Chapter 11
As far as finding out who was likely to end up being his wife was
concerned, the first day of David Lutman’s holiday would be uneventful.
For everyone else, there were experiences to be had all the way. After
getting up at six thirty, re-packing, and then loading all the baggage onto the
roof of their white mini-bus, Janet drove the Indian Adventure group to a local diner for a cooked breakfast.
Then they ventured east on Highway 10 away from Los Angeles, collected a day’s groceries
in Palm Springs, and then visited the Joshua Trees in the eponymously-named
National Park. Their first night was spent at a campsite near Blythe where the
group was paired off into their tents. Conveniently, there was one extra tent which
spared Lutman and Raoul having to share. Of course, in Lutman’s mind, this was now
the tent to invite someone to share with him, but even he did not expect any of
the girls to join him on what was only the first night.
Janet, the tour group leader, volunteered to do the cooking for
the first night, after which they would then split up into groups of three or
four and take turns with the cooking and washing.
*
The following day, the group crossed the state line into Arizona,
and visited an Indian museum in Phoenix. Their second night was spent in Camp
Verde.
The party had found itself splitting up into their own little
groups. All the boys, much to their glee, found themselves within their own
group of girls. Raoul, unsurprisingly, joined up with French speaker Sylvie,
and Andrea, who also knew a little of the language. Jeannie tagged herself along
to Cindy and Marianne, who in turn hooked up with Marcus, whose humour the
Australians found rather amusing. David Lutman happily found himself with
Kathrine and, as far as he was concerned, also with his current favourite for
the potential romantic role - Claudia. Their particular ‘grouping’ had been
established when together, all three decided to try out the campsite’s hot tub
that evening. Having left the comparative warmth of California and into a cold
Arizona autumn, bathing outdoors in hot water was a very pleasant experience. Lutman
joined Claudia first, and it was there he finally had the chance to talk to her
on his own. Kathrine quickly followed, to his slight irritation, but her
infectious personality meant her presence was easily tolerated. The rest of the
party tried out the tub after dinner, which that evening had been prepared by
Marcus, Andrea and Marianne.
*
After a long drive to the Grand Canyon on the third day, the whole
of the fourth day was spent visiting this awe-inspiring natural monument. Although
Lutman had visited the canyon before, he still could not help but be astounded
at what the Colorado River had carved out over several million years: the immense
bright orange rock faces that lined the river several hundred feet below still
took his breath away.
As the group slowly made its way down the path into the canyon,
Kathrine joined up with Sylvie, to Lutman’s hidden delight. They slowly moved
ahead, with Lutman now finding himself with Claudia. There was almost a sense
of being alone, now that they were happily walking slowly together. Despite the
seven thousand feet altitude, the strong sunshine prompted Lutman to bring out a
baseball cap that he had purchased back in Palm Springs: the green baseball cap
was now too delicate and precious to begin absorbing moisture from his sweaty
head.
Now with plenty of time to converse privately, Lutman learned that
Claudia Safarova came from a small village in the Czech Republic just outside
Olomouc, and that she had two older brothers. She studied English Philology in
Brno, and this was her first trip to the United States. She had spent the past
year studying American English and working in a children’s camp, the result of
which was an almost perfect American accent.
Lutman was struggling to contain his curiosity. Did she have a boyfriend? But to his
surprise she asked him first. ‘Is Jeannie your girlfriend?’
‘Well, Jeannie’s just a friend,’ he
said quietly, ‘I’m not actually seeing anybody at the moment. I’m quite happy,
but I’d like to think that I’ll settle down in the near future. I’m just
waiting to meet the right girl.’
She smiled. ‘Is that why you’re on this trip?’
‘Well,’ said Lutman, ‘I suppose it’s one reason why. It’s certainly
possible!’ He looked at her and asked, with increasing confidence, ‘Claudia, listen,
you don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, but what about you? Do you
have someone in your life, or are you hoping to meet someone here?’
‘No, I don’t have a boyfriend,’ she said, grinning. ‘When I booked
this trip, it was because I wanted to see what the west coast of the United
States looked like. I’d heard so much about it. This particular tour gives me
the chance to see some of the cities, the country, the parks and the people. I
hadn’t actually thought about looking for someone here.’
