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Marylebone Platform Six: Arrival

Is it too late at forty one? It was the first question that Jane wanted to ask, impatiently thumbing a magazine in the waiting room. She had read the literature, seen the changes in risk profiles past certain ages, heard the opinions of friends, family, strangers in forums on the internet, and the consensus was that it wasn’t too late. It wasn’t, perhaps, ideal but it wasn’t too late. She wanted to hear it out loud from a professional. She wanted somebody with a medical certificate on their wall, preferably wearing a white coat, to spell it out to her.

The waiting room was the same as she remembered it from the only time she’d persuaded Paul to come. Curved, vertically slatted, wood panelled walls framed the space, a light wood that softened the room and retained the light. They’d talked about it when they’d sat here together, a distraction from the real reason they were there. He thought it looked like somebody’s idea of the future from the 1970s, she thought it was Scandinavian and designed to evoke a sense of calm. Now she wasn’t so sure, sat there alone. It wasn’t helping the knottiness in her stomach or her quick glances around the room each time a door opened or the receptionist shuffled a set of papers or the printer on her desk hummed to life or the telephone rang. She didn’t think Paul had been right either. If this was an imagined future then it was not one she would ever have imagined for herself.

There were six other people in the waiting area with her, all couples, all sat quietly, two of them holding hands, the other sat side by side, her with her head leant across his shoulder. Everyone had acknowledged each other every time somebody new arrived, usually a silent nod or smile, a tacit sign that whilst nobody knew the details of everyone’s story they did understand the gist of it, understood that they had all reached an inflection point where they were all looking for the same happy ending. Jane had found that smallest moment of connection oddly moving and had immediately bent over to rummage in her bag, pretending to look for something important, so that she could compose herself, hold back the tears that were threatening to run down her face.

Jane watched two of the couples, in turn, be called to another room ahead of her. In their absence she imagined the myriad of chance events that could have played out that led them here, the arbitrary sequences where biological collisions were missed or cellular reactions spluttered and faded or genetics were just wired, unknowingly, against the hopeful protagonists from the start. She tried to read their faces as they came back into the waiting area but everyone carried the same pensive, considered look that they had as they entered. Maybe they didn’t know anymore than they did before. Maybe everyone realised, out of respect, that this wasn’t the place to show more than cautious optimism. Not everyone would leave with the news they wanted. Jane had read enough of the statistics to understand that.

Her name was called and she was directed down a corridor towards the back of the waiting area, and then into a room, marked simply with the name of her fertility consultant and the assorted set of letters after his name. MBBS BSc MD DFFP MRCOG. She didn’t understand any of it beyond the BSc but was reassured in its impenetrability, in its length, in its blank capitalisation. She hesitated and then tentatively knocked. If Paul had been her she knew he’d have hung back, waited for her to make things happen. The thought galvanised her and she didn’t wait for a response, just pushed the door open and stepped through.

Doctor Jacobs – Andrew, please, call me Andrew – was the owner of the various initials on the door and Jane listened as he talked through the potential IVF pathways open to her, detailed the risk profile information that she had already exhaustively googled, and gave her an honest appraisal of her chances. It’s a physical and emotional commitment, Mrs Roberts, and there’s no guarantees but you’re healthy, all your indicators are as good as they can be, so it’s certainly not a situation where I’d be looking to dissuade you.

“I prefer Jane,” said Jane suddenly. “I’m just finalising some paper work but I don’t think of myself as Mrs Roberts anymore.”

Andrew tilted his head slightly to the side. “Your ex-husband. Of course. I am so sorry about his death, Jane.”

“Thank you,” she said. “We were actually divorced but there was some admin to finalise and then he died. It was all very unexpected.”

“He explained it to me,” said Andrew. “I really am so sorry, I was so caught up in explaining the processes and the details that I usually cover. I really should have started with that.”

“He explained it?”

Andrew opened a file on his desk and picked through the sheets of paper inside it, eventually finding what he was looking for, pulling it out and placing it in front of her. “He wanted you to have this. He wanted me to give you this.”

Jane stared at it for a few moments, caught between curiosity and a sense of deep apprehension. She’d sat on the train on her way in mentally preparing for what she thought was every possible permutation, every way in which this conversation might go, every choice she might be offered, but none of that preparation had included a letter from Paul. She’d consciously walked rapidly down the platform at Marylebone, fixated on nothing but the exit barriers and the passage way to the street, deliberating screening out all of the small reminders, all of the tiny emotional cues that the place prompted in her. She’d deliberately avoided the station since the disposal of his ashes and had wanted that to close it all off, to end their story in the same place it began.

Curiosity won. Jane read Paul’s letter.

Dear Jane,

I am not foolish enough to seek your forgiveness. I know you too well and, more importantly, have come to realise that what I did doesn’t deserve that you forgive me. I regret it all deeply and that is something that I have to carry.

Perhaps somewhere you can appreciate the irony in the formality of this letter, now that we’ve parted and will lead separate lives. Do you remember that we started with Pride & Prejudice and I misquoted Mr Darcy, a vain hope that I would not lose your good opinion lest it be lost forever. Clearly I have lost it forever and I have only myself to blame for that. Know that I am sorry. I know that will probably not mean much, after everything, but know that’s it true all the same.

