Creative Works

Too late

He pops his head round her door and whispers that he’s booked a table at Bocca di Lupo—the Italian where they ate on their first date. She’s about to answer when her iPhone rings and steals the moment. “Sorry, I have to take this. We can talk later.” “Eight then—don’t be late!” He leaves the office early to shave, change, and take the tube to Piccadilly, his mind already racing.

He pushes through the throng expelled from the underground like a flood of mice from a reclaimed barn. Caught in the cross-current of two conversations—one in his head and the other with a woman whose heel he catches—he wends his way along Kingsway. He glances to his right to see what’s on at the Aldwych, waits for the green light, crosses over Waterloo Bridge, and scurries down the slope past the IMAX, admiring the poems on the tunnel wall and dropping a coin in the hat of a busker as he passes. Counts to ten, ten steps up, and then another ten, till he reaches the station concourse, where steely-eyed businessmen and women with wheelie walkers stand and stargaze at the screen. He stops to let a train of Chinese tourists pass before rushing on to Platform Sixteen just in time to catch the 5.18. Doubts fill his brain. Who was that on the phone? Is this the Richmond train? He remembers the first time he saw her sitting in reception—a good looker, smart, managerial, she quickly caused a stir. He was there when she arrived.

“Sorry I’m late. There was an incident. I need a drink. Then we must talk.” “Sounds ominous.” His mind was a blur for most of the evening. The conversation was lost in the noise and confusion. The Chianti was too heavy. The Porchetta a mistake. The whisky an assault on his fragile senses. What was he thinking, for God’s sake