A WEEK -Monday-

It is seven o’clock in the morning and the house starts walking up around me, even outside me. From the bedroom’s window the late August sun looks set for another defeat; large clouds start to engulf my horizons. It will rain, most probably in a couple of hours. Birds tweet to each other the final instructions before fly over the same clouds hiding behind my window towards south and warmer Mondays. It is time of an instant cup of coffee before the ritual of shaving and showering.
I carry my aching body over the threshold of the kitchen where I found one of my flat sharing companions. His name is Jeremy. We look each other for a little spam of time, few instants, just the time to adjust our sight to each other appearance. It is no a pleasant scene and out of politeness we grunt to each other a good morning. The radio spins music, news, traffic jams and tube delays. I boil the kettle and scratch my arse waiting for another day at work.
The shower is in full downpour. Butterfly is all ready in with her shower gels and conditioners. She is late for work. From behind the bathroom’s door come her pleas and excuses; she will out soon but not to soon just the time to wash her black hair. I light a cigarettes wait for my turn. Ten minutes later I am soaping my naked frame damming god for another morning without breakfast. Jeremy and his long time girlfriend, Divine, have it in the kitchen when I grab my keys ready to leave the house, Butterfly is ready sit on the 172 bus. She will apply her make-over between stops. A little of lipstick and a touch of black eye-liner are just what it is required for a part-time secretary. My bus follows hers, half hour standing in exchange for eight hours sit behind a desk.
Public transports are not as bad as they appear. My bus is one of the new models that swirl around London; long red snake, flexible in the middle with the number of seats which double the number of the standings. Today the number of the users, of the needed, overflows the space reserved for them and their belongings. Only the driver can enjoy enough space to turn the big wheel in front of him; stopping anytime a metallic bell calls for his attention. New people get in; old people get out and the space all around tights until the next stop.
Jeremy and Divine are in the kitchen having their breakfast; a daily sacred ritual for the English. Foremost is the preparation of the tea. It is Jeremy’s duty. First he warms the teapot with some hot water, second he adjusts the cups respectively one in face to another on the table. White sugar and pale milk found their rest between them, exactly at one arm length from their seats. Third he comes back to the now warm teapot, he discharges the water inside it and with a twist of his hand he chucks three teabags inside. The kettle boils a new fresh amount of water and in less the two minutes the brew is done. Jeremy smiles please of his accomplishments.
Divine performs other essential tasks. She arranges, with feminine touch, the various condiments around the kitchen table. The unsalted butter is in the middle with its butter knife professionally to its side. The orange marmalade and the strawberry jam are set near to the cup on the left; her cup. The bitter-sweet marmite is on the right, near his cup. Well done toast of brown bread comes in a fancy basket cover with a napkin to keep the warm inside. Jeremy fills the cups with the brew and Divine add drop of milk. They sit in front to each other but there is not conversation between them. In a week time they will be Mr and Mrs Right.
Butterfly is ready. At her stop she checks one time more her lipstick with the help of her reflection by the small mirror in her hand. The bright red lips goes with the lingerie she wears underneath her high street clothes. Confident she opens the door of the hall, she greets the old receptionist-security guards sit behind an ultra modern desk filled with phones and log books. She collects the post, his not her, call the lift and nonchalantly stand there, waiting for the opening doors. Two floors up she will able to say good morning to Mr Johnson; just in time for her nipples to harder a little. Butterfly likes make a good impression.
Oxford Circus is a mess when I descend the bus. Confusion reigns supreme on the pavement. Londoners and foreigners with a destination in mind but without sense of directions swarm me; I fight my way to the near side street where no one like to walk; too much garbage and full skips. They are unknown to their portable GPS and they are full of dangers. Better stay on the main road with its coffee parlours and life then adventure themselves down here. It is nine o’clock when the telephone rings for the first time. I leave my coffee to cool and my croissant goes in the first drawer with the pens, the highlighters, the elastic bends and the staplers. Mr Anderson wants to see me.
Married men are unattainable, at least in public. In private is all another matter and Butterfly knows this. There he is, behind his desk with the untouched view of the dome of St. Paul to offer the background for his words and actions. Mr Johnson, in the middle of his middle age crisis, dresses smartly and fashionably in trend with the days: grey slim fit suit and a pinkish shirt open at the neck and tan of course. Butterfly let his eyes to scout her. She likes to have his attention; she loves to giggle to his compliments and appraisals wondering how to make her position permanent under him. Dutifully and carefully she scribbles the weekly schedule in her notebook before come back to her desk. The next week-end is golf for Mr Johnson and she needs to book a room for him: a double for more comfort.
Habitat is where everyone lives. Devine is in the middle of many of them. Armed with a stock of glossy magazines she marvels between different arrangements and lightings for the living room. The new house must reflect the personality of its occupants. She wants originality without excesses. Near to the fireplace she would like to recreate a corner of English country side similar of what she enjoy home with her Grandma and her home made custard biscuits. The settee needs to be a leathery model. It must accommodate her and Jeremy easily and match the TV HI-FI set. For the bedroom a queen side is more than enough. It will help to cage Jeremy closer of her at night when she will pin him searching motherhood and forget about pleasure. Devine is thirty; she has not time to fuck around.
