This is a Love Story (2 page)

Don’t. Fall. Into. Them.

His lips are perfect, and startlingly like those of my favourite pin-up, Jake Gyllenhaal.

He has whirls of thick brown hair almost caramel in tone, waxed in different directions.

He looks like trouble.

I can already imagine what it might be like to kiss him . . .

I peer over the top of the page and he must sense me because he looks too.

Our eyes meet, and for a few moments all that stands between us are forty-five thin sheets of sooty recycled paper, two metres of stifling carriage air and a fat man who is nodding off on my left shoulder.

This is one of those Hollywood moments you see in the cinema, except I am supposed to be blonde and a size zero.

He is quite possibly one of the most striking men I have ever seen in my life.

As a Londoner, you come to realise that while this city is bursting at the seams with people of all shapes and sizes, it’s very rare that someone stops you in your tracks.

Most people on trains try to lose themselves in the depths of a book, hide away behind a paper or enter the realms of a musical world. They just pass each other by. To actually make a connection, and a friendly one at that, is nothing short of a miracle.

So here goes.

I am either going to make a massive fool of myself, or one day we will tell the guests at our wedding how we bonded over a rodent with a love of water sports. That will beat the usual stories of blind dates and meeting at the gym.

Deep breath . . .

Squirrel?

I mouth it at him, my lips slowly forming the shape of this very silly word. My eyebrows are arched in an inquisitive manner.

Time seems to blur like a slowed-down film clip; I can hear my heart beating in my ears. Shit, shit, shit . . .

Suddenly one thumb is up and the most gorgeous man in this city, in fact possibly the world, has turned his copy of
Metro
to face me and is pointing towards our fluffy matchmaker.

He bites his bottom lip to stop himself laughing out loud, a row of perfect white teeth just about visible. This is sexy.

I flash him a flirtatious grin and draw my eyes away from his, my heart racing in my chest.

Play. It. Cool.

I keep pretending to read my paper, turning away from the picture story as otherwise I would soon be laughing so hard I’d be squirting tea through my nostrils, and that would kind of ruin the look I was going for.

Aware that I have pushed my own boundaries by initiating this whole thing, I keep reading and reading as if I don’t care, and try to work out what to do next.

The train stops once but I am pretty sure I can still see the lush green hue of his top from the corner of my eye. I must try not to look at him.

God bless peripheral vision.

Soon five minutes have passed and I’m satisfied that it is safe to proceed with eye contact number two.

I look up, but to my horror my handsome stranger has been replaced by an elderly man in a pea-green jacket. The couple has gone too. I quickly whip my head around the carriage, back and forth, and then once more just in case. He has disappeared.

The pensioner sitting in his seat looks happy and surprised at my attention. Not you, pal . . .

Great, I think, looking down at my feet. There goes the man of my dreams. Quickly I realise the naivety of my little fantasy and I feel embarrassed. It was a silly idea anyway. I shudder at how I went from nought to sixty on the love scale within a few minutes – not like me at all.

Besides, he was probably a raving lunatic. Laughing at squirrels? Whatever next, I console myself.

I am a desperate romantic. I love the idea of random collisions of the heart. I crave quirky meetings rather than the conventional way women get chatted up at bars and dragged home for a night of drunken fumbling with a man they barely know. ‘We got talking through mutual friends at dinner’ is dire. If you’re feeling particularly dull, you could whip out the ‘We met at work’ tale.

Yawn.

There is a little Juliet inside me, hoping I will lock eyes with my Romeo on the other side of a fish tank or through the gap in a library bookcase. Hell, even if it’s behind the condiments section in a supermarket I don’t really mind.

I’m only twenty but I lament the day that good old-fashioned romance died. I’m not sure when it was. Some say we lost it when we fought for feminism, which is probably a relatively small price to pay for what we’ve gained.

But did we really mean to take it this far?

So far, in fact, that if a man sends you flowers at work your female colleagues will cackle and pretend to vomit, yet when they get home they will still berate their husbands for never buying
them
flowers?

