Walking Slowly Through The Crowd

At moments like this he needed little persuasion that his plans were the right ones. He wouldn’t miss the cold, the crowds, the creeping claustriophobia, the inescapable ubiquity of strangers’ body odour or any of the other myriad frustrations which characterised his morning commute. There would be nothing in this for which he would pine.

Of course, there were some people – a few colleagues, the friends from other contexts he met up with occasionally. However Nick had held relationships at something of a distance since the split with Jane; while that policy had its down sides, at times like this it was easier to stay the course. Over the past three years that relationship had faded into the background, but the regrets were still keen. He knew it was all to predictable to attempt to save himself from being hurt by keeping others at arms’ length, but that didn’t make it any less successful. Better the dull ache of regret and frustration than the sharp stabs of let down and disappointment.

He knew the business opportunities were good where he was going – property on the west coast was booming, the economy was more stable than in the past and a new President was bringing the expectation of that stability lasting into years ahead. Optimism was at last running free, and Nick was planning to make the most of it. An old-fashioned American dream, without starting in the gutter.

There had been little in the way of attempts to make him stay at work – the standard good-natured jokes, the predictable collection he wasn’t supposed to know about, but in truth this was the sort of company that would cope perfectly well without him or most others.

He had a week left, and this week would mainly be putting his house in order. 17 emails waited for him. One from the manager.

“Come and see me ASAP. John”

Nick pondered for a moment – this could only be some last minute clarification of pending deals for his successor. He went straight upstairs; John’s door was open.

“Come in, Nick. Good to see you”

Nick had never been close to John; nor was he suspicious of his motives like others were. Like many others, he just kept stayed his distance.

“I’ll get straight to it Nick. Caz is leaving. Wants to be a full time mum. Don’t get it myself – she’s wasted at home. With a body and a brain like hers, she’d be a millionaire in 5 years. Anyway, you’re perfect for her job. We’ll put you on 60K, 5 more than she was and beef up the bonuses. Interested?”

Nick had no answer. This was unexpected, unasked for and more than he would make for at least 5 years abroad. Silence while he studied the calendar.

“Well?”

“S-S-Sorry”, he stammered. Surprise always bought this on, cruelly reminding him of childhood embarrassment at the very moment he needed to be most focussed. “I just wasn’t expecting this. Can I let you know?”

John looked surprised too. “I thought you’d jump at it. You have until before team meeting tomorrow.”

“Thank you.

He left on autopilot; to where, he didn’t know. Coffee-machine, drink, wander down hallway. Pay more attention than necessary to the notice-board. Anything to kill time.

After eight hours of what passed for work, the dilemma was down to this: there was no personal reason to stay, no financial reason to go. The journey home had seemed longer, the to-do list ahead of the move substantially more out of control faced with this decision. Whenever he was usually faced with a decision, it would come down to lists. Here there was one item on each list, each item of equal weight.

The answer came down to a simple choice – stay or go, money or opportunity, familiar or new. He saw no reason for one or the other; nothing screaming at him that it was obvious. So he decided simply to let it be decided for him; when he left the station at the end of his journey, he would wall slowly home past the shops, allowing the busy commuters brush him, bump him, overtake him. Whatever he heard or saw first in the shop windows, overheard phone calls and conversations, would decide for him – stay or go, money or move, home or abroad.

The train pulled in, he climbed the stairs, keeping pace with the middle of the crowd; he took the card from his pocket, pressing it to the reader and through the gate. And he started to listen.

Wrong Number

There are moments when I can still hear the gentle reprimand, the loving rebuke. Always it would come in those moments of quiet, embarrassed realisation that I had forgotten something, left something out, overlooked it. “Slow down son. Stop and think. Be more careful, more thoughtful, more thorough.”

It’s odd how little things like that stay with you and resurface at different times of your life, creep up on you unawares when you lease expect it or come back to haunt you when you feel at your most vulnerable and insecure. Part of me, at the end of this day – the part that hadn’t consumed a celebratory two beers, half a bottle of champagne and three whiskies – could still hear the correction.

