She Loves Me

We were going to dinner together. As was my habit, I’d allowed myself to get carried away. Previously, we’d been to cafes, or to pubs to get drunk together, and these were rich with possibilities in their own ways. But going to a restaurant, and sitting together and eating together, this was invested with so much inherent romance that I’d allowed myself to get carried away.
I didn’t dress up. I thought about it, but it would look so strange to her if I looked very different to normal. I rummaged amongst the newspapers and ashtrays to find the very cleanest, the least creased, the unstained, but I did not look for a shirt, or a jacket, or a scent. I stood in front of the mirror and felt foolish before I went.

The restaurant was small and dimly lit. We were given a table in a corner, so that my left elbow butted against the wall occasionally. There were no tablecloths on the table, but there was a tea light in a small glass jar between us, and I looked at her in this light and thought she was beautiful.

Her name is Melissa, and she is beautiful. She has straight black hair which falls over her left eye before she tucks it behind her ear. She does not wear perfume, so she smells of soap and some other vague fragrance which I cannot name. She was not overdressed, but wore I top which allowed me to see the shape of her waist, which I love. I have once allowed my arm to rest around her waist, as we walked home drunk one night.

We shared some wine and a pizza, and as we ate, we talked. I talked about my boredom and my desire to do something else and about Miles who lives with me and how I can’t bear his presence, how I sit in my room and listen for his footsteps to fade, how I slip into the kitchen late at night and out again before I can be discovered, how my heart sinks when I return home and can see a light on from the street. She did not understand, because she likes Miles. So do I, he’s nice. She has slept with him, I think.

She talked about her work. I listened as she talked, watched her eyes, sometimes I let myself watch her mouth. She is good at what she does, I never worry about her, although she worries about herself. She talked about a man who works with her. I told her she should not be afraid, that she should give him a chance. I do not know him, but I told her that anyway. I swallowed my sadness, and told myself that she loves me. I smiled with her and waited until it was time to go.

After a while she went to the toilet and allowed me a little respite. I sat with my hands in my lap and stared at the candle for too long. When I looked up, the little flame flickered in my vision, obscured faces, refreshed each time I blinked. There were two other couples, two other groups of two in the restaurant, and a group of three. And one man eating alone.

He was old but not elderly. His thin skin hung slightly loosely on his frame, so that it sagged a little beneath his chin. The backs of his hands were gnarled and twisted like roots, but his fingers were thin and delicate. He showed signs of dishevelment. His fingernails were long, and grey hairs grew from his ears and his eyebrows. The hair on his head was long and combed, but poorly. He was, however, dressed with refinement. He wore a dull green velvet blazer, from which protruded at various points a blue shirt with white flowers. The high collar was almost tucked up under his ears.

I watched him as he ate. Deliberately, slowly, he built each forkful with such care. I saw him tease fat away from flesh, and use his morsel to wipe clean his plate. I saw him gather and push and probe. I watched him chew and swallow.

Melissa came back. She continued to talk. I have heard too much from her, about her loves and lust and about her sex. I listened, I had to listen. She was tormented by this, and swayed by that. How he had, or hadn’t. It was not the first time, so I knew what to do. But I was a little distracted now.

By the face of this man alone. I watched it. He had no expression to speak of. His eyes were hard to see, he kept them focussed on the plate. I saw them huge and mournful and tearful, but then I saw them grey and deadened, and then again cheerful, when he looked up to squint his satisfaction to a passing waiter.

The urge to march over to him took me many times. I wanted to shake him by the lapels, to scream at him. He wouldn’t even look up from his plate. He didn’t once glance round the restaurant, didn’t look at me or anyone else. He did not read. He did not take a phone call. He dabbed gently at his mouth with the napkin laid across his knee.

We had finished our meal, but there was wine to drink, and I like to be drunk with Melissa. She becomes looser. She laughs more readily with me. She kisses me closer to the mouth when we part. I was loose too. Allowing myself to think lecherously. I would have behaved so given half the chance. This I know all to well – I have countless hangovers which can testify to this. She was watching me now, I was sure. She allowed silences to hang in the air, and dipped her eyes into her wineglass with a smile while I spoke. We didn’t talk about her anymore. We talked about nothing, and we leant our heads towards each other.

A gust turned my head to the door, in time to see it closing. I looked back to my man alone, and his table was empty, save for an umbrella hanging on the back of his chair. In mid summer no less, it hadn’t rained for a week. I left the table and unhooked it, and walked out of the restaurant.

Memory is a funny thing. I have a memory of the screech, and the thud of dented metal, but I think that’s impossible. Timewise, I mean. And I have a memory of swirling panic, like a hurricane, around the calm of my man, lying in the road, green against red against black. The driver was so shaken, I remember, so white, sat in his driver’s seat with the door open.

‘He just jumped out in front of me’, he said.