I didn’t need much furniture, as I had already decided upon a minimalist look. The walls would be painted bright blue, the curtains made from crushed linen, oversized cushions forming a sitting circle and, set in the centre, a low, wooden coffee table. At the far side of the room, my bed — a simple futon. For my books, a set of shelves — the tallest item of furniture. Everything else would be placed on the floor in a deliberate sense of orderly nonchalance.
«If Mum were alive to see your flat, she would ask why it’s so untidy», Pavlos remarked when he saw it finished.
«Mum’s opinion aside, do you like it?»
«I do, if you ask me», Samantha butted in.
«Well, if that’s what you want, then it’s fine by me», he finally said, failing to sound convincing.
36
One day, some weeks later, I was out on a hunt for a lamp with a dimmer to use for reading. On the verge of giving up, I suddenly stumbled upon something intriguing. Almost hidden behind the window display, it made me open the door, ringing the little metal bell, and walk straight in.
«...Angelique?»
She turned and looked at me in surprise. «Vassilis!»
It was the very same girl I had met so long ago on my train journey to Paris. The girl that had whirled around me, and then away from me, like a tornado. The girl that I had shared my life story with. The girl who had grown up in Strasbourg, but wanted to live in Paris with her boyfriend.
She wore a deep purple skirt patterned in every colour and a simple black T-shirt diagonally halved by the strap of her bag — cutting a deep gorge between her breasts, like a leather river. Her hair had grown long, held in a vivacious ponytail.
She was so much more lovely than I remembered.
«What are you doing here?»
«I moved here just a few weeks ago! I now work for the European Parliament and they moved me to their offices here.»
«Really? How come you didn’t go to Paris with... Francois, right?»
«Right, but…Well, all of that’s finished now. Paris, Francois...», she replied flatly, weary of opening up that drawer of her memory.
«You broke up?»
«Several months after our trip.»
«What a shame...»
She smiled. «Nahh… He wanted to quit his studies and move to Stockholm. Why settle for being an obstacle?»
«Stockholm? Why?»
«He met a girl from there and he was besotted...», she said with a pained grimace, evidence of how far behind she’d left that fact.
She would never have acted any other way. After all, it was she who had told me Never look back. The only thing you’ll find is what you left behind or what let you go.
«See? You complained about not having really lived compared to me. Now you have stories and experiences of your own to tell», I remarked, pausing for a moment. «Do you maybe have some time for a coffee?»
She nodded and followed me out of the shop. «I see there are no more bruises — the ones you had when we met.»
«It’s been so long since then...»
It was a short walk to our pub. The locals inside waved their hellos as we wound our way through to a table at the window.
«You won’t believe who I just bumped into», I winked at Pavlos when his curiosity got the better of him. «This is Angelique. We met on the train from Milan to Paris, when I was coming here.»
With an exchange of an isn’t-it-a-small-world smile, the two were introduced. I ordered coffee for me and herbal tea for Angelique.
«So, this is the pub you’d told me about, eh?»
«Yes.»
«I have to say you look a lot different to how I remember you.»
«I am different. The time that’s passed has dealt generously with me.»
She smiled.
«How about you? How were these four years for you?»
Absentmindedly, she let her glance jump out from the pub and wander about in the road for a while, as if looking for an answer to my question.
«Well, initially, after what happened with Francois, I was disappointed. Desperate, actually. I needed to make new plans for my future, but I didn’t know how to do this on my own. It was only later that I realised the only thing I could do was carry on, day by day. I decided to immerse myself in my studies, get my degree and leave Strasbourg as soon as I could. So, after graduation, I applied for an assistant post and, thankfully, I got the job. And I was lucky enough to find myself at last away from my hometown.»
I smiled. «And Francois?»
«I don’t know. I haven’t heard from him. I guess he’s still in Sweden. Have you had any news from Greece? From...? Oh, I’m sorry, I can’t remember their names...»
«Michalis and Ellie.»
«Oh, yes, that’s it!»
«They’re fine, I suppose. I’ve learnt they’re still together.»
Angelique was taken aback. «Really? Have you been in touch with them at all?»
«Not at all.»
«You didn’t want to try?»
I shook my head. «There was no reason to.»
«Why not contact them if you don’t have a problem with their still being together? You’ve lived through so much with them. You share so much history. Why let it all go to waste?»
«I don’t know if it’s that simple. Had they apologised in some way, I might have maintained contact with them. But, besides that, when you weigh up what a relationship is worth, what counts more is the future, and not the past. Even if you’ve been through a lot with someone, why give it a try if you realise it actually has no place in your future?»
Angelique nodded. «You’re probably right. I don’t think I’d want to if Francois asked me to keep contact. I don’t know. I guess you’re right.»
«So, you’re starting your life from scratch…»
«Yes, a new start in London! With no looking back!»
37
We began to spend quite a bit of time together, despite the clashing of our schedules. We resigned ourselves to sharing our lunchtimes several times a week. I relished every moment of being with her. We did nothing but chat and laugh. In the end, we had lunch together every day, without even having to arrange it — an unspoken pact. We simply arrived at the same place, at the same time, every single day.
