Un-silence ascended into the coded and indecipherable damp morning air. Shuttered cafes disbarred their nightly solitudes and clattered awake. Passers-by hemmed en route for breakfast, to work in offices, bistros, banks, libraries, department stores, museums, health spas and salons. Already taxis dithered inside elastic queues eyeing the sleek urban wheels torqued upon the linoleum smooth roads in the lane beside them.
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This was the London I knew. All fiesta and form. All hurried yet procuring an expanse of moments like caught breath from the warmth of eyes. I stood behind the kiosk reaching through newspapers and chocolate bars; dispensing chewing gum and phone cards, and the till strummed steady, just one heartbeat behind mine.
Outside the Thames rode past carrying various cargoes from post to plinth. And from a South Bank pier to Tower Bridge, sightseers with wind tousled hair, chuckled along with their guide. Tourists tapped their eyes against postcards and flashed cameras at street art and eccentricity; at bowed bridges and cityscapes. Everything held like a promise, like a history.
"Excuse me…urh…mmm…"
"Yes, can I help you?"
"Well, yes, I do hope so. Have you some of
that orange juice?"
"
This one?"
"That’s it! Oh well done… I’ll have two"
"I’ve only one left, sorry."
"I’ll try later. How much is
that one?"
We laughed as he paid for
that orange juice. He said he was visiting the South Bank Centre and reading some of his poems. I blushed at my ignorance. He smiled, said his name was John and asked for mine then waved and headed out for the stairs.
The day had lifted into warmth and shafts of sunlight shone through the subway entrance. Business was good and time rushed along with the crowds. In no time my shift was coming to an end. As I handed over to Ravi, and checked the till, John strolled towards the kiosk.
"You finished now?"
"Well, yeah…and you?
"Yes
, that’s me for today"
We both laughed and Ravi turned away bemused. I told John that we didn’t have a delivery today but he just grinned and asked me if I’d time for a coffee. I did. We walked back towards the National Theatre, thumbed through some second hand books stacked neatly on long-linked tables under the bridge. He talked about subway art, the possibility of everything being re-framed, re-designed and made new. I talked about city ducks, buskers in Covent Garden and installations in the Tate.
Coffee was good. The afternoon swam into evening.
The city sparked with sudden urgency. Horns and sirens rebounded through the built architecture. Buses bunched over Westminster and legs flicker-booked past in disorganised uniformity. It was rush hour, again.
We walked back toward the tube station, exchanged mobile numbers and said goodbye. I watched him stride towards his gate, hesitate, cast out a smile and a wave – then gone. I was in my final year at LSE positing ideas towards greater industrial cohesion for the future and suddenly my head was awash with words and poetry. I felt foolish and dried my thoughts reading industrial economics until sleep slip my hand away.
It was late morning when I woke. Outside streets ferried cars and bikes, buses and scooters bumper to bumper across the white hot mist of another day. I scrambled into the shower and my clothes and out into the warmth of a tube tunnel towards work. It was a late shift and my thoughts were hidden like the address on an old faded envelope. There was comfort inside routine and late editions and books of stamps.
It was early evening when my mobile rang and as I tried to answer I swear the thing became a fish and slipped out of my hands. I calmed down and rang back.
" Hello?"
"Hello, it’s me Lottie, did you ring?"
"Hi Lottie, yes…yes…"
"And, yes?"
"Well…"
He read something tender to me. He said that it was written by Matthew Arnold. He read something else and said that he had written it. I didn’t know how to feel. The words moved in circles like the lights from the Millennium Wheel. He asked if I was free the next evening and whether I would go to a reading at the Poetry Café. I said I would.
I couldn’t sleep. I sat framed inside the window and watched the city glint and ghost above the rooftops in Camden Town. Dislocated echoes of laugher and music spread across the glaze. I turned a page in my book and read the night into day.
I was standing outside Covent Garden Tube when John arrived. He’d a posy of fresh freesias gripped in his hand. I twitched a small nervous smile as he gave the posy to me with his welcome kiss. We walked bustling through early evening revellers, after work diners, rickshaw cycles and street vendors towards the café. Shop windows mirrored back all these moments. The pavements tapped crowded rhythm yet we had our own pace.
Our meal was light and so was the evening. John read to a crowded room but I felt each word was for me. He bade his farewell to the small crowd and we strolled towards Trafalgar Square.
"They’ve got rid of so many pigeons now"
"Yes, disease control I hear"
"It alters the character of the place somehow, irreparable …you know Lottie?"
I look at him fully. Looked at the line of his jaw, the frame of his hair about his face, his piercing grey eyes and pressed my fingers soft across his lips, kissed his mouth. Something lived.
We stood, thoughts drowning beneath the empty plinth, his hand folded warm against mine.
"There, that’s it Lottie, that’s it..."
"What do you mean?"
"There on the plinth – I see hope and possibility. I see a city of ideas held tight waiting to be revealed… I see us building something new."