Chapter 25: England Swings

Jim Olsen got off the plane at London’s Heathrow Airport and took the shuttle to the nearby Hilton. He wasn’t in a hurry – he’d waited 40 years to come here and it wouldn’t be any trouble to wait a day or so to get past the jet lag.

He wasn’t idle, however. Amazingly enough, he still had Sarah Jane’s last letter to him – the one where she told him she’d found someone else. He had the return address on that letter and that would be his starting point.

He’d hired a car and driver. When Jim stepped out into a wet English morning the car was waiting, and the driver, in the classic uniform of chauffeurs everywhere, including the cap, was also ready, holding the door open for Jim.

It was odd to see the driver getting into the car on the wrong side – one reason why Jim had decided not to attempt driving in England.

“Where would you like me to take you this morning, sir?”

Jim gave him an address in Brighton – it should be a pleasant drive to the southern English coast – and the car sped off.

“Business or pleasure sir?”

“I hope pleasure, but you never know.”

“Very good sir.”

The driver quickly sensed Jim’s lack of interest in chit-chat and did not make further conversational forays. Jim spent the trip trying to imagine what he would say if and when he found Sarah Jane. What if she was dead? What if she weighed 28 stone? What if she was just not interested in seeing him? What if she thought he was ugly? What if she’d forgotten all about him? He tried to put these thoughts aside.

The address he had was his only link. After that, he’d have to rely on luck. He didn’t know Sarah Jane’s married name. He could have used Master PC to locate her, and he would as a last resort. He was trying not to use the program – it had caused enough trouble already.

Jim closed his eyes and leaned back into the soft leather of the Silver Ghost’s spacious rear seat – he was soon asleep and dreaming of days long ago and the rear seat of another car, also spacious although not as comfortable.

“We’re here sir,” the driver said, startling Jim awake. He sat up and saw that the driver was standing next to the open rear door of the car. Jim rubbed his eyes, scrubbed his face with his hands, and smoothed his hair.

“Thank you, Niles. Please wait here.”

“Very good sir.”

Jim stepped out of the car and saw that he was in front of a non-descript brick townhouse in the middle of a row of such houses. There was a small front yard (“garden,” Jim thought to himself, “they call them gardens here.”) with a neatly kept walk to the front steps.

Jim pressed the doorbell and heard a musical chime go off inside the house followed by the barking of some sort of small dog. Footsteps accompanied by the increasingly loud barking approached the door. An exasperated female voice repeatedly attempted to silence the dog and, as usual, that had the opposite effect. It made Jim smile.

He stepped back from the door so as not to appear in any way threatening. He didn’t sense any fear on the other side; only mild irritation.

The door opened and a woman of about 30 in a nurse’s uniform confronted him, her hands on her hips; a no-nonsense look on her face. A Jack Russell terrier bounced and yapped before beginning to industriously sniff the shoes and pants cuffs of the visitor.

“Don’t mind him, he won’t bite you. Duke! Behave! I swear this dog is the bane of my existence. Good for the Colonel though. Can I help you?”

This speech came as a torrent seemingly without punctuation. It took Jim a moment to catch up.

“Is this the Hamilton residence?”

“Yes, it is.”

“I’m looking for a Sarah Jane Hamilton. Would she be living here by chance?”

“Sarah? Oh, no, Sarah hasn’t lived here in years.”

Jim’s heart began to beat faster.

“But she DID live here?”

“Oh yes, she did, but that was before my time here, me just being the Colonel’s nurse and all.”

“Is the Colonel well?”

“Had a bit of a bad spell a while back. The doctor said he’d need some looking after, especially with his wife being gone these seven years. Do you know the Colonel?”

“I knew him years ago when he and his family lived in America for a while, and that’s when I also met Sarah Jane.”

“Would you like to come in and speak with the Colonel? He’s just taking the sun in the back garden at the moment and I was about to take him his tea.”

“I don’t want to impose. Do you know where Sarah Jane is now? I understand she got married – do you know her married name?”

“It’s no trouble, and I’m sure the Colonel would like a visitor this morning. So many of his old mates have gone on, so to speak. Please come in – I’m sure the Colonel will give you all the information you’d like about Sarah Jane.”

Jim reluctantly agreed and was soon being shown to a neatly kept backyard where a thin old man sat ramrod straight in a wicker chair. There was a cane by his side. It was Sarah Jane’s father; Jim had no doubt on that score. His white hair was thin but he still had the ruler-straight posture of an officer in the Queen’s service and the pencil thin mustache completed the picture.

