Chase the Morning

But habit in itself is a kind of hiding place. Soon enough it had me up and in the shower, and under the hot water the horrors and tensions of the night seemed to slough gradually away. In no time I was dressed, gulping down my muesli and black coffee off the kitchen counter, clattering down the stairs to the car-park, almost eager to face the pale drizzle and the fearful rush-hour traffic. Jockeying for position in its swirling streams I sailed past Danube Street without so much as a glance. I was even a little early when I strode purposefully into the office, and when I reached my desk, freshly aromatic with polish, I sank back into my armchair with a luxurious sigh. When Clare came in with the post I was already hard at work.

She eyed me narrowly. ‘You’re looking tired,’ she said accusingly. ‘You’re sure you’re not pushing yourself too hard, Steve? I mean –’ She shrugged. She seemed less certain, less bossy today.

I fended her off with a confident grin. ‘Hey, what’s all this? Still fussing? Come on, I’m in my element – you know me. Pig in clover, that’s me here.’

‘Well, okay,’ she remarked ruefully, tugging at a lock of hair. ‘I’ve got that general idea! But – you will be sure and take care of yourself outside work, too? Try to relax a little? I mean, you know what they say about taking stress home …’

I nodded reassuringly. She deserved to be taken seriously. ‘I’ll be careful,’ I said, and meant it. After last night I was going to stick to my old regular life so closely you could put me on rails. Last night? Just the thought of it made me dizzy. Had I got drunk or high or something and doped the whole thing up? Or worse? Unlikely. Whatever had hit me this morning, it was no hangover. And I’d never have touched anything else capable of cooking up last night. Whatever my taste in clothes, designer drugs weren’t exactly my bag. I began remembering shreds of a Sunday supplement article on schizoid fantasies – or was that paranoid? Either way I wanted no part of it. What was this, the first signs of burnout? A psychoanalyst might tell me, but no way was I ready to go running to one just yet; these things get about. But could I possibly have just dreamed up anything so fantastic? Clare was on her way to get my coffee when I called after her.

‘Er – one thing,’ I wasn’t at all sure I wanted to ask her this – but, after all, who else was there?

‘Look, I know it sounds a silly question, but … You wouldn’t ever call me the over-imaginative type, would you? Sort of fanciful? Not really?’

She stared back at me for a moment, wide-eyed. Then she seemed to quiver from head to foot, and jammed her knuckle to her lips again. Dave appeared in the doorway, gaping like a fish. His face crumpled, and he doubled up, slapping his knee and howling with laughter. That set Clare off. She shook her head violently and fled into the outer office with shaking shoulders, giggling unmercifully. Dave straightened up, tears streaking his burnished cheeks. ‘Thanks very much,’ I said dryly. He was about to ask something, but I discouraged him. ‘Thanks a heap. That’s all I wanted to know. Absolutely all.’

In no time I was digging back into my work again, squeezing every minute detail out of it the way I’d always enjoyed. Now, though, it was a deliberate exercise. I knew what I was doing; I was deliberately tightening my grip on normality, upon real things. Upon safe things; they were my anchors, my moorings. I was afraid of being swept away.

So went the day. But all through it memory sat at my side, tugging constantly at my elbow, rising up suddenly and scattering my thoughts. So did Clare; she still fussed over me, more lightly than before, perhaps, but she seemed determined to hover. She kept coming up with all kinds of things that demanded my personal attention and sitting beside me while I ploughed through them. Every time I looked up I met those eyes of hers, contemplating me. Why do they always say dark eyes are inscrutable? Hers were as clear and cheerful as a cloudless July sky, and as unfathomable.

‘Wish she’d come bouncing round me like that!’ grinned Dave as he watched her saunter out.

‘Don’t wish too hard,’ I said disapprovingly, ‘or – what’s his name? – Stuart the Prop will be coming to bounce you around!’

Dave grinned. ‘Bit behind in the gossip, aren’t you? Big Stu’s old news. She gave him the heave-ho months back!’

‘Oh? Who is it now, then?’

Dave blinked thoughtfully in his own cigarette smoke. ‘Don’t know there’s anyone in particular, right now. Hey! Speaking of which, I met this amazing girl at a dance last weekend –’