Our narrator has a social engagement. A significant suggestion is about to be made:



They had been kind to invite me, but I had clearly bored them.

            
When I walked out of the bathroom I saw that they were kissing. An open-mouthed,

sloppy, head-tilting kiss: a snog. It didn’t last long. The sound of my footstep forced them

apart with an awkward jerk. Paul made to stand up: “Coffee, Smithy?”

            
“Um,” hot with embarrassment, I couldn’t form the words I needed to refuse, “I, erm,

ah.”

            
Magda leapt out of her chair. “I will make,” she said and sauntered off.

            
I resumed my place at the table. Two seconds of quiet, and Paul raised his eyes to

meet mine.

            
“It’s love, Smithy, it really is. And it’s the best bloody feeling in the whole bloody

world. Sometimes I can’t believe it’s happening to me.”

            
He paused in the way drunk people do, to gaze at one like a fool, face heavily

hanging, eyes confused. I was his audience, perhaps he was checking the response. This was

a man who had taken pity on me in the staffroom when we had worked together, deploying a

safely-contained altruism, one that was brief and easy to escape. Now he was bored by me.

He must have been.

            
A few chance circumstances had bumped us along into a potion which could loosely

be termed friendship. I really couldn’t say how many years had passed since that percolator-

fumed moment when I had gingerly placed a fresh copy of Stephen’s magazine into the

expressionless jaws of my pigeon hole. ‘Stop right there!’ Oh, I’d heard him plenty of times

before talking too loudly, never quite drawing a corresponding level of ebullience from his

interlocutor. One hears, cringes and turns away, faintly embarrassed, faintly besmirched.

‘Stop right there,’ (repeated), ‘is that a Mahler special I see?’ He knew my name but asked

me to say it to him once more, a disheartening ritual performed beneath strip lighting and

polystyrene squares, my existence in that space slightly verified by a baffling, baffled man

who shouts the word ‘friend’ a few times too often to be believed.

            
Watching that drunken old face; he couldn’t have truly wanted to spend time with

me! The concept was a neurotic’s joke.

            
He snapped his eyes away from mine and said: “So Smithy, let’s talk about you.

How’s the writing going? I expect you’ve been locked up in that flat of yours for days at a

time, scribbling away, or should I say typing? I’ve always known you had it in you. That

head of yours,” (he pointed a wavering finger at my thin curls), “has always had something

special in it. You’re a quiet man, but that’s the key, right? Watch, listen, remember, taking it

all in. I bet your insights are...quite something.” He clapped his hands with a small laugh.

“The city has her very own Proust.”

            
Proust? Why Proust? But yes, if ever I spoke in the staffroom, it had been about my

writing: my plans to escape and fulfill my potential. Trying to give the impression, with great

subtlety I had hoped, that genius lurked within me. Now I was paying for that occasional, no

rare, loquacity with these questions. My pen and paper lying on the desk in my flat like an

accusation; the pile of notebooks full of false beginnings; my long days spent fantasising

behind a safely-locked door- Christ, this man thought I’d actually been doing something! I

had paid my air fare and rented a flat in order to hide away in a country other than my own. I

found the strength to lie:

            
“Things aren’t going too badly.” My voice separated from its source and hovered

above the table cloth. “I’m working on something that might have...potential.”

            
“Too modest, Smithy, too modest!”

            
“To be honest, I don’t like discussing it. I don’t mean to cause offence. It’s just that I

don’t want to jinx the” (why oh why?) “ project. I suppose I’m a little superstitious.”

“You’re an artist my friend,” he said softly, “and an artist has his own prerogative.”

I felt that his hand wanted to tap my knee, but I was too far away for him to reach.

Magda brought me a delicate cup of fragrant coffee. I sniffed it and thanked her. It seemed

she had been listening to our conversation.

            

“Paul tells me all about this,” she said, sitting down. “He says you are writer. I like

reading very much. Maybe I can read something you write? I would like this.”

            

“Maybe.” I was flustered. My cheeks had begun to smart somewhat.

            

Paul placed a hand on Magda’s cream sleeve. “All in good time, my sweet. The

master needs time and space to produce his tour de force. Isn’t that right, matey?”

            

“Of course, yes.” I tried to sound light-hearted, but my voice carried a distinct tinge of hysteria.

            

“There is something else important we need to discuss with you, Smithy. Isn’t that

right, Magda?” A nod of assent. “We’ve been thinking, you see, how unfair it is that I should

be so happy and in love when you’re there on your own, scribbling away. It doesn’t seem

right somehow.”

            

We’ve been thinking. So Magda had been made to pity me before we had even met.

            

“So,” said Paul in the tone of a man about to give away his fortune, “we would like to

take you to a place you might find rather interesting, let’s say. Magda knows it well. It’s very

popular. Could be the secret to making your time in this city that bit more special, if you

know what I mean.”