Oxford Road
It's summer and at last the sun has come,
Suffusing the car lined street,
A threadbare sofa outside number twenty-one,
So out of place and indiscreet.
The radio propped up on the window sill
Exhales Thelonius Monk.
I'm sitting sipping water whisky 'til
The hazy afternoon is drunk.
Hearing the toothless crone scream at passers-by
For a little Marlboro money,
And the tramp sat on the steps deny
That he's trying to be funny.
I pour a Grant's and enjoy the sun
Sit and read some Sophocles
Then gaze up at the daisies, one by one
Visited by bumblebees.
She turned quickly down Oxford Road, a shortcut to avoid the half-term kids outside the Odeon. the clear sky and oppressive heat had caught her out, she adjusted the strap of her bag to air her perspiring shoulder. In the daylight the three storey townhouses to her right looked a little shabby, overgrown front yards sent Ivy crawling up the brickwork like an untidy beard. A kid, about five or six, sat on a step, in a gate not too far ahead. He was laughing and chatting with a vagrant who was cradling an empty can of White Lightning and muttering slurred insults.
"S'money please?" he held his hand out as she clipped noisily past in her sturdy heels.
"Fuck you sn'bby bitch." he rasped.
"Twat!" screamed the kid.
She didn't look back and rearranged her bag again. A man 10 yards further on was leaning over a shallow wall calling "Lucky. . . Lucky. . ." into a bush. She wished that she could have crossed the road, but there was only pavement on this side, opposite lay immovable rear wall of an oriental supermarket. The man looked up as she approached, smiled and blushed.
"Excuse me," he pleaded, awkwardly, because she had already walked past him, "I don't suppose you saw a little kitten, about this big," he gestured with his hands, "mackerel?"
"I'm sorry, no." she snapped.
"Little beggar," he muttered, chastened, "Thank-you anyway."
As she set off again he plunged his head into a nearby hedge. She had read somewhere that you should set yourself targets in life and so she decided to try to reach the baker's at the end of the road without bumping in to any more of the local headcases.
The tinny sound of a small hi-fi in the open air floated towards her just as she regained full pace. She peered, frowning over the weathered fences and ragged hedges, that she might know her enemy. The first sight which met her eyes was weather worn orange fabric, draping what looked distinctly like a sofa her grandparents might have owned in the sixties, in the front yard of a house two doors down. The water swollen ground floor window had been propped open by a stack of books and a paint spattered ghetto blaster tried unsuccessfully to fill the street with the sound of jazz piano. Staring fixedly ahead she was unable to ignore the two pairs of eyes which followed her brisk stroll. Her cursory, derisive glance clocked two young men, one sat on the sofa, the other lying with his legs across the sitting man's lap. She sniffed and without stopping tugged at her fuchsia coloured dress.
* * * * *
Brian flicked blindly through the pages of a dog-eared New Scientist, cleared his throat, shuffled his legs slightly and itched his thigh. He was certain that the old sofa must be ridden with small insects and fleas. The mere thought of them all, scurrying beneath his posterior, wriggling and jumping up through his clothes made him squirm. There was a click and a whirr and the CD span back to track one again. He was getting tired of the music, but knew that he had zero chance of getting his host to play something more to his taste. Experience had warned him against requesting a change in tunes, three hours of experimental Japanese Art-Noise still rattled his brain from an otherwise long forgotten dinner party. Mark returned through the front door, two whisky tumblers in hand and plonked down beside his guest.
"Here's your drink old boy, spot of Dalwhinnie, water and ice, nothing nicer to quench the thirst on a scorcher of a day like this."
Brian nodded his thanks and thumbed the pages vigorously. Observing Mark covertly he enquired, "When did you decide to bring this sofa out here then?"
"Well, it was kind of decided for me, the old couple next door but one had slung it out for the council to take away, but I just thought that seeing as we're in the middle of this heat wave it might be fun to just stick it here, watch the world go by."
"It's certainly different. Odd the way that the front of your place seems to get the bulk of the sun."
"Well, I've never been that keen a gardener anyway."
Nor, it must be said, thought Brian, much of a housekeeper. While it was conveniently near to the town centre it had been rendered affordable by the shocking state of disrepair which blighted nearly every room. Over the course of the year Mark had replaced a sizeable proportion of the wiring and employed a succession of plumbers to try their best. Despite this the residence retained the air of a nicely situated squat. His eyes fell down to the page.
"It says here," he proffered, "that a recent study has shown that women are far better at recognising faces than men."
"Curious thing to research isn't it?"
"Well, the bloke writing the article reckons we should be employing more girls to do security-type jobs and the like."
Mark looked pensive for a second and then abruptly span around, stretching out across the sofa and resting his legs on Brian's lap, who gave a start and spilled a little whisky on his shirt.
