“No problem,” I said. “I’ll book you in for four. At eight o’clock?”
“OK,” she said with a little trepidation in her voice. “Thank you.” The catch was landed. But it didn’t move me any further along in my search for answers.
LIFE WITHOUT a car was becoming a real bore. The invention of the internal combustion engine has proved to be the greatest provider of personal freedom that man has ever known, but it has become a freedom we tend to take for granted. The most recent provider of my own personal freedom was still sitting in a mangled heap at the back of the towing garage, and I severely missed its convenience for quick simple journeys, journeys that were now neither quick nor simple.
I called the NewTax taxi number, which I now knew by heart, and booked myself a ride to Cambridge station to catch the five o’clock train to London. I threw a few things into an overnight bag and waited impatiently for the taxi to arrive. Why, I wondered, did I feel like a naughty schoolboy skipping lessons?
Almost as an afterthought, I put my passport in my bag just in case. I told myself I was being foolish, but so what? Hadn’t Shakespeare said in As You Like It something about not having loved unless one could remember having run off on some folly or other? Was I falling in love? Yes, I think I probably was.
KING’S CROSS station was full of disappointed soccer supporters waiting for the train back north after their team’s defeat in the Cup Final. The mood was somber, and not a little aggressive. Hard as I tried, it was impossible for me not to be smiling broadly with excitement at the prospect of spending two nights with Caroline. Consequently, I received some unwelcome attention from a group of half a dozen red-soccer-shirted young men who were all rather the worse for drink.
“What are you smiling at?” demanded one of them, pushing his face close to mine and giving me a generous sample of his alcoholic breath.
“Nothing,” I said rather timidly.
“You can bloody well sod off, then,” he said, slightly slurring his words. I could read in his eyes the thought processes going on behind them in his intoxicated brain. He was obviously the leader of the troupe, and I could see that the others were watching his every move. I sensed that he was weighing his options, and the simple choice of moving away and leaving me be would mean, in his eyes, a loss of face among his followers. It might have been funny if it hadn’t been so frightening. His eyes widened, as I saw his irrational reasoning come to the conclusion that physical violence was his only viable course of action.
So slow were his reactions that I saw his haymaker of a right hook coming from a very long way back and I was simply able to sway backwards out of his reach. There was a slight expression of surprise on his face as his fist sailed harmlessly past the end of my nose with an inch or two to spare. The momentum of his plump, flailing arm proceeded to throw him off balance and he went down heavily onto the station concourse. Time, I thought, to make a swift exit. I turned and ran.
A very scary few minutes ensued, with me haring through the station with the remaining pack in pursuit. Fortunately, most of them were not only carrying an excess of beer in their bellies but also some substantial extra pounds around their waists and they were no match for my adrenaline-fueled flight. However, two of them were remarkably nimble in spite of these handicaps, and more than once I felt their fingers on my coat. On one occasion, I swung my overnight bag at one of them and was rewarded with an audible grunt.
I tore out of the station and leaped over the pedestrian barrier into the traffic on the Euston Road, dodging buses, cars and taxis as I sprinted for my life. Fortunately for me, a combination of good sense and the timely intervention of a passing police car meant that the chasing pair did not follow me as I weaved across the four lanes and jogged rapidly westwards along the pavement, breathing heavily.
I slowed down and laughed out loud in relief. I received a few strange looks from people I passed, but, thankfully, this time there was nothing more sinister than amusement in their eyes. I felt on top of the world, and I literally skipped along the pavement as I searched the oncoming vehicles for a vacant cab to take me to Fulham.
CAROLINE LIVED in what she described as a lower-ground-floor apartment. Tamworth Street, like many residential streets in west London, was bordered on each side by rows of stucco-fronted terraced town houses built in the 1920s and ’30s to house an increasing urban population. Whereas they had originally all been single-family homes, many had since been subdivided into flats as the pressure for accommodation increased further in the latter part of the twentieth century. All along the road the lower-ground-floor flats had been created out of the original “below stairs” areas, where the servants had once tended to the family living above. Access to Caroline’s abode was not through the house’s front door but by way of the old staff entrance, via a gate in the iron railing and down eight or so steps to a small concrete yard below street level.
She opened her door with what appeared to be a squeal of delight and threw her arms round my neck, planting a long, welcoming kiss on my lips. If she was having any second thoughts about our relationship, she had a funny way of showing it.
Her flat ran through the house from front to back and had access to a small exterior space at the rear, just big enough for a table and a few chairs.
“I get the morning sun during the summer,” she said. “It’s a lovely little garden. It was the reason I had to have the flat.”
How was it, I thought, that human beings were happy to live so close together in this urban jungle that a table and chair on a six-foot-square concrete slab constituted a garden to delight in? I was happier with the wide-open spaces of Newmarket Heath, but I knew that I would soon have to move and join the throng in this conurbation if I was to fulfill Mark’s ambition.
The flat itself was modern and minimalist in style, with plenty of bare wooden floors, and chrome barstools in the white-fronted kitchen. She had two bedrooms, but the smaller of them had been converted into a practice room, with a chair and music stand in the center and piles of sheet music around the walls.
“Don’t the neighbors object?” I asked.
“No,” she replied rather firmly. “I don’t play late at night or before nine in the morning, and no one has complained. In fact, the lady upstairs has said how much she loves to listen.”
“Will you play for me?” I asked.
“What, now?”
“Yes.”
“No,” she said. “I’m not playing for you until you’ve cooked for me.”
“That’s not fair. I would have cooked for you during the week if my car hadn’t crashed.”
“Excuses, excuses,” she said, laughing.
“What’s in your fridge?” I asked her. “I’ll cook for you now.”
“No you won’t,” she said. “We’re going down the pub. I’ve had to bribe the barman to hold us a table.”
Going down the pub with Caroline on a Saturday night was everything I had hoped it would be. The pub in question was The Atlas, around the corner in Seagrave Road, and it was packed. Even though she had somehow managed to make a reservation, this was unquestionably a pub and not a restaurant like the Hay Net, our bleached wooden table being underneath the window of the bar. Caroline sat on an upright wooden chair that reminded me of those at my school, while I fought my way through the crowd at the bar to choose a bottle of Chianti Classico from the blackboard and chalk wine lists that were proudly displayed above the mirror-backed serving area.
The food was good and also imaginative. Caroline chose grilled whole sea bass with couscous salad, while I plumped for the Cumberland sausages and garlic mashed potatoes. I wondered about the garlic, and so, obviously, did Caroline. She used her fork to pinch some of my potato. I caught her eye as she was putting it in her mouth. For a moment, we glanced deeper, into the inner soul, and then laughed as we both understood, unspoken, the reason why.