Kissing Through a Pane of Glass (20 page)

‘Thank you, yes.’ She then proceeded to give Tony
my
phone number, and shot a conspiratorial wink at me in the meantime.

We finished the sandwiches and coffee. It was not yet one, although the café was just beginning to fill. Lee grabbed her bag and stood up.

‘Fancy a drink, then?’

‘Don’t tell me; the Queen’s Arms?’

‘By jove Holmes, how did you know?’

‘Elementary, my dear Watson. Elementary,’

There is nothing quite like falling in love. Remember the last time you fell in love? Remember the way time changed, overnight, from a smooth, unhurried continuum to a frantic, accelerated, spasmic dance, Where mere seconds sometimes lasted for ever, and days would whisk past at a gallop? And those breathless phone calls and impassioned declarations; when else do you talk like that, with such devotion, such intensity? And the pledges and covenants; everlasting this, eternal that, as if love transformed us from constrained mortals to limitless superheroes, capable of anything and everything, faster than a speeding bullet, leaping tall buildings in a single bound.

What is it about love that makes us so incapable of behaving like real people? We think of true love as a genuinely adult emotion, but inevitably it reduces us to the most fantastic phases of childhood. We pine, we cry, we have tantrums, we don’t eat our food, we stop playing with our other friends, we become completely indulgent and expect everyone else to indulge us too. We make the most extravagant promises; we will lasso the moon and bring it to earth, we will climb every mountain, we will make someone happier than they have ever been in their lives, than they could possibly have imagined.

Where do we get these ideas from? Who do we think we are?

Ah, love. No feeling comes close to that overpowering amalgam of hope, delight, mystery, pleasure, anticipation and desire. There are few moments in our life when we connect, when we stop feeling alone, when, if only for a short while, we allow something bigger than us to overwhelm our egos, make them subservient to the whole. Is it any wonder we talk about wanting to drown in another’s love, of being consumed by love? To lose that aloneness, to lose that individualness, to feel that we belong, that we are one with the world.

Is this not the same experience that the great mystics and teachers describe when they speak of nirvana? Few events in our lives encompass such emotional intensity. Like the first hit of an unadulterated narcotic, when we fall in love our body chemistry energises; senses sizzle, synapses spark; we soar towards critical mass, and our whole world becomes one giant, organic reaction, heading for that supreme, irreversible melt-down.

Such is the power of these feelings, it’s a wonder we don’t fall in love more frequently.

Or is it? If the process of falling in love is the closest most of us get to nirvana, then falling out of love is the closest we come to hell. However, it all balances out in the long run; after all, it takes only the simplest piece of reasoning to see that, in a lifetime, one will never fall out of love more times than one falls in love, whereas the reverse may be true.

I find that reducing a life to banal mathematical probabilities is one of the best ways to remain sane when your world is falling apart. There are a number of these equations which, if we but took more notice of them, would resolve many of our difficulties. For instance, with regard to the above statement, if x is the number of times we fall in love, and y the number of times we fall out of love, x will always be either equal to y, or equal to y + 1 (in the event that we fall in love for the final time and live happily ever after).

And there are others. It is perhaps not widely known that a person’s problems are directly proportional to the number of keys he/she carries around. Sceptics should note that the truth of the theory is borne out through simple observation. Also, the measure of a person’s freedom is inversely proportional to the size of their phone bill. It may not be an exact science, but then neither is sociology.

When it comes to love, the only other equation that seems to hold is that, if x is the measure of your love for your partner, and y is the measure of your partner’s love for you, then x will always be either greater than or less than, but will never equal y.

And one final theory - a sort of variation on the “my best friend’s wife” syndrome - which merely states that one is much more likely to start an affair with one’s partner’s closest friend or relative than with a complete stranger. As the likelihood of infidelity is a function of the similarity between one’s partner and the object of desire, twins and close siblings should be considered particularly vulnerable.

Love is so fickle, so uncertain. In a world where we all chase the highest quality, dedicate our lives to the pursuit of happiness, it seems strange that we should put so much faith in such a poor, handicapped creature like love; it is blind, it knows no rules, it has no conscience, it can make you sick, it can turn sour. We’d all be better off with maths. At least you can always count on two plus two.

Can’t you?

It was difficult to think of Wood Green as London. Although it was only a few miles further out than my own stamping ground, there was something unremittingly suburban about the place. Even back then, Islington had a life of its own, a character, a pulse; it had, for want of a better expression, a
raison d’etre
. You walked along its streets and alleyways, and it sang out to you; not a symphony
à la
New York or Paris, nor the graceful chamber music of Venice or Florence, but at least it had a melody, a harmony, a structure.

But what did Wood Green have? What sounds emanated from its shallow depths, its soulless interior, other than a sort of atonal bleating? It was odd how something so characterless and bland could also be so offensive. It wasn’t that Wood Green was ugly; it just wasn’t
anything
. For an individual to lack the courage of his or her convictions is sad, but for a whole town to exude nothing more than a sort of attenuated self-pity is pathetic. It did not possess a single redeeming feature, and was so dull, so insignificant, that had a bomb dropped on the high street, I don’t think anyone would have noticed. And this was where Liana had lived? It was inconceivable.

