anonymous
There’s a stalker lurking in all of us, not one that means any harm, it’s a primal instinct devised to search out our perfect partner. Sometimes it works.
I first encountered you in Abbot’s Bar, about three weeks ago when you became a local—you stood out. A striking image in an otherwise mediocre scene. I was drinking alone, my norm, dressed in the camouflage of the loner, not wishing to draw attention to myself. Why would I?
The bar was busy with the usual hordes of excited people who drank there every Friday night but never seem to tire of the sameness of it all. The clock hanging above the bar proclaims time while methodically orchestrating euphoria. By 11.00pm it’s audio anarchy—communication limited to gestures, a pantomime of delirium.
At 2.00am, the crowd spills out onto the street where the happy revellers make plans for more of their newly adopted ethical hedonism, to stay awake all night and drink until they don’t remember anything. I see your head shaking, refusing to accept the prospect of self-imposed amnesia. I’m guessing you’re sensible, or maybe you’re not keen on the company. Is one of the crowd your ex maybe?
I know a couple of the people you are with, the kind who briefly pass through one’s life without leaving a trace. They have their own agenda, life is to short to linger once the initial attraction has faded. They move on hungry for new incentives, the excitement of the chase is too alluring. Yet, despite their bonhomie, they remain alone too.
I disappear into the darkness and begin my walk home. Had it been raining, I would have taken a cab. The driver, as usual, would ask, ‘On your own tonight?’. To avoid problems at my drop-off, I’d reply, ‘No, I’m going to a party. You can come in for a drink if you want.’ Then he’d check me out in the rear-view mirror and reply, ‘Can’t tonight, I need all the fares I can get. I’ve got kids to feed.’ Rejection and the perfect excuse all blended into one sentence.
My Islington street they say is typical. Difficult to judge how accurate that claim is because there are no Georgians around to verify the allegation. The houses are lined up like a regiment of filing cabinets. Inside all the drawers there are more tidy compartments with lots of people sleeping. The fortunate ones will be having sex, the unfortunate insomniacs will be frantically swiping dating websites. There’s always hope. I like the trees that line my street, in spring they remind me to smile.
Unknowingly you live on the same street as me, twelve doors down number fourteen on the opposite side, which in London distance equals twelve thousand miles. Faces change all the time, people move on, or maybe they disappear without a trace. There’s a poster stapled to the tree outside my house begging passers-by to look for Thomas, he’s been missing for weeks now. Maybe he returned home, and Thomas’s owner forgot to remove the posters. It’s possible. Cats are fickle animals.
These hoses were intended for successful families, husband, wife, two maybe three children, and a maid. Now there could be up to fourteen people living in single rooms happy to share a bathroom, but not their friendship. Your lights are on now, I see them clearly from my bedroom window. You didn’t go clubbing tonight then. One light has just this second ignited, you’re making coffee maybe. Now you’ll choose a movie to watch on Netflix. You’ll wake up to the credits scrolling up your TV screen. Then you’ll add the film to your list to watch another time.
It’s Friday night so no need to set the alarm. Off to bed. Sleep well.
*
Sainsbury’s now. You’re buying your granola, not the cheap stuff, you buy the best Dorset can offer, two boxes today. You make your shopping list on your mobile, planned to perfection for every aisle—the usual fish and vegetables effortlessly collected as you snake around the lanes. Pescatarianism was devised for the indecisive. Everything is sold in pairs here, singles are forced to purchase two seabass fillets, two salmon fillets, four identical meals.
You pause in the sweetie aisle, two bags of chocolate and caramel nibbles and two bags of liquorice, real liquorice, not the All Sorts variety. A bottle of wine, six bottles of San Pellegrino and two cans of gin and tonic. You know, based on your weekly spend over a month, it would be cheaper to buy a bottle of gin and some tonic. But I can’t intervene.
On the way home, you pause at the Cancer Research shop, crammed to the rafters with Dan Brown and John Grisham novels, alongside are all the neatly stacked piles of unwanted videos plus, the ubiquitous shelf dedicated to mug trees and tiny pottery statues of smiley fluffy kittens. The debris of countless memories. You buy nonspecific greetings cards with no message other than the charity’s address on the back—a discreet tribute to your altruistic integrity.
You glance across the road to the cinema, a sad victim of the pandemic. The locals have teamed up and made a thermometer that represents the money feverishly raised to SAVE OUR CINEMA. Five degrees of interest so far. Surprisingly you pause for a second at the bankrupt bridal shop, whose famous window display hasn’t changed for over twenty years. The exhibit features the bride and her groom smiling optimistically. To the bride’s right are two terrifying plastic mini-adults, the page boy and the bridesmaid, paralysed extras from Anton Leader’s film Children of the Damned.
The streets are packed with people spending hundreds of thousands of pounds as if they were programmed during the night. The bars are full of people drinking—a lunchtime aperitif before the serious stuff starts tonight—Saturday night’s oblivion train. You pass the popular wine bar, notorious for its ample glasses—the only bar around who serves a whole bottle of wine in one towering glass. Connoisseurs only, no amateurs permitted.
The toyshop had its final sale last weekend, you bought a box of Lego. Did you complete the Manhattan skyline in miniature? I suppose a full-size version would be optimistic for any household. The 007 Dry Cleaners next, ‘pressed to impress’ the slogan reads. How have they survived not being sued by the… Bond, James Bond film franchise? I imagine it is a compliment to Mr Bond’s smooth personality.
You head for FlorAbundance, one of your regular haunts although I have never seen you with a bunch of flowers. Ah, perhaps you pay for them to be sent to someone, you’re mother maybe? Lucky lady.
Home soon then I can look forward to Monday morning when we walk to the bus stop. I take the same bus as you. Once we were almost forced to sit next to each other, I politely gave the pregnant schoolgirl my seat, if not the spell would have been irretrievably broken.
You’re entering your house now. Will it be a quiet evening in with a gin and tonic? I’m home now too. My evening will be accompanied by a glass of wine and a movie. You’ll go jogging tomorrow, I’d go too but since I busted my knee last year running is out of the question. I’ll see you from my window hot and sweaty on your return.
You’ll go inside peel off the sodden lycra for a refreshing shower then, you’ll make coffee and read the newspaper you bought on the way back. You’ll have lunch and fall asleep on the new sofa you had delivered last weekend surrounded by the travel and business supplements all of which you’ll never get around to reading.
My intercom rings, ‘Delivery’ the unknown voice says. I rush downstairs confident the package won’t be for me. Red roses and white lilies, blood and bandages, with a card.
You can say hello. I won’t bite. #14