Synchronicity

30th May 2022

There are sweet blessings on the back end of despair. The fear is gone you’re past that. There are avenues that just weren’t there before. Grief exposes them, like penetrating oil it brings out the natural grain of the wood. Death is never just a door for the dead.

I didn't react to Dolly's suicide straight away except to deny it altogether. I was sealed from the real world on a nutjob ward. It may have helped that she made a point of visiting me a couple of days after she buggered off. I felt her arms around me from behind and instinctively turned around to hug her. It didn’t look like her. Not in the flesh nor in the spirit. Her face looked like a negative photograph. The kind you used to get in strips inside the envelope when your photos came back from being developed. She felt solid though, real and we got to have a proper hug, which rarely happened when she was alive.

Grief was a gradual process. Being on the ward merely delayed the inevitable. Cocky Coral noticed that.

‘It's not doing you any good in here Cal. You're going backwards.’

Not long after Dolly’s funeral a robin visited me, perched on a wall outside my window. I knew it was her. She put a message in my head to open my favourite poetry collection, which was on the floor by my bed. When I picked the book up, it fell open at a poem which I didn’t recognize. I knew that poetry book inside out and this poem ‘An Arundel Tomb’ by Philip Larkin, was not in there.

I read it. It was about an earl and countess in their stone tomb. I got to the last line and there was a message for me.

‘What will survive of us is love’

As I looked up the robin flew off.

I don't believe in accidents. If something randomly happens, it does so for a reason. Boats miss people because they are meant to. I’m great at missing boats. Bad timing is my speciality. I’m pretty sure Stephen Sondheim wrote those lyrics just for me.

‘Isn’t it rich. Are we a Pair. You here at last on the ground, me in mid-air …’

So when, after the robin visited ‘coincidences’ were happening too often, the timely occurrence of everyday events began to disturb me. I’d think of a song, and it would play on the radio. I’d go out on leave to catch a bus and get to the stop right as it turned up. I’d ring someone just as they were trying to ring me. If I went shopping for a particular item it would be at the front of the shop by the door waiting for me.

The first thing I had noticed was that I had all the time in the world. Unusual for me. My days usually emerged from the barrel of the night like a bullet. But now the resistance in the air had gone to infinite proportions giving them less of a projectile and more of an adynamic quality. The days kind of lingered, not in a boring way, in a dog like welcome way, in which everything embarked upon had ample time to play itself out. There was no chance of being late for anything and the more relaxed I became the more I could stretch and squeeze the hours at will. All it took was belief. The belief that I had all the time in the world. Every little action I took panned out in perfect timing. If I was due to be somewhere at six o'clock I would be there on the dot without making any special effort. The important thing was to never hurry, in any circumstances. Within this every conversation, every interruption, every advertisement on telly, every meeting with any person, known or unknown, on or off the street was endowed with special meaning. Everything I read, saw, heard, felt, smelt, sensed, spoke of me. As each of these highly significant events occurred, they did so in synchronicity. In that way the next scenario could unfold exactly as it was meant to. All these special references would be point me in a particular direction which I knew I had to follow. It was powerful. The universe was attuning itself to my wavelength.

When it came to other patients on the ward, I was singing from the same hymn book, with the same voice. This was not like me. I'm crap at other people. It was subtle at first. There was this sunny afternoon when I was sitting in the garden with Beryl. She had all these songs and I was equipped with my guitar and on cue, every time.

'Listen to this.' 'I don't wanna be you anymore.' She was playing it through. I’m pulling my pick from the stash pocket of my jeans. Placing my capo on the neck. Searching for my glasses in the grass. I feel them, pick them up, straighten them on my nose, the song is finishing. Last few bars as my hand hovers over the strings. As the final vibrations from Beryl’s phone leave on their journey, I’m off, strumming ‘Don’t Speak’. It’s seamless. We’re singing and laughing. Jista’s dancing on her high heels nearby. I knew I was doing good because Jista only ever listens to clubby music. Loud. Blaring out on whatever speakers she can find or borrow. All day, all night.

'Hey Cal, cool, you do that thing, is no like that you know, in the other one yeh?' Jista was Polish. She meant Roxanne. Beryl is scrolling through her phone for another song she wants. I’m on it.

'Roooooxanne, you don't have to put on the red light …'

My voice has got a unique edge to it. I'm hyping it up. The song suits me perfectly. A couple of other inmates join in. So does the grass, and the flowers. The sun is sending rays that need no barriers. Beryl takes her floppy hat off. The breeze plays with the odd blade of grass. As I finish the garden starts clapping. The odd cheer. I'm allowed to feel genuine. As the clapping dies down Beryl finds the song she wants. It begins to play. She fiddles in her handbag.

'Can you play this one?' It's a tune I don't recognise but I blend in with it, get the right key without effort. When it finishes I am looking for clues. She is sucking a strand of hair, providing space for me to say something.

'I got Passenger in my head.' She pulls her hair out.

'Who's that?'

'The one that sings about kind of obsession and stuff.' She's making a trail in the grass with her finger. I follow it. She picks up her phone again to search for Passenger and I have just enough time to tell her why I relate so much to his music, before ‘River’ starts playing. I dig my rizlas from my pocket and start to make a roll up. A voice goes through my head.

All the time in the world.

I know I'll have plenty of time to smoke before I need to fill the next piece of empty space. Beryl has put her phone down and is pulling her skirt, stretching it towards her knees with both hands. I offer her a roll up and sing along to the track playing on her phone

'… and the rickety tracks they're taking me back to where I used to belong...'

I was attempting to picture in my mind my own roots but there was nowhere. Not like that. Not where rickety tracks would lead. I can relate to Passenger’s desperation but not his Ed Sheerhan style longings for some kind of long lost nostalgic home. My roots aren't really that pretty. Kind of dull in comparison. My roll up has gone out at that point so I light it again. Beryl is speaking but I have missed what she said. A few flutters are going through my tummy, I mustn’t miss a moment.

'Go on then.' She nods her head towards my guitar and stares in my eyes, giving her fingers a quick strum through the air and then flicking her index finger up as if to begin conducting. A take a last drag on my fag, stub it out in the grass, and place my capo on the 2nd fret. When I begin playing I am strumming to the rhythm between us. Our meeting of minds has created a bass line. All I have to do is provide the melody. There is zero pressure to fill a void. I don't really want perfect, but somehow I've got it.

But it's too perfect. I am supposed to be grieving with the volume turned up. Only a couple of weeks after I had been locked up the previous November, my partner had topped herself. Dolly had been under lock and key in another establishment, too far away for me to reach her in time. My head went on strike for a bit with that news. Like heads do when the facts show clearly that their idiocy has killed the one and only true love of their life. I should have been able to separate my head from myself. Been realistic and accepted that it has free will and I cannot be responsible for every stupid thing this stupid head says and does. Even if that includes murder. It did keep me waiting a good while before it went off on one, I was carrying on like nothing had happened. But then it cornered me. Blurted it all out at once. 'She's dead!'. It could have used tact but it didn’t My body went into catatonic spasms after that.

That was before the robin came and all the synchronicity. By the time spring was approaching there was an absolute dogmatic and unshakeable faith in my own intuition. I was juice over-flowing, fruit bursting forth from my own remains. Oblivious to the unhappy truth that ripe fruit is there for the pecking. It was about then that Coral said what she said about me going backwards.

I knew what she meant. Grief has to be lived through and you can’t live through something if you’re shut away from life. I thought about going AWOL. I asked Mimi what I should do as I was in shock. I knew I was in shock because Mimi had told me I was. She was a wise woman Mimi, smart as hell, must have been late sixties, always in the garden smoking, all day, all night. Always refusing to go into ward round, telling Dr. Cutler where to stick it.

