The Art of Forgetting (2 page)

“I think I know who it is,” she said, with a gleam in her eye, “and, if I’m right, I think he’s married. You know my mum sings? No? Didn’t I tell you? Well she does, and she guests with this band on and off. They play in clubs, mostly, and sometimes we go to watch – well I used to more than I do now, to be honest, as it’s not really my kind of music. Anyway, some time ago they were playing at a wedding reception in this club – I can’t remember where but it wasn’t that far – and if I’m right, he was the groom! I remember thinking that several times, when I’ve seen him sitting there:
I know you
. But it wasn’t important so I didn’t say anything. It was just one of those things that pops into your head and out again. I wouldn’t have remembered at all, but his wife was obviously expecting and she was wearing white. I heard some people tutting about it.”

I don’t know what I thought about that. It wasn’t as if I had any intention of seeing this man and it just made it all the more unlikely. Why would a married man with a child go to all the trouble of listening to our conversations, figuring out where I worked, making up some kind of reason for the switchboard to put him through? I couldn’t see why Linda was so excited, but she carried on in uncharacteristically hushed and conspiratorial tones.

“Honestly, what a bastard! We need to see if he was serious, if he would’ve gone through with it. Then we could tease him a bit. So, when he calls again ...”

“Hang on! If he calls again I’m not even going to talk to him,” I protested, but the tide was against me. Linda was older, I looked up to her and I envied her confidence, her sassiness. She was always at least one step ahead of me and, despite my misgivings, I found myself agreeing to talk to him if he called. I was to tell him to meet me after work by Leicester Square Station on the corner of Charing Cross Road and Cranbourne Street. We’d be perfectly safe – we wouldn’t approach him – but would observe from a distance how long he waited, enjoy his discomfort, then go for a drink and laugh about it. That would be all.

I did worry about it a little, but really I didn’t think he would call. He wouldn’t want to be rejected twice. However, I had only been in the office an hour or so when the phone rang and then I knew it would be him. Bob was talking to Mr Jones, Sandy wasn’t in yet and there was no-one else particularly near by, so it was my choice. Should I pick up the phone, tell him to get lost and let Linda believe he had never called back, or should I take part in this little adventure? It was well out of my comfort zone, but how would I ever lose my innocence and inexperience if I didn’t push myself a little?

A few minutes and it was done, although I found the whole thing excruciatingly difficult and my heart was beating fit to jump out of my chest.

“Hello, it’s me again.”

“Hello.”

“Did you think about what I said?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. Well, that’s good. At least I … What did you decide?”

“Well, I thought it might be OK, just for a quick drink,” I said. I was sure I could hear his breathing grow faster so I rushed through the arrangements and replaced the receiver as if it were on fire, but now I regretted picking it up at all. I didn’t even know his name. This was scary, but there was also the fact that he had sounded so pleased. Somehow, although none of this had been my idea, I found myself feeling guilty at the deception. What if he wasn’t Linda’s married man, but some poor lonely chap who had taken all his courage to approach someone he liked the look of? I told myself it was too late to do anything about it now and he would get over it, even if he was innocent. I got on with my work and said nothing about it when the others came in.

Linda was delighted, no, more than that, she was ecstatic when I told her about it later. It wasn’t often that we travelled back together, but she saw me on the platform and pushed her way through the ranks of commuters to stand beside me.

“Anything?”

For a moment, I toyed with the idea of not telling her; letting it all go. The only harm done would be to the man. I thought of him waiting impatiently outside the Tube and scanning the crowds. Still, if he was married he deserved it, and if he wasn’t – well, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. But then I had a vision of us standing somewhere over the road, perhaps in a doorway, maybe even in disguise, and I felt a rush of excitement. What could go wrong? And we would have such a laugh, and Linda would take me somewhere for a drink and we would laugh some more. It would be like opening another door, a door to a nightlife I had only glimpsed on the few occasions I had been to Oxford Street after work and caught a later train home.

“Yes, he phoned.”

“No! Really? What did you say?”

I told her about the arrangement, affecting a nonchalance I did not feel, and it was clear from that moment there would be no turning back. Linda talked about little else throughout the journey. She even took an envelope from her bag and sketched the junction where the assignation was to take place, marking the entrance to the Tube with a cross and talking through the relative merits of the places we might stand to observe him. It was as if we were spies and he was an enemy agent, instead of a man who had taken a fancy to a young girl he had seen on a train. For a moment it felt like being in a film, unreal but vividly lit. We were on the train but it seemed like a set, with the backdrop of London projected behind us whilst we were stationary, acting out our parts. The other commuters were extras, their briefcases and handbags were props and it would all disappear as soon we had said our lines. They say life is stranger than fiction though, and that certainly turned out to be true.

We had only a couple of days to wait but the time dragged terribly, as I was torn between feelings of excitement and regret every time I thought about it, which was quite a lot. Bob and Sandy teased me about daydreaming and said I must be in love, and the fact that I blushed deeply did nothing to persuade them otherwise. How shocked they would have been if they had known the truth! Seeing it through their eyes made me realise what a rash and ill-advised thing it was to do, but there was no backing out now. Linda’s plans were complete and now the time had come to enact them.

We met as arranged, just down from the entrance to Oxford Street Station. It was overcast and drizzly, and I was cold in my completely inappropriate light jacket and short skirt. I wrapped my arms around myself and shuffled from foot to foot, but I didn’t have to wait long for there was Linda, waving at me as she side-stepped and skipped her way through the throng of commuters and tourists surging down the street.

“My God, what a nightmare!” she panted. “I thought I was going to be late.” But really it was quite the opposite. Her plan had included so many added minutes for unforeseen events that it was a full hour before I was supposed to meet the man. We filled the time by going to a Wimpy bar and eating burgers and chips, but I left half of mine as the excitement was making me queasy and Linda’s last-minute instructions did nothing to calm me down.

