Amantine's Song

Chapter 11

CHAPTER 7

Another Sunday. Another day in which I would have to make up excuses and look inside me for a foothold, an expedient to keep going. I had taken some time before deciding to go to Geoff, like every Sunday.

I got up at dawn, had a nice shower, applied body cream with exaggerated care, and made a cucumber face mask. Then I applied my makeup to accentuate the green specks in my brown eyes as I was taught by a makeup artist, a friend of my mother... all bullshit! But for once I did it, or at least tried to. I also had to force myself not to bite my lips and eat my lipstick three minutes after I put it on.

I almost hoped that Jinny would hold me back, so I had an excuse. That morning, instead, Jinny decided to sleep blissfully. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be. Or maybe it was.

A part of me had completely removed the previous Sunday’s meeting. Another side, however, was well aware and couldn’t wait for something else like it. Inside me there was a rejection and an expectation at the same time. Of course, at that time I wouldn’t have confessed it, not even to myself under torture. But it was true.

I walked fast to Notting Hill Underground, almost breaking into a run. I had no reason to run. I felt my heart thumping in my chest. I didn’t dare confess the reasons, not even to myself. I calmed down as soon as I saw them appearing in the distance. None of my physical reactions to that sight made sense as I no longer had to worry about a loss, a lack of which I didn’t understand the meaning. Perhaps it was the old man’s words, perhaps the young man’s look, even though I wasn’t able to admit it yet.

They were on the same section of the street, in front of the Underground’s staircase, at the corner of two streets. I wouldn’t have wanted to, but I suddenly stopped in front of them. Although the road was almost empty, they didn’t notice me, as they were busy talking to each other. I felt stupid, stuck there watching them. And I hated feeling stupid or giving the impression of being like that.

‘Morning, all right sweetheart?’

The voice of punchable face reached me as soon as I decided to go down the first steps. I turned my face slightly with the most indifferent expression I was able to produce. I could ignore him and keep going downstairs, towards my destination. But the truth was another and I knew it. I had been looking for them all week. Was my life so boring and predictable, then? So much, that I’d to look for a distraction in two strangers I met on the street on a random Sunday morning?

While punchable face’s green eyes lingered on my face, I remained motionless. Besides, I was looking at him too. I didn’t feel attracted to him, not in the ordinary way at least. Yet there was something that kept me from detaching myself from his face, from his eyes. Something I couldn’t identify, translate into words.

‘Come closer, my dear. Why do you stand there?’ The old man waved to me with a slow hand gesture. He sat quietly on the ground, just like the previous Sunday.

I obeyed him in silence, without finding a reasonable motivation for my compliant attitude.

I held myself in front of them, shifting my look to the old man.

‘So you like my friend, as I can see.’

What did he see? I didn’t understand. Because there was no way of seeing it. There wasn’t because it wasn’t true. I didn’t know if I should have felt offended and humiliated by his unfounded statement.

‘I’m completely indifferent to him, actually.’ I decided to show myself cold, as if his words hadn’t touched me at all. I turned my eyes fleetingly towards punchable face. ‘In fact, he’s not my type.’

‘Why, who would be your type?’ punchable face inquired. He giggled carelessly with the same mocking and defiant expression that seemed embedded on his face.

Good question, anyway! Who was my type? The most logical answer should have been Geoffrey. He was my boyfriend, after all. So I should have answered, to silence them. But why on earth was I discussing my private life with them? What nonsense!

‘I don’t want to answer, and it’s late, I have to go!’

‘It’s seven-thirty in the morning, sweetheart. It can’t be that late.’ It seemed that every word of mine aroused the hilarity in punchable face. He had an unbearable attitude. So much that I found myself compelled to measure my words, so that he couldn’t use them to return-fire against me.

‘I have no reason to stop.’ Meanwhile, I was still stuck there, like an i***t. ‘And it’s cold!’

