Jarrod
Jarrod was up to 84 words by lunchtime. He was pretty
sure that it was a record but there seemed to be no way of finding out. He would
have to assume that he was at least twenty-five words ahead of his nearest
competitor.
He had brought along Lawrence for lunch. Lawrence and
tuna. Wandering through the canteen, his eyes firmly fixed on avoiding the
‘sticky zones’ decorating the floor beneath his nervous feet, he clutched The Rainbow in his left hand, making
sure that the cover was accessible for any passers-by who happened to glance
towards his hips. As he approached a suitably vacant seat, he laid Lawrence
down on a newly-cleaned portion of the table before him, wiping his hand
rapidly across the surface just before the paper made contact. Nudging one
corner until it was perfectly aligned with the edging of the table, Jarrod
placed his well-packaged sandwich beside the book and rose swiftly towards the
currently-unoccupied coffee machine.
As his fellow booth-dwellers entered the canteen, Jarrod
glanced towards his table, as if beckoning them to offer him a nod of
admiration at his choice of lunch companion. It was with unjustified irritation
that he turned sharply back to the machine after seeing them slide into the
nearest seats to the door without even the slightest look in his direction. It
defied belief that D.H. Lawrence would be ignored, not even prompting the
slightest flicker of recognition or, ideally, admiration.
The machine confirmed his suspicions that ‘real’ coffee
would be an unlikely prospect for data enterers – or clerks, as he was
beginning to refer to himself as – and that the button labelled ‘Americano’
would most likely not reproduce the same drink that he had savoured, albeit for
£2.50, the previous weekend. In fact, glancing back towards his table, Jarrod
noticed that even the chair was a poor imitation of the leather couch that had
provided suitable accompaniment for his reasonably expensive drink that day.
Some might say that its plastic frame and single seat actually made it the
exact opposite of a leather couch, if furniture really does work in opposites,
the same way that tofu is the opposite of beef.
God bless the man who invented the automatic cut-off
function on these machines, Jarrod found himself thinking, as he stared in
surprise at his unmoved finger still pressing firmly on the button that had
long since delivered its promised mixture of flavoured granules and scalding
water.
‘That’ll be 90p, thanks,’ a voice demanded from behind a
till. Jarrod looked up with an undue degree of confusion, as if he had heard
‘pounds’ rather than ‘p’, as he slowly realised that even if one is left
disappointed, payment is still required. As he placed a pound coin in the palm
of the hand before him, he watched her fingers carefully search through the
till for his essential 10p. This was certainly not a ‘you can keep the change’
moment.
He returned to Lawrence, who had remained patient
throughout the whole ordeal, although not attracting the attention either of
them desired. Jarrod fanned The Rainbow
between the fingers of his right hand and clutched his ‘coffee’ in the other,
shifting his eyes furtively in the direction of each occupied table around him,
hoping that someone would return his inquisitiveness and linger questioningly
on the name displayed before them. Most likely, he thought, they may have a
faint memory of some scandalous story surrounding the publication of one of his
books, back in the days when it wasn’t the done thing to offer more than a
passing description of breasts, but this one, he was certain – or, at least, he
hoped – would be a feast as yet un-tasted, if not unknown. He had believed for
many years, and had tried sharing this belief with second-hand bookshop owners
whenever possible, that the ‘Classics’ might as well have been renamed the
‘Unread’, as fewer and fewer people perceived the relevance in Literature that
was, quite literally, from a different generation. They were the books that
should be read but which were only sampled by a select few and he was
determined that he, Jarrod Bowman, would be in that special group.
The Americano was an enormous disappointment and he felt
that he in some way shared in Brangwen’s ‘inexplicable and incalculable dark
rages’ that so troubled poor Anna, the relevance of The Rainbow’s lead characters warming him beyond anything the
coffee was capable of. He puffed out his cheeks and nodded at the eyes opposite
squinting in wonder at the paper clutched between his fingers, satisfied that
at last recognition had arrived. He returned the smile that she – the full
revelation of the eyes opposite – offered, indulging in the ambiguity of such a
common expression.
It was only as he returned to Anna’s predicament that he
realised what beauty was before him. Perhaps, just perhaps, the smile was more
than awkwardness, an actual signifier of shared understanding and appreciation?
As
he turned the page, Jarrod lifted his eyes to peer above the slightly-trembling
paper before him, feasting upon her ever-diminishing figure gliding towards the
exit.
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