment of pure magic for Stephen. The headmaster had stood up with his orangeade (or was it something stronger? the students always wondered) and wished everybody a merry Christmas. All the children did the same, and during the laughing and shouting, Jane turned to Stephen and kissed him quickly on the lips. “Merry Christmas!' she said and laughed in that way that Stephen loved so much. “Merry Christmas!� he replied, and he kissed her briefly on the lips again, and Jane didn't mind. At that moment, Stephen felt something deep inside that was close to perfect happiness.
'I don't remember sitting next to you. I can't remember who I was sitting next to.' Jane said. Then she turned to Stephen and said suddenly 'But I remember kissing you!' She was smiling and Stephen could see her perfectly white teeth. 'We kissed like this!' Jane moved her face towards Stephen's and kissed him on the lips. She held her mouth there for a long time, and Stephen didn't want to move his face away. He closed his eyes and kissed her too.
When finally they moved apart, Stephen felt the world had stopped for a moment, and Jane and himself were on a little island, where only happiness existed.
'Another cocktail?' she breathed quietly into his ear.
'Yes, please,' said Stephen in a tiny voice. He wanted to add that he hadn't remembered that their Christmas kiss all those years ago had been anything like this, but he could hardly make himself speak.
'Here you are, Stephen,' said Jane with two cocktails as she sat down on the sofa, pushing her body close to his. Stephen now felt a little nervous, and it was good to have the photograph album between them. Something they could both concentrate on, instead of each other.
'And what about the school trip to Cheddar Gorge?' said Jane, the broad smile returning. Stephen dug down into his memory, but no pictures came to his mind.
'Cheddar Gorge?' he asked.
Jane turned some pages in her album. More photos of schoolchildren.
'You know,' Jane said. 'Where we visited the caves.'
'Ehm,' said Stephen, thinking hard.
'You don't remember?' said Jane. 'You don't remember how we found a little cave just for you and me? You don't remember how we kissed there?'
Jane pointed to herself in a photo and the boy next to her. Stephen looked hard at the boy. The photo wasn't very clear but it was clear enough.
'That's not me!' said Stephen, and his blood went cold. It was the other Stephen in his year at school: confident, cool, well-dressed, the sporty type, and charming too – all the girls loved him. But he wasn't bright at all – but the girls didn't mind that.
'Of course it's you!' said Jane. 'What do you mean?'
'That's not me.' Stephen repeated. 'I didn't go on the Cheddar Gorge school trip. I was ill. That's Stephen Bartlett. He looked a lot like me. We were the same height too.'
Jane's smile disappeared. 'But you are Stephen Bartlett. You said so on the telephone!'
'I'm Stephen Burnett. Don't you remember? We used to sit next to each other in French.'
Jane stood up and the album fell off her knees onto the floor.
'Oh, my God! I suppose I didn't hear well… the cocktails… It's true, you aren't him. Stephen wasn't shy like you. I liked him… I…'
She turned to Stephen still sitting on the sofa. 'That kiss I gave you at the Christmas party. I remember now. It was just a Christmas kiss. It meant nothing. I was talking about something else that happened… with Stephen Bartlett… He…'
Jane walked towards the other side of the room and turned around. 'Didn't you say you had a flight to catch? You'll miss it!'
Stephen stood up. 'But, Jane!' I thought we were very close at school. I thought…'
'I knew you liked me. Sorry. I didn't feel the same way. My God! What a big mistake I've made. I'm so stupid,' and she put her hand into her black hair. She walked towards the door and opened it, and said in coldly 'It was lovely to see you again, Stephen. Thanks for visiting me after all these years.'
******************
When the plane had taken off at last, Stephen felt better. How silly of him to have cried on Alderney – to have cried as he left her house. He hadn't seen her face – she was probably laughing. He was a doctor after all – what was that fool, Stephen Bartlett. What job would he have now – factory worker?
An island in the middle of the sea, now left far behind. He could leave all those memories there, somehow remove them from his brain. Leave it all on that island surrounded by sea, where they could never escape.
The captain was now announcing that soon they would land at Bristol airport. Stephen was thinking about all the notes he had made at the Paris conference – some very interesting techniques he could use with his private patients. That silly schoolgirl, whatever her name was, and the island of Alderney were already far from his mind.
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