Oxo Dreaming (A &; M 1)

Arriving at the place everyone gathered uncomfortably in the bar
with no one seeming to know quite what to do:

"Which side is it?"
"Well, that end is the more expensive."
"Who's name is the table booked under?"
"Where do we hang our coats?"

Most people, through embarrassment it seemed, followed suit with the
first guest to be asked, and ordered a gin &; tonic. Aaron had never
seen Melissa drink gin &; tonic before. With drinks in hand the
tension started to seep away, and conversation began, mainly about
work, and 'thank you' to the management for bringing us. Followed by,
'no, thank you' from the management for all the hard work etc
etc.

Aaron had done no hard work. He was a guest of a 'hard working' guest.
Guest and boyfriend of Melissa, Systems Engineer, who was fresh back
from a successful Brazil trip, and being paid thanks to, with
colleagues from the trip, with dinner and bar tab at the Oxo Tower's
brassiere.

Aaron held Josie's glass as she tried to call her husband Robert, who
was yet to arrive. He then leant her his mobile, as her battery was
flat. But she couldn't get through, apart from to his voice mail.

"Did you leave a message?"
"No".
"You sure he knows where he is going?"
"No."
"Well, you should have left a message."
"Aaron, can I use your phone again?"
"Sure," he said and handed her the phone.

Josie was from South Africa and worked on the corporate side of the
operation. Aaron had met her once or twice before, and he kind of liked
her, but he wasn't sure. Melissa always seemed happy and relaxed when
she was around, which was good, and considering the country of origin,
her accent was more bearable than one would expect. She was an
attractive girl also, and around his age, but she wasn't attractive in
a way that would interest him, even if he had been available. What he
wasn't sure about was that under the friendly and laughing exterior he
sensed a more boisterous and belligerent side. But he liked the fact
that she liked him, that she said he was cool and laid-back. Aaron
liked to be, and was easily flattered.

A waiter informed them that their table was ready. They sat down. Aaron
with Melissa to his left and Josie to his right on the end of the
table, Robert next to her, directly opposite him.

So, who else was there? Eight people in all. Robert had sort of burst
in as they were moving to the table, in a sweat, unbuttoning his collar
and loosening his tie, kissing his wife, saying hello to all,
explaining the story of his lateness. He was confident, but in a
babbling sort of way. There should have been nine, but 'old man' Bill
had declined. Thanks but no thanks. There was Charles at the head of
the table; management with a seemingly nameless wife at his side. They
both displayed large noses, yet only Charles wore a psychedelic tie
over a casualish blue green shirt. She wore a heavy, yet loose dress,
which hinted, "heavy frame concealed here within." They were both
alleged Christians, and it was often suggested that Charles regularly
committed the common sin of the believer; getting everyone else to do
his work, taking all credit and shirking any blame.

To Charles's left and opposite on the left to Aaron was the infamous
Phil Connell. They hadn't met before. Neither had Aaron met Phil's
female friend, to his left, opposite Aaron, sort of squeezed in between
Phil and Robert. Mr Connell, infamous for being a philanderer, a fake
engineer, yet always in an Amarni suit, wore clean white jeans and a
worn blue T-shirt. The weather was chilly outside for May, but he was
the type not to let it get in the way of showing off his biceps. His
girlfriend wore a tan, figure stretched dress, with slits, perhaps in
the shape of tiger stripes under the arms, stretching down to the hips.
She too was attractive in her own way, but her mouth was slightly too
large with its helping of teeth, and she wasn't quite right in this
environment, but for different reasons than Aaron.

Melissa wore the black two-piece suit that she always wore when she
wanted to be smart, but not business like. It seemed more appropriate
on this occasion than it had to any of the previous times he had seen
her in it. But he liked the suit. Or at least he liked to remember her
in it on the previous News Years eve, in the week when their love had
sprung. He loved her, with her tragically imperfect beauty.

The temperature was rising with the close bodies and Aaron squirmed on
the metallic chair. He was sweating inside the only suit he owned, and
the tie that she had brought him back from Brazil, partly due to the
temperature, partly due to his nerves, and partly due to slight
annoyance.

He remembered their conversation as Melissa accepted another glass of
white, exhaling through her nostrils from her Silk Cut Ultra.

"You have to wear a suit."
"But that means wearing it to work, if we are meeting at 5.15."
"We have to meet at 5."
"But I can't finish until 5 and it will take me fifteen minutes to walk
down to Holborn."
"You have to wear a suit. Everyone will be, and Phil Connell is never
seen out of an Armarni suit."
"Double breasted, I bet."
"And we can't smoke at the table, and definitely no swearing. Charles
and his wife are Christians."

He looked at her. She was exhaling through her nose again, whilst
breaking off tiny pieces of bread and buttering them. He thought she
looked like Puff the Magic Dragon and he smiled to himself.

