A Reunion

Normally he wouldn’t have seen her; normally he wouldn’t have looked. The scenes we see are outnumbered immeasurably by those that we miss. Had the bus not stopped because the traffic was slow because the cyclist fell because the road was wet, he might have not looked out the window, across the street, under the bridge and at her.

A week or so later, having debated the matter over and over in his head too many times to even begin to count, he stepped off the bus at the station and began walking back the way he had travelled. Unsure of what he should be wearing, unsure if there was even a dress code for this sort of thing, he had gone with an old suit that he hadn’t worn for almost three years, along with a long black overcoat he had bought from the catalogue store that morning for just this occasion. His outfit was uncoordinated and ill-fitting; really, he could not have felt seedier if he had tried although he was glad now that he had decided against the cap. Some disguises, he had decided, serve only to attract attention.

The sky was a grey-blue shade and a light rain began to fall which, he thought, was the only thing about this that seemed right. Staying close to the wall, to the shadows, he hunched his shoulders and bowed his head low, fearful of being recognised although, if he were to bump into anyone he knew around these parts they, surely, would have just as much to hide as he. What he was worried about was someone seeing him from the seat of a bus that had, just by chance, halted temporarily under the bridge. It was for this reason he had chosen to come on a Sunday night, when the buses were infrequent and unreliable and when those most likely to know him would be where they should be; at home, with their families, much as he should have been.

Shuffling along the inside of the concrete arch he came to the opening in the wire-mesh fence where he first (last) saw her and squeezed through. Beyond the overgrowth that stretched through the gaps he saw, dimly lit in sodium, a sleazy, sub-Bosch for industrial urbanism - The Cement Garden of Unearthly Delights - with compatriot strangers in anonymous dress being led into the darkness by pale escorts. He stood, nervous, shy, on the edge of the glowing ring cast upon the ground, like a new pupil in the playground, until one girl, painted and hooped, walked up to him.

“Business?”

“I’m looking for Donna.”

“Donna’s not here, I’ll-.”

“Like fuck she’s not!” - a voice from the hidden darkness, a rustling, fumbling and then she stepped into the light, adjusting her too-tight, too-small skirt. “Go on you, fuck off.”

The other girl melted back into the background without a sound and she - Donna - stood in front of him.

“What d’yer want me fer?”

“I, I was look-wanting to… you, know.”

“Yeah, I do know. Why me? Who gave you my name? Was it Tony? He fuckin’ knows not to do that, I’ve told him.” A pause, then “Cunt” added as an afterthought. “What do you want to do then?”

“Do? Just…”

She huffed, impatiently. “It’s a tenner for a wank, twenty for a blow-job, fifty for a fuck and you’re not sticking nothing up me arse, alright?”

“Can we, I mean, do we… Can we go somewhere else?”

“Depends. Where do you want to go?”

“I have a room. A hotel. It’s in town. Not far.”

She hesitated briefly. “Is it a hole?”

“No, no! It’s nice. A chain. A Travel-Inn.”

“I charge more for the night.”

“I don’t want you for the night. Just a little while.”

“Alright, but it’ll cost you seventy and you get me back here by twelve or there’ll be a visit from a couple of friends of mine. Deal?”

“Deal.”

He was surprised at how easy it had been. He wasn’t surprised that she hadn’t remembered him, there was no reason why she would have. He would have been well below her radar at school, he doubted he ever got within six feet of her in six years. They didn’t talk. She hadn’t said anything and he didn’t know what to say. They went up to the room, had a drink from the mini-bar then had sex, him on top. She had a bath afterwards while he watched the TV, sitting naked at the edge of the bed. It had been nothing, really. Mechanical. She had been looking at some fixed point on the ceiling and he had held his eyes shut most of the time, thinking, remembering younger skin and brighter eyes. Climbing into bed that night alongside his already sleeping wife he thought the whole time that he should have bathed too, felt his body smelled of it, of her; of adolescence and adultery and teenage wish-fulfilment.