Suddenly, I’m a drifter, a vagrant between emotions. I’m lost without her. For a few hours I had some kind of focus, to take my mind off how repetitive my life’s become; how, despite what I said about history, I’ve started looking back more than ever, because I can’t imagine anything to look forward to. But she’s gone before I have a chance to do anything about it, before I’m brave enough.
Computers may have a soul, but they can’t replace flesh and bone, nor real voices and warmth. And it’s computers I spend all my time with. It’s no surprise I’m lonely. I’m serially, seriously, monogamous. The last real girlfriend I had left me over three years ago. Too much gloom, she said, too much analysis of what, why, how. Too much talk, she said, and not enough action.
It’s too easy to fall in love, especially for someone like me who might fall for anyone who’s nice to me. It’s a vicious circle, that women start to like me because they feel I’m needy, and then, when they find out I really am needy, that I’m an emotional retard, they decide enough’s enough, that I’m getting too serious, that I’m a control freak. So I’d stopped even thinking about finding someone, was resigned to becoming an archetypal old bachelor, until today.
I really want to find out who she is, what she does, track down what Storm Moon means. I could always catch the train home, try to Google her on my flaky mobile connection, but after that I wouldn’t know what to do with an early afternoon back in my tiny Suffolk village. Solve more computer puzzles? Staying in London would be a real pain, although it would mean I could rearrange that meeting I cancelled. Not cheap, though, hotels. And my address book isn’t exactly overflowing with people I could cadge a bed from for the night.
There’s always John. He’s almost as sad as me, although he’s been married for nearly twenty years. He’s at work from five in the morning, and gets home at about half past three every afternoon. And then he drinks. Unless he’s in training for some marathon or something similarly beyond my capabilities or inclination. And he’s got broadband. And lets me use it. And there’s a pub just a couple of minutes’ walk away from his front door.
So I text him.
‘U gonna b at home in a couple of hours?’
I keep my phone in my hand. I wonder how long it’ll take him to text me back.
‘Home now. Cldn’t b arsd 2 work slow.’
‘On way. C u in 1 hr.’
‘Beers r in fridge.’
Nice to have some friends, even if they don’t know when it’s your birthday.
An hour later I’m in his warm living room, a can of beer on the table in front of me. He’s got some weird modern music on, as usual. We don’t speak much, to begin with, as usual. And his wife’s out until much later, as usual.
‘So, what’s up?’ he says, on his second can since I got here.
‘Not much.’
‘Been a while.’
‘Always is.’
‘Mm.’ He drinks some more, thinks his usual thoughts. ‘Where d’you want to eat, then?’ he says.
‘What’s easiest?’
‘Pub. They’ve got a new cook. French. Good stuff. Cheap.’
That’s the way he always talks. It’s like he hates using too many words. He uses just one where one will do.
‘Could do with a pint, anyway.’ He says that all the time, as well.
It’s only once we’re at the pub, pints in front of us on the table, waiting for food, that he starts talking properly.
‘Tell me, then,’ he says. ‘Something’s happened today. What’s her name?’
‘Birdie. I think.’ I take a sip of my Guinness. ‘And she’s gorgeous.’
‘You need your head testing.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you’re too old for this crap.’ He looks at me laughing. ‘You always do this. It comes up to your birthday. You start feeling old. You decide to fall in love. They don’t give a damn. You take almost a year to recover from the blow. Then it starts all over again.’
‘So you do know when my birthday is?’
‘Yeah. ’Course. Just don’t really care. Bit like you.’
So I ignore the banter for a bit. I tell him everything that’s happened today. He stops laughing after a while. He just listens and drinks his beer. Then he gets us another. The food always takes a long time in here, no matter who’s cooking it.
‘And you don’t know where she lives?’
I shake my head. ‘Look.’ I get the card out of my pocket. ‘It’s not even what she said she was called.’
‘You’re an idiot. Storm Moon. How dickish is that?’
The food arrives. The waitress is quite nice.
‘Oh, give over,’ he says.
‘Sorry.’
‘Why don’t you just phone her?’