The wine flowed through the fist course. Aaron was lost in the
conversation, as Phil Connell described in detail his route to work,
cycling from Battersea to Holborn. Aaron couldn't quite understand why
he was telling anyone anything about it, let alone in such detail.
Melissa laughed, while listening intently to Mr Connor's discourse.
Aaron looked at her. What had Phil said that was funny? If there had
been anything, Aaron had missed it, and what is more, he thought
Melissa hated this man?

Phil's girlfriend, also nameless although she had been introduced, was
not listening. In fact she wasn't there. Her head was sort of bouncing
around slowly, with her eyes seemingly bouncing to a different beat.
Aaron noticed a redness to her eyelids and cornea that suggested she
had been crying quite recently.

He couldn't wait any longer. He wanted his Tennessee click as he called
it to himself, and he took a large mouthful of white and began rolling
a cigarette.

He heard Josie's voice. "Look at him. He's cool. Mind you don't fall
off the back of that chair Aaron."
He smiled at her, not knowing quite what to say.
"Listen, you two must come over for dinner soon."
"What about Friday?" Aaron suggested.
"Friday, yeah, excellent."
"No we can't," Melissa interrupted. "He's being naughty. I am planning
a dinner party on Friday, and he's not keen."
"Really?" Josie asked, "I wouldn't have thought you would be bothered
about anything."
"Don't you believe it," Melissa returned.
Aaron agreed to himself that Melissa had a definite point.

The main course came and passed as the sun was setting over the Thames,
behind the Palace of Westminster. He thought how London actually looked
quite beautiful in the evening. At least, it did from here, from the
height of this tower on the south bank. Mile End, where he lived in a
bed-sit, wasn't quite as spectacular. But then again, he thought with
the amount of wine he was now getting through, perhaps even his local
stretch of the canal would appear like some mystical nirvana.

Melissa seemed quiet. Or at least she wasn't talking much. Rather she
was listening to the others, laughing at both appropriate and
inappropriate places, and although that was not something unusual, she
was not herself, not the girl that he knew. Aaron assumed if this was
the business Melissa, and he wondered how people managed it, flicking
between personas.

Dinner seemed to be over without Aaron really realising and he found
himself, still in the group, sat in a gathering of large sofas at the
other side of the building, close to the bar where they had sipped the
first gin &; tonics. Now it was gin and tonics again. He noticed how
there seemed to some sort of wagon wheel thing going on, with people
moving seats, talking to everyone in turn. He did not move. He wasn't
being impolite. He just couldn't do that sort of thing. He didn't quite
believe in his powers of conversation enough to put them on to anyone
without first being approached.

Now Melissa was talking to the nameless Mrs Charles. He hoped Melissa
knew her name, but listening in he realised that things had gone beyond
that. Melissa was doing her trick of talking to people as if they had
something incredibly important and interesting to say, and that with a
little gentle coercion she would be able to bring them out of the
shadows, and into the light that she was lucky enough to inhabit
permanently.

Aaron had previously got into a lot of trouble for mentioning this
behaviour of hers, and he had perhaps got it wrong by describing it as
patronising, but either way, his analysis had gone down like a bomb
scare at a peace conference.

Mrs Charles though was polite with her husbands' inebriated colleague,
smiling and agreeing, if only in a slightly vacant and never impatient
manner.

The wagon wheel had brought Charles to Aaron's side and he answered
questions about his occupation.

"How very interesting. So, you like working in the charitable
sector?"
"Yes I do Charles. And I also enjoy the fact it is with public
policy."
"And why is that? Enjoying the charitable sector I mean. Do you feel a
sense of reward in helping others less fortunate?"
"No, not exactly," Aaron replied, wondering just why he did work in the
charitable sector.
"You probably know that my wife and I are very involved with the
Church?"
"Yes, Melissa has mentioned it."
"Are you interested at all?"
"No, not really Charles," Aaron replied, trying be both straight and
sensitive at the same time. Charles was Melissa's boss after all.
"So what exactly is your motivation with helping the less
fortunate?"
"Well, that's the point really Charles. Quite often people we think
less fortunate are actually not. Our role, if we have one, is to show
that such people are full citizens, and have the same claim to full
human rights as the rest of. And that stretches to all minority
groups."
"I'm not quite with you. It's quite plain to see that not all of us are
the same. Some are better off, some of us are more physically able,
intelligent etc. And as a member of the Church we look to act as a
safety net, helping and reaching out to people who are poor and
vulnerable, in various ways."
"Well, I think that sort of work, at the sharp end if you like, helping
people with support is very worthwhile&;#8230;.."
"We help in the greatest part by introducing people to God," Charles
interrupted.
"Umm." Aaron didn't know where to go, where to go without causing
tension. Charles urged him to carry on.
"Well, our's is a secular view. We are involved in changing the
attitudes and the physical barriers that prevent people from
participating fully in society and gaining access to things such as the
natural and built environment, health care, the judiciary etc. And not
by placing some sort of cushion, or buffer, such as God, between them
and the real cause of their situation."
"I see," Charles replied, and then after a pause, "that sounds like a
well rehearsed line?"
Aaron shrugged his shoulders and a moment later the wagon wheel had
moved on, initiated by Charles's departure, and now Robert was at
Aaron's side. Yet they were silent for a good few minutes.