When you left me in 31 Below, that last time I saw you, you said that I owed you. I’ve thought a lot about that since and I think you’re right, I know you’re right. I’m due for my surgery in a couple of weeks and, after that, I will disappear. I don’t want to bounce around London anymore, bumping into the places that were ours, regretting what I let get away from me. I don’t know exactly what I will do but I’m going to move away, going to start again somewhere else, see if I can find a small village cricket team that will have me. But that’s all about me and not about you. And you were right, I do owe you.

The surgery will stop me ejaculating. I tried to think of a more poetic way to say it but drew a blank. No puns intended. Perhaps you realise how difficult this is for me and remember that we used to laugh at things like this? Used to laugh at so much. I’m sorry if it’s too late for that. How would Mr Darcy have put it? I guess Austen painted him as a study in quiet, simmering virility so I suppose it’s not a line she would ever need to have grappled with. What I’m trying to say is that after the surgery the one last thing that I might be able to do for you will be denied me.

I’ve donated my sperm to this clinic and arranged for it to be frozen. I finally made good on those conversations we had, those things I owed you. All the paperwork is taken care of. If you want to use them as a donor then they are yours – and only yours, this is something I should have helped us do together and it’s something I only want to help you do alone. If you choose to. I would completely understand if I am the last donor on earth that you would want to entertain.

This is no recompense for the damage I’ve done, Jane, but I hope it is, at least, something. I loved you. I didn’t honour that and, for that, I’m sorry but I did love you.

Yours, Paul.

Jane read Paul’s letter and stared at the paper, in silence, for several minutes. Andrew sat watching her, fingers pressed to lips, mindful to give her space. She looked up at him.

“This is not how I imagined this would all work, you know? I was so sure about everything, so certain in what I wanted, what I went after, what I got. Life was a series of things to achieve, things in my control that I could… I don’t know, that I could bend to my will. And I had a lot of will. And this… this is something that I can’t.”

“I wish that it were different,” replied Andrew.

She asked her question. “Is it too late at forty one, doctor? Sorry, Andrew. Is it too late?”

“There’s no guarantees but it’s not too late,” he said. 

“Am I crazy to do it alone?” It was the other question she had played over in her mind; the one for herself but which she asked quietly now, almost as if he wasn’t there.

“You can’t bend fertility to your will,” he said. “But if we succeed then I have no doubt, no doubt at all, that you can bend parenthood to it. It’s not crazy at all. It maybe takes a special kind of stubborn but it’s not crazy.”

Jane held his gaze. “Stubborn I can do. When can we start?”

Part six and the conclusion of the Marylebone stories. I am aware that the ending, technically, remains ambiguous so I may write a coda/epilogue for it at a later point. I know what I think happens to Jane but you are free to imprint your own version…

This continues my 26,000 words for Great Ormond Street in July ’23. Any and all donations to fundraiser very welcome on this link.

Sparks

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Marylebone Platform 3: Arrival

Over time their meeting was embellished and embroidered. The story was changed each time it was retold, contradicted by whomever was telling it, reshaped to suit the audience. Did it matter if the details weren’t true as long as the overall sense of it was? Did it matter if he thought she suggested the drink or that she insisted that he had? Whether they kissed? I’m pretty sure we kissed. No, we definitely didn’t kiss. That she had scrawled out her phone number on the back of a receipt with an eyeliner pencil or that he had run over to WH Smith to buy stationery just to make sure he could capture it. But didn’t you have phones? Did it matter if a little romantic license ran through the details of their first encounter? If the actual facts were correct? How it felt was the important part. What it signalled. What it started. Whether there was chemistry. Whether there were sparks.

This is how he tells it:

I think our eyes met across a crowded train. Obviously not that, I’m kidding. That stuff doesn’t really happen, just like all those ‘meet cutes’ you see in Rom Coms don’t really happen in real life. People bumping into each and spilling coffee, people rescuing other people from awkward situations by pretending that they know them, people agreeing, as total strangers, to car share across America. None of that stuff. Harry doesn’t meet Sally like that in real life and I didn’t meet Jane like that. She’s a lousy driver anyway so any hypothetical road trip we would have made would have ended in disaster. It’s hard to make witty small talk about the impossibility of platonic male-female friendships when you’re grabbing the wheel to swing the car out of the path of an oncoming truck. Even a hypothetical one.

It turned out, although I only found this out much later, that she really hated Meg Ryan in that movie. Thought she was a bit too much of a mess and a bit too ready to take Harry back at the end. She was right when she said he was just lonely. She should never have taken him back. I never would. This is not relevant to our meeting but is relevant to understanding Jane and why I liked her, eventually why I loved her. Not because she was right. She really wasn’t right – it’s a great movie and they’re clearly meant for each other – but because she had an opinion and she wasn’t budging. There was a certainty about her from the start that I was drawn to.

