Imagine There's No Heaven

Roy had taken Guy to the train station’s coffee shop to sit quietly for a while in the hope of calming him down. The voice on the speakers boomed a time of departure as a whole horde of monitors scrolled through data. Guy’s train would be leaving in fifteen minutes.

  Guy was still breathing shallowly from anger and his big, muscular arms were flexed tight, but he was over the worst. The demonic glare in his eyes had subsided to a much calmer gaze. It was just a matter of time now before he fully regained his composure, and besides, it was hardly the first time Roy had seen him angry. He had seen Guy in his bad times and, though all too rare, he had seen him in good times too; Roy only hoped he might help Guy make those good times more frequent and help him see the good in his life.

  Guy’s cup of coffee was nearly empty. He looked across to the waitress. She was an insanely hot Hispanic girl. Her legs were long, thin and toned; her hair smooth and jet black; she looked cute as anything in her little black blouse and she had a torch-like fire in her green eyes that was as enticing as it was intimidating. Any other man would go crazy trying to impress her, but not Guy. To Guy she was just another nine-to-five zombie.

  ‘Can I get you another?’ the waitress asked in overtly sultry tones, hoping to grab Guy’s desire for more than just a coffee.

  ‘No thank you,’ Guy answered resolutely, not wanting to enter into any playfulness. The waitress was slightly taken aback by Guy’s aloofness. She took a moment to eye him over as though she were evaluating him, then grinned presumptuously before turning to Roy and asking, ‘And you, sir?’

  ‘I’m fine, thanks.’

  She took a pen from her pocket and began writing something on a napkin. She folded it up, handed it to Guy and left. Roy looked at it inquisitively.

  ‘It’s her phone number,’ said Guy, not needing to actually look at the napkin to know the deal; no good looking woman could resist a man that flat-out ignored her. Guy might not have had much time for women, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know what pushed their buttons. ‘And no, I won’t take it.’ He leant back in his chair and eyed the waitress with narrow eyes. He shook his head as though he were quite offended at her presumptuousness, not because he was, just because he thought she could do with a little humbling; arrogance was not on the list of traits he liked. He was sure it was the first time she had gotten such a reaction. To ignore her as part of the game was one thing, but to clearly state that he was not only not interested but offended too was a move that confused her as much as it offended her.

  ‘You sure you’re feeling all right, kid?’ asked Roy.

  ‘I’m not interested.’

  ‘Guy,’ Roy said resolutely, placing his elbows on the table and locking eyes with his young friend. ‘You have got to start to live a little. Go and say something to her, huh?’ Guy eyed him dubiously. ‘Why not?’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘What do you mean, you can’t?’

  ‘I just can’t. I’ve no right to.’

  Roy groaned disappointedly, then placed a heavy hand on Guy’s shoulder and said, ‘Kid, everyone has a right to live and to think of themselves now and then.’

  ‘She didn’t.’

  Roy swallowed hard. He felt so much pain for Guy. He would do anything to help him. Even if he were not Imogen’s son, Roy would care a great deal about Guy, mostly for his fighting spirit and strong heart, but being of the Cormun family effectively made Guy a relative to him. ‘Guy, you have to understand something,’ he advised. ‘What your mother did, she did because she wanted to. She went because she believed in a cause, because—’

  ‘Because no matter what happened to her it made a good statement, is that it?’

  ‘It was her job.’ Roy slapped his hand on the table in exclamation.

  ‘Yeah, it was her job and it was dad’s job too. And she went and he stayed.’ Guy knew Roy would like to slap some sense into him, for his own good. He couldn’t blame him, but he couldn’t change history either, nor could he change how he felt about that history.

  Roy placed a hand over Guy’s on the table. He wanted Guy to feel him, to know he was there. ‘Your parents did what they believed was best for you,’ he said, ‘both of them. Besides, Imogen would never allow your father to—’

  ‘Allow?’ Guy interrupted. ‘What do you mean “allow”? He’s the man. He should have done something.’

  ‘Should have done what? Forced her to go against what she believed was right?’

  ‘He should have been a man.’

  ‘He was a man. He is a man.’

  ‘Yeah, well I never would have let her go.’

  ‘Yeah, well you don’t know—’ Roy bit his tongue.

  ‘I don’t know who?’ Guy begged. His hand was scratching at the table. His teeth were grinding. Anger had gripped him once more. ‘Who?’ A tear rose in his eye. ‘Say it,’ he demanded.

  ‘Guy, I love you. For God’s sake, I love you like you were my own son.’ Roy took a deep breath, hoping to buy some time through which to allow the tone to settle. ‘I’m telling you, with God as my witness, that your father would have done anything to go in her place.’

