‘Well…’
Now that Charles is about to find out, he would rather make small talk with this stranger first, to delay the answer and its devastating potential. But the stranger has a pub to prepare, so he takes the leap.
‘Did you find a pen after we left?’
‘Cracked? Empty? With a weird inscription?’
Relief engulfs Charles like a gust of wind during a heatwave. It’sover in a second and leaves him more oppressed than before.
‘Did you throw it away?’
‘Not sure.’ The guy squats behind the counter and reappears with a Guinness glass filled with retractable and lidless pens. ‘Have a look. I’m gonna grab the cash float.’
Charles breathes an abstracted ‘Alright…’, his complete focus already on the bottle-green pen propped against the edge of the glass. This time, the draught of relief lashes his face so hard, it makes his eyes sting. He plops down onto a stool, unbuttons the collar of his shirt and takes the pen. At first, he holds it with care, deciphering the Cyrillic letters on its side, making sure it’s his and truly his. But soon, he closes his fist around the pen and brings it against his chest.
He doesn’t need to click it. He knows he could, which is enough to flatten the staircase he was stumbling on into a smooth slide.
‘Found it?’
Charles ducks his head and untightens his grasp. ‘Yes, thank you.’
‘Cool. You sure you don’t want a drink?’
‘No, I can’t stay.’
He will go for a stroll on Hampstead Heath, the local wild park that has become his favourite shelter. It will help him recover from this emotional rollercoaster before he joins his friends for dinner.
He massages his neck and looks back at his pen rescuer, who’s pouring a pint of cask ale. Puzzled, Charles is about to repeat he can’t stay when a chesty cough resonates in the room. The old drunk who was asleep in the corner on Tuesday is doddering through the door.
‘How are you today, Jack?’ The barman walks by Charles with the beer and whispers, ‘All the better for seeing you, Loris.’
‘All the better for seeing you, Loris,’ the elderly man replies, a lilt to his voice.
He drops into the worn-out armchair with a contented moanfollowed by another coughing fit. The barman must have expected it, because he only approaches to hand him the pint once it’s over.
‘Thank you, my boy.’
Charles smiles. He loves habits. Not his own, but strangers’ habits and the stories behind them that he’s free to make up. Jack retired from the air force. He squanders his pension on drowning traumatic ordeals in ale and brought the armchair from his place, haunted by—
‘Jack illustrates children’s books during school hours. Then he comes here to rest his eyes.’
So Jack is neither traumatised nor a drunk, and Charles should stop with the stereotyping.
He sets the pen down, parallel to a crack on the counter. ‘Your name is Loris?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Like France’s goalkeeper? Hugo Lloris?’
‘Just like him, except it’s my first name and it’s spelled with only one L, so not like him, no.’
The speed of Loris’ comeback proves that he’s well used to the comment and slaps Charles with a blast of embarrassment.
It’s similar to the second-hand awkwardness he squirms through whenever his mother declines sugar with an enthusiastic ‘I’m sweet enough!’ The waiting staff always guffaws with Alice, because in the places she frequents, employees are compelled to make customers feel like one-of-a-kind. But Charles notices the flash of exasperation in their eyes that says, ‘Thank you, Lady Original, I never heard that one before.’
‘And I’m more of a rugby guy,’ Loris continues, his eyes devoid of exasperation as they glitter in the neon lights – like a blue version of Elsy’s flaked nail polish.
Charles seizes this rope out of his self-consciousness. ‘You play?’
