#61
5.
On the weekends a small farmers market is held down the road in a schoolyard. It’s good. There is a general quality of produce you can see, albeit expensive. I only go now for eggs and bread, because I found the loaves (not to mention the horrid croissants) at the faux French café nearby, terrible and overpriced for the quality.
On the phone to my friend back in France: How do they get away with such robbery here?
Him: I don’t know. Things cost more in the city – it’s convenience isn’t it.
Speed seems to have something to do with it. Service is fast; people seem forever in a hurry, running from one place to the next. I keep wondering where they are all going with such urgency? And why don’t I feel this same need to rush? In fact the more people rush, the more I feel the need to slow down.
Forever observing.
Sometimes I think that perhaps in my town back at home we are missing something, some big point or idea that encourages such movement and intenseness, but the other day during lunch (a full one hour for me, which I take every minute of) I was eating in one of the many parks that dot the city thinking of home and how I always ate my lunch at my house and I realized it isn’t me or my town that is missing something, but the poor people here. For their life passes, time is never enough, each day is a jumble of images, texts, moving as quickly through a timetable as they can. Living here can be painful I think. The ethos of speed, the way in which life moves doesn’t allow for this type of introspection and reflection.
I feel out of place.
6.
Back at the apartment.
My boss had good taste, the bed was well made and comfortable and I discovered he had a maid that came once a week. A small Philippine woman named Melanie. She was a bit older but cleaned and scrubbed the apartment really well, all the while listening to music on her headphones. Besides people at work, she was the only person I really interacted with. I found out about her son, in the navy and how she saved enough money here in London to buy herself a rubber plantation in her village. This was where she would spend her retirement. In her home village, surrounded by rubber trees.
Her: You have to come. Phillipines are cheap! So good! The food is nice. You like the beach? We have so many. Ohhh my goodness.
Me: I’ve heard.
One day while she was sorting my laundry, the topic of my boss came up. She said he had stopped coming almost a year ago, she didn’t know why. But he still employed her to come and clean and dust once a week, even if no one was living there.
Her: Just in case.
Me: In case what?
Her: In case someone shows up.
Me: Like me?
Her: Sure. Or someone else. You never know.
I was mystified by Melanie’s response, not expecting to uncover and dark secrets of my bosses past. He was private, but then again, so am I, so I can’t say much. But it stuck there in the back of my head. I started, without really thinking about it, to create a story about him and this mystery woman in my mind. How he would call from France to tell her he was coming for the weekend. Brunch on Sunday, walks along the river or just making love in the apartment. I got ahead of myself maybe because I feel like everyone else in London has an interesting or glamorous life, except me. I want his story to be true because I want it to be my story. I want the secret lover abroad, the pied a terre, the glamour, the stress…
Not really, but it is nice to think about.
Maybe it’s what all the other Londoners strive for, what they all dream about. A constant pull to the top, which doesn’t exist. A wade through the mud of the city in order to afford £40 bottles of rose wine in the afternoon.
Despite my dreaming, my un-conscious reflection, this really isn’t me. But the lights of the big city can certainly, with subtly, draw you into a whirlwind of dangerous thoughts and credit cards.