Lee Rourke - The Canal

“…”

She shrugged. She did it without looking at me. Then she yawned. I began to speak some more; I couldn’t handle the situation, the silence. This wasn’t how I had envisaged it to be.

“What do you think they’re building?”

She looked up immediately. I asked this already knowing the answer, but it was all I could think of to ask her.

“ Who? Them ?”

She raised her eyes towards the table opposite.

“No. No. No. Not them … No … The space. Where our bench used to be. What do you think they’re going to be building? The health centre will be knocked down and everything …”

“ Building ?”

“Yes. Where our bench used to be …”

“Flats.”

“Do you reckon?”

“I don’t care, to be honest.”

“Oh. Why?”

“It’s a pointless and boring question.”

“Oh.”

“ I really don’t care .”

She continued to look downwards, towards her feet, the floor, a speck of dust. She looked uncomfortable, as if she didn’t want to be recognised. The man and woman were laughing, sharing a secret joke or something. They were sitting closer to each other, and he was stroking her cheek with the back of one hand. She was blinking, blushing a little, not coquettishly, but knowingly, as if they had planned something devious together. The woman was wearing a tight black skirt and black, thin tights that were thin enough to give a hint, a sniff of pale flesh underneath. She was almost bursting out from her expensive-looking white blouse. She was clicking the heel of her right stiletto on the tiled floor — like an old clock ticking down the hours. In the silence that had now descended upon the whole café, her clicking heel was all that could be heard.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Click.

I noticed that my own right leg had begun to shake furiously — as if in synchronicity with the sound of her heel. I tried to stop it but I couldn’t. Then our food came, the bored waitress almost dropping each plate onto the table. I stared at my plate of food. I couldn’t eat it. I looked up and she was tucking in, eating it like it was her last ever meal.

“You’re hungry.”

“Yes.”

“Are you in a rush?”

“Yes.”

I took my knife and fork and dug into the hot steaming potato covered in the thick, indistinguishable chili. I swallowed it quickly. It was way too hot for the roof of my mouth. On any other day this would have been a great little meal and I’d have probably wolfed the whole lot down, but the sudden appearance of the man and woman from the whitewashed office block had put an abrupt halt to any such thing.

His hair was perfectly groomed in that ruffled, just-got-out-of-bed look that seemed popular with males of no imagination who still followed the fashions. His shoes looked expensive. There wasn’t a blemish on his face. It was a happy, good-looking face, contained and unaware. She had recently dyed her hair it seemed; it looked healthy and in vogue. By her clicking heel was her expensive-looking bag — large, garish, open and stuffed with three thick, glossy fashion magazines. She looked happy, too.

“Why aren’t you eating your food?”

Her plate was empty and she was looking directly at me, holding her mug of hot chocolate in her cupped hands.

“I don’t know … It’s just that …”

“That what?”

“Well, that as soon as those two people walked in … that man and woman … something changed.”

“ Something ?”

“ You . You changed, you turned inwards …”

“Why would those two people affect me?”

“I don’t know. You tell me.”

“There’s nothing to tell …”

“ Yes, there is . But you explain things only when you want to, it always seems …”

“…”

I was beginning to feel quite angry. I wanted to shout something out. I wanted to shake her.

She began to yawn, quite openly, looking back down towards her feet, avoiding the man and the woman on the table opposite.

I have often thought that cafés are strange places — especially if you frequent them alone. A kind of nothingness can be created, seated as you invariably are at your preferred table by the window, watching the world pass you by outside, or the rain trickle down the pane. It is as if you are floating, completely suspended in nothingness.

They began to kiss again. This time for longer and with added passion. Both continued in a world of their own making. A world there, opposite us, close enough to touch, or disrupt. The kiss lasted for minutes; it was quite uncomfortable to watch, but it was impossible to ignore. It felt awkward, like we had all walked in on a private moment.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Click.

It was at that moment that she began to sob in front of me. Silently. Her shoulders shaking. The tears streaming down her cheeks, hardly showing any emotion. I tried to reach out to her, to touch her hand, but she recoiled, as if my mere touch would harm her.

She allowed the tears to fall, smearing her mascara, trickling down each pale cheek. I wanted to wipe them away, but I knew there was nothing I could have done to help her.

— nine -

Everything was beginning to make me angry. It should have been me on the table opposite, not with the woman he was with, but with her. I should have been there, doing those things, the same things as he was with her.

Her tears wouldn’t cease, and her silence somehow made them seem all the more significant — like she was crying for everyone.

I have never been able to handle the tears of other people. I have walked out of rooms when I shouldn’t have done as close friends of mine have allowed the tears to fall from their eyes in front of me. I have asked family members to stop crying at funerals. It’s not that I am against emotion or the outpouring of sadness. It’s the physical secretion, the physical act, the physical act of expelling something from deep inside. It’s like the force of gravity has pulled each tear from within the body, back out, down towards the earth where it belongs. It’s the constant reminder of the weight that envelops us all — the return to nothingness. To dirt.

“Why are you crying?”

“…”

“ Please , why are you crying?”

“…”

“ Please, answer me …”

“…”

The other couple had stopped kissing and had started to tuck into their own food after the bored woman had interrupted them with it. After each mouthful they would stop to giggle and whisper. I don’t think they even noticed us sitting opposite. I don’t even think they knew we were there.

“ Please , why are you crying?”

“…”

“What’s wrong?”

“…”

“ Please , I’m concerned … Are you okay ?”

“…”

She wiped away the tears from her eyes. She looked up at me, she looked over at them, all the while wiping the tears away, the woman’s heel still clicking.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Click.

I couldn’t really think of anything to say. It seemed impossible to say the right thing. I wanted them to leave, to leave us alone. Suddenly, she turned to look at me.

“I’m sorry.”

Before I could reply, before I could blink even, she rose from her seat and walked over to their table. She addressed only him, ignoring the woman, without even as much as a derisory glance towards her. The man and the woman stopped what they were doing and both looked up at her simultaneously. The man had a nonplussed look upon his face, probably thinking there was a problem with his order or something.