“Oh,” I said.
“Yes,” said Dad. “Oh. Coincidences in fiction just do not work. And even in real life, they tend to fall into two sorts. The ones that are so pathetic that they don’t excite anyone but you, and the ones that are so incredible that they are literally just that; unbelievable. Even to members of your own family.”
“Oh, God.” Mum sighed. “Here we go.”
I could hear that Dad was looking toward Mum when he said that last bit, and I knew why.
What started him wanting to write about coincidences was because one happened to him. I suppose it was one of the second sort; the sort that is so amazing that even your own family doesn’t believe it.
Well, I believed it. Mum didn’t.
When I was tiny, Dad said he’d been on a train from Manchester to Leeds, and he was reading a book. He was so engrossed in the book that when he got to his stop, he almost missed it. He panicked and got all his stuff together and jumped off the train before it moved on, and he realized he’d left the book on the seat.
Fast forward about five years, and he was on another train—the Eurostar to Paris, going to a book fair or something for a couple of days. On the way out, he sat next to an elderly German lady. He said they didn’t speak much, but he offered to get her something from the restaurant car as she was quite frail, and she said please could she have a bottle of water.
Two days later, when he was coming home from the book fair, he got on the Eurostar, and was wandering along the carriage trying to find his seat number. He was looking at his ticket and at the numbers printed above the seats, and then he saw someone a little way ahead, laughing and smiling.
It was the old German lady, and by chance their seats were next to each other again.
So Dad sat down, and they got chatting about coincidences that had happened to them over the years, so it was only after an hour or so when they stopped talking that Dad went to put his newspaper in the seat pocket in front of him, and saw that someone had left a book behind.
He pulled it out. It was the same book he’d lost on the train to Leeds years before. Not just the same book, I mean, but the exact same book. His copy with his name in the front and his notes in the margins.
At that point, he said it was so weird he almost fainted. He laughed after a while, and then he got scared for some reason. Scared. He said it actually frightened him. He tried to tell the German lady about it, but she didn’t seem to understand what was so amazing.
There was one final thing about this coincidence, which was this: the book that Dad had lost, and then found again while in the middle of another unrelated coincidence, was one of the most famous books written by the great psychologist Carl Jung; his classic work on what he called “synchronicity.” But which everyone else calls by another name: “coincidence.”
THE THIRD GATE
“She doesn’t believe me,” Dad said to me in the car one Friday night.
“What? You mean Mum?”
“Yes, I mean your mother,” he said. He was talking about his German-lady-train-book-co-inky-dink. “I showed her the book and everything. It’s a bit much when your own wife thinks you’re lying.”
“She doesn’t think that,” I said.
“No?” said Dad, and he sounded really fed up.
I’ll be honest with you, I wasn’t sure that Dad hadn’t made that whole story up, either, but when he said that, I believed him. I believed him because Mum didn’t. I believed him because he needed someone to. So I did.
* * *
We’d been plowing our way through second breakfast for a long time.
“Benjamin,” I said. “Can you see a screen from here? With the flights on?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Can you see if our flight is ready? It’ll say something like ‘Go to Gate.’”
“Uh-huh.”
“Don’t say ‘uh-huh.’ It’s a bit rude. Say, ‘Yes, Laureth. I’d be happy to’.”
“Okay, Laureth.”
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“Our flight?”
“Oh. Yes, it says New York JFK. Nine fifty-five. Then it says, ‘Final Call.’”
“Oh, crap,” I said.
And then I had to get Benjamin to tell me where a waiter was so I could pay, and I had to find a twenty-pound note, and we didn’t even wait for change but had to run to the gate, which is not something I like to do if it’s not somewhere I’m used to, and especially somewhere like an airport full of people.
“Do not let go of my hand,” I said to Benjamin.
“Of course I won’t,” he said grumpily, and then I felt bad for making it seem as if I didn’t trust him. It wasn’t that at all, it was something else, but the something else was not something I could tell Benjamin, because I might have scared him.
And if he got scared, I’d be in trouble.
So I just shut my mouth and we half ran, half walked to the gate, and when we got there Benjamin tugged my hand.
“There’s people in a queue,” he said.
“You’re sure this is 35? For New York?”
“I’m sure, Laureth.”
“Good. Okay.”
We slowed to a walk, and that way we could do the thing that he likes to do and that I like him to do, too, where it looks as though I’m guiding him, but actually he’s guiding me. A little tug this way, a twist that way. We have it down to a fine art, so good in fact that if I have my sunglasses on, people often have no idea about me. Which sometimes, in fact more than sometimes, is just what I want. People can be so … What’s the word? Judgemental. Well, that’s the polite word, anyway.
There was an announcement.
“All remaining passengers for JFK, please make your way immediately to gate 35. Four minutes until we close the gate. Thank you.”
We got in the queue. I smiled to myself and wanted to tell Dad that the third gate was actually numbered 35, for that would have amused him, and then I tried not to think about Dad. Instead I began to think about what I was doing.