My stop interrupts me from what was becoming a deep, downward spiral of thought.

Being the fickle young thing that I am, I have pretty much forgotten about my handsome stranger by the time I get to the bottom of my large tea and chuck the crumpled cup into a heaving bin on the platform.

It was a fleeting moment, a bit of sugar on my cereal. I have bigger fish to fry, a career to focus upon. No time for distractions, I tell myself. Plus, there is too much mess at home. Too much to cope with. I really shouldn’t be looking out for other men.

My heart starts to flutter as I negotiate the pavements of Balham. The streets are cluttered with people, mothers and prams, lads in baggy jeans, the last dribs and drabs of City workers dashing towards the train station to head into central London. There are newsagents, estate agents and pound shops, the usual suspects with the occasional petite coffee shop sandwiched between them.

I love it here.

Cigarette smoke wafts in the soft spring air, mingling with the steam emanating from fresh bacon rolls on the plates in front of a couple sharing breakfast at a table I pass.

I’m really pleased with my new job. It has taken two years of hard work and painful rejections to get this entry-level role at The Cube publishing house. Climbing the career ladder has been difficult for me, so I’ve had to be pretty creative to catch the eye of prospective employers. I wasn’t able to go to university, so I’ve had to ensure I’ve taught myself about things like web journalism, video and trying to keep my finger on the pulse in terms of social media. OK, it isn’t the
Guardian
or
The Times
, but it’s a good start and so far I have thoroughly enjoyed every second.

The Cube is a media group which produces a range of unusual publications read by
very
niche audiences. Some of them cool, some not so cool. This means I am writing about a host of quirky subjects, ranging from what’s going on in the world of fishing (less fun) to testing fast cars (a lot more fun). Some of our publications are small and virtually unknown, others are read by thousands.

This job is perfect for me as I love writing. I still can’t quite believe my luck. I weave in and out of the bodies around me in a strange kind of dance – ducking, diving and dodging. Schoolchildren swarm around and pensioners scuttle into shop doorways, newspapers tucked under armpits.

Something in me thrives on the energy of London. Despite the infuriating nature of this lifestyle, I can’t imagine anywhere else I would want to be.

Every day it’s the same: I come home, feet aching, eyes bloodshot, hair limp from a combination of the weather and the pollution, but I am inspired. As I lie in bed I can’t wait for the next morning so I can take it on all over again. Even if the first hour is pretty painful.

After five minutes of dancing through the crowds I am close to my office, a small, modern installation down a busy side road. It is nestled between two restaurants, one Indian, one Italian. Their beautiful, garlicky aromas manage to waft into our air-conditioning system and I spend most of my time in the advanced stages of hunger. There is a small car park behind the office with a bench in the middle, and a homeless guy often sits there.

He’s there right now, and as I realise I’m going to have to walk past him again, butterflies fill my tummy.

I noticed him the very first day I arrived. It was hard not to as he called out to me from a small, hungry mouth, almost lost in the brown and black streaks on his weathered face.

‘Can you spare some change, love?’ he said, a look of hope in his eyes.

I turned away and walked past him. I never quite know how to handle these situations, and I’ve got too much on my plate right now.

He doesn’t look crazy, or on drugs, or any of those stereotypes. He smiles at me sometimes; I smile back. I don’t have the time to get involved. I know that’s bad.

I’m scared of him, really, and the reality of his life. He has icy blue eyes, so icy they make me cold. I don’t like looking at them, so I turn away.

The first time I met him, I asked one of the women in reception who he was.

‘Who are you talking about, love?’ came a high-pitched voice from a blonde, middle-aged character behind the desk.

‘You know, the guy sitting in our car park,’ I explained.

‘Hmm, I don’t think we’re expecting anyone today,’ she said, rifling through a tray of papers in front of her.

Receptionist number two piped up, ‘Oh, Sandra, you know who it is. It’s Dancing Pete.’

‘Dancing who?’

‘You know, the homeless fellow who insists on sleeping out the back.’

‘Dancing? Why dancing? I’ve never seen him dance, for God’s sake!’

