Verbatim

by Andrew Hill

  “I know.” He elaborated by saying he had dropped it a couple of days ago. But his mother wasn’t convinced, Josh wasn’t such a good liar as he thought. Carol said no more about it but thought he’d more likely thrown it down when upset about Charlotte.

  “It sounds just the same a little dent like that doesn’t matter.”

  And so it doesn’t. As the weeks progressed after this eventful day the sound of the French horn became once more a regular feature of the household and the music of Mozart, Strauss and many others filled the atmosphere. Josh, as you’d expect, soon put thoughts of Charlotte where they belonged, lost in that enormous container we call memory, to fade away into a virtual nothingness. He’ll remember her again when he’s sixty and wonder whatever became of her.

  During this time the only word from Quinton was an e-mail that he had sent to Carol with the final draft of his screenplay for Dead Letter Perfect, without the usual invitation to dine out. With the script now complete you might expect a little celebration but it was not to be. It did make Carol wonder a little but it didn’t really matter very much to her. If he’s not interested then so be it.

  * * *

  It was a Thursday morning with thousands of Oxford’s population at work and Carol knew the drudgery of work from her days in the civil service. Life is full of small coincidences and one of them is Carol’s quickest route from home to her regular supermarket took her past the local magistrates’ court which would bring to mind her time back at Islington, and of course, thoughts of Rob. She always took a slightly longer route to avoid those disturbing memories.

  Thursday morning was not an especially pleasant one being cold for the time of year and drizzling but was the day selected by Carol for the weekly shopping, it’s far less crowded than a weekend.

  Carol was now leaving a modest sized supermarket and was pushing her trolley in the direction of the car when another car caught her eye. The light blue Toyota with a very familiar registration number.

  “That’s a strange,” she thought, “I didn’t see him in there.”

  She was, of course, referring to Quinton. She glanced into it as she passed by and noticed a woman’s cardigan on the front passenger seat.

  “So that’s it, well who cares?” She moved on towards the boot of her own car and unloaded the contents of the trolley, replacing it and retrieving her one pound coin in the process. Back in the driving seat Carol could see Quinton’s car through the rear-view mirror and decided to wait, overcome by curiosity, to catch a glimpse of the mystery new woman in his life.

  It must have been a good half hour and Carol was on the verge of abandoning the vigil when two people, one familiar and one not, approached Quinton’s car. There she was a little older than Carol with shortish dyed blond hair, a blouse that matched the car and green slacks that clashed with the car. Quinton always wore clashing colours.

  “They’re well suited and they say opposites attract.”

  Carol watched the woman, name not yet known, pushing the trolley over to the trolley park and seemed to have a challenging time retrieving the coin. On walking back Carol noticed a similar gait to Quinton’s walk. The two got into the car and Quinton began to manoeuvre out, driving past Carol without noticing either her or the car.

  “He must be stuck on her.”

  Carol pulled out and drove right behind them but if Quinton saw her in the mirror he gave no indication. She followed them until their routes diverged with Quinton on his way to one side of Oxford and Carol to the other.

  If Carol and Quinton were only to meet professionally it would be a satisfactory outcome, “It’s time to move on.”

  2

  Carol would, in former years, be up early in the morning, travel to work at the same time by the same route every Monday to Friday. It may be a pleasant summer morning or a cold, damp and dark January morning, it made no difference. Perhaps one morning she would not be looking forward to her work because of the particular magistrate she would be ushering for or perhaps a new supervisor was less agreeable than the previous one. These are all among the myriad reasons why so many people just regard work as a means of earning a living and a poor one at that. Such days for Carol have long since passed and our novelist knew just how lucky she was; she has a gift, a simple gift of choosing the right words and placing them into the optimum order to tell a good story and this is a gift that can pay well. No more did she suffer the routine of a low-paid day job. There are those souls who need a routine and a structured life and would be floundering if they lost it but even for them the drudgery can become too much.

  Carol’s movements are much less predictable though we know she would go to the supermarket every Thursday morning. This day, however, is Tuesday and it’s in the afternoon, a little chilly for the early autumn in Carol’s still leafy Oxford suburb with only a few leaves having fallen and not yet a nuisance under foot. Carol owned a perfectly good small car that is economical on fuel but would often use a local bus in favour of adding her own exhaust fumes to the cocktail of Oxford’s atmosphere. Local buses are not as regular as they used to be and Carol’s only one runs every half hour in the daytime and not at all in the evenings or Sundays. Carol knew the bus times and didn’t have to wait long. An elderly man stood in front of her, soon another person joined the queue behind. Carol paid him little attention and didn’t see that it was a tall kempt man in his late thirties perhaps early forties.

  The bus came, the elderly man was first to board. It’s hard to be sure of his age, he must have been in his eighties. Through his weak physique you could see that he had formerly been a fit youth. Now his steps are short, his breath wheezy and he balances with the aid of a stick. What it’s like to be old, losing your ability to get around and constantly forgetting things are thoughts which are just beginning to occupy Carol’s mind. She considers herself to be approaching middle age but she is reaching a time when you start to question what life is, why you were born and, if anything, what comes next when your time on this planet finally reaches its conclusion. Carol is not about to be hit by a midlife crisis, such as the old man would have probably had when Carol was just a starry eyed child. He will have come to terms with it.

