How’s Newcastle?
I watch as David picks up his phone and reads the message. He licks the fingers of his other hand, wipes them on his top, and then taps something back. Moments later, my phone buzzes with the reply.
Just going into a meeting. The sun’s out.
I’m not sure why, but I look up to the darkening sky that matches my mood.
I head into the building and cross to the coffee shop opposite the Burger King. I don’t order anything but find a chair in the corner that gives me a perfect view of David. He continues to eat his burger, although it is small bites at a time. I suspect he wants to drag it out, like a teenager trying to make a milkshake last all evening.
Fifteen minutes pass and David does nothing other than use his phone – which is plugged into a socket on a pillar. I wonder how long he’s been in the same spot.
He eventually finishes his food and then dumps the rubbish in the bin before heading out the door, into the main services building. I half expect him to see me, though he’s not really looking. Instead, he mooches into the arcade, hands in pockets. I almost follow but he’s simply trying to waste time. Five minutes later and he’s back where he started.
He eventually heads to an empty table that’s in the central concourse. He pulls out the uncomfortable-looking metal chair and sits, before taking a book from his bag. There’s an unquestionable sadness about a lonely middle-aged man hiding in a service station. I’m not sure whether to be angry or consoling. I want to put my arms around him and say it’s going to be all right; but I also don’t want to see him again. Like a weighing scale: one side balancing the other. I’m not sure which will ultimately win.
I leave the coffee shop and cross the hall, before scraping back the second chair at David’s table and sitting. He looks up, first in surprise and then with eye-popping alarm when he realises it’s me.
‘You’re a liar,’ I say.
He opens his mouth and babbles something I’m not even sure are proper words. Then he bows his head and mutters a simple: ‘Yes.’
‘Is it all a lie?’ I ask.
David folds his book closed and sighs. ‘Is what a lie?’
‘Everything. The job. The travel.’
He shakes his head: ‘No. I do buy and sell things. I have made money, it’s just…’
He tails off and then returns his book to his bag, before pressing back into his chair. He stares past me towards the arcade and it feels like the clouds from outside have descended within.
‘It was what my dad did,’ he says. ‘I thought I could carry it on, but it’s not been as easy these past few months. Times are changing and I don’t know how much of what I do has a place any longer.’
I follow his gaze to the arcade and it’s there, too. There are a pair of kids probably bunking off school. When I was young, they’d be on primitive, clunky dance-step machines. Those have now been replaced by high-definition, motion-sensor games with cameras that put the youths onto the screen itself. Everything is changing. It always has and it always will.
I turn back to him: ‘Did you really go to Bath last month?’ I ask.
‘Yes. I didn’t buy anything, though. It was a waste of time.’
‘What about Cardiff?’
‘This is the first time I’ve ever told you I’m going somewhere and then I haven’t.’
I examine his face, looking for any sort of tell. I can’t tell if it’s the truth. If this is the first time he’s faked a trip, then he’s extremely unlucky to have been caught.
‘I know you don’t like me sitting around the flat all day,’ he says. ‘I didn’t want to look like a loser to you. Didn’t want to let you down.’ He gulps and then adds: ‘Didn’t want to lose you…’
I turn away because it’s hard to look at him like this. I can’t figure out where those scales are balanced; whether I’m sorry for him or annoyed with him.
‘I know Jane and Ben aren’t fans of me,’ he says.
‘That’s not true… it’s just they don’t know you so much now.’
He scratches his chin and fiddles with the cuffs of his shirt. Anything that means he doesn’t have to look at me directly. He can probably sense the unease, too. The feeling that our lives will change here and now. He doesn’t know which way it will go but neither do I.
‘I’ve been jealous,’ he says. ‘Your career is taking off. I knew you’d be able to do it – and it’s happening. I suppose I wish it was happening for me, too. I want to be able to provide for you.’
I snort and think of Jane with her ‘career gap’: ‘It’s not the 1950s. I don’t need or want to be a good little housewife.’
‘I know. I’m pathetic.’
‘Don’t say that.’
‘I don’t deserve you.’
‘Don’t say that, either.’
He finally meets my gaze. ‘I love you so much.’
‘I love you, too.’
It’s like a reflex. I love you-I love you, too. One sentence follows the other like night after day. I’ve said the words without thinking about them and then, before I know what’s happening, our lives are changing. In the middle of the service station forecourt, David drops to one knee and pulls my hand towards him.
‘Will you marry me?’