I didn’t have much choice but be drawn to her. Stuck behind her might be accurate. I was rushing to try and catch a train home and saw, unusually, that all the barriers to the platforms were fixed, all set with a red light indicating they weren’t in use. All except one where a woman, maybe late twenties, early thirties, with a shoulder length, black bob, pale green sweater, jeans, was arguing with a station official. He was blocking her path through the only working barrier and she, in turn, was now blocking mine. I’m not buying another ticket. I have bought a ticket, literally from that machine over there – wild gesture over her shoulder, her arm making contact with my chest – and you’re not ripping me off again. Brief pause as the contact registered. I’m sorry. This guy won’t let me through. She turned slightly to acknowledge me and apologise and I saw green eyes, some fairly heavily applied eye shadow, pale skin. A frown, lips pursed. And then she was back to berating the official as if I wasn’t there.

Jane is stubborn. As I said I found it attractive, then at least, and if she’d been less stubborn we never really would have met. I gently asked whether, maybe, I could just slip through as my train was right there and about to depart and the next one wasn’t for another hour. She either didn’t hear, didn’t care, or both, as she continued her lengthy and detailed explanation to her jobsworth train guy on how it was patently ridiculous that a ticket could change from off-peak to peak in the time it takes to walk from the machine that sold the ticket to the train. He dug in and just repeated that it was now peak travel time and her ticket wasn’t valid. I asked again. This time she did respond. Look, I’m sorry but it’s a principle now. I have a ticket and he has to let me through. I know it’s inconvenient but it just underlines how ridiculous he’s being and hopefully it will make him see sense. I didn’t entirely follow her logic but she had fully turned to face me this time and there was something compelling in the determination in her features, the way she opened her eyes slightly, nodded towards me, as if to pull me onto her side. I felt like I was being invited in to something. I picked a side. It wasn’t a fair fight: officious station man versus beautiful, intractable stranger. 

We didn’t win. I watched my train depart platform three, the hiss as it released its air brakes and a sudden, jarring blare from its horn temporarily drowning out the latest front in the argument which had now shifted to the inherent profiteering at the public expense by privately run rail networks. He had an RMT pin badge so perhaps she had thought this tactic might work, might eke out some solidarity, but, instead, he escalated things by radioing for security. 

I stuck around. I’m not sure if it was because I had a lot of time to kill now, wanted to see how it played out, or if I genuinely wanted to make sure security didn’t mess with her. It was probably a mixture of the three but I dial up the empathy and care angle now when I tell it. I needn’t have worried as something seemed to shift in her as a couple of guards wandered over, one muttering into an intercom on his lapel, the other smiling broadly as if he could defuse the whole thing through sheer optimism. And, weirdly, he did. Or something did. Jane backed up, offered a final, you know what, fuck this, and started to walk back across the concourse towards the tube barriers. She told me later that she had decided she’d rather not go at all than give them the satisfaction of buying another ticket.

Are you okay? I think that was what I said. It’s not a line Nora Ephron would have written for Billy Crystal, I’ll grant you, but we write our own scripts, in real time, and usually they’re pretty mundane. She stopped, turned, and looked at me for a moment. I think it was the first time she really saw me so if there were any eyes meeting across any crowds then it happened then. I’ve had better days. How about you? God, I’m sorry you missed your train, I get pretty, er, focussed when things go like that. 

It was impulse. I had a lot of time to kill and nothing to lose. Let me buy you a drink. I’m Paul. I’ll buy you a drink and you can tell me about rail privatisation. That stuff was pretty interesting.

She tilted her head, folded her arms. I sense you are teasing me, Paul. One drink. And if you thought that was interesting then just wait until you hear about what they did to the coal industry…

This is how she tells it:

I don’t even remember the argument now, if I’m honest. I’m someone that stands their ground so things like that happened to me all the time, especially with men in supposed positions of authority. It was usually bullshit and I was usually happy to call them on it. I know Paul tells that part of the story like it was the most important bit and super revealing about my essential character but, for me, it was just another minor infraction in my ongoing battles with nonsense. He would say that I later referenced the patriarchy but I doubt I did. Obviously it is all the patriarchy but I’m not sure, back then, that it was a phrase I used. I was through my Camille Paglia phase and I think I was channeling more of a PJ Harvey thing for both my look and my brand of feminism. 

The important bits all started after that. I mean I didn’t really properly look at Paul until I caught up to him afterwards and asked if he was okay, apologised for making him miss his train. He didn’t seem to realise I was behind him and so I reached for his arm, just enough to make him stop so that I could say sorry. He was attractive. Not my usual type at that point in my life, a little straight compared to my recent dates, but undeniably good looking. I wasn’t sold on his hair. He was rocking, or presumably thought he was rocking, a fringe that kept threatening to part in the middle like his eyes were the play and his hair were an elaborate set of curtains ready to reveal the main act. His eyes were the main act, though. A watery blue, thick, quite feminine lashes. They softened him, took the edge off a square jaw, high cheek bones, a narrow, sharp nose. Quite classically good looking. As I say, not my usual type at all.