‘The waitress? I haven’t got her number.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘She sort of forbade me to. Until I decide if I’m getting obsessed with the Antarctic ’
‘Well, are you?’
‘Too soon to decide.’
‘Let’s Google her when we get back.’
‘D’you think we’ll find anything?’
‘Would she have told you to Google her otherwise?’
‘I don’t know.’
When we’ve finished eating, we play the usual obligatory five frames of pool and drink a couple more beers. And then we’re off. I smoke on the way back. I’ve been smoking incessantly, between pints and talk and loneliness, for most of my life.
He’s already made up the sofa bed in the spare room that’s also his office. He’s good like that. We climb over it to get to his computer, nightcap in hand, of course. Even though I configured this machine for him, it takes ages to start up. What the hell does he do to these things? I can’t be arsed to fix it now. I’ll do that in the morning.
And so I start searching for her. Henrietta Bowers, I type into Google’s advanced search. It comes up with all sorts of weird stuff, and then some interesting stuff. Henrietta Bowers Duterte, an African American woman who was the first female undertaker in Philadelphia, and also an Underground Station Master who helped slaves by hiding them in caskets. That’s not her. I include London in the search. It might reduce the hits I get, but I still get nothing useful. Just references to old dowagers and people like that who died well over a hundred years ago. That figures, I suppose. It is an old-fashioned name.
So I look for Storm Moon instead. The search comes up with lots of information about paganism and Wicca. She didn’t look like a pagan to me. And then a definition on Wikipedia – the moon which occurs in March during shifting weather patterns in the Northern hemisphere; also called moon of winds, moon of the snow-blind. Now that’s interesting; there’s a connection there, isn’t there?
At the bottom of the page, it says See Also, and under that there are a couple of links – Storm Moon (disambiguation), and Storm Moon, graffiti artist and painter. I click on it. The page loads, littered with other links in a narrow column on the left. The rest is almost blank.
Storm Moon is a pseudonymous graffiti artist and painter, now best known for her abstract renditions of E. A. Wilson’s Antarctic sketches. Her graffiti art appeared first in London in the late 1990s, leading many to believe she was English. It consisted mainly of a black or white moon above black or white ice cliffs, normally subtitled with subversive or questioning slogans, such as ‘no one looks for the lost any more’, or ‘if governments don’t listen, why should the people?’ Her first oil with an Antarctic theme was auctioned in New York in 2001, and sold for over half a million pounds. Since then, her work has been shown and sold at many venues around the world. She is reputed to attend her showings without revealing her identity. Occasional graffiti pieces are still found, although it is uncertain how recent they are. This Storm Moon article is a stub.
‘That sound like her?’ John says over my shoulder.
‘No,’ I say. ‘It can’t be her. She didn’t look like she had two pennies to rub together.’
‘Must’ve been having you on then, mate.’
‘Maybe not. It explains the Antarctic link.’ I point at the screen.
‘I guess,’ he says, but doesn’t sound convinced. He slurps the last beer out of the can. ‘Another?’
‘Oh, go on, then. Just one more. Might as well celebrate properly.’
While he’s in the kitchen, I search for images of Henrietta Bowers. None that come up look like her; they’re all of the worthy helper of slaves. And when I search for images of Storm Moon, I just get those abstract paintings and the street art. So I Google the blogs. Nothing again but supposition. Some bloggers reckon she must be an old crow if she never shows her face.
‘What you doing now?’ he asks.
‘Just trying different places. There must be more about her somewhere.’
‘D’you care? You just fancy her.’
‘No. It’s more than that.’
‘It always is. Just bloody phone her.’
‘I can’t.’
‘You’re not telling me you’re going to stick to that cockeyed promise.’
‘Yes. It’ll do me good to do a bit of reading from bits of paper for a change.’
‘You’re a mad bastard.’
‘I know. That’s why you like me so much.’
He splutters on his beer. ‘Oh yeah. Forgot that bit.’ He laughs. ‘Come on. Turn the damn machine off and let’s listen to some music.’
‘Yeah. I’ll fix it in the morning.’
‘What – is there something wrong with it?’
‘Dickhead.’ I thump him.