Mimi told me straight.

‘Go AWOL Cal.’

So I did. I had wanted to go to London for a while to see my mother because I knew she was about to die and I’m never there when people die. I asked for leave and got back to my accommodation first to pick up some stuff. I hurriedly packed a few things, grabbing a book from a pile on the floor to read on the journey. It was ‘Damage’ by Josephine Hart. I had seen the film before with Jeremy Irons, a dark tale of cruel obsession, but I’d not read the book. As I picked it up a folded song sheet fell out. I opened it and saw it had the lyrics to 'This is the last Day of Our Acquaintance' by Sinead O’Conner. I’d been trying to remember that song. The lyrics talk about saying goodbye to your lover in an office. On the back was ‘The Weakness in Me’ by Joan Armatrading, a song about being torn between two lovers. Both these sets of lyrics appearing at once was no accident. I was in the grip of an obsession and that obsession, although it started after Dolly died, was rooted way before that, further back than I am willing to admit. And worse, it was my shrink. After I let the sorry truth out, we had a last meeting in a room which looked like an office, risk bells ringing everywhere in typical mental health services style.

Before setting off I told the manager I was using my one hour's unescorted leave to return my dog to my friend Popeye and get the bus straight back to the ward. This would buy me some time to follow my escape plan. Instead I went to the pub. I had looked at the train timetables to London and there was one due at just after seven. I ordered a double jamiesons and sat down.

All the time in the world.

That mantra ran through my head again. By now I knew that saying those words to myself meant I could stretch time to allow everything to happen on cue. I checked my watch planning to get a cab to the station. It was six thirty in the evening. I retrieved 'Damage' from my bag, opened it and began the first chapter.

‘There is an internal landscape a geography of the soul, we search for its outlines all our lives’

I knew I was going to relate to this. When I had finished the first chapter, I looked at my watch. Dead on seven. I called a cab. I had forgotten I needed to get a ticket. I drained my glass expecting a wait of at least ten minutes, maybe more, and a possible problem with the dog. As I opened the door of the pub a cab pulled up immediately. It was a woman driver.

'Do you take dogs?'

'Of course, I love dogs.' There were none of the usual complaints when Socks jumped on the back seat. The cab driver told me the train to Paddington was due at five past. My watch said it was four minutes past.

All the time in the world.

She drove down the backstreets and we arrived at Plymouth station in less than a minute. I dashed to the ticket machine, bought a ticket and looked at the schedule. The train had been cancelled. The next one wasn't due till one in the morning. There was no way I could risk waiting that long on the station with all the CCTV. I looked back at the departure board. I could get a train to Exeter St. David's at 9.30pm. I thought of my friend July who lived practically next door to the station. I would go round there for a bit. First I nipped in the Spar shop on the platform to grab a coffee. When I got to the till, July was there standing next to me.. We needed to talk, it was a long time since we had done. I knew then that was why my train had been cancelled. We sat down by the entrance to the station and chatted and had a good laugh about our crap, how neither of us knew how to prioritise, but did it matter anyway. At this point I was not yet aware that I had stepped through a door into another dimension. My belief that I already had done so is bolstered by July insisting that she never met me that evening nor had that conversation.

We said our goodbyes anyhow and me and Socks descended to the platform. I lit a sneaky fag, but stubbed it out after two puffs. I felt exposed with a dog. The CCTV would have no problem picking me out. We entered a waiting room and I kept my head down. Every now and then I peeped out the window at passers by. I spotted one of those undercover spies the NHS send out, pretending to check notifications on her phone. The flat pump shoes gave her away and the fob on her trousers. She was clocking people to her left and right and every now and then sneaking a glance at the waiting room. I was jittery and my hands were hot and sweaty as I checked my watch. It was nine o'clock, long since dark and freezing cold outside. I opened my book again and began reading the next chapter.

‘They say that childhood forms us, that those early influences are the key to everything.. Is the peace of the soul so easily won?’

I already knew this book was about me. The main character was a doctor but that was irrelevant. It was his soul I related to. As I finished the chapter I heard my train pulling into the platform. I checked my watch. Nine thirty on the dot. Again it had taken exactly half an hour to read a chapter.

All the time in the world. I was already manufacturing the stuff. As I vacated the waiting room I had that tingly shivery feeling you get when you know it’s that moment when you are either gonna win or you’re gonna lose. I turned to Socks for comfort. The last time I had spent time with her she had been highly anxious. This time she understood that I wasn’t gonna be leaving her again and she was completely calm. She grounded me. I would follow her lead.

We boarded the train to Exeter St. Davids. I sat down and began reading 'Damage' again.

‘Even as I went my own way I felt I served some purpose of his. So it is with powerful personalities. As we swim and dive away from them we still feel the water is theirs.’

I thought about my mother and those times I cringe when my mouth opens and it is her speaking, not me. Immersed in the story, I almost missed my stop. I finished the chapter and looked up to find we had reached Exeter. The train had pulled into the station. My watch said 10pm. The book had really short chapters which would normally take a couple of minutes, but it became apparent that each chapter was taking exactly half an hour to read.

I got off the train just before it pulled out again. It took me a few seconds to register that I was at Exeter St. Thomas. I’d got off at the wrong stop. I decided to walk to Exeter St. Davids to get the connection to Paddington. Not knowing the area, I began walking in what I felt was the right general direction. I saw a pub and went in to ask for directions. A friendly looking, well fed and watered man was at the bar. His face ballooned at me, his eyes struggling to stay surfaced.

'Do you know the way to Exeter St. David's station?' He smiled. There was a drip hanging off the tip of his nose, a stalactite hanging from the caves of his nostrils.

'Yeh you just keep to your left, go over the bridge, keep left and it's straight on all the way.'

'Great. Can I use your loo?'

'There love.' He pointed me to the back of the room before wiping his nose with his sleeve. I cringed at the ‘love’ word.

'Cheers.' When me and Socks came out of the toilet, I was about to resume my journey. The train from Exeter St. David's was due at five past midnight. There was no hurry though. All the time in the world. I returned to the bar and asked the barman for a double Jamiesons.

'Sit down, I'll bring it over.'

I found a seat at a table in an alcove, which formed part of the front wall. The clock on the wall said ten fifteen. Socks disappeared underneath and I retrieved ‘Damage’ from my backpack and began to read the next chapter. Halfway through I felt the tears welling up.

‘….Time rode through my life – a victor. I barely even clung to the reins. When we mourn those who die young – those who have been robbed of time – we weep for lost joys …… we believe that the untried soul, trapped inside its young prison, might have flown free and known the joy that we still seek...’

I imagine my brother, C.B. sitting opposite me as he would be today if he had lived. Late forties, still dark with a few grey hairs and a goatee, awkward, shifting in his seat, blocking his ears from the background noise, pulling my arm to go – or would he still pull my arm?

I drained my glass as I finished the chapter. I looked back at the clock. Ten forty five. Another chapter done in exactly half an hour. I got up to leave and stopped outside for a fag. It was raining, so I pulled Socks round the side of the pub and stood with my back to the wall, sheltering under the narrow soffit. Stubbing out my fag I began walking towards the bridge. I spotted an old man with white hair and a white beard crossing the road slowly, with a wheeled walker. I recognised him.

'Billy!' I called out to him. It didn't look right. He shouldn't be here and definitely not alone. Billy never went out on his own. He wasn't allowed. Severe vascular dementia. Prone to cursing at you with extreme racist or sexist comments. He walked straight past me and carried on. He hadn't recognised me. But he knew my face, it was my name he never got right. Familiarity should have made me feel at ease, but it didn't. I called out to him

'Where are you going ….. Billy!' He turned down a side street. Socks pulled after him but I had no reason to deny him a little freedom. I was on the run myself. It seemed odd though. I knew there was no way that Billy could have got to Exeter from Plymouth without being picked up by the police.

