Ashes of Love
I had a mispent youth and you were it. Nottingham is not Paris, but Love could overlook the factories and the grime and the chimneys with their curling pythons of smoke. You were older and spotty. I was young and forgiving. We chased our dreams through potholed streets, blackened by industries’ unseemly belches. Everything of importance lay in your arms. First love makes its own glamour.
Ours was a winter love and that seemed right. The trees were bare and no birds sang.
When I saw you twenty years later my heart flipped. Not with desire, but with the memory of something long forgotten. You stood outside McDonald’s, a secret in your heart, an egg Macmuffin in your hand. Crumpled corduroys balanced uneasily on your worn leather shoes. Memories of the soft, pink flesh of your toes stepped aside as bunions lent an awkwardness to your gait. The politeness of ex lovers stepped daintily around our greeting. Fumbled kisses and furtive glances did little to betray our feelings. I tried to rub plum lipstick from your collar, but a hand quickly brushed me aside.
We entered the café, more billy tea than bistro. Our memories led the way, our middle aged bodies crept nervously behind. I remember the physical surroundings, yet do not remember what I wore. Life is strange sometimes. The walls were a dingy yellow, the ripped curtains clung modestly to rotting window panes. Black eyed cigarette burns gazed hollowly from the carpet. This was the long awaited meeting and I did not know what to say; or what not to say. Our eyes played peep bo, my fingers plucked nervously at a crumpled paper napkin. Interruptions. Apologies. Too loud laughter. These were our punctuation marks. We measured our lives, as Eliot, with coffee spoons.
I look up unexpectedly and catch you looking at me. It is a glance from twenty years ago; you are still there. I lean forward eagerly to catch your hand. Too late. You cough, a slow, hacking cough, and the moment has gone.
The gymslip waitress took our order, but what you wanted was not on the menu. In the distance a shrill kettle squealed in the act of completion. A rush of something hot and wet went unnoticed. Snippets of conversation fell and were brushed aside like autumn leaves. Summer was long since gone.
On a ledge above a chipped Elvis entreated me to love him tender while down below his wearily thrusting pelvis cried out for new batteries. I noticed the slim browning line on your index finger where once a wedding band had smugly sat and leant studiously over my latte. I didn’t want to think of the years that gaped in between. Years of hot thighs and tangled legs and urgent tongues. I wanted only to remember that slice of time when you were mine.
The place matters little, perhaps it always did. The only thing of importance is the country of our heart. I looked at the unfamiliar territory of your mind and wondered when we had lost the way. University is an idyll which held the whole of our humanity, or so we thought. We cast off our watches, only our passion remained. What need we of time, when we were together and now was our eternity?"
Walks along the River Trent meant everything. You have a million faults," you once said, "and I love every one of them." We wandered Wollaton Park a million times and every time was special. Around us deer grazed and grazed and grazed some more. The laughter of curious children did not disturb our loving. Of course there were fights, violent words and bitter smiles, but we were humans not gods. And even gods have their moments, or so we’re told.
As you pushed the plate away, remnants of poppyseed cake clung ludicrously to your beard. I longed to brush them away, but knew better than to try. Always it was thus. I spent my youth longing for your touch. Fumbling with matches you avoided my gaze and lit a comforting cigarette. A halo of smoke encircled your head, a latter day martyr? I nearly laughed and nearly cried.
You never mentioned your illness and I never guessed. It was always your way. Say nothing and all things will pass. Now I can pretend everything and know nothing. I pray your silent words concealed a brimming heart. As I got up to leave I caught a reflection in the glass of a woman with hennaed hair and crows feet scratching eagerly round girlish eyes. I paused to nod in recognition, you had already turned away. Bending forward, you slowly massaged a cigarette butt into a yellow, plastic ashtray. For a brief moment I thought I glimpsed a tiny puff of smoke corkscrew softly between us.