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The one thing London has, amidst the concrete and steel, is plenty of beautiful parks. St James’s Park is smack in the centre of the West End of London and I had ‘discovered’ this natural beauty spot on my first visit to the city on one of those days when I had nothing to do and would simply wander the streets for hours. My feet, way back then, had taken me to Buckingham Palace to enjoy the sights and watch the excited tourists snapping away at anything that would stay still long enough. I had walked from Buckingham Palace into the park without even realising it, sat on a bench and spent a sunny afternoon completely alone, happy to simply be away from the shit-hole I was sharing at the time.
Now here I was again, ten years later, this time with Sofia.
“This is beautiful. I can’t believe I’ve never been here before.”
We sit on the grass underneath a large tree and stare at the lake in front of us.
“I haven’t been here in years. You can sit here and imagine you aren’t actually in the city.”
“When were you here last?”
“I don’t know, ten years? I remember spending an afternoon here, a Sunday I think. I remember this Italian guy coming up to me and asking me to write a letter in English to his girlfriend. I’d forgotten about that. It was a love letter but he didn’t seem to mind me knowing this. I was just the translator. Degrees of separation. He could speak some English, but he couldn’t write any.”
“That’s sweet. You helped them stay in contact with each other.”
“Yeah, or of course he might have been some sex pest that she thought she’d finally got rid of because he couldn’t write any English and I continued the cycle.”
“That’s another way to look at it. Look at that family over there. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone having a picnic in a park in real life. Those sorts of things only happen in films or on the television. Look, on the lake, swans. Beautiful.”
I take a sip from my coffee. “This place gets busy with families, especially on Sundays during the summer. This heat is making me sleepy.”
I watch a squirrel climb down the tree and sit near Sofia’s feet, not moving, just staring at her. Sofia stares back at the squirrel as it moves slowly towards her, wary, not coming too close but not backing away either. This would be a perfect picture moment. Sofia reaches out her hand to the squirrel but it darts off, back up the tree, back to safety.
“It’s afraid.”
“You’re a giant compared to the squirrel. It probably saw you had nothing for it.”
She leans to the side and rests her shoulder against mine. Neither of us speaks for a while, enjoying the silence and the real life painting in front of us. She moves her head down, resting it on my shoulder and shuts her eyes. A few moments later she begins to hum a tune that I think I recognise.
“What’s that?”
“It’s been in my head for days now, ‘Bring on the Night’ by The Police.”
I remember the song well from my first trip to London.
“This has been a lovely day out,” Sofia murmurs.
The afternoon gently passes by.
31
“No, no, no. I don’t want this anymore. It’s not going to fucking work and we both know that. You have to stop now. I’m not going to answer the phone to you anymore, so there’s no point calling.”
This is Sofia’s side of the conversation, which I can hear through the paper thin wall. This one sided conversation has been going on for almost an hour. I don’t know what her ex-boyfriend is saying, but it sounds like pleading and begging has now become part of his daily routine. It’s at least the fourth time he has called today and judging by her anger it sounds like it’s seriously beginning to get to Sofia.
“He won’t fucking stop!” she shouts, barging through the door and then bouncing down onto the sofa.
“This is hard for you?” I ask.
“Yes, of course it is.”
“Then it’s hard for him as well. If you don’t want to talk to him don’t answer the phone. Does he know you’re living here?”
“No. I said I was staying at my parents.”
“Shit, hope he doesn’t decide to make the trip up there.”
“No, he wouldn’t do that and he has no idea where my parents live anyway. I just want him to stop. I know he will have gone drinking last night, and now he’s spent a hungover Sunday on his own feeling sorry for himself. But I’m done, that’s it. I just want to move on.”
I’m staying silent because I don’t actually know what to say. I’ve heard women, and men, go through this sort of thing before, the never ending break-up scenario. I can’t actually take sides and I don’t want to. I don’t know her ex, who, for all I know, could be a good guy and Sofia has never actually said otherwise. But if I start in with the whole ‘why you should avoid him’ scenario, then she may just get back with him anyway and it’s a waste of time.
I’ve known people who have wasted years going through these continual arguments only to find that a couple of days or weeks after they break up they suddenly realise that they miss each other too much and need to be back together again, with promises that this time it’s for good. And then they break up again once the honey-moon period is over and the real-life problems hit once more. Every time they make-up and then break-up, it all seems just a little bit false, and friends begin to stop listening to their tales of woe, knowing that they will probably get back together anyway, so there is really no point being too concerned.
But real friends should at least pretend to listen and be sympathetic. Maybe real friends shouldn’t pretend at all and should tell them what they need to hear, not what they want to hear.
Sofia is almost in tears and I don’t know whether it’s through the frustration of the situation or through anger, but I’m guessing it’s the latter. I look over at her, sitting curled up on the sofa, hugging her legs, and for once I don’t know what to say.
As if reading my mind, she looks over and breaks the silence.
“Speak to me Cal.”
“I don’t know if I should interfere.”
“I’m not asking you to interfere. Just tell me what you think.”
