Today's Date
Sue Welfare
Published by Sue Welfare at Smashwords
Copyright 2011 Sue Welfare
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Today's Date
11.36 a.m. and Van is standing under the clock on platform eight on Kings Cross station. He is early, wanting to be absolutely certain that he is in the right place under the right clock at the right time.
People flow around him like the waters of a colourful river. Above the rumble of the trains, the sounds of traffic and the cacophony of voices, the tannoy announces the arrival of the Edinburgh train, while close by an eddy forms and swirls around a young woman with sad eyes. She is carrying a toddler on her hip and hauling a battered pink suitcase on wheels.
Fighting the temptation to take another look at his watch Van catches the upturned eyes of a plump blonde woman who is heading towards him in a spotted sundress that barely contains her generous fleshy body. She gives him a sly knowing wink. He feels himself blushing.
'Please don't let it be Beatrice, please don’t let it be Beatrice,' he mutters under this breath while, not even breaking step, she sails straight past him.
Van sighs; he is hot.
'Linen, ' his sister had said, leaning forward to brush an invisible speck off his shoulders. ' It always looks good even if it's a bit crumpled. ' It was crumpled now. He could feel the sweat trickling down between his shoulder blades.
Beatrice, 5'11", thirty two, size ten and a natural blonde, had arranged to meet him at 11.45 a.m. or perhaps a minute or two after because, after a life time of dating Mr Wrong, she was looking for love and her own happy-ever-after with a kind warm hearted Mr Right.
Van knew her profile off by heart. They had chatted for months on line exchanging emails and instant messages, words flying backwards and forwards across the ether, ripe with easy conversation and hobbies and recipes for sloe gin and favourite books. He had made a note of everything she liked and disliked.
At night in his dreams Van could hear her voice in his head and smell her perfume. She had been his lifeline for the last few months, his joy when everything else had been dark and difficult.
'For God's sake, don't say that, it makes you sound maudlin. And any way all that's over now,' his sister said briskly. 'And we did really well between us, didn't we? You were brilliant.' And then she had hugged him. 'I've got to go now and drop the kids off at school. Good luck and don't look so worried, Van. You'll be fine. If I was a woman I'd be so pleased to find a man like you. Caring and kind and patient.'
'But you are a woman,' Van protested.
She'd laughed, 'Don't tell Arthur that, he'd never get over the shock. Oh come on, chin up. You know what I mean. How could she not fancy you - my gorgeous brilliant brother?'
Van didn't feel brilliant. He felt lost. What was the point of getting up in the morning if there was no one there to talk to or to joke with and jolly along, no one to wash and feed. What was he going to do all day?
'Buy a dog,' his sister had said. 'Or a canary.'
If Van and Beatrice liked the look of each other they planned to go somewhere for lunch – her suggestion not his - but not on the tube because Beatrice hated the tube.
'Let's just follow our noses,' had been her last comment on instant messenger the night before. ' Don't worry. It'll be fun. Trust me. We'll find somewhere that we like the look of, just pop in and order whatever takes our fancy.'
It had seemed like a really good idea on line, but standing under the clock it struck Van that following your nose around here might get you into all sorts of trouble.
He stole a glace at his watch. He didn't know what time her train was arriving, perhaps she had already walked pass him, seen all that she needed to see and thought that he wasn't worth stopping for. Perhaps she had already gone home. He looked up and down the platform, trying very hard not to look anxious, trying to pick her face out from the crowd.
He had a photograph of her. He had printed it off before he left the house. It was the one Beatrice had sent him when they'd first started talking to each other, taken during some kind of girls only holiday. There were eight or nine young women sitting together under a palm tree, drinking cocktails around a table. Beatrice said she was the one on the far right, with the ponytail, the one leaning across the table, waving and smiling. On screen he could see she was doing both and was definitely blonde, but even with a magnifying glass and his eyes screwed up he couldn't really make out much more than that. When he'd tried to zoom in all he got was a blur of pixilation, still smiling, still waving.
He had moved his computer downstairs into the dining room in the Spring so that he could look out into the garden and watch the birds. It had been his sister's idea.
'I don’t understand why on earth are you still cooped up, up here in your bedroom, Van,' she'd said, throwing open the window on the landing. 'Come on. Let's let some air in here, you've got the run off the place now. ' She made a sweeping gesture meant to encompass the whole house.
'Why don't you get a skip in and clear all this old rubbish out, buy yourself some decent modern furniture, tart the place up a bit. Or sell up and start over. I really wouldn't mind. There's no reason why you should stay here now, you know that, don't you?'
But he didn't think he could bring himself to part with all the old things, not yet, this chair by the fire with the arms worn down by the weight of countless arms, or the oval mirror above the fireplace in the sitting room with silvering so tarnished that you couldn't see anything it in. One day he might be ready, but not now. There were too many memories he wasn't ready to part with yet, so he hadn't moved anything and planned to stay exactly where he was for the time being. That had been one of his mother's favourite expressions. The time being.
I'll be all right for the time being. We'll manage for the time being. I'll be fine here, for the time being.
He missed her time being.
Van had already made his mind up that if Beatrice wasn't there by noon he'd call it a day and go home.
A little further along the platform, standing by the ticket barriers another man was waiting too. He was tall and plump with the kind of pallor that came from a life spent indoors. He had brought flowers, a great big bunch of blousy pink peonies, their stems wrapped around in a polythene bag, which made Van think that despite appearances he must have grown them himself.