The clouds had darkened the sky to such an extent that it could have been night time rather than ten in the morning. When I descended into the Underground at Tottenham Court Road it was with relief that the rain had yet to start, and the satisfaction that it surely would later. Riding the escalator beneath the capital I scanned the faces of those ascending, nervous with the anticipation of a deluge.
It was November but autumn had never really taken hold, apart from the physical shedding of leaves and the perpetual sundown colours. Unusually warm for this time of year, was how the weather forecasters commented on the unseasonably high temperatures. So although I would have gone to the coast anyway, there was a favourable, almost cinematic feel to the day which imbued me with extra confidence.
I had spoken to Claire several times on the phone before the conversation had begun to veer round to the personal and email addresses been exchanged. She worked for the Norwich branch of the Union, source material, whilst I was in an outlying branch in London. I’m not sure if she discovered I was a poet before I found out she was an artist or whether it was the other way round. Whatever, after three months of increasingly flirtatious emails I was now heading for a Cromer rendezvous. Expectancy hung in the air like a golden promise.
Last night our meeting was almost tangible in my mind. We met on the pier, slatted boards threatening descent into the turgid sea below. I recognised her blonde hair from the picture she had emailed me, and in the dream the distortion was the same. She was gazing out towards the swells at the back of the ocean. Foamy-lidded lashes of spume flicked into the sky. I walked and stood beside her. No introductions were necessary. After a moment she turned and asked what I was thinking.
‘I’m wondering whether the sea spray makes your lips taste of salt.’
She moved over to kiss me. Some time later I awoke.
~ ~ ~
I change tubes at Embankment and walk through the labyrinthine tunnels to the Circle line. There are eight Eastbound stops to endure before I reach Liverpool Street, but there’s plenty of time. My train doesn’t leave until eleven o’clock.
Nothing has actually been said to indicate that this is a date, but there’s a tacit assumption between us that it is. Claire is 26 and from lines such as that’s my social life, such as it is and I don’t get out much nowadays I’ve gleaned that she isn’t seeing anyone at the moment. I’d never ask her outright of course, that would be tacky and I’m not that kind of person. Equally I haven’t told her much about me, but she’s read some of my poetry and nothing runs deeper than that within a person. Often I’m nothing but a soul laid bare.
Sometimes I get an erection when I think about meeting up with her, but so far I’ve managed to leave off touching it.
When I travel on the Underground I always stand. That way you avoid sitting next to someone you don’t like the look of, and there’s also a certain authority in doing so. A statement. No one looks at anyone sitting down, but someone standing is fair game. Eye contact on the Underground is always exciting. Perhaps it’s the transitory nature of the journey, but a thousand relationships are created and undone at the opening and closing of the doors.
At Mansion House a light skinned, red haired girl gets on the tube. Her lips are full, pale pink lipstick creating a glossy sheen on her mouth. Her blue eyes flick up to mine before she notes the carriage is full and she leans against the door which has just closed behind her, smiling as we thunder down the dark tunnel like a torpedo.
I turn to face the black window, watch her reflection; wonder if she notices this. At the next stop she moves into a newly vacant seat and reaches into her bag for Kathy Lette’s Foetal Attraction. I glance at her now and then, but gradually lose interest. Can love be so arbitrary? For a while there we had something going.
After waiting stationary for an inordinate amount of time between Tower Hill and Aldgate, we then slowly creak to life again. I read the advertisements overhead. All cheap rate phone calls and holidays abroad. I find it heartening, however, to see the massive ads for books which line the tunnel walls at each station. Here at least, some parity is regained between fiction and the seemingly more popular culture of movies and theatre shows. A few years back there had even been poetry on the Underground.
One man’s tourism is another man’s life. I’ve yet to develop that line. I’m holding back, hoping that Claire might add some inspiration. I can tell her it’s what I’ve been working on.
Gulls skim the sea, their wingtips almost dipping into the water. I see what I assume must be Claire further along the pier. She’s wearing a fawn brown full-length coat and black boots. A multicoloured scarf has been thrown around her neck, and her hair is caught up at the back of it. I walk towards her, deliberate whether to tap her on the shoulder, or to walk around the other side of the white-wooded, peelingly-painted amusement arcade and surprise her face on. I choose the latter, and run alongside the railings separating me from the sea. The wind picks up, I’m running against it, and I glimpse her coat through the windows of the amusement arcade. Flashing lights adding to the cinematic experience. I round the corner and slow to a crawl. If I time this right, I might even bump into her...
~ ~ ~
At Liverpool Street I abandon the daydream for a while and slip my one-way ticket into the automated machine. It grabs it from my hand and the barriers open, letting me through. Following the signs to British Rail I check the time of the train to Norwich, and then meander back through the station towards W.H.Smiths. There’s little space to sit around here, and a browse through some books will do me good. As I near the store I notice a woman sitting on the ground, leaning back against a pillar. She’s writing into a small notebook, and is probably in her early forties. Shopping bags are at her feet, but I get the impression she’s more the shopper catching a rest than a bag lady with her belongings. As I pass by she looks up, catches my eye, and smiles.