"What a waste!" Mark chided.
"Sam will kill me if she finds out I've spent the afternoon boozing over here." he whined.
"It does you good to get out once in a while." he cajoled, "So, what d'ya reckon, are women better at recognising faces?"
"Not if my beloved is anything to go by," laughed Brian in sudden recollection, "do you remember that Dave guy that she was dating before me? Lanky git, perma tanned. Well, we were at Gatwick and had just checked in for our holiday to Majorca, Samantha was parched and so we were making a dash for the Costa Coffee when who do I spot up ahead but Mr. David Bronzedbutt himself. He's headed straight for us cheery greeting already forming on his lips when Sam looks up too late from the window of the Duty Free shop and ploughs head-on into him. WHAM! Knocks him right off his feet. He's lying there dazed, she offers him a hand, he gets up, still a bit bemused from the attack, she mutters an apology and then dashes off again. "Didn't you want to talk to him?" I asked her, genuinely surprised at the completeness of her snub. "Who?" she retorts, her face an absolute blank. "Your ex. . . David. . . Who you just knocked over . . ?". Still blank, then suddenly there's a stunned sparkle in her face. "Nah, was that Dave?" she asked me. She had completely failed to recognise who he was."
"You know, if that had been about anyone else I would have thought that they were just wanting to avoid their ex, but Sam can get pretty spacey sometimes."
"Having said that, although it's true she can be pretty dozy, I've noticed recently that she only seems to listen to the things that she wants to. It's only the 'Could you take the bins out?' kind of stuff that seems to pass her by."
"Now there is a female trait that you could actually measure!"
"What's your take on it then?" Brian slung the question back.
"Faces are funny things. When I was younger and used to dwell on these things I was convinced that somewhere else in the world there must be someone else who looks exactly the same as me."
"Possibly, out of six billion people there's gonna be at least one who bares an uncanny resemblance."
"I don't seem to idly speculate that much these days, but it all came sharply back to me when I was over in Spain last year. I'd hopped on one of the local buses and was standing because all the seats were taken by sun wizened old ladies, wrapped up in swathes of black cloth despite the rising heat. The bus driver yelled through the crowd and we all shuffled as far back towards the rear of the bus as we could and more people climbed aboard. It was then, through the throng that I spied a familiar face although all common sense told me that I was mistaken. One of the young girls who had just squeezed onto the bus from a smoky street corner was the absolute spitting image of a girl that I'd had a fling with at university. I stood, flabbergasted and wondered if the fates had conspired to throw us together again, 300 miles from home. But no, as my senses returned I heard her chatting rapidly with her friends in earthy Spanish, something that even five years of distance was unlikely to instil. The poor girl was evidently aware of my goldfish stare and nudged her friend cruelly in the ribs, nodding towards me and sharing a quip. Turning away with an eerie sense of deja-vu, my old theory about us all having doubles came back to me, and glancing back at the girl again I wondered where my twin was now (was a young Spanish man staring at my old girlfriend on a London bus and remembering a passionless affair with the girl a mere two feet away from me?).
"Probably not." interjected Brian.
The whisky warming them from within met the sun which seemed to be lingering in the air, both men settled back, relaxing into the tired sofa springs. Realising that he hadn't itched for a while Brian scratched his shoulder listlessly. The tap tap of the jazz was being increasingly supplemented by the click of approaching high heels. In the comfortable lull in the conversation Brian and Mark watched the young lady stroll briskly past, slowing briefly only to adjust her skirt and to shoot them both a disapproving glance.
"She looks as though she's had a rough day." murmured Brian as he gently shoved Mark's legs away.
"Well, it's too warm to be sat in a musty office or shop isn't it? You didn't mention why you're off work today, did old man Metzeger have a sudden rush of guilt for all those hours overtime you put in?"
"He just thought I should take a break, I've been having these terrible migraines recently. The doctor said it was stress related."
"Let's try out that theory then." Mark exclaimed suddenly, "Tell me every detail that you can recall of the face of that girl who just walked by."
"That's hardly fair!" Brian protested, "If I'd known I was going to get the third degree on this I might have paid more attention."
"Game, set and match the report then, we're obviously cack at this."
"Whoa, okay, gimmie a chance." he rested his head on his hand and closed his eyes, but all that he could recall was the graceful flight of the bee that he had just been watching, weighing down each nettle flower as it perched precariously to drink, "she was wearing a bright pink dress, it was cut to a point at the knees."
"Her face, you're meant to be describing her face Mr.Letchy."
"I said, give me a chance, I'm just trying to put together a mental image. her hair, dark brown, shoulder length with perhaps a slight natural wave."