We spoke for a bit, I asked him when his next train was and then offered to buy him a coffee while he waited, by way of a proper apology. I know when he tells it that he says that we had some banter about public sector privatisation but none of that was true. I guess it might be possible to flirt over Arthur Scargill and the betrayal of the British working class but, if it is, then it’s beyond my skills. I think he likes his version of it now because it made us sound clever and quirky and I’m okay with that. We were both pretty clever. He always saw my stubbornness as one of those quirks whereas I thought of it as who I was. They’re only quirks if you see them in someone else but not yourself.

The actual flirting happened over coffee in the very romantic surrounds of Marylebone station, pigeons pecking at discarded sandwich crumbs on the floor, the station PA periodically telling us not to leave baggage unattended, and the regular ebb and flow of people in transit. I don’t remember any lines but I imagine my plan of attack involved sarcasm and undercutting any of his bravado. That was my style and it tended to sort out the men from the boys. I was pleasantly surprised that he rose to the challenge – I had sort of assumed he wouldn’t which was, to be fair, an entirely biased misjudgement based on him being good looking. Despite my protestations of cleverness I was guilty of assuming that his looks were going to be offset by his personality. Stubborn and judgemental. He says quirks. I say solid character traits.

We jousted for a bit over the usual topics. Work, spare time, a conversational detour down cinema, music and a brief dip into cricket. Brief as he clocked, quickly, that I had zero interest in it. I think he clocked it when I said it was interesting that the only time large groups of men got together and dressed entirely in white was in cricket and at Klan rallies. Like I say, my plan of attack at the time was largely to attack. In retrospect it’s clearly not a fair comparison. Institutionalised racism on the one hand and the Klan on the other. I’m joking. Obviously I’m joking. He didn’t look like he found it very funny but also changed the subject pretty quickly.

There were sparks. That’s what everyone always asks when they ask how we met. Were there sparks? I fought against it but I liked him. He was self-deprecating but confident, listened to my attack lines, defended them valiantly. He was funny but not in an attention grabbing way, more in how he responded to the things I said. And he had those eyes. If I’d been measuring the sparks at the time it was more like someone striking flints together rather than one of those industrial lathes you see where there are just molten rivulets of fire running from them. So there were sporadic sparks, ones that had to be worked at a bit, ones that were going to need some time to catch light. 

I thought they were the best kind. It felt like cheating if it came easier than that. I didn’t believe in any of that love at first sight stuff. I wanted to work at it, wanted to fall into it gradually, wanted to fight it a bit with every ounce of my stubborn soul. Wanted it to set ablaze but didn’t want to get burned in the process. All of that happened but that was all later. For a while, for quite a while, we were nurturing sparks.

Next Marylebone instalment which, for reasons that made sense in my head, I have elected to tell out of chronological order. Feel free to rearrange when I have finished, like you would with the Star Wars prequels.

Fundraising for Great Ormond Street continues here. I am close to half way through my target word count for July, aiming for 26,000 by the end.

Flame

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Marylebone Platform 2: Connection

Meet on the concourse beside the flower stall. Midday. He’d been very specific about it which was unusual; they typically met at Marylebone anyway and just found each other under the departure boards. Five dates now, six if you counted when they met, and the station was equally convenient for both of them. Bakerloo from Willesden for her, mainline from the Chilterns for him. Jane thought that he quite liked the romance of meeting at a station as well, the second time they had met there he’d enthused about its Edwardian architecture and would have possibly still been talking about Neo-Baroque features now if she hadn’t interrupted and suggested they get a drink. She hadn’t found it dull, she liked that he was passionate about something, but she had always found the people at stations more interesting than the buildings. In transit, intersecting briefly, thousands of stories to imagine.

Jane was slightly late and took the escalator two steps at a time, the posters on the adjoining walls passing in her periphery. Jersey Boys. Multivitamins. Clinique. The Mamma Mia movie. Mental note to not see that. eHarmony. Mamma Mia again. Her phone vibrated in the back pocket of her jeans, it would be Paul wondering where she was. She slowed for the final few steps, partly to navigate the end of the escalator and partly as she didn’t want to arrive flushed and out of breath. Date five felt like it might be the time to be flushed and out of breath but at the end of it, not the start. They’d kissed last time, briefly, he’d been rushing for the last train, and it was evidently an audition they had both passed as here they were.

Paul stood, as arranged, in front of the flower stall. White shirt, blue jeans, he’d had a hair cut since last time and Jane was relieved that he’d abandoned the fringe that he’d kept running his fingers through for something closer cropped. He smiled as she approached.

“Sorry I’m a bit late. Tube was busy, seemed like everyone was trying to get out of Willesden today.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Paul replied with a smile. “Don’t worry about it, I’ve only just got here anyway.” He took a step towards her and leaned in to awkwardly kiss her on the cheek. “Hello, you”.

Jane looked up at him, saw that he hadn’t moved away. She wasn’t sure if it was in hope, expectation, or if he had committed to a pre-rehearsed greeting that hadn’t quite gone to plan and was now stuck in no-man’s-land, wanting the ground to swallow him up. She put him out of his misery.

