LITMIR.BIZ

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these words left my mouth, it was my very first act of knowing submission to your will. This was the precise moment my life, such as it was, started to end.

      We didn’t talk at first. I looked out of the window on your side and waited for you to thank me, as you had to, surely. You couldn’t have failed to notice the banks of increasingly forlorn faces on the 141’s route up to De Beauvoir. But you were silent, holding your laptop case on your legs in what I’d soon recognise as the buttoned-up, butter-wouldn’t-melt way you choose to hold yourself. I said nothing, waiting for you to speak. But my curiosity finally got the better of me. ‘I don’t think I’ve seen you at the bus stop before,’ I said. ‘You just moved here?’

      ‘Yeah, but with any luck, I’ll just be passing through.’

      You must have seen the flicker of offence on my face, ‘Not that Manor House isn’t awesome. I mean, it’s so super-easy to get everywhere. I cycle mostly.’ You turned your head away again to watch the world from your window as we crawled up Kingsland Road.

      ‘Well, if you’re not wild about Manor House now, you should have seen it round here twenty-odd years ago. The whole place was a red-light area. Hard to imagine now.’

      ‘That sounds pretty dark.’ You didn’t seem to think very much of my corner of the capital. It seemed that just like the constantly-changing bus stop crew, you’d use Manor House as a stepping stone; once you started earning more than me, as you all seemed destined to, you too would be off to a more desirable postcode than mine.

      It struck me that your poise and your choice of words added to the sense that you were some kind of chimera; stilted mannerisms that tried to convey control and maturity, but then you’d defaulted to a childish Americanism: ‘awesome’. Young and old at the same time, just as I’d guessed by looking at you. Your accent was unanchored too, a southern clip with northern vowels.

      ‘Are you a native Londoner?’

      ‘So, I was born here, but I grew up all over the show. Some time here, on and off. Right now, my mum has a little bolthole and she wanted me to move in with her, but I told her it’s time I took responsibility for myself, because that’s important, isn’t it? You should take ownership of your life, don’t you think?’

      ‘I think that is important.’ I was thrown by the sudden panorama of your sentence, but I liked how you now seemed to want to share your thoughts with me.

      ‘Well, anyway, for now I’m on my own in one of those vile, gentrifying Woodberry Downs high-rises – right behind the bus stop – you probably totally hate.’ You turned to look me up and down. ‘You look like you’ve probably got a beautiful Victorian house, tonnes of character, lots of beautiful things. My place is kind of a nowhere place.’

      I was taken aback by your flattery. It was the nicest thing anyone had said about me for a long time, besides Iain, of course. An unexpected compliment. How good that had felt. As your eyes moved urgently over my face to assess my reaction, I suddenly got the notion you were lonely in that newbuild tower of yours. Maybe you needed a friendly neighbour. I wanted to think this because, Lily, I was so lonely too.

      I considered admitting I had a Victorian flat, not a house, but you didn’t need to know the limits of my success. Not yet. I wanted more from you before I let you go at Borough. I pointed to the dirty stripe on your face, ‘I think you’ve got oil on your—’

      ‘Oh god – puncture. Trust that for a Monday.’ You lifted the back of your hand to the opposite side of your forehead to the smudge.

      ‘Other side. Here.’ My fingertips reached the skin on your face.

      I didn’t mean to touch you, but it happened. My blood seemed to surge towards the surface and I know I felt yours too, coming forward to meet mine, like iron filings to a magnet. You blinked and pushed yourself back into your seat, saying, ‘Thanks, I think I’ve got it.’

      The cab was suddenly hot and small. I thought about texting Iain, but it was way too early in the day for that, so I cracked open the window and tried to move the conversation on.

      ‘What is it you do?’

      ‘I’m a journalist?’

      Not Training to be, or Hoping to be, but I’m a journalist, already, though no one had probably paid you a penny for a single word yet. People your age are incredible. I didn’t tell anyone I was a journalist until my second promotion, when I’d just about stopped living in fear of someone telling me I wasn’t good enough to be there. We didn’t have ‘Fake it ’til you make it’ in the nineties. Neither did we have parents who had us believe we were the centre of the universe and that universe was rightfully ours.

      ‘Who do you write for?’

      ‘Myself mostly, I guess. I blog.’

      ‘What about?’

      ‘You know. This and that. My life…What I see.’

      I thought and I waited. I enjoyed that moment before I said what I said to you next, ‘I edit a well-thought-of trade title. We’re always looking for interns if you’re in the market for the next move.’ I anticipated your breathlessness, the sound of your body turning towards me to give me your full and urgent attention. But it didn’t happen, so I kept talking, ‘I usually have between four and six interns working for me – one on design, another on picture research and at least two writers.’

      Nothing.

      ‘I’ve seen people your age really learn their trade working in a professional environment, so, have a think, maybe. Opportunities can be hard to come by. Maybe this is fate?’ I tried to laugh, but it didn’t come. I sounded so old, so seasoned. I was forty-one, but I wanted to feel fresh and relevant, not like someone who says things like Your age and Learn your trade. I still felt young inside, but then thought, Isn’t that what old people say?

      You looked at the road ahead and muttered, ‘I’m actually starting at a trade today. Interning.’ I noticed your fingers were gripping your laptop case. Clearly, you’d have liked it if I’d just stopped talking. You made me feel something I was suddenly aware I’d been closing in on without being able to badge it: you made me feel like an old fool. You continued, ‘It’s about management and stuff. Interviews with businesspeople. Things bosses care about. It’s called Leadership?’ You didn’t look at me as your voice inflected upwards again at the end of a sentence in a way that made you sound unambiguously young and annoying.

      The next words formed in my mind, but they seemed to lose their power as soon as I went to say them. The offhand way you described the magazine told me you wouldn’t be deeply impressed by what I was about to say. And if I didn’t find myself remotely impressive anymore, why should anyone else, least of all you?

      ‘I edit Leadership,’ I said quietly.

      You looked right at me, ‘Oh. That’s literally where I’m heading right now.’

      ‘That’s a bit fucking mad, isn’t it?’ I said. I didn’t register it then, but would learn later that you winced whenever I swore.

      ‘Wow. I guess it is.’

      But it couldn’t have been that exciting, because you already sounded bored. It was the tone of a cooler person you meet at a party who spots someone more interesting over your shoulder and grabs a superlative out of the air as a sign off. I used to do that, but now it’s people like you who do it to me, young people who use my magazine as a mere departure lounge that allows them to soar somewhere brighter and better, me existing only to on-board the next batch of interns who would leapfrog my life.

      ‘Do you know who’ll you be reporting to? I wasn’t expecting a new intern today.’

      ‘Gemma Lunt, the publisher. It’s her first day too.’

      ‘Right, well, don’t worry, I’ll explain why we’re late. Stick with me, and my deputy Asif. You’ll be fine.’

      ‘Should

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