I restrain my guts to the request of my summed up. Poor Miss Jill conned to believe at the importance of those Monday meetings. Mr Anderson is for her, to her eyes and hears, the CEO to up rising company; for me is a man with not too many issues but too much money. A wife, upper class England, to keep a bay and far from the liquor cabinet and tennis instructors and a teen ager daughter in the middle of gender’s crisis made the picture of the Anderson’s family and there are even the Friday’s night like the last to be take in account: weekly and mundane they come together necessary to avoid the never boring family week-ends. I let Miss Jill brush my front pants to her way to the double door, gate for the office. Thanks her I let the door shut behind my back and after a silence sounding of reassurance I let myself sunk in front his immaculate desk.
Libraries are empty space in today times. School libraries especially suffer the most. Jeremy inspects the knowledge contained in replaceable dusty books randomly looking for the expiration of his the last days as free bachelor. Over the years he became acclimatize to the type of life he despised just two decades ago He enters the Art & Craft section with her books under his arm. Sweet-sixteen has always been nice to him. Jeremy remembers how rebellion and deceitfulness fell. Jeremy behind his desk checks the members’ list. All of them have a face and a home address.
Lunch times are extra working hours for Butterfly. In front of a salad of baby spinach and nuts she plain her next move between the pages of a Cosmopolitan. Advices and testimonials interchange with pictures and sales dates; different scenarios catch her attention. Butterfly pays her bills and makes her way to the office just the time of a little retouch.
After three hours of projections, quarterly profits and algebraic investments Mr Anderson invite me for lunch: a simple act of gratitude and guilt to settle an expensive bill of dozens of oyster, two bottle of freeze vodka chez Brigitte in Chelsea. The last thing he has memory of is his pants around his angles. I am disappoint he doesn’t recall my smooth driving skills. Mr Anderson’s blur eyes and blurriest mind have nothing to do with the tits of Ping and Pong, two of the finest examples of Japanese hospitality. My confidence is repaid with an out of the book’s check for my expenses.
Divine has meet up whit Judy, Yourlady35 and Samantha. Three wizards of relations, married life, birth and long bathroom, wisdom build on the waiting and the faking. Divine listens to their stories, she needs pay attention to the moral hidden behind the usual regret: love. Judy has a part-time job, two days a week, with a helpline and she attends bakery courses at the community centre. She meets other women like her. Her husband works at home. Yourlady35 has to thanks a freak accident of two years ago which left her with a big hole in the hearth and a fat bank account. She has an eternal love for her Charlie. Yourlady35 is just a useful alter-ego.: the woman in her. Samantha copes with the help of baggy pyjamas and fake headaches. Her husband is understandably frustrated but she thrills him when he watches football in TV so she can sleep. Her life is not easy with two twins and a reformed alcoholic. Divine wants to talk accessories.
It is five o’clock when the door of the house click open and Jeremy enters. He is happy to be receive by the absolute silence of the homely walls. He left the suede loafers outside the bedroom before dropping his coat in unison with the shoulders. The bed now covers with a dark duvet stand firm to the ground: a queen size centre piece. His personal book’s collection of Swedish cinema, an unexpected successful PhD, feels much of university’s transgressions. It sits between a number of recipes book, gardening manual and the occasional Guide TV. Mother’s money’s transfer is for the wedding. A note escorts the official massive. Father does not like weddings and Jeremy is not surprise of that. His reflection caught in the mirror does not look please. Jeremy is thugs like is father, he is very good with his hands. The sight of a scribble piece of paper in his hands reveals a hidden past but a very clear future. Earl’s Court is just a couple of buses from where Jeremy stands and he is sure she will happy to see him. She always smiles to him. The rattle of keys is follow by the chattering of Devine and Butterfly. Jeremy pulls his pants up; he will make tea for all.
My way home is the continuation of my afternoon at work. The e-mails and phone’s calls are, now, replace with the elbows, the crying children and their teen-ager mums and the other commoners like myself. I am squeeze between an evening newspaper and the disable seat reserved space promptly occupied by the new breed of IT girl. Her telephonic tête-à-tête is a melange of absurdity and meagre vocabulary. Happily she broadcasts her week-end to everyone’s hears; a forty-eight hours of unexciting squeals and tweets. I get out to my stop but my umbrella chooses to continue its travel. Rain keeps falling and more dark clouds appear in the sky above me.
I find Divine and Butterfly sit around the kitchen table and Jeremy is busy at the sink washing plates and pots when I enter. He wears the apron Divine bought for him for the anniversary of their official engagement. It has a funny joke print in front: Man of the house. With the little manhood he still retaining he asks, almost whispering, about the week-end football’s result and, out courtesy, I exchange few comments about our teams performances. Divine summon him on the living room with Butterfly for the screening of a new BBC drama. I give a couple of microwave minutes to my dinner before escape this soap opera of daily life. In the dark of my room I lit and undress. The weather report does not improve tomorrow weather. It is eleven o’clock and there is enough silence to be able to follow at sleep.