A passer-by
When you’re four-pints drunk, and you’re stumbling towards Liverpool Street Station, and the sky is so big and the buildings are so tall, you’d be forgiven for thinking of such things.
Of the privilege of being alive and in the middle of it, among the ice rinks and the strung-too-early Christmas lights, so much life and so much noise and so many people.
Of knowing that deep beneath you, little tube carriages filled with strangers are being shot through tunnels beneath excavated earth, zipping back and forth like sparks across power lines.
Or that in that tower block, over there, each window denotes a flat, and each flat denotes a bedroom and a bed, a multitude of tiny people floating flat and horizontal and asleep, a concentric column of human beings stacked on top of one another, rising into the night sky.
He scuffs his shoe against the edge of the pavement, trips a little. There are voices, getting closer. He can’t see them, but he can hear them. A man and a woman, arguing beneath the arches, their words echoing louder and louder as they become more irate.
‘You don’t have to get so defensive,’ the man is saying. ‘It was just a question.’
‘It was a loaded question,’ the woman replies. ‘And a cruel one.’
‘It was a valid one,’ the man says. ‘Did you used to do it with him? Did you train him, too?’
The woman’s voice is wounded. ‘He never wanted my help.’
‘Oh, right,’ the man says. ‘He’s RADA.’
‘That’s not what I—’ she begins.
‘And I’m what?’ he cuts in. ‘Your “big project”?’
Her voice goes up an octave. ‘That was a joke!’
‘I’m a joke to you?’
‘You’re acting like one,’ she says. ‘It’s embarrassing.’
‘Sorry if I embarrass you.’
‘Oh, grow up.’
A pause. The passer-by has stopped walking in order to listen. He sways on his feet.
‘What is this really about?’ the woman asks.
‘Your approach to everything,’ the man says.
‘Everything’s work. Everything’s a project.
It’s like it’s all that matters. It’s like—’ He struggles to find the words for what he wants to say.
‘I don’t want to work on myself all the time.
I don’t want to break my back, to always be thinking three projects ahead.
But I know if I’m not this huge success, I won’t be able to keep up with you. You’ll leave me behind.’
‘I didn’t realise you were so insecure,’ the woman says.
Her voice is surprisingly steely. The passer-by can tell that the man has crossed a precipice, that he’s opened a box that won’t easily be closed.
‘I’m not,’ the man says. He sounds childish.
‘You are,’ the woman replies. ‘And you’re always feeling sorry for yourself, and making a pantomime out of not caring, but you take yourself just as seriously as the rest of them.’
‘The rest of who?’
‘Actors,’ she says. ‘Fine, you think you’re so cool, not giving a shit about anything. But I care about what I do. I’m not going to be made to feel bad for trying too hard.’
‘You’re welcome to care,’ he says. ‘Just don’t put it on me.’
‘But I care about you!’ her voice is breaking now, tears creeping in. ‘There’s a difference. I want to share my life with you. You should want to share with me, too.’
‘We went to Italy,’ he says. ‘To Leicester.’
‘You let me come with you.’
‘You’ve met all my friends.’
‘It’s not the same thing!’
There’s a long silence. Her breathing is heavy. The man makes no sound at all.
‘Everyone thinks I’m an open book,’ the woman says.
‘But I’m not. Not with everyone. There are a lot of things I only tell to one person, and that person is you.
’ An unsteady intake of breath. ‘But for you, I’m no different to everyone else back there.
You’ll listen to me. You’ll have a laugh with me.
But you keep everyone on the other side of a wall.
’ She’s crying now. ‘I’ve been throwing myself against you all these months, and I’m worried it’s going to break me. ’
‘I don’t know what you want me to say,’ the man says.
‘I want you to let me in!’ she shouts. ‘To let me know how you feel. Before it comes to this.’ Her voice is pleading. ‘The biggest confession you’ve ever made to me was about your fucking headphones.’
‘That’s not—’ he begins, but she cuts him off.
‘Every time I think you’re going to open up, you shut down again,’ she says. ‘Do I have to wait forever?’
‘Maybe I don’t want to be an open book,’ he says. His voice is steady. It sounds like this is taking some effort. ‘Maybe I don’t want you to know everything.’
‘Then why am I here?’
The man sighs. ‘This is crazy.’
‘Don’t call me crazy.’
A silence. She fills it.
‘I love you, Seb,’ she says, her voice hoarse with emotion.
But he still doesn’t say anything. There’s an overwhelming stillness, and the shock of his betrayal is clear in the absence of sound, in the ragged intake of the breath she takes next.
The passer-by can only imagine the look that is shared between them.
Then she walks away, her footsteps fading into nothing.