The Glory Days

The 10:56 to London Kings Cross was late, but is now on its way. Out the window, fields and hedgerows stretch as far as the eye can see. Occasional clumps of trees and buildings. The variegated landscape rushes past, shifting and changing before him. Flocks of sheep; a herd of deer.

Michael is on a train, speeding southwards, where he is due to have lunch with an old friend. Well, 'friend' is perhaps not the most accurate way to describe this person, because they haven't seen each other for ten years. When does someone stop being a friend? Is it when they stop sending you birthday messages? Is it when you no longer think of them?

In any case, the last time Michael and Sam saw each other was at their graduation ceremony, where they largely ignored each other. They were university pals - both studied English literature, and, as is often the case when two people are in the same place at the same time, and for long enough, they got to talking and became friends. Although, they were never really 'friends', at least not in the way they were friends with everyone else - there was always something strange and unspoken between them.

Both men have now established themselves as proper adults in society. Michael and his girlfriend Jenny live on the outskirts of a rural town, in a less-than-spacious but comfortable house, where Michael can walk out of the door and immediately be in the woods. Here he often walks for hours, coming home with muddy boots and trousers covered in muck from his adventures down ill-advised paths, and the occasional fall. Jenny doesn't like the mess he inevitably creates when he returns. But being in the woods clears his head. Why should he explain himself? Every man has his cave, and this is his.

Sam lives in London, which is why Michael is travelling there. Sam is a big-city type, always rushing around, walking from one place to another, one engagement to the next. He doesn't like to take the tube - it gets too crowded and the ubiquitous thick smog makes him cough. Sam is a poet, which naturally means he has to supplement his income with menial barista and retail jobs. But he likes the often meaningful and seemingly fated encounters he has with customers. He's the type of person that makes people want to spill their darkest secrets to him.

Michael has never really liked poetry - he can see the objective merit of good poetry, but he can't get past the flowery language. He has tried writing poetry a couple of times, for past girlfriends, but he never got past a few lines, and all of his metaphors were trite. He likes Charles Dickens, war novels, and historical fantasy, whereas Sam was into Oscar Wilde, Whitman, that kind of thing - and the beat poets. As you'd expect.

Sam could recite Shakespeare sonnets from memory, and would often regale Michael with impassioned lectures about the eighteenth-century romantics, how important they were to him, how they changed everything about how he saw the world. Michael was never very interested in this, but he indulged Sam because he liked the sound of his voice, and the way his eyes lit up when he was talking about something he loved.

Michael works as an accountant at a publishing firm in the nearest city, and commutes by car. He actually quite enjoys the drive there and back, listening to the radio or playing one of his favourite jazz CDs. Sometimes it's the only alone time he gets in the day. The rest of the time he's being bugged by co-workers with whom he shares the office, and as soon as he gets home Jenny pounces on him, demanding to know all about his day with that gleeful, slightly desperate look on her face. He doesn't get why she is so interested in him. He never asks her about her day, so why should she care?

Jenny thinks accounting is boring, but it pays well, so she can't complain too much. She works part-time at the local primary school as a teaching assistant - thankfully, she loves children. She knows that, after nearly eleven years with Michael, by now they should have children and be married, or at least engaged, but every time she tries to bring it up with him he changes the subject and talks about how the fridge light needs fixing or the windows could use a clean. Or, failing that, he tells her how beautiful she is. That usually shuts her up.