“Hey, you. I think we’re a bit past that now, don’t you think?” She leaned up and kissed him on the mouth, closed her eyes and took in the scent of his aftershave. One of the CK ones, maybe One, she wasn’t sure and was having a hard time concentrating on anything other than keeping her balance as she was up on her tiptoes and whilst he seemed to be enjoying the kiss it hadn’t extended to him putting his arms around her. She sank back on to her heels and pulled away. “Hello. I should’ve worn heels.”

“Sorry,” he said.

“Don’t be. Just, next time, you are allowed to touch me. Even if it’s just to stop me falling on my face. It’s not a Jane Austen novel.”

“Makes sense and, er…,”  he tailed off. “I was going to say something clever about sense and sensibility but it got away from me.”

“Points for trying,” said Jane. “Pride and Prejudice is the one people usually know so I’m mildly impressed that you didn’t go for the obvious.”

“It was on TV earlier this year,” he said with a grin. “BBC. I watched the first episode but it wasn’t for me. Someone twisted an ankle, that seemed to be as dramatic as it got.”

“The drama is in the relationships. What’s said, what’s unsaid. It’s a delicate dance of manners and protocol. I should warn you that I really like that stuff so you might want to change the subject if you’re about to reveal that you thought Pride and Prejudice would be better if it was called Pride and Extreme Prejudice. Some action movie about a former Marine who did jobs for the downtrodden and wronged, killing his enemies with excessive force and pithy one liners.” 

“That sounds pretty good. Too similar to the A Team but Hollywood doesn’t have a problem with reusing old IP so you could be on to something.” He was laughing and raised his hands, palms up. “Don’t worry. I’m joking. Half joking at least. My cultural bandwidth takes in a range of frequencies. I am not a total meathead.” 

“Cultural bandwidth?”, said Jane, eyebrow raised. “Has someone been reading the Saturday Guardian supplements?”

“Perhaps I just have hidden depths,” replied Paul. “Still waters and all that. Anyway, now that you’re here and we’ve established your love of formal courtship rituals…”

“I didn’t quite say that…”

“Close enough. Now that we’ve established all that. What’s your favourite flower?” He gestured at the stall behind him, a blaze of colours popping like a firework display, frozen in place. “I don’t know anything at all about flowers so I thought I should consult you before I bought you something.”

Jane walked up to the stall and smiled at the woman behind the counter, gave a gentle shrug to acknowledge that she seemed to have heard most of their exchange. There was a large bank of peonies,  pinky white, in the middle of the stall surrounded by, variously, lilies, some red roses, burnt orange tulips, and several taller stems she didn’t recognise. Gladioli maybe. Had she been the heroine in an Austen novel then clearly she would have learned all of them after long afternoons flower arranging or practicing the piano whilst the gentlemen talked business and smoked cigars. She liked looking back at it but had no interest in being anyone’s accessory or adornment. 

“It’s a lovely thought, Paul, but let’s not get flowers now,” she said. “We’ll have to carry them round all day and they need to be in water. You know that much, right?”

“That’s about the extent of my knowledge,” he said. “You sure? This was my whole plan to impress you at the start.”

“I’m sure.” She saw him waiting for something else. “And, okay, I’m mildly impressed and noting that this is the second time on this date that I’ve been mildly impressed.”

“There’s got to be some kind of multiplier on it. Two lots of mildly impressed equals quite impressed?”

“Nope, just two lots of mildly impressed. Otherwise what incentive have you got to raise your game?”

“I see,” said Paul. “Okay then, we won’t get the flowers but for future reference, what would you have chosen?”

“Probably the tulips,” said Jane before pointing at them as she realised that he didn’t even seem to know which ones they were. “The orange ones. But, for future reference, they can come in many colours.”

“Confusing. I like the ones that are easy to remember. Sunflowers. Looks like the sun, is a flower. Easy.”

“Hidden depths, eh?,” laughed Jane.

They walked out of the station and made their way along towards the main road that cut right across the top of London, from the Westway through into the heart of the City. It was busy, cars concertinaed between traffic lights, stopping, starting; the occasional angry horn, electronic beeps from the pedestrian crossing. They crossed to the south side of the road and walked past some office buildings before Paul stopped them outside the Town Hall, by one of the stone lions, faced raised into the noon sunshine. A small group of people, dressed in suits or summer dresses, hats and fascinators, stood clustered on the stairs leading up to the entrance.

“Imagine getting married here,” said Paul. 

“It’s a little early for a proposal,” replied Jane. “You haven’t even bought me flowers yet. But I think you’re right about the venue, it’s great. Wonder what it’s like inside?”

“We could sneak in,” suggested Paul. “Join this wedding party and check it out.”

“I’m not really dressed for it,” said Jane. “I would definitely have worn heels if I’d known we were attending someone’s wedding. Come on, we should get out of their way.” Whilst they’d been talking a vintage double decker bus had pulled up and more guests, along with the groom and his immediate entourage, were alighting from the opening at the back. On the other side of the lights, further up the street, they could see a black cab adorned with ribbons. The guests had seen it too and quickly began to make their way into the hall.

