I Was Meeting Her Again

I was meeting her again. Both knew the other was facing redundancy. Three dates had clunked by with the discovery of no common ground or laughter. The format had started to take on a familiar tone. She would speak for a while, I would make encouraging noises and then I’d speak and she’d do the same. Drinking would eventually lubricate the evening and the kissing and fucking would follow. The booze, however, didn’t increase our emotional connection; it merely gave us the desire and confidence to be intimate.             

As I walked to the Italian, I thought about the reasons why we’d both agreed to waste more money on lies. For me, the motive was obvious, being the owner of my own brain, I knew why I was there. She was tanned and good looking. Although these meetings didn’t nourish the soul, they provided something different after forty hours in a box. For her though, it was less clear. I merely offered the services of listening and thrusting, surely this wasn’t hard to find on the high street? I didn’t interest her, I didn’t amuse her, I provided her with nothing and still she attended. I planned to scrape away at the surface this evening.

‘Oh hey! Hey! James! James!’

She was waving over the restaurant floor, I waved back and journeyed over.

‘Hey James! How are you?’

‘Yeah, good. You?’

‘Yeah, it’s nice in here isn’t it?’

I looked around. We were in the middle of a marbled echo chamber. High ceilings, chandeliers, naked statues of curly haired boys and hundreds of human pairs surrounded us. Most people appeared to be throwing things at their face, with a few laughing or leering at the person opposite. It felt like a bad place to take acid and a good place for a massacre.

‘Yeah, it’s really nice. Vibrant.’

‘Yeah, it is isn’t it?’

‘Mmhm.’

‘So what you having tonight?’

‘I don’t know, I haven’t seen the menu. I’ll have a look, anything you’d recommend?’

‘Well. I’m going to have the stuffed mushrooms, the Napoletana pizza and, if I’m not too full, the tiramisu.’

‘Jesus, how long have you been here?’

‘About two minutes, I looked at the menu online yesterday.’

‘Ahh nice.’

I began to look at the menu and gave my mind an early break, she interrupted.

‘So, what you gonna have? I’m sorry, but I’m so hungry, long day at work. Did I tell you about Kerry? Kerry Shaw?’

‘Erm, the woman you don’t like at work?’

‘Yeah, she’s a bitch. I was leaving today at like, ten to five. She comes up to me and says, ‘I didn’t realise you’ve accrued ten minutes in lieu’. I mean, come on! Leaving ten minutes early on a Friday! So, I said to John, you know John?’

‘Yeah, you said something about him the other day. Is he tall?’

‘Yeah, like super tall, I think he’s six five. How tall are you again?’

‘Five ten.’

‘Right, yeah, well John being the guy he is, wrote me a slip out on paper to give to Kerry saying I’d accrued ten minutes in lieu! When I passed her desk, I just dropped the slip right in front of her! Kerry gave me an awful look! John is so funny like that, so good to his family as well. Did I tell you that him and Jim. You know…’

‘Yeah Jim Buckles, you said.’

‘Yeah well him and Jim are doing a competition where they carry their wives around on their backs in a race. It’s all because both John and Jim’s kids have autism. They’re raising money for a foundation and have raised six grand already. They’re so inspirational, do you not think?’

‘Yeah, that’s a really nice thing to be doing. They seem nice.’

‘So what you having?’

‘Erm, I think I’ll go for the mushrooms and the Napoletana.’

I smiled over my menu, she crumpled her forehead unevenly and flared her nostrils a bit.

‘What? The same as me? Bit boring isn’t it?’

‘You think? I liked the sound of yours.’

‘You can’t have the same as me, it’ll look too weird.’

I briefly studied her face, hopeful that the frown would smile and she would reveal herself as someone different. It didn’t happen.

‘Right, well if you insist, I’ll have the soup and the Chicken Caesar.’

‘The soup is a great choice, Sarah had it and said it was lovely, but salad? You are a man you know.’

I took another opportunity to look at my antithesis. She was serious and I couldn’t understand why. I decided that sacrificing some power was a worthwhile payment for the conversation to end.

‘Yeah, you’re right, soup and the ragu.’

‘Ahh nice! The ragu was my second choice. I’ll go and order at the bar, I think this is how they do it here.’

Thank you God. I watched her walk away, trying to convince myself that the job was worth the pay. I then focussed on the other couples. In the world I currently inhabited, it was impossible to look at the room without believing that I was viewing actors. Every tongue and mouth was doing its upmost to make the illusion real. With the beautiful faces, there was a reason for the effort, however, when I looked at the fat, ugly or old, I couldn’t be convinced. I settled that half of the room would happily trade in their reflection for the opportunity to be someone else and sit with a different partner. I imagined running the swap on a microphone. Watching the public, initially reticent, slowly emptying their seats to form a queue before agreeing to swap faces with others and spend the rest of the evening with a stranger. Later in the evening some people would become drunk and regret their decision, this would propel the whole room into violence. Chandeliers would swing, Chianti bottles would crack, steak knives would kill and I would stand on a balcony watching humanity revolt against reality, laughing and pissing onto the emancipated below. She returned.