My feelings for her found no obstacle in deepening. As my childhood friend Karkavitsas had written, the first confession of love is the effort one makes to hide one’s feelings from the other. And that’s exactly what I found myself doing, with increasingly skilful pretence, the more I saw her feelings of friendship for me.
We soon started to meet each other after work and to stroll through night London, filling the streets with our shared stories and laughter.
One of those nights, though, would fill with a feeling all people in love must have felt at some point; the feeling of awkwardness which mixes restrained tears and censored swears into a blend of a tight smile.
«I’m in love!» I heard her say.
My heart thundered in my chest, flooding my brain with quick-thinking adrenaline, hunting down the perfect reply, until she finished her announcement:
«...With a colleague of mine — and I think he likes me, too.»
My heart, crushing down upon itself, slowed its wild beating, and then stopped completely.
It is exasperating and inexpressibly perplexing how life sometimes chooses to mock us. She causes someone to break your heart with only a few words, forcing you to restrain your tears and shattered defence, so you have no choice but to feign the consenting happiness you cannot trick yourself into feeling. And the most ironic thing is that life always employs exactly the right person to play out this prank on you.
I don’t remember saying anything else that night. The only thing I did was paste the clumsiest of awkward smiles over my agony, as if I’d propped my mouth into a wide smile with the bar counter’s toothpicks. I would not have her see my ache to flee. Upon our parting that night, my lips touched each other finally to shu
t in the whine that almost escaped.
From then on, I avoided her with a variety of excuses. But no matter how good they are, there always arrives a time when you have to replace them with the truth. After one too many excuses, I decided to be honest about it all. And in the heat of that moment, I rushed to her flat. She was probably sleeping, but I didn’t let it stop me. However, anxiety overwhelmed me as I came up against her door, and as I was too timid to speak to her myself, I left it all up to a small piece of paper that I slipped into her mailbox. The next morning, she would bend down to pick up the strange note. Unfolded in her hands, it read:
I am in love with you. Please, don’t contact me again, unless you have some good advice to reassure me with.
In the act of sliding my note beneath the door, I believed I’d made the right decision. Few moments later, I regretted it. I was twenty-three and still I behaved like a child. I went back to her door, but it was impossible to get my note back. I thought about writing another note, but that would make me seem even worse of a fool — a fact I couldn’t deny, but hated.
What the hell! I don’t care what may happen! I thought in the end, giving up.
She never contacted me again. During our first few days apart, I believed it must have been difficult for her to come up with the good advice I’d asked of her. Perhaps she thought I would go after it myself. After that, I thought she was probably not even the vaguest bit interested in giving me any advice. The affair with her colleague must have deepened, so yet again I was only the short pause between someone’s two loves.
One night, an absurdly desperate notion arrived in my head: could it be that I had slipped the note in the wrong mailbox?
38
A long time passed, and I was filled with regret from the word go — a relentless regret I could do nothing about, until one routine, ordinary night, the cogwheel moving this story along, stuck.
I had just arrived at the pub for my shift. Not expecting anything out of blue, Bob handed me over an envelope.
«That girl you hang out with popped by and left this for you.»
I grabbed the envelope and ripped it open:
Remember on the train, when we first met. I told you that all I wanted was to go to Paris with Francois. When we broke up, I came here to London, but yet, there will always be a possibility of me joining him in Paris. I hope you will understand...
I obviously did not!
The letter burned my hand with shock and confusion. It was the most devastating thing she could ever have written. A message I could not understand. I don’t know if it was the farce of her cruelty or the blur of love that blinded me to the meaning behind her words. Only she could explain it to me — that enchanting French girl who had stormed into my life for a second time, with a force that brought me to my knees for good. What Ellie and Michalis hadn’t managed to destroy, she alone did. Every time I thought of her, I fell into despair — and I did nothing but think of her.
Two months of her desertion passed, and her face, her perfume, her voice began to fade away inside of me, despite my every day’s struggle to keep it all alive. There were entire days where I practised my memory into remembering if her eyes were blue or green.
The slow passage of time strengthened me at last. I patiently picked up each of the bricks she had knocked down, building back up the wall I had once called everyday life. And as I was ready to place the last brick, the earth buckled and it all collapsed. From among the dust and rubble, Angelique emerged, and walked into the pub.
Black! was the first thing that came to my mind when I saw her eyes.
«Can I have a beer, please?»
«Beer, what kind?»
«Black», she said, as if she could read my mind.
«I never expected to see you again», I told her, placing her Guinness on the counter.
«Did you really think we would never see each other again? That we met four years ago for nothing? A mere accident?» She sipped her drink. «You didn’t understand the message I sent you, did you?»
«It made no sense at all to me...»