Looking back, I can see why it happened. It shows how dependent on these little pieces of consumerism we have become; ten years ago we would never let the things out of our sight; these days it’s a reflex pat of the pocket every now and then. We had both been in a hurry after lunch; she had to get back for a client immediately, so she left quickly. I settled up and grabbed the phone without looking. I took my time getting back to the office, the better to savour the crisp spring air and the views along the river on the way back. By the time I got back to my desk I was straight back onto emails; then project planning. I needed to get it finished before four, so I could get off to the jeweller’s in good time before closing. They were going to call to let me know the ring was ready; then plans for the weekend would be complete, planned to the last detail. Answer certain, but surprise inevitable. I knew she expected me to wait till the summer, when we would go back to see her family. She, though, didn’t know I had phoned her folks - they were in on the deception. I allowed myself a moment of smugness as I worked.

I was deep into the project at 3:20, just enough to feel optimistic that I would finish in time. The phone vibrated; looking back it should have struck me as strange. I never leave it on silent. I answered without pausing to think.

“Hello?”

“Is Rachel there?”

“Er you’ve got the wrong number. This is her fian…boyfriend…Who is this?”

“Could you tell her I’m stuck in traffic and I won’t make the appointment. I’m already late?”

Next I said something I shouldn’t have. Not to a client; especially not one of hers.

Straight out the door. If I had time to stop, that sinking feeling would have quickly overtaken me. But it wasn’t going to. If it wasn’t already too late, I had to find her. Straight down the street, two blocks away. Into the lobby. I stared breathlessly at the woman on the desk, reaching back into my memory for her name. It wasn’t there. No matter – by some miracle she remembered me.

“You’ve missed her. She left to go shopping. She said she needed something for the weekend.”

“Where?”

“Not sure. High street I think.”

It was as good a guess as any. Straight out the door again, lungs burning, shooting pains in the legs – these shoes weren’t built for this. I must have looked possessed, desperate or both. Past the station, up the high street. A hundred yards away, there she was, swiftly walking past the shopping centre, swinging a bag in her hands.

Too breathless to shout now, I kept running as she seemed to accelerate towards the crossing. I stumbled, straight into a passer-by; I lost my footing and reached out as I fell, hands stretching for her bag.

Trying to use it break my fall, I heard her scream in surprise. Back on my feet I looked from her to the bag, where a familiar ring tone kicked into life. I grabbed it; just as I did so I felt my legs go from under me, falling under the weight of a well-meaning defender of public order.

I could hear Rachel protesting, laughing as he wrestled me into submission.

“It’s fine, it’s OK, it’s nothing!” she managed to get out between breathless giggles. She touched my assailant on the shoulder. “Leave him; really. My fiancé just wants his phone back.”

Bypass Cottage

Inspired by a building a short drive from my home.


Ever since she was a young girl, she had dreamt of living in a cottage. She wasn’t too particular about the exact appearance, but a few things were non-negotiable; a large, sweeping garden that hugged two sides of the exterior of the building. A wooden gate, wider than it was high. A drive gravelled in such a way as to make that satisfying crunching noise as people drove or walked up it. Inside the building she didn’t mind if there were one or two floors; what mattered instead were a few little touches that in her mind said ‘cottage’: one of those laundry drying racks that were suspended from a kitchen ceiling and could be lowered down by turning a black handle in the corner. A utility room with unpainted stone. An Aga.

If these things were there – or had the potential to be there after some work – then her dreams would have been fulfilled. It was these thoughts that were in the forefront of her mind as she undertook the laborious process of looking for a place. She wasn’t going to settle for just a place to live – she wanted a place that spoke to her of home - and home, in her mind, was just such a cottage as she had pictured all these years.

She had never really sought to live out dreams; not since the marriage fell apart anyway. That whole affair – an appropriate choice of words, on reflection – was such a predictable let down, such a painful crushing of dreams, which resulted in her determining never to allow the possibility of disappointment again. Don’t expect too much, and you don’t get let down.

That mood lasted for three years. The divorce had taken longer than it needed to come through, hardening her cynicism. But money and the gentle passage of time since had a funny way of dulling the sharp edge, so it was when she one day sat down with her accounts and realised that she could finally afford to move that her thoughts turned to the cottages of her dreams.