Lutman grinned. ‘But you never know!’
She giggled. ‘And why are you asking me, David?’
‘Well,’ he began, slightly uneasily, ‘love can be a funny thing.
Comes from anywhere, often from where you least expect it, and never from where
you think it’s likely to come from.’
‘So tell me,’ said Claudia after a short pause, ‘how are you and
Jeannie… connected? After all, I can’t think it’s easy for a man and a woman to
simply meet and remain only friends.’
Lutman thought for a moment, and then said, ‘Well, we’re actually
just friends from work, but we’ve absolutely no serious interest in each other.
We don’t meet privately, apart from the last few days before this trip. I was
supposed to be coming out here on my own but, well, she did have a boyfriend,
but they split. She decided to go on this trip after I’d told her about it…
which was before they’d split, which is a bit of an unfortunate coincidence,
really. As you saw, she seems perfectly happy going off with the others. She’s
not really my type, anyway. Too extrovert for me.’
They soon spotted the rest of the group ahead of them pausing for
a break, and soon they were all back together again. Although everyone had prepared
themselves for a cool day and were dressed accordingly, being in direct sunshine
with very little shade made it feel so much warmer. Cindy, being a little more
well-built than everybody else, was already looking fairly exhausted.
In the end none of the group made it successfully into the bottom
of the canyon: as it was, such a trip would normally require an early-morning
start and a whole day’s walk.
*
The evening was spent watching the sunset from a popular viewpoint
known as Hermit’s Rest, located on the southern rim of the canyon. Lutman decided
to take a few photographs of the sun setting behind the canyon rocks after struggling
to suppress a desire to place an affectionate arm over Claudia’s shoulder. Although
he felt certain she would not have minded, past experience and lack of
confidence prevented him from doing so.
Claudia looked at him and smiled. But there were no exchanges of
words. Lutman took her reaction as one of just being friendly.
*
The canyon and the day finally over, they all enjoyed a pizza in
nearby Tusayan. Claudia chose to mingle with the Australians, not having spoken
to them since the start of the trip. Kathrine lightened up David Lutman and
Marcus’s meals considerably with some funny anecdotes, and enjoyed both their
companies that evening as they all watched a movie of the canyon on a screen
the size of a small office block in the town’s IMAX cinema. Lutman
found himself sitting next to the Australian girls, who had now made up their
minds to find out more about him. This not altogether unpleasant esperience
enabled him to put Claudia to the back of his mind for a while and enjoy their
company.
It was now the end of day four. Almost a third of the trip
completed. Lutman still had no clues whatsoever as to whether he had already
met his wife, but he was getting increasingly confident that there was only going
to be one possible candidate.
But was it just going to happen or did he have to do more to make
it happen?
*
On Day five the party joined a Navajo Indian guide on horseback.
Having never ridden before, Lutman was immensely relieved to dismount when they
had reached their destination. He had been nervous throughout the six-mile hike
and vowed he would never ride a horse again. Their tents were pitched at the
foot of one of the park’s most distinctive natural monuments, a towering bright
red outcrop of rock.
*
On day six, after crossing the state line into Utah, the group
briefly ventured into Colorado to visit Mesa Verde, a site where numerous ruins
of homes and villages had been built into a set of spectacular cliffs by the ancient
Pueblo peoples. Lutman took several photographs that deliberately included
Claudia in shot. Then it was back across the state line to Moab where they
would have tents pitched in the same campsite for the next three nights.
*
Day seven was the halfway point of the Indian Adventure, and this was spent kayaking on the Colorado
River. To the group’s relief, the Colorado here was calm and tranquil, fast-flowing
only in patches, unlike the Grand Canyon where the IMAX movie presented
the river as fast-flowing and treacherous. The guide for their trip was Terry,
a dark-haired, bearded, six-foot tall individual with a physique that turned
the heads of all the girls on the trip. He was in the large rowing boat that carried
all the necessary equipment and refreshments, along with a pair of two-man
kayaks. The party would then be paired up for an hour to take turns in these
little craft, following the boat. But the pairings for the boats did not go in
the way Lutman had hoped: These were Cindy and Marianne, the Australians;
Marcus and Raoul; Andrea and Sylvie; Claudia and Kathrine, and David and Janet.
