A Grey Night

I sit in my room, the days promise long gone. And now, it is night. Late night. I think of all the people I could call. The first person that comes to mind, not surprisingly, is my girlfriend. I usually call her at night. We’ve made a solemn ritual of it, always before we go to sleep, I call her.

So, I take my phone off the charge, find her number in my contacts list (I still haven’t memorized it), and hit call.

“Hello, John? How are you?”

“I’m good Angela. How are you?”

“Oh, not too bad. Work was really intense. Had to see 3 clients, and catch up on a lot of paperwork!”

“You must be glad it’s over.”

“Yeah… its always nice to make it through a day of work.”

I stop and think for a moment. I want to do something different. Throw a spanner in the works, do something crazy.

“Hey what do you say I come around to your place?”

There is silence for a moment.

“You do know what time it is right?”

I check my wristwatch.

“9:30. Since when has it being 9:30 ever stopped two people from having fun?”

More silence.

“And what would we do if you came over?”

I pretend I don’t hear the serious tone of voice and decide to be flippant.

“What wouldn’t we do? The world is our oyster. We could do anything. Anything we want.”

This time she laughs.

“What’s gotten into you John? Are you for real?”

“Alright ill see you in half an hour.”

I hang up the call and head out to my car, ignoring the message received tone going off on my phone. The trip there is uneventful. My phone does ring, but I let it ring out. There are 2 busy roads on the route to her house. The route I take is not the fastest, but it’s the easiest to remember – and my memory is not so good.

In half an hour I find a park on the street where her apartment is, get out of my car, and walk down to her front door. She lives with 2 other flat-mates, and although I am pushing the limits of spontaneity, I don’t want to make her life difficult by bothering her flat-mates – so standing outside her door, I call her again.

“John what is going on?”

“I’m outside the front door; do you want to let me in or do you want to go out somewhere?”

She lets out an exasperated sigh.

“Alright, I’ll go out with you. Just let me get changed.”

I wait patiently for her to fix up her outfit, and take a look up at the night sky. There is far too much ambient light to really see the stars. That is one thing you can say for the country; the shimmering, naked night skies are beautiful. But I much prefer the city.

Eventually the door opens softly, and Angela walks out. She is wearing a black shirt with white polka dots, and a blue pair of skinny jeans, with some stylish converse chucks.

“So, what are we doing John?”

I smile. “Well, I figured first of all we could go somewhere to get a coffee?”

The corners of her mouth twist downward into the smallest of frowns, and she seems to squint.

“I don’t know if there’s anything around here that would be open.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll find something.

I take her hand in my hand, and we walk to my car. I remind myself that I am happy I got it cleaned recently. If I’m going to wrangle people into late night drives, the least I could do is have a clean car. Once we’re both in the front, I start the engine.

“So, I know a place we can get a coffee and whatever else you might want.”

She looks at me uncertainly. “And where would that be.”

Turning the car into a U-turn, I head for the main road.

“It’s nowhere fancy, but it’ll have what we need.”

I turn the radio onto Triple-J (an indie music station) and blast some music, an upbeat pop-rock tune, lowering the driver’s and passenger’s side windows.

Eventually I see the petrol station up ahead, and pull in to park.

“This is it. Like I said, nothing fancy, but they do serve coffee in the late hours of the night.”

“You know I don’t drink caffeine this late, right?”

I do know that. She also doesn’t drink anything but lactose free milk,

“They’ll have fridges full of drinks in there. Just pick whatever you like, it’s on me.”

I head to the machine and after positioning a paper cup below the tap, hit the latte button. When it’s done, I take it in my hands, feeling the warmth of the liquid through the cup. I turn to see how Angela is doing. She is holding a pink grapefruit soda.

“Good choice.”

“So, you’re going to pay?”

“Yeah, it’s on me.”

I head to the counter and pay.

Soon we are back in the car. I turn carefully out of the petrol station, and back on to the main road. The radio is back on.

“Yeah, just open your drink in the car, this is what cup holders were invented for.” I say, sipping my coffee.

“So what radio station is this?”

“Triple-J. You like?”

“No, I’m okay, play whatever you feel like.”

I consider changing the station to Hope, the Christian radio station, but decide against it. There's a couple of Christian songs I like, but there’s also a lot of stuff I don’t.

“So where should we go now?” I ask her.

“You tell me, this was your idea after all…”

I think.

“I think there’s a circus set up in the park just down the road a bit. We don’t have to see the circus performance, but there’d be rides and carnival games. What do you reckon?”

“If that’s what you want to do, then go right ahead.”

I remember that Angela doesn’t like being put on the spot with decision making. I have to learn to take the lead. Eventually we are pulling up in the parking lot of the park, where the circus is. Garish painted signs and a cacophony of coloured lights await us, and the smell of buttered popcorn fills the air. We step out of the car into the carnival section of the circus. I see a ride, with spinning chairs going around in a tilting and changing circle, called the big dipper.

“See that one, were going to go on that.”

“Yeah, your sure? Okay.”

We line up, other couples ahead of us holding hands. It turns out we don’t have to wait long, as there are not that many people here. Soon the ride attendants are strapping us into our seats. The ride begins to sway and turn. I look at Angela’s face. Is she smiling? Am I smiling? Was this a good idea? The ride continues to spin us round and round like a sling. Eventually it is over. The attendants unbuckle us from our seats. It is now 10:30pm.

“Not bad for a Thursday night, right?” I say to Angela.

“It’s getting pretty late.” She replies.

“Aren’t you usually up till 12?”

“Yes, but I have to try and relax into going to bed. You might not have work tomorrow, but I do.”

She’s right. I don’t have to work. I am on the Disability Support Pension. I’ve been struggling with Schizophrenia for the last 5 years. I think about throwing in the towel. No sense in dragging this out if she’s not into it.

“Alright I’ll drive you home.”

We get in the car, and I turn back onto the main road towards Angela’s place.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. I thought maybe it would be fun to break the mould, do something spontaneous. Remember that time you asked me the question from that couple’s game? Who’s the biggest party animal? Maybe that’s what I was doing. I wanted to do something exciting not just for me but for you too. I wanted to surprise you. And I wanted to spend time with you. We haven’t managed to do anything at all this week.”

I see her face soften a little. “Aww John, I appreciate that you wanted to spend time with me. But you don’t have to do this? Were you trying to prove something to me?”

I go silent for a while. “I don’t know.”

We say nothing for a while as I navigate the traffic on the main road. Eventually I’m out the front of her apartment. I look at her pretty face, her thick black hair swept back unkemptly, her clear rimmed glasses. I lean in to kiss her. When it is over I say my parting words.

“I’m sorry if you didn’t enjoy tonight.”

“No, you know what, this was unusual, but it certainly was memorable. Maybe we can mark this day as the day you lost your mind and dragged me out of the house at 10 o’clock at night.”

I feel a bit better. So, she did enjoy it after all. She gets out of the car and shuts the door, and I drive back home.