For want of a key…
They say you never forget how to ride a bike…
Mind you I was a late developer on that score; I’m ashamed to say it took me a few formative years longer than I bet it did most of you to kick the stabilizer habit. Still, once I found the guts to finally risk a wobble, there was no stopping me coasting up and down our drive; and it’s not a bad metaphor for my personal life either, given it took me until nearly my thirtieth year to finally cut loose.
Lately I’ve endured a strange semi-hiatus though haven’t I, what with all that meaningful soul-searching, etc. And yet no sooner do I hit the town in ‘manufactured’ offline BD mode and suddenly I feel refreshed, reinvigorated and ready to play again, this time trying not to think too hard. Not that I’d completely discarded such targeted confidence. I mean I never stopped applying it to my professional life throughout my litany of soliloquies. But then I’ve found that way, way easier to do than dealing with affairs of the heart (and flesh). I always have.
And so whatever the pros and cons of Casual Ties or Casualties and other such caveats of my own declaration over the last two or three years, true to some recent inward renegotiating, I’ve let the butterfly back into the garden.
Where and when? Actually it was at one of those social media induced reunions that are becoming increasingly common. A few old faces from Archer Publishing now spread elsewhere across the usual six degrees of separation network that Sammie had rustled up; she’s always been the more proactive one in terms of our friendship. Thankfully there was no ‘Jonesy’ for her to fend off, but it was an interesting mix of faces nonetheless, including even some of my old sales team too who, I say sounding almost like a proud parent, really have moved onwards and upwards.
To be fully nostalgic, and satisfy some guilty pleasured kitsch, we met at one of those seriously sad cattle markets that once upon what seems eons ago now had seen many a company leaving do descend into drunken debauchery (although most of those took place in the days of my before when I’d haunted the mere fringes of all that fun stuff).
You know the routine of these things though. You end up drifting into little cliques of conversation. It’s just the way of most after-hours social groupings. And that’s how I ended up talking to someone I’d really only nodded the odd ‘good morning’ to during our previous acquaintance. She’d been in editorial, a getting nearer to the top of the pile on one of Archer’s stronger titles. Now she was top of the pile at a rival publisher. Indeed I felt this was somewhat of an honour for her to be amongst us peasants from the sales, admin and accounts backwaters of past and, in the case of a couple at least, still present. But to be fair she’d been very pally with one of our ex publishers who’d also deemed to show up so I guess that’d been her hook.
The conversation started (this time) because she actually recalled a rather significant moment in my life. “I remember you singing Mac The Knife at one of our Christmas Parties,” she’d said as an ice-breaker. Oh that day. That fateful day! The day Jane Compton sat on my knee after a quite uncharacteristic piece of musical bravado where I’d let BD jump on the bike, something I was back then only just getting used to. Anyhow I guess I was flattered by her recollection – I’m still a sucker for such things (how very human of me) – and that was my own hook.
Well naturally she was older. Back then she’d been in her thirties and heading for written accomplishment. Now she was into her next decade, accomplished, and notably sassier for it. Funny isn’t it though… I mean I never saw that side of her before; maybe because I never knew her before. And isn’t it great rediscovering someone you’d in fact built up a completely different impression about based more on your own assumptions than perhaps bothering to get to know them in the first place. But I’m being a bit harsh with myself here. That was a different time. I was a different person.
Well naturally we flirted. And it was most certainly by design rather than accident on my part. Once I’d got the racy questions out the way (I’d already spotted there was no ring) and ascertained a divorce and no kids, I felt a little more comfortable in testing the waters. I’ve done this many times before. You know I have. I’ve told you often enough. There was nothing new here, except that maybe there was now a touch more colder calculation thrown in than normal. But I saw she was going with it. She was sparky, sarcy, funny and so typically superiorly editorial in the way she liked to wrong foot; the quintessential red rag to my wannabe bull you might say.
The memory lane night wore on and down went cocktails and wine, although I was tempering my own intake just in case. Why be coy, I admit it. I was growing interested so… so that was an advisable thing to do. Eventually folk drifted off for another year or five. I saw Sammie smirking at me from a shady corner but although she still doesn’t know everything she knows enough these days to leave me to it; she was probably having her own fun and games anyway.
What can I say? The conversation wasn’t particularly profound. And I wasn’t pissed but a smattering of alcohol had made us both take the chatter into our personal lives and how we enjoyed the freedom of singularity (this was good to hear too. It meant potential.) And once we’d established that little fact I couldn’t help but nudge the boundaries a tad further, letting myself just fancy someone without all the accompanying analysis for once. She played along too. Or maybe like Tammy, my ManhattanGal, she was just playing out her own intended part the way I was playing mine.
Later, at Charing Cross, our au revoir was the lusciously kind of overdue snog that sexual tension was made for. We’d both known it was going to happen. She was older and bolder, and, these days, so was I. But what next; her way was Kent, mine was Essex, yet the look in our eyes was crying out ‘Tonight!’ Only a hotel was too complicated, my offices were a stuffy tube or gridlocked cab ride away and although hers were far, far closer, she’d annoyingly (or luckily) forgotten her keys today. Bugger! Another wanting snog, but this moment was now passing, foiled by unforeseen logistics. It was< sigh> time to say goodnight. Still we both know where the other is now. Although somehow I think this fantasy was a dish best served in the then and there only.
Ah well, maybe the whole thing was just supposed to be a starter for ten anyway.
It’s good to be back…
By Bastian Dash
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