The electronic lady tells me when the caller called.
“Monday. 3:56. Pee. Emm.”
Then the electronic lady is replaced by an honest – to – goodness – real – live (as ‘live’ as recorded can get), flesh – and – blood lady.
“Hi Jeremy. It’s Molly Streeple from …”
Her voice is airy. Her delivery is rushed, clipped. It’s hard to tell if it’s so because she is a very busy person who has limited time or if she’s mindful of Jeremy’s limited time so she’s keen to keep her message short and sweet. So really, her message sounds like
“HiJeremy.It’sMollyStreeplefromtheBritishMuseum I’mcallingto followup onthemeetingwiththeJordanianTouristBoard. Callme. zerotwozero
blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah.”
I don’t take note of the number. I don’t think to call Molly back to let her know that she got the wrong number – not until after I erase the message do I think about it. Now that I think about it, though, Molly was far too rushed for her own good: the Mista and I have a message, that, should she have listened, would have informed her that leaving a message for Jeremy with us was probably not the best of her ideas.
Still, it’s fun for me to get a message from the British Museum! The British Museum is the stuff of movies and international news articles. You know you’re living somewhere exciting when a wrong number comes from somewhere as exciting as the British Museum and has something to do with the Jordanian Tourist Board. I wonder who Jeremy is. I wonder if Molly will be annoyed with him for his not returning her call.
The electronic bard writes about the SRD. Special Randomness Directorate. “SRD are the random-makers. Whole call-centres deliberately dialling wrong numbers and leaving cryptic messages. Made to LOOK like pure chance, but actually designed to create connections between people who wouldn’t otherwise meet.” The bard makes me wonder. I wonder if I wasn’t supposed to call Molly back. If she wasn’t supposed to change my world. Take me away from the world of bits and bytes. Take me to Petra and Indiana Jones. I wonder at the coincidence of my reading about wrong numbers and receiving a message from a wrong number on the same day.
I should have hated him. He represented so much of what I can’t stand: reckless irresponsibility, self-obsession, un-reined confidence. To top it off, Bobby Charles was, for all intents and purposes, a polygamist. He as much told me so the first time I ever met him. It was at a business lunch in the City. I was the only woman at the table of four. The three men had known each other for years. I had met the first one 3 months prior, the next just a month prior, and Bobby, within the hour. They were my new team. It all seemed very heady that first day, my new team in their city suits and fine taste in restaurants and bottles of wine at lunchtime that turned into afternoon shots of whisky before moving onto the Soho house where champagne flowed and filled fluted glasses.
“Clarissa, you see, I am a very unusual man. I’ve never divorced my wife. She lives down the street from me with three of my children. I live with the mother of my other four children.”
He anticipated my question – it’s probably always the next question whenever, whomever he tells about the “special circumstances” of his life.
“Oh, no, they don’t get along – the wife and the other one – the kids get along splendidly. But not the mothers. You can imagine the second one was none too pleased when she found out I was having another child with the first. Then the first was annoyed when the second was going to have another after the last. All hell broke out when it turns out they’re both pregnant at the same time!” He chuckles at the thought of his own roguishness or at the idea that he escaped a dire time without scars or possibly at the distress of the mothers of his children.
I should hate him.
What kind of man delights in the suffering of others?
“Have I shocked you? Will you still be nice to me, my little Clarissa?” He put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me close, like a mate would.
I shuddered. I hadn’t seen it before. He had been just another overweight (almost fat!), balding, middle-aged, City-suit-wearer. But with his arm draped over my shoulder, he was something else. A big burly man with chunky, strong hands that could probably suffocate me without too much trouble, gently enveloped me in the circle of a chummish embrace. The familiar way he had addressed me (“my little Clarissa”) should have rankled; it was obviously far too intimate for someone I had just met. I’m noone’s little Clarissa …. if anyone’s then the Mista’s. The objections in my head were not matched by my gutt, where a little flutter warned me that this man was trouble.
“But a Uni bird like you would be shocked by a man like me, I reckon.” He had confided in me, and now he dared me to defy my instincts; he was asking me to suspend my judgment.
I should have hated him, but his frank and guileless approach as he discussed what he knew others would consider to be his foibles (for his part, he admitted no weakness) charmed me into doing exactly what he asked: I suspended my judgement.
