They say that bad things come in pairs and that remained true for Joe that year. Things remained steady when they returned to school after christmas. They started preparing for their midterms with earnest which would help them realise their predicted grades for next year's A levels. The midterms came and went and slowly April approached. The end of year exams and simultaneously the beginning of Joe and Julia’s official relationship. He had popped the question one day in chemistry whether she wanted to be his girlfriend and she had accepted immediately. A natural progression in Julia’s mind, she liked Joe a lot and found his company preferable to other louts in the school. They both did exceedingly well in the end of years, Joe at the top of the class of Philosophy and just behind Julia in chemistry. In physics he was only middling but for that he was happy, could be worse said his Dad.

Julia was taking a break over the summer to gain work experience in a pharmaceutical lab in Kent called Tizer that her Dad was a manager in. ‘Lucky git’ Joe had said as his job for the summer was behind the counter at Subway wrapping lettuce for the forever ungrateful. Kent was not miles away, in fact only an hour on the train from Stratford with the advent of the high speed from St Pancras. Yet to Joe and Julia it felt like the Atlantic. It’s all very well in a relationship to say fancy going to the pub, or the shop when you’re both around the corner, but when it comes to different counties, things seem to become more complicated. Questions such as where will we stay, how will we pay, what will we do become a lot harder to answer.

An example of which is where they had agreed to meet for the upcoming weekend in June. Due to work commitments Julia had to cancel and there 2 weeks were lost where they didn’t see each other. Slowly over the long three month summer they drifted apart, every meeting they had felt strained, almost forced. It wasn’t that Joe himself wasn’t busy, in fact his band, after changing their name to The Swinging Noodles, Bob’s idea again, had even managed to book some minor gigs at beer festivals and the like. Practice and even writing new songs for the band took up a lot of time. That along with his voracious reading list for philosophy, with Reggy his classmate often saying ‘He Kant do it captain!’. Not to mention his extra reading and studying of physics and the calculus behind it and his shifts at Subway left him even busier than he was at school. Joe didn’t like the fact that they were drifting apart. In fact he made an effort to reignite the romance with flowers and gifts. Julia understood this well and they agreed that things will return to their best when school starts in September. The last year of free secondary schooling in the UK, 6A as they call it in private schools or upper sixth everywhere else.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

It was late August when Joe was returning from his penultimate shift at subway. The rain was falling miserably and decided to skip the bike ride and shove his bike on the tube. The tube in London is notorious for being a mobile blackout so Joe took out his latest subscription to The New Scientist to read up on SpaceX, an innovative private space company. Apparently the CEO was in talks to buy rockets from the Russians for study. Unnoticed to Joe the tube came to be held up at East Ham with a signal fault. Apparently the recent minor quake had caused some damage to the subway and some subsidence had caused various issues for Transport for London.

Finally after a thirty minute delay the tube made its way to West Ham where Joe would change to the DLR to return to Woolwich Arsenal. In West Ham his phone vibrated in his pocket, indicating an incoming call. It was his brother. Joe answered. HIs dad was dead.

There isn’t much going on in one’s head when tragedy of such a scale strikes. Disbelief was Joe’s first sentiment. A cruel joke from his brother perhaps. His brother’s silence subdued that thought. Maybe there was a mistake, maybe it wasn’t there Dad? What happened to whom? I should call my Dad, I'm sure he’ll answer. Isn’t he back in Sweden looking at the volcanoes again? Joe tells Darius of his plan and hangs up without waiting for a reply. He doesn't want to hear what his brother has to say because somehow he knows. He knows it in his gut like when you know it’s going to rain. He calls his father and the phone is answered by a male voice. Not his Dad. A Swedish voice with excellent english. “Sorry…loss…accident” are the only words Joe’s brain processes. The tube rattles on to its next stop as Joe stares blankly out the window. Darius calls again, his voice sounds strained. He say big brother for the first time in his life, he says “Big brother, it’s mum, she’s gone fucking crazy mate, she heard about Dad and then… You need to get back here asap bro. I can’t do this alone”.

This wakes Joe up, the old feeling of being his brother’s knight returns and he jumps off the train at the next stop, bike forgotten.

“Taxi!”