I suppose I wanted her to look at me. I suppose I wanted her to be interested in me like I was in her. But every time I looked to my right she was still there, staring steadfastly ahead — not even the faint glimmer of interest, it seemed.
four
It was a Friday afternoon. The very same commuters — I could recognise their faces, their bikes, their suits — I had seen that morning, shuffling into Islington and central London, were now making their way back, past the bench, under the rusting iron bridge; past the Canada geese, the coots, the moorhens, the whitewashed office block and trendy, lifeless flats, back towards Hackney and its environs. She uttered these words to me:
“Why do you come here everyday? You never used to …”
My right leg began to shake; I didn’t know what to say. I looked at her. She looked at me. I noticed that she had large dark eyes, a little droopy, cat-like, made up that way, the corners turned up with a flick of eye-liner — I was instantly attracted to them. To her. But this was nothing new, as I was often attracted to complete and utter strangers.
“Well?”
Her persistence unnerved me. I stammered. My right leg shook even more than usual.
“I … er … I’m bored.”
That was all I managed to say to her because as soon as I said it she got up and walked away, back towards Hackney, with the rest of the commuters. My leg stopped its involuntary paroxysms. I stared at the office workers across the canaclass="underline" one by one they switched off their flat-screen monitors. Some left the building alone, others in twos and threes — to begin the journey home, I guessed, or maybe to the nearest public house, it being a Friday. I got up and headed home towards Hackney as well.
five
A lot of people have attributed boredom to a lack of things to do — this has always confused me. For me the act of boredom, by its very nature, is doing something. As I have mentioned before, boredom moves me, it forces me to react. Boredom is often viewed as a defect of character, but this is wholly unfair. People who are bored are usually perceived by others as not willing to interact with those around them, or with society as a whole. This couldn’t be further from the truth: those who are bored, and, more importantly, embrace their boredom, have a far clearer perspective on a) themselves, and b) those around them. Those who are not bored are merely lost in superfluous activity: fashion, lifestyle, TV, drink, drugs, technology, et cetera — the usual things we use to pass the time. The irony being that they are just as bored as I am, only they think they’re not because they are continually doing something. And what they are doing is battling boredom, which is a losing battle.
I spent the whole weekend with them, drinking in the same pub, with the same people, the same faces; drinking the same drinks, saying the same things. After I had exhausted myself saying the same things I simply said nothing. I let those around me say the very same things for me. I drank. I can’t even remember stopping to eat, although I figure I must have done at some point. All I really wanted was to be back at the canal. My weekend was a waste. I wanted to be back on that bench, waiting for her.
six
It was Monday morning. The same commuters, the same bench. I didn’t care about the time; it was starting to pass me by anyway. I was sitting, picking at a spot that had formed on the bridge of my nose. Picking at the skin, the slight swelling around it. Pushing it in; tracing the bump that had formed with the tip of my finger. Stubble had begun to grow on my face, spreading like a virus. I had stopped shaving, but not consciously — I’d forgotten that that’s what I liked to do, that’s all. I continued to pick at my spot on the bridge of my nose. It took me a while to work out what had caused it: a wine glass. Well, many wine glasses over the course of the weekend, aggravating the skin as the rim caught it each time I tilted my head back to finish another glass. After I had worked that out it didn’t irritate me quite as much.
I found my thoughts drifting of their own accord towards her; I wanted her to turn up. I hoped that my crumbling riposte the previous week hadn’t alarmed her.
I fell for a girl in my class at school. She was called Caitlin Booth. Her parents were from Dublin and she had lived there up until the age of ten. Her accent was beautiful and mellifluous. I used to sit behind her. I would ignore the teacher (to such an extent that I can no longer remember which lesson it was we were attending). I would look at her golden hair, nestling on her shoulders — occasionally she would flick it, or tilt her head to the right, letting it fall over her blue eyes. The skin on the back of her neck was pale, freckled, and her clothes smelled faintly of the chips she had eaten at lunchtime. To me she was beautiful. One day I was instructed to sit next to her when the teacher grouped us all into pairs to work together on some exercise or other. I could hardly breathe, I was that nervous. My leg was probably shaking more that it ever has — either that or it was then that it first began to happen. I watched her take her pencil case and books from her bag. I looked at her books: on the back of one she had scrawled, Caitlin Booth loves Anthony Lomax 68 % and, Caitlin Booth loves Aaron Maguire 54 % and, Caitlin Booth loves Sean Owen 91 %. I could have died on the spot. She noticed me looking at her books; she smiled and asked me what I was looking at. So I told her. She told me that she didn’t really love them, that it was just a bit of fun. Then she said she’d do it for me. She wrote down her name and then mine. Then she began a multiplication and subtraction routine based, it seemed, on the letters in our names and their place in the alphabet. I stared. But I soon noticed that instead of writing the word loves in between our names — like she had done with the other names scrawled on her book — she had replaced it with the word loathes. I had never heard this word before — let alone seen it written down. I remember asking her what it meant: she told me that it was just another word for love. It felt like my whole body was shaking. Soon the multiplication and subtraction was complete and she showed me the result: she loathed me 98 %. I realise now that I have no idea or recollection as to what her true percentage was. I just remember being elated. That night, happy and madly in love, I looked up the word loathes in the pocket Oxford dictionary that I used to keep by my bed. I never looked at Caitlin Booth again.
I tried not to look bothered when she finally arrived: green. She was dressed in green. As usual she slowly sat herself down to my right. This time she turned directly towards me:
“So, you’re here again?”
“Yes.”
“Bored?”
“Yes.”
“I’m worried …”
“Why?”
“The dredgers haven’t arrived …”
“I’ve been thinking about that, too.”
“Are you just saying that?”
“No, really, I’ve been waiting for the dredgers, too.”
She released a long, drawn-out yawn. It seemed to last aeons; the whole shape of her face changed. It reminded me of an Aphex Twin video I had once seen that I cannot recall the name of — not particularly being a fan of Aphex Twin’s music. After she has finished yawning she turned to me again:
“I once lied to my boyfriend …”
“What about?”
“I told him that I was pregnant. I told him that it was his baby …”