I kept the questions that I would normally slice and dice and turn upsidedown boxed up and ignored. Questions like:
What kind of man “successfully” juggles two family units within the same mile? What kind of woman remains the loyal wife while her husband continues to propagate? What kind of other woman waits 1 year then 5 years then 11 years for the legitimisation of her relationship (a legistimisation that only a nonforthecoming divorce will grant her) during which time the man has had 2 more children with the woman he is meant to divorce?
The incredible sadness of it escaped me while my judgement sat in suspense.
Filed under: 2005, cultural conundrums, observations London, Odd, stream of consciousness
I’m reading a book.
It happens to be the very same book that the woman who stood next to me on the tube in the rush-to-get-home-hour was reading. She had the look of a cliche: mousey, librarian, prim, proper, bookish. I imagined she lived alone. Or with a cat. Or maybe with a same-sex flatmate. Certainly a flatmate would wear on her nerves. She (our mouse) would pine for the peace and quiet in which she could pamper her brain with books, books and more books! Even the most considerate of flatmates would cramp her style, I imagine. Unless, her flatmate is a sister spirit! Birds of a feather who twitter over Ideas and who rarely drink, but when they do they get drunk on a glass of wine.
I was imagining a sad life for the not-quite-dour, but certainly-serious-faced young woman next to me on the tube. I noticed she was reading a thickish book. Then, I noticed it was the same one I was reading. She had probably bought it on the same 3 for 2 sale at Waterstone’s that I had, though the orange, circular sale sticker had been removed.
I had just finished reading the following passage when I noticed the girl was reading my book:
George’s approach to women was clumsy, over-humble, and he might even stammer. (But his stammer always sounded as if he were doing it on purpose.) Meanwhile his deep-set brown eyes would be fixed on the women with an almost bullying intentness. And yet his manner would remain humble, apologetic. Women got flustered or angry, or laughed nervously. He was a sensualist of course. I mean, a real sensualist, not a man who played the role of one, as so many do, for one reason or another. He was a man who really, very much, needed women. {…} When George looked at a woman he was imagining her as she would be when he had fucked her into insensibility. And he was afraid it would show in his eyes. I did not understand this then, I did not understand why I got confused when he looked at me. But I’ve met a few men like him since, all with the same clumsy impatient humility, and with the same hidden arrogant power.1
The girl was much further along in the book than I. She had already read this passage.
What did she think of George?
I wondered if he (or the prospect of him) excited her? Or scared her? Or did she doubt his very existence? I wondered, because I thought she must doubt George.
A girl like her wouldn’t accept that a man like George is true.
I wondered because it struck me that there was a time that I would have doubted George too. Now I know better.
1 Lessing, Doris. The Golden Notebook. p.126.
Filed under: going out, London places, observations London, Odd, Petunia, present
This is the elegant footwear I wore on the biggest night of the year. The rest of my “outfit” matched the shoes: effortless, casual, grunge.
So far, it didn’t much matter.
West End musicals cater to all sorts of satorial tastes. Ditto for pubs. Ditto for the jiving, throbbing, body-pressing, basement club where Petunia and I knew we would eventually end up cutting the rug.
We wound through the streets of Covent Garden, Leicester Square, China town. Tittering excitement percolated up through our speech and giggles and light beginnings of a buzz brought on by Drinks 1, 2 & 3. Oblivious to the familiar lights of the West End: red, green, blue neon punctuated by the shadows of pedestrians, the headlights of passing cars, the yellow vacancy signs of the black cabs, we skipped through the nocturnal beehive. Moving from nectar to nectar, queen bees, killer bees, honeybees, drones, all on their way to pounding headaches. We were about 10 blissful hours in front of our inevitable hangover.
Down into the basement, we realised, despite best efforts, we were still too early. Tables …
for diners? Do people actually eat here?
littered the dancefloor.
Onward we went, to muscle up to the bar to wait for the clearing of the boogiewoogieing space, to order Mojitos.
While we waited for the attention of the barender, Petunia attended to her dry lips with one of those standard aluminium mini-pots of vaseline intensive care petroleum jelly. Cue: Enter single Asian/Indian guy.
“This is going to sound gay, but could I borrow some of that? My lips are really dry.”
