Sunday 27 September 2009

So, Recently, Again...

I go to see a band that someone I used to know at sixth form plays in, and once we’re through catching up I chat to several of his partner’s attractive female friends. One of them is called Martina; she tells me that her mother is half-Greek, half-Swiss and her father is German, but she was born and bred in London. She tells me that she wasn’t sure what she was doing for a while, but now she’s going to Brighton to study Interior Architecture. She has a stud in her nose and she’s wearing a black hat that’s almost but not quite a beret. She just came from her first belly dancing lesson and claims to be unpleasantly sweaty. She has beautiful skin. It occurs to me that I’m attracted to her. We talk for about five minutes, during which time I briefly try on her hat, although she protests that her hair is gross. Then we go upstairs to watch the band play. She leaves immediately afterwards.

I talk to other people for a while, including a girl named Serena who discusses London’s vermin problem with me. She quotes the famous phrase about how no one is ever more than two metres from a rat, and I hypothesise the existence of a small but dedicated team of rodents that rush around at breakneck speed so as to fulfil this statistic. Then I add weight to my argument by citing the movie Aliens, in which a handful of xenomorphs are made to seem like a huge swarm through careful camerawork and editing. The way she pretends to be impressed is quite endearing. Meanwhile, my sixth-form friend, by whose side I stand throughout, fields the criticisms of a tall blond guy who thinks that the band lack stage presence. This guy looks like someone who’s twenty but looks older; after a while I notice that he’s wearing what appears to be a wedding ring.

On the way home the tube is full of couples. Or maybe I just imagine it.

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