“Colonel Hamilton,” the nurse said in a loud voice. The Colonel’s head snapped around.

“Confound it, woman! Haven’t I told you to quit sneaking up on me like that!”

“Yes, Colonel, and I’ve told you a thousand times to wear your hearing aid. Here it is,” she replied, smiling. This had the sound and feel of a conversation that had been repeated many times.

“You have a visitor, sir,” she said as she helped the Colonel get his hearing aid in place and operating.”

“Don’t have to shout. I’m not deaf you know. A visitor you say? Who’d come to see me?”

Jim had given the nurse one of his cards, which she now handed to the Colonel. He put his glasses on and read it.

“James Olsen,” he said, almost to himself. Then he grabbed his cane and struggled to his feet, turning to face Jim who had only advanced a little way into the yard, waiting to be announced.

“By Jove! All the way from America. D’you know who this is, Mel darling? This is James Olsen, Esquire. He used to fancy our Sarah Jane. Maybe he’s come over the pond to court her again. Ha!”

Jim stepped forward and offered his hand to Sarah Jane’s father. He was smiling now and he had, for all intents and purposes, stepped back in time to the first meeting he’d ever had with this man.

“Colonel Hamilton, it’s good to see you again,” Jim said as he shook the Colonel’s hand. The Colonel still had a firm handshake and seemed in pretty good shape for someone who had to be approaching 90.

“James Olsen ... look at him Mel ... doesn’t look a day older than when he was escorting Sarah Jane to the promenade or whatever they called that dance you used to have at school.”

“You’re too kind, Colonel. I’m glad to see you looking so fit.”

“Fit? Well, I would be if the damn doctors would leave me alone. Botheration! All the pills and the poking. A man’s got to die sometime, eh? And I’m going to be 90 years old this coming October. Well, boy, sit down and let’s have all the news. Mel, bring us some tea and a few of those biscuits you made this morning, there’s a good girl.”

Jim helped Colonel Hamilton back to his chair and then took another for himself while the nurse went off to fetch the refreshments.

Jim sensed a certain amount of reluctance on the Colonel’s part on the subject of his daughter and so he approached it obliquely. He talked about his life and his business dealings and showed the old man pictures of his children and grandchildren. Finally, he sensed that it was the right time to ask a question.

“What about Sarah Jane? Where is she now? How has she been doing? I haven’t heard from her in almost forty years.”

Colonel Hamilton paused a moment.

“Son,” he said, “I know you two fancied each other way back when – even a blind man could see it – but what are you doing here now? You have a wife, a family, a happy life. What’s all this about then? Bit of a long journey just to do some catching up, what?”

Jim decided to go for total honesty.

“Colonel Hamilton, your daughter was the love of my life. Still is in fact. I have had very few happy days since I got her last letter telling me she’d found someone else. I’m afraid I made rather a mess of my life for a number of years after that, until about a year or so ago when I got myself straightened out and back on track. But there’s a Sarah Jane shaped hole in my soul that I just can’t fill with anything else.”

The Colonel picked up a pipe and carefully loaded it from a brown leather tobacco pouch. He took his time building the dottle and getting the tobacco tamped down just right before striking a kitchen match on his twill slacks and lighting it. He puffed for a few moments until he was satisfied that it was burning properly.

“Filthy habit, tobacco. Bloody doctors raise all sorts of hell about it. Mel goes positively bonkers when I smoke, but there it is.”

He paused as if gathering his thoughts.

“James, Sarah Jane moved on with her life and you should do the same old chap. No point in stirring up old memories now is there?”

“Will you please tell me where she is?”

Jim spotted some moisture at the corner of the old man’s eyes. He paused a long while before responding.

“She’s in a hospital. James, Sarah Jane is in a coma. Has been for some time. Car accident. Drunk driver. He didn’t get injured, oh no. If I’d been younger I’d have given him a good thrashing and no mistake. Bastard. Left my poor Sarah Jane in a coma. Brain injury. Life support. Very bad. Very bad.”

Jim was stunned. Sarah Jane in a hospital; in a coma. She needed him.

“What hospital?”

“Mel! Mel! Confound it woman where in God’s name have you got off to now!”

“Coming Colonel. What is it?” Mel came running out into the garden but she was not wearing a facial expression that held any grave concern. Apparently hearing the Colonel yell was a sign of his improving health.

