Writing Clichés #2

WIDE EYED AND LEGLESS

That bloody alarm clock! That bloody snooze button!

I leapt out of bed and skidded across the bedroom on the July issue of Marie Claire. The mirror wasn’t my friend that morning. The massive zit that had been amassing for several days very helpfully chose today to erupt out of my forehead and my hair was a complete fright. All I could do was tie it back and cover it with a hat. Which hat? I shouldn’t be allowed to make important fashion choices when I’m still technically asleep.

Like an idiot, I grabbed the beret that had been lurking in a dark corner of my wardrobe, unworn since the day I bought it. I’ve no idea why it was even there – it had no place among my other clothes which tend to be quite dull and practical. I remember picking it up from a lovely stall on Camden market and imagining how Cosmopolitan and French it’d make me look. That had been a good enough reason when I was all giggly on Chardonnay but in the cold light of day I realised that all I looked was, at best: kooky, and at worst: completely deranged.

Who on earth wears a beret to the office on the day they’ve got an important marketing meeting at 9.30? I obviously wasn’t thinking clearly. I should have just gone back to bed and phoned in sick.

Clothes-wise, I put on the nearest things to hand which happened to be a pink blouse and a trouser suit that luckily wasn’t too creased. Only later when I was sprinting down the street to the tube station did I recall that the jacket had a tzatziki stain on it from Friday’s lunchtime bagel.

I was way too late for my usual train so I missed any encounter I might have had with my mystery man. Most mornings, it’s only the thought of seeing him that gets me out of bed at all. Two or three times a week we end up in the same carriage – that is, I make sure we end up in the same carriage if I’m quick enough to spot him through the window as the train slows down. He gets on somewhere further up the line and gets off somewhere further along, I’ve no idea where. One day, I’m going to book the morning off and follow him just to see where he works.

I imagine him being in publishing, possibly because he’s always reading when I see him. Not the Metro or a newspaper, it’s always a novel, usually written by some French author with loose morals. He has these cute little wire rimmed glasses and slightly overlong hair that’s elegantly dishevelled and makes him appear all arty and serious. I wonder if he’d been wearing his distinctive scarf that morning? I was probably thinking of him when I bought that damn beret.

We’ve never spoken or anything but the time is getting closer, I’m sure of it. Whenever he’s there, I sit as close to him as I dare and wait for him to look up so that I can catch his eye. Surely he must have noticed me by now.

But maybe it’s for the best if we never speak. What if he’s not half as alluring as I imagine him to be? What if he’s a tabloid journalist or a telemarketing guy? What if, when he opens his mouth, there isn’t a refined and gently accented Scottish or Irish burr but a broad Liverpudlian twang?

God, it would ruin my commute!

That day I was on the later train, the one that’s always packed. I had to squeeze in behind some exchange students and my face was in the sweaty armpit of a fat man all the way to the office. I tried my best to put on at least some make-up but what with holding onto the hanging strap and balancing my briefcase between my knees, I ended up with panda eyes and decidedly wonky lipstick. It would have to do.

No time for my usual Chai Latte pick-me-up from the Italian café outside the station or a friendly flirt with the security guard at reception that morning, I went directly up to my office and tried to make myself look as though I’d been there ages. I was just booting up my computer when my boss, poked his head round the door.

‘All set for the meeting Rosalyn?’ he said.
‘Oh yes, Mr Hague. Just spell-checking the final agendas.’
Then he saw my beret and physically flinched.
‘Er, that’s an interesting hat,’ he said.
I brazened it out. ‘Why, thank you Mr Hague,’ I replied, without looking up. He was too polite and old-fashioned to start giving sartorial advice to a woman twenty-five years his junior. I’d managed to get away with it.

There was barely enough time to print out the agendas before the meeting. As I headed upstairs in the lift with Mr Hague I noticed a glaring typo on the second line – typical!

The executive from the marketing agency and the photographer were already there when we arrived. I didn’t notice them at first because I was too busy juggling with an armful of files. I nearly dropped them when I saw who was positioned at the table opposite me.

‘Miss Bedford, I think you know Mr Henrion from the agency?’
‘Hi,’ I gasped at the exec.
‘And this is Jack Miller, our new photographer.’

He stood up and I shook his hand. Was that a glimmer of recognition that flashed across those piercing blue eyes?

‘Hello Miss Bedford,’ he said. It wasn’t Scottish or Irish but thankfully, it wasn’t broad Liverpudlian either. Definitely northern though, Manchester maybe? He’d worn that distinctive scarf today after all.

‘Nice beret,’ he added, with a smile.