LONDON SHARK: CHAPTER SIX

C h a p t e r S i x

“Well, it’s very decent of you . . .” Mark Tudor looks at me quizzically, as Mike Knowlesy repairs off along the corridor, happy to have if not shot of me entirely then at least passed me on to a colleague. Tudor’s pleading look continues its polite enquiry; I realise he wants to learn my name. I automatically deal out the de facto name I use in an unplanned situation.

“Adam.” Thanks, Adam Andrews. You continue to provide for me.

“. . . Adam, it’s kind of you to seek me out, but, sadly—ha!—I don’t have any cash to drop, far as I know.

“Oh,” I say. And wait for him to continue; he is one, I can tell, who isn’t much for silences or off-handed accusations. He’ll talk me out of this spot of bother for me.

“But, I think it wouldn’t have been me. I have a season ticket for the Underground and I can’t remember the last time I had more than the odd bit of shrapnel in me wallet.”

Tudor has been rummaging his peacoat while he talks, and produces his wallet, a faded brown leather affair. He looks inside its flaps, pulls out the aforementioned shrapnel, and checks his season ticket is still there. He pours his change back in: a pound coin, a few silvers and coppers. “Not that that really proves anything! But it’s been in my inner coat pocket since I got off the Tube.”

He shrugs. I do my best to continue my approximation of a kind, hapless stranger.

“Oh well, guess I’m ten pounds richer than I was this morning,” I say, my words ripe with good nature.

Tudor smiles, then frowns as he regards my suit. For a second I’m scared that he has recognised me from Holborn Station. That he’ll clock me for what I am; a spurned lover seeking to learn about his lover’s emotional transgressions. “Well, I do hope you’re not late for work, or anything . . .”

I look down at my pinstripes. I am late for my work, but fuck that. Along with knowing his name, place of work, and seemingly amiable manner, I have to take this opportunity to learn all I can about Tudor, and what he means in the grand scheme of Hannah and me. Love is a line, not a triangle.

“I’m always early,” I say, waving off his polite concern. I look around. “Looks like an okay place to work, nice building. Lovely paintings and all,” I add, gesturing generally towards the building’s artefacts.

Tudor follows my gesturing. “Yeah, beats stacking shelves at Virgin, I suppose.”

“Oh, at the Megastore?” I ask, something caustic unwinding in my brain. Hannah worked at the Virgin Megastore on Tottenham Court Road when she was home from Uni. Though, I don’t remember Tudor among her co-workers.

“Yeah! Good fun, the odd free CD and all but pretty crap pay. Not that this is making me a fortune, but it’s full-time at least.”

I consider this information. Tudor is an innate chatter and my shaky ruse has fulfilled its purpose. We can chat like old buddies for a couple of minutes at least.

I make like I haven’t clocked his job title. “Oh, so you’re not a student here?”

“No, just here while I work out what I want to do, really. But as you say, not a bad place to work. Plenty of perks . . .” Tudor is staring over my shoulder, nodding, imploring me to follow his eyeline. I turn, aware that a few more people have entered the building since Mike Knowlesly began interrogating me. And two of them are walking towards Tudor and me now, two young women, one with short, straight black hair, the other a gentle brunette. They are talking quietly between themselves. As they near, Tudor reaches out to my shoulder, grabbing it like we’re old friends, laughs loudly.

“Know what I mean?” he says.

I recoil slightly but manage to check myself. What the hell does he mean? I have no idea, but do what comes naturally when forced to endure such behaviour: I intone a Yeah! And do my best to emit a comradely chuckle. The brunette girl looks at Tudor as the young women pass us, gives him a dinky wave. Says, “Hi, Marky . . .” in an accent so cut-glass I believe—and hope— it could slit Tudor’s throat. Her black-haired friend is more demure and smiles at the floor. Neither pays me any attention in the slightest.

“Hey Trina,” says Tudor. He smiles wickedly. “Bagsy I’m not on archives today!”

“Trina”—which I assume is short for Katrina, Catrina, Petrina or a similarly posh girl’s name—titters and comes back with, “Oh we’ll just have to see . . .”

Tudor laughs. When the girls are out of earshot he leans into me, his eyes locking onto mine, and says, “Fit as anything, huh!”

Of all the things Mark Tudor would ever say to me, fit as anything, huh is the refrain that echoes most in my chamber of memories. Light poured into my pupils, lit up the anger inside of me. I stood immobile as Tudor worked a cheesy grin at me, awaiting an appropriately masculine response. Before the fire from my void could leap out at him, I dampened the flames. “Wow, yeah. Hot.”

“Student here. One of the major bonuses of working here, the endless stream of hotties.”