  ‘Then why didn’t he?’ Guy wiped his eyes and laughed bitterly to himself. It was all he could do, to laugh; to laugh at the impossibility of his situation.

  ‘Guy, he simply couldn’t.’ Roy eyed the sky as though seeking some divine help. ‘He did what he could. He couldn’t stop them sending the summons, nor could he stop your mother from leaving. He did everything he could; it just wasn’t—’ he wanted to say it wasn’t enough, but he knew that would just make Guy even more bitter. He breathed deeply and fingered his pack of cigars on the table. How he wished the bloody smoking laws hadn’t changed. ‘Do you know how much your father fought with her to make her stay? He asked if he could go in her place, nearly grovelled, but—’ he paused, rubbed at his face, bit his tongue and took a moment before continuing ‘—your mother was stubborn. Hell, she could be stubborn as a mule.’ Guy eyed him a caution. ‘I’m sorry Guy, but it’s the truth,’ Roy insisted. ‘Think about it. Do you really think your mother would ever change her mind? She was given the summons, not him. He begged her to stay, but whilst she was thinking like Major Cormun, there was no way he could change her mind.’ He took a final gulp of coffee and pushed his cup aside. ‘I pity him; caught between a woman with determination and a government with an agenda.’

  After a few moments, Guy grabbed his rucksack, stood up and swung it across his shoulder. Roy eyed him as though he were about to speak but fell silent. Guy wished he could thank Roy, wished he could tell Roy how good a friend he was, wished he could open up, but he was too tired. The life was drained from him. Unable to speak, he stood, indicated to the station platform with his head and left. All Roy could do was let him go.

  Julia came in soon after that. She had realised they were chatting personally and waited outside. Once Guy had left she came and took a seat with her husband in the booth. She wrapped an arm around him and kissed his cheek.

  ‘He’ll be okay,’ she said. ‘He’ll be okay.’

  Crashing The Party

  Gina’s garden was set for a small party. The barbecue was spewing smoke into the air, along with the delightful rustic scent of char-grilled meat. This mixed with the prim and proper tones of Gina’s fellow school teachers and friends and the chirps of birds in the background to create a picturesque spring day.

  The table was laid with bottles of wine, bowls of salad and plates of meat. Gina knew how to make her guests feel welcome, that was for certain. She came skipping into the garden carrying an iPod and two speakers. These she set up at the side of the table. ‘Sorry, it took a while to find and download Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings in C major for you, Philip,’ she said. Kevin raised an eyebrow dubiously. ‘Don’t worry, Kevin, there’s plenty of Guns & Roses on here too.’ She laughed.

  ‘Sounds great,’ said Philip. ‘Would you like a hand with that?’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Gina, connecting the speakers
. ‘It won’t take a moment.’

  Philip nodded his giant head of thick brown hair before returning to his bottle of lager.

  Gina hit the play button and turned to Sally. Sally was the newest of the teachers, who at five-foot-two was completely dwarfed by the others. She was particularly sensitive about her height and always wore the tallest heels possible to compensate, but there just weren’t heels tall enough. Gina always felt bad looking down on her, especially from her six-foot frame. She slumped in her chair subtly to make herself shorter. ‘But yes, I wanted to say....’ Gina was cut off when an overly enthusiastic violin note came blaring out of the speaker. Sally squirmed and ducked her head in a panic.

  ‘Oh, I thought it was a wasp.’ She twisted her thin brown hair and smiled shyly as everyone broke into laughter.

  Gina turned the speakers down, melting Sally’s wasp into a slow and melancholy elegance of sound that rather hovered in the air like a butterfly. ‘But yes, I wanted to say,’ Gina began, ‘it isn’t really like I’ve had these two weeks off. I might not have as many exams to mark, but I am busy as anything preparing next term’s work.’

  Sally took a sip of wine and nodded. ‘Oh it must take an awful lot of preparation, working with students like that,’ she agreed sympathetically. ‘And then you have to wonder if it ever goes in. I mean, they never listen.’ She humbly lowered her brown eyes. She used to work with troubled students herself, and Gina knew well enough that she had not had a good time of it.

  ‘Oh, you can get through to them,’ said Gina. ‘It’s just very different.’ The entire table was listening to her now. Her students were always a very popular subject, no matter what one might think of them. She raised her voice. ‘Often it isn’t even the teaching material that they pick up. It’s much more personal than that.’ Her cool grey eyes clouded over as though she were lost in deep thought. ‘They just need encouragement, that’s all.’ She lifted her head and smiled confidently. Most teachers, and indeed parents, looked down on her students and couldn’t understand why she was so fiercely proud and protective of them. She believed in them in a way no one else did, and they loved her for it. Kevin strode over to the table, laughing sarcastically. Gina covered her face with a hand to hide her embarrassment. She knew too well what he was going to say. ‘Oh yeah, they need encouragement all right,’ he jested. ‘Encouragement to leave their weapons at the metal detectors and their—’

  ‘Drugs in the car,’ Gina finished. ‘Yes, very good, Kevin.’