With the flash of a credit card, Single Asian/Indian guy made appear 3 other Asian/Indian guys and 6 mojitos, Drink 4.
Single Asian guy was aloof, yet hovered. In the same way his expensive shirt was casually ruffled, he treated Petunia and I with an interest that had the slightest odour of groomed disdain. Maybe it was Lynx.
Another round of mojitos, Drink 5 and someone asked about the ring on my finger.
“Yep, I’m married. It’s a girls night out.”
That’s that. Attention will now go some other way.
But it didn’t. Of the Single Asian guy’s three Asian guy friends, 1 was married, and 2 were flagrantly on the prowl. Single Asian guy flashes his card and produces 6 flutes of champagne.
“To my friend here! His wife is pregant. He’s going to be a father! Now, down!”
They all turned the flutes upside down and into their mouths; even Petunia, which really didn’t surprise me because she can hold her drink. She’s like some kind of Eastern European hot chick who can drink the biggest man in the room under the table. I am not. I looked aghast at the vision of all that carbonation going down those throats with such spead.
Now they’ll need to burp.
They allowed me to sip my champagne, Drink 6, like a lady — even if dressed for Nirvana.
“This place sucks. We only came because the big guy there,” there’s a nod in the direction of the father to be “convinced us to come.”
My arguments in favour of the place fell on deaf ears. The tables were still on the dance floor. There wasn’t even the opportunity to convince them through dance.
“Let’s get out of here. We’re going to take off. He’s a member of this place. Do you want to come?”
It felt early. We could always leave. Petunia and looked at each other and agreed, why not?
I harboured 1 small seed of reservation: the name of the place, our destination: Movida — a name that promised flash, and overpriced drinks, and bland radio music, and all those look-at-me, look-at-me, look-at-me falsely beautiful people.
People tell me I’m pretty. Some guys tell me I’m hot — though they’re inevitably trying to get laid. Sometimes I see it: I can be beautiful. Generally, I’m cute ish. Petunia, she is gorgeous. Both of us are minimal (if not none) make-up girls . I strongly suspected that Movida would be like outerspace to the oxygen sucking types that Petunia and I are.
It didn’t matter yet. We had to get there.
Asian boys didn’t want to walk. From Soho to Oxford Circus. Maybe they weren’t wearing comfortable shoes.
A dispute among the 4. Taxi or walk or bicycle rickshaw??!!
Petunia and I shrugged off any opinion. Left to our own devices, we would have walked, but we were mere novelties, along for the ride.
Rickshaw won out, and I found myself squeezed in tight between married Asian guy (father to be) and the dry-lipped, credit card flashing, quarter-disdainful Indian, our rickshaw racing the other where I wondered what Petunia might be talking about with her Asian rickshaw comrades. Mine were telling jokes. And demanding that I tell them one in return.
“What do you call a cow that’s had an abortion?”
Sweat pored down my rickshaw cyclist’s neck. He led the charge, but Petunia’s approached from behind.
Drinks 5 and 6 must have been kicking in because I heard myself egging on our cyclist, “Vamos, vamos, Pablo! Van a ganar.” I’m embarrassed by the memory of my enthusiasm for the rickshaw race, but Pablo and his comrade seemed to enjoy the challenge. They laughed and flirted with Petunia and me while the Indian/Asian guys waited at the velvet barrier at Movida.
Truth is, those rickshaw guys were more our type. Down to earth.
Meanwhile, another flash and currency exchanged hands. I heard something about £30 a head. I make good money, but £30 quid a head to get into a bar doesn’t sit well with me. Keen to demonstrate independence and reciprocity, I insisted on buying the next round of drinks. £15 quid each for Drink 7, Gray Goose Martinis.
As I had suspected I would, I wheezed to get oxygen in my lungs. Space aliens twirled around me in high heeled silver shoes, spiked toeless strappy things, streaks of rouge, ironed hair.
Petunia found me in the ladies’ room.
“Let’s get out of here.”
“Absolutely.”
We forgot our manners and snuck back as quickly as we could to our world.