The first two she looked at had proved to be nearly perfect but either too far from work, friends or her maximum spend. The third was also nearly perfect and ideal in value – but she was beaten to it by a lawyer. The fourth didn’t have everything, but it certainly had potential to be just about everything. So when the offer was accepted, the contract signed and the keys handed over, then the champagne could flow.

Names had never meant much to her, and she always liked to think of herself as something of a maverick; so she took it as something of a complement when friends told her it wasn’t quite what they expected. Yes, the area was a noisier one than many cottages were found in. Yes, parking would be an issue when they came to visit.

But it didn’t matter. The cottage was named for the road it was on; and to her, Bypass Cottage was just perfect.

The Run

It is like this every Saturday. The same route, the same scenery, the same time. The people are a mixture – some she knows or recognises, others she sees once and then never again. She stops in the same place every week too – at the end of a long, straight section, just before the path curves round to the left and on, past the pub with canopies and chairs outside, on past the church and beyond. This is always a point of decision – turn around and go home, or carry on; push herself that little bit harder, go that little bit further, feel that little bit more.

So, as always, here she stops. Bent over, hands resting on knees, her top drenched through, hugging her back through the dampness of the sweat. Her lungs gasping, dry and rasping like sandpaper. As always, she turns and looks, still bent over. The path is still empty – but for an early morning dog walker – alive most of all with the still fresh memory of her footsteps. As she does so, she considers: I must be the advertiser’s dream. An aspirational young woman, free and unencumbered, on the road.

That doesn’t matter, she tells herself. It doesn’t matter that someone like her, doing something like this, someplace like this, the same time every week; it doesn’t matter that every week the profile of someone like her sits in front of the advertisers and brand managers of the biggest sportswear firms and they consider: how do we reach her? How do we connect to her? What is she thinking and feeling? Why is she running? Where is she going? And where is she going back to?

Today she so nearly sets off and runs further, but she knows she shouldn’t. She has run for nearly half an hour already and must of course repeat that to get back. She has things she must do today; the friend to see for lunch, the presents to buy for the party tonight, the phone calls to make and emails to send. All of which stretches out in front of her, the usual rhythm of her Saturdays, as predictable and as varied as the path that she now turns on and, slowly at first, starts to head home on.

The dog walker is a way off in the distance still, the dog ambling aimlessly by the bank of the canal just to her left. She picks up speed slowly and steadily; it’s always hard to restart, but inside a minute the strength returns, the adrenaline recommences its course through her body. The dog walker doesn’t notice her as she passes, too intent on his phone call, talking slightly too loudly about where he will meet the listener before the game this afternoon. She carries on, under the bridges, past the houseboats, back towards the city as it slowly stretches and yawns into the weekend.

As always the second half is slower than the first; the path is slightly uphill in places, there is a greater chance of having to wait at crossings and, of course, she is wearier. She is home, entering the code to the front door in a breathless blur; she is into the flat quickly, not bothering to turn on lights; she leaves the fridge open, giving her enough light to see by as she pours the juice she had squeezed before she went out. She stands against the work-surface, a normal pace of breath slowly returning, and drinks. Two long mouthfuls, she pours again, and this time drinks more slowly. She caresses the fridge door closed, turns the taps in the bathroom and flicks her bedroom stereo on; the music fits appropriately with the soundtrack in the mind of the advertising executive as she allows the bath to fill before relaxing into it, letting the warmth of the water envelop her tired muscles and ligaments.


She plans her outfit for the evening in her mind, and decides she needs new make-up to complement it; the day taking shape as closes her eyes, sips almost apologetically at her drink and sinks low enough to let the foam lap round her chin. She is refreshed enough in the space of half an hour to give her the momentum to dress, to shop and take part in the rest of the day as fully as she wished to. But with every step climbed or bag lifted, every conversation and brief dance that evening, there will be a dull ache in her muscles, like the smallest of stones in her shoe, reminding her of the exertion and escape of the morning. The ache will remain, in her body or in her mind, all week long; and it will lead her back to the same path, the same time, hands on her knees, lungs like sandpaper.