By now, Mum would be halfway to Manchester.
She wasn’t due home until Sunday evening, by when, I hoped, we would have found Dad. It was only a matter of hours and everything would be okay. Anyway, it would be way too late to try to stop us. I hadn’t left her a note or anything, since we didn’t have the time for me to power up Dad’s Mac, write a note, print it out. Anyway, even if I had had time, I didn’t want Benjamin to read it. I’d decided that I’d text her when we got to New York. Or found Dad.
Suddenly I saw how stupid I was being.
I had no idea if Dad was actually in New York. Just his notebook. Even if he was, I had no idea where in the city he was. Where he’d been staying. Or how to find him.
The night before, I’d been angry, angry at Mum for not caring, and angry about that other thing, too, the thing I didn’t want to tell Benjamin.
Now, standing in the boarding queue, it was just the reality of standing in line with my little brother, and realizing I was being dumb—irresponsible, in fact.
I pulled my phone out and tried Dad’s number. Now it wasn’t even ringing. A voice said, “The mobile phone you are calling is unavailable.” It kept repeating that, over and over, when it should have gone to voicemail.
Then two things happened at once.
Benjamin squeezed my hand, tilting it slightly forward.
“Our go,” he whispered.
And the lady at the desk called me forward.
“Hello? Please come forward.”
So that was it.
I hesitated. I didn’t have to say anything, to tell them what was going on. I could just pretend to be ill, or that we were in the wrong queue. In fact, I could just turn and walk away.
Benjamin’s hand felt hot in mine.
I could simply feel how excited he was.
“Let’s go and see Dad, Stan!” he said.
I stepped forward and held out our passports and boarding cards.
I ke
pt my hand held out, which is a trick I sometimes use to make the person put the things straight back in them, so I don’t need to wave my arms around looking stupid.
“Have a nice flight,” she said, and we got on the plane.
THE RIGHT SEAT
“‘Deals are made to be broken,’ he said, ‘which was rich given what…’”
“… when it was more like fifty-four than three!”
“Bernard. Bernard, have you got my cushion? Oh, honestly, Bernard.”
Snatches of conversation came to me as we walked down the aisle of the plane. I often overhear things and like to guess what people are talking about. Sometimes it can be pretty obvious, other times really weird. You hear a little snippet and you wonder what someone can possibly be discussing in order to say, “of course the green ones don’t bounce.”
So we were trying to find our seats, when Sam came along, and … but maybe I should begin at the beginning.
Begin at the beginning, Dad always says. It’s one of his favorite sayings, and he likes using it about writing in particular.
It’s funny about Dad and writing, and when I say funny, I don’t especially mean hilarious. I mean odd, strange, weird, and frequently unpredictable. Sometimes everything is good and he’s happy and I think he loves what he does. And then there’s the other times when he goes quiet and won’t speak about it, and gets grumpy if any of us try to. Then he seems to hate what he does, and I wish he’d give up and do something else instead.
But when it’s going well, he’s very happy to talk about writing, and how books work, and why some films work and others don’t, and stupid ways to write a book. He says writing a book is hard enough as it is without making things any harder, like, for example, writing the middle first and then the end and then a bit near the end, and then the beginning and … so on. So, he says, begin at the beginning.
Which, I now realize, I haven’t.
I’ve been jumping about all over the place, but maybe that’s because that’s how my mind works, whereas Dad thinks in straight lines, connecting the dots, from here, to here, to there. Done.
But maybe there’s more than one way to tell a story, maybe you don’t have to begin at the beginning, and anyway, who really knows where anything begins?
Dad’s favorite example of that is to do with books, too. One of the questions he gets asked all the time is how long it takes to write a book. And usually he says “a year” because it’s the easiest thing to say. But occasionally, if he likes the person doing the asking, which I can tell because his voice is warmer, he’ll give the real answer. Which is who knows?
How long does it take to write a book?
Is it the length of time you are banging away on your computer’s keyboard?
Does it include the months of changes your editor asks you to make?
Should it be measured from when you had the very first thought that went into it, whatever it was that set you thinking about it?
And does that depend on everything that’s happened to you since, well, since you were born?
Is that how long it really takes to write a book? Your whole life?
All I knew was that Dad had been trying to write a book for longer than Benjamin’s whole lifetime, more or less. One day, not so long ago, Mum said he was obsessed. I shouted at her when she said that because it’s not true. It can’t be—it mustn’t be true.
* * *
“There they are,” said Benjamin.
He was ahead of me, walking down the aisle. I remembered how big the plane was the last time we’d flown to America; it seemed to go on for miles, and I’d already bumped into three people.
The aisle was too narrow for us to walk side by side, and I was shuffling along behind Benjamin with my hand on his shoulder. Despite this I’d managed to kick someone’s foot and bump elbows with someone else.
I was doing my very best not to look blind, because I was still very nervous about someone finding some regulation, some rule that would get us thrown off. I just wanted to get as far as being in the air, I told myself, and then I would relax.