On the other side of the bridge I let Socks off the lead and she ran through some grassland. I found a path leading in the right direction along the riverbank. There was no one around. My nerves were heightened a little. Generally I had the habit of repeatedly checking behind me for would be attackers, a lifelong habit since being raped as a teenager. I heard the roar of a motorbike engine in the distance. Think once think twice think bike …. twice two times. Twos were happening a lot. There had been two seagulls on the roof outside the hospital performing a dance. Me and Dolly. Two butterflies landed on a wall outside the theatre after I had used my leave one day to watch an afternoon performance of ‘Madame Butterfly’. Me and Dolly. It took two knocks on the left door panel on the ward to avoid being zapped from the other side of the door. It followed then that I should allow myself to check only twice over my shoulder once every two minutes. That little ritual would work to ward off would be assailants. If I checked only once or more than twice that would jinx us.

It worked. Socks led the way and we walked to her rhythm. To the numerous scents on the breeze of grasses spiked with the yellows of celandine, wood anemone and winter aconite.. It was the tail end of a cold winter but even the odd marsh marigold had raised an early head. Who knows what other tantalizing and tempting offerings were hiding in the undergrowth. A world I could never know, only appreciate through the rushing of doggy enthusiasm. Many of the trees were still bare, some wearing ivy cloaks, reminding us that spring was not a done deal yet. I spotted a witch hazel shrub and picked some for luck. Dolly had used it for banishing rituals.

I hadn’t forgotten my mission. To get to see my mother before she died. She was 88 years old and in hospital with severe cellulitis. She already had heart failure and rabid psoriasis all over her body. I was aware I had not seen her for a long time and the hospital had no right locking me up and keeping me from saying goodbye for the last time. I really struggled with my feelings towards my mother, but hate needs closure too. If it was hate. When you go to see someone that you used to love and suddenly you know you just don’t love them anymore - Well the same is possible with hate. Without commitment it can fizzle out like flat lemonade.

When we arrived at Exeter St. David's the Paddington train was waiting for us. I took some diazepam and slept for a couple of hours, waking up at Reading for an extended stop. I got off to look for somewhere for Socks to have a wee. I could not find my way out of the station. Someone told me to use the lift, so I did. I never use lifts. Being mugged at knifepoint in a lift when I lived in Peckham had sealed that one for me.

When I exited the lift it occurred to me that I was doing everything differently. Ignoring all my usual habits. Fears. We walked outside. Socks wouldn't wee on concrete but I couldn't see any grass.

All the time in the world. I saw a raised bed in the distance. We strolled over and Socks obliged, just in time for us to get back to the platform precisely as the train was about to leave. I felt that excitement you get when you realise that absolutely anything is possible. I found the buffet car and asked for a coffee. Counting out my change I found I was minus two pence. The waiter told me not to worry about it, but as I picked up my coffee and turned to leave, I noticed a coin on the floor. It was a twopence piece I picked it up and put it on the bar. I found my seat again and began to read the next chapter of ‘Damage’ It was two thirty on the dot. It was obvious to me that I was starring as both main characters in this book. The one, desperate in the grip of an overwhelming impossible obsession, driven to sacrifice everything. The other plagued with too much loss, the first one being her sixteen year old brother, had become cold and heartless.

I got to the end of the chapter at exactly three in the morning and started to get my bags and Socks together ready to disembark. There weren't many people about on Paddington station so it wasn’t too threatening and I was glad I had arrived so early. I found my way out to the road to look for another place for Socks to wee. The park was closed so I carried on till I found another raised bed. Back at the station I could not operate the ticket machine. I had grown up in London and lived the majority of my life there but after so many years away it seemed foreign. A ticket collector helped me with the machine and I got down to the tube station. I arrived on the Bakerloo line platform just at the very minute the first tube train of the morning was about to pull out. I got on and walked along the carriage. A pakistani woman seeing Socks pulled her legs back into the seat so I gave her a wide berth and continued to the next carriage. Two empty seats to my right beckoned me so we sat down. There were two friendly looking women sitting opposite me. The noise and movement of the tube was disturbing Socks until one of the woman asked me if she could stroke her. Socks rolled over and she began tickling her belly. The other woman chipped in with comments and cuteness stories. Somehow I knew I was destined to sit on this seat, on this tube, on the Bakerloo line, on 17th March 2017. These two women had been put there to put me at ease. The universe was arranging itself on my behalf. Everything around me was in perfect rhythm. Maybe too perfect. And I was absurdly relaxed.

At Waterloo, we got off the tube and headed for the main train station. There was only one way to get there. Via a long escalator. I had visions of paws getting stuck. We stepped on anyway. Socks was fine. It was easy. Most danger is caused by fear. I kind of wish I’d known that when I was younger. We headed out of the station and wandered around. I wanted to see if I could remember the area. There was a cafe, no dogs allowed, so we turned around to go back. Nothing was recognizable. Hire bikes on a stand. New to me. We went back onto the station forecourt and found a Costa. I ordered a croissant and coffee and tore a piece off for Socks. When I had finished, an Italian looking woman with long dark hair approached me and handed me a coffee. I shook my head

'No, that's not mine.'

'It yours, take it.'

'No, no really it’s ..'

'Take it.'

She lodged it into my hands and walked away. I stared at the polystyrene cup. She might be trying to poison you. I turned the cup around and noticed words printed on it. ‘Dolly’s House.

‘Dolly,s House. Jesus.’

I looked up but the woman had disappeared. It’s a sign. She must have been an angel. I took a sip. The coffee tasted fine and the tempting aroma of the roasted beans wafted all around me. I drank it down. By far the best I had ever tasted. I kept the cup placing it carefully in my bag.

Waterloo East was my next destination. My memory escaped me and I had to ask in the information booth.. They pointed me in the direction of a lift. There was a notice on the lift door. Don't use in case of fire. Normally a warning like that would put me off, but for some reason it did not. I got in. I had become much stronger than me. We got out at the floor above and followed signs to Waterloo East. They led us straight back to the main Waterloo station. I was back where I'd started. A middle aged man was coming towards me and I asked him how to get to Waterloo East.

‘My train isn’t leaving for fifteen minutes. I’ll show you if you like.’

An offer like that in my previous existence would have stunk of ulterior motive. But I couldn’t see one anywhere. People were being helpful. Unusually so. I was used to hostility. But I was seeing none of that, anywhere. The man led me to the same lift I had just been in and entered it with me. He pushed the button for the second floor and we got out exactly where I had done beforehand. Right in front of us was a large sign saying 'Waterloo East'. It had not been there before though. And the odds that a couple of workmen, tools and a ladder had dashed there in the last few minutes, slapped the sign up and disappeared as quickly as they had come, was a million to one.

I thanked the guy and led Socks down the steps towards Waterloo East. As soon as we hit a corridor, shit loads of people were rushing towards us. London had arrived. I was back in a flash. The sea of faces. My heart began to pound as they passed me. All the faces too square, too plastic, hideous and disproportionate. The foreheads too prominent, like hills with no valleys. The noses too large and the lips too fat. The bottom lips, swollen, giving an impression of zombie like indifference to anything outside of their own herd and grazing patch. The eyes were long since dead. That grainy lysergic acid can still affect me, even though the last time I took LSD was about thirty years ago.

I pushed through the crowd with my head down. I know not to look up when those faces flash back at me. As quickly as the throng had come, they went. I was at the station. I found the ticket machine and waited in the queue.

All the time in the world.

