Looking Out The Window

Susan looked down at her watch. The thin black hands were chopping through the vacuous space; each tick getting sharper and sharper as it sliced through. Susan had quite hoped it had stopped working. As she moved her gaze upward, she looked back out of the greyed café window, slowly scouring the life outside. Waiting. Tick. Waiting. Tock. She nervously stirred her teacup with a small silver spoon, making the sugar granules chase each other in circles like synchronized swimmers. The traffic was loud outside, and the café’s thin windows made no attempt to cover the sounds of passersby. Their shrieks startled her slightly.

“He won’t show Susan.” Her Mother’s soft but persistent voice echoed around her head and she turned away from the outside and back down to the table. She imagined picking up her breakfast knife, agonizingly carving into the wooden surface: ‘Susan woz ere...all day…for 5 hours in fact... nice to meet you Dad.’ As her day dream got carried away with itself, Susan pictured her Father finally turning up to find an empty table, and she watched as he ran his weathered fingers over her words in despair, dashing out onto the street to look for her.

Susan had never met her Father or seen what his hands looked like yet, somehow, she could picture him as if he’d just left the room. She thought back to the phone call. His voice had sounded gruff but familiar, so familiar she felt a lump in her throat that had stayed for days and throbbed like a dull tooth ache.

And no matter how much tea she drank, the lump sat there like a paperweight.

“Anymore tea?” said the kind waitress, who had been tentatively serving Susan all day with a smile that seemed to say she understood. Perhaps she thought Susan had been stood up. This was technically true of course, although not quite the date she was probably picturing.

Susan replied in a hushed whisper, hoping the waitress would get distracted by the family who had just walked through the door and leave her be. “I’m ok. But thank you.”

Susan continued to look at the family. They seemed so happy, so together. The kids were pulling at their parents’ jackets and scarves, motioning and screaming towards an empty table in the corner and yelling "ice cream!". The parents laughed fondly, picking them up onto their shoulders and doing a little dance towards their seats. Like a giddy Irish jig.

And there throbbed the lump; it was growing by the minute.

Susan had been waiting for exactly five hours and 15 minutes. Her Father had agreed he would meet her for a morning coffee, which for Susan, had turned into coffee, tea, breakfast, and then more tea. She was pondering having an afternoon snack when her phone rang. Her pulse began to race as she wildly rooted through her bag, desperate to hear him again. He must be late she thought. Bad traffic.

“Hello?” She said frantically, almost dropping the phone from her clammy palm.

“He there yet?”

Mum. The lump grew. 

Susan paused. She wanted more than anything to tell her Mother he had just ordered an espresso and was sitting opposite her. She wanted to tell her how many wrinkles he had, the colour of his deep blue eyes and how he drank his coffee. More than anything though, she wanted to tell her how eager he'd been to catch up on the last 18 years, and he was sorry.

“No. No not yet Mum.”

“Just come home Susan. Really I told you, there’s no point”. Her Mother had switched into protection mode now and her voice became a little more clipped, as if forcing the end of every word to a deliberate stand still.

“I don’t know how many times I can say it Suze, he’s let the family down. He’s a fucking coward. Always has been. Please just come home. Don't waste any more time on him.”

Susan’s Mother called her Suze when she was trying to be reassuring, and it always seemed to work.

“….Ok Mum, I’ll just settle up. Be back soon”.

Once she’d hung up Susan felt like she was in slow motion. She carefully put down the spoon and, for the first time that day, the sugar stopped swirling.  Perhaps the swimmers had drowned. She picked up her bag, carefully placing the card she’d written him back into the inside pocket and used her napkin to gently wipe off the lipstick she had been frantically re-applying since 9.30am.

Right on cue, the waitress walked over with the bill in hand as if she had seen this all before.

Perhaps she had, Susan hoped. Perhaps Susan wasn’t the only one.

Waking Up

Sarah slowly rolled over onto her back until the beam of sun piercing through the crack in the blind had fully engulfed her face. Winter had been long and the feeling of natural sunlight was blissfully comforting. The street outside had started to get busy. Building works from next door were gradually humming into life and taxis tiresomely squeaked to a halt before each speed bump.

Stanhope Terrace was always busy, although not so much on Sundays, and she’d spend hours wrapped tightly in her sheet, dipping her toes in and out of the fresh air and then plunging them back into the warmth of the duvet. After an elongated stretch she’d curl up into a tight ball like a hedgehog, and breathe in the smell of the morning as hard as she could, squeezing her eyes closed and nuzzling her nose deep into the pillow.

There was something tranquilising in the mild sedation of waking up. Her body was caught in a dilemma between deafening the faint rumbles of her hungry stomach whilst resisting her dreamy state of mind; that kept pulling her back into sleep, forcing her eyes to close and her body to relax even further.