Jeannie, who shared a tent with the two Australians, opted out, claiming she
was terrified of water. She seemed happy enough to enjoy the ride on the main
boat and sit facing Terry.
Halfway. And still nothing happened. Maybe it’s going to be at the
end, thought Lutman, but he did begin to feel uneasy about the situation.
Claudia did not seem to be making the signals he expected.
*
The group rented jeeps on day eight for their own personal treks
into Canyonlands, another of the many spectacular National Parks spread around
this west side of the United States.
This time the groups were split into threes and fours. All the men
were split up, with Marcus going with the Australians and Jeannie; Raoul with
Sylvie and Andrea; and Lutman with Claudia and Kathrine. Lutman was both
thrilled and disappointed; Okay, at last, he and Claudia would be together at
last after a lot of time being apart. Unfortunately Claudia’s tentmate,
Kathrine, was coming along with them too. But Lutman did try to console himself
with the fact that, if somebody else did have to tag along, then Kathrine would
have been the best choice. Janet took this opportunity to spend time away from
the others to take care of some administrative matters.
Lutman took the wheel of their jeep first, and as they left Moab
and turned off the main road, paved road soon gave way to rocky track. What initially
seemed like daunting terrain to Lutman soon proved effortless in a four-wheeled
drive vehicle.
When they reached the end of the road, they were rewarded by a spectacular
vista of the canyons. After Lutman parked the vehicle, Kathrine announced that
she would like to spend some time on her own. Having agreed to meet back at the
jeep in an hour, she wandered off to find a solitary viewpoint.
Finally, thought Lutman,
Finally. They were alone out last. After a few moments, he and Claudia
left the vehicle and walked in the opposite direction to Kathrine.
‘So, Claudia…’ began Lutman nervously, looking in the direction of
the cliff edge, ‘shall we go over there?’
‘Okay,’ said Claudia, not sounding as though she was particularly
concerned about anything.
They sat on a bench a meter away from a drop of several hundred,
and a spectacular view that seemed to stretch into the distance forever.
Lutman turned to Claudia. ‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’
She smiled. ‘You know, all my life I’ve wanted to visit the United
States for its natural features. I’ve spent a year here but rarely left the
cities. And now, well, here I am. My dreams have come true.’
‘And there’s still so much more out there,’ added Lutman, softly.
After a minute, he stood up and offered his hand. ‘Shall we go
over there? We can sit facing the sun.’
Without hesitation, Claudia reached out for his hand to assist
herself from the bench. To Lutman’s delight, she then put her arm around his
right arm.
They wandered to another spot on the edge and Lutman placed his
left hand on the hand that rested on his arm. There was an uneasy few moments
as both felt too awkward to say anything.
Eventually Lutman broke the silence. ‘I
understand we’re spending the next two nights in a ranch,’ he said cheerfully, ‘and
then it’s off to two more canyons, a night in Las Vegas, and then,
unfortunately, home.’
‘Oh God, it’s all going by so quickly!’ exclaimed Claudia. ‘I
don’t want it to end so quickly.’
‘Hey, we still have seven days, you know,’ said Lutman soothingly.
They found a dry grassy patch. Claudia released her grip from his
arm, and they sat down.
Lutman looked ahead at the rocky horizon. ‘You really think it’s
that awful this trip’s going to end in seven days?’
‘I do,’ Claudia said quietly, ‘these last seven days have been
some of the best and happiest of my life.’
There was a short silence as Lutman was then reminded of work and
the unfortunate circumstances that had left him feeling uncomfortably shy with
women. ‘You know, Claudia, a while ago, when I spoke to a friend of mine about
something awful that was going to happen to me in the near future, she gave me
a rather interesting little piece of her philosophy.’
‘Really?’ Claudia replied, suddenly sounding very interested. ‘What
was it?’
