I Dream of Tomorrow

“The first step to achieve what we want in life is to decide what we want.”

– Ben Stein

He did not give. He did not want. Instead, he twitched and fidgeted, fingering the tie-less opening to his shirt. The unbuttoned collar sitting at his throat, mis-matched with his suit, was causing him discomfort.

He regretted having removed his tie moments before he left the office to wait at the door on the street. He had waited, summoned by her text message, telling him that she had left her meeting early; telling him she was on her way to meet him.

He watched her as, thinking herself anonymous, she had climbed the steps up from exit two of Tottenham Court Road tube. He leaned against the doorway to the theatre next door to his office, affecting a casual pose; as she came to the last few steps and raised her head to see whether he was waiting, he casually lifted his hand in a gesture half wave, half indifference.

They walked, she tall in her heels, he shorter by an inch. Her advantage was unfair, until she pointed out that someone had trodden on her shoe and broken the decorative chain that adorned its front.

She made sure that he was aware of her shortcomings.

“Do you know where we are?” he asked her.

“London?” she said, almost guilelessly. He thought he sensed a hint of sarcasm around her response.

”Bloomsbury,” he replied. “I thought a literary type like you would have known that.”

“I didn’t,” she said.

Her body was a non-committal punctuation mark walking along the street beside him. He pointed out buildings of merit or remark to her, as they walked the streets of Bloomsbury. She faked her interest. He felt the heat of her beside him, even though she was a good half foot away from him. He wanted to touch her but was afraid.

They were close to the British Museum. He took her to a café across the road.

“I come here a lot,” he said. “The quality of service can be a little lacking at times.”

“This is London,” she replied.

He led the way inside. A waiter showed them to a table tucked away in the back. Her presence with him seemed to make all the difference. Service was quick, or at least faster than usual, and they barely had time to make small-talk before their drinks arrived.

They talked about nothing: map pins; equity in houses; the spending of sixty five thousand pounds. She confessed to a liking for speed. He revealed himself to be conservative and cautious.

She worked at keeping the conversation going. It was out of character for her. Somehow he realised that, but he allowed it to happen. His usual garrulous persona had taken an hour off. Conversations that they could have had remained shelved. He watched her lose interest. He recognised the attempt she made to cover over her disappointment.

He had lost his touch since becoming what the Bible would term ‘middle-aged’.

He thought that he knew what he wanted. He thought of it in terms of what he’d had but had allowed to slip away. He saw it as something that other people attained or achieved or acquired. Something beginning with A.

She had had that too; something beginning with A. He was unaware of that.

Their food arrived. They ate. When the food had gone, the conversation grew ever more stilted and he tried to look at his watch discreetly.

“I’m keeping you,” she said.

He could see on her face that she had thought his talk of a visit to the Museum was an indication that he would take a long lunch, if not the afternoon off.

“I should get back,” he said.

She looked away from him, towards the murals on the back wall.

“You could still look round the Museum,” he told her.

“Oh, I’m out tonight. I should get back.” She paused. “Give myself time to prepare.”

She waited for him to speak. He didn’t.

She summoned the waiter. All that it took was a glance.

“They always ignore me,” he said.

At the counter he accepted the bill from the owner. The owner beamed at him. He was short by fifty pence in change.

“Don’t worry about it,” the owner said.

Standing beside him, she smiled at the owner.

“You should come here with me more often,” he told her, as they left. “Usually they’re exceptionally churlish.”

Part of him wondered if the owner of the café had mistaken this lunch meeting for romance. Part of him wondered if she had thought the same. A smaller part knew that he had shied away from thinking that way.

She walked beside him, tall and striking in the early summer sunshine. From time to time he brushed against her. He wanted to do more, but the touch of his sleeve or his hand against her seemed to act like positive poles of a pair of magnets.

It was not much, but it was enough. When she hugged him at the door to his office, before descending once again to the Underground, he kept himself as limp as was polite.

What, after all, was the point? She lived two hundred miles away. She was here for a day, and then she would be gone. Far simpler to keep it as it was. Friends of a sort, connected by a mutuality of acquaintance.

Boiled down beyond all hope of attraction or compatibility, that was all it was.

Knowing what you wanted from life; that was the key. He had the sense that she knew, and it scared him. He was so long out of the game, and not yet used to being half of that fabled three score years and ten, that he no longer knew what he wanted or how to achieve it.

He watched her walk down the steps to the Underground.

She didn’t look back.

© J R Hargreaves June 2007