I didn’t expect a déjà vu encounter to be the thing that made me start my story, but there it is.
There it was. The story has been there a while. It was the déjà vu that started it.
The night outside the small bedroom window had been black and I’d searched for some stars but none had been visible. I’d left the curtains open as was my wont and had thrown myself back on the bed.
So, there I was, lying flat and staring out of the window, and then it had appeared. In the black sky, between the curtains. A sudden flash. A flashing green light.
Normal people would have asked if it was a satellite, an aeroplane, Superman.
Instead, tears had stung behind my eyes, goosebumps had prickled up under my pyjamas.
Gatsby, Daisy.
Of course, I had sternly berated my ridiculous sensibilities while simultaneously revelling in the stirring pangs.
And so, the familiarly odd blend of feelings – mingling, diffusing. Heart-rending tragedy alongside the echoes of a thousand rational voices who reminded me it was foolish to cry about a literary character or two.
In fact, I have to admit there have been more than two. Plenty. Yes, plenty of cunning author’s dead offspring I had mourned – and continue to mourn.
Anyway, that is not the déjà vu bit. The déjà vu bit came the next day.
I’d fallen asleep in an orgasmic state of Gatsby grief and had forgotten all about it when I woke up. Fickle.
No, it was in the city. That’s where it had happened. The first odd event was the dog walker.
As I’d been wandering along the cobbled streets, down the hill toward the old city, I’d caught a voice on the wind.
“Nora!” the voice carried down the path
I’d turned. A dog raced past me, panted towards the woman. Nora. The dog’s name was Nora.
I’d wondered if it had been named after Ibsen’s poor mother, and had suddenly desired a dog so I could call it Macaroon. And then, as I’d tried to shake off the shadows of dead writers, I’d remembered the dying moments of the previous night. And the green light.
At that very moment, two grey-haired, woolly-hatted women had passed me on the path as I’d been standing, paused, watching Nora race to her owner and receive a strong patting. And – you won’t believe this but it’s true – one of the woolly-hatted women said as she strolled past, “Like boats against the current, ey.”
I’d listened, desperate for clarification of their conversation, some confirmation they had indeed been quoting Fitzgerald, but their voices had disappeared and all I’d observed as they continued down the path was one of the ladies shrugging the leather strap of her bag. Bags always slipped off the shoulder.
Anyway, this is still not the déjà vu moment, although I was beginning to feel some sense of Francis Scott talking to me from beyond the grave. This was not uncommon though.
Once I’d reached the book shop (I had ordered the latest Irving), I’d stopped outside and had a quick browse in the window.
White and gold. That is what I saw. In the middle of the window, displayed upon a neatly piled book stack – the glossy white hardback, its gold-embossed pages shining from within the white spine, and the words The Great Gatsby in bold golden capital letters. It looked like him. It looked like Tom. And Daisy.
The pain stirred once again, the green light of last night, the heartbreak of past years, old stories. How to get this agony gone though? How to rid myself of the pangs of longing and love. Not the pangs of longing and love for another, but for the idea of it. To speak about longing and love the way he did.
I can but try.
J March 