Lutman beamed. ‘This friend, she said that, if you know something
unpleasant or something bad’s going to happen at a set time in the future, but
you’re happily enjoying the here and now, then you know that the time up to
that bad time is going to be happy – or should be, anyway. So she said, why
worry? Between now and then nothing worse is going to happen to you. She often
said this whenever she or I were going to something unpleasant like being told
to see the boss for some unknown reason. I have this stupid fear of the
dentist. I do go, but I’d be unnecessarily be extremely nervous about it days
ahead of the appointment. When I mentioned this to her, she’d ask me if the
dentist had already made his analysis. I said no of course, and she’d then say
to me, look David, until then your teeth will remain in exactly the same place,
and you will still work for this council. So relax! So, I often find myself
closing my eyes, taking a deep breath, and trying to enjoy the very moment I’d
find myself in now, knowing that nothing bad is happening or will happen until
that moment arrives.’
‘And does it work?’
He laughed. ‘What do you think? Yeah, it all sounds great in
theory, but when your mind’s constantly reminding you that something’ll happen
and there’s nothing you can do about it, it’s advice that’s just a little
difficult to follow!’
Claudia smiled. ‘I actually think it’s a pretty good piece of
philosophy! Was your friend always that calm?’
‘Well, she had her strange moments, and she certainly wasn’t always
calm, but she was a lovely girl. Infact…’ – he paused as his expression turned
to sadness as he thought about his next words carefully - in fact, she was
tragically killed in a car crash earlier this summer.’
‘Oh.’ Claudia did not know what else to say about this.
Instinctively, she put her hand on his, and gripped it. ‘I’m sorry. You must
have liked her very much.’
Lutman looked up at her. ‘Actually, we weren’t dating, but, you
know, I once thought she really liked me. But then what she did to me really
upset me. The one time in her life when she didn’t follow her own philosophy.’
Claudia was intrigued. ‘She did something to you? What happened?’
‘Well, it started when she invited me to some club in the city I
come from. Now, I don’t like dancing, discos, clubbing in general. But, you
know, I couldn’t resist her. Part of the deal was for me to drive her to such a
place, but that was fine of course, you know, we’d be driving down together.
But when we got there, there was some other guy who was also at the place who
she happened to like. Well, after letting me have a dance with her early on,
she started to get very friendly with this other guy and afterwards just completely
ignored me for the rest of the evening. It was then I started to feel used,
betrayed, very angry, angry towards her. She’d invited me to this place and I
had driven her there, and what do I get in return?’ His voice then went quiet. ‘In
that moment of intense frustration and anger, I… grabbed her by the arm to get
her… to dance with me.’
‘Woah, I don’t think she would have been very happy about you
doing that!’
‘You’re right about that, but, God, you know, I just felt so
betrayed! She’d basically conned me into taking her to a club to be with
someone else! Well, after that, I went straight home, almost in tears, and left
her there with this guy, who I presume took her home. I was still upset about
it all the next day. Unwisely I tried to confront her about it, telling her how
she effectively tricked me into getting her to take her there, but that just
made things even worse. She shouted at me, telling me what she thought of me
and left the building immediately after, getting into her car.’
Lutman then
took a long pause for breath, before adding, his voice shaking slightly, ‘A few
minutes later, she drove straight into the back of a truck and died instantly.’
Claudia looked genuinely shocked. ‘Oh God.’
‘Yes. And now I am living with… with this guilt, this… Oh, God, if
I hadn’t tried to argue with her that morning she wouldn’t’ve got herself killed!’
‘But how can you be sure of that?’
As well as the quivering in his voice, Lutman’s eyes moistened.
But if he was about to break up, he held himself back, determined to remain firmly in control. ‘She left the
building straight after I bawled at her. The crash, I’m sure, was the result.’
‘I’m sorry,’ sighed Claudia, clasping his hand reassuringly. ‘I
don’t know if this is the right thing to say… forgive me if I seem a bit…
unsure, but… maybe now you are wiser for the experience.’
‘Maybe so, but the pain's always there. I set off a chain of
events that led to the accident.’