At last it was time to position ourselves, so we jumped on the Tube for one stop then walked the rest of the way. I think Linda must have thought I was a bit wobbly, as she took my arm and steered me along, chatting brightly all the time. She was right. I was cold, my meal was lying heavily in my stomach and my feet were hurting; I would have been quite happy to go home.

We were still a good ten minutes early, but Linda ushered me to our vantage point. We stood there in a doorway slightly elevated by a couple of steps, trying to look inconspicuous and waiting for him to arrive. I had a forlorn hope that he wouldn’t turn up but there was little chance of that, considering how much trouble he had taken to get this far.

“Tell me when you see him,” said Linda, about every minute. I nodded, but then my heart lurched for there he was, coming out of the station. He was carrying something, and a horrible feeling of guilt, mixed with something else I could not identify, coursed through me as I saw what it was. Flowers. He had bought me flowers and now what would he do with them? Take them home to his wife? He stood for a few seconds, looking around, but then a bus lumbered along and he was obscured. I closed my eyes, praying that he would be gone by the time it had passed, but no, he was still there. He looked at his watch then to his left and right, but he was an island of indecision in the flow of people coming and going so he moved to one side and waited there.

I took a deep breath. “That’s him, in the brown coat, with the flowers,” I whispered, as if he could hear us from over the road with crowds of people and traffic between us, but Linda had already seen him.

“I know. I knew it would be him. Bastard!”

I looked up at her face – she was quite a lot taller than me – waiting for the laughter to start, but it didn’t. This was supposed to be a joke, a harmless prank at his expense, but her face was twisted with anger.

“I asked my mum about it. Don’t worry, I just started talking about how we keep seeing people we know on the train, so she doesn’t suspect anything – but it’s definitely him. Gordon Carpenter. Lives in Tonbridge. She remembered it because they don’t really do weddings. It was a favour, you know, friend of a friend of a friend kind of thing. We only went along for the free food. Come on, let’s see what he’s got to say for himself!”

So saying, she grabbed my arm and tried to pull me to the junction. The lights were red and we could cross, but I shook her off.

“What are you doing?” I said, my voice rising, but she skipped across just as the lights changed back to green, leaving me standing there. A minute passed, or maybe it was less. Anyway, it was long enough to make me realise that I was alone and adrift without Linda. What would I do if she left without me? So I crossed as soon as I could, then stood there and said nothing as he held out a five pound note to her. His face was bright red.

“Look, it was a moment of madness,” he said. “I don’t know what came over me. I’m sorry if I scared you.” He looked at me – then back to Linda. “Why don’t you two have a night on the town, on me? You won’t hear from me again, I promise, and it’s the last time I’ll do anything like this, believe me!”

“It had better be,” said Linda grimly, as she took the note and balled it into her fist. “I know your name and I know where you live, so go back to your wife and kid and stop pestering my friend!”

She grabbed my arm and propelled me off down Charing Cross Road. I don’t think she had any idea where we were going, and her anger seemed to be burning my arm. Eventually we went into a bar and she ordered cocktails – something sickly and sweet – which we drank in an atmosphere far from that she had described to me just a few days ago. After a while, she put her drink down on the glass tabletop and leaned back, arching her fingers in front of her mouth.

“You’re cross with me, aren’t you?”

“No, not cross, not really, but I suppose I am a bit surprised,” I said, feeling on the defensive although there was no reason to be.

“Look, it just got to me, that’s all. His wife sitting at home looking after the baby and him out chasing after you. Suppose you had been interested? Suppose you’d fallen in love and he’d decided to leave her? You’ve got no idea, have you, how difficult it is bringing up a kid on your own. Everyone pointing the finger and saying you’re an unmarried mother. All the kids in school teasing your kid and saying ‘where’s your dad’?”

It hit me then, that this anger wasn’t some sort of empathy for abandoned wives in general. She was speaking from experience and I blurted it out, before I’d had time to think about whether it was a good idea. “Is that what your dad did?”

“Yes, if you really want to know, it is. But don’t think you can start feeling sorry for me. We are perfectly fine, thanks very much. Better off without him.”

She picked up her drink and made quite a performance out of extracting the pieces of fruit and deciding whether to eat them or not, so I drank the rest of mine and concentrated on looking around the room instead of at her. Clearly I had hit a nerve, but at least it explained what had happened. Now we could put it all behind us, enjoy the rest of the evening and there would be no real harm done. Five pounds was nearly half a week’s salary to us, and it would take some spending.

Unfortunately, that isn’t how it turned out, but that’s what I was thinking as we stood up to go. She had been to the ladies and not returned for a while, but when she did, she was all smiles again.

“Come on, let’s hit the town, courtesy of your sleazy friend. And if he thinks that’s the end of it, he can think again!”

So that was the start of it, but it was also the beginning of the end of my friendship with Linda. I didn’t say anything at the time as I was afraid she’d revert to her sullen and angry mood, especially as part of me was still clinging to the picture of us having a great evening together, but I was really uncomfortable about taking his money. I was positive that it must stop there, but not so Linda. She didn’t say much until we were on the train home, both of us a little drunk, but then she could talk of little else. Oh no, this wasn’t going to be the end of it at all, this was just the beginning, and if he didn’t like it, he should have thought about that when he started chasing young girls.

I hoped she would forget about it once she had sobered up and reflected, but she had another plan all worked out by the time I saw her on Monday. This time we were going to wait at Charing Cross until we saw him board the train after work, stay on until his station, follow him until he was nearly home, then stop him. Would he like us to come home with him, explain to his wife what he had been up to, or would he prefer to pay for us to have another night out?