By now the two ladies were in a frustratingly slow-moving conversation. It was like observing a pair of peacocks, clucking away pointlessly behind a glass screen, waiting to be put down and made into exotic handbags.

‘Homeless fella? I didn’t know we had one of those,’ Sandra squeaked, as if she was talking about a new franking machine or state of the art photocopier.

‘Yeeessss. He’s been hovering around for a couple of years now. Are you blind?’

I walked away from them mid-chat; they barely even realised I had gone.

But the situation bothers me again this morning as I walk through the rear entrance to our car park. I don’t drive, but the cut-through saves time and you have to come through the back if you want to take it.

He is sitting on the bench with his head in his hands. He looks up as I approach, his face as sad as ever.

‘Excuse me,’ he calls out as I walk past, grimacing because I don’t want him to see me, but he always does.

I stop in my tracks and find myself standing next to the bench, but looking straight ahead so as not to make eye contact.

I should have just walked on, I tell myself.

‘Yes,’ I say feebly, regretting my actions.

‘Have you got any spare change?’ he asks, as always – like the answer will be any different this time.

I say nothing and walk forward quickly, swipe my entry card to open the glass doors and step into the lift. I hear him mutter, ‘I just wanted to get myself a cup of tea,’ as I go.

The lift to the third floor is small and often smells of PVA glue. I don’t know why this is. No one else seems to know, either.

‘Hello, gorgeous!’ says Lydia, the second I enter the office. She gently squeezes my left cheek, which she has done pretty much every day since I first set a shaky little Bambi foot into the office. I am glad to be distracted from the fact that I keep walking away from someone who clearly needs help.

Lydia is the office co-ordinator. A very important-sounding title for someone who potters about and does all the annoying things no one else wants to do. I think she is capable of more, though.

She has a wild shock of thick chocolate curls set against a freckled face and the most piercing green eyes I have seen outside the pages of a children’s storybook.

She is all cuddles and warmth and exactly what you need when you start a new job. Although she is only three years older than me, she just took me under her wing.

‘Hey, Lyds, good weekend?’ I respond, making my way over to my desk with a big smile.

Like a fairy, Lydia floats around me, whipping things out of my way. Before I know it my jacket is hanging neatly on the hatstand and my list of editorial tasks for the week is fanned in front of me in perfect order. I quietly wonder how many arms she has.

‘Bloody excellent, thanks, Si. You will never guess what happened on Friday night,’ she begins, a wicked smile on her face.

I start to scan three scribbled Post-it notes on my desk. And no, I’m sure I will never be able to guess what happened on Friday night.

I haven’t known Lydia for long, but she seems to have a social life which revolves around eight-inch heels, copious amounts of Jack Daniel’s, bribing DJs with cold hard cash to play eighties cheese, and then busting into kebab shops on the way home and making everyone inside laugh. These are just some of the tales I’ve heard.

She leans in and whispers in my ear, despite the fact that I have made no effort to guess what happened on Friday night. It could be anything. She really is that random.

‘I got barred from that salsa club in Leicester Square,’ she says, before giggling and standing back up proudly, one hand on a curvaceous hip.

How, I wonder, do you get barred from a salsa club? Violent clockwise turns? Stiletto rage? I offer no response but look at her with a raised eyebrow. I can’t wait to hear this one.

‘Well, basically, we had too much to drink before we got there, which wasn’t a good start, and I fell down the stairs that lead to the toilet. They thought I was really drunk, but I wasn’t, you know. I’m sure it was my shoes . . .’ she trails off with an element of shame to her voice.

I switch on my computer and it whirrs into life like an aircraft. I’m sure they aren’t supposed to sound like that.

‘Oh God, did you hurt yourself?’ I reply with little interest. The story isn’t as exciting as I first thought it might be and I’ve got so much to do today.

‘Not really. The heel snapped off one of my shoes, though, which made walking home a bit difficult,’ she adds, twiddling a long, luscious curl with her index finger and glancing over at our office goldfish, Dill, who is looking with longing through the glass at the outside world.