Addendum – 19 December
This morning when I woke up my computer was still on. I swished my fingers over the touchpad to get rid of the screensaver. I hit Ctrl R to refresh the screen, and BAM three whole comments. I was in a rush to take Butters on her walk. The comments would have to wait. Throughout the walk, I thought about what could have prompted those comments. Someone once told me I am paranoid. I think there is some truth to that statement. Throughout the walk, I became convinced that my post had incited race-related ….
dare I say: racist? Does “racist” not mean ‘race-related’ in the truest sense of the word?
sensibilities?
I thought to myself, “Is there a racist undertone to my description of the Asian/Indian guys? What does it matter what race they were? Did it add anything to the anecdote? Why did you include it? Was it unconscious racism?”
I don’t think I depicted the Asian/Indian guys in a negative light — other than the fact that their taste in establishments did not jive with mine — but that has nothing to do with their race, just their character.
So why explicitly state their race?
Is it because London is full of these Asians (Indians and Pakistanis), and so it’s just a part of the fabric of life that I was trying to describe? Or was I just trying to complete a visual picture? And if so, why not use descriptions of the beautiful brown skin the generally characterises ‘those’ peoples: honey, caramel?
What would an Indian or Pakistani think reading this post? Would they be offended?
If so, I am truly, truly sorry.
Filed under: going out, London places, observations London, Odd, Petunia, present
This is the elegant footwear I wore on the biggest night of the year. The rest of my “outfit” matched the shoes: effortless, casual, grunge.
So far, it didn’t much matter.
West End musicals cater to all sorts of satorial tastes. Ditto for pubs. Ditto for the jiving, throbbing, body-pressing, basement club where Petunia and I knew we would eventually end up cutting the rug.
We wound through the streets of Covent Garden, Leicester Square, China town. Tittering excitement percolated up through our speech and giggles and light beginnings of a buzz brought on by Drinks 1, 2 & 3. Oblivious to the familiar lights of the West End: red, green, blue neon punctuated by the shadows of pedestrians, the headlights of passing cars, the yellow vacancy signs of the black cabs, we skipped through the nocturnal beehive. Moving from nectar to nectar, queen bees, killer bees, honeybees, drones, all on their way to pounding headaches. We were about 10 blissful hours in front of our inevitable hangover.
Down into the basement, we realised, despite best efforts, we were still too early. Tables …
for diners? Do people actually eat here?
littered the dancefloor.
Onward we went, to muscle up to the bar to wait for the clearing of the boogiewoogieing space, to order Mojitos.
While we waited for the attention of the barender, Petunia attended to her dry lips with one of those standard aluminium mini-pots of vaseline intensive care petroleum jelly. Cue: Enter single Asian/Indian guy.
“This is going to sound gay, but could I borrow some of that? My lips are really dry.”
With the flash of a credit card, Single Asian/Indian guy made appear 3 other Asian/Indian guys and 6 mojitos, Drink 4.
Single Asian guy was aloof, yet hovered. In the same way his expensive shirt was casually ruffled, he treated Petunia and I with an interest that had the slightest odour of groomed disdain. Maybe it was Lynx.
Another round of mojitos, Drink 5 and someone asked about the ring on my finger.
“Yep, I’m married. It’s a girls night out.”
That’s that. Attention will now go some other way.
But it didn’t. Of the Single Asian guy’s three Asian guy friends, 1 was married, and 2 were flagrantly on the prowl. Single Asian guy flashes his card and produces 6 flutes of champagne.
“To my friend here! His wife is pregant. He’s going to be a father! Now, down!”
They all turned the flutes upside down and into their mouths; even Petunia, which really didn’t surprise me because she can hold her drink. She’s like some kind of Eastern European hot chick who can drink the biggest man in the room under the table. I am not. I looked aghast at the vision of all that carbonation going down those throats with such spead.
Now they’ll need to burp.
They allowed me to sip my champagne, Drink 6, like a lady — even if dressed for Nirvana.
“This place sucks. We only came because the big guy there,” there’s a nod in the direction of the father to be “convinced us to come.”
My arguments in favour of the place fell on deaf ears. The tables were still on the dance floor. There wasn’t even the opportunity to convince them through dance.
“Let’s get out of here. We’re going to take off. He’s a member of this place. Do you want to come?”
It felt early. We could always leave. Petunia and looked at each other and agreed, why not?
I harboured 1 small seed of reservation: the name of the place, our destination: Movida — a name that promised flash, and overpriced drinks, and bland radio music, and all those look-at-me, look-at-me, look-at-me falsely beautiful people.