“Last chance,” said Paul. “I’m sure I’ve read that they can’t legally stop you attending services in public spaces.”

“Legally, no,” said Jane. “But I’m not about to crash someone’s special day just to see what it’s like where Paul McCartney got married.”

“Really? Did he? Which time?”

“To Linda. He was local I think at the time although I’m not quite sure. He was definitely living with Jane Asher round here before that so I guess he must have stayed after they split up. It’s not that far to Abbey Road.”

“Paul and Jane,” said Paul. “What are the chances?”

“Given they’re pretty common names I’d say the chances are quite high,” said Jane. “Besides it didn’t end that well for Paul and Jane, you need to be looking out for your Linda if you’re after the love of your life.”

“I’d never be able to give up bacon,” said Paul.

“That wasn’t really my point,” said Jane, smiling. “Speaking of bacon we should get some food.”

They ate lunch in a small cafe on Marylebone High Street, chatting idly about work and plans for the rest of the summer. They stepped around it lightly, each of them hinting that there was enough space for the other in those plans but neither presuming that it would play out like that. After lunch she dragged him into Daunt Books, it was her favourite shop in London and she wanted to show him. Maybe she wanted to stress test those hidden depths a little too. She watched as he browsed the sports section, picking up various cricket biographies of people she didn’t know. Ian Botham. He sounded familiar. Otherwise she was stumped. She lost sight of him as she flicked through the latest Kate Atkinson which had been stacked on a table towards the front of the shop, a handwritten note of recommendation from one of the booksellers detailing its virtues. 

She saw him again paying for something at the counter and walked over to join him.

“I got you something,” he said, handing over a book, freshly placed in a canvas tote bag, emblazoned with the shop’s logo. She took it from him, said thank you, and slid the book out. It was a copy of Pride And Prejudice, a Penguin classics edition. “I was going to write something inside but you caught me too soon.”

“Tell me instead,” she said. “What were you going to write?”

“I hope not to lose your good opinion, for I suspect it would be lost forever,” he replied, smiling.

“How very Darcy of you,” she said, gently bowing her head in what she hoped was a mock approximation of Elizabethan courtesy and courtship. “You haven’t lost it yet.”

They mooched around Marylebone for the rest of the afternoon, she hooked her arm around his   and they wandered with no fixed destination in mind. He wanted to find John Lennon’s blue plaque but neither of them knew where it was and so they speculated, instead, on where he might have lived, where Paul and Jane lived, in some imagined, heady, swinging sixties version of the streets they were walking now. They stumbled into hidden mews, small, brown bricked Georgian houses, tightly packed in the midst of the city. A film crew had set up in one of them and they peered over barricades trying to catch a glimpse of someone famous, looked for hints of what they might be making. It’ll be something like Notting Hill, something that makes the rest of the world think that all of London is like this. As they were discussing the perspective that the rest of the world may or may not have on the capital city she pulled in a little closer to him.

“Maybe I should show you something a bit more real, then. Would you like to see Willesden?” In her head it had sounded more flirtatious, more casual. Out loud it was difficult to imbue Willesden with much by way of sexual intrigue or mystery. 

“I never thought I would say this but I would really love to see Willesden,” he said. “We’d better get a move on though, I don’t know what time all the trains back run.” It hung there a moment.

“You won’t be needing the trains back,” said Jane. “Not tonight at least.”

Next instalment in the series nobody is calling The Marylebone Six (as there are six platforms). Happier times for Paul and Jane. Apologies to Willesden but I did used to live there so it’s meant with a certain degree of affection…

This is another in the series to write 26,000 words for Great Ormond Street Hospital in July ’23. All donations, however small, welcome here.

Ashes

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Marylebone Platform 1: Arrival & Departure

The train slowed and stopped. Jane closed her eyes, hand resting on the bag on the seat next to her, listening as the driver announced that they were being held outside the station for a few minutes whilst he waited for a platform to clear. She had promised that she would do this for him. She had promised and she would fulfil that promise despite how it had all turned out. Despite the divorce, despite the deceit, despite the drift and damage of their separation. It was more than he deserved but she had long since concluded that she had been more than he deserved. She ran her hand across the top of the bag that contained the ashes of her dead ex-husband.

Paul had always loved cricket. Promise me, if I go first, promise me that you’ll scatter my ashes at Lord’s. That had been this thing she’d signed up to. All their other promises to each other had been peeled away over the years, exposed as empty, but she could still hold true to this one. She had never really understood the appeal, if she was honest. She’d even misunderstood when he’d first asked her, assuming he was looking for some kind of salvation and wanted to go to Lourdes. He’d laughed at her and asked why she thought he’d believe in all that musty old religious nonsense. She’d silently weighed pointing out that the MCC seemed to have more than its share of musty nonsense in its own rituals and uniforms and adherence to baffling, unwritten codes and principle, but had decided the resulting argument wasn’t worth it. He took all of that stuff very seriously and didn’t appreciate it when she poked fun at it. He hadn’t spoken to her for several hours that time he tried to explain field positions to her and she kept referring to silly point as what’s-the-point and suggested that it’d be more fun if the positions were more literal. People in the slips would have to wear slips, people at gully would have to be in a gully. She was about to explain how deep extra cover would work when he stormed out of the room shouting that she wasn’t taking it seriously.