The Queen’s Arms was not the sort of place in which I’d have chosen to spend the early part of my afternoon, had there not been a very specific reason. I’m not very comfortable in strange pubs, especially within a city; I always feel out of place, unwelcome, as if I’m walking on to someone else’s territory. It’s totally irrational, especially as I’m quite prepared to walk into a completely unfamiliar bar in a totally foreign country without thinking twice about it. Ignorance of the specific social conventions that operate in a foreign country means one can behave, not so much with impunity, but certainly with abandon. However, stepping into a little-known manor can be fraught with difficulties, and to waltz into a drinking house wearing the wrong clothes or expression may be tantamount to walking naked into a church, cursing and spluttering.

London pubs are far from homogeneous entities, differing greatly from region to region; upmarket, downmarket, fancy, dirty, simple, traditional, high-tech, friendly, aggressive, cosy, noisy, vibrant, sleepy... you name it, you’ll find it. My own personal taste runs towards the traditional/cosy, the sort of pub where the landlord knows you by name, greets you with a smile, enquires sincerely about your day/wife/dog/loft conversion before asking if you’d like your usual. The music, if there is any, will be unobtrusive, there are no nasty, noisy machines, and in general there’s more wood than plastic to be seen. My local in Islington is like that, and I always feel comfortable there.

In fact, the older I get, the more I’ve come to treasure the familiar and the comfortable, rather than seeing them as traps or the first signs of middle age complacency. Whatever, when it comes to spending time in a pub, I have always chosen the traditional/cosy, unless it’s a special occasion like a birthday or celebration, in which case, a vibrant/upmarket spot with music and overpriced cocktails with daft names can be quite fun.

What I would not do under normal circumstances is stay long in a noisy/dirty/aggressive/downmarket establishment like the Queen’s Arms. I hadn’t realised that sort of pub still existed; it made the seedy dives in and around Islington look like sumptuous palaces.

The lounge bar was virtually deserted, so we wandered into the public bar and sat at a couple of stools by the counter. Sitting by the window were a group of older men, arguing noisily and gesticulating wildly, spilling beer and chain smoking. A couple of skinheads playing pool stopped their game and their stream-of-consciousness swearing to stare at us in a manner that made it clear they were not especially pleased to have a couple of strangers in their local.

We had been there less than a minute and I was ready to leave. Lee sensed my discomfort and with just a touch of her hand, calmed me down. I was struck once again by her composure and, indeed, her fine looks. Like her sister, Lee seemed not just aware of her beauty, but, unlike many beautiful women, comfortable with it, aware that others would look, stare, ogle, and that somehow it was not only understandable, but acceptable, a sort of implicit price that one must pay for having been blessed with an exquisite appearance.

Lee’s hand just lay there on my forearm, and she stared into my eyes, sure and certain, in complete control of herself and the situation in which we found ourselves. For a moment I felt myself slipping away, as if I was falling under a spell; there was something extraordinary about these Rogers girls, and in that moment I had a fleeting, barely tangible sense that, in one way or another, my life would be for ever inextricably linked with theirs.

The barman, a tall, greasy-haired youth with a nasty jagged scar down one cheek, eyed us suspiciously for several minutes before approaching us.

‘Wodja want?’

Great, I thought, the snob in me rising reflexively; Neanderthal staff. We should get some very informative grunts out of this one. I pushed the thought away as quickly as I could; I was uncomfortable enough in the surroundings without sending out death-wish signals as well. ‘Half a lager, please. Lee?’

Lee shuffled on her seat and smiled at the barman; it was exactly the same look she had given the Italian stallion in the café. There was something about this behaviour which both amused and shocked me; that Lee could be so calculating surprised me; that she was capable of pulling it off so successfully, deluding these singly transparent men with their chisel jaws and overactive glands, made me want to laugh out loud. I did not, of course, but merely sat back and allowed Lee to weave her spell.

‘I’ll just have an orange juice,’ she purred at the barman. He made a feeble attempt to disguise what he was thinking, but frankly, if there’d been a flag attached to the end of it, it would have been waving in our faces. ‘Oh, and perhaps you could help me with some information?’

‘Wozzat then?’

Lee produced the photo and handed it over. The barman studied it for a moment, then looked at Lee. He narrowed his eyes, presumably in an attempt to show he was thinking intently, but, alas, merely destroying any illusion of faint intelligence that had been present previously. ‘Oh, I gerrit. You Liana’s sister or somefink?’ Lee smiled and nodded. A broad grin spread out across the barman’s face as if, against all odds, he’d just won the finals of
Mastermind
. ‘Yeah, right... family resemblance.’

‘You know where she is?’ asked Lee casually. The barman nodded, although it did not seem to signify assent. ‘Actually, aven’t seen erfra coupla munfs, allvo she’s usually in ere awler time. Aven’t seen mutcha wotsisface nyver... ’

‘Keith?’

‘Yeah, Keef. Good bloke Keef, when he ain’t office fuckin trolley. He did come in the uvver night, buh nofferlong.’

Lee nodded, flashed him another one of her sexy looks, then executed a nice little bluff. ‘They still living round the corner then?’

‘Yeah, finkso.’

‘Don’t suppose you can remember the address, can you?’

The barman spent the next minute doing his best impression of a man with no brain, before coming back to our planet with a decisive reply.

‘Nah. Never could remember numbers... buh seasy to find. Sup the road, firs onner left, larse hass onner left... Eldon Road, I fink.’

‘Of course,’ said Lee, and smiled gratefully. ‘Thanks. What are you having?’

‘Oh, fanks very much. I’Il avven arf. Cheers.’

Lee turned to me and smiled. I could have thrown my arms around her and kissed her, but knew that this was neither the time nor the place for such a demonstrative outburst.