It almost stops me in my
stride. I’m tempted to double back and ask her what she’s
writing in the notebook. Perhaps she’s a writer too, and maybe we
could kill the hour I have to spare over a coffee
or a bagel. Instead the moment passes, the impetus has gone. Nevertheless
I hang around inside Smiths, absently flicking through books and magazines,
whilst occasionally shooting glances her way. I can tell she hasn’t
moved because the bags remain in my vision.
I’m sure she was vaguely attractive. Her hair was auburn and a red bow or something was tied on top. I think her lips were also red, but I can’t be sure. She was smoking, I remember that, but in a cinematic way, one in which she wouldn’t be riddled with cancer or have that slightly metallic taste in her mouth when someone kissed her.
I walk out of Smiths and take a left. If I do it right I can double back and it’ll look like I’ve gone through all the shops and am returning to catch my train. This is, after all, more or less the case. I wait a short while then, unable to leave off the moment any longer, return to where she is sitting. She doesn’t see me this time, and a man I hadn’t seen before, with a black bomber jacket and a shaved head, is standing nearby, also smoking. Perhaps they’re not related but I don’t take that chance.
Instead I head over to the pillar opposite and crouch down beside it, my back resting against the concrete. Removing my black army backpack I undo the straps and take out The Outsider by Camus. As I read it I glance up, look across to her, wonder whether she’s doing the same to me in the moments that I look away.
I can’t imagine that
a conversation will now be started. The only chance was when she smiled
the first time. An opening was created. Now all we can do is imagine.
Some intriguing feelings enter my
mind for this stranger. Not sexual, but more ambiguous. As though we are
somehow linked and always will be. Nudged together by circumstance, our
lives continuing to reflect the other’s, in infinitesimal ways.
When I look up again she’s gone. Then I see her to my right, heading towards me but then past me. Eye contact at the final moment unnerved me, and I looked to one side, laying the book across my knees with the title page upwards. All this for her benefit.
The ice cream is cold in my mouth, and I gulp it down like an over-excited child. The conversation since we met seemed a little stilted, so I suggested buying the ice cream as a friendly gesture. Claire smiles as she eats it, quite a feat. With our mouths full any silences are understandable, and she know that, is grateful of my assessment of the situation. When a tear of cream escapes her mouth and runs milkily down her chin I reach over with a finger and halt its progress. Claire smiles even wider.
~ ~ ~
I’m not sure what plans are afoot for dinner, but my stomach is increasingly hungry so I buy a ham and salad baguette and stand as I eat it, gazing up at the blue board above me; places and figures flipping over at regular intervals. Fortunately my train is due to leave on time.
Slipping a Wrigley’s Extra Thin Ice into my mouth which freshens it and burns my tongue, I walk to platform 8 and check the Norwich train. From Norwich there will be a twenty minute wait to catch the connecting train to Cromer, arriving there about 2pm. My ticket is pre-booked and numbered so I walk along the platform in search of coach D, seat 16F.
Thankfully, my seat is one of those with a white table that separates the facing passengers. Mine is by the window, and the seat to the left of me hasn’t been reserved, unlike the two seats opposite. As I board, all of them are vacant. The element of chance and absence of choice pleases me. There is something wild in the accident of seating arrangements. Anything can happen.
It would be unfeasible
to expect anyone to hope for anything less than an attractive travelling
companion, thrown into proximity for the two hours of the journey. Even
though conversation is often
impossible, due to social or other constraints, different kinds of relationships
can be formed and diffused during the ride. I take out my Camus and place
it in front of me on the table; waiting.
The first arrival takes up his seat diagonally from me. A cliché of a businessman, my excitement is piqued. However, only a few minutes from departure a young, perhaps late twenties, female with straight black shoulder length hair and very pale skin asks if she may sit down, and he shifts sideways to allow her passage through.
I shoot a glance towards her face. Not stunning, more of a natural beauty. Her eyes meet mine for no more than a second, but I know that the journey will be eventful and filled with such moments. Nonchalantly I pick up my novel, and wait until the train’s movement heralds our exit from London before pausing to look out of the window and take in my surroundings.
She also has a book. A5 and white, maybe a textbook, although the fact that she has it at all pleases me. At journey’s end the vacant seats will be littered with women’s magazines, containing articles on how to fake and achieve orgasm, apply make-up, fashion, and how to attract the wrong kind of man which invariably their readers ache for as the right kind of man. But not here. She is how I would prefer Claire to be – her blondness always a sticking point in my imagined meetings to date. Her eyelashes long, diaphanous.
