Reality in its Denim Jeans

Nobody wants to read the story of a cynic, or so I’ve heard. Not that I am one – I’m too old to be cynical (at least today, who knows what I’ll say tomorrow?). I’m too old to don cynicism like a beret, a scarf, to paint my nails black with it, to smoke it like a cigarette and complain the world is rotting, anyway. What’s another pair of black lungs when the sky’s been smoking chimneys? when factories are stuffed like pipes? Fair point, but I think I prefer my lungs pink.

And yet I’m equally too old for hopeless romanticism – at least today, that is. I’m too old (and disappointed) to believe in love at first sight, to wear the thought of it like flared trousers or a flower crown, to drive it like a Combi. I’m old enough to know that the vertiginous otherworldliness of first loves and coup de foudres are just a cheap citrus twist in your Negroni, cut from a bulk-bought orange on the verge of mouldering. But sure, I guess it looks fancy.

These days, I just am. And maybe that’s old enough to value familiarity, and maybe it’s young enough to still believe in love – even though it wears the same pair of jeans every day, the same jacket, the same haircut, drinks from the same coffee mug, the same teacups. An everyday love, it doesn’t whimper, doesn’t yell, doesn’t plead, doesn’t cry, doesn’t send the heart fluttering (fluttering? More like a bird crashing through a window!). An everyday love, I suppose it’s kind of boring. Just like the new shoes you bought two years ago, or the book you bought last month that still sits atop your reading pile.

And yet it’s heartbreaking, still, to be old enough to know better. To know all that magic was in your mind, that it was you projecting it onto others, that it was a waltz of defence mechanisms, trauma bonds, and the ecstasy of reconciliation – round and round we danced. It’s heartbreaking, still, to know that our rose-tinted glasses were worn not over our eyes, but over our hearts, whose lilac cells still burst and blossom at the very thought of past lovers. Maybe we’re all still young enough to hurt, and old enough to ache.

This far into a story, you’d probably like to know what’s going on. Well, I’m just a woman (or a girl) in a bedroom for two. I’ve filled my teacup with cheap wine which I’ve spilled in exclamation marks (I wish that were a metaphor, but it’s just spillage). And there’s a dusty piano whose keys beg to be caressed, a notebook on the nightstand long untouched, a science book with an unmoving bookmark. Henri, he comes home tomorrow, and I hope he likes my gaunt cheeks, my purple under-eyes, my trench-like nasolabial folds. I hope he likes my mean eyes and unplucked eyebrows. It’s been long enough for him to see my face anew. Long enough for him to dislike what he sees. Maybe we never outgrow insecurity.

*

Packing sandwiches was something I once attributed to the elderly. There was always a ball of aluminium in their bags. Why pay ten dollars for a sad sandwich afforded only a slice of tomato and a shy leaf of lettuce? Ridiculous! (in my grandmother’s voice). But now I’m amongst them, my handbag slung over my shoulder, two balls of aluminium inside, and a small lunchbox filled with Brussels sprouts drowning in olive oil (Henri likes those). Suitcases glide past, mothers’ eyes sift through the crowd, cardboard signs rise and fall. A yawn walks through the automatic doors, a neck pillow, a pair of red eyes, a Penguin classic, a magazine, an English pocketbook dictionary. I glance down at my watch once, twice, and then for the umpteenth time, as does the woman in front of me.

I wonder what Henri’s doing. Have the seatbelt signs lit up? Tray tables stowed away? Did he pocket the sugar and salt sachets? One last Sudoku? One last page of that sci-fi novel? What was it called again?

A chorus of sighs, and I look up at the black and yellow. NICE: DELAYED.

My stomach sinks.

My stomach really sinks, an anchor dragging it into the depths of some watery elsewhere. But I’m still here, my eyes still fixed on the Arrivals board and its yellow tragedy, my ears still assaulted by the grunts and murmurs. But I listen beyond it all, I listen for the silence, for Henri’s deep inhale. I feel around in the darkness for his long fingers and self-soothing gestures. I feel for him twiddling his hair. I see the air hostesses through his eyes, see the passengers’ grim faces and shaking heads. I see the plane ceiling, then his lap, his knees, his black Adidas sneakers, still squeaky clean a year later. Then, I look down at my own, at the dirty, faded green, at the mud-stained shoelaces.

I wonder if he sees me, too, sees me walk into the McDonald’s. I wonder if he hears me – a long black, please. If he feels my forehead scrunch up with helplessness, if he feels my lip quiver. Thank you. If he tastes the coffee, bitter, on his tongue, too. I wonder if he’s with me, right here, in this inner retreat from the outer commotion. Henri?

As I sit down, my tiny paper cup and I, a breeze caresses my cheek. Once upon a time, I might have thought it was a sign – a tender caress from someone, somewhere, who could hear my mind. Now I’m old enough to know it’s just the wind, a draft, that a door has been opened. But I’m equally old enough to know that he’s thinking of me, too. Not an ache, not a pining. Just a cosy, worried thought of little old me at the airport awaiting his delayed arrival. And somehow that reality, in its denim jeans, says more than overdressed cynicism and romanticism in their kitsch accessories.