Lines We Forget (2 page)

When they’d spend every day down at the beach during the summer months, eat fish and chips for lunch
and
dinner. Drink milky tea and hunt out fossils from the magnificent cliffs that lined their town. Back to when everything felt simple. No need to pretend to be different, smarter, richer or happier, when the volume of her barnet and the cost of her handbag didn’t matter.

When she’d smile without coaxing, eyes lighting up in awe of the tiniest things.

Unsure of where to begin to look or how far to strain so she can listen more, Anna eagerly scans the street. Because the melody is like a drug she’s not touched in years, and now she’s hooked again.

Caught in the chaos and noise of the main road and with a busload of tourists waiting anxiously at the traffic lights forever stuck on red, it’s hard to see much of anything.

It’s a strange turn of events to be out in the cold, listening to the strains of her secret, long lost song without any idea of where it’s coming from or just why she’s nervously forgetting some of the lyrics.

Checking her watch for the umpteenth time for the absent city banker who she’s meant to fall head over heels for, Anna catches a pair of eyes staring back for a brief moment. From across the road, directly opposite where she and a million tourists have waited for the past hour, comes the sound of her childhood memories. Except it’s not escaping from a restaurant or from a shop. Not from the Tube station tannoys or from a passing car but from something different, someone else—a guy stood by the entrance to the busy Tube. He gazes back down as he strums and Anna notes his dark blazer and woolly hat, how he’s clutching at a battered guitar like it’s the most important thing in the world.

When he sings out the uplifting chorus, she starts to remember all the words. By the way the guy’s hitting the body of the instrument, and by how he’s stomping his foot onto the wet pavement, she can tell he’s enjoying it too. She’s just not sure why the light hair that fans out from under his bobble-topped hat makes her knees feel fragile. Why he’d been staring at her as if he knew she’d been searching for him.

She’s not sure either if it’s all just some cruel trick—her wandering, bored-of-waiting mind conjuring up the type of guy she’s only ever thought about in private dreams and the quietest of moments.

As Anna’s gaze falls to the flush of his cheeks, she notices that he appears effortlessly handsome yet oddly angelic too.

And even in spite of the fact he’s playing the one song that swells her heart, she believes he’s still in his own right pretty damn lush.

Thinking about how never in a million years could she ever consider Mark to be lush or alluring, she wonders if she should just cross over the road, maybe get the Tube home instead. She decides it’ll be quicker and less hassle than sitting on a stationery bus stuck in the city’s rush hour traffic. Because maybe it’ll allow her to cross paths with the intriguing and admittedly attractive guy playing out in the cold and rain.

The one who’s singing “Brown Eyed Girl” like he wrote it just for her.

Chapter Two

Anna

Standing just a few feet away from where the familiar and nostalgic music plays, Anna can’t understand why it’s taken her so long to notice him strumming hard against a wooden guitar, all fingers and thumbs. She can tell he’s much taller than her and that the clothes he wears are much too light for the bad weather. Just watching him makes her shiver and pull her own coat tighter.

It’s surprising how unfazed he seems by the biting cold rain, the large puddles that form below his feet, or that his soaked velvet-lined guitar case only has a few coins in it.

For a moment Anna toys with the idea of passing him by, a little well of doubt bubbling up in her chest. Thinks that maybe she’ll just throw in some loose change and let the moment go. Call it a day.

But then she takes a deep breath, counts to ten, and thinks about what a waste it would be if she chickened out. All the time stuck waiting at the always-on-red traffic lights, jostling with the crowds for space, entirely for nothing.

Instead, she continues to admire the way his lips form around each word sung. How he taps one palm to the grainy wood and lifts it again, almost triumphantly. She likes how rosy his cheeks are and how he’s gifted by kind eyes, a strong jaw. An important quality she didn’t realise could matter so much until she saw his.

Keeping a safe distance away, yet not too far to lose sight of him, she runs through a logical plan of action. Digs in her coat pockets for some coins, fingertips holding on to the heavier ones she hopes will make a bigger impact upon landing in his case.

And as just as the wind and rain gain traction along the high street, Anna and her newfound courage step out, squeezing the golden coins tightly. Her clunky black boots part the tides of water across the pavement and guide her along. Twisting on her heels to avoid the rush of commuters’ elbows vying for less congested paths with umbrellas held high above, but not always high enough.

Head bowed low, she follows the soft melody, praying to nothing in particular that she’s not too late. That her memory is correct: just one more chorus to go.

When she’s gotten close enough to touch him, Anna tosses in a two-pound coin and waits to hear it land with a solid loud
thud
, which it doesn’t. Worry creeps in that it’s not been enough to catch his attention. Until after a breathless pause, his much-admired kind gaze falls to meet her own.