She wears a thin cream jumper, strands of wool tied at the elbows in a little knot. Purely decorative. I didn’t spot when she arrived whether she was wearing a skirt or trousers, but it doesn’t matter. The table conceals her legs. Once or twice during the journey I will knock my feet against hers, probably even accidentally. It’s the little touches, the nuances between us, which will determine the extent of our relationship.
She doesn’t wear any rings, not even those little silver things that are so popular nowadays. Half-inch long golden earrings, in the shape of tiny corncobs, hang from her earlobes. I have no real opinion of them. As the train picks up speed and warmth I notice her cheeks begin to redden, to regain some colour. Other than this natural effect she is wearing no make-up.
As we travel through the flashing landscape, which has regained control over the elements whilst I was underground and within the confines of the station, I realise that whatever happens today this female sitting opposite me will become the pinnacle of my pure desire. Not only that, but also any relationship other than glances or body language would immediately puncture the bubble of togetherness which exists now, within the moving train. With her, this is as good as it gets.
An hour out the book slips
from her grasp and lies at an angle in her lap. She’s asleep. The
man to her side is deep in a newspaper and I allow myself to look directly
into her face. At this intensity little aberrations become obvious, but
they don’t negate her beauty, in fact they enhance it. Watching
someone sleep is such an intimate experience, and here it adds nicely
to the occasion. She not only seems wholly natural, but also obtainable.
I can just about read the title of her book in black lettering on the
white cover. Explorations of
Thematic Structure Within Religions. It makes me wonder whether it’s
any good.
When she wakes it is with the lazy certainty of confidence that comes from someone who knows they are close to reaching their stop. I glance over towards her a couple of times, a little more obviously now that the male beside her left the train at Stowmarket thirty minutes earlier. I almost wonder whether I should speak, make a comment about her book, but instead find myself inhabiting mine.
The train begins to slow and although Norwich is still twenty minutes away, she packs her book into her bag and replaces her dark brown suede coat over her shoulders. Something gives inside me. As we pull to a halt I find myself watching her faint reflection in the window, superimposed over trees, fields, and ultimately the red brick station walls and mediocre passengers. When we stop I’m almost certain I see the trace of a faint smile float across her face. Is it directed at me? Then she’s standing up and walking the length of the train, no looking back.
All I need is a sign.
Claire is huddled into
a corner of the pier, the wind whipping her hair across her face, endangering
her eyes with the severity of paper cuts. I walk back across to her, a
hotdog in each hand. Mine dripping mustard. I wonder if that condiment
was wise. She receives hers with thanks and takes a bite like a sparrow.
We decide that taking shelter in the amusement arcade isn’t a good
idea. Too noisy.
So we walk back towards the town, find a sheltered bench overlooking the
sea, but around the corner from the wind, and continue to eat the food.
‘What are you thinking?’ she asks me.
‘That we’ve had conversations prior to meeting,’ I reply, conspiratorially. ‘We’ve played out this scenario in our heads numerous times before today. When we were on the pier I was going to ask you if your lips taste of salt...a prelude to a kiss. I’ve replayed it enough times. It’s off pat.’
‘But in reality we’re not the sole ones in control,’ she says; then puts her half-eaten hotdog down on the worn wood of the bench and reaches over to kiss me on the mouth.
Her tongue tastes of tomato ketchup, and a small sliver of meat is exchanged between us amongst the saliva.
~ ~ ~
Between Norwich and Cromer the journey was uneventful. The train was more than half-empty and I spent the time watching the landscape: flat farmland intermingled with heath and houses. My heartbeats began to increase and I tried to recollect the photograph of Claire that she had emailed me. Then I tried to recall our conversations, wondered how much of the flirtation would continue into reality. I had brought some of my poetry with me, but it became inconsequential the closer Cromer approached. By the time we came into the station I was so ashamed of it that I dropped it in the bin.
The locals directed me towards the pier and I approached it from above, walking down a long and winding slope to the promenade. The time was 2.30pm. If everything was going to plan then Claire was either on the pier or making her way towards it. On the beach, dog owners made the most of the off-season dispensation of the ban, and allowed their animals to roam free, bucking the surf and dragging sticks along the beach, making strange dog pictures in their wake.
The weather was pleasant, sunny. The wind was fresh, smooth against my face. I walked onto the pier and watched fishermen cast their lines into the ocean. One family had a bucketful of pale orange crabs in water alongside them. As I came up a new addition was added to the pail, caught by a piece of bacon tied onto string.
Past the amusement arcade a lifeboat station sat at the end of the pier. Beside the open doorway a blonde-haired woman was waiting for me. I recognised her from the photograph, although her face seemed less sharp and slightly saggy, the trace of a double chin at odds with the rest of her features. She was attractive enough, dressed in a blue fleece and similarly coloured leggings. For a moment I was close to turning back, but then a seagull flew between us and she looked up. A wary smile crossed her face and she began walking towards me.
‘Graham?’ she mouthed, the words barely formed in her shyness.
I nodded and smiled.
© Andrew Hook 2006