"I think they have both had their quota," Robert finally suggested,
looking at Melissa and Josie, who were deep in drunken conversation.
Aaron nodded in agreement. "They are probably slagging off Mr Connell,"
Robert said. "I guess you heard how he was in Brazil?"
"I did," Aaron said.

In fact they were not slagging him off, but he was in a sense the topic
of conversation. Melissa had been in conversation with Phil's
girlfriend, and she had explained the cause of the redness around her
eyes. Phil had had an affair and the other woman had turned up on their
doorstep, claiming she was having his child.

"Poor girl," Josie said.
"Yeah," Melissa returned, "poor baby too. Probably conceived in the
back of a taxi!"

Aaron was beginning to feel more and more drunk, but it was not having
the desired calming effect, and the conversation with Charles had not
helped in the least bit. But he had to make an effort. Melissa and he
had been having a volatile enough time of it as it was, without this
evening going all wrong.

"I hear that you have started a new job Robert," he said, hoping to
steer a conversation on a safe course.
"That's right."
"How's it going?"
"Oh, just fine. I am still in training. But it's good."
"Good good," Aaron said, disappointed that the dim glare of safe
conversation had smouldered out before barely starting.
"But the money!" Robert said. "Bloody appalling. 25K. How am supposed
to live off that?"
Aaron was once again resigned to shoulder shrugging. 25K sounded
wonderful compared to his fourteen and a half thousand.
"You know, we are thinking of leaving the UK," Robert said. "Either
South Africa or Australia. You know, with the jobs we have in South
Africa we would have servants."
Aaron felt himself once again getting lost. This was not his place in
the world. He just was not professional enough, not Conservative
enough, not unconscious enough, but at the same time, he didn't know
his own world, where he should actually be, enough to argue for his own
corner.

"Josie's parents," Robert was saying, "they have a huge place, with
servants and orange groves. Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. And our
friends in Sydney. Swimming pool, views over the bay. And it's not that
they are simply better off, have better jobs, it's just that the
standard of living is so poor for professional people in this
country&;#8230;."
Aaron was spinning. How was he to sort this out, make a union between
himself and Melissa? Poles apart yet inextricably pulled together. He
despised this environment and this mind-set, but yet he almost couldn't
argue and fight against it, as he was so unsure, unaware of his own
true mind-set.

The wagon wheel seemed to have gone full circle, and out of the haze of
confusion he found his alexia at his side, as all the other couples
were reunited too. This was the only thing in the world that he was
sure of, this thing, whatever it was, with her, wherever it took him.
He wanted to be with Melissa, share his life, his confusion, his
pleasure and his pain, with her and only her. He wanted to always feel
her head on his shoulder as he drove, her face close to his on the
tube, her hand in his as they walked, her smile, her argument, her
smell.

"Hello my love," she said, "you're my baby."
"Melissa!" He always felt embarrassed and frightened by this kind of
declaration. However much he loved her the fear that he may lose her
never left him, and it seemed that knowing her love was in his hand
made him more likely to throw it away, or neglect it. While it was
secret and unspoken everything was sure, but while it was out there
floating on the air, it seemed too easy to loose, or for it to just
waft away. Experience had shown him that love didn't go away easily,
but that it was delicate and needed looking after.
"Do you not love your Melissa?" She said with a drunken
concentration.
"I do."
"How much do you love your Melissa?"
"Oh, so much," he said holding out his arms and palms like the
fisherman showing how big the one that got away was.
"As much as that?"
"Indeed."
"That's a lot."
"Yes."
"And what is it you want from me?"
"I want everything from you Melissa."
"Be more specific," she said prodding him, smiling.
"I want to be with you. I want to share a house with you. I want to
have nice Sunday morning's with you," he said with extravagance unlike
his real self.
"What does that mean?" she asked.
"It means Melissa that I want to have perfect weeks with you, ending up
with nice Sunday mornings. I have this idea of us on a hazy sunny
morning, having breakfast in the garden, and everything is
perfect."
"But there's something missing, you know."
"What's missing?" he asked, trying to make light, "little
children?"
"Well yes. No. It's that I'm not sure how committed you are" she
blurted out.
"Where did that come from?" he asked, worried that the alcohol was
turning her mood against him.
"I don't know. There is something missing in what you said. In the way
we are living."
"Melissa. That is just not fair," he said trying to be as calm as
possible. "You know that I will do anything you want. You know I wanted
us to move in together, but when you said no to that at the moment I
accepted it, however much more difficult it makes for us with you
living there."
"Oh Aaron. I know, I should have moved out when I had the chance, but
there's a reason that I didn't."
He looked at, waiting for the reason.
"And?" he said finally.
"I can't live with you until I know you are sure about things."
"I am sure. I've never been so certain of anything."
"Yeah? Well show me then," she said, forcing him further.
"I don't know how I can," he pleaded.
"There's something you can say. Something that will make me believe you
want this with me forever."
"I don't know what I can say, apart from that I love you, and that I
want to be with you forever."
"Aaron. I know you. You're not stupid and there is one obvious thing
that you can say. Or at least, something you can ask."