People tell me I’m pretty. Some guys tell me I’m hot — though they’re inevitably trying to get laid. Sometimes I see it: I can be beautiful. Generally, I’m cute ish. Petunia, she is gorgeous. Both of us are minimal (if not none) make-up girls . I strongly suspected that Movida would be like outerspace to the oxygen sucking types that Petunia and I are.
It didn’t matter yet. We had to get there.
Asian boys didn’t want to walk. From Soho to Oxford Circus. Maybe they weren’t wearing comfortable shoes.
A dispute among the 4. Taxi or walk or bicycle rickshaw??!!
Petunia and I shrugged off any opinion. Left to our own devices, we would have walked, but we were mere novelties, along for the ride.
Rickshaw won out, and I found myself squeezed in tight between married Asian guy (father to be) and the dry-lipped, credit card flashing, quarter-disdainful Indian, our rickshaw racing the other where I wondered what Petunia might be talking about with her Asian rickshaw comrades. Mine were telling jokes. And demanding that I tell them one in return.
“What do you call a cow that’s had an abortion?”
Sweat pored down my rickshaw cyclist’s neck. He led the charge, but Petunia’s approached from behind.
Drinks 5 and 6 must have been kicking in because I heard myself egging on our cyclist, “Vamos, vamos, Pablo! Van a ganar.” I’m embarrassed by the memory of my enthusiasm for the rickshaw race, but Pablo and his comrade seemed to enjoy the challenge. They laughed and flirted with Petunia and me while the Indian/Asian guys waited at the velvet barrier at Movida.
Truth is, those rickshaw guys were more our type. Down to earth.
Meanwhile, another flash and currency exchanged hands. I heard something about £30 a head. I make good money, but £30 quid a head to get into a bar doesn’t sit well with me. Keen to demonstrate independence and reciprocity, I insisted on buying the next round of drinks. £15 quid each for Drink 7, Gray Goose Martinis.
As I had suspected I would, I wheezed to get oxygen in my lungs. Space aliens twirled around me in high heeled silver shoes, spiked toeless strappy things, streaks of rouge, ironed hair.
Petunia found me in the ladies’ room.
“Let’s get out of here.”
“Absolutely.”
We forgot our manners and snuck back as quickly as we could to our world.
Addendum – 19 December
This morning when I woke up my computer was still on. I swished my fingers over the touchpad to get rid of the screensaver. I hit Ctrl R to refresh the screen, and BAM three whole comments. I was in a rush to take Butters on her walk. The comments would have to wait. Throughout the walk, I thought about what could have prompted those comments. Someone once told me I am paranoid. I think there is some truth to that statement. Throughout the walk, I became convinced that my post had incited race-related ….
dare I say: racist? Does “racist” not mean ‘race-related’ in the truest sense of the word?
sensibilities?
I thought to myself, “Is there a racist undertone to my description of the Asian/Indian guys? What does it matter what race they were? Did it add anything to the anecdote? Why did you include it? Was it unconscious racism?”
I don’t think I depicted the Asian/Indian guys in a negative light — other than the fact that their taste in establishments did not jive with mine — but that has nothing to do with their race, just their character.
So why explicitly state their race?
Is it because London is full of these Asians (Indians and Pakistanis), and so it’s just a part of the fabric of life that I was trying to describe? Or was I just trying to complete a visual picture? And if so, why not use descriptions of the beautiful brown skin the generally characterises ‘those’ peoples: honey, caramel?
What would an Indian or Pakistani think reading this post? Would they be offended?
If so, I am truly, truly sorry.
I’ve been thinking to you a lot lately. Addressing, only superficially, those immediate tasks at hand
(called life),
my mind drifts toward you and thinks words to entertain you. Masterpieces formulate at inopportune times. Like just when I’m falling asleep. Or even more frequently: an hour before the alarm is due to chime the start of my day.
Oh brother! Why now?
I can’t be bothered to pull myself away from the dark warmth.
(or warm darkness???)
of the pre-dawn.
The masterpiece atrophies in the groovy little recesses of my brain, lost in the intestinal resemblance of a maze that is my brain.
Filed under: Odd
Not very flattering,
but I promised to oblige the strange request of the ever hilarious
Billy Boy.