The next morning, I’m a bit thick-headed. I’m not used to drinking so much beer. John, and his wife, have already left by the time I get up. I have a quick juice, a quick shower, and a quick smoke on the balcony. Then I fix his machine, like I always do.
I get to my rearranged meeting without anyone fainting on me this time. The suits tell me what they need. I tell the suits what I need. We talk round and round the same thing for hours. Then we agree that they’ll be in touch with me, and I’ll be in touch with them. Bloody waste of time. That’s how they make their money. And I suppose that’s how I make mine.
Released from the claws of the accountants, I wander into the Waterstones by Trafalgar Square. The one with the café on the first floor. I browse the Travel and Exploration section. Ah. Lots of books on Antarctica. Which to choose? In the end I buy six, including the book Birdie had with her. I make sure I get Scott’s diaries and Amundsen’s account of his trip, too. It wouldn’t do to be one-sided.
There’s a table free in the café, so I plonk all my gear down there, get a coffee, and start reading. It’s harrowing, some of this stuff. It really is. I can’t imagine what it must have been like. Of course, being male, I straightaway look for the parts where people die. And, anyway, they are the bits that Birdie’s interested in. They’re the mystery – if there is indeed a mystery.
Three large coffees and two Danish pastries later, I’m convinced. Convinced I’m not pretending to be hooked just for the sake of a girl, but hooked because of the race between Amundsen and Scott, the two nations, the idea of spending years in an icy place to reach another point on the ice that someone else says is important. It’s either very foolish or very brave. But isn’t every point on the globe a pole of sorts?
Birdie’s card marks the page in Scott’s diaries where there’s a photo of his last entry. Even a cynic like me finds it difficult to read It seems a pity but I do not think I can write more without feeling for the man. What is it like to die that way? I pick up the card, stare at the colours and the name. I take out my phone, key in the number and wait. It rings nine times. I count, because I always count. I usually hang up if no one’s answered after ten rings.
‘Hello?’ Her voice sounds different.
‘It’s Adam.’
‘Who’s Adam?’
‘We met yesterday.’
‘Oh, it’s you. Hello, Mr Caird.’
Could I sense a smile?
‘Hello, Birdie.’
‘I thought I told you to wait a while to decide if you were interested in the fate of my namesake.’
‘I’ve just read bits of six books and I’ve already decided.’
‘Interesting.’ There’s an intervening hiss. ‘I wonder what you’re really interested in.’
You, you, you, I want to shout down the phone.
‘Waterstones is a very cool place to read books, you know.’
‘I don’t doubt that. But what do you expect me to do now that you’ve called me?’
‘Erm … I hadn’t actually thought about that.’
‘Maybe you should.’ She hangs up.
I’m puzzled. I’m sweating as well. Ridiculous. Maybe I am doing the wrong thing, maybe she is just taking the mick, and I shouldn’t be falling in love with someone who appears to be much younger than me. Maybe it’s The Change. But no. I know what I feel. I want this. I call her again.
‘Hello, Adam.’
‘Hello, Birdie.’
‘Have you started stalking me now?’
‘What?’
‘Have you got time now?’ she asks.
‘Yes.’
‘Meet me at Manor House Tube in about an hour?’
‘You sure?’
‘I’m sure.’
She hangs up again. I’m sweating even more now.
Manor House is up in north London, on one corner of Finsbury Park. It’s ages since I’ve been up here. I used to hang out round this place a long time ago. But I got tired of London. It was too loud, too noisy, too dirty. A girl I was going to marry left me. Riots and dead policemen. All too real, I guess. Too much out of my control.
Damn, which exit does she want me to take? I opt for the one that comes up on the corner of Seven Sisters Road. But I can’t see her. Mind you, I don’t suppose she’d be standing there waiting for me. She’ll probably make me wait. I lean against the wall and light a cigarette. I can’t remember the last time I was this nervous.
Just as I’m beginning to lose hope, I feel an arm round my waist.
‘Adam.’
‘Birdie.’
‘Come with me.’
She doesn’t let go, and we walk down the hill as if we’ve always been friends.