(Many of you enjoyed reading about Kate and myself in a previous submission, 'The Trouble With Kate'. As before, this story about our life together is a genuinely true account, and is effectively a love letter to the one person in my world who makes me who I am. This is for you honey. I'll love ya forever.)
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Sometimes it's easy to forget the simple pleasures in life. I'd been working solidly for the last week, sometimes for as much as fifteen hours a day, to complete the backlog of work that had been piling high on my desk. Every morning I'd looked through the door of the little back bedroom that I'd converted to an office and groaned loudly. Piles of papers seemingly sprang up overnight as I slept, and after several weeks of moaning and cursing I finally decided to get it in order. I rang editors, checked deadlines, sorted notes and drank gallons of tea. Mostly though, I hammered away at the keyboard and got some solid work produced. After what I glumly termed the week from hell had finished I checked my word-count. Over thirty-thousand. Not too shabby, even if I do say so myself.
My breakneck output had ended yesterday. Today I'd promised myself that I'd recall those simple pleasures that made life worthwhile. I'd risen early and bought Kate coffee and toast in bed, and after she'd left for work I quickly picked up around the apartment while letting AC/DC blast out from the stereo at a volume that could have woken the dead. I even allowed myself to strut with a little air-guitar while Angus was soloing through 'Let There Be Rock'. By nine-thirty I'd changed into jeans and my ancient denim jacket and was heading away from my building towards the Chelsea underground. The morning was bright and the air was as clear as London ever got, and I stopped at a local cafe to grab a sandwich that was seeming made up of half bacon, half grease. No matter, to my untrained palate it tasted fantastic, and I was still working through it as the tube rattled to a halt at the dirty station and the doors slid open with their ominous whisper.
As the train tunnelled it's way beneath the city I checked cinema times in the back pages of The Evening Standard. The Scala was situated near Kings Cross, one of the roughest parts of the city, and the area kind of suited the scruffy old cinema, which was a haven for movie lovers who favoured something a little different. I spend a lot of time in press screenings for my living; a big part of my work is freelancing for film magazines, and just lately the output from Hollywood had been depressing, and that was being generous. I'd spent weeks slumming through dreary teen flicks, romantic comedies and unwanted sequels. What I needed was a decent hit of cult movie madness, and I knew The Scala would be able to provide that for me.
I couldn't have asked for a better double-bill. Two hours of utter kung-fu madness with 'Five Deadly Venoms', a cracking old Shaw Brothers flick from the early '70's, followed by 'Suspiria', the shit-your-pants scary Italian horror classic from the crazed mind of director Dario Argento. I bought enough popcorn to feed a third-world country and chatted to a couple of familiar film-geeks for a few minutes before the first picture started. As the lights dimmed I couldn't keep the smile off my face. Some people relax by walking the dog, going to the gym or lazing in the bath, and if that's what floats your boat then good luck. I relax by losing myself completely in bizarre cinema, and I'm not going to apologise for it.
I emerged from the cinema hours later feeling sick from the popcorn overdose yet revitalised from the delights I'd just witnessed. Just down the road from The Scala was a bar I used to frequent in my early London days, and I popped in for a quick Guinness and to hear the usual foul-mouthed lies that were as always being traded around the place.
After that, it was into the city centre, past Trafalgar and the usual heaving masses of Japanese tourists, until I stepped through the doors of Tower Records. I spent the next hour scanning the shelves, picking up, contemplating and then replacing various albums until my final choices were made, my usual assortment of blues and rock and the new U2 compilation which I knew Kate had been wanting to get hold of. I stood outside Tower and looked at the disc; Bono and the boys stared back at me but I barely saw them. Instead, I thought of my girl, working hard while I was cruising around the town enjoying myself, and I felt a moment of guilt. Although Kate knew what I was doing and had no objection to it, and had encouraged me to relax after my stress-filled week, I still felt bad. Truth was, the good day I'd been having would only have been improved if she had been with me. Okay, so she'd never have sat through the Kung-Fu, but I'd have made that sacrifice to have felt her hand holding mine in the dark.