Suddenly, as if from nowhere, a child from outside shrieked and Sarah stirred, now maddeningly aware of the growls from her empty stomach. Using every muscle, she pulled herself up onto the foot of the bed, rubbing her eyes, and peeling them apart, brushing off the sleep that had glued them together for so long.

The Break-up

“We’re a fucking calamity. This. Us.” John was pacing round the room like he was on crack, leaping from foot to foot and darting between the kitchen top and the door like a heated atom.

He finally came to a standstill.

“I mean seriously Lils, what happened? What happened to us?”

As I stared blankly back at him his eyes began to fill and I looked down to find my fingers nervously toying with the dog lead, wrapping it around one finger and pulling it tightly with the other hand, as if trying to strangle it.

“I don’t know what happened” I said, lifting my head slightly to see his hunched shoulders and erratic breathing that was punching his body inwards and outwards like air through a paper bag. He was holding a bunch of flowers.

“I just can’t put my finger on it, on anything. These things happen ok?” 

I knew I was nonchalant, and at that, John suddenly deflated down into a sob, throwing the flowers to the floor and placing his hands to his face. He looked so vulnerable, so small. It felt strange to see him like this, and it made me feel horrid, but I guess it was ironic. John had somehow dug deep into the depths of his lungs and coughed up more emotion now than he ever had - just when I didn’t want him to.

 I thought back to when I would cry on his shoulder, watching each tear tangle in his wiry chest hair whilst he would lie there like a statue, not understanding. Not understanding me. Funnily enough I felt more stone now than I ever imagined I could.

“Did I do something to upset you? Piss you off? I mean seriously Lils just fucking tell me what’s going on up there. How is it that, what, one month ago everything was great, and now you’ve got your fucking bags by the door?”

“It wasn’t good between us a month ago and you know that John. It hasn’t been good for fucking ages and you haven’t noticed or cared to ask me how I am. It’s like you’re so intent on having this perfect little life that as soon as you see me doubting things you ignore it, you ignore me. You’ve never stopped to consider how I’m feeling. How I want to live my life.” I was angry now and I felt my body begin to tremble with a quiet rage. The stone was slowly cracking.

He looked at me with concern and I could tell from his expression he thought there was more to it. 

“I haven’t met someone else if that’s what you’re thinking" I continued. "I’ve been totally out of sorts this last year and you haven’t even had the courage to sit me down and get to the bottom of it. As long as everything is good for you then that’s ok. Well you know what, it’s not ok.”

John and I had been together for four years. We met at a gig in Brixton, bumped into each other actually as we were throwing ourselves around from side to side, dancing and singing like giddy groupies. From that moment on, we laughed our way into love with each other. We were so similar then, and everything about him made me smile. When he was around I wanted to re-live my life using everything he’d taught me and I couldn’t imagine my world without him in it.

But here I was, pointing out the exit. 

I remember it was the morning after our three year anniversary, and I woke up wondering when my life was going to get exciting. I was 30 at the time, and tonight was my 31^st birthday. I guess you could say I’d been stewing.

John had come home from work early, probably to surprise me, only to discover my bags by the door and me, sitting awkwardly on the kitchen stool, eyes pierced on the door handle and rehearsing in a hush whisper what I was going - or at least trying - to say.

“Look, some people just fall out of love with each other. I know that’s shit to hear, but it’s true and I don’t know what else to say to you. I don’t know why I feel like this. I just do, it just is, and I’m so sorry”.

John wiped his face with his shirt sleeve, and looked at me with a stare I hadn’t seen from him before. It was a look of recognition but complete alienation all at once. It was like I was a famous sculpture seen in real life for the very first time, and as the natural light fell on my stony skin, John simply stared, taken aback at how disappointing I looked.

He turned and sat back down at the wooden table, his grey jumper seeming darker, harsher than it had this morning. As his shoulders gently hunched, he finally appeared to wilt down into a sad but quiet surrender.

“You're my life Lils. We're my life.” He choked, “we’ve got this house, that, that fucking budgie that shits everywhere and....” he trailed off and as he seemed to grapple with what to say next, he cried. He really, really cried. 

Strange to bring up the budgie I thought. I imagined us pulling at its wings, arguing over who got to keep it: the poor thing crying out like a helpless child torn between two keepers. But after that, I just sat there, wondering whether the water drenched flowers would stain the wooden floor.

The Interview

As I greeted him and sat down, he leant back into the depths of his old swizzle chair with a knowing yet equally curious expression. The deep-set wrinkles in his sagging face were smoothed only slightly, by the sleezy snarl that he then glared at me with. He had weighty bags under his tired eyes that were full and puffy and I wanted to puncture them, just to watch the oozing off-white liquid slowly drain out. Like most other well fed CEOs, he was grossly overweight, and dressed in a tight suit he’d clearly bought when he could still touch his toes.

