Sometimes Love Is Enough

Jon

‘Jon? Jon? Can you hear me, Jon?’

            Someone was speaking to me, battling against the busker’s song carried on the wind off the Thames. I opened one eye then the other, but closed it again when the blood stung, and I gagged when a coppery trace reached my mouth. I panicked then, tried to sit upright. The paramedic pushed me back down flat with a single hand – I was weak, I didn’t resist.

            I tilted my head. Light blurred in a hazy trail from the lampposts. I saw the feet of a crowd gathered around me, a loose circle, gradually dispersing as they realised, I was alive.

‘Easy mate, take it easy, you’ve picked up quite a cut there, we need to clean it out,’ he said, firm but not unsympathetic, just not fully invested in what would no doubt be one of a dozen Friday night falls in London.

‘Wha…what happened,’ I said, slurring. I didn’t know how long I’d been out, but my mouth was dry save the drip of blood.

‘You’ve taken a bang on the head. Can you remember what happened?’

‘No, no I…where am I?’ I asked, ’I can’t…where am I?’

‘Control, we’re bringing a male in, St Thomas A&E if poss, head injury…’ he said bringing his clip-on radio to his mouth, the sound drifting further away…further away…as I slipped back into the black.

A white strip light. Silence. Then a beep. Then another. A pain in my neck as I tried to lift my head. Pressure on the index finger of my left hand. I lifted it to my face, a pulse monitor with a lead running to the beeping machine. The noise was a good sign I guessed. I rubbed my right hand against the crepe on my forehead, and winced. My lips were cracked a little. A nurse walked in then, wrote something on a clipboard at the foot of the bed.

‘Good morning, nice to see you back in the land of the living,’ she said, pushing errand hair back into a blue Alice band which matched her uniform.

‘Morning. Can I have some water?’

She wrote something again on the notes, then picked up a plastic cup from the bedside table. I sipped it, spilt it, slid the back of my hand across my mouth.

‘What happened, which hospital am I in?’ I asked.

‘OK, well that’s good, you know you’re in a hospital. How about you tell me your name?’

‘Jon. My name is Jon.’

‘Good. Well, we knew that from your notebook. No wallet I’m afraid but your Moleskine had your name and address on the first page. And a reward for finding it of fifty pounds, generous.’

‘OK,’ I faltered, ‘so what happened?’

‘Well, we don’t know, but let me get someone to talk you through it. Bear with.’ She spun on a heel and was off.

An hour later a deep voice resonated through the curtain. A policeman swished the green polyester to one side and stepped in and gave a small wave of his hand, a gesture which seemed odd given his six feet five-inch frame.

            ‘Hello.’ One Hello, not three.

            ‘I’m PC Willis. You’ve had a nasty knock on the head, can you remember what happened?’

            ‘No. Again, no, I can’t. Are you going to let me in on the secret, give me a clue…I’m sorry, that was rude, I just can’t remember, sorry.’

            ‘Last night around eight pm,’ a glance at his notebook, ‘you knocked your head on one of the lampposts on the South Bank, the Mary Poppins ones along the edge. Probably saved you from going in the river.’

            ‘OK. It’s a blank.’

            ‘A young lady phoned us.’ 

‘Do you know who she was?’

He paused, flicked up several pages on his pad.

            ‘We didn’t get her name,’ he said. I winced. ‘But. We took some statements from some of the people hanging around. Apparently, she was stood over you, and had a Rough Trade tote bag over her shoulder. Oh, and dyed red hair. She shouted down at you – probably to see if you were conscious – looked around, snatched some blokes phone off him mid-conversation, made the call, then just…left.’

I was discharged that evening. I responded to questions about the current Prime Minister and my address, and as I didn’t have any limbs hanging off, they let me leave. The revolving door NHS system.

I took the Jubilee line from Waterloo to Canary Wharf, ignoring the private but loud conversations of boozers heading out for the evening, the questioning looks and theories of how I got the bandage on my head. It was still hot on the tube, the July heat lingering in the suffocating air. I was grateful for my discharge package of a bottle of water and two paracetamols, and I swallowed both in one hit.

I lived in an apartment in Sailmakers, a purpose-built tower block housing city professionals and privileged students. I turned my key in the lock and threw it into a gold bowl on the dark wood table inside the door. I was surprised at the muscle memory. There was another key on the floor, I put it back in the bowl with its twin. The flat seemed strange to me, but I sat down on an armchair by the balcony doors, sliding the cushion up the back of the seat a little, because it always snagged when I sat down. I closed my eyes and dozed. When I woke up the shadow from a tall reading light had eased up my leg, I’d been out for only an hour.

