Mercy

Tats leaps into the car beside me. “God, sorry I’m late! It’s been manic here this morning, honestly.”

 

We hug with some difficulty across the handbrake; she is one of my closest friends – I seem to have known her forever – and instantly we are talking, and laughing; stories of family, work – all the normal girly stuff. As we park outside the café she shoves a card and gift into my hand. “That’s late too,” she grimaces “But you know how it is…”

 

I do. The card says ‘Being your friend gives me something to smile about’. The gift is the Duffy CD I have been coveting but have so far not found time to download. Tats didn’t know I wanted it; she just guessed I’d like it, because she does. In the same way that we bought exactly the same dinner service from Marks & Spencer without even knowing what the other had done.

 

I play the CD all the way home. And all the way to the client I am seeing this evening. I press the repeat button on ‘Mercy’ quite a few times.

 

I love you
But I gotta to stay true
My morals have got me on my knees

I’m begging you please, stop playing games

I don’t know what this is

But you got me good

Just like you knew you would

I don’t know what you do

But you do it well

I’m under your spell

You got me begging you for mercy

Why don’t you release me?

 

Hmmm.*****

 

 

Owen flops down next to me. Maybe I was wrong about buttoned up; his shirt collar is open this time and he looks better for it, not so strangled, somehow.

 

“Get your interview OK?”

I nod.

“Anything juicy?”

“No, not really.” And we both know that if there had been, I probably wouldn’t have been able to use it.

“Listen, I’ve got to got straight out – the car sponsor – they’re going to put our leaflets in with their mailings – I have to take them over and speak to their PR people.”

“Cool. I’m just going to back up my audio then chill on the way home – my friend bought me the Duffy CD. Have you heard it?”

 

We are half way to our feet and he stops. “Not the whole album, but I love the single. When I was on holiday I looped it all the time.”

“What, ‘Mercy’?”

He nods.

“I’ll see if I can rip the CD for you.”

And after we hug goodbye we look at each other for a moment, our faces very close.

 

Of course, I go way over the top. I don’t only copy Duffy, I also make a compilation CD of similar stuff I think he might like. I think long and hard before including Sophie B Hawkins’ ‘Damn, I wish I was your lover’, but mentally balance it out by finishing with Texas’ ‘I don’t want a lover’. I wonder what he’ll make of it.

 

Dreams and realities

I dream that I am putting flowers on my father’s grave. They are deep purple, his favourite colour, and I somehow know that it is nearly Christmas. I walk along tight rows of burials, lying head to toe and only inches apart. Some of the earth covering the bodies has fallen away so I can see their faces. I see my father’s face, beginning to decompose. It is not the first time I have dreamt of him this way.

 

I pull my mind back to consciousness and into the cold, grey light of dawn. I do not want to go back to that dream, so instead I embark on a daydream of walking through the woods with Owen. The sun filters through the leaves and the only sounds are birdsong, and our feet snapping dried twigs as he leads me to a secluded spot away from the path. I feel the softness of his lips on mine, and the harshness of the tree bark, rasping against my back.

 

Turning to look at the slumbering face beside me, I wonder why its owner is not the focus of such dreams. It is such a beautiful face, with its well-defined cheekbones, straight nose and generous mouth. And inside is a generous heart that beats so closely with the rhythm of my own. But I know, from years of experience, my fantasy is inappropriate to his appetites and skills.

 

As I think about it some more, I smile to myself. From what I’ve seen so far, Owen is hardly the obvious candidate for a little outside entertainment either; he is neat, and tidy, and formal – his emotions as buttoned up as the cuffs on his shirtsleeves, even on the hottest day. Perhaps that is the challenge… unwrapping the layers of the onion, to find out what lies beneath.

Friday feeling

Friday always seems a relaxed kind of day. I don’t know why, because very often I work at the weekend, so there’s no special significance. I guess it must be a deep-seated response to the end of the western week; chill out, and let the world float by.

 

So I start my day with a run through the village where I live. The fields are filled with birdsong and the bright green of young corn. The flowers in the gardens are bursting with every imaginable shade of pink. There are no half-timbered cottages here, but otherwise I guess there is little that would look out of place on a biscuit tin from Harrods; the sort on sale at the duty free shops; the ones bought to remind the mothers of business travellers where their children have been.

 

At my client, I remain chilled – despite the painfully slow computer, the missing information, and the phones that refuse to work. One of the guys made some brownies last night and Friday heaven is complete when he shares them out with our morning tea. Then the day gets even better when Faisal emails to tell me the initial response to my blog on Deadpan Thoughts is good. I have to say I was a little worried about it; it’s kind of personal, but I’d hoped people would relate to it.

