What is the right thing to do?
It’s the question that’s been keeping me awake for at least a week.
When I left April it was the wrong thing to do, but for the right reason. I didn’t love her. Or was it the right thing, done in entirely the wrong way?
Zoe says she loves me, and I at least believe that she believes herself. What I don’t doubt is my own love for her. I know because it is something I have never felt before. She will be standing beneath the departure boards now, checking her ticket and passport for perhaps the tenth time today. Waiting for me to arrive so we can both depart.
‘Which terminal?’ asks the cabbie.
‘Five, please.’
‘Anywhere nice?’
‘Thailand.’
‘Very exotic,’ he says. ‘Have you there in five minutes.’
The sky is noisy with low and looming aircraft. Our check-in is open and the ground crew will be preparing our own impassive jumbo jet. But isn’t boarding this plane another act of selfishness? Good for me, no doubt; but is it good for Zoe? Is it best for Zoe?
Over the last ten days we have worked our way through my small library of old movies. We watched everything but Casablanca. Zoe has never seen it, but I have and I know only too well how it ends. I slipped that particular classic into my bag and smuggled it out of the house like a piece of bad news.
‘Here we go, pal. What time’s your flight?’
The driver pulls up outside the airport and punches up my fare.
‘Little under two hours,’ I tell him.
‘Perfect timing.’
‘First time for everything,’ I say, handing over the money and climbing out onto the pavement.
On the cover of Casablanca, Rick Blaine stands with his hands in the pockets of his raincoat, behind him is the twin-engine plane ready to fly him and his love to freedom. But Rick won’t be getting on the plane. Because Rick knows the answer; he knows the right thing to do. Heathrow Airport lacks the dusty romance of Casablanca. The planes are too big, numerous and impersonal. And I have neither raincoat nor fedora, but I do have the chance to do something right for once.
Zoe said she needs to find herself.
I’ve already found her. And I love her; not simply as a romantic idea, but as a deep and physical conviction. I found her, now it’s her turn.
The automatic doors open to the noise and motion of ten thousand travellers. There is a jolt of something like panic – a temptation to turn around, flag down the next cab and head . . . where, I don’t know. But the urge is as fleeting as it is visceral.
I have to face Zoe.
I have to tell her I love her, and then I have to walk away.