The grey kitchen had a kettle on the granite workbench. I opened the cupboard above it and flung a tea bag into a mug emblazoned with a LamCap logo.           Again, I was startled by the ease of the action, but didn’t recognise the company name. A MacBook sat on a low coffee table, I logged on with a fingerprint on the top right-hand corner and opened Instagram.

Jon White, I was Jon White. My Insta tag read ‘CityShagger’. I winced. I opened my posts. They were mostly pictures of me drinking shots with a bunch of lads. Ties undone, expensive suits. Crotch grabbing pricks. In one photo – taken by a palm tree lined pool – I was standing behind a girl in a bikini, my face screwed up and my lips pursed, my hands held in front of me in claws. I closed my eyes, and wondered who I was. Wondered if I even liked myself.

In the bedroom I stripped, pulled back the mirrored sliding door on the wardrobe, and threw my stained clothes in the wash basket. Half of the rail was full of shirts and suits; the other half was empty. 

The bathroom was clean, my aftershave lined up along the bottom of a mirror surrounded by lightbulbs. In the middle of the row was a pink bottle, it stood out against the rest. Louis Vuitton, expensive. Clearly not mine. In the bathroom cabinet I found Alka Seltzer, Nurofen and a packet of condoms, one missing. There was also a key card from a hotel, stained white around its top edge.

Back in the kitchen, empty bottles wedged the lid of the recycling box open. Absolut, Tanqueray and Sipsmith. Vape tubes were lodged in between the gaps, cherry, and watermelon. Who was I?

I rested on Sunday, called the office number on my business card on Monday morning. I explained that I had been in an accident and needed a fortnight off. A senior trader named Dick protested and sounded aptly named. I hung up, sat at my MacBook, and put an out of office on my email. I scrolled through the contacts list on my iPhone 14, searched for Mum or Dad, but came up blank. I couldn’t bring myself to ring a contact I didn’t recognise. Then I thought of the girl with the bag. I needed to find her. I was clearly not a nice bloke, but at least I could say thank you.

Rough Trade has three shops in London - East, West and Soho. And an online store - she could have bought the bag from the online store, and then I was knackered. But I needed to do this good deed and thank her for her’s, so that morning I took the Lizzie Line to hipster Shoreditch. 

The shop sat in an old brewery and sold books as well as records. And as the assistant told me, it’s not vinyl, it’s records.

‘Boss, do you know how many red heads we get in here?’ He said, pulling on the end of his waxed moustache, before hitching up his 501s, even though they were held up with braces. It was Shoreditch, I guess. 

‘Do you mind if I wait a bit in the coffee shop,’ I asked, nodding towards the café at the side of the room.

‘If you buy a cup, fella.’

Fella. This was going to be tough. From my social media posts, I wasn’t a stand-up guy, but this rankled as much as Boss. I resolved to spend two days in each shop East and West, one day in Soho. And I would need my resolve if he called me Bro. 

I used the time whilst drinking my artisan Ethiopian to trawl my Facebook photos. Annoyingly there were gaps in the photo albums, I seemed to be pretty disciplined in posting most days – clearly the type of person who cared what people thought of me – but there were missing days, and no more posts after the holiday photos of a week in Bangkok with the lads last June. Had I really not done anything of note since then?

After lunch I hadn’t seen one red head, so I asked the fella what record I should take to the listening booth. My Spotify list had thrown up a playlist of club classics, curated by Ministry of Sound and Cream. I felt I needed something else in this place, I felt I needed a little more culture. 

I slipped the headphones on and dropped the needle on The Ballad of Darren, Blur’s latest release. The piano crept in, then guitars and I was swept away on melancholic vocals and triumphant strings. It was good, really good, so I bought it and made a note to buy a record player. By the end of the day, I’d worked my way through The Stone Roses, The Charlatans and The Smiths. It was magical, a guitar awakening.

But no red head, and I left feeling a weight heavier than the tote bag of albums I carried.

By Friday morning, having spent another day in East and two in West, I was feeling despondent. I’d taken off the bandage but hadn’t shaken the feeling that I needed to shed the skin of the city trader with the expensive apartment and expensive habits. But listening to the music in the shops felt like I was discovering myself, and I felt more strongly than ever that the red headed girl was key to me moving on from the old me to the new.

