I Love You: Part 1

I don't have a car, so I ride the bus back from the supermarket, all the crinkly white bags on the seat beside me. My hangover is fading — it's still there but it's definitely fading. That smell though, the bus smell, petrol and cigarettes and a memory of puke. I rest my hand among the bags, rustling plastic, and I look out the window to take my mind off the fucking smell.

I watch the streets as they peel by. I watch them through my face, half reflected in the glass.

When I reach my stop I have to race to get off in time, two bags in each hand. It's raw and damp outside. I'm exhausted by the time I reach my building. As I climb the stairs the straps dig into my hands and my shoulders feel like they're catching fire. I have to put the bags down to rest at every landing.

I get to my flat and fish my keys out of my pocket. The door is unlocked though. My flatmate must have finally got out of bed.

"Hi Liz," I say when I open the door.

"Hi Lou," calls a voice from the kitchen.

I close the door with my foot, gently does it, and make my way to the kitchen.

Liz is sitting at the table, drinking a cup of coffee. She smiles sympathetically as I waddle in, but doesn't put her coffee down or stand up.

"Oh god," she says, as I begin to unpack, "that was some night last night. I've had it all today, the head, the stomach, everything. I'm completely wrecked."

Vegetables and meat, in the fridge. Tins and cartons, on my shelves. The pasta is different, we share that, it goes in the cupboard above Liz's head.

"I can't believe how much I drank. I'm absolutely wrecked. I've got to start looking after myself."

A grunt escapes me as I reach up a packet of rigatoni.

"It's no wonder I'm putting on weight. I've been trying to get myself to the gym all week. I'm getting so fat these days. I should start cycling to work again. I mean I used to be so slim and look at me now…"

Once the shopping's away I sit and have a coffee with Liz. I'm not really in the mood to talk, but that's okay, I'm not required to.

"…I'm so pissed off with him. I mean fair enough he's broke but so am I and I've always got enough money to go out when he wants to…"

I'm nodding and making listening noises, but my eyes keep drifting to the window. It's a miserable day. I'm still wearing the drizzle in my hair. It's only four o'clock, and the lights are on in most of the houses. Our flat is just high enough to see over the block across the street. It's a strange view, all those rooftops squashed by perspective. I remember when they taught us perspective in art at school. That weird drawing, with the stick man turning a corner, the shaded brick wall rising to a prow above him, the lines of the bricks and pavements unravelling to either side.

I always wondered what would happen if the man kept walking. Would he find himself on a skeletal street, tightrope walking along pencil outlines? Or would the details move as he did, so that if he didn't look too far ahead, it would seem like the whole world was shaded in?

"You're awful quiet today." says Liz, breaking off her monologue, "But then, if I'm hungover I don't know what you must be."

"I'm okay — just tired really."

"You were out of it last night."

There's half a smirk on her lips. My mind's little engine whines with forestalling words.

"Yeah," is all I manage.

"Remember that guy?"

I almost go through the 'what guy?' routine.

"Just about."

"I'm sure he remembers you."

"Well at least someone does."

Why did I say that?

"Why did you say that?" asks Liz, meeting my eyes. It's not something we do very often, eye contact. It feels like a challenge, as among prisoners or chimps.

"I don't know. I think I'm still drunk!"

Liz smiles and gets up, takes her coffee cup and coffee maker with her. She washes them and puts them in the drying rack beside the sink. Clunk, clatter. Cutlery, crockery. Bye, she says, as she leaves the room.

The eyes. That was another thing we learned in art. The eyes make a face come alive. The eyes, and the gleam inside them. The bent little shine on the pupil. I got carried away when they told me that. I started drawing whole windows in there, curved frames and all, sometimes even tiny clouds drifting by. Then my art teacher told me to look into his eyes and tell him if I saw any windows. I didn't, but I saw something else.

I wash my cup up too. I think it's a rule.

I walk to my room and sit on the bed. I've got a colourful duvet, big red and purple and orange bands. Lights up the whole room, Liz said, when we got it back from the furniture superstore. They had framed posters too, in the same colours, or opposite colours that felt the same, if you know what I mean. Liz said I should get one, it would go with the duvet, but I thought that would look a bit crap, like I might have big coloured stripes on my soul. My walls are still bare. I hang my ski jacket on the hook on the back of the door and take my phone from the inside pocket and check it for messages. There aren't any. I think about calling one of friends, but I don't do it, because I don't have anything to say to them. I switch my stereo on and play some music. I change the song, change it again, I change the singer, I switch it off. In the end I resort to the television.

I zap between channels for a while, then leave it on a music station. They're about to play a song I like — a song I know.

I've never seen the video before. The music hasn't started yet, and the singer is walking slowly through a metro station, dressed in white. She's very beautiful. People push past her; they don't look at her.

I feel a little sadness, a little of the cold stink of the underground station and the indifference of all those people.

She starts to sing. For the first few lines there isn't any music, just her voice and a close up of her face, gazing at the camera. People still jostle her, but her eyes tell you that she doesn't care.

The music starts and she keeps walking through underground corridors. The song rises to the chorus, the part in my head, and I can't help myself, I sing along in a wispy, quiet voice. I've heard it many times, but it feels different hearing it now, with her delicate voice and defiant eyes. It feels like she's earned it.