The machine seemed complicated. I couldn't get it to work. The woman waiting behind me took my cash and did it for me eager to help. She was young and perhaps Greek with a long bony nose well-defined cheek and jawbones and large oval eyes with thick eyebrows. After thanking her I was puzzled. Where was the pushing and shoving? Where was the irritation on the faces of those whose schedule is interrupted by the obviously unemployed idiot with the dog? Had I missed something Another car crash? Had Diana died again?

The train for Elmstead Woods was waiting for me when I got to the platform. It left as soon as Socks and I had boarded. On the journey, again, there were two female dog lovers. I had learned very quickly as a homeless junky, back in my mid twenties and a lifetime ago, that having a dog, was an insurance policy. People would see you as human rather than an eyesore. When one of the women had reached her stop and got up to get off the other woman reached down and ruffled Socks’ fur. She was slim, long mousy brown hair. Smartly dressed. A commuter, just escaped from the city.

‘He’s beautiful’

‘He’s a she’

‘She ….. ah well I have a ‘he’, he’s rescue, I can’t bring him on a train because he’s afraid of men.’

‘Was he badly treated’

‘Yes unfortunately’

‘Socks is sometimes nervous around men too. But I'm the one who's been badly treated.

‘She would be nervous then’

I could tell this woman picked up on me. We understood each other and we both knew the reason why we both understood dogs. We had some connection on another level. I knew for certain she would get off at the same station as me, Elmstead Woods, She did.

As we left the station I noticed a cab rank. I stopped for a moment. Why get a cab when I've got all the time in the world. I wasn't sure what time my mum was due out of hospital, but it was no longer possible, in this rearranged universe, for me to arrive too early, before she got home.

We took a slow walk, taking rests on the garden walls of houses. An accident a year beforehand when I had fallen backwards down concrete steps, had left me in pretty much constant pain. The sun hesitated before coming out. It’s personality shone through braving the cold like me. For the first time I noticed the lank quality of the air. Stale, as if it had been hanging around too long. Surburbia. That had been my normal at one time. We passed my old house. A place I had lived until aged about ten. It was semi-detached, at the top of a short hill. In nowhere land. At any other time seeing it would have brought back memories but there was nothing. No significance. As if it was just another house in just another surburban street on just another day. We carried on into the recreation ground. Everybody I passed stopped and spoke to me. Human actual beings. Socks played with other dogs. She was happy, really happy, because she was back with me, as she should be. Nobody should be separated from those they love when they are in the depths of grief. And grief should not be forced to camouflage itself for the sake of financing the careers of mental health professionals.

After an hour or so I took a wee in the woods and we walked on into Chislehurst village. I needed somewhere I could get in in the warm with Socks. The old Queens Head pub was still standing so I went in but it was no dogs. I carried on past the ponds because that was the way Socks wanted to go. The old island was still there in the middle. A mass of rushes, tangled reeds, pondweed and pennywort, dotted with a few marsh marigolds, surrounded by duckweed. The untidy appearance reminded me of me. I was back for a moment a child wading out in the water, a little Jim Hawkins on route to Treasure Island. That part of me hadn't changed. For a moment I forgot my childhood was only a film I once watched. From which I could recall only a very few fragmented scenes. Perhaps those who leave their place of origin and exist elsewhere can dodge triggers. But then they might miss the odd bit of buried treasure too.

I needed a rest so I sat down in the bus shelter in front of the ponds. I got talking to a girl sitting next to me, asking her if she knew a pub that would allowed dogs. She suggested The Bulls Head. I knew the one. I attempted to read the bus timetable but couldn't find my glasses. She read it for me and told me which number bus. 81. And to just go two stops. Just as she had finished speaking an 81 bus turned up.

After two stops I got off the bus and there was The Bulls Head opposite me. It looked the same as it had done when I was a child. Socks squeezed past me as we went in and after getting a double Jamiesons I found a seat made for me at the far end of the lounge. One of those perfectly comfortable Victorian chairs with a high buttoned back. Antique rosewood, salmon pink upholstery with cabriole legs and a carved serpentine front rail. I settled in it and read more of 'Damage'.

‘Those who are lucky should hide. They should be grateful. They should hope the days of wrath will not visit their home. They should run to protect all that is theirs and pity their neighbour when the horror strikes. But quietly and from a distance.’

I finished a chapter, again perfectly on the half hour. Someone had finally written my life story so I was never gonna have to. The bar staff brought water and treats for Socks. There was even a roaring, real fire in the hearth. Everything had been happening on the half hour. Each time I moved on or changed what I was doing if I checked my watch the time would always be exactly on the hour, or half past the hour, or quarter to or quarter past. Never anywhere in between. It was as if I was falling into slots in timespace, where I could only change direction at certain, pre-ordained points. Each chapter I read also finished in exactly half an hour and on one of these points. I had the urge to start to record what was going on with me as it was happening, so I asked the bar staff for some paper and a pen. They fished me out some paper and I began to write notes. It was 1pm on the dot.

I guessed my mum would be back home by about two thirty. After writing for a while and finishing my drink I looked at my watch. It was one thirty. I ordered another drink and continued writing. After coming to a natural break I checked my watch again and it was two fifteen. I went to look for a cab number and found some stickers on the wall. Royal Cars, Bromley Town Taxis, Speedy Cabs. I opted for Speedy Cabs and they were true to their name. Before I had put the phone down one was waiting outside the door. I got another rare breed of cabbie that loved dogs and we got to my mum's bungalow at two thirty precisely. I knocked on the door but there was no answer. I kept knocking and ringing the bell. I knew she had to be there. My hunch could not be wrong. I went round the back and let myself through the gate, then banged on the kitchen window. Then I saw her. She was moving slowly with her walker towards the kitchen door. The flesh on her face was sagging and her expression was hung like a dog. I went back to the front door and rang the bell again. After a few moments she opened the door. She looked startled, overwhelmed. Older than ever before. The colour drained from an already deadly pale face. Her lack of greeting and reaction told me she was shocked. I had forgotten that you do not visit my mother without prior arrangement. We were both in shock now.

I had accomplished my mission. I had got there and seen my mother before her time was up. Up until that moment I had kept my cheap twenty quid pay as you go phone switched off, so that no one could trace me. My mother talked at me for a while until we fell into a groove which should not have been there. A common ground. A first. The starting point was that we had both just left hospital. I was kind of high and she was kind of stoned. Her physical illness and old age had gone to her head. She was pre-dimensional. On the verges of dementia. In a way it was a blessing, her lack of memory an oasis in my unforgiving desert. A place I had been dying of thirst for as long as I can remember.

Later my sister came over. Underneath her trademark flat affect, she was tense, taught, not impressed with my presence. That was familiar. She kept repeating that my mother was very ill in the head. But when I suggested helping in some way, my sister insisted that mum knew exactly what she was doing and to leave her alone. This was nonsensical. More than once Liza contradicted herself. She had always been a logical, functional, practical person and right now she was making little sense. That absurd thing crept in. The one I get when I watch people in the street going about their business as if they know what they are doing. Driving in plastic boxes like they know where they are going. I wanted to crack up laughing. I held it in until Liza had left the room and then let rip. My mother's face creased up too. When Liza came back in the room we had to restrain ourselves. Act presumably like a mother and daughter are supposed to act.

I stayed the night at my mother's. Got her something to eat. There was nothing in the fridge except some eggs about three months out of date, some brown and soggy lettuce and a carton of pea soup which claimed it was fresh. Having no choice makes things so much simpler. I grabbed the soup and found a bowl. I looked around for some bread and spotted half a loaf in the corner of the worktop. On closer examination it was mouldy. I threw it away. I tugged at the plastic lid on the soup carton, but it wouldn't budge. I noticed a band of plastic round the top. Perhaps I needed to pull that off. No joy. This was one of those packages that are designed to test your problem solving skills. I wouldn't let it beat me and wasn't prepared to give in and resort to the screwdriver with my mother standing beside me clinging on to the safety of the kitchen sink.

