As she flipped one picture across to look at the next one in the stack of printed pictures she was going through, she froze. Something in the background had caught her eyes. She slowly brought the picture back to examine it closely. Blinking in disbelief, she brought it close and close to her eyes until the still images in the picture blurred out completely.
“Impossible!” she muttered to herself. The pictures were 8 years old and for each of those 8 years she’d had reason to pick up these set of pictures and relive some of the moments captured therein. And today, for the first time, she was seeing it in a different light. That figure in the background was unnervingly familiar.
“Could he be in the background of the other pictures as well?” she gave voice to her thoughts which were now beginning to run riot. She scrambled through the entire stack and as she was about to conclude that it was just that rare occurrence, there again he was, on the last picture in the collection, on a picture taken on a different day but about the same time.
Obviously, it was Dave.
She couldn’t hold back the urge and even with the knowledge that he didn’t fancy answering his phone when jogging, she dialled his number. After what seemed like eternity, she heard the distinct click of the phone call being picked and blurted, “Davie dear, were you at the International Conference Centre 8 years ago when the UNHCR organised a symposium for displaced families?”
Double take kicked in at Dave’s end. He’d later think of the entire episode and laugh it off but at this point, he didn’t find it very amusing. He had thought of several emergencies that could have forced her to call him especially with the knowledge that he was out jogging. As a matter of fact, he had unsuccessfully tried to steady his breaths for the eventuality of what she was going to be relaying to him, thinking the worst. And now what? An 8-year-old symposium? Where did that come from? And why? Why now? Right now? Couldn’t she have…
“Davie sweetie…” she purred, breaking into his sub conscious. It was her strongest forte, the mellifluous voice which always got what it wanted when it switched to its guttural level. It came out like a soft force of nature at its gentlest with the sweetness of honey and its smoothness was spell-binding.
It worked its magic again as his mind traversed the intervening years to bring that event to his memory in a flash. He could have answered immediately but he was still panting from the physical strain of his exercise and being caught unawares by her questioning.
“Are you there, sweetheart,” she cooed, pretending not to hear his rapid breathing.
“Yes, darling, I’m here,” he said between breaths, unable to keep himself from shaking his head in disbelief that she was having her way. “And yes, I remember the symposium and yes again, I was there,” he finished. Arching an eyebrow, he put his thought to words, “Did you have to call at this moment for that? Couldn’t it have waited? I’m not 5 minutes away from the house na!”
“Oh, darling, don’t worry you’d see why I couldn’t wait when you get back.” She couldn’t mask the excitement in her voice but then she had no intention to. “Get here on the double, commander!” she coaxed him in that playful manner she knew he loved and cut the call.
Though now more intrigued that miffed, he still rolled his eyes believing that it wasn’t anything worth the drama and knowing his darling Clara for her ability to get carried away by anything mildly exciting for her. Out of jogging-habit, he took a glance at his sports watch and cursed. The timer he’d set to check his progress was still reading. He’d not remembered to halt it when his phone rang and keeping track of his exertions was part of the regimen.
“Well, I’d have to cross out today’s exercise,” he murmured under his breath as he made his way home. In his mind, he hoped the cause of the call would more than make up for this.
Her stimulating welcome more than made up for it as soon as he entered their patio. For someone who used to dodge his playful grabs whenever he returns from a jog, and who only allowed contact after he’d freshened up, to greet him with a warm hug and a tongue-wrestling kiss was more than he could ask for as compensation for cancelling the day’s exercise.
“And to what do I owe such warmth?” he queried as soon as he got his tongue back.
“Isn’t a wife supposed to be warm towards her husband?” she countered defensively.
Unconvinced, he raised his head slightly, crooked it to the left and gave her one of his signature side looks that eloquently said one thing: I don’t believe a word of what you just said. Knowing the look too well, she laughed cheerily.
“I knew you’d not buy it,” she said, still laughing.
“Not when it is related to an 8-year-old symposium. No, I’d not even take it for free, talk less of buying it.”
That drew more laughter from her as she proceeded to drag him into the sitting room where his eyes immediately fell on the album and some of the pictures she’d pulled out to look at closely. Attempts at piecing together what it was all about were yielding zero results, so he just gave up.
She made him sit on the chair in front of the stool with the stack of pictures. Then, giving him the first two, she asked him what he thought about them.
On the first one were three young ladies, two of whom he knew to be her close friends with whom she still kept close contact. He couldn’t place the face of the third person, so he flicked it over to look at the next one. A smile creased his face. There, staring right back at him with a smile that could bring back the sun at twilight was the stunning beauty that was Clara.
She smacked his shoulder playfully. “Will you stop daydreaming and answer my question?”
Dramatically shaking his head to clear his thoughts – drawing a giggle from her and a shake of the head to go with it – he focussed again on the pictures of her friends and of herself. What could she possibly want me to see, he wrinkled his forehead in thought. If not for all the excitement she was exhibiting, he may have guessed that something untoward had happened to one of her friends but…What? The more he looked, the less likely it was that he would get an answer. Still he looked harder. Unblinking.
After a while, he heaved heavily and said, “I’m afraid without clues, I’d be at a loss, and we can be at this all day!”
It was when she took the pictures and pointed at the figure in the background that it struck him. Hard. He went through all phases of shock known to Clara – pupil dilation, eyes widening, goose-pimpling and the very vocal “Jeez” though this time it was stretched something like “Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeez!!!!”
When the first wave of the shock was beginning to ebb, he blurted, “That’s me na!” looking at the pictures as if the figure of him will de-materialise if he so much as took his eyes off them. The way his eyes were darting from one to the other was so humourous, it was all she could do to keep from spinning over the tiles in wild guffaws.
“I told you it was worth breaking your jogging, didn’t I?” she said with a smile of satisfaction.
“Jeez!” he went again, blinking rapidly. “Can you imagine?” he quizzed no one in particular. “And this was when? Three and a half years before we got married? O’boy eh!” He still held the pictures at if looking for something else.
Then, abruptly he got up, taking time to gently set both pictures on the stool before making for the master bedroom in a blur. Clara was about to call after him, but before she could conjure his name, the sound was barely formed in her throat, he was out of earshot. For the life of her, she couldn’t fathom what just happened. One minute he was transfixed with the shock of realising that he was in the background of two of her pictures and the next he bolted away as if …
Just then, Dave re-emerged and Clara’s thoughts evaporated. He’d changed his tee-shirt and was now wearing the exact one he had on in the background of her own picture.
For Clara, it was as though time stopped. After 8 years? How did he do it? It still looked wearable, though a little tight around his mid-bulk now but it looked good and made him look a lot younger and doubly attractive. His wry smile told her he’d read her mind with exactitude as usual and she blushed, looking away. He closed the distance between them, turned her to him and planted a wet kiss, full on her lips. The “I love you” he whispered in her ears immediately could’ve melted ice.
Later that night before she slept, she found out that he’d only just come across that top when emptying an old box from the garage three days before and had felt an urge to keep just that tee-shirt. He’d washed it and stowed it without giving it much thought. She shook her head at the coincidence, after all these years.
They’d both relived the experience of the symposium laughing at the thought of being at the same place at the same time without an idea that each was a heartbeat away from the one with whom they’d spend the rest of their lives. Wrapped in each other’s embrace, they chatted late into the night about how funny life could be and how many people out there will be in their shoes and never know. The experience left them both feeling something special about their love, something they reaffirmed by consummation as man and wife.
