A job would be nice I said. He just looked at me as though I had two heads. Only a question of time I thought. Far lesser men. The jukebox was blaring. People think I look like Roger Moore he said. I hadn’t followed his conversation – he was waffling because I had not said anything for a while and he seized the opportunity and when my eyes turned away from the jukebox and fell on his leathery mouth, he was saying how his friends said he resembled Roger Moore. I didn’t feel he had flattered himself, on the contrary, he had insulted himself – Roger Moore was a pompous arse. I looked at him, cold tea, dry conversation and wondered why I had bothered dragging my corpse of a body out of bed this autumn day to see this man. I measured him against the things he had said about himself in his letter. He was wide off the mark, the toad. At any rate, it didn’t matter. I wouldn’t be seeing him again (thankgodididntgivehimmypersonaldetails). So tell me about your mother’s association with the Duke of Edinburgh I managed to say. He listened carefully as if I was confessing some life long secret on my deathbed before he began his drone of a reply. The first time he touched me, the arousal was overwhelming. I felt as if I would be sick with excitement, the sexual feeling, thick, dark, black bile churning in the breast. He was rubbery in the mouth, I hadn’t minded the wrinkles then. I minded the wrinkles now. He looked like a scowling lizard. Bathos. It was a foggy morning. I could walk out without so much as a word while he’s in mid-sentence. Cinematic, dramatic. I used to go out with this guy, you’ll never guess what I did. It didn’t matter since I wouldn’t be seeing him again. I looked at him droning on oblivious, relentless. What a bore you are, a complete arse, I must be out of my mind to waste the precious moments of my youth sitting thinking how much better I can do than you. Pipped to the post by lesser men. Sick to the back teeth. You soldier on of course but the sense of flogging a dead horse does creep in at some point. I can do better than this, this man old enough to be my grandfather, that sodding office job dictated to by spotty oiks with no manners and no morals and barely two brain cells to rub together. All this learning and not a jot to show for it. Pipped to the post. Good time Charlies and no-hopers going and coming and going. I saw a couple through the smoke furtively arguing, uttering poisoned somethings through clenched teeth. I wonder what they’re arguing about. I wonder if it’s worth arguing about. She was wearing a pullover, sans bra. Cheap. Where was Vicky when you needed her? She would be in bed now, zonked out of her mind on valium. Hapless, hopeless Vicky. She was another one- much too far out all her life, not waving but drowning. She lost her virginity to a different man every week. She showed me it once, it was loose as a goose, all her innards seemed to be hanging out of it. I wonder what Vicky would make of John. I often talked about him when we first met. He sounds really nice she said. Do you want to meet him? Yeah that’d be really nice. Dear Vicky, why wouldn’t go right for her? Perhaps there is something in past lives lived, virtue rewarded, vice punished until Nirvana. I made to move. The jukebox played out the track it was playing. A man in dirty jeans took a drag on his fag and blew the smoke out ceremoniously as I passed him. I held the door open behind me for the quarrelling couple stomping out. Well that was great, I’m so glad we meet like this, same time next week? Yes, same time, same place…