She smiled. «The meaning was that everything changes, every single moment. You never know what you’re in for. That’s why you can never rule out any possibility. When you do that, the only thing you achieve is daring life to mock you. I may have broken up with Francois, I may not have been in Paris with him, but I can’t rule out the possibility of never seeing him again in the future and joining him in the end. I admit that I was attracted to that colleague of mine, but it didn’t mean I didn’t want you.»
« I still don’t understand.»
«Argh! I told you I liked a colleague of mine, and what did you do? You gave up on me. Didn’t it occur to you that I might love you but hadn’t realised it yet? My words in that letter were meant to tell you that each and every moment holds the possibility for everything to be turned upside down. Had you kissed me that night, I would have surrendered immediately. Unconditionally. Do you understand now? You silly man...»
I would definitely be silly if I still didn’t understand. We had lost each other somewhere between her optimism and my fear, but now we had found each other again.
«So, after I waited and waited and waited and you didn’t show up, I realized I had to come and make things right between us... Am I too late?»
I glanced at my watch. «No. Actually, you’ve arrived at just the right time. I’m closing in half an hour», I said and we laughed. It was the first night I had ever left the glasses dirty, the fridges not stocked, the floor unwiped. It was the first time I risked disappointing Pavlos.
With the pub locked up for the night, we walked out into the rain, huddled together under my umbrella, as if all those empty months had never been. Peals of laughter and embracing bracketed our happy chatting, until we stopped at a junction in the road, turning to each other, silent and serious. I watched as the black clouds in her eyes were banished by the bright full moon of her thoughts; I felt the breeze of her breath across my lips. I held her tight in the circle of my arms, and breathed the same air inside the cage of our locked kiss. Our eyes shut to the world, we failed to see the red-hot neon sign above our heads blinking Love above all.
We strolled back to my flat, in a cloudburst of kissing and caresses. While I chased her down, wanting to taste all the salt and sweet of her skin, she laughed in her hurry to light the thirty-one candles that lay all around the flat. The room aglow in all that gold, she gazed at me, holding my face.
«I like candles. I love fire, ever since I was a small girl. The sight of it thrills me. It’s so liberating...»
«I want to learn everything about you», I said, laying her down on my futon.
The buttons of her woollen coat parted easily. I buried my face against the soft, thin cotton covering her chest. At last, we were fulfilling what fate had decided for us four long years ago, when she seated us together on that train bound for Paris.
One by one, the candles smouldered. Even as the last one left us in final darkness, we were still consumed with knowing and wanting and loving each other. In that moment, I understood the meaning of our life: to make love so wholly and deeply that thirty-one candles could melt before we had reached the end of each other.
Dawn found us still awake and naked, in an untidy sea of crumpled blue cotton. Through the wide windows, Sunday morning revealed all the blushing, hot reds of its rising sun. I have no memory of how long we stayed like that. We just let go of everything, lost for the very first time in love...
39
A year passed along beside us. Twelve months. Fifty-two weeks. Three hundred and sixty five days. Countless moments that we gathered together in one encircling embrace. She was the missing piece of my life’s puzzle.
I proposed the idea of her moving in with me. She did. I craved her constantly by my side, and so did she. Although she worked early in the morning, every night she would drop by my work to keep me company. After closing the pub, we would always follow a new route home, indulging ou
r love for endless conversations while walking in the empty streets. Even though we spent night after night sharing all of ourselves with each other, I always felt there was something still unexplored. Though I walked through her, along her, and into her, I was unable to map her entirety. I stumbled constantly upon virgin forests and secret underground rivers.
On weekends, we would lie in bed for hours, discussing her photographs, which hang on the walls in deep, wide frames. We’d talk about their compositions, the subject matter, the form and content, the supremacy of black-and-white, the stories lying behind them, and the emotions they evoked. We’d talk about the same photos again and again, though our thoughts and ideas about them would change from time to time; a sign that we changed too.
When we did eventually get up, we’d make breakfast. Sweet coffee for me, fresh orange juice for Angelique. Breakfast-time became a peculiar sort of lesson in English, French and Greek. Whatever we said in English, I translated into Greek for her, and she returned the favour in French. This is how we gradually were able to communicate in our mother tongues.
I had obtained my driving licence, if for no other reason but to borrow Pavlos’ car and visit the small towns around London. The English countryside was so beautiful and virginal that every excursion seemed like a painting we drew with rain colours.
As for the people in our lives, Pavlos and Samantha lived together quite contentedly, though their fruitless efforts to conceive had taken their toll on them. It was sad to witness their resignation to failure. I kept it all to myself and never once shared it with anyone, including Angelique.
The pub was in full swing and it didn't require any extra attention. The only change was Sylvia’s decision to travel around Europe, leaving her spot behind the bar after seven loyal years. She was replaced by Matt, a strapping young guy, who was very talented at bartending, but didn’t let any of his cats out the bag. Though he smiled a lot, he was reserved. He spoke only when absolutely necessary, laughed politely at our jokes, and answered the questions he felt comfortable with. At first, it annoyed me, but later on, at Angelique’s instigation, I realised that, if I let him be, he might eventually open up.
A Life In A Moment Page 9