19 March 2012
She had loved him. She was sure. That she couldn't remember the feeling she had once thought of as love made her more confused. To be honest she really couldn't remember why they were together at all, other than it had been the sensible thing to do at the time. She had had two boyfriends before she met John. The first had trailed around after her in 6 form until she gave in and let him take her to the local, graffiti stricken Youth Club, on a Thursday night. He became jealous of her talking to anyone other than him. When he started shouting at her by the pool tables, Janet Seymour punched him in the face. They never spoke again. The second came to her on the last day of school and asked if they could meet during the summer. She wasn't particularly attracted to him but knew that some of the other girls were, she was surprised by her sudden competitiveness and said yes without really wanting to. They met a few times, in the glorious weather that shone through July. He was kind and attentive, he paid for their bus trips and burgers, dodgems and candy floss. She grew to like the sun on his auburn hair, the sparkle in his jade eyes and the touch of his gentle hands through the sleeves of her blouse. In early August the summer was lost to flash floods and thunder storms. Half drowned, they took refuge in a cinema and hidden in the dark seclusion of an almost empty auditorium, kissed with open mouths for the first time. Their clothes were wet and clung to their skin, she shivered but not with the cold. While aliens tore at the earth she allowed him to touch her breasts. Without warning his body became rigid, he grunted into her neck and let out a strangled sigh. Before she could ask what was wrong, he stood up, said he was sorry, and left, bent over at the hips. She never saw him again. She told her mother, who tried to be serious, but kept smiling. She heard her mother telling her father who banged his hand on the table as he laughed. Her first boyfriends were children compared to John. He had a job and a car and talked of buying his own house. He had a pension, sweet parents, a stable temperament and didn't spontaneously ejaculate when he had his hand inside her bra. They explored each other further but decided to save themselves for when they were married. It was a proposal of sorts, he did the job properly later in the year when dropped on one knee in the park and presented her with modest solitaire. She was 18 and he was 20, they weren't getting any younger and with the tax breaks available, marriage seamed the most sensible choice.
The first time she saw Him was on the train to work.
John's career path and financial plans had come unstuck in his early 30's. His clumsy conniving and politicking, had only served to irritate those whose approval he sought, he found himself overlooked for promotion at the only company he'd ever worked for. His lack of a university degree precluded him from switching jobs at his grade. He had played the game, given 110%, success should rightfully be his, he sought others to blame. As the economies of the world fell apart so did his investments, his spreadsheets gradually filled with red and his 'buy to let's' emptied of tenants. To try to dam their rising tide of debt she had taken a job as a book keeper, a course she had studied at night school to help with his ever more complicated tax returns. She had been a housewife in the traditional sense and had never had a full time job, other than tending to demands of her husband. Fearful initially, she found her colleagues friendly and helpful. The job gave her a sense of her self, independent of the business their marriage had become and a social life that would deliver her home, once a month, inebriated and laughing, much to John's irritation. He began say spiteful things to her, insinuating that their current difficulties and his lack of progress with his career was her fault. She told him not be angry, things would improve and that she loved him, he grumbled and returned to his screen. As the mood darkened a home, work became a source of light for her. Her workmates smiled to each other feeling that they had had a role in helping that dowdy young woman, who seemed to belong to different age, 'come out of herself' as they put it. Indeed, she had a smile and a whit that could light up a room, especially when she was a bit tipsy.
There was a commotion behind her, by the doors. A snarl up between a bag and a push bike caused the owners to bark at each other while they tried to separate the unwieldy beasts. As she turned back to her Kindle, an unapproved purchase that caused the biggest row of their marriage, she saw Him, elegantly reposed on the the seats across the isle from her, gazing out the window with the look of an emperor surveying some part of a vast domain. His hair was blue black, gelled back in glistening curls. Pointed sideburns edged out towards his ever-so-high cheek bones, his skin was dark, not foreign, more worldly, she felt. He wore a black suit, shirt, tie, and glossy black pointed shoes. It was a sharp suit she thought and like the wearer it was, sharp, all angles, ironed to perfection, beyond immaculate, impossibly new. There was some detailing in the fabric of the jacket, filigree fine, some infinitesimal structure only detectable at the periphery of her vision. She was starting to lean across the isle, her brow furrowed, eyes squinting, 'what is that?' she muttered, fascinated by the material that seemed to defy inspection. 'Nice, huh?' He said, with a voice that flew at her ears with a sound like hummingbird wings. 'Cost a fucking fortune.' She had never seen someone's mouth swear in quite such a delicious way ever before. The smile, the glittering eyes, she gasped, looked away, thrust her self back into her seat, and stared sightlessly at the blank screen of the electronic book. Repeatedly she tried to flick her pale brown hair behind her ears and gain some control, but as she wrestled with her embarrassment, her head turned back in his direction. He beamed, radiantly at her, a chiseled hand tapping the window with a languid knuckle. His eyes looked away, head nodding up the train. 'This is you, I believe?' The train was stationary, standing at a station, her station. 'Oh fiddlesticks!' She hissed, grabbing at her belongings, springing from her seat then dropping a shoulder into the oncoming tide of commuters. She pressed herself from the crowded vestibule trailing coats, bags and complaints, the doors chasing her from the train, beeping and closing at her heals. She straightened herself on the platform then glowered into the departing carriages, he was waving to her, smiling and twinkling even in silhouette. She snapped her head away and growled in the back of her throat. How could she have lost her composure that way, over some spiv in an expensive suit. How did he know this was her station? Maybe he was stalking her? Her old twisted competitiveness was pleased to see that he was from the quality end of that pastime, more a Waitrose wag than a Poundland pervert. She didn't feel threatened, but was unsettled non the less. She put her coat on, organised her hair, settled her bag on a shoulder and after taking a deep, deep breath, set off for work. Over the next few days she tried to remove Him from her mind, creating a growing list of reasons to hate the grinning fool. But the way he had said fucking, the sparkle in his golden brown eyes and the curve of his smile, not arrogant, amused by her, certainly but sympathetic at the same time, made it impossible to think ill of him. She had the strange impression that he knew her, even though she was sure she had never seen Him before in her life. He was all angles and conflicts and like his suit, not quite open to inspection. Worst of all though, she recognised the emotion swelling deep in her body, once targeted at an unfortunate PE teacher, it was the reason why she couldn't clear her mind of Him or get a grip on the attraction she felt. She had a profound crush on Him.
The Sensible Girl - Part 1 • Opuss № I