Work Text:
Back at One
With shaking hands I fumble out my mobile phone. Tears are streaming down my face. Around me, the roaring of the engines mixes with the sobbing and crying of the other passengers.
The woman next to me keeps readjusting her oxygen mask, eyes fixed to the seat in front of her. Across the aisle an older couple hold hands, gazing into each others eyes. They had loved together, lived together. And now they were about to die together. The lucky few.
Closing my eyes, I listen to the call being connected. In our London apartment your phone would be ringing now, the oh so familiar guitar sound of “Every teardrop is a waterfall” filling the silence of the kitchen where you are probably reading through scripts again. A crack in the line, then
“Hello?” You sound like you’ve just woken up. God, how I love your husky morning voice and your rumpled bed hair.
“Honey? It’s me,” I reply, my voice croaky and hoarse from crying.
“Darling, where are you? I thought you wouldn’t land before 12.” You sound confused, a little worried even.
“I’m still on the plane, Tom. I...I won’t come home.” My voice is barely a whisper and yet I hope you can hear me. Silence on your end, agony on mine. It seems a lifetime until you speak again. Your voice, your soft, smooth voice. Even now, amidst this chaos, you manage to make me relax a little just by speaking to me.
“What do you mean you won’t come home?” Disbelief. Worry. Fear. Presentiment.
I try to take a deep breath. It feels as if something heavy is pressing down onto my chest, refusing to let me take my last breaths in peace.
“There are men on the plane. I think they killed the pilot and now they...they want to crash into the American Embassy.”
A sharp intake of breath. Yes, I know. The American Embassy is right in the midst of Mayfair. Yes, I know what that means. Hundreds, thousands of casualties.
Still no reply from you. I speak again, desperation showing in my voice.
“Honey, please make sure you’re far away, okay? Call everyone you know, warn them, go away. As far as possible.” Are you crying?
I can hear you snivel at the other end, not remembering the last time I saw you cry, heard you cry. It breaks my heart. I did not want to hurt you. I just wanted to say goodbye.
“Darling, I...god, I can’t lose you.” Yes, you are crying.
“I’m so sorry, Tom.” More tears run down my cheeks, dampening the neckline of my shirt. I look down upon the photo in my hand. You, me, happy times. It was taken last year in Paris. Do you remember that day, my love?
“I love you so much!” Silence. “Can I stay with you?” I can almost see your puppy dog face when you ask that.
“Do you really want to?,” I whisper in disbelief. It would be nasty. There would be screams and panic and...death.
“Of course I do. I’ll stay with you till the very end. And even beyond if that is somehow possible.” So honest, so loving, so devoted. I can hear your tears, darling. How I would love to kiss them away before they drip onto a script. Or maybe into your coffee?
“Will you promise me one thing?,” I whisper, the shouting of the men in the front and the rising panic around me indicating that there is not much time left.
“Everything!”
“Please be happy again. Find someone else, love someone else. Fulfil your dreams of a family, a cottage in the country with horses. Please don’t forget how to love and be loved, my dear.” You want to protest, don’t you. You hold back any objections that you might have to this, I can feel it.
“I promise.” A smile, on my lips, not on yours.
Looking out of the window I can see London’s streets, like veins running through a body, the people pumping the city’s blood through the density of the British capital.
Not much time left, but enough for one last thing.
“I love you, Tom.” And I always will.