“Give this young man here the name and address of that hospital where the torturers have our Sarah Jane shut up.”

“Are you sure, sir?”

“Are you deaf woman? The man’s come all the way from America to find her! Of course, I’m sure.”

“Where is her husband?”

“Husband? Dead. Killed in that damn Falklands thing. God Damn civilians. It’s never the soldiers that start wars, James. Oh no, it’s always the damned civilians. Idiots built the bridges of our ships out of aluminum. Lighter and cheaper they said. Oh yes. Lighter and cheaper and more flammable than tissue paper when the rockets fell on ‘em. Poor chap was burnt to a cinder. Broke our poor girl’s heart and her with two babies to care for and all. Ah well, she’s had her troubles has Sarah Jane. Maybe if she hears from someone from her past she’ll wake up. Who knows?”

Mel came back with a piece of paper with a name and address written on it.

“What’s her married name?”

“Ha!” the Colonel barked. “Hamilton, same as always. Kept her own name she did. What a scandal that was, let me tell you. She and her mother didn’t speak for weeks after she made that announcement, oh my yes. I was pretty proud of her myself and I don’t care who knows it.”

“Thank you, Colonel. I promise I’ll stop and see you again before I go back home.”

“You do that, young man. You do that. Always welcome, always welcome. I’ll be right here. Now off you go – got a maiden to awaken with a kiss.”

Jim actually blushed.

“Yes, sir, Colonel Hamilton.”

“Call me Spenser, with an ‘s’ like the poet,” he said reaching up to take Jim’s hand. “You’ll go help her then won’t you son?”

“I’ll do my best, Spenser,” he replied, shaking the old and withered hand.

Mel escorted Jim back through the house and out the front door.

“It was a terrible blow to him it was when Sarah Jane had that accident. I thought he was going to go round the twist for sure he was so wrought up about it. If you can do anything that would be a real blessing.”

“I’ll see what can be done, Mel, and thank you for taking such good care of the Colonel,” Jim replied before turning away and heading back down the walk, through the little gate at the end, and back to his waiting Rolls Royce.

“All done sir?” Niles asked.

“For now, Niles.”

Jim handed Niles the paper with the name and address of the hospital on it. “Do you know where this is?”

“Yes, sir, I do sir. It’s on the other side of London from your hotel sir. Will you be wanting to go there, sir?”

“Not just now, Niles. Please take me back to the hotel. I need to do something first,” Jim said sliding into the back seat of the Silver Ghost.

“Very good sir,” the driver said, closing the door and getting into the front seat.

The drive back to the hotel was uneventful. Jim didn’t sleep this time, but he was lost in thought, thinking about his next move. You’ve probably already figured out what he should do next, but it wasn’t so easy for Jim. Playing God is a lot easier to write about than it is to do. Human’s make bad gods because they rarely see the outcomes of their actions before taking them.

But in the end, Jim had no choice and so he walked into his room, reached into a secret compartment in his attaché case and removed a CD. The disc was soon spinning in Jim’s laptop and the familiar words appeared on the screen announcing that Master PC was running properly.

Jim typed in Sarah Jane’s name and a figure appeared. It was a supine figure slowly rotating in front of him. She was thin – emaciated – with lank hair and slack features. Nothing at all like the vibrant teenager that Jim had fallen in love with. Wires and tubes were much in evidence.

Jim had developed the technique of combining his mental powers with those of the Master PC software through a set of electrodes that connected to the USB port of his computer. He applied the electrodes to his forehead, closed his eyes, and saw the rotating image in his mind.

Jim reached out with his ability and began to gently probe Sarah Jane trying to assess her condition and the damage that had been done. His intent was to reverse the injury to her brain and bring her back to health. Easier said than done – Jim wasn’t a doctor so how in the world could he know what to do? His next thought was a mental slap to the back of his head. He didn’t have to know – that was Master PC’s job. All he had to do was steer.

It was as simple as a “fix what’s wrong with Sarah Jane’s brain” command and the software went to work. While it was doing its thing, Jim was watching Sarah Jane’s mind. Pictures flashed and disappeared. It was a disjointed narrative to be sure but Jim was able to piece together much of Sarah Jane’s life since she broke up with him. And, yet, he found, in a part of her mind that she didn’t visit very often, his image as a bright young teenager with a big smile and a quick mind – the image surrounded with sad colors; a tinge of regret the hue of what if.