  Sally and Kevin laughed heartily, but Gina was less than pleased. She hated that Kevin didn’t take her work seriously or respect her students. Philip didn’t look too impressed either. He glared at Kevin admonishingly for a moment but soon let his emotions calm and smiled politely.

  ‘I don’t know why you can’t respect them.’ Gina thrust her chin forward in annoyance, resting her head on her hand with an elbow on the table. ‘It’s not their fault they’ve been through a rough time in life.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry, but you have to recognise the facts.’ Kevin eyed their guests for signs of agreement; most hummed approvingly.

  ‘Oh please, please, inform me of the facts,’ Gina scoffed.

  ‘Well, for instance, what about the story of that kid¯ if you can call him that¯ that murdered that poor girl just a few months back.’ He jabbed his finger into the table as though he were making an irrefutable point of which he was particularly proud.

  ‘That was one isolated case, hundreds of miles away,’ Gina pointed out. ‘You can’t take that to speak for every troubled student. Besides, it’s a failure of society, not some freak incident.’ She ran her fingers through her shoulder length thick blond hair, trying to distract herself, though she knew Kevin wouldn’t let up; he was almost as opinionated as she was.

  ‘Yes, I have to agree with that.’ Surprised to find anyone other than Kevin speaking, Gina’s eyes darted along the table, searching for the voice which had agreed with her. Impressed at what she found, she smiled and said, ‘Thank you, Philip.’

  ‘Well, now, I don’t know,’ said Sally. ‘I mean of course society can help to remedy troubled students, but you surely have to recognise that their behaviour is at fault.’

  Gina was surprised at this. She glared at Sally sceptically, momentarily forgetting she was a guest. ‘At fault?’ said Gina.

  ‘Gina, let it go,’ Kevin warned, his voice having become far more sincere.

  ‘Oh, goodness, Kevin, I’m not about to start an argument,’ Gina scoffed, oblivious to the changing moods of those around her. ‘Now, let me give you an example of what you call being “at fault”.’

  ‘I don’t wish to cause an argument, Gina,’ Sally pleaded, holding her hands out as though to ask for peace.

  ‘We’re just having a discussion, but now, please, if I may. Let me give you an example.’ She pointed with a finger the same way she did when she wanted to make a point at school. ‘There’s this one student of mine, Guy Cormun, who lost his mother to war when he was three.’

  ‘My goodness, Gina,’ Kevin implored. ‘I swear; if I hear you speak of this Guy any more I shall be quite jealous.’

  Kevin, Sally and Philip all laughed, but Gina still held the same sincerity in her expression. No surprise. After all, it was that resolute sincerity that made her so good at her job. ‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘he lost his mother to war, and naturally that has affected him greatly. He’s spent his life feeling alone and insecure, and obviously that sets him apart from other students. So you tell me; when he gets angry at others at school, when he can’t just call a joke a joke, when he, heaven forbid, hits someone because they have quite genuinely hurt him on an emotional level, whose fault is that? Is it his fault or the result of a war that left him motherless?’

  After a moment’s silence, Philip said, ‘Well, it’s both. You have to recognise the societal cause but you certainly cannot ignore the behaviour of the individual.’

  ‘I agree absolutely, Philip,’ said Gina. ‘And that is why we have to work from both ends. We have to work with the student emotionally, on a personal level, and also on the more traditional educational level. When one has been removed from society, for whatever reason, you have to bring them back together from both ends, but you can’t treat them differently. You can’t make them feel like an outsider. No, they must be brought closer to society, not further away.’

  ‘Gina, he hits people,’ Kevin sombrely pointed out. The guests eyed him questioningly. Sensing their disapproval, he massaged his chin in thought, shook his head and said, ‘Well it’s one thing to help him out, certainly, but why on earth should he be at a school where he is a threat to other students?’

  Gina shook her head. She wished Kevin could get it, but where she placed blame on society, he placed it on the individual, and sometimes, bringing those two worlds together seemed impossible. The intellectual, philosophical war was why there were still ‘special groups,’ why Gina herself was never quite seen as a traditional teacher and why young and troubled people like Guy still felt alone. And she couldn’t help but wonder what hope she had of changing things when she couldn’t even bring those opposing forces of individualism and collectivism to peace in her own home. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, grabbing a few dirty plates from the table for an excuse to retreat to the house.