Claudia looked at him thoughtfully, thinking over what he had just
told her, and then said: ‘Well, perhaps you should think of it this way,
another… philosophical view on the situation. You could always say that what happened
at the club that night had, in fact, saved you both from having a car crash in
your car somewhere else if you both went home together. That incident made sure
you left earlier. All right, maybe you did drive home quickly, but at least you
made sure such an accident never happened. You could also argue it wasn’t you
who set off the chain of events, but her. If she hadn’t tricked you, it was
always possible you both wouldn’t be around now because of you both crashing,
or if not, a separate chain of events would have started up, she’d still be
alive today, and you wouldn’t be here talking to me now. I don’t know if I’m
even making sense. I don't even know if I understand what I'm saying!’
Lutman smiled. ‘Well, I think I understand what you’re getting at,
Claudia. I don’t know, well maybe. But it’s an interesting way of looking at
it, I suppose.’
‘It’s fate,’ Claudia added. ‘They say we all have our futures
planned and mapped out ahead of us, from some almighty being up there. You were
simply destined not to be with that girl.’
‘And she wasn’t destined to be with me. But fate killed her.
Cruelly.’
‘David,’ said Claudia forcefully, ‘there’s no way you can be
absolutely sure your anger resulted in her driving into the back of the truck.
It may well be just pure coincidence. Maybe the reason you’re out here, with
me, here in America, is that you are trying to help yourself, to put those
events to one side. Maybe you’re out here looking for something to take your
guilt away. Have you actually spoken to anyone about this? Have you seen
someone who is an expert?’
‘If you mean have I sought any professional help, the answer is
no, and yes, I think I am probably out here trying to help myself.’ Lutman
desperately wanted to tell her the real reason he was in America. His secret
was now six weeks old, and he desperately wanted to talk to somebody about it.
But he could not help but believe that she would think him strange, and would
then stay clear of him for the rest of the tour. And if she were the one, then
she might not like the idea of being told she could be his wife.
Was everything that he had recently experienced, even the time
travel business, a consequence of Caroline dying? And that her death was to
ensure that he would finish up with the right girl? Was this the whole point of
all this – that he, from the future, was just ensuring that he would not have made
the wrong choice?
*
They gazed in silence for several minutes out towards the rocks
and valleys in the distance until Claudia’s mobile trilled. ‘It’s Kathrine.
She’s asking where we are.’
Lutman looked at his watch. ‘Ooh dear, we’re late!’
*
That evening everybody congregated around large wooden picnic
tables that had been shifted from various parts of the campground and that now surrounded
a small bonfire. That evening’s meal was prepared by Lutman, Sylvie and
Claudia. The mood was jovial, with plenty of anecdotes exchanged about the day’s
experiences.
As the fire slowly died and the stories dried up, some of the
group said their goodnights and headed wearily back to their tents, including
Claudia. Lutman watched as she glanced in his direction and smiled, but her
‘goodnight’ was clearly directed at everybody, and not particularly at him. Now
he sat alone at one table for a few more minutes whilst Marcus, Janet and
Kathrine were at another talking about the plot for tomorrow.
Maybe, he
thought, it would all come together tomorrow, he and Claudia.
It was inevitable. Who else could it be?
Once again he cast his mind back to six weeks ago. His bedroom,
his sweaty future self entering through an invisible door wearing a green
day-glow baseball cap, a pink Grand Canyon tee-shirt and green shorts, and…
It then suddenly dawned on him that he had not bought a tee-shirt
at the Grand Canyon. Was he supposed to have done so? How on earth had he
completely forgotten about that? That surely was not right – this was for sure
something that would have been automatic. Okay, he had not entered any souvenir
shops on this visit as he had been there, done that at the canyon only a short
time before. But even taking that into account, for some reason that he just
could not understand, he did not even think about getting a tee-shirt.
He felt a gnawing and tightness in his stomach. He had been to the
Grand Canyon, and he had not even thought about buying a tee-shirt. With no
tee-shirt, then surely the pieces would not fall into place.
He traipsed sadly to his tent, saying goodnight to the others.
David Lutman did not sleep well that night. He felt certain that
he had completely screwed everything up.
Chapter 12 >
Chapter 12 >
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