And the dart hit the spot.

It was like a darkening in his mind, adding to the confusion, to his
discomfort, to his feeling of not quite fitting the shape he had been
born with, his struggle to turn his life upside down until he found his
place. But then he had found it partly in Melissa. He had already
thought about their future, and that if he wanted to be with her, as he
did, it would mean marriage. Now though wasn't the right time for him.
He had previously been married and it had all gone wrong, and he didn't
want this to go wrong too, with Melissa. He wanted to preserve and
consolidate what they had. Yes he wanted to marry her, but he didn't
want to ask her tonight. He knew that people would think it wrong, too
soon. They would think things like 'he's directionless, he's divorced,
he's six years older than you&;#8230;&;#8230;' Especially her
mother. But then if that was what she wanted, could it be so wrong? He
wanted to make her happy and he didn't always manage it, and perhaps
this way he could.

"Are you saying to me that you want me to ask you to marry me?" Aaron
asked gulping down nicotine.
"I think what I am saying," Melissa said, doing her Puff the Magic
Dragon impression, "is that I cannot live with you unless you
do."
"So, marriage is less of a step than living together?"
"No, but I need to be sure before I tear everything up and live with
you."
"Well, yeah I can see that. But your current living arrangements aren't
exactly ideal. They don't exactly make you happy."
"I don't think that's the point."
"OK," he said, feeling suddenly ridiculous. He looked at her smiling,
then up to the ceiling. "What would it be like if I did ask you?"
"I'm not answering that. You'll have to ask, and anyway, if you don't
already know you must be stupid after all."
"No, I don't mean will you say yes. I mean, I presume from how this
conversation started, that you would. What I mean is, if I ask you to
marry me, and you say yes, we will be engaged?"
"Well, yeah. Of course."
"And we'll tell our parents and friends?"
"Of course."
"And you'll wear a ring?"
"If you buy me one."

He didn't ask. He got another drink for them, and in the taxi going
home they argued over whose house they were going to. Melissa wanted to
go to her place as she had the next day off and wanted to sleep in, but
Aaron only had his suit with him. She was asleep in the taxi by the
time they got to his place. He paid, woke her and they went in where
they went to sleep without talking.

The next evening the pizzeria in Victoria was somewhat more bustling
than the Oxo Tower. The short waiter with the almost comic moustache
took their order and brought the house white quickly. They talked
before and throughout dinner, but not about the previous nights
conversations.

"How was your day off?"
"How was your day at work?"
The usual stuff, but the air was very less than clear.

After the plates were cleared he reached across and took her hand and
asked her the words that he knew one day he would, and ever since the
evening before he knew he would say sooner rather than later, when they
would be more appropriate. But somehow it was wrong. She accepted but
it was not right. She was pleased but she was not elated. They both
knew that after the Oxo Tower this was a sentence waiting to be said,
and all the time losing something. Now it had become almost
perfunctory. It had become a lost moment, pre-empted and spoilt by the
evening before. They had been like cement, but now they were like two
plates from different sets, not quite sitting comfortably
together.

In desperation rather than celebration they drank these fears and
feelings away, talking about their plans, and the future. Aaron told
Melissa that he would ask Michael, his brother in law, to be his best
man.

"Oh good," Melissa said, "your sister will like that."

They left the pizzeria and walked back to her house, where her
housemate Charlotte asked where they had been? Melissa explained, only
to be asked what it was like?

"Well, it's kind of like a canteen really."
"I always thought it might be a bit like that in there," replied
Charlotte.
Aaron went up to her room; amazed that Melissa had described the
restaurant that he had proposed to her in as like a canteen. Perhaps if
it had been like a canteen he could have understood, but it wasn't.
Nothing like it.

He telephoned his sister on his mobile, and as he was telling her their
news and that he hoped Michael would be his best man as Melissa came in
the room. After hanging up she spoke.

"I can't believe you told them. Without asking me!"
"We talked about this last night. You said if I asked you we would be
engaged and tell people and stuff."
"I know, but not like this. Not now. I don't want to tell anyone.
OK?"