  The bus platform lowered and the old man stepped on, he presented his pass to the driver and pulled his ticket from the machine without the need to pay. No such free journeys for Carol who paid for a day ticket. The man behind her did the same.

  Carol was adjusting herself in her seat as the other man in the queue walked past towards the rear of the bus without paying attention to her. Carol casually looked up and also paid little attention except to observe that once or twice before he’s boarded the bus at the same stop. A fact to which she attached no significance. So there they sat, the old man near the front, Carol the middle and the third at the rear with a commanding view of the whole bus.

  The bus took its time but eventually pulled up at a city centre bus stop where most passengers alighted, including Carol and the man from the rear among them.

  The library, which was Carol’s regular Tuesday afternoon visit, was not far and she strode off in its direction with the man not far to her rear. This man also entered the library. Carol’s library routine took her immediately to the fiction section where she searches for and eventually selects a novel. She scans the room for a seat and picks out a suitable one by a window from which can be seen a number of Oxford’s many spires. Carol would choose a classic novel from the past perhaps by Dickens or Jane Austin or one of the Bronte’s but she settled on this occasion for Tom Jones or to give it its full title The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling written by Henry Fielding.

  “I wonder if Alan Fielding is a descendant of him,” she thought.

  When she’d finished with a classic she’d take one from a modern author and compare the ways different authors construct and tell their stories in different periods of literary history. Carol’s interest in these matters
was purely instinctive and, though she finds it interesting, there is no PhD thesis inside her bursting to make an eternal, lonely and unread home in a university library.

  Between chapters Carol glanced up and there sitting on a seat quite near also reading a book was the man from the bus stop. Carol hadn’t noticed that he had also gone into the library. He hadn’t been carrying any books crossed her mind but neither had she so nothing can be deduced from that. It was then that Carol was struck by a curious feeling; has she seen him before? Not on the bus but a long time ago. Is he from her past, perhaps but she couldn’t place him.

  An hour or so went by and Carol’s eyes were beginning to strain.

  “They never used to,” passed through her mind. “Maybe I should see an optician.”

  She stopped reading leaving Mr Jones in a pickle and was about to go over to the shelf and return the book when her eyes, now refocused, caught ‘him’ still reading. It was time to go. Carol decided to take the book out and rose from her seat which was seen by the man from the corner of his eye. Carol descended the stairs and out into the street unaware that she was being followed at a discreet distance and made her way to the small café she had visited so many times before with Quinton, half expecting him to be there. Before entering, Carol stopped in front of the window which was angled and a reflection of the pavement behind could be plainly seen; there was no sign of the man. Was she really expecting there to be? Carol stepped inside. Unnoticed, the man walked past the café, was this because he didn’t want to arouse any suspicion or because he hadn’t seen her go in? Maybe he isn’t following her at all! Perhaps he was just, by coincidence, taking the same route.

  She sat there drinking coffee, occasionally the man’s face would intrude itself upon her mind; she knew she’d seen him before but when and where simply wouldn’t come.

  “It will, sooner or later,” she informed herself.

  Carol gathered together her belongings and made her way into the street, where she stopped without really being conscious of why and thought for a moment before looking both ways to see if ‘he’ was in attendance but of him there was no sign and she went home with no further encounter.

  * * *

  Thursday came. Carol made her usual journey to the supermarket by car and, as ever, took the long way round to avoid passing the magistrates’ court. Behind her was a medium sized cherry red car accompanying her all the way; a car that was remarkably similar to Carol’s, same make, same model, same colour but for the registration number you could easily mistake the one for the other. Although Carol soon became aware of the following car she didn’t put things together in her mind, nor did she think anything odd when it overtook her on the approach to the supermarket entering the car park first, though did at last notice that it was an identical car.

  Carol parked in the first available space which the other car for some reason had gone straight past as if in search of a space though ample were available. After parking she heard the silly little tone her mobile phone gave when a text was received. Cherry red drove around the car park and finally settled on a space close to Carol’s, who by then was halfway to the entrance. Cherry red observed and waited.

  Sooner rather than later out came Carol pushing her now laden trolley and walking briskly towards the two cars. Just before reaching the other car the engine started up and pulled out sharply across her path. There was no real danger but Carol had to pull up equally as sharply and cursed the errant driver under her breath. That same errant driver seemed totally oblivious to the incident. Carol looked towards him and you won’t need me to tell you who it was; tall, slim, fair haired but greying, thin rimmed gold-coloured glasses and not looking where he’s going.

  “Him again.” For a moment Carol was a little out of sorts and stood there to recover her composure. She placed the shopping in the boot and took the trolley back to its place of residence retrieving her £1 coin at the same time. Taking to the road home she gave the car park incident no more thought. A little later a cherry red car pulled out of a side street and took its place behind her and accompanied her all the way home.