She thinks of Mark’s eyes—small and dark like empty black holes, as if nothing were behind them, and she can’t believe it’s taken so long to realise why they never took her breath away or held her heart captive.

Guitar Guy, as she’s already starting to call him affectionately in her head, takes the plastic pick from his forefinger and slots it between the wet strings and fret board, finished with his siren call.

“Thanks,” Anna hears him say in a soft, posh-sounding accent which is jarring but thankfully less polished than the girls she has the misfortune of working with who like to boast about Oxford and Cambridge, fancy pants places like Chelsea and Knightsbridge and privileged upbringings.

“No problem, it’s one of my favourites.”

He bows his head a little and continues to stare. The busy pedestrians and October winds fill the gap of awkward silence until she feels the need to express again just why she felt compelled to throw in money. Cross over. Gawk and stare. A casual enough reason she hopes he’ll take as a compliment, and which will distract him from asking why she’s sheepishly idling in front of him.

“That one you were just playing, it’s actually a song I really love. Haven’t heard in a while. Ages even.”

Anna thinks she hears the words “hoped you” and “might” come from his lips, but the wind picks up and everything around them fights against it to be heard. Instead she chalks it up to her wistful and desperate imagination.

When Guitar Guy adjusts his hat, she wonders how nice it might be to see him without it, picturing a mess of straw-coloured, tousled hair underneath just waiting to tumble out.

Aware of the swarming masses and just how close she is to a large crack in the pavement that keeps on filling with rainwater at an alarming rate, she takes a step back and forgets to filter her thoughts.

“You come here often?” she says, cringing instantly at how brash and god-awful cliché it sounds—unoriginal and stupid. She keeps on stuttering, trying to find a way to erase the embarrassment of the last few seconds until he laughs and rests his arms over the body of the guitar, eyebrows raised by the smile on his lips.

“Every Thursday actually,” he offers, “and a few Tuesdays, some Sundays but usually only in the summer.”

Letting her hair fly freely against the wind, Anna pushes her chin down into her scarf and rubs her numb hands together. “If only it were summer now. You must be bloody freezing.” Just to illustrate her point, she nods towards his hands, the soggy laces on his boots, and back up to the drops of rain that tumble from the tip of his nose.

With a small sigh, he tells her that he’s gotten used to being out in the cold, amongst the harsh British elements. “The rush hour crush brings in a steady audience so I can’t complain too much,” he adds after another long bout of silence, which Anna spends smiling like a loon.

“So, you like that version I played then?” Guitar Guy says. “I actually messed up a little on the last verse. Forgot the lines. Got a bit distracted.”

She nods too enthusiastically, tripping over her words. “It was great. I heard it from across the road and thought you sang it really well, actually. Just as good as the original.”

“Guess I’ll take that, thanks.” He gives her a thumbs-up even though his hands look like they’re frostbitten.

Pointing down at the now-wet coins in his case, she says, “I’m sorry I don’t have much else to give.” Even though she knows there’s a five-pound note in her other pocket.

He shrugs his shoulders, slowly grins. “Every little helps, right? You know, as the saying goes.”

Anna thinks she could admire a smile like that forever. The comparisons to Mark and guys before, like the Toms and Jacks, start up again. A habit she just can’t quit. Always comparing, wishing for something else, whilst being with someone else.

She feels her cheeks flush from thoughts she hopes she hasn’t said aloud. So she tries to crack a joke. “Well you know, next time you’ll have to catch me on payday.”

Guitar Guy’s eyes grow wide and he gazes at the puddle below his boots, shifts them round and asks, “Next time?”

“Well, I meant that as a joke. I didn’t mean I’d be actually coming back here on payday.” Anna hates how her jaw feels frozen tight.

“I got what you meant. Don’t worry about it,” he assures her, as a young and attractive blonde walks up to drop some change into his case.

“Hey, Charlie,” the slim, pretty girl says. Her voice is husky and so unashamedly seductive it makes Anna’s ears wince.

“Thanks, Lola, hope work wasn’t too bad today.”

When he gives her a small wave and smile she winks back and plants a kiss on his cheek. “All the better for seeing you, of course.”

Anna almost lets out a loud chuckle, taken aback by the girl’s flirty delivery, her hungry Cheshire cat grin, and how she’s got balls made of steel to give him such a seductive peck.

The sense of history between them is obvious and it spurs on the feeling of disappoint in her stomach. Which she knows she’s certainly not entitled to but can’t help but feel nonetheless.

“Lola lives down the street, above one of the Thai restaurants, so I always see her come up from the Tube,” Guitar Guy, or Charlie as she’s become aware is his name, explains. “She’s really friendly, which helps in a place like this—a city where everyone’s usually too busy to just stop and breathe or interact for just a minute.”