All the time in the world

After my mother had finished her meal and I had sat thinking about how I hate pea soup, I decided I needed a bath. There was utter relief when my cold, aching limbs sank into the sanctuary of the hot water. I lay there for a while listening to Socks whining softly outside the door. I looked at my naked, emaciated body, exposed under the water, cultivated from a combination of grief and dislike of hospital food. At that point I began to feel too naked. At first I thought it was just because my mother was in the next room but it was more than that. Something was missing. My right arm looked wrong. I lifted both hands in the air to compare. A niggling anxiety rapidly became a tidal wave of panic as it clicked home that Dolly's bracelet was missing from my right wrist. The gold bracelet with the gold heart dangling from it. Inscribed with the immortal words:

'You came into my life and left an imprint on my heart.'

The bracelet had been a gift from her. I was to wear it for the rest of my life. It was her, all I had left of her. I froze.

I was in that bath for a long while. The water was beginning to go cold when my mother shuffled into the bathroom. My arms were still raised in the air. She stared at me with a blank expression.

‘Are you praying?

I couldn't answer. She muttered something about the fact that I shouldn't have come when I wasn't well, and turned round to hobble out again.

The next morning I took Socks out and went to the shops for my mum. I was still cursing myself for being stupid enough to lose all that I had left of Dolly. Outside Sainsburys there was a big issue seller. A Romanian gypsy who I had bought a magazine from the day before. She had given me a look the look, that look I know well from my psychedelic days. The look of recognition from a fellow traveller on the other side. When I’d opened the Big Issue later, there was a story about someone losing a partner to suicide.

When I got back to the bungalow my mother’s cleaner was arriving. Liza had arrived too. The cleaner rushed around the house in speeded up jumps as if she were a character in a Laurel and Hardy movie. My mum and I were getting on stupidly well and we both found this funny. I tried to reign it in while my sister was in the room but as soon as she went out to the kitchen both my mum and I dissolved into hysterics. My mother's eyes were literally streaming. Liza reappeared in the doorway with the gravest look I had ever seen on her face. That made me crack up even more. I attempted to trace the lines of division between mentally well and mentally ill but could not find any.

I knew I had to leave again and fairly soon, so I switched on my phone and rang the care home to tell them where I was. The manager said she would get on to the police and get back to me. Twenty minutes later the police called. They told me to stay at my mum's as it would take a couple of days for them to arrange transport to take me back to the ward in Plymouth. I told them there was no way I could stay at my mum’s. They told me they would ring me back within half an hour. They didn't. So I switched off my phone and lied to my mum and sister, saying I had been told to get a cab to the nearest police station.

I did get a cab. But not to the police station. Instead Socks and I went back to Elmstead Woods train station. I had to find the bracelet because I had promised to wear it for the rest of my life. Therefore the rest of my life was never going to happen without the bracelet. I figured that if I had lost it on the train from Waterloo East, then it could be in Tonbridge now, where the train terminated. So we got on the Tonbridge train. The signs would lead me to the bracelet. They had to. Or I was meant to die. I pocketed my ticket in case I needed to prove this story as to where I had been and why I had not waited as the police had told me to. Being AWOL from a nuthouse is a grey area. Being put away for being ill is not a crime, neither is escaping. But for the non crime of escaping it is almost certain you will get more time.

Before sitting down I scoured the carriage feeling down the side of the empty seats for the bracelet. I made one last ditch chance to phone the hospital. Jasmine one of the nurses answered. I let her know that I had lost Dolly's bracelet and I had had enough. She said they were trying their best to get the police to bring me back and asked me where I was. The background whistling and creaking as the train pulled out of the station gave away the fact I was on a train. She asked me where I was going. I just told her that I was going to continue following the signs. I was getting agitated and I tripped and fell over in the carriage whilst on the phone..

‘Are you okay’ A man started up from his seat..

‘No I’m alright.’ I struggled up while Jasmine asked me where the signs were leading. I wasn't going to tell her. It had gone past that point. I switched my phone off, stuck my earphones in and listened to mono sounds through my left ear as I stared out the window at the endless parade of surburban houses shooting back into the distance. I checked my watch as we pulled into a station. Seven o'clock. The sign on the platform said 'Sevenoaks'. Seven o'clock and I was at Sevenoaks. It was a sign. I had memories of the area too. From childhood. Visits with my Aunti Valerie and Aden to Knole Park. Deer. A picnic. Their dog, Shandy and my dog Rusky. Rusky biting Liza Rusky going, never to be seen again. I must be meant to get off the train here. As I vacated the carriage the man who had offered to help got off behind me.

'Sounds like you're in a lot of trouble.' I took out my earphones and left them hanging.

'Yeh mate, it's life.' He laughed through his nose, nodding in agreement and walked past me. But immediately he turned around and stared at me.

‘Gee e t baa aack on the traaaaaaain.’ His mouth was moving in slow motion exaggerating the syllables. I didn’t need to be told twice. My heart began to pump fast as I pulled Socks back onto the train dragging my backpack behind me. My music was still playing one earphone hanging out of my ear. The train pulled out straight away and I looked out the window to see the guy one more time but he had vanished. There was no way he could have got off the platform that quickly. Another spirit, sent to guide me back to my lost bracelet. I spent the last leg of the journey wandering up and down between cars searching.

The next and last stop was Tonbridge so we got off there. Not far from the station I found a small churchyard. At the front there was a sign with pictures of robins and blackbirds. I thought of that robin again. The one that had perched on my window after Dolly died. And the poem it led me to, by Larkin, the last line ‘What will survive of us is love’ I wanted to think that that was what Dolly was telling me, but the previous line in the poem made me unsure.

‘our almost-instinct almost true

what will survive of us is love’

Almost is not love

I didn’t doubt that Dolly had loved me. I just doubted that she knew what love was.

I saw a ball on the ground so I chucked it to Socks. We played for a bit then I sat down. It took me a while to register that there was a police station over the other side of the road. The sign said ‘Kent Police.’ It crossed my mind that I was meant to go over there. Be found. I had already tried that avenue though.

All the time in the world.

I wandered about. Found a cafe and continued reading my book.

‘I have sometimes looked at old photographs of the smiling faces of victims and searched them desperately for some sign that they knew’

I’m struggling to work out who the victim is here. Dolly or CB or my dad or perhaps Morph or Mutley or even me. Victims don’t always get the luxury of dying.

Exactly half an hour later I had finished the chapter and my coffee. I nipped to the toilet. There was none of the anti-psychotic induced constipation that had been my normal for years courtesy of big pharma and its shrink lap dogs. Whilst in there, I switched on my phone. A text came through from a number I didn’t recognise. I opened it.

‘where are you’

I don't text ever. A rule. Since I killed my future. Murder by text. Manslaughter to be more precise. But no one has come to arrest me yet. Even though I screamed out my guilt to the heavens. How it was not the first time that my idiocy had killed. That was back in 1982. My brother, CB. In truth my future was not a victim anybody cared about. Just like the numerous nameless, homeless people who die on the streets.

I picked up the phone to ring the number on the text to find out who it was. It went to ansaphone so I left a message asking who they were. Just as I ran out of paper and had to stop writing another text came through from the same number

I'm at the blue pixie, where are you?

I didn't know where or what the blue pixie was. Maybe Dolly’s bracelet is there. At the Blue Pixie. Maybe someone there knows where it is. I dashed out of the toilet, dragging Socks with me and grabbed my bags. Quickly, I checked myself.

All the time in the world.

