Future Imperfect

Future Imperfect

By Patrick Westwood

Scepticism in public is fine; after all, we don't want to be pilloried
for swallowing the hokum that is clairvoyance. The thing is, whatever
the soothsayer says stays with us and whether we base our life
decisions on this hokum or egotistically reclaim these words of wisdom
when it suits, is neither here nor there. The evidence in my case is
startling and I am starting to believe. Maybe that maths teacher by
day, Nostradamus by night fellow actually could look into the
future.

Samantha now lives in Canada, he told her she would emigrate at
twenty-eight, and she did. He told me I would only marry once and that
this marriage would only last three years. My occasionally dull but
harmonious romance hit the rails last week. Literally. Exactly
thirty-eight months, four days and seven hours after the brief but
trendy town hall ceremony.

Sophie was told she would live until 2034. She didn't mind, that would
see her well into her sixties. What he failed to say in his
two-up-two-down terrace was, that Sophie and I would marry each other:
now that would have been a shock to us at the time.

Sophie was a risk taker, she liked to feel alive. I suppose I stifled
that, she told me so enough times. He installed feelings of
immortality, her expiry date was 2034 and that was a long way off. Sure
she was sceptical; perhaps the whole clairvoyance thing was irrelevant.
She was popular, too popular sometimes and a lot of our rows centred
around her flirting. I always knew she would leave me after a while,
three years probably, or was that his suggestion?

We had no kids, and looking back these seven days I wonder what was the
point of a marriage without them. I should have guessed that all was
not well when she bought a new car three months ago. A black VW Golf
1.6. It suited her. Any excuse she was off somewhere, anywhere. I felt
she just wanted to get out of the flat. She said she was just excited
about her new toy. She was pretty peeved at 1800 miles, when she broke
down on the M4. She didn't get it back for a fortnight. Electronic
fault.

Having jealous feelings about a piece of refined metalwork is a recipe
for disaster. My electrics were faulty, my rust needed treating and I
was in need of a re-spray. Sure I could still crank through the gears,
but I was no match for the latest edition. Sophie looked better in that
car than she ever did with me.

The new car suited her all right, I saw the police stills. She looked
pretty cool from the angle the police had photographed her. The VW
looked a bit of a mess though, unrecognisable really. They died
together. The maths teacher too, he was her passenger. Well what do you
know? I bet he hadn't seen that coming, I'm damn sure I hadn't. The
mileometer had stopped at 2034 reportedly. Now that's what I call
fate.

In the last week I have learned many things. I now know they had stayed
friends since the night he read our fortunes, and she had plans to
leave me. The lesson from this mess is we should assume nothing about
the future, no matter what anyone says. I'll carry that with me.

From now on I'm in no hurry for anything. I can wait for the life
insurance money, Sophie may have been known to take risks, me; I'm a
little more careful.