 

It is lunchtime before I even think of Owen. I haven’t heard from him since a text on Tuesday night, although he has been eerily around the edges of my mind. But not centre stage. If I never saw him again, I think I could forget him easily, but that isn’t going to happen – after all, he works for my most important client.

 

My friend Anna is going through something similar with one of the cricketers; an off-on flirtation that’s leaving her confused and hurt. She’s not a tough old cookie like me; she’s younger, softer, less worldly-wise. I told her to forget him and she believes she could – but it would mean her not coming to the cricket any more and neither of us thinks she should give it up just because of some arsehole. At least Owen isn’t an arsehole. So far.

 

Devil in the detail

 

I feel his eyes bore into my back as I interview his boss. I am strangely aware of him at his desk, facing the glass wall of his boss’ office. I shut him out, and continue with my information gathering; making this into a readable story is going to be enough of a challenge as it is.

 

I pause by his desk on my way out. “Time for a catch up?”

He smiles “Give me five minutes – where will you be?”

“In the members’ bar. It’s too cold to watch the game outside.”

 

As I wait a strange thing happens; someone recognises me, but can’t place me. It seems I have a certain profile around the club. This could be good, or bad. I will have to resist Owen’s efforts to make me put my photograph on the articles I am writing. He guards his own anonymity well enough, but having said that, wearing a suit and tie on a match day, not to mention the name, rank and photo ID badge, tends to give him away.

 

In the end, he has trouble finding me. When I pick my phone out of my bag to answer his call, I see his text. And then he materialises beside me and gives me the biggest hug imaginable. Two of them, in fact. Somehow my arm remains around his waist, but we disengage, and find a quiet place to talk business. And club gossip, of course. And share the stories of our respective weekends.

 

We need to photocopy something for the notice board and I decide, rather naughtily – and only for naughtiness’ sake – to invade his personal space quite significantly as we do it. He doesn’t handle this very well and our goodbye hug is a stiff formality.

 

Oh, the tedious detail of each small action! But that is how your mind works in the early stages of a flirtation; as though it doesn’t want to miss a trick, and wants to replay, analyse and evaluate every tiny nuance. And, of course, blow the whole thing out of all proportion.

 

Butterflies

Sometimes, when something like this happens, you wonder if you’ve imagined it. The signals are so small, you see, like the vibrations of a butterfly’s wing. Isn’t there a theory that one such tiny movement can change the world? And there’s another question too – has it changed things for him, for me, or for both of us?

 

Why, for goodness sake, when I have hardly ever thought of him in this way before, have two words and a change in the tone of his voice, shifted my perception now? What is it about these miniscule nuances? I’ve been here before, of course I have – we all have – when something gives someone’s feelings away. Do we only remember the times we’ve read the signals right, and conveniently forget all the embarrassing blunders?

 

I ponder this for a couple of days and then I need to email him. For business reasons, of course. In the email I warn him I will call him later but tell him no need to pick up if he’s busy; it’s nothing urgent.

 

I call him. He picks up. He asks if he can call me back in five minutes. As I wait I realise that (a) I am waiting; and (b) there are butterflies in my stomach. Damn and blast the man – I don’t want this. But I do.

 

And when he calls he tells me he’s moved outside his office to talk, and again I sense a change. One of my clients, David, who considers himself a student of the human mind, has quite a thing about changes in patterns of behaviour. I begin to think perhaps he has a point. But we talk of nothing special; a bit about our next project, the interviews he is setting up for me, but mainly nothing more than gossip. I picture him standing above the ground, half an eye on the cricket being played below him, with his phone clamped to his ear and his suit jacket blowing around him in the breeze.

 

We will catch up again on Tuesday when I visit to interview his boss.

The dress

 

“Come here.” His voice is soft and low, but there is an element of command to it. I turn and take a step back and he and hugs me, kissing me gently on the cheek.

“Don’t disappear on me,” I say as we move apart.

“I’ll try not to.” His voice is more normal now, and there is almost a smile on his face.

 

I walk away, back towards my car. I wonder if he is watching me, or whether he is hurrying around the edge of the ground to the media centre. He is already hopelessly late for his appointment. It is not the first time we have hugged by any means, but somehow, now, there has been an almost imperceptible change. I catalogue the potential reasons for it, dismissing them all except for the most ridiculous one, which is my dress.

 

It is a green, white and fawn Diane von Furstenburg that clings to my figure like it was made for me. I have turned heads today; I know that. I felt masculine eyes on me as I walked through the ticket office and across the café.

 

His eyes are a deep blue.