So why didn’t I decide to move and go down the stairs towards the warm and comfortable Underground that would take me to my boyfriend’s warm and comfortable apartment?

‘If we go to my place, we can find a way to get warm.’ I didn’t expect this. He caught me off guard, again. But such an audacity was too much for me.

While punchable face was looking at me seriously, the old man laughed, watching the scene and my horrified expression. Probably seeing the smoke coming from my nostrils and ears.

‘How dare you! You’re a... a...’

‘I was thinking about a hot chocolate or maybe a stiff drink.’ Punchable face shrugged and his green eyes became almost angelic like, innocent. ‘Why... what did you think?’

Cursed. Asshole. Despicable bastard. He knew well what I had thought. So I decided to hate him, and I hated myself too for having thought it and letting him know I thought it. But no, actually. I hadn’t only thought about it. I had also pictured the scene. That’s my problem!

‘I haven’t become an alcoholic yet, having a drink early in the morning. And anyway, it was obvious that your proposal had a double meaning, I’m certainly not so stupid to accept it!’ Instead, yes, I was. ‘However, no, I’m not interested.’

‘Many others wouldn’t be so fussy!’ The old man winced in the vague attempt to imitate me, I think. I tried to pull myself together. ‘All the others, I would say. Considering who the proposal came from.’

‘And who does it come from?’ I didn’t want to, but the question came out spontaneously. I snorted, shrugging, glancing almost furiously at the boy. ‘From an ignoble scoundrel with...’ With a punchable face. I stopped before saying it. But then how the hell was I talking? Ignoble scoundrel? For sure he would laugh at me!

The old man burst out laughing even louder, quite coarsely. He didn’t try to make a good impression, this was now a fact. Not even punchable face mattered. And, at this point, not even to me.

I was gradually turning into an outcast, abandoned on a street corner, just like them. As the world kept going, I stood there discussing nothing with two strangers, not giving a damn about anything else, including my real life that was waiting for me to be in sound mind again, to resume playing a role, in a sense.

‘I’m Jacob,’ the old man said, without me asking. ‘What’s your name, my dear?’

Why would I ever have to tell them my name? And wasn’t it punchable face we were talking about just before?

‘Amantine.’ Now they would tell me it was the strangest name they had ever heard in their miserable and sad existence. I knew it. It was a script known to me.

‘Amantine... nice sound. I like it.’ The boy frowned thoughtfully. He was strangely serious, as if lost in some controversial reflection.

I was preparing myself to give the usual explanations on the origin and the motivation of my name and to secretly curse my parents for having given it to me, but this time it wasn’t necessary. The old man merely nodded, then stretched, yawning and leaned against the wall with his back and head.

‘Anyway, I have to go. Goodbye.’

Perhaps it was appropriate to take the advantage and drag myself out of that absurd situation. In a moment I found myself inside the underground. I had climbed the stairs before giving them the chance to reply and hold me again. I tried to push away the thought, but I couldn’t ignore the inner derangement that they both caused in me, even if in different ways. As if they lived, without feeling obliged to give explanations to anybody. A part of me envied them. Another rejected them and didn’t want to have anything to do with them. Then there was a part I couldn’t understand, so deep and intimate, that found in them something familiar, true, intrinsic in me.

I had built a world and forced it to be identified and defined as mine. But did this world really define me, who I was? Who did I want to become? I didn’t know. I was starting to wonder if I would ever know. I began to suspect and perhaps even to fear the cry of freedom that exploded inside my chest for a few days now or forever. Living in the moment, living without projects, living outside a world that I had planned at the drawing board for myself and in which I tried in every way to force myself, to push beyond my limits. Living like someone who saw the world going round without struggling to possess it, without trying to rip it away from others. Living on instinct and sensations, not on mind and reason. Accept the punchable face’s proposal, whatever it was, simply because I felt like it, without worrying about the consequences. In short, take a vacation from myself, from the world I had built and called mine.