She felt now that’d she’d indulged it more than she should. If she’d known how it would play out – which, in cricketing terms, was very much a rain-stopped-play conclusion – then she would’ve said no to more things. When they got married he’d arranged for wickets to be placed at either end of the aisle and all of the ushers were dressed in their best whites. She had half expected to arrive to see him waiting, padded up, bat in hand, as if she was going to send down a yorker, try to sneak one under him for a surprise dismissal. All the surprises were to come though. And they were all to come from him.

He had saved the rest of the cricket references for his speech. The importance of a long partnership at the crease, how she was a great catch, how he’d been bowled over, hit for six, that kind of thing. At the time she had enjoyed it, laughing along with the rest of their family and friends. It was genuine. He had loved her, she was sure that part was real. The opening partnership was strong and secure but it had been a shock how quickly their middle order had collapsed. 

The train moved forwards again, its initial lurch prompting Jane to open her eyes. She watched a departing train pass on the adjacent track, saw her face, translucent, appear momentarily in the glass as a reflection. She glanced at her phone, checked how she looked using the camera as a makeshift mirror. There were a couple of strands of grey hair that she made a mental note to sort out but, save some fine lines across her forehead, she thought time had been kind. Smiling she wondered if she’d left one of the filters on the camera and she was kidding herself but, after checking, was reassured that the face staring back at her wasn’t subject to any technological support or softening. Could pass for thirty two. Okay, maybe thirty five. Her real age didn’t bother her other than the sense that biology was going to eventually time her out of the thing that she’d always wanted from Paul; the thing that he had stubbornly resisted. Is it too late at forty one?

She left the train and strode, almost marched, down platform one as if she wanted to dispense with this final promise as quickly as possible. There were too many memories around Marylebone and she didn’t want to be blindsided by nostalgia, didn’t want to be reminded of the better parts of him, of them together. She was done with regret and just wanted it to be done. Lift a finger in the air, declare him out. It was busy on the station, there was a crowd milling around the departure boards waiting for platform confirmations and a steady ebb and flow from the mainline concourse through to the tube barriers. She didn’t pause. Paul had always loved this station; he’d stand and stare at the vaulted roof, sunlight streaming through the glass panels picking out the cherry red pillars until she’d pull at his arm, impatiently, and encourage him to move. They had met here but thinking about that served no purpose now. 

Outside the station it was quieter and she walked up past the small park in Dorset Square. She vaguely remembered that there might be a shorter route the other way, picking through backstreets, but she didn’t properly remember it and decided to take the main road. Wandering aimlessly around these streets was another thing they had done together. Back then she could afford to get lost with him, now she was on her own and knew exactly where she wanted to go. The traffic noise rose from a low, intermittent thrum to a constant pulse as she turned left onto Gloucester Place. Black cabs passed on both sides of the street and she momentarily considered flagging one down to save time. She checked her phone again. It was half one and her guided tour was booked for two so she’d just be waiting around at the ground if she didn’t walk.

The tour was something Paul had always wanted them to do together but she had always refused, it had seemed a waste of money on something that held no interest for her. Well, now we are going to take the tour. Sit in the dressing rooms. See the Ashes urn. Walk through the Long Room. Step on to the outfield. She hadn’t really thought through how she would manage the scattering. How or where. The place he would have liked, she assumed, would have been on the pitch itself but she didn’t imagine that she’d be allowed to just pull out her own makeshift ashes urn and start sprinkling powdery remains everywhere. Even powdery remains that really, really liked cricket. So where? The closer she got to the ground the more it bothered her. Perhaps this whole idea, like so many of his ideas, was ridiculous and she should have just discretely scattered him at the local cricket club. There was a large oak tree by the boundary rope that would have been perfect if you overlooked the fact that it was also quite a popular spot for dog’s to relieve themselves. Actually that makes it even more perfect.

Perhaps it would be enough for him to be close to the ground? Within the vicinity of cricket’s spiritual home, if not entirely inside it. She was at the entrance now, wrought iron gates between stone pillars. She paused to read an inscription next to the gate: “To the memory of William Gilbert Grace. The great cricketer. 1848-1915. These gates were erected: The MCC and other friends and admirers.” She composed a brief accompanying eulogy to Paul in her head: “To the memory of Paul James Roberts. The great deceiver. 1982-2023. There’ll be no gates for you, no admirers, and we’re no longer friends.” It was longer than he deserved. “Paul. Goodbye you unfaithful bastard.” Better.

Jane took the tour. She had paid for it and decided that it might be interesting. They hadn’t come here together so there was no danger of any fond, residual memories spinning her emotional compass away from its set position of resenting him and their time together. She knew, in reality, it was more complicated than that but, for today, just wanted the surety in casting him as the villain. She hadn’t been surprised that there was a bag check, she’d had enough savvy to predict that and prepare. Paul had been decanted into a thermos flask for his final journey. The security guard had seemed happy enough to give it a brief shake and wave her through. 