“Uh, huh. Yeah,” Anna replies, now lost in a downwards spiral of comparing herself to such a wonderfully named girl with high cheekbones and silky hair. She knows it’s an exhaustingly bad habit to keep up but it’s one she just can’t quit either.

As the rain continues to pour, soaking the ground between them, Charlie says, “I can play another song if you’d like?”

She starts to worry, wonders if he’s maybe getting impatient with the pauses and gaps in conversation. If he’s actually a bit bored.

“Oh no. It’s okay. It’s damn cold and miserable out here. You probably just want to get home,” she sighs before worrying that maybe he doesn’t have a home to get back to. If he busks and lives on these streets, like many others do.

“I’ve nowhere urgent to be,” he says. “Although home is a lot drier and warmer with a TV and food and clean clothes, so it’s kind of tempting.”

“Sounds more than tempting to get out of this crap weather.” Anna peers down at his clothes, which are soaking, but she feels better now knowing he’s got somewhere to call home, even though she suspects he might just be crashing with friends.

The irrational side of her brain, however, eventually ends up deciding he more than likely lives with a beautiful, well-educated, and achingly cool, guitar playing, and bohemian girlfriend—probably a Lola-esque clone.

Which is the very opposite of how Anna sees herself. Memories of nights spent mostly alone come flooding back. How her routine consists of trudging home from an uninspiring day at work to change into slippers and fall asleep watching trashy reality shows. Weekends spent in comfy cat-adorned pyjamas and junk food comas. Not cool at all.

But even though cool isn’t a familiar term or constant in her life, she knows she at least has courage to fall back on. Not one for shying away easily, she’ll try anything once and she’s done it for a lot less than the handsome guy before her.

So with a deep breath, and some quick mental rehearsal, Anna tilts her gaze and smiles warmly up at him. Brushing her hair away from getting caught in her lip-gloss, she slowly exhales.

“Still, it is pretty cold out. I don’t have a TV or dry set of clothes to hand, but do you want to come and get some coffee with me?”

***

Charlie

As the bright lights of the generic-looking coffee shop come into focus, Charlie can’t quite believe he’s walking with her—the girl from across the street—the one with the big dark eyes and choppy, cute fringe.

He still feels unprepared for just how great a smile she has, which is warm and inviting. How her laugh is infectious and loud. He’s also pretty taken by how she was the one to make the first move. Bold enough to stop and drop money into his case and actually talk. It scares and amazes him in equal measure—a girl who appeared sad at first, but who’s actually quite electric, with the balls to ask him out for a drink.

With his guitar case slung over one rain-sodden shoulder, Charlie’s careful not to hit her with it as they navigate the crowds and busy pavements. Still, he can’t stop it from sliding off to smack the back of her legs as they try to avoid a soaking by a packed-out red bus. She laughs and tells him she didn’t even feel it, “No worries.”

And it’s then he realises he doesn’t even know her name. Too caught up in the awe of her to bother asking. He really hopes it’ll be easy to discover once they’re sat in the warmth without the stress or the noise of the street to drown him out, cause him to forget again.

Upon arrival at the coffee shop, she orders tea and not the hot beverage she’d originally asked him to come and get with her.

“I’m not really a big coffee drinker,” she says quietly, as if she’s aware he’s confused by her order. “Never have been.”

Charlie tries to hide his smirk as the guy behind the counter asks for her name, to mark on the cup in black pen
.
Anna
.

“But you know, it didn’t sound quite right to ask you to come grab a cup of tea with me. It’s not how they do it in the movies now is it?” She giggles, the colourful polka dot scarf on her shoulders falling loose.

Charlie decides he really likes the way she talks, detects a slight twang to her delivery. Because unlike his, hers is peppered with words he hasn’t heard or used much before. Like when she’d earlier pointed out during the walk to the coffee shop a small restaurant towards the end of the street that apparently had really “lush” food. How she added in, as if to caution him, that it was also in fact “dead snobby” and “crazy expensive like”. It was somewhat a revelation to be in the company of someone who didn’t speak in an uptight, stuffy upper class accent.

“Suppose I’d better get a tea too, then,” Charlie replies. “Even if it is more expensive than the coffee here…how is that even possible?”

He watches as Anna slyly smiles and whispers under her breath, “Corporate tax dodgers can charge whatever they like these days.”

When both of their orders are ready to collect, she leads the way to a small booth towards the back. Away from the faces sunk into laptops and unruly school kids with their fruit juices.

He watches as she begins to unwrap layer after layer, folding her coat neatly on the empty chair next to her. Inevitably his mind wanders to imagine what beauty lies behind the folds of her clothing, until her loud voice snaps him out of it.