Un-surprisingly, he hadn’t got a copy of my CV, and as I shifted in my chair to disguise my discomfort at this news, something told me to expect the kind of interview where I would feel relieved to be blonde and middle class. Superficial, yes, but I knew that was what he wanted and why not play the part?

“ Now, what do your parents do?” was the first question. The bluntness of his tone appeared to make my ears repel each word back outwards before he repeated himself and they finally powered through to hit the drums.
“I’m sorry?” I remarked, assuming I had mis-heard.
“I said what do your parents do? What does your Father do?”
“Um, he owns a property company,” I said rather on edge, wondering what exactly he wanted this information for. The clock on the back wall was ticking loudly, and the silence in the room was unnerving yet sharply pierced by his inappropriate questioning.
“Did you pay for your schooling?” was the next.
“Well, yes” I said, again wondering how this information was relevant.
“Excellent, excellent” he replied, rubbing his fingers together like he were counting a wad of fifty pound notes.

I could tell by the sudden beam in his blackened pupils I was set to be the perfect candidate. I mean put it this way, who cares about qualifications when you’re from a wealthy family and spend summers in the South of France? (I don’t as it happens, but you get the point.)

Throughout the interview he stared at me intently, and I wondered if the whole thing was simply a test of my tolerance. Could he really be this grotesque? I couldn’t believe shallowness existed like this, and there were moments when I honestly thought the real CEO was going to burst out of the cupboard to announce it was a set-up and congratulate me for passing. I almost wished the whole thing was a huge joke, but unfortunately it wasn’t, and I felt even more depressed.

A colleague of his, ‘Richard’, who prior to his introduction had been prowling the office like a preying vulture, was invited in half way through, and he perched on the same side as the CEO, looking at me with the smug expression of a successful bidder at auction.
“This is Steph,” said the CEO, “her father’s in property”.
It was at this point that I considered leaving the room and arranging for my Father to come in with a copy of his latest bank statement, although I worried that if I made such a suggestion he would indeed take me up on it.

“Perhaps you could tell me about the role” I suggested. Sarcasm was screaming its way out from my tongue, but I held it back with an affirm gulp and a hard bite.
“The role? Oh yes, well it’s PR. You know, writing press releases and that sort of thing”. His eye contact had averted, and he was drawn to the dirt underneath his nails, which he cleaned using the corner of his American Express.

The clock continued to tick, and the interview dragged along like nails down a blackboard. An hour passed. After pronouncing he was going to ask me four questions that began with a ‘D’, which included how much I Drank, whether I took Drugs, and if I had Disease or Depression in the family, I wearily shook his hand and left, feeling drained and craving the fresh air to revive me and remind me that I was indeed alive. As I left I looked back, to find their eyes fixed on me, at which point I wished my jacket had, “keep the job” sewn onto the back of it, with “fuck you” emblazoned onto the rear of my trousers.

Pigeons

I was trying my best to concentrate, but the pigeons surrounding the bench were continuously cooing, flapping their heavy wings so loudly it looked like they were swatting flies. Their thick grey feathers too tatty to blow in the wind sat chunkily on their rotund bodies, their undersides slumping down to the ground like beer guts.

Poor things I thought; what must life be like to be a pigeon? What could possibly make them happy? My thoughts veered back to my feet at this point, which were nervously tapping the ground like they were trying to drill a hole in it. I took a deep breath, followed by a long inhale on my cigarette, and tried to drift away. Is that what they say? Drift away? Sounds rather morbid to me.

It was early on a Sunday, and with no sign of life but the pigeons, I was still driving myself to madness. Every sound made me twitch, every shaped cloud seemed to taunt me, and every coo made me want to rip my hair out.

“Meditation” Dr Hollinski had said, “is key”. I remember him leaning over at this point to reach for his stethoscope, and my heart felt like it was about to burst. “What about medication?” I asked, but he simply shook his head. “It’s all in the mind”, and just like that, he raised two fingers and tapped them against his temples with a patronizing grin.

I left the surgery with two very different fingers raised against Dr Hollinski, but with resentment in every step towards the park, I took his advice, and here I was, sitting on a bench, away from all that could possibly raise my blood pressure. And I was thinking about pigeons.

Walking

The rain makes everyday life more dramatic somehow. As it pours down hard on the road, the cars slash past me, hurtling heavy water onto the pavement, which in turn slices the dirty liquid up onto the shoes of passersby.

It was 8.30 and I was on my way to work, walking speedily from Lancaster Gate through Queensway, onto Nottinghill and then finally reaching my destination; Holland Park. My temporary offices sat on the corner by the greying Hilton Hotel in an even greyer building bloc, the windows of which were covered in a layer of West End waste. In fact, as you opened them from the inside, they’d let out a gasping creek as if pleading with you to wipe them clean.

