Lives overheard

One of the benefits of there being so many mobile phones around, is that you hear all sorts of tantalising titbits of conversation as you walk along the streets of a city.

In London the other day I caught:

“So you’re saying the watch I picked up wasn’t yours?”

Now, what could that be about? Did his friend send him back to the office to collect the watch he’d left on a desk, and he’d taken someone else’s, meaning he now had two colleagues lamenting the loss of a timepiece?

Or it could be worse than that. Maybe he went back to the café where his friend had left his watch, saw one, collected it and shot back out thinking he was doing his friend a favour, only to discover that he’d taken the watch of an innocent customer who’d only just removed the watch from his wrist to rest it. That customer had since reported the theft to the police, providing them with an excellent description of the culprit, further reinforced by crystal-clear security camera footage.

I did hear a siren approaching as I went past, so I moved away quickly rather than witness the arrest of an unfortunate individual, guilty only of good if misdirected intentions.

Only to walk around the corner and hear a young woman, striding up Exhibition Road, proclaiming loudly:

“You can throw me under a tube.”

For those possibly not familiar with London, the tube is the underground railway that criss-crosses the city. To be thrown under one would not be a life-enhancing experience.

The usual expression is ‘throw me under a bus’...

...but under a tube would be more certainly terminal

So what terrible catastrophe had overtaken her? Had she been denied promotion by a scheming colleague who had secured a post, by rights hers, and whom she was now challenging to finish her life altogether, since he had already irreparably damaged her career prospects?

Or was she talking to her now ex-boyfriend, who had dumped her for her sister, heaping humiliation on top of harm? Bereft even of family support, since she had already been abandoned by her parents for her terrible choice of lover, she had now been betrayed by her own sibling.

Indeed, she might have been talking to the very sister. No wonder she felt that being thrown under a train would be a perfectly reasonable next step in the progression of disasters afflicting her.

But I think the finest titbit I overhead came from an anxious young man saying:

“You mean, he saw me leaving this morning?”

Well, I could construct some plausible circumstances that might lead to that kind of statement. But is it worth it? I’m sure you can find your own easily enough. And they probably wouldn’t be very different from any conjecture I might come up with.

Ubiquitous mobile phones? At least they add spice to a stroll through London. And a little exercise for the imagination.

Overheard on the bus

It’s not quite clear what the etiquette is when listening to people’s mobile phone calls. Should we shut our ears since listening is no better than reading someone’s mail? Than listening at someone’s door? Than working for a tabloid newspaper?

Well, I suppose we could. But if someone on the upper deck of a London bus is prepared to paint a picture of her intimate life, why shouldn’t I enjoy it as much as I enjoyed Lucian Freud’s painting at the National Portrait Gallery last Friday?

Well, no, not as much, obviously, but with exactly the same sense of entitlement.

The game is to reconstruct the other side of the conversation.

‘I’m doing something first but I’ll try and pop round later,’ said the young woman.

So she doesn’t want to tell a young man interested in her that she’s seeing another.

‘How long will you be going on till? Will you be playing a set yourself?’

A picture formed of a pub somewhere, a modest little stage in one corner cluttered with amps, speakers, a drum kit, a piano. A group of hopeful young men, disappointed by the poor turnout. They get up on the stage and try to make up in enthusiasm for what they lack in talent. They maintain that enthusiasm despite the lack of interest from all but a small number within the sparse audience.

Still, judging by her questions and her cheerful responses, the young woman was being encouraging. Although she did at one point say ‘well, I hope it goes well. Let me know.’

Bad news, I thought. She won’t be able to make it in time so she isn’t going to go at all. What did he have left to hope for from the desert of the evening stretching before him? His insecurity was mounting and her attempt to hang up failed.

‘Oh, what, you mean this evening? Oh, just popping out to dinner.’

Combining the words ‘just’ and ‘dinner’ was disingenuous, wasn’t it? The word he didn’t want to hear was ‘dinner’. Sticking ‘just’ in front of it wasn’t going to make it hurt any less.

‘Oh, you know,’ she continued, ‘with Ali M.’ A pause. ‘Do you know him?’ ‘Him?’ she was twisting the knife.

But then she turned merciful. Dropping her voice, but far too little to prevent me hearing from several seats away, she added ‘he’s gay.’ Her tone suggested reluctance. Why should she share this confidence? She could go out with whoever she chose. What right did he have to demand she explain herself? 

Not much encouragement for him and yet not completely discouraging either. She had a strong hand and was playing it skillfully. Keep the pike on the fishing line, the man on the phone line, while you make up your mind whether to reel him in or not. Very wise, very prudent.

Meanwhile, she was making another attempt to cut things short.

‘Sorry? Sorry? It’s cutting off...’

But again he relaunched the conversation for a few minutes before she could wrap it up.

‘Well, see you tomorrow.’ Sounds hopeful, but it isn’t really, is it? If they’re not meeting till tomorrow, there’s a whole evening with the supposedly gay friend. A whole night. ‘Yes, yes,’ she ended, ‘so do I.’

So did she? What? Love him? Think it was a good idea to meet up tomorrow? Wish him all the best for the evening?

I don’t know, but why should I? Good narratives often end in ambiguity. This one brought about a neatly constructed symmetry: the man on the line was left unassuaged but so was her audience on the bus. Some things we shall never know or understand. 

Making the experience much more like a Lucian Freud exhibition than one might expect.