I walked quickly West from the music store until I started to see signs for Carnaby Street. Although far removed from it's swinging sixties reputation as the place to be seen, and now more for tourists than anything else, some of the smaller streets that branched off it still had a varied collection of individual shops. The two of us had been browsing around a little boutique a couple of weeks before, and Kate had pointed something out to me that she really loved. Neither of us had the money then, and truthfully I didn't really have the money now, but what the hell. What was a credit card for if you couldn't bend it once in a while?
The store was virtually empty when I stepped through the door, and I instantly saw the dress that Kate had been looking at with longing. It was sea-green and double-layered, almost see-through yet almost not, depending on the way the light struck it. Short sleeves and short in length, retro in style and just the kind of thing she loved to wear. Just the kind of thing I loved to see her in too, and I knew the light material would wrap itself around her and make her already beautiful body appear just that little more sensual. I never hesitated, handed my plastic over willingly and watched as an assistant with a huge smile and purple hair wrapped it for me.
The tube was busy with afternoon commuters, and by the time I made it home the wind had risen and rain was in the air. I kicked off my boots by the front door and was heading for the bathroom when my cellphone rang. It was Kate, calling from the office to see how my day had been, and I told her everything except for the gift I'd bought her. A couple of the girls from the office had invited her out for a meal, and she was going to go along unless I had any other plans. I didn't, and in truth just wanted to kick back, listen to music and eat bad food. She told me she'd be in around Ten and that she loved me, and we hung up. There's a lot of great things about our relationship, and one of the best is the way we exist around as well as with each other. The occasional times that we spend apart only serve to make our life together that much stronger.
I lifted weights with little enthusiasm for the next half-hour and then took a quick shower, and by the time I was on the phone ordering Chinese food darkness had already overpowered the city. I watched MTV while I ate, shouting abuse at the pop fodder on display in a way that made me think I could be turning into my Father, before working through a couple of my new albums while I cleaned and re-strung my guitar. The new Ramones compilation received my approval, the new Foo Fighters less so. Maybe it was a grower. I certainly wasn't about to give up on Dave Grohl just yet.
By eight-thirty I was yawning regularly, and even though I'd done very little all day I still felt knackered. Maybe I was just well-relaxed, or maybe I was getting old. Whatever, no-one but me would know that a guy of thirty was heading for bed this early, and I threw my clothes into the wicker basket in the corner of the bedroom and was just about to slip between the sheets when I remembered the dress. I wanted Kate to see the present when she got in, and I laid the wrapped package on the seat of the old chair that we keep in the bedroom. The moonlight shone through the open drapes at the window and bounced off the silver paper, giving it a luminescence that was impossible to miss. I climbed into the cool bed and retrieved my Elmore Leonard from the side table, but after no more than a few pages I felt my eyes go heavy and I started to neglect sentences. Last thing I remember was Chilli Palmer pulling a gun before I fell back against the softness of the pillows. If I'd been an act in Vegas the announcer would have informed the crowd that I'd left the building, and I was gone.
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The next time I opened my eyes Kate was in the room. I usually sleep fairly lightly, and her entrance must have disturbed me. The light was low due to the single lit lamp and I watched as she walked quietly towards the dresser on the far side of the room. She didn't speak and I assumed that she thought I was still asleep, and I lay still and watched her silently.
She still wore her work clothes; a dark grey fitted jacket and matching short skirt that instantly made her look businesslike and sexy at the same time. Her job brings her into contact with clients on a daily basis and she always makes a point of looking her best. On the evenings and weekends she's happy to slob down with the best of us, but in the week when she needs to turn the style on she does it with seemingly effortless ease. That's where the two of us differ; for me the idea of getting dressed up means changing into cleaner jeans and a slightly less offensive T-shirt, and I suppose that's just one of the thousand reasons why I'm a scruffy writer and she's a junior lawyer.