Tudor is grinning still. His teeth are very white and even, but I smell something on his breath, sour like plaque, and dried-out coffee. I consider leaning in to see if I can detect something of Hannah on him; her lovely scent, the one that emanates from her own skin and oils, transcending whatever cloak of high street perfume society insists she drapes herself in. But if I were to sense her . . .

“Easy place to find a girlfriend then,” I say. Tudor keeps our eyes locked, oblivious to the pain in mine.

“Ha, y’know. If I were single.” I return only silence. I glance up at his peroxide tips, spiked beacons of stupidity. Tudor is cowed by my sudden loss of repartee.

“Hard, expensive work having a girlfriend, you don’t have to tell me that,” I say. “In fact, you’ve reminded me, I need to buy a couple more Christmas presents for mine after work. Think I’ll pop over to John Lewis later on. Always stuff there, they just like knowing it’s from somewhere fancy, you know?”

Hannah loves John Lewis. I’m being a bit daring, releasing breadcrumbs of Hannah’s likes to this cunt. But clearly, she’s not told him about me, nor does the fact that a random stranger who’s wandered in off the street into his place of work with a stumbling story of dropped cash is talking to him about his love life, seem to be bothering him. No bells of danger are clanging.

All he says is, “Same here, mate. Shit, I best get her something. Bought her nothing yet. Not sure how much to spend, only been seeing her a couple of weeks. Shit, right, I gotta go. That tenner’s yours, then. Bonus!”

With that, Mark Tudor flashes a grin, turns and walks away from me, towards his department, to where the light brunette awaits to flirt with him, to tease him about his hair and his new girlfriend.

I stand stock still, watching him go. He’s about to turn the corner when I call out, “Flowers.”

Tudor stops, looks back my way. “What’s that? Flowers?”

I smile. “For your girlfriend. For Christmas?”

Tudor grins. “Good idea!” He furrows his dumb brow, adds, “But I should get her something else, something that won’t die this Christmas.”

With super-inhuman strength, I refrain from both screaming that he could be the one to die this Christmas, and actioning this with my knife. I simply hold up a hand, grin almost as dumbly as Tudor is, walk away and exit the Old Building.

It’s cold outside, and I feel a little nauseous from the relative warmth of the Old Building. Five minutes later I find myself sitting on a park bench, staring up at the grey skies. London buzzes around me. I’m late for work, but so what? I don’t think I’ll be missed. I think of Hannah, who will probably be at work herself now. Would have bounded back to Holborn, jumped on the next tube to Euston Square, where she’s waved goodbye to me a hundred times before. Probably more. Would have bounded up the stairs, walked quick as she can over to Tavistock Square, been buzzed inside her office. Flatwell, Holmes, and Quigley Solicitors. She is a hardworking paralegal, with the aim of one day being made a partner of FH&Q. And, I like to think, she would think of me often throughout the day, as I slave away at my job at Kings Cross, ignoring the jibes about my attire.

But today, not only has Hannah brazenly ridden the Underground—MY Underground—catching an earlier train so she could walk Mark Tudor and his stubble and his fucking old man’s peacoat to his place of work, she was not even thinking of me. Couldn’t have.

I feel like a shark’s dorsal fin is growing in the acid pools of my stomach. It’s growing bigger, bigger. The park is swirling, like a magic carpet in a storm. I try to get to my feet, alter my position, When I’m upset even the clothes touching my body, or my body parts resting on each other can cause me terrible anxiety; itchy diving feelings that gouge my slovenly muscles, lungs that seem to repel oxygen. But as I stand, a feeling of utter futility engulfs me. I vomit. There are people about, but no one stops to check if the man wearing tired suit, vomiting on his shoes is okay. This is a London park; I’m just the first of the day.

I’m beyond anger. This is love, attacking me. Hannah’s love. She must love me. Mark Tudor is simply a symptom of her sadness, the one that cost her a term at uni, the one I have done my best to understand.

Hannah wore yellow today. When she wears something yellow, I know that our love is alive. And if it’s not well, then there is another force at play. One that thinks it can assail young love, try to prise it apart. All while coveting any other woman who crosses his path, or passes him in a corridor.

I vomit again. A black woman passing calls out kindly to me, “Alright, Love?”

I laugh, “Yes! Bad kebab last night, I think!”

She smiles and keeps on. Men, I imagine she’s thinking.

I jog across the park and slip into a Woolworth’s. I buy water and chewing gum. I will not be able to go to work today, not in this state. But I do not want to go home. Ben often works at home, and I need silence or strangers about me, right now. Hannah needs time, not me beating down her office door, demanding an explanation.

I need to slip into the Underground and while away the day.

And by half four, I’ll be nearby the Old Building again, waiting for Tudor to finish work.