‘Yes,’ I lie, easily. ‘Absolutely.’
‘And you’re still on the young side of things.’
I shrug, and make the kind of face I think you are meant to make.
‘I’m fifty-six so forty-one is young, trust me.’
Fifty-six is young.
Eighty-eight is young.
One hundred and thirty is young.
‘Well, I am quite anoldforty-one.’
She smiles at me. She clicks the top of her pen. Then clicks it again. Each one is a moment. The first click, the pause between the click, and the second click. The longer you live, the harder it becomes. To grab them. Each little moment as it arrives. To be living in something other than the past or the future. To be actually here.
Forever, Emily Dickinson said, is composed of nows. But how do you inhabit the now you are in? How do you stop the ghosts of all the other nows from getting in? How, in short, do you live?
I am drifting away.
It has been happening a lot recently. I had heard about this. Other albas had spoken about it. You reached the mid-point of your life, and the thoughts got too much. The memories swell. The headaches grow. The headache today isn’t so bad, but it is there.
I try to concentrate. I try to hold on to that other now, a short few seconds ago, where I was enjoying the interview. Enjoying the feeling of relative ordinariness. Or the illusion of it.
There is no ordinary.
Not for me.
I try to concentrate. I look at Daphne as she shakes her head and laughs, but softly now, at something she doesn’t disclose. Something sad, I feel, from the sudden glazing of her eyes. ‘Well, Tom, I am quite impressed by you and this application, I must say.’
Tom.
Tom Hazard.
My name – my original name – was Estienne Thomas Ambroise Christophe Hazard. That was the starting point. Since then I have had many, many names, and been many, many things. But, on my first arrival into England, I quickly lost the trimmings and became just Tom Hazard.
Now, using that name again, it feels like a return. It echoes in my head.Tom. Tom. Tom. Tom.
‘You tick all the boxes. But even if you didn’t you’d be getting the job.’
‘Oh, really. Why?’
She raises her eyebrows. ‘There’s no other applicant!’
We both laugh a little at that.
But the laugh dies faster than a mayfly.
Because then she says, ‘I live on Chapel Street. I wonder if you know anything about that?’
And, of course, I do know about that, and the question wakes me like a cold wind. My headache pulses harder. I picture an apple bursting in an oven. I shouldn’t have come back here. I should never have asked Hendrich for this to happen. I think of Rose, the last time I saw her, and those wide desperate eyes.
‘Chapel Street. I don’t know. No. No, I’m afraid I don’t know.’
‘Don’t worry.’ She sips her coffee.
I look at the poster of Shakespeare. He seems to be staring at me, like an old friend. There is a quote below his image.