She waits at the platform and after a while a train pulls up and the music stops, you can hear all the echoey noises of the station. She steps into a carriage, people still pushing past her. The carriage is full. The other passengers seem faded and grey beside her. None of them look at her. Eventually she finds a seat, between a man reading a newspaper, too rude to move his elbows for her, and a woman staring at her shoes. She wriggles into the gap. The train starts up again, and so does the song.

I think about the lyrics for the first time. She's singing about being ignored, about how she won't stop existing, just because the man the song is addressed to wants her to.

The camera keeps chopping between her and the other passengers. Most of them ignore her, but one looks up from the book he is reading. The camera stays on his face and you can tell he is looking into her eyes. He is the opposite of her, dark and strong and heavy boned. Except that they are both very good looking.

When the train stops again there is no sound except her singing. She sings the same lines as at the start, then gets up and walks towards the door. The dark-haired man follows her off.

Now the DJ, or the VJ, or whatever you call them, is talking very fast, and the camera is zooming in and out on her like a trombone. I switch the television off in anger.

That feeling comes to me, like a hood being pulled down over my face. All the things in my room, the novels and the movies and the magazines, they are part of the feeling, part of the hood. They are suffocating me with other peoples lives.

I stand up. I sit down again. I run across the room and grab the scarf and the jacket hanging on the door.

I'm going into the city.

I grew up in a small town, about an hour and a half from the city. I used to have a recurring dream. It was night and I was sitting in an apartment with an all glass wall. I was looking out at the lights that chequered the black skyscrapers and floated down the streets. The skyscrapers were incredibly tall, much taller than they could have been in real life. And I knew that they continued as far again underground. Roads and rails were strung between them, crisscrossing each other in the sky. I could see for miles over the city. And I could see much further than that. I could see my future, my marvellous space-age future, rushing and twinkling in front of me.

The underground is five blocks away; even with my ski jacket I'm hunched against the cold.

As I descend into the station, I can't help comparing it to the video I just watched. But the people here aren't that unfriendly. One or two of them are even smiling. And of course, I'm not that beautiful.

The train takes a long time to come. The people on the platform are either still or locked into small movements — tapping their heels against the legs of benches, stepping forwards and back, fiddling with their phones.

Finally it arrives, preceded by a welcome blast of warm air. The doors gasp open and I step inside. It isn't too crowded, there are several empty seats. Especially around one man with curly, overgrown hair, who is giving a running commentary on his surroundings into a handheld memo recorder.

It used to be so exciting, the train into the city. I remember everything I saw on the way. The rusting metal bars stacked up by the track. The backsides of the houses with the washing lines and the satellite dishes and the people sitting in garden chairs, ignoring the trains. The first big tower blocks, the way they stuck up into the skyline, like crooked teeth. The station where the pigeons roosted in the dirty glass roof and people hugged and kissed each other on the platforms.

The man with the curly hair is laughing to himself as he makes his commentary. His voice is loud but the words are indistinct. Everyone suspects he is talking about them.

The train slows and speeds up again. Passengers sway in their seats; one man who for some reason is standing stumbles and grabs a pole.

I think about the tunnels we are in, winding under the city. I wonder what I would find if I jumped out now. A dark theatre of rats and crime; or a room full of computer geeks in office casual clothes, controlling the illusion above them.

I watch too many films.

I'm bored now. As soon as I sit on one of these trains I get bored. I scan the carriage for distractions. There is one guy who's kind of cute. I stare at him until I catch his eye, then look away, pretending he surprised me. I keep looking away; I can feel his glances against me. A few more seconds then I look back, full face, and he looks up at the same time. But now I see something I don't like, a kind of smirk at the corners of his mouth. He knows I'm playing. The game loses it's appeal for me. I concentrate on the underground map above the opposite seats as if it contains the secret of my life.

He leaves in two stops time. I can see his refusal to acknowledge me in the profile of his clenched jaw.

Something seems to drop inside me and the shriek of the train and the blank walls whipping by and the dirt in the ridges of the rubber floor become part of the falling sensation.

I get off at the next stop, along with most of the other passengers.

I climb the stairs out of the station. Long shapes of people flit in and out of the letterbox of daylight at the top. I climb higher, the letterbox widens, I feel like the city is unfolding before me. It's deceptive though. There aren't really that many people outside, apart from those coming and going from the station. And the slick concrete of the square is as lifeless as any suburb.

No point getting disheartened. I decide to find a café and drink a hot chocolate while I plan my next move.

As I'm crossing the square I see someone I recognise. Except I don't recognise him. It's that trick big cities play, planting your friends' heads on the bodies of strangers.

I think he's following me. Jesus, you can't look at a guy without getting stalked these days.

I walk into the café and search for a table. Not too close to the other customers; but not too far away either. I'm very particular when it comes to tables. The decor in here is mock-French, heavy ceiling fans and spindly, wrought iron chairs. At least I think it's French. It could be Viennese. I wouldn't normally worry this much about the provenance of the interior design. I'm nervous because my new friend has followed me in and is standing behind me.

I choose a table and walk towards it, trying to look too busy to talk to.

The stranger waits for me to sit down then comes to my table.

"Mind if I sit with you?" he asks, in a pleasant voice.

"Um… no, I guess."

I wasn't prepared for the direct approach.

He takes his jacket off and drapes it on a chair before he sits down. Beads of water dot its surface. His hair is wet too. He must have been outside for a while.

"You look lonely," he says, staring into my eyes.