By 2017 I had been promoted to Marketing Director. However,it seemed that things had rather gone to pieces after Sarah’s death.
I had taken her death very hard, understandably, and hadbeen given some compassionate leave afterwards. I found it difficult to get theprecise details out of Nick, as clearly he felt uncomfortable talking about it.Reading between the lines, it was clear that my heart had no longer been in itwhen I went back to work.
A difficult trading climate, poor results and a new CEOmeant that I was allowed to leave gracefully in 2020. In other words, inrecognition of my years of good service, I’d been offered a golden handshakeand a comfortable pension as a polite way of saying “piss off”.
It sounded like a reasonable enough deal to me. I’d beenleft with enough money to live on for the rest of my life hence my apparentlack of interest in getting another job in the years that followed.
That wasn’t to say that I hadn’t been offered plenty. Anumber of headhunters had rung up to try and tempt me into a new positionduring the 2020s, but I had turned them all down in this life, presumably justas I had in my previous one.
My reluctance to return to work left one nagging doubt in mymind. Could it be that my lack of activity and direction in the years followingmy retirement had been contributory factors in my death? It may not all havebeen down to the purely physical causes of my cancer, such as smoking.
Had my body, sensing that my mind had given up, also decidedto give up? I had heard stories about people who had lost the will to live insuch a way after the death of a partner, following them to the grave soonafter.
Perhaps this was something else I could change. If I savedSarah, perhaps I would save myself. It was less than three years now until herdate with destiny. Until then, it was time to leave my retirement behind andsee what working life had to offer.
My last day at work had taken place on Friday the 23rd ofOctober, but a “surprise” lay in store for me on the Saturday evening. Myfriends and family had arranged a joint 50th birthday/retirement party for meat a local hotel.
They had no doubt done a fantastic job of keeping it asecret from me. However, not knowing of my backwards existence, no one thoughtto keep it a secret afterwards.
Having seen all the pictures on Facebook and hearing Staceyand David enthusing about what a great night it had been, I was quite lookingforward to it. Judging by the horrific hangover I woke up with on the Sundaymorning, it must have been a good one.
On the day of the party, I played suitably dumb about thewhole thing, allowing Stacey and David to believe they had duped me intothinking we were going to the hotel for a meal.
When we arrived and went into the suite where the party wasto take place I did my bit to feign surprise. In fact, there was a surprisewaiting for me, and that was the sheer scale of the event. I was amazed at justhow many people were there, it must have been well over a hundred and they allseemed genuinely delighted to see me.
I had become so used to living as a social recluse over thepast few years that it came as quite a shock to realise just how many friends Iapparently had. But where had they been in the years that followed? Was thiswhat happened to people when they got older, or left work? Did they just fadeinto obscurity? Other than Nick, very few people had kept in touch, a couple ofChristmas cards, and that was about it.
I spent the evening getting to know as many people as Icould. I found putting names to faces quite difficult at the best of times, butto avoid future embarrassment I made a huge effort to try and remember as manyas possible.
I also met some family members I hadn’t seen before, acouple of cousins and an ancient uncle who spent the whole evening complainingthat he had to go outside to smoke his pipe.
Stacey had hired a DJ who was about my age, and he wasplaying an excellent set. Clearly he’d been told beforehand about my musicaltastes. I’m glad someone had, because I still didn’t know what a lot of themwere myself at this point. I had been working my way through some of theplaylists on my iPod but even so, I got to hear a lot of tunes that were new tome that night, and very agreeable.
As he played some classic old skool dance hits from the 90sI invariably found myself drawn towards the dance floor.
“Remember this one?” Nick called across at me, also on thedance floor. “Takes you back, doesn’t it? Ibiza ’98? Those were the days!”
I’d never heard the tune before, which I figured by thelyrics was probably called Horny, but I knew all about Ibiza ’98. Nickhad been reminiscing about it one night when we had been in the pub. It hadbeen the holiday of a lifetime for us at the time, not to mention a milestonemoment in my life as well. It was on that holiday that I’d first met Sarah.
I really got into the party atmosphere as the night wore on.Up on the dance floor, in the multi-coloured beams of light casting patternsacross the room, I heard the soundtrack of my life played out. Many of thesongs, even if unfamiliar now, I sensed had had special meaning to me atcertain points in my life.
From the dance floor fillers to the early 90s indie rock andBritpop, I was enjoying every moment. For the first time since my new life hadbegun back in that hospital bed in 2025, I really began to feel like I had aplace in the world.
I had another pleasant surprise at the end of the evening. Ared-headed beauty with a dress to match her strawberry blonde curls grabbedhold of me when the smoochy numbers came on and led me