"This is more like it!" Mark exclaimed, "Let's put this journalist's scandalous lies against our gender to bed."
"Her profile, it was easy to see that she had a strong chin, even through her thick hair, and her eyes, and her eyes, I can't quite put my finger on it but there was something odd about her ey. . ."
"Excuse me!" a man with bits of twig in his hair called, blushing, "I'm Matt, from number 17." he pointed, "You haven't seen a little kitten hanging around here in the last half hour or so?"
Brian held his head in his hands and breathed gently to himself, "Damn it. I'd nearly pictured her then."
"Are you okay?" Matt asked Brian, his concern temporarily transferred.
"He's fine." Mark answered quickly, "He was just trying to prove that men aren't as rubbish at recalling faces as this article," he waved the copy of the New Scientist nonchalantly, "reckons that we are."
"Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to disturb him. How was he doing?"
"Well, so far all we've got is shoulder length brown hair, a pink skirt and 'odd' eyes."
"What? The girl who just walked along here?"
"Yep, did you get a good look?"
"Something about the eyes." Brian said again, aloud.
"No, I was too busy looking for Lucky to really notice what she looked like, although she was wearing a lacy bra," he blushed, then reddening further explained, "her top had a low neck line. You could see the trim."
"That's it!" Mark cried, "I think our new friend here has just hit the nail on the head. There was a program on TV, not that long ago, I think it was Tomorrow's World. They strapped all this equipment to a string of blokes in turn and then introduced them to women and tracked how their eyes moved. Do you know what they found?"
The blank expressions on the faces of his companions either indicated that they didn't know or didn't care.
"When a man first meets a lady he looks at her square in the eye. Then, as soon as decency will allow his eyes drift down to take a peek at the bosom. Presumably emboldened by this furtive glance in the quest for cleavage his eyes drift yet further to take in a rapid tour of the legs, bum and crotch. Only then does his gaze turn heavenward, back to the face again." Mark smiled and nodded happily.
"Hang on." said Brian, "So what exactly is your point?"
"Just that this study," he tossed the copy of New Scientist to one side, "doesn't tell the whole story. True, we may not be so good at recognising faces, but give us a look at the whole figure, better still the brea. . ."
"Excuse me," interrupted the young woman, scowling slightly and biting her bottom lip, "I think that my mobile phone must have fallen out of my bag somewhere along here and I was wondering if any of you had seen it?"
The three men looked startled and speechless at her question. Mark hopped off the sofa, tapped Brian on the legs and said they'd help her look. Brian stood up, aware that he must appear to be in a trance and the watery feeling in his eyes told him he wasn't blinking enough. He felt trapped by her gaze. Her eyes, which he had found so hard to describe now filled his vision. Slate grey, her iris' sparkled, squeezing her pupils into tiny full stops in the sun. And sleepy, the lower lids of her eyes were puffy, not through any lack of sleep but naturally so. In later life this would age her terribly, but right now he found them charming, every moment in her presence felt like a late lie in on a Saturday morning. Brian supposed that she must be in her mid-twenties for she no longer carried the puppy fat of youth on her chin and arms, nor the lines of care that the late twenties bring, around her eyes. Her chin was strong and broad, a canvas for two thin unsmiling lips. Dark brown, straight hair, fell in a placid wave down to her square shoulders. That curve of hair framed the majestic slope of her neck, still pale despite the recent rash of warm weather. A patch of perspiration, pine cone shaped, had pervaded her low cut cotton top in the dead centre of her back. The soft fabric clung lightly to her skin in the humidity and Brian thought inexplicably of sheets drying on the line in a gentle breeze. He stooped as he searched along the pavement, blinking rapidly to clear his teary eyes. Up ahead her fuchsia clad bottom swayed in the sun as she peered precariously down a storm drain.
"There you are!" clucked Matt loudly.
The girl looked up, smiling with her lips pressed delicately together. But Matt had only found his errant pet which had been picking the scraps of meat from a discarded chicken bone on the side of the road. Her smile evaporated and her face became expressionless and perfectly relaxed, had she closed her eyes at that moment she would have appeared to be in a peaceful sleep
"Here it is!" called Mark, waving a tiny, beleathered handset at her.
"Thank God!" she cried and plucked it efficiently from his outstretched hand. tapping a few buttons tentatively she pronounced the patient well, thanked them all with a smile and strolled off, more sedately this time.
"So," laughed Mark, noticing Brian's puppy gaze, "something about the eyes you say?"
Brian thought of morning light, of the unhurried undertow of a charted body beneath white sheets, of brown hair splayed dangerously across the pillow and those drowsy eyes gazing inexorably beneath her mane, her slender sweeping lips almost drawn into a half smile.
"Yep," he said, "definitely a lacy bra."
©2001 Mark Sexton