Chapter 8: The Day Before You Came
Quilted clouds, a glimpse of sun, the hymn of traffic. Yes, Marianne thought, big open skies – even over Highbury Fields – make you greedy to gulp down more air. Twenty minutes early for her first day at Lean Green Cars, she perched on a bench with a cappuccino, licking the creamy moustache from her top lip. A few feet away, a Chinese woman chopped the air slowly with her arms and legs, in a silent dance, whilst behind her, a young couple were sharing a joke. It’s an amazing thing hearing people laughing, Marianne thought, the way it takes them over, the way, like crying, it must be done until it’s spent.
Her recent decision to practice kindness was proving harder than she imagined. Trying to greet the noisy traders on Ridley Road as they set up stall felt silly. But she had chatted to the Big Issue lady outside Dalston Kingsland station who, she learnt today, was called Felicia and had moved here from Romania ten years ago; and she had flirted with the Italian-looking boys who operated the mobile coffee stall (“Where are you from?” she had asked. “Tottenham,” one answered.) At Canonbury, her offer of the last seat to a pensioner had been met with an obscenity, his face screwed up like a walnut.
The wind rustled in the oaks, and the clouds now loomed overhead like dark continents, some so sculptured it was as if God had appointed a new, enthusiastic underling. Oh, why had she slept with Joe? She fished out her notebook to list the reasons – it always helped to write things down – but found herself staring at dogs bombing along the grass, fetching sticks and balls without question. To fetch and be happy: that was their purpose, wasn’t it? It seemed moronic, but… but what was hers? She would never marry Joe, for a start. She may have weakened, but a wedding was not going to happen. She had kicked him out today. Go back to Deal, Joe.
She re-read Archie’s latest text, a smile warming her face. They were meeting tonight on the bench on top of Parliament Hill.
*
The eternal spool of time returns us again and again to a new day. Archie left Ben asleep on the sofa, his head throbbing from yesterday’s pub marathon. Outside, Queen’s Crescent bristled with Monday morning usefulness: kids dragged to school, fruit stalls doing brisk trade from passing commuters, vans dispensing loaves of bread or tinned goods, and a curling queue outside the post office.
It was a fifteen minute walk to his office, a box room behind an open-plan space near the canal. He had two bands on his roster, rather than the five or six of previous years. The process was complex these days, with fewer financial dividends, but constant gigging, licensing, and utilizing social new media, brought in just enough money to survive (although in truth he had relied on Rose’s Sales Director salary, which now worried him).
He sat with his back to the blinds. The antique desk was tidy: laptop, moleskine diary and a pile of magazines. To the right, books filled a shelf – trade manuals, an Oxford dictionary, a thesaurus and the collected stories of Chekhov (he’d studied English at university) for when he needed distraction (and because it impressed a new band). To the left was a photo of Rose on their first holiday to Lille, six years ago.
They had met on the number 29 bus, an occurrence no less strange than this thing with Marianne and the notebook. One morning he had sensed a girl’s eyes on him, but continued to stare out at a bus travelling in the other direction, its passengers nodding like dressed-up dogs. But the next day he felt her gaze again, and there was momentary eye contact, as an alternate future started to spin in his mind: because that’s what pure love is, isn’t it – the future?
On the third morning serendipity deposited them at the same stop on Oxford Street; in the hot summer air there was a kind of distortion, a sense of possibility, adventure. But it wasn’t till the following day, when she dismounted two stops earlier than normal, that he found himself leaping off the crowded vehicle to chase her down the road, without knowing how or what he would say.
“Excuse me-” He was panting, red in the face, sweat dampening his brow.
“Yes?” She eyeballed him. It wasn’t going to be easy.
“Um-”
“You want to ask me out, don’t you?”
He nodded.
“A little undignified though, wasn’t it?” She pointed at him and laughed. “Your sprint, I mean.”
He blushed. “Didn’t you feel it too? These last few days-”
She smiled. “You’re cute, what do you want me to say?”
He was paralysed with happiness. There’s a lot under the surface of life – we all know that – but there’s loneliness where you wouldn’t expect it, too.
“Look-”
“Archie-”
“Archie, I’m Rose. I’m in a mental rush, cow of a boss, here’s my number” – she had scribbled it on an old ticket – “call me.’ He eyed the ticket. “For real,” she said.
But now Rose had disappeared. And it was probably his fault. The strip light flickered as he boiled a kettle, and the buzzer went; it must be Bryony, his new intern. His phone beeped. Marianne. The edge of a smile crossed his face as he went to the door.