  As she pulled into her drive cherry red drove straight past glimpsed by Carol in her rear-view mirror. She thought ‘he’ was driving it but couldn’t be sure. She turned and looked up the road but couldn’t see the registration number.

  “What’s he doing here? What’s he up to?” Could these questions simply be Carol’s fertile imagination, she quickly thought so. “Never mind, he must live near here that’s why he uses the same bus stop.” It was still nagging at her, where had she seen him before?

  The sun falling towards the tips of those Oxford spires was the scene through Carol’s study window but the grey rain clouds were maturing and turning that scene from a Constable chocolate box into a Turner dramatic storm.

  Carol pondered: was the man in the identical car really following her? He was at least paying more attention to her than was acceptable, or was this imagination? This was all the more reason for believing that they had met some time. It certainly wasn’t recent and it wasn’t from the civil service.

  Further contemplating the weather it didn’t seem as though the heavens would open just yet so the restless Carol donned her coat for a walk around the local area, her object was finding the identical car first walking along the road in the direction the car was travelling. There were literally hundreds of parked cars, and the roads were chock-a-block. Roads were transformed from acceptable widths into narrow country lanes. Carol stopped to look as two cars unsuccessfully tried to pass in opposite directions. It was perfectly clear they could not but this didn’t prevent them from trying. Finally one of them had the sense to do the only thing possible and make way by reversing back the way they’d come. While Carol’s attention was on these manoeuvres she failed to notice a man in his forties opening the door of his cherry red car, getting in and driving off to who knows where. A few moments later Carol was walking past the very space vacated by cherry red.

  Inevitably she found no trace of the other car and took the decision to return home as darkness was now approaching and street lamps were beginning to illuminate the ever fading scene. Carol felt a spot or two of rain and increased her pace. As the rain started coming a little heavier she made a resolution: “Next time I see him I’m going straight up to him and ask him where we’ve met before.”

  Carol ran up the garden path to her front door and opened it where she was greeted by the sound of a French horn. Carol listened while slowly removing her damp coat and placing it on a hook. Josh’s coat was as you will have guessed hanging over the banister. A surprise was in store for Carol, suddenly Josh was joined by a violin. So who is the mystery violin player? Was it a violin? It sounded rather deep.

  “Perhaps it’s a cello,” but it sounded too high sometimes. “There aren’t three of them up there surely.” Carol realised her error it was neither a violin nor a cello but the one in between, a viola.

  Carol took Josh’s coat from the banister and, noticing a female’s coat underneath, moved them both to the hook. After listening for a few moments more she began climbing the stairs as silently as she could but stopped halfway.

  “No,” she thought, “I’ll leave them alone.” And with that she turned and went back down and into the kitchen and was about to switch on the small radio when she reprimanded herself saying: “It may disturb them,” so she sat at the table and just listened.

  Around half an hour passed, the music ceased and feet could be heard descending the stairs.

  Two pairs of feet approached the kitchen but the voices were silent. The door opened, Josh and his friend came in. There she stood. What does a teenage-girl viola player look like? Does she wear army style boots with bright green knee length socks, a bright blue skirt down to her knees, a pair of thick pink rimmed glasses and a large number of earrings in just one ear, the right one as it happens. To top it up a Mohican haircut which l
eft just enough showing to reveal its jet black natural colour. This innovation must have been quite recent because the shaved sides had no hair showing through and a skin was as close to white as it comes. You wouldn’t think so would you? But there she stood. Josh introduced her as “Viola, as in Twelfth Night.”

  “That looks like a viola case,” commented Carol.

  “It is,” replied Josh’s new friend. Carol enquired if she took up the instrument because she shares its name.

  “No,” was her response. Josh intervened explaining that she’s always called Viola because that’s the instrument she plays.

  “I prefer it to my real name.” She added.

  “And what is your real name.”

  It turned out to be Violet. Carol couldn’t see why she didn’t like it but it’s her business.

  Viola seemed pleasant enough with an amiable personality but secretly she would prefer her son to go out with a more conventional girlfriend, assuming that she is his girlfriend and not merely a practising partner. Mind you, the French horn and the viola are hardly a natural duo so maybe it is more than just practice.

  “Maybe looking that way it’s just a silly phase she’ll grow out of,” pondered Carol.

  Josh went on to explain that her parents both play viola for the Bournemouth Philharmonic Orchestra.

  “Perhaps you and Viola will be playing in it one day,” said Josh’s mother.

  “Maybe I’ll be good enough, one day,” responded Josh. He sounded surprisingly despondent which gave Carol pause to wonder if he’s losing the belief in his own ability. When you’ve been far better at something than anyone else you know and meet others as good as you, you can reach a point when you notice that others are improving more than you are and you fall a little behind, then a little more, then one day you have to face up to the fact that you just don’t have what it takes. Carol, having no musical talent herself, is totally unqualified to hold an opinion on Josh’s chances of ever being a professional horn player. So there’s another thing to worry about. Why do people have children, you never stop worrying about them?