Just Once

Just once, he’d wanted things to be different. And they were. He smiled as he took off the jacket and hung it ready to place it carefully in the zip bag the hire company had provided. Then it was the trousers. The shirt was his own, it had been largely concealed by the suit. People rarely looked beyond the surface. From his rucksack he brought out and unrolled his well-worn plain black trousers and slipped into them. Transformation complete, he left the cubicle and stood in front of the mirror. 

Was he really so different?

He knew the answer. The change was entire and seismic in scale.

Leaving the toilets, he walked up the corridor and in through the staff entrance, stowing his bag and hire suit in his locker. Here, he composed himself. Staring at the blank grey of the metal locker door as though he were attempting to discern its secrets. Then it dawned on him. The door was just the same. The difference was in him. He’d crossed the line and entered their world. Something had changed. He’d made it change, and in changing, he wasn’t so sure that he belonged anymore. And in this knowledge, he could not work out whether this was a new state or his discovery of a long standing truth. 

On any previous day, he would have left the staff room and fallen easily into the rhythm of this place. The hustle, bustle and routine had been a comfort to him, but now he panicked as he could no longer place the song, let alone dance to it. 

He would have to face the music though. He had work to do and there was unfinished business that he had to attend to. He sighed, resisting the urge to hit the locker door. He was not a violent man. That made the act all the more compelling. There was need here. He laughed at the lying neediness of his procrastination and walked back into his life.

“You’re late!”

The words were shouted across at him. He looked across at the shouter and nodded his acceptance. Taking a clean white cloth from the rack and entering the main room. The centre of the universe. He knew the table that required clearing. Half hoped the final, single occupant would be long gone. The meal, an impossible dream. One he’d had a thousand times over the years, but not dared do a thing about. 

This place was a torture chamber. The sights. The sounds. The aromas. From the food. From the diners. His senses were wilfully assaulted, and the promise they made was a falsehood inflicted upon him. This close, but no further. The lines were drawn. He was here, but there was no seat at the table for him. You had to earn that seat, and even then, you had to book six months in advance and hope you got chosen.

And of course, she was still there. Sitting patiently and doing her very best not to look like she was waiting. Desperately trying not to give any impression that she was watching the door to the bathroom. Certainly not giving away the growing anxiety that she’d been jilted. Left alone. Swallowing down the worst of fears; abandonment.

The bill had been paid. He’d taken care of it. No staff discount here. He’d paid in full and done his best not to dwell upon the size of the number at the bottom of the small rectangle of paper. He’d bought something few people ever experienced. More so, thanks to the uniqueness of his situation. He’d ventured where few of his kind could go. And he’d savoured every morsel of food. Every last drop of wine. He’d enjoyed that meal as though it was his last. A death row treat before he had to walk to the gallows. No hood to hide his terror and shame here though. He was heading back to the scene of the crime to tidy away the incriminating evidence. The body was still there and it bore all of his guilt. Every last atom of it. 

He'd cheated. Not on her. Never on her. And there were no lies as such. He’d known what to say and how to say it. He’d cheated the system instead. His very presence was the lie. He had moved confidently in the King’s Court and brushed shoulders with the great and the good. He’d been a walking assumption. Cleverly winging every moment as he breathed in the rarefied air of his betters. 

As he’d built to this moment. The crowning glory of his plan. He saw the world in a very different way. His questioning of his presence in places where he was supposedly not allowed to be extended to those around him until he asked himself who truly belonged?

After all, there were cancellations in this cherished shrine to eating. Those who fell from the esteemed ranks and who could no longer take up their place. They were not missed. There were hundreds more, keen to take that spot and occupy it as though it had always been theirs. 

Few were comfortable. Not here. Nor in their skin. He understood that now. This was a room full of impostors. A conspicuous theatre of consumption. The actors too keyed up to actually enjoy the food. Now, as he walked amongst them he was appalled at their gluttony and avarice.

And there, in the midst of this deceitful throng, she sat nervously awaiting her fate. Oblivious to the reality surrounding her, and of the reality that was approaching her. That she sat in a bubble that he was about to burst. He resented her for remaining here. For being in his corner even as he came to throw the towel of his capitulation right in her face.  

She was better than all of this. Too good for it. Too good for the world. He realised the depth of his love for her as he neared the table. Understood how much he loved her as everything unravelled around the both of them. He adored this woman and he was about to betray her. Not only in breaking her heart, but shattering her deified image of him.

And yet he did not run. He kept up his steady march to the ending of their destinies. There was nowhere else he could go. He had no place to hide. Besides, he’d always been dangerously curious and equally bloody minded. This was a part of it. He needed to be here and he needed to see how it played out. This was for him, and it was for her. 

But he wasn’t here for the ending. He wanted to see the shape of the beginning. Through the smoke, dust and carnage. He wanted to see who she truly was when he broke through the façade. Wanted to see who he could be. 

There was truth here.

This was real.

He was real and he harboured an impossible hope that she could be real too. That they could find a way to be real together. They had shared an impossible dream that was only ever going to die. Here was where it would collapse and dissolve. 

Then they would see the real dream. 

What was meant lay just beyond this moment.

His loudly beating heart fell into an eerie silence as he reached the table and stood in a pool of noisy silence awaiting her gaze to fall upon him. Wanting her to see him for who he really was. Needing that with every fibre of his being.

Wanting her to love him.

Just once.

Was that too much to ask?