On Wednesday, I was at my desk in London. Thanks to some smart work on the part of my agent, there had been a change in my lifestyle: a contract with a major oil company in the West End, daily travel covered, just six weeks, great rates, and an immediate start. It was a long train ride from Norwich, then a short hop on the Tube from Liverpool Street.
I had learned a little about the consulting game since my days of heaping advice on Tina and her Australian colleagues. The essential lesson of a further twenty years’ experience was Shut up and listen, a mantra that sat uneasily with my undiminished need to prove I deserved the money.
On my second day of listening, I discovered that my desk had been taken from one of the field workers, who now had nowhere to put his family photos. I offered to work from home three days a week to ease the pressure on office space. Nigel got his desk back and I passed the savings in train fares back to my client.
But on Wednesday I was doing one of my two days at the London office and fitting Angelina into my lunch break.
I sent the first message, right on noon, eleven P.M. her time.
So, what brought all this on?
Brought what on? came the reply a few seconds later.
We should have been using instant messaging, but we were in our forties. E-mail was more our speed.
Communication. It’s been a little while.
Just feeling twitchy.
Jesus. Twitchy had been her word for being turned on. Did Charlie see her e-mails? Did she use that word with him?
Twitchy …
I was using the word in a broad sense.
A broad sense.
First time you’ve felt twitchy, in a broad sense, since 1989?
I was very twitchy in 1989.
I’d forgotten …
We went on in that vein, saying nothing that would suggest we were intelligent adults, or indeed that we had anything of substance to say to each other after all this time, while I munched on an apple and drank a bottle of mineral water. My inquiries about why she had got in touch were deflected. I did manage to convey that I had a job.
Have to go. Keeping lunch breaks short: long commute Norwich–London.
TTYL xxx.
Come again?
Talk to you later. Where have you been living?
Under a rock, apparently.
* * *
On the Friday, working from home, I had an attack of cabin fever, which I treated by catching the bus to the supermarket and buying a Jamie Oliver shoulder of pork for dinner, skipping lunch to keep the calories under control.
By the time Claire got home, the Weber was making enticing smells, the potatoes were in the oven, and I had a bottle of Rioja open. I had not intended to set up a seduction, but that was the way she read it.
We ended up in her bed, the bed that had once been ours. It was good to put myself back in the real world, remind myself what I had. Afterward I got up to go to the bathroom and Claire said, “Hey, come over here,” and patted my belly.
“We’re looking distinctly trimmer,” she said. “Stay.”
So I stayed the night with my partner. Life was not getting any simpler. Better, but not simpler.
We slept in on Saturday morning, and I made coffee. Claire went to the gym, I went for a jog, we went to a café for lunch together, she had some work to do, I browsed the Net, made pasta for dinner, opened another bottle of red, and then it was bedtime. I looked at Claire, she looked at me, we kissed—and went to our separate beds.
I can’t explain it. If I had followed her to bed, I know she would not have sent me away. I more than half wanted to. But I was drawn back to my room, where I did something I had never done before. I lit the candle that sat on my bedside table. I turned off the light and let it burn for a few minutes. Then I blew it out.
* * *
Over the next week, I was conscious that something had changed in me, beyond the reenergizing that had pushed me back into the workforce. It manifested itself as a desire to play and sing again. I had kept up the daily practice, often just swinging around in the chair to play a few exercises as a break from the Internet, but without any heart. And no voice. Singing required a different sort of effort and a certain emotional state that, until now, I had almost forgotten.
Claire caught me one evening. “Were you singing?” she said. “I haven’t heard you sing for ages.”
“There’s a reason for that.”
“You really ought to think about this six-months-on, six-months-off thing. I think work’s good for you.”
“Could be. I just don’t want it to take over my life.”
“Point taken. Sing me something.”
“It was just practice.”
* * *
Come Wednesday, I was back in London. No choice about that: there was a weekly team meeting that I was expected to attend, and Angelina’s availability seemed tied to Charlie’s wine-tasting night. I had spent quite a bit of time thinking about our next exchange.
Between Hi Dooglas and her TTYL xxx, I managed to establish that she did not want to talk about her current life, but that reminiscences were fine, even when they slipped into flirtations.
Do you still have the dress you wore to the Mock Tudor?
Which one?
Blue, split down the middle. Of the top.
Believe it or not, I’ve still got it somewhere. Not sure I’d be brave enough to wear it now. I know why you remember it.
Why?
You were all over me in the taxi. It didn’t offer a lot of protection.
Lucky the driver didn’t throw us out.
You wear a dress like that, you’ve got to expect that response.
Expect but not deserve.
That’s what I said. I seem to recall you didn’t mind.
And so it went. Harmless fun.