She didn’t enjoy it. She was out numbered by middle aged men, all of whom had decided to wear chunky cricket jumpers over an assorted assemblage of pastel shaded polo shirts. Most of them had a lot to say about the ground, the current state of English cricket, the current state of the country, and all spent too much time laughing at their own jokes. She kept quiet and stayed towards the back of the group, looking for an opportunity to leave Paul to his final resting place. The tour had paused and the guide was gesturing up at the roof of one of the stands. Jane looked up to where he was pointing and saw a weather vane, it appeared to be a depiction of Father Time or, to Jane’s eyes, Death, removing a bail from some cricket stumps. The sun glinted off the tip of his scythe. 

Is it too late at forty one? She stared at the weather vane for a few moments, felt her heart beat quicken, a sick feeling in her stomach. She closed her eyes, felt the breeze on her face and focussed on her pulse, the chatter of the rest of the ground fading out of her hearing as she thought about her breath rising and falling in her chest. She felt still. She didn’t know the answer to her own question but she resolved to stop asking it and find out.

Jane left the tour group and, on her way out of the ground, left her bag, and Paul, behind in the toilets. He hadn’t said where at Lord’s he wanted to be and whilst she knew that an unattended bag would possibly end up being destroyed she also realised that she didn’t care anymore. She had fulfilled the last promise she would ever make him.

She checked the time. They wouldn’t see her today but she could make an appointment. She knew she could call but something in her wanted to see it again, wanted to check that it was still there. If she hurried she might be able to reach the clinic before it closed.

Next piece for July’s GOSH fundraiser – details here. I have sketched out an overall six part story for this, of which this is part one, so will see how it pans out over the next week.

Apologies to any cricket fans for abuse of terminology…

I would like to write about…

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Anything that doesn’t contain the word “customer” or “segmentation” or “retail” or any of those myriad of corporate non-words that I regurgitate every day. That language that is never taught but which everyone in an office learns to speak. Going forwards. On the same page. Outside the box. Out of our comfort zone. All utter nonsense.

Going forwards, to really get out of my comfort zone, to fully step change my thinking out of the box, I’d like to actually write about:

  • A story of grief and escape, Emily’s story as she comes to terms with the loss of her father and finds expression through their shared love of country music. A wise, sad, funny coming of age story I’d like them to say. I’d settle for less.
  • A knockabout comedy loosely based on The Wizard of Oz; a girl named Dorothy moves to London from Australia, landing in an upstairs flat as the woman in the flat beneath dies. She would meet, and date, three men lacking in brain and heart and courage before setting her faith in someone else; he, of course, would prove to be a fraud. There probably wouldn’t be winged monkeys.
  • Six stories, interlocking, set in and around Marylebone station. The conceit being that each story would start as a train arrived at each of Marylebone’s six platforms. The centre piece involves a chance meeting of a man and woman who, through a plot device yet to be established, end up killing a substantial amount of time together exploring the streets in that part of town. I guess it would be about falling in love, an exploration of those first moments as strangers realise a deep set connection. There’s a risk that this doesn’t so much tread as trample on Richard Linklater’s toes – if you haven’t seen “Before Sunrise” then don’t watch it, you will never need know my inspiration.
  • Me. Perhaps in a way that comes off as slightly less narcissistic than just “me”. I would like to tell my story, how I made some bad choices and ended up with a career I didn’t really want. How my body parts ganged up on me over a period of a few years and decided to fail, one by one. How my mind, previously relied upon as a trusted ally, joined the rebellion. How my so called career careered out of control (puns are non negotiable) and I spent a glorious six months out, re-evaluating, reconnecting, not thinking too much. How, during that time, I saw llamas in Amersham and, in that oddly incongrous moment, saw my life as mildly absurd but potentially wonderful. How the appearance of something out of the ordinary could help me see that everything might be seen fresh as out of the ordinary: family, friends, the school run, cleaning the bathroom even. I would write that as the happy ending, as the lesson learned, and then I would write the epilogue; that life’s not as neat as that, that sometimes when you return to where you saw the llamas it’s now just sheep and no matter how much you tell yourself that just sheep can be out of the ordinary too, it’s hard. It’s ordinary. It’s just sheep. Undoubtedly I would write using other metaphors and other analogies. Hopefully some of them would be better than that one….

……

My writing classes began again last week and, as promised, I’ve scrapped the old labelling of those posts in the title – I’ve even given these posts their very own category. The piece above was actually the homework for next week – write for 5 minutes or so from “I would like to write about…” as a trigger.

The bulk of the class was spent on an exercise in “show, don’t tell” (none of which I appear to have used above) which was surprisingly hard; finding means to reveal character or what someone is feeling through their actions. None of it was remotely in a shape to be shared here… so I won’t.

At some point I should possibly assert some kind of copyright on this blog in the unlikely event that I write something a) good b) that is read, and c) gets stolen. Whilst I investigate how I do that then take this sentence as an assertion that the work herein (herein sounds suitably legal) is mine and please don’t duplicate it or share it without appropriate acknowledgement of the source (i.e. me).