I glanced at my watch. 6pm. The cafe was closing. Perfect timing again.

Outside Socks pulled to the left, so we turned left. I was struggling with my bag. It felt heavy and my leg was getting painful. Within a hundred yards I spotted a sign with an arrow.

The Blue Pixie – one hundred yards >

I followed the sign to another sign which pointed down a driveway. We started down it and it turned out to be a very long one. There was a tall fence on either side of us so I lent against it for a while to have a smoke. After what felt like another fifteen minutes of walking I was getting a feeling of deja vu. I’d been here before, maybe in a dream. Just as I was thinking we must have gone the wrong way, the driveway curved round to the right. There up ahead in front of an arched gateway was a statute of a pixie with huge wings painted cobalt blue and sitting on a toadstool.

I stopped and stared at it.

Behind was an extensive tree-lined front lawn, behind which lay a huge Victorian mansion with four impressive pillars holding up the roof section and smaller pillars supporting balconies at each wing.

We approached the gateway and walked underneath the arch. As we did the front door opened and a woman, who must have been in her forties, descended the stone steps into the garden and began walking towards the gate. She had light brown shoulder-length hair and was wearing a yellow waterproof jacket. I called out to her.

‘Excuse me’ She stopped in her tracks.

‘Did you send me a text?’ Her head jerked back as she screwed up her face and her shoulders stiffened.

‘I beg your pardon?'

'I’m looking for a bracelet'

'Sorry but this is a private house'

'You texted me or someone did’

'What? What do you mean. Who are you?'

‘My name is Cal, I’m supposed to meet someone here’ I took a couple of steps forward. The woman took a step back.

‘Who’

‘I don’t know – maybe they’ve got my bracelet’

‘Look as I said this is private property and I don’t know who the hell you are.’ That jarred. I was too used to being a nobody.

'Do you know where my bracelet is?

‘Of course I don’t, I suggest you leave’ She turned her head back towards the house and called to someone ‘Ivor!’ She turned back to face me.

‘My husband’s coming out.

'Please, it's gold, with a gold heart inscribed with the words 'you came into my life and ...'

'Why should I know where it is?'

'Someone here is texting me. You must know. Who’s in there?'

'You’re not making any sense. If you don’t leave I’ll have to call the police’ She took her phone from her pocket. A middle aged man appeared in the doorway. She walked back towards him’

‘Darling, there’s a crazy woman here ranting on about a bracelet’ For a moment he appears startled.

‘Oh my God this is not her is it. Seriously Ivor.’

‘Of course it’s not Kate, I’m not that desperate.’ Ivor walked down the driveway and stood next to his wife.

‘Look mate, I’m not being funny, but did you text me earlier on?’ Kate throws him an incredulous look. Ivor takes a couple of steps towards me.

‘Whatever planet you’re on, I suggest you go back there.’

I can see they are not going to budge so I turn back down the driveway, past the pixie and head back to the road. Ivor’s words ring in my head. Whatever planet you’re on … I suggest you go back there. I hear a car door slamming and an engine starting up. A 1950s red and cream coloured Austin Healey sails past me with Ivor and Kate in it. The back number plate has only letters and they form the words:

LOOK UP AT STARS

It’s a sign, look up at the stars.

At that moment a cloud of blue pixie dust wafted over me and I felt that kind of tingly feeling you get when near somebody you are in love with. I sensed Dolly for a moment. When the dust passed the sky had gone dark. and immediately the sky was full of stars. There was no light pollution and there was one very prominent body shining fairly close to where the waxing gibbous moon was emerging from some trees. It was obviously one of the planets because it did not twinkle. Is that the planet the guy was referring to. Where I’m supposed to be? I started off in the direction of the planet. It had to lead me to the bracelet. It led me back to the road and across the street. I could hear Irish folk music coming from a pub. That reminded me of Popeye so I called him. He was the only person I could trust. When I mentioned that I had nowhere to stay for the night but I was following the stars there was the usual long silence I get when on the phone to him. He coughed before finally speaking.

‘Get on the bus and go to the next town, there’ll be somewhere there you can stay.’

I trusted Popeye but I also trusted my planet guide. I switched my phone off again and continued in the direction of the planet until I came to a bus stop on the pavement in front of me. Popeye’s words resounded in my head. I must be meant to get a bus. I sat down, relieved to put down my backpack. Socks sat down beside me. There was a woman with long blond hair sitting there, roughly around late twenties, with a child. The boy patted Socks. His mother spoke to me.

‘Is it a he or she’

‘She’

‘Norman likes dogs. He’s autistic and has epilepsy but we get hardly any support.’

‘Must be tough. My brother had autism, I know it’s not easy to cope with.’

‘Norman’s aunt, my sister, has severe mental health problems too, all the NHS does is muck her about.’

‘I’m not surprised. I’m under them too. They’re a joke. They just make things worse – I’m AWOL at the moment to be honest.’

‘Here, have this.’ The woman handed me a carrier bag filled with food. She must have thought I was homeless. The bag was heavy. Too heavy. I was already weighed down, but I took it because I was obviously meant to have it. We had a connection through our experiences. Their bus came and the woman and child said their goodbyes and got on. As it pulled away she called back to me .

‘Number 402, that’s your bus.’

I hadn’t mentioned where I was going but I took it as a sign. To get the 402. Once their bus was gone, I scrabbled through the bag of food she had given me for the bracelet. I couldn't feel it so I emptied out he contents onto the pavement. There was a large bunch of bananas, also a packet of waffles, some biscuits, some bread, a couple of cartons of drink and some tins of beans. I put them all back in the bag, only slightly disappointed. It didn’t matter. I had all the time in the world. The bracelet would turn up.

The 402 bus came exactly when I knew it would, on half past the hour. The driver told me he was going to Tonbridge Wells and Sevenoaks. Popeye had said the next town. That was Tonbridge Wells.

I struggled with my backpack, Socks’ lead and my heavy bag of food right to the back of the bus and sat down. I knew I couldn't eat all the bananas and there were at least five or six other people on the bus.

‘Anyone want a bunch of bananas

A man sitting at the front, turned to look at me.

'I'll have them. I'm a monkey for bananas.' He came back to fetch them and sat on the seat in front of me and we got chatting.

‘Where are you off to’

‘Dunno. Just the next town I think’

‘Where are you from?’

‘South London originally but I live in Devon now. What about you?

‘Ladywell, near Lewisham’ He pushed half a banana in his mouth and gulped it down

‘No way, I used to live there’

‘When was that’

‘When I was kid, we moved there when I was about ten or eleven.’

‘Do you know Vicars Hill near Hilly Fields’

‘Yeh that’s where we lived’

‘That’s where I live now’

‘No way what number’

‘402 same number as this bus’

‘For fuck’s sake!’

‘What?’

‘That was our house’

‘No way!’

‘Seriously we lived there number 402 Vicars Hill’

‘What year did your family leave there’

‘My brother died in 1982 and my dad couldn’t hack staying at that house. I’d left home by then anyway’

‘What’s the chances of that, us meeting on this bus, same house, different era’

‘I know’

The guy told me that at this time of night there was nothing open at Tonbridge Wells so I would be better off getting off at Sevenoaks. We continued chatting while he munched on bananas. I gave him the waffles too. I knew he was another spirit guide so I went two stops to Sevenoaks.