It was a simple straight line that walk- everyday- and I liked the routine of it. I took pleasure in knowing exactly when each district crossed into another and would memorise which shops sat on the border of each. As I passed through one section to the next, I would imagine I was a powerful working woman, sharply striding through the infamous blocks of New York, wearing a killer pencil skirt and carrying a maroon Mulberry handbag.

At about 8.40am, I’d see the same lady flushed in the face, jogging past with her backpack swaying violently side to side against her small body, shortly followed by the hurried Mother, chaperoning her two uniformed kids to school. I noticed in fact that almost all the children who attended the Nottinghill Primary had brightly coloured scooters, which the parents used to ride back once they’d dropped them off. You’d always see the childish delight in a Mother’s face once she’d waved goodbye and hopped onto the scooter, pushing herself forward and propelling down the street like it were her only moment of freedom that day.

A common habit I had was to glance at my reflection in the same blacked out Thai restaurant window, and persuade myself that I was going to get a pedicure in the small tanning shop and buy an old record from the shop that proceeded it. I never did though. Every morning I’d also think about what I wanted to achieve that day, feeling more empowered with each step I took; as if the earth’s energy were somehow passing up into my body from the depths of the pavement.

It felt great to walk, it really did, even if it was on the main road and my lungs suffered because of it. Just to be away from the hot, sticky tube and have 30 minutes to myself was liberating, even without a scooter.

Meeting a Journalist

Our conversation clunked on the brakes and took a sharp turn downhill after I asked him about his career. “I’ve got my own column in the Guardian sweety, I’m a media celebrity” he gloated, sweeping his thinning hair from his face and gulping down his wine; the toxic fuel that furthered his irritatingly incessant bragging. I met Liam one lethargic summer evening when casual chatter and Coronas seemed to cuddle you into a warm embrace. In fact on this particular night I felt like those arms could hold me forever.

A friend of a friend, Liam was a confident guy. A cool yet casual centre of attention and from a distance seemed no different to the rest of the artsy crowd who, like the half-finished bottles of beer, seemed to spill out on to the warm weathered pavement.

As soon as we were introduced, Liam spoke at me for most of the evening - the subject- his enviable career in journalism. His words darted out at me from all angles, propelled so sharply by his yellowed tongue they would catapult their way into my ear canals causing my brain to swell with an overload of sickening syntax.

This ‘encounter’ as I liked to describe it, was so one sided that my communication limited itself to a selection of infrequent nods or the occasional raising of eyebrows, which of course gave Liam the idea I was thoroughly impressed with what he had to say. I couldn’t work out if my sudden inability to speak was due to the tightening sensation in my brain or simply down to the fact I’d persuaded myself life was no longer worth living and therefore dialogue was subsequently a futile activity.

Liam’s movements were exaggerated. Every word was accompanied by a flamboyant gesture whether it was the stamping of his pointed shoe or the backward rotation of his spindly wrist that seemed to suffer from the weight of his watch. These manoeuvres were so unnecessarily energetic that at times he was in danger of knocking the Chardonnay out of his own hand and shattering the glass all over the floor. I have to admit, I did find myself wishing he would, so like a crafty crab I could scurry off sideways into a darkened backstreet- only after having pinced out his tongue.

Trying to ignore the alarming pain in my head and Liam’s smuggish snarl I couldn’t help but feel drawn to him, and I stood rooted to the pavement, despite all efforts to indeed shift sideways. Perhaps it was his unkempt complexion that gave him away. It certainly lacked the pizzazz of his so called ‘glamorous’ lifestyle. Or maybe it was his pale skin that despite his five star stay in St Tropez this week, clearly hadn’t seen the sun for years.

With this exciting evidence I began to realise this neurotic nincompoop was flawed. He was nervous - edgy- even. The closer I looked, the more I began to see. Beads of sweat crept tentatively onto his oily brow and as he interrupted his own conversation to accost his others around him, I watched intently, as they clutched onto their drinks like the bottle was a life line, whilst edging backwards ever so slightly.

For the first time that night, a smile crept up on my face. I was revelling. Revelling in the idea that Liam wasn’t perfect. He was fraying at the edges, more like the pages of a newspaper than its successful columnist.

As I placed my hands upon my cheeks to stop my grin from expanding to my hairline I wondered which one of us was in the wrong. Was it me, the jealous intern, desperate to spot imperfections in industry rivals, or was it Liam, the big ol’ faker? Either way I certainly pitied him and not just for that thinning hair.

When last orders were over my friends and I headed back to my car, pausing on the hearing of staggered footsteps and a light pitter patter. We turned around, and there was Liam, swaying himself toward the bus stop, his stash of business cards following him as they floated gently into the gutter.