But you asked me to tell you what I thought the last time and that didn’t work out too well. Look, it really doesn’t matter what advice I give you, the ultimate decision is yours. You’ve come this far, and if you go back do you think anything will change, or will this cycle just keep on repeating itself?”
“I’m not going back. My mind’s made up. Not going to happen.”
She looks at me as if challenging me to say that she doesn’t have a chance of sticking to that decision or at least that it’s going to be a struggle. But then I think of my ex and how she stuck to her decision of making no contact with me whatsoever once she’d closed that door.
“I believe you,” I say.
Thousands wouldn’t, I think.
32
Cleaning.
They say, the experts, that cleaning is therapeutic. Some people do it when hungover, stoned, or when feeling lethargic. The act of cleaning a house with no thought involved, constantly scrubbing and washing back and forth, is not only cleaning the house but cleaning the mind, erasing the past, even momentarily. Cleaning, when in some form of emotional state, where it is conducive to have the mind nullified, is no longer a chore, it is therapy.
When I eventually return from a meeting with Baxter, which was one part business and three parts alcohol, Sofia has completely transformed the flat. It’s no longer a dark, slightly depressing place and now feels like an actual home rather than just somewhere to crash at the end of the day. There are flowers in vases, candles in holders, pictures on walls, new cushions on the sofa and some sort of cloth over the table. If I had known that a few touches such as these would have made such a difference I might have taken the initiative myself. Maybe.
“This is some job. The place looks great.”
“Do you like it? I took off from work at midday and picked up some things. Doesn’t take much, does it? And it helped occupy my mind. It’s just my way of saying thanks for letting me stay here and for being a friend.”
“Well you didn’t need to but I appreciate it. The place definitely looks a lot better. I could get used to this.”
“You want some of this?”
Sofia holds out a joint to me and I accept. I look at her laptop screen while inhaling and notice she is looking at a job website.
“Looking for a new job?”
“I’m just seeing what’s out there, keeping my options open. I have a friend who moved to California a while ago and says there’s plenty of work in my line over there, plenty of opportunities. I’ve been emailing her for details.”
“California? Why not, I guess.”
She closes the laptop and sits down on the couch.
“Maybe I’m just overreacting to what’s been happening lately, but I just feel I need something new. I need an adventure, I need something to happen instead of this treading water, which is what I feel like I’m doing at the moment. I’m not getting any younger ya know.”
I pour two vodka and cokes without even asking if she would like one and hand her the glass.
“You’re hardly doddering around on crutches. You’ve been through a lot lately. It takes time to readjust, to get used to a different life.”
“I don’t believe in just sitting about waiting on things happening.” She sniffs the contents of the glass and then takes a sip. “That’s not why I moved to London. You must be the same way? You came here looking for something better, didn’t you?”
“Honestly? No. I didn’t want to come here again. I came here because my girlfriend was coming here and things just happened, whether I wanted them to or not. I don’t know if I had much control over them, they just seemed to occur. Anyway, you speak about control, but you’ve told me before you do Tarot card readings.”
“That’s different,” she says, taking another gulp of vodka and a hit from her joint before passing it over. “Tarot isn’t even about reading the future; it’s about the potential that lies ahead in your future, possibilities. I do believe things can still happen outside of your control, a larger guiding force, but you also have to put in the effort, work your way towards things. And don’t take the piss out of the Tarot.”
“I’m not taking the piss,” I laugh, “but you’re talking to someone who has absolutely no belief in fate, destiny, God or anything else that people use to make their life easier. To me, all those things are simply a way of avoiding the fact that you can control your own life to a point, but in the end life is uncontrollable.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, you may think you have all your ducks in a row, that your life is sorted. You might have the perfect house, the perfect job, the perfect life, nothing to worry about, and then something can come along and end all of that in a second. It’s absolutely beyond your control.You can’t plan for unexpected things. And then people start saying, as a way of coping with the latest catastrophe, that it was meant to happen, it was fate. It’s not fate, it’s not some greater force out there. It’s just life and you cannot control life.”
“If that’s the case then we shouldn’t bother planning anything at all? We should just wait and see what happens if it’s so uncontrollable and we are completely alone in this chaos. Different beliefs, although I agree with some of what you are saying. You’re going to have to let me do a Tarot card reading for you soon.”
“Well if you can listen to my crap and still agree on some of it then there’s no reason why I shouldn’t give your Tarot a go with an open mind”
“I think you just dissed the Tarot without realising it. It’s nearly ten, time for my bed.”
“I can’t get used to your ten o’ clock bed routine.”
“Need my full eight hours. We can’t all work from home can we? Night, Cal.”
I sit for a while longer, smoking what is left of Sofia’s joint whilst drinking another vodka.
Maybe she was right on some level. We are all unconsciously planning things, making things happen. I have wanted something to happen with Sofia from the first moment I met her, but at the same time I’d been pushing her away or she’s been pushing me away, and yet here she is, sleeping only a few steps from me. She hadn’t expected things to turn out this way, and neither had I. I remember what she said in the past about over analysing things. On that she is right. She is sleeping soundly in my bed, while I am out here, analysing.
Time to put the joint out and go to sleep.