After getting off the bus I followed Socks. She led me off the main road through side streets and back streets and we wound up in a square As we walked through we passed masonic sculptures. A dove erected on a stone pole, flying free, next to a birdcage with two pigeons in it. A lion intertwined with a winged serpent. The sun with a face, the eyes lit from the inside. The thick rays were, on closer inspection, thorns. Carved wooden craftsmen and tradesmen at various tasks. Although it was dark the lights in the square were positioned under and around the statues, increasing the power of the images. I had been so relaxed, the whole journey but now I felt an uneasiness. A feeling that this alternative reality might turn more sinister. I became aware that my palms and underarms were sweating. There was a wall with a square and compass carved in the centre flanked either side by stone figures with the tools of their profession. One of them was pointing in the direction of a path out of the square so we went that way. My heart fluttered a few extra beats every now and then, out of rhythm.

The path led to a quiet side street. This one had streetlights and after Socks led me down a couple of turnings we found ourselves back on a main road. There was a church to our left with a small lawn at the front lined by a low brick wall. I was tired. We walked up the path and found a bench underneath some eaves. I put some water down for Socks and lay down on the bench, exhausted and closed my eyes. I heard a scuffle and my eyes shot open. Socks was running onto the pavement and jumping at a man walking past. I called her back, but more men kept walking past and she was nervous. She kept running into the road, barking at them. I got up, gathered my stuff and we moved on. We turned off the main road and came across a pub. Outside were five blokes with pints in their hands, smoking.

‘Does this pub allow dogs’

‘Only dogs that can play pool.’ I nodded and I went in.

The bar staff were lovely to me. I got a double whisky and asked for some A4 paper. They only had A5 so I began writing as much as I could on there. When I had run out of paper it was exactly 10.15pm. After a fag break outside according to the clock on the wall it was 10.30pm. I took out ‘Damage’ again and began reading. Just before the end of the chapter I heard the landlord talking to another bloke at the bar.

‘Chuck Berry’s dead just heard on the news’

‘When yer time’s up it’s up. Can’t be hanging around when yer not welcome.’ I was the butt of the joke, I had to be.

I read the last line of the chapter and got up to go. A bloke was slotting coins in an old juke box in the corner. Johnny B Goode started playing. The clock on the wall said 11pm. The landlord came over to me.

‘Are you alright?’

‘Yeh.’

‘Are you sure? Have you got somewhere to go?’

‘I don’t know.’ I walked around him to the toilet. While I was in there I checked in the dustbin, underneath the dirty paper. towels and behind the cistern for the bracelet.

When I came out the landlord approached me again and helped carried my bags out for me, asking me once more if I was okay and whether I had anywhere to stay. I couldn’t help the tears welling up so I walked off pulling Socks behind me. At some point we were in a graveyard. I attempted to read the stones for signs but it was too dark. There were some steps leading down the wall of the church. Some kind of disused crypt. I walked straight down, leaving Socks sat at the top but she immediately began to howl. I was straight back up as it was too spooky anyhow. Wandering around the graveyard I felt at home. It is always peaceful amongst the spirits of the dead. I have never felt alone in a graveyard.

Socks decided when it was time to leave. Soon we found an alleyway behind a restaurant. There was a brick wall surrounding a little area which was undercover and protected from the wind and rain. We would bed down there. I dropped my bags in relief and sat down, preparing a bed as best I could with my bag as a pillow. As soon as I lay my head on it, a young Pakistani guy came out from the back of the restaurant and said we couldn't sleep there or he would have to call the police. We had to move on. We turned onto a main street with wide pavements heading away from the shops and pubs. After a short walk a man was walking towards me. He looked about thirty. He stopped and spoke.

'Have you got the time please?'

‘All the time in the world’

'How do you mean?'

‘I can manufacture it’

‘You can? What’s the time now then?

‘Eleven thirty. Everything happens on half hour intervals and it was eleven half an hour ago.’

He looked at his phone.

'Spot on.'

'What did you ask me for? You've got a phone.'

'I don't trust it. I have to verify it. It throws different times at me depending on its mood.’

I should have been nervous. It was dark and there was no one else around but this guy.

It turned out his name was Solomon. Since my other name is Soloman, I explained this, the different spelling, how mine is Solo Man rather than the biblical Solomon. He told me his name was nothing to do with the biblical Soloman either. He was 'solo' on Mondays. He had lost his girlfriend on a Monday. I told him about losing Dolly and in that moment we had a connection forever. The kind you can only get with other lost and lonely souls.

I asked him where I should go next.

'Well you've got a dog and there's a park just down there. It’s not far.’ He pointed back in the direction where he had come from. I thanked him and we went our separate ways.

We found the park and sat down on a bench. After checking underneath it, thoroughly, for the bracelet, I attempted to lie down and sleep but Socks kept chasing things in the bushes and disappearing. So I got up and checked in the bushes too in case it was there. It wasn’t.

Socks wouldn’t settle. We had to move on. The other side of the park, we stumbled upon an alleyway. It came out on another square. This one looked safe. A large building, some houses and parked cars. I spotted a porch outside the door of what, in the dark, looked like a restaurant. It offered some shelter so we opted to stay there. There was a brush mat which Socks could use to lie on. I gave her some biscuits and put down her water bowl. We were wet and it was freezing cold but I was exhausted. I lay on my bag and fell asleep.

In the early hours of the morning I woke up and found I had wet myself. I stood up and felt extremely dizzy. I staggered and stepped in the water bowl. My socks were already wet but now my whole shoe and sock were soaking. I was shivering violently. Socks had given me some body warmth earlier on but the wind was biting now and I was on the verge of collapsing. My head felt strange. Far too light. I was in quite a bit of physical pain, due to lying on cold concrete and another wave of dizziness hit me and I fell. I must have fainted.

When I came round there were three people in uniform talking to me two men and a woman. I saw an ambulance behind them. One of the men spoke.

‘Do you know where you are?’ I looked at my hands. They appeared green. I looked behind me and noticed a sign on the door of the building. It said The Royal Oak.

‘Royal Oak’

‘You’ve just read that off the door.’

‘I know.’ The woman intervened.

‘Do you want to get in the ambulance so we can do some tests.’

‘What for?’

‘Just to check you are okay’

‘What about my dog?’

‘She can wait outside, he’ll look after her.’ She nodded towards the other guy standing behind who hadn’t spoken. Suspicion swelled up inside me and I shrunk back into the doorway of the pub. The man spoke again.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Soloman.’

When they asked for more details, address, where I had been, where I was going, how old I was, my mind froze over. I couldn’t remember. They told me to look in my bag for I.d. When I found my wallet it contained a Plymouth library card. As I pulled it out, I felt a slip of paper behind it. I pulled that out. It said 'Bridford Ward. Have a nice period of leave.' Ward? Bridford? It rang a bell but one that was muffled. A dull thud. One of the male staff asked to look at it and gave a sideways glance to his colleagues. I was getting worried now. I didn't know whether I could trust them. The only other reminders in my wallet were a donor card and a bit of yellow cardboard with a dartmoor wildlife rescue number on it. The woman crouched down in front of me.

‘I can see you are an animal person, so am I. I work with rescues in my spare time.’ She was just saying that. To draw me in. I pulled Socks towards me.

They tried again to persuade me to get in the ambulance, saying Socks could sit outside. I backed away. Finally they agreed that Socks could come in the ambulance with me and since I was damp and freezing and it was beginning to rain heavily, I capitulated. They looked at my belongings and took a picture of my book 'Damage'. They kept asking me questions. I struggled to answer. I couldn’t remember details anyway. I mentioned Dolly. Her suicide. How I was looking for the bracelet. They whispered amongst themselves.

'She's stuck in 2016.

‘Yeh looks like she is.’

Maybe they were right.

After many calls and a long wait in which I searched every corner of the back of the ambulance, they told me they were taking me to the police station. They claimed it was the only place that would take a dog. I was worried about Socks being in police custody. My last dog had been treated very badly by police on more than one occasion. Left in a pen and forgotten about. Not given water. I knew Socks would be frightened. But hey were driving by now so I had little choice but to accept. I told myself that at least Socks and I would be in the same building. When we got to the police station they were full up and had no room for anyone else. So there was a change of plan. They were taking me to Tonbridge Hospital.