‘Hey! I ordered, I also paid.’

‘You shouldn’t have done that. How much was it? I have cash.’

‘Don’t worry about it. You paid the last three times.’

‘You sure? This isn’t a test is it?’

I smiled at her, she relaxed her face.

‘No, it’s not a test, I’m not like that. Like I told you, I’m a feminist.’

‘Yeah, of course. I was joking.’

‘Yeah, well don’t. Not about that anyway.’

Silence. I decided to mark the occasion with words.

‘So cheers anyway, this is date number four isn’t it?’

Clink.

‘Yeah it is, just to think, we didn’t know each other five weeks ago. I had no idea who ‘James Tonkliv’ was.’

‘Yeah, it is a bit strange. Can I ask you something Jenny?’

‘Yeah, course you can.’

‘Where do you see this going? I’m not talking long term, but near future.’

‘A bit heavy isn’t it?’

‘Yeah, but also, no. This is our fourth date and we’ve never really talked about anything other than the events of the last week. I feel like I want to know more about you as a person. You know what I mean?’

‘Not really. You know a lot about me. I work in finance, I like my job, I don’t know what I want to do in the future, I have a small, but good group of friends, and I live in Clapham. What more is there?’

‘Yeah, but we haven’t really opened up about our wants or fears or… well I don’t know. Saying it now makes me feel odd, but I feel we’ve reached a barrier.’

‘James, this is probably because your last few girlfriends have been insecure. I like the real world. I’m not worried about my looks or intelligence. I know who I am. And, like I’ve told you, I don’t know what my goals or dreams are. I like my job and that’s good for now. Why would you want to talk about that anyway? It’s depressing.’

‘Yeah, you’re right, forget it.’

The starter came, as did the main and then she wanted dessert, so we both did. We left the restaurant and continued to exchange facts about our lives. She told me about investments and I told her about the education system. Both offered each other ideas about how we could make our jobs easier and both rejected the ideas due to other reasons which hadn’t been explained. We boarded the tube and returned to Clapham. After another bottle at hers, we became more convinced that we probably loved each other and used the feeling to fondle and fuck. The morning came and the intimacy continued like the hangover we’d both earned. By two, we were too tired to keep up the act and I left. I received a text message the next day.

‘Hi James, good to see you the other night and I really enjoyed you staying over. But, I’m sorry James, I don’t think we can keep this going. I know we said a lot on Friday but I think it was the booze, I think you’re a really nice guy and I feel awful for doing this but I think it’s only fair. I hope everything goes well with you in the future. Jenny x’

Looking down at the screen, I felt the top of my stomach heave a little into my lungs making something feel empty inside. It was always coming to an end and the last date was actually unenjoyable, however, it was on her terms. I didn’t like it. I’d envisaged lining another boat up before jumping out of hers. Being forced to walk the plank and tread water was not the plan. I responded after thirty minutes, giving myself fifteen to construct an empathetic piece of fiction which might turn it around.  

‘Hi Jenny, no problem, I wish you well too. Don’t feel bad, at the end of the day, we had a few good dates and that’s that. You’re nice, I’m nice, let’s just leave it there. James.’

She didn’t respond and I thought about her regularly over the next month. I’d lie in bed at night missing her for no reason. Would I want her to be my girlfriend? No. Would I want her to be my wife? No. Would I want her to have my children? No. Did I want her to want me? Yes. Why? Because it was better to have a woman I didn’t like rather than nothing.

I went to a restaurant in one of the weeks which followed Jenny’s departure. I watched the couples with envy, looking at most women with a strong desire to get to know them. I felt inferior to every man who sat with them. They were life’s winners, being consumed by conversation and joy. Very few couples looked outside of their world, happy to stay in their own. I also thought about me there with Jenny, how I’d feel dissatisfied and disinterested. Which world was real? Is it a case of selling an act or waiting to find the one where you don’t have to? Surely they can’t really exist, one where you actually like them, permanently, confident in the permanent?

I raised these feelings with the other loveless faces sat at my table. Joan provided advice which she’d learnt from a discarded magazine on the train.

‘Forty percent of marriages end in divorce. However, this statistic obviously misses out a few things. It ignores the people who ignore unhappiness in marriage and those who don’t need God to verify their love. You’ve also got to think about how many stood at that altar genuinely believing they were in love in the first place. I mean, can you really suggest that love so intense, that you spend thousands of pounds on it, fades? Unlikely, it seems much more likely insecurity drives some down the aisle. And if I am wrong, and intense love can fade, then what’s the point in marriage if it’s a big risk like that? If we look at the chances, you can lose love like a coin toss.’

‘So what you’re saying Joan is that we don’t know?’

‘No, we know a bit. Some of it is probably genuine and some of it is probably an act.’

‘Great, I feel much better.’

‘Ha! Come on James! But if you want me to make it worse, you’re getting your information from someone who has never found out whether love can be genuine. No one at this table has made it work.’

I looked at the two opposite and one to the side. I decided to focus on my Caesar salad.