For of all sad words of tongue and pen,
The saddest are these: "What might have been!"
The Railway Arms. It wasn't where she had expected the day to end in and it certainly wasn't where she had expected her life to end. So maybe her life had ended in a London hospital with beeping machines and an unattractive hospital gown in 2008. Maybe it had ended on a cold night with an over sized coat on a London street in 1983; these were minor details when compared to the rather large fact that her life had, indeed, ultimately ended.
Her feet led over to the bar in a dreaming state as Alex tried to process everything that had happened outside - Keats. Molly. Gene. Oh god, Gene. He would probably still be outside in the bitter cold, staring blankly at the closed bar door knowing him. He'd be deep in thought with the frown line firmly in place between his brows, waiting for her to say she wasn't really leaving him. The thought that he would eventually have to give up waiting and turn his back on the bar only added to her heartache. Molly's scarf absentmindedly ran through her fingers as she found herself standing in front of the bar, concentrating only on the feel the soft fabric slipping over her skin. It was all she had now. The only remnants of the life she had lead with her beautiful daughter in another time and an oh so distant place. But as she watched the material pass through her hands, it began to fade and disappear until Alex clung desperately to nothing but thin air. She should have figured. Keats' last bargaining chip, his last shot at getting her to stay, was never going to stay long. As her hands became empty, Alex felt her heart sink lower than she even thought possible and she realised that she felt nothing but emptiness and hatred for Jim Keats. He was probably out there now, comforting himself with the thought that she'd be clinging to her last piece of Molly, only to see it disintegrate in front of her. Knowing Jim, it would put that twisted smile firmly on his lips. His last twist of the dagger.
Her eyes stayed fixed on her hands where the scarf had been seconds before for what seemed like an eternity and it wasn't until a glass of wine was placed in front of her that she tore her eyes away from her trembling fingers. Nelson. He stood on his side of the bar with a welcoming smile firmly on his face as Alex finally looked up at the barman and sighed heavily.
'Need an ear?' He asked in his London accent. 'I'm quite the listener,' he smiled. It wasn't the first time a customer had come into his bar with the weight of the world on their shoulders and he was sure it wouldn't be the last; he was always there ready to listen. It was what he did. When you signed up to be a barman, you didn't just pour drinks - your customers became your friends and when they had something on their mind, you became the cart that they unloaded their thoughts onto. Alex gave a half hearted smile and took a deep breath as she sunk down onto a bar stool and propped her head up on one elbow, the fingers of her other hand skirting lightly up and down the stem of the wine glass in front of her, but not drinking it.
'How long have you got?' She asked ironically. Nelson laughed lightly and told her he had time enough. Her hand dropped from the glass stem and came down to rest flat against the bar surface and she sighed as finally looked up into Nelson's kindly face. 'I should be happy, shouldn't I?' she told him. She could hear Ray and Chris laughing with old friends in the corner of the bar, clinking glasses together and introduced Shaz. She should be over there with them meeting all the people she had read about in Sam's file. She should be meeting Sam again and telling him that she believed him - She knew his world was real. She had met the people he had described and had been pulled into the insane world they had both thought were in their heads. But instead she had chosen to remain at the bar on her own. Why was that?
'No one 'should' be happy, mon brave. People are happy, or they're not happy. It's up to them. No one 'should' be anything,' Nelson told her. His words seemed to momentarily confuse her, until she just allowed them to wash over her and relaxed into the palm of her hand once more.
'I'm not happy,' she replied quietly after a moment of consideration. And she wasn't. How could she be happy knowing that not only had she lost her beautiful daughter, but the man who had come to mean so much to her over the last three years? Hell, she'd lost everything.
'I never told him how I felt, and now it's too late,' she lamented. He would now never know how much he had meant to her and that her feelings for him ran much deeper than him being her superior.
'Can I offer you the same advice that I told a young Sam Tyler?' Nelson asked, leaning down on his elbows towards Alex who meekly nodded in response. 'When you can feel - then you're alive. When you don't feel, you're not,' he told her simply and then waited for her to process his words. A moment of silence passed as Alex considered what he had said and then met his eyes with her tearful ones.
'I can feel,' she whispered, her words breathy as she exhaled, 'I feel so much pain.' And it was true. A deep ache pulsated within her at the thought of Gene being left on his own. The image of him on the floor of his chequered wonderland wouldn't leave her mind and she knew that was how she would envisage him forever more; broken. Lost. Vulnerable. And the thought of it was killing her. Nelson studied her face. The woman before him wasn't ready for her drink, he had known that as soon as she had entered the Railway Arms with her shoulders slumped and a smile absent from her face. That was no way to enter his pub and her soft confession of pain only confirmed his suspicions that she didn't belong her. Leaning in closer to her so he could speak quietly, Nelson looked down into her sad green eyes.
'Then maybe you're still alive, mon cheri,' he told her gently, eyebrows raised. Alex's eyes studied his as she heard his words. No, she wasn't. She was dead and she was here. She'd always be here.
'I can't be. I've here, Nelson. We both know what that means' she told him sadly.
'I've had plenty of people walk out of here before, you know. What's a pub without regulars who leave and come back? I need someone to spread the good word' He pulling back from her and give a small wink. Alex felt her heart pound in her chest and her eyes flickered to the door. He couldn't mean... She couldn't...
'This place is for old friends to catch up and spend their time in carefree laughter. I can't have you sat here on your own bringing them down, I'm afraid,' he scolded lightly but the wide smile on his face indicated his amusement.
Picking up a beer glass and a cloth, Nelson began to polish the glass to a shine and sighed heavily, 'I hate to do it to such a pretty woman like yourself, but I'm afraid I'm gonna have to kick you out.' He shook his head with sadness as he kept his eyes on the glass in his hand. Alex couldn't believe what she was hearing, the tears in her eyes escaping and promptly being wiped away, a small sobbing laugh tumbling from her lips. Nelson met her eyes and tilted his head towards the doors she'd not long walked through. 'Go on. On your way,' he told her, with another wink and a smile.
'Thank you' she whispered to him. As she began to walk away from the bar, she stopped and turned to face Nelson once more. 'Save me a drink?' She asked him softly. The barman placed the glass he had been polishing down next to her still untouched glass of wine and filled it with cold beer. He then left them side by side and smiled at her.
'They'll be here when you're ready,' he told her. He received a grateful smile from the woman in front of him and watched as she darted out the doors and into the street. Nelson stood for a second, his eyes still on the doors as they swung shut behind her, the echo of her ecstatic laugh fading, until his thoughts were interrupted by a loud 'Oi! Nelson! Another round here!' from Ray, a loud wave of laughter and cheers from the table of Manchester and Salford and Fenchurch East group of friends, old and new.