A Passing Acquaintance

The man stands motionless, wedged into his three-piece pinstripe skin that was tailored the best part of two decades ago.  The outfit would have appeared shabby and incomplete had it not been for the Brogues.  As an ensemble it distracted the eyes from the near threadbare elbows and fraying lapels, loose hems and fading lines.  The dull tinge of on-setting rust shaded the links in the chain of his pocket watch.  Hidden beneath his trousers were sock hold-ups lacking elasticity to the point where the three day old, cologne-drenched socks sat slack around his ankles.  The crude swallow inked amid his greying chest hair told of a past he had always been cautious to divulge.  There was an old, empty cartridge in the fountain pen clipped to his breast pocket but he felt sure no one would ever find out as he rarely had cause to use it.  He stood apart without intention from the likes of the tracksuits, jeggings, Ug boots and fur-lined gillets that greedily swarmed the length and breadth of the city’s streets.

Distracted for only a moment by a Hermès cravat in the window of their Bond Street store, Rupert was jolted into breathlessness as his shoulder collided with someone else’s.  Everything else seemed to fade to silence as his assailant’s mobile phone kissed the pavement.  He looked down to see the top of a hair do coiffed with fashionable attentiveness.  After a slender arm had reached for the telephone, the head rose slowly on a shapely neck to reveal a young and handsomely angular face.

               As the phone rose to the young man’s ear on a profuse wave of apology, a voice drifted quietly from it quite unaware of not being listened to.  The soft lilt of its voice matched perfectly the strange grey eyes and seraphic face framed by the shoulder-length mahogany mane.  Her unassuming beauty rang out in her pronunciation of gentle vowels.  She had stumbled unintentionally into floristry and would have liked, had she known, that the smell of thousands of blooms clung to her every fibre.
               At the end of that day as with every other, Alana had trussed her hair up into a messy bun that barely seemed capable of containing them.  She thought to herself how the bunch of peace lily’s, still in full bloom on her coffee table at home would not need to be replaced for days, before locking up.  The scarf that seemed incapable of staying around her neck found itself trailing for her bag as Alana rummaged clumsily for her flat key.  The rooms she had returned to for the best part of a year welcomed her with the enveloping smell of wood, nag champa, pollen and tea.  The door bell rang just as the flat door clicked locked.
“Who is it?”
“It’s Josh, I’m looking for Etienne.”
“You’re after the buzzer that’s two across and...four down from the top left.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s no problem.”
               Josh drew a deep breath as he relished the knowledge that he had not had to see the face of the young woman who had been at the other end.  There was no voice at the end of the correct button.  Instead he was buzzed in almost immediately, giving the strong impression he was both expected and late.  His jeans, hanging low on his hips, were weighed down as he climbed the stairs by his sizeable belt buckle.  Etienne’s flat was surprisingly minimalist for someone so flamboyant, though the few knickknacks he had were not present without meaning and forethought.  Among other things the miniature globe, stuffed humming bird, bongos, cat skull, box brownie camera, records, juggling clubs, sea horse tank and antique coat stand all had their place and purpose.
               The two young men sat talking about accordions for some time until, realising he was parched, Etienne left the sofa in search of tea.  Catching his eye from the communal garden visible from the kitchen window, a young boy wheeled himself around on a tricycle.  The plump legs jutting from the trousers he was on the way to outgrowing, struggled to maintain momentum and kept him jerking in stops and starts.  From the window of the ground floor flat below Etienne the young boy’s mother, Nadine, watched him in the intermittent glances away from her online bingo.  Tired from a hard day’s work, Nadine was chatting flirtatiously to a man she had met through an online dating site and with whom she was arranging a meeting.  She had lead him to believe she was dolled-up and ready for a night out and he had convinced her he was still in the office closing a deal when in fact he was sat in an internet cafe in town.  They would laugh about these discrepancies in their truths two years from now, on their honeymoon.
               The cafe’s only waitress scurried ceaselessly between tables oblivious to the gazes she distracted from the screens and dragged behind her along her erratic path.
“Beth, you still have a cappuccino sitting here waiting for you to take it to the gentleman outside.”  Helena found her boss’ patronising reminders coated in sickly-sweet, feigned good intention infuriating.  Negotiating her way around chair legs to the door, the blaring of an ambulance siren as it tore down the street completely surprised her.  The shudder of shock that ran through her was enough to allow the drink to slip from her grip.  Upon hitting the floor, the cup and saucer fractured into eight pieces in a trickling, caffeinated pool.  Hunched and balancing on the balls of her feet, Beth's embarrassment was soon forgotten as a pair of Brogues caught and held her eye until they had rounded a distant corner.