So then I knocked into someone else, a woman, who said, “Why don’t you take your oh-so-cool glasses off and you might be able to see where you’re going?”
Just like that.
I told her I was sorry, kept my head down, and we moved on. Then Benjamin stopped walking at last.
“35 D, that’s you,” he said. “Oh…”
He sounded disappointed.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I wanted a window seat.”
“I’m sorry. We booked so late. I guess this is all there was left.”
“You’re here, by the alley.”
“The aisle,” I said, automatically.
“The aisle,” said Benjamin. “And I’m next to you.”
He put my hand onto the back of my seat so I knew where it was.
“Can you put our bags away?” I asked Benjamin.
“I can’t reach,” he said, and then a man’s voice said, “Can I help you with those?”
“I can’t reach,” said Benjamin.
“So I see,” said the man. His name was Sam but we didn’t know that yet. He had an American accent.
“You’re tall!” said Benjamin.
The man called Sam laughed.
“There you go. I think I’m in the middle, too. Next to you.”
He was talking to Benjamin, as he squeezed past me and got into his seat. Benjamin followed him, and then I sat down, relieved not to be in anyone’s way anymore.
I sent Dad a text. I said the same thing as before: Please call me. As soon as you get this. Lxx
I was praying he’d call right back. Then and there. There was still time for him to explain everything and for us to get off the plane, go home, and start begging Mum not to kill me.
Then I was thinking about times, about how long it would take to fly to New York, about the time difference, about when I’d said we’d meet Mr. Walker, and stuff like that, and then I heard them announce that the cabin doors were shut, and that we had to turn off our phones.
A few minutes later the plane began to move.
I listened to the bubble of chatter around me, audible above the hum of the engines, and I felt the plane turn and the hum became a roar and we were hurtling down the runway.
I love flying, but I’ve only done it a few times. There was when we went to New York before, of course, and I’ve been away with school a couple of times; we even went skiing last Christmas. I love skiing even more than I like flying. The speed was wonderful, the cold air on my face, but best of all I liked the freedom of being out on the slope, with no one holding my hand, no tables to jump out at you, no steps to trip over, just the instructor behind me, shouting, “Turn!” “Turn!” “Turn!”
The plane thundered on, and I heard the wheels go quiet and felt it tip up into the air, and there was the great feeling of being pushed down and back into your seat.
So that was it.
No turning back, and too late for them to throw us off the plane.
In seven hours, we’d be in America.
THE PLANE TRIP
With a cheer, Benjamin chuckled as the plane took off.
“Like flying?”
It was the man sitting next to him.
“It’s okay,” said Benjamin. “Stan doesn’t like it, though.”
“Stan?” asked the man.
Benjamin didn’t say anything. I guessed he was holding Stan up for the man to see, because he said, “Oh, I see. Stan. Great name for a raven.”
“You’re clever,” said Benjamin.
The man laughed.
“You think so?”
“I think so,” said Benjamin. “Most people think he’s a blackbird.”
“Really? People are dumb, aren’t they?”
Benjamin didn’t answer that, and I hoped the conversation might be over, but it seemed it wasn’t.
“So why are you cheering if Stan hates flying???
?
“I’m cheering because we’re going to see Dad.”
“Benjamin,” I said. “Leave the man alone. He doesn’t want you nattering for seven hours.”
“Oh, I don’t mind,” said the man.
I do, though, I thought. The last thing I wanted was Benjamin telling the world what we were doing.
“And you must be Benjamin’s mum?” the man said.
Benjamin laughed.
“Did I say something goofy?”
“She’s my sister.”
“Sister? Oh, hey.”
I tried to work out if he had been joking or not, but I couldn’t. Dad’s tried to explain to me loads of times how people use their eyes to change the meaning of what they’re saying. I just don’t get it, but I know it makes it harder for me to spot sarcasm. Irony.
And I know, with my big sunglasses on, and when my hair hangs over my face, which I usually let it, and because I’m quite tall, that people often think I’m older than I am. So he might have made a genuine mistake, or then again he might just have been being a smooth talker.
“I’m Sam,” he said. “Nice to meet you.”
“Laureth,” I said, feeling uncomfortable.
There was a pause and I had that awful feeling I get when I know I’m missing something.
I felt Benjamin grab my wrist and he plonked my hand into Sam’s.
“Sorry if I’ve offended you,” he said. His voice had gone a little flatter than before, and then I felt bad because he’d been holding his hand out to shake mine and I must have looked as if I were ignoring him.
“No, no,” I said, “not at all. Just distracted, that’s all.”
“Scared of flying?”
“No, I love it.”
“I didn’t catch your name. Laura, was it?”
“No, Laureth.”
“That’s an unusual name. Where’s it come from?”
So then I had to tell Sam the whole story about Laureth. Why I haven’t learned to say “It’s Welsh,” or something, I don’t know. Like Dad does with questions he gets too often. Me, on the other hand, for some reason I feel compelled to tell the whole story.