So, I arrived in Rough Trade Soho late morning on that Friday, keen to finish the week off with a result, even if it was more albums. There was no coffee shop here, so I browsed a while then headed out of the door in search of a drink. Opposite was The Sun and 13 Cantons, an old school pub outside with a modern bar and restaurant with leather booths and a gold grid crossed bar at the back. Sitting at the table furthest right from the door was a red-haired girl, and I knew it was her.

Mary

I saw him across the pub and stared until the heat from my Americano burned through my cup and into my fingers. I jumped slightly, instinctively putting my hands to my mouth, like a child pressing the radiator even though Mum said not to. He covered the space in quick steps, pulled himself up as he reached my table. I leaned my head back, looked up at him - he was tall and stood too close to my table. He realised and stepped back, sweeping back his blonde fringe partly concealing a scar on his forehead, a newly healed gash from the middle of his hairline to just above his left eyebrow.

            ‘Sorry. Hi. Sorry, I’m Jon.’

            ‘OK,’ I said, and paused.

            ‘And you are, what’s your name, we’ve got the same bag,’ he said, pointing to my tote.

            ‘Yes. We have. You’re very observant. Sorry, do you want something?’

            ‘I do, I think you saved my life, the other night on the South Bank?’

            ‘Oh, that was you! You OK? Well, of course you are, you’re here. I’m Mary.’

            ‘Do you mind if I sit down, buy you a drink, another coffee?’

            ‘This one’s still hot,’ I said, ‘but sit down. Jon.’

            Jon went to the bar and kept glancing over at me, as if he was worried I would leave. He came back with an Americano, sat opposite me, and put his bag on the table to his left.         ‘Let’s see what you have then,’ I said.

            ‘What? What do you mean?’

            ‘Your haul, what records have you bought, what music do you like?’

            ‘Oh,’ he said, his shoulders releasing. ‘I’m really into Blur, love them, just buying the back catalogue. What you into?’

            ‘Yeah, the same, I mean guitar bands, anything really.’        

We talked for an hour, or rather Jon talked at me, garbled in a sweet way about how he was leaving his job – he worked in the City – and was going to use his savings to retrain. He didn’t know what as, but it would be ‘worthwhile’. Jon asked for my number, he seemed different, so I gave it to him.

Back in my bedsit I thought about this stranger, this Jon. I lay back on my sofa bed – still out since my three-hour nap after my nightshift at St Thomas’s Hospital last night – and thought about my last relationship, how it had gone so terribly wrong. I was on my own but not lonely, busy with work and saving hard for a move away, back home to Newcastle where I could rent a flat and not rely on my parent’s pitying purse. I’d applied for a job at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in the city, next to St James Park. I had two weeks to accept. Next door was cooking curry again, I wouldn’t miss the smell.

My mobile rang. I jumped, startled, it hadn’t rung for a while. Jon displayed on the screen, stark in the gloom of my small studio flat. I held the phone to my face, paused, pressed Accept – ‘Hello?’

The next night we met in the Trinity Arms and sat in the fairy light lit garden. Jon had suggested going to see a band at the Electric Brixton, I hadn’t heard of them, but Jon said they had guitars.

‘Thanks so much for coming, I just wanted to do something to say thank you, I really do appreciate what you did for me that night,’ he said, leaning earnestly into me, before pulling back and bringing out his Rough Trade bag.

‘Here, I got you this, to say thanks,’ he said, handing over the bag. I pulled out a copy of Leisure, Blur’s first album.

‘It’s an original. They had one back at Soho, I went back this morning to get it for you. It didn’t cost much but…’

I put my hand gently on top of his, squeezed lightly.

‘Thanks. It’s lovely, a lovely thought. And it doesn’t matter how much it cost.’

The gig was really good. We had a drink afterwards and he walked me back to the Tube. I gave him a kiss on the cheek. We’re meeting again next weekend. I’ll think we’ll be alright, Jon and me. He seems nice. Nicer.

One week earlier…

‘For fucks sake, Jon. You just don’t see it do you,’ Mary screamed at Jon. ‘Swanning off all over the place, leaving me in your flat…your flat, where I have to clean up the shit you’ve left behind. You’re a slob, a pissed-up prick.’

Jon swayed then, turned to Mary, anger rising along with the wash of the Thames onto the South Bank. He stepped into Mary’s space, rocking forward on the heel of his foot. She pushed him back, just the flat palm of a hand on an outstretched arm. But it was firm enough to spin him around on his pivot, through one hundred and eighty degrees. And the pirouette was only stopped when his head hit the cross beam of an ornate lamp post. All went black.