When we got there I was amazed that they allowed me to take Socks in with me. I could not believe the extent of their kindness. It had been a long time since I had experienced such genuine care as I had in the past few days, from other human beings. I was dehydrated. I had drunk only alcohol and a couple of coffees and had eaten nothing for nearly 24 hours, despite the tons of food I was carrying. They led me and Socks into a room with a comfortable couch where I could lay down. They gave me some diazepam and left me to rest. Eventually a couple of ambulance men came and told me they were going to take me and Socks back to Plymouth. They gave me some sandwiches and bottles of water. I said I couldn't eat and I wasn't thirsty but they insisted I take it with me for the journey. They reminded me that Socks might want some.

As we set off. I checked my watch warily. It was 12.30pm. A female member of the crew sat opposite me. Mostly I was silent. She didn't try and engage with me, other than trying to get me to drink saying I was dehydrated. When we got to Stonehenge, halfway back, I somehow knew it would be 2.30pm. It was. I also knew that we would arrive at Derriford Hospital in Plymouth at 4.30pm exactly. We did.

The whole trip proved to me that synchronicity is real. That time is subjective and can be bent to my will as long as I trust the process. I had needed grief to teach me that. That there’s no need for stressing out. That magic works. And it starts with remembering that I have all the time in the world…

The synchronicity continued when I got back, but now it became disturbing so I stopped looking at my watch altogether. I kept the watch on though because that had been a present from Dolly too.

I have a final image, stuck with me forever from the hospital garden. It was nighttime. Six of us. The skinny, pale, spotty girl, Kye, who was always banging on about her epilepsy but never having any fits. Then that big girl, Baby Doll, who reckoned she had agoraphobia. Jaco who never stopped droning on about the CIA and shit. Fag Butt Riccy, and Mimi of course.

Jaco’s rabbiting on about MK ultra and stuff and how he’s gonna infiltrate it. I’m about to interrupt but I don't because there's no hurry and the way Kye’s raising her chin and turning her head away, Im convinced she’s about to crack up. I’m right. That sets me off too. There was something about Kye that set me off. The staff kept accusing us of ‘inappropriate laughter’. I think it was the way she gawked all the time mouth fully open, exposing her rotten teeth. Too rotten for a twenty one year old.

Mimi is coughing and sputtering. Splashes of cold coffee are leaving her polystyrene cup, a few hitting one of the wooden sand-filled ash trays. Jaco’s makes a gross snorting noises and marks his territory as usual with a disgusting pool of sputum. I see that spit hitting the ground as my cue to speak.

‘I had a dream last night about rubbish bins all over the place, anyone now what that means?’

Riccy looks up from where he’s crouching awkwardly, picking up fag butts from the raised brick-lined mandala style flower beds.

'I do'. He burst out crying.

We all turn to face Riccy. Mainly because he usually didn’t speak, especially when there was more than one person present. He was pretty good at that hostage by silence thing. All he did all day was pick up fag butts. Even when he did speak you couldn’t hear him coz he only whispered. Jaco starts droning on again about space zombies. Mimi starts talking over him.

'Too much waste in the world Cal?' She tapped my arm wanting my attention. She always wanted my attention.

'I don’t know ask him.' I nod towards the raised beds.

'That's the way of the world.'

‘Yeh the way of the world’

‘It is, it is the way of the world’

All the time in the world, I've got all the time in the world.

Jaco was still in fool swing

‘CIA took my girlfriend’s brain out and replaced it with plastic mold. They put a contract on me now coz I hacked into the control centre. His voice begins to deepen and slows down.

‘There w e r e tho ous aa ands o f zoooombies in miiiiiy fl aa a t.’

I glance over at him. His whole lower jaw is beginning to move independently and appearing out of proportion with the rest of his face. My heart’s starting to pound. I check out the ground quick.

Someone’s calling to Jaco through the fence of the other ward's garden. He turns his head, his over-sized jaw swinging round after him. Kye is picking huge pieces of dead yellow skin off the bottom of her foot, Baby Doll is fiddling in her bag biting her lip and shaking her head rigidly from side to side. She is speaking.

'This is the first time I've been out in days, it's making me too anxious.'

‘How come you’re out here if you’re agoraphobic.’ I hear myself saing those words, immediately wishing I hadn't. Everyone is making little movements, but exaggerated. Jaco has disappeared to the fence for a moment, Kye has stopped picking and is tapping her foot back and forth, Mimi is trying to light an over-sucked dog end, Baby doll is eating her hair and Riccy is extricating a cigarette butt from some weeds. I can see the weeds growing inch by inch. It’s all suspended in slow motion, each moment having an unfamiliar and unfathomable breadth and depth. I don’t know why it appears like this and I’m on edge.

Kye is coughing continously appearing to choke. Mimi is tapping my arm again

‘Cal, Cal!’

Baby Doll is glaring at me.

‘Agoraphobia is not just about going out.’ For a split second I am indecisive about who to respond to. My heart begins to run away. I reign it in and opt for Baby Doll. I’ve questioned her reality so I owe her some attention.

‘Okay’

I'm sure someone's gonna notice that I can't keep up with the conversation but they don't. I’m thinking everyone thinks I should be able to. If I don't, I'll appear ill and I don't want to appear ill.

I start to scratch my nose but stop with my hand hovering by my face in suspended animation I am acutely aware of every little move I make, every jerk, every head turn, or sideways glance because each decision alters my destiny forever. Kye is giving me the look but it's not funny any more. I try to read it but I can’t. I look at my hands. They’re shaking. Mimi is shaking her head slowly with a doomed expression. Baby Doll is making a dash for the door. It’s raining by now and I head for the door too. Jaco is failing to light a roll up on the wall lighter by the door. He asks me for a light. I go to retrieve my illegal lighter from my pocket until I notice his jaw is now on the ground and it’s wobbling like jelly. I’m darting up the steps then, banging on the door. The push button mechanism randomly electrocutes people and I’m not about to risk it. I knock twice as usual, banging on the door and shouting. It seems like I have to wait ages before Nessie swipes the door. She’s pissed off.

‘Shhhh … keep it down will you, people are trying to sleep!’

I rush past her and past Wayne the Preacher Man. He is pointing at the ceiling as usual screaming.

‘You fucking bastard, I hate you God..’

I get that a hundred and one percent. I’ve been there myself too many times. Tracy is at the nursing station speaking to someone. I’m shaking visibly now.

‘What’s going on Cal?’ I open my mouth to reply but there doesn't seem to be any control over my words.

‘Come with me a minute.’ Tracy leads me into a side room.

‘What’s wrong?’

'Everything'.

'What do you mean everything?’

‘The whole thing all of it’

‘In what way?’

'I don’t know, this way’

‘Which way?’ She shakes her head her mouth hanging open with a blank expression

‘The way if fucking is!!'

‘Has something happened’

‘No for fuck sake’

‘Cal I don’t know what you’re on about’

‘Jesus!’

She didn't get it.

I gave up that day trying to explain it. Tracy just said I'd been in there too long, it was making me worse. I already knew that.

I played the game and bided my time until they let me out. Meanwhile I got the phone number of every single pub and cafe I’d been to, even after I lost the bracelet. I traced every train via the tickets I had kept. And every bus. I checked with London Transport lost property and Great Western Railway and the bus companies. I even checked with Speedy Cabs.

I never found Dolly’s bracelet. I never got to feel the golden heart again or read the words engraved on it

‘you came into my life and left an imprint on my heart’

But then I’ve got all the time in the world. I’ll find it one day.

.

'