would wear a suit in such weather and then not even remove the jacket in a stiflingly double-glazed, net-curtained, upholstered room. His face, though, was untouched by heat. Even the pink of lips was missing because he seemed to have none, he had a mere line for his mouth. He was colourless in a room slapped with sunshine, splashed with chintz, dotted with vases. Looking downwards, head inclined in listening pose, he was eerily motionless in the company of animated monologue and convulsive canine panting. He could have been a black-and-white photograph of a person, he was no more than an arrangement of shadows, the smallest and darkest of which resembled the indentation of a fingertip in the inner corner of each eye. By contrast, his temples shone below a receding hairline.
‘He used to go into the countryside and pick this moss which is important to florists, then he’d come into a town when the florist had shut up shop for the day, he’d go next door and ask if he could leave Mrs Bloggs’ order of moss with them, and would they pay him the two quid or whatever? The following day, of course, Mrs Bloggs breaks the news to her neighbour that she’s never heard of this man or his moss.’
A tightening of one corner of the interviewer’s mouth, the screwing down of a smile, then he glanced at me and I saw how all his colour was in his eyes: china blue; very dark, for a blue.
‘And he did the same with blackberries and greengrocers, in season. Hard for us to keep the evidence, in those cases. I suspect that many shopkeepers didn’t complain, but some did. I was never particularly interested in bringing him in, I wasn’t going to go and look for him, I knew that he was around, so when we’d had a lot of complaints, I’d contact the spike –’
‘Spike?’ the interviewer queried.
‘Workhouse. And I’d ask them to let me know when he turned up. And he always turned up, for the winter. He knew that I’d come for him, and then he’d be sent down, which was what he wanted because then he had food and shelter for the winter.’
I shuddered to think of that hopeless trading of workhouse for prison.
‘Mind you, in the end, a judge lost patience and sent him down for three years – three years, quite unnecessary – and I never came across him again.’
Suddenly the session seemed to have finished: the historian was packing away his paraphernalia, going for his train.
Yesterday, I was on a train, gazing through the window, with my headphones on and a CD spinning, when, from beyond the foam cushions of my earpieces, I heard, ‘Sadie.’ I looked up at a man in a suit as he reminded me, ‘Edwin Robinson: we met on Sunday at George Reynolds’ house.’
‘Oh, yes.’ I smiled, not knowing what else to say or do. I knocked the headphones down the length of my hair; the foam pads became pincers on the base of my throat. ‘Yes, hello. Edwin.’ His name was news to me.
‘Hello.’ He smiled, in return, without moving a facial muscle: somehow he gave an impression of smiling. ‘Do you mind?’
Mind what? What had I done?
He indicated the vacant seat opposite me.
‘Oh, no, no.’
But, of course, I did; I did mind. Already, I had been captivated by the view, a screening of endlessly familiar suburbs, as slick as an advert. I was giving myself up to solitude, indolence, music: that unique, magical combination, my compensation for having to endure the train. The horrors of train travel: sunshine baked inside double-glazed, dirt-glazed windows; the ferocious slams of doors; blocked toilets and waterless taps; depleted buffets; delays. And now someone with whom I would be hard-pressed to pass the time of day, but with whom I would have to spend forty minutes.
He looked exactly as he had looked at George’s house: he could have been waiting at the station all week. I was dressed very differently from how I had been dressed on Sunday: I was in clothes for a trip to town rather than something that resembled a tennis dress. But even with a disc of black glass over each eye and a contraption over my head and ears, I had been recognisable: my hair, a beacon.
He was apologetic: ‘Actually, there’s nowhere else.’
As far as I could see, every vacant seat bore a white card. ‘Reservations?’
He muttered, ‘Reservations, I’ve had a few.’ Then, ‘Don’t let me stop you.’
I had no idea what he meant.
He pointed to my CD player.
‘Oh,’ I smiled my thanks, ‘no.’
‘No, please: listen away. Do.’
‘No, really.’ My solitude, indolence and music in front of him? I would have taken more kindly to a proposal that he watch me have a bath.
‘I’d hate to think that I could come between you and …’ He looked away, to the window, before asking, ‘something poppy?’
Momentary confusion, for me, so I explained, ‘That’s my nickname.’
An eyebrow kinked, questioning.
‘Poppy.’
‘Oh, I am sorry.’
Was this sympathy? and how dare he? or an apology? and if so, for what? for the inadvertent familiarity?
He continued, ‘How nice. Because of your hair?’
I inclined my head, to give him what was intended as a long look: Stupid question. For a second, I pondered the symbolism of poppies: late-blooming? death-defying? full of opium?
‘Who uses this nickname of yours?’ But suddenly he backtracked, ‘I suppose that’s rather a personal question.’
‘Not at all.’
How quaint: a personal question.
I replied, ‘Almost everyone.’ This was the best that I could do; a more adequate account would have required my life story, friend by friend. I said, ‘Friends, family.’
Old friends, I had been about to say, before realising that I had no other kind: new friend being, for me, I realised, a contradiction in terms. With the exception of George; if I could count George.
‘So, the hair colour’s natural?’
‘You think anyone would try to sell this?’
He smiled. And this time, I saw how: a narrowing of the eyes; a tightening in one corner of the mouth. ‘Perhaps they should.’
Then he nodded towards my CD player. ‘So, something poppy? Something I’m too old to know?’
I was amused: ‘How old do you think I am.’ A rhetorical question.
But he replied. ‘Mid-twenties.’
I shook my head, owned up, ‘I’m the wrong side of thirty.’
‘Mid-twenties
