Chapter 1

Chains
Chapter 1

1.

Most things happen by accident. That was the way it was. If I'd known, maybe I would have gone a different way home; maybe I'd have gone the same way. God knows, I walked that way many times afterwards, just to feel it, to experience again that feeling, the sense of being lost that in it's own peculiar way sometimes gives us release, sometimes gives us a push towards freedom.

What was happening I did not know, but I was, I suppose, responsible for some of it. There are times when life becomes a chore, an enemy, a fatigue; times when you walk away, go under or laugh at it. I had walked away, or tried to and was now an observer in another life that was creating itself around me, the way that sometimes it does, if you let it. I wanted to let it, so I sat back and allowed it to do its work.

It was November. Not my favourite month, though in many ways I liked it. It suited me, with its darkness that you could hide in, its anonymity that you could lose yourself in. This was a wet evening, as Novembers often are. Like they say in stories, the rain glistened on the pavements. I drove slowly through crowded streets, thick with traffic. It was a Friday. A detached voice droned pleasantries and platitudes from the radio as I meandered slowly along, the windscreen wipers swishing and swooshing, lazy and hypnotic, my tired eyes trying hard to see through the leaves that clung miserably to the windscreen; falling from the trees that lined the road. The interminable snake of traffic inched along as my mind unaccountably drifted back 6 months, to the time not long after I had come here, after I was forced to come here. I later realized that maybe this was some strange subliminal working of the mind, putting things together, creating coherence where at first it seemed there was chaos. Maybe I was right, but maybe it was just the rain and the dark that made me think of the passing and re-passing of things, the twining and intertwining of events, the chance happenings that embed themselves in our lives and in some way help to shape us all.

2.
It was a rainy day in late May. I had arrived at the funeral almost late. I didn't know the woman, at least not very well, but it was sad. I remember getting off the train, hoping this was the right stop. Dreary, those trains, like a hundred lifetimes had been lived inside of them and all of them had felt that it wasn't really enough. I had always found dreary things to have their own special romance though, so I liked it. I liked it in the way that you like seeing the breath coming out of your mouth in winter. The woman in front of me going up the stairs had a hole in her tights, just above the knee, on the inside. I looked. She had nice legs and a beige raincoat. It was the beige raincoat that made me look at her, because I like beige raincoats on women. The belt was tight and her waist was narrow. There were squashed tin cans, old cigarette packets and forlorn rubbish on the stairs and going across the bridge. Although it was early, they hadn't cleaned the place. Maybe they didn't clean anymore. The lost, the discarded. The woman disappeared through the exit and I sighed, stepping outside into the rain. Dilapidation is both inside and out.

I didn't know the area, but it was busy. Tiny narrow shops crammed together in the High Street, tall buildings with flats above. They had those grey indeterminate curtains and dirty windows you always find. Why do people in flats above shops never wash their curtains? The road was up and people were irate, but then people were always irate. Maybe they didn't like the weather; the thin rain, persistent like a bad cold. Hot rain, and cold winds. The weather didn't know what it was doing anymore. That's something else we've lost. I didn't want to remember this area just by the funeral, so I explored, looking idly for a café to sit in. I had time. Then I located the church where the funeral was to be, it turned out to be up a side street, tucked away. It was hard work finding it. I walked up and down the road it was supposed to be in until I found a church-like building, but it had no sign outside. It looked like it had once been a church but had been turned into a community centre. No one goes to church anymore, not surprising at the end of history. I stood, wondering what to do. An old man came along, making for the door, a relative I assumed, and so I asked him.
"Excuse me, I said. "Do you know if this is the church of the Holy Virgin? He looked at me, bleary eyed.
"Eh? he said, and that was all. He didn't seem to care much. Grief, I supposed.
"I'm trying to find the church of the Holy Virgin, and I'm wondering if this is it. Do you happen to know? I asked hopefully. He looked at me again, effort plain on his face.
"Aye, this is a church.
I did wonder how he could know so little about the church his relative was being buried in. I understood later. I had one last try.
"Is it called the Holy Virgin? I asked, pointing. At last, victory.
"Aye this is the Holy Virgin. and he stumped off, as though to walk was an effort. Maybe it was.

In the church later, I listened to the woman giving the address. I had sat curiously through the service; I had never been inside a catholic church before. My first thought had been, 'well, she knew a lot of people, that's something.' It was true, there must have been over fifty there. Not a bad turnout, all things considered. A lot of people from work I recognized, but a lot of people I didn't. Fifty people to remember that you'd been alive. That comforted me; perhaps we need comfort at times like that, when you remember your mortality, when you're afraid you'll be alone, when life seems fragile and short. They looked down at heel, some of them, but then, it wasn't an affluent area. The beige raincoat wasn't there though. Shame. The service had gone through the usual rituals of hymns and readings, then a communion. After the communion, half the congregation left, including the bleary eyed man, all shuffling along the aisles, heads down either in piety or tiredness, it was hard to tell. That startled me for a bit, then gradually, as they filed out, I realized. They'd only come in off the street for the service, maybe for the warmth. An assortment of the lonely, the desperate and the down and out. At least it seemed that way. What people were left were all from work, except two: the woman giving the address and a fat man who seemed to be her husband.

She spoke well, that woman. She spoke of how the deceased had lived alone in her small flat; how she gave money regularly out of her small wage to charities; how she was dedicated to her job; how she fed the cats that roamed near the block where she lived; how she cared about people and kept on caring, even when they didn't care about her or when they laughed at her; how her faith kept her going. It touched me and I felt sad, but I also thought, 'good for you, well done', because she had kept her humanity even when humanity had kept away from her. People shouldn't have to live like that, I thought.

I made my way through the thin throngs at the end of it all. Squeezed past the tables full of bibles and leaflets exhorting me to come to a prayer group 'for people just like me.' I stood outside the church, feeling now an urgent desire to get away. I didn't want to know about false dawns and fabricated hopes; longings for the hereafter predicated on a dream, dissatisfaction nurtured by those with an idea to sell, life mortgaged on the premise of a presumed eternity. No, I wanted to let life, real life, do what it wanted, come what may. I said my polite goodbyes and eased myself away, heading for the High Street and a cup of coffee.

It was a day off at any rate. That's what I told myself; never mind funerals, grimy trains, the clacking of rosary beads and unwashed curtains. It was a day off. I was getting paid and it was a day of freedom. I couldn't at that moment think of a better way of spending the rest of it than sitting in a cafe, so I made for the little place my painstaking researches had earlier revealed to me. I slipped inside. A dark haired woman was sitting in a corner by the wall and next to her was an empty table, so I sat down, glancing at her in passing. She lifted her head and gave a bright smile, which I returned. Nice eyes I thought, probably a nice woman. We had exchanged that brief moment of mutual recognition, two human beings who for one small pause in eternity had noticed each other's existence and had thought it to be alright.

After I had ordered and was waiting for a bite to eat, I sat back for a while, enjoying the warmth and anonymity, the incessant hum of chatter and the slow, low rhythms of music in the background. I read in the paper about a man who had swallowed 85 boiled eggs in just two minutes, about a woman whose presumed dead husband had turned up after 15 years of absence when she had re-married and who wanted his old life back; about a young lady who had nearly died in the genocide of Africa, escaped to England and won a scholarship to Cambridge only for the authorities to later try to deport her back to poverty and loss; and I marvelled at the infinite variety of life, and the eternal duplicity of politicians. While I was attempting the crossword, the door creaked open and in walked the beige raincoat. She didn't have much choice except to sit near me, as most tables were by now taken. She slid into a chair and I could see her face, and it was pleasant, so I smiled. No returning mutual recognition this time though. Her eyes flickered across me as though I was wallpaper and she looked around for a menu.
"Here, have mine, I offered, keeping up the pleasantness.
She seemed momentarily startled, as though I had tried to bite her, but then forced a smile.
"Oh, thanks very much, and then she looked down, intent upon her choices.
I left her to it, judging that mostly, people want to be left alone when thinking about eating.

Over my coffee I thought back to the dead woman. I had liked her, though I knew she hadn't been popular at work. I hadn't really known why and I didn't trouble to find out. Her name was Edith and she was nearly 60, but it was still too young to die. She had only been 9 months from retirement, although I had worked out she didn't really want to, as work was somewhere for her to go to get away from being alone at home. I looked up and the beige raincoat was getting ready to go. I didn't want her to, so on impulse I blurted out:
"Won't you join me for another coffee? It's still raining outside. I'd never done that before, never propositioned a woman I had hardly spoken to; but something made me. That stray remark was to have a profound effect on my entire life, but of course I didn't know that at the time, you never do. She gave me a long look, clearly surprised at my temerity, though with legs like hers she probably got it all the time.
"Thank you, but I have to get back to work, she smiled, and belted up her raincoat tightly, like it was a chastity belt, determined to repel all invaders. Fair enough I thought. I made a couple more desultory attempts to keep her there, marginally in my life for a minute or two more, then gave up as she smiled primly and walked away.

I sighed and leaned back in my chair. I couldn't help noticing that the dark haired woman was laughing.
"She wasn't having any of it, was she? she grinned.
Startled, I grinned back, impulsively. I hadn't expected a comment.
"Er, no, it didn't look like it, did it?
"She wasn't your type anyway. I didn't like her much. She slurped her coffee. What is it men see in women like that? She put her book down and glared.
"I don't suppose you think it through like that, it's just impulse.
"You lot seem to go for those tall haughty types. Can't think why, it never does any good. She changed tack abruptly. "You're new round here aren't you? she wrinkled her brow.
I hesitated for a moment. I don't like to give much away, especially to complete strangers; but she had a warmth about her that invited confidences, and I gave in, just a bit.
"Fairly, I said. "What makes you say that? My turn for the questions.
She looked at me as if sizing up my cognitive abilities, which on reflection, she probably was.
"It's obvious isn't it? No-one but the desperate would lunge after a woman like her in that way. Your tone of voice, too. You can't have many friends, but you're OK to look at and you're not a psycho, ergo, you must be new round here. She stated it matter of factly, like a lawyer summing up a case. Despite myself, I was impressed.
"How could you know I'm not a psycho? I felt like being a bit mischievous.
"Your eyes, she replied briefly, "they're too gentle. It's not for nothing they're called the windows of the soul. You just need to know what you're looking for.
I paused for a moment, a bit taken aback. "Well, you might be able to deduce the root cause of impulse, but you can't deduce the motivation. That had her thinking for a bit. She wrinkled her brow, again, then her demeanour changed and she gave a long peal of laughter.
"You must forgive me. People say I'm too intense. Probably explains why I'm sitting here on my own, and she smiled and her eyes danced and her hair bounced. She was easy to talk to, so we talked. I had nothing else to do and seemingly neither did she, because we sat there for another 20 minutes or so, chatting. She was easy to talk to partly because she was non-threatening, to me at least. I should clarify that: non- threatening sexually. I felt no attraction to her at all, none. She was quite simply a nice person, a bit intense as she said, but nice, and it had been a long time since I had sat and chatted with a friendly woman. After the day I had so far endured, it was comforting, like luxuriating in a warm bath. Her name was Louise Turgut and she worked in an art gallery. She was half English and half Turkish. The last I remember of her was walking along the dingy High Street with her art gallery card in my hand, waving goodbye as she shot manically across the road towards the tube station.