I Know You. Annabel Kantaria
Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. It was difficult to believe that I should have no real friends in London and, hand on heart, I was having trouble to adjusting to the fact that I knew no one. I’d laughed at his joke but it had hurt. There were days back then when I’d thought the loneliness would surely drive me insane; when I felt as if the darkness inside me was going to explode out and flood the house, engulfing me like a seabird caught helplessly in a slimy slick of oil. It makes me squirm now, but back then I’d see myself floating down the hall, arms and legs glued to my body, eyes bulging, choking on loneliness, and I’d have to breathe into a paper bag to stop myself hyperventilating. I never told Jake about that. Maybe I should have done – who knows? – but, ultimately, that’s why I decided to join the walking group.
At the end of my street, I turned a smart right, crossed the main road, headed towards the park, and arrived bang on time. And so the story begins.
*
I see the walking group at once: a mish-mash of people gathered beneath a huge old oak. Some, in sportwear, are stretching hamstrings and quads, others are clutching take-out coffees and, had I been worried about what to wear, I realize right there that there’s no need: there’s a whole range of active wear between the two groups. I turn my back to the group and snap a smiling selfie with them in the background, then upload it to Instagram as I walk towards the group. ‘Hiking, London-style! #lloydpark’, I write for the caption, adding a little heart emoji, full of the knowledge that my friends back home will find the image everything it’s not: cute (Taylor in a hat!), quaint (London parks!), and moody with the dark sky and bleak trees (weather!). Hollywood Hills it isn’t. Already my phone buzzes with Likes.
They say you judge a person in seven seconds, and I’m perhaps even quicker than that. I scan the group as I approach, my eyes sweeping right and left through them, ruling out those standing with friends and those too old. I’ve nothing against the elderly, don’t get me wrong, but I’m looking for a specific type of person – a new best friend – and, for that, there are criteria.
I wonder now what would have happened had I turned up earlier or later in the year; had I gone to a different supermarket, seen an ad for a different walking group; read a flyer for a different kind of hobby. I go over and over how things might have been different. But this is the day I join this walking group, and I spot a potential friend at once. There’s something about her face, her hair, her clothes, and the way she holds herself. She looks like one of my friends – my real friends back in the States. What I feel is familiarity: that woman standing there in the skinny jeans, the brown boots and the olive-green coat looks like she should be in my tribe. I take a deep breath and wend my way through the other walkers, smiling politely, until I get to her.
‘Hi,’ I say. ‘It’s Jen, isn’t it?’
She looks at me and purses her lips. Squints her eyes.
‘You don’t remember, do you?’ I give a little laugh and shake my hair back as I lean in towards her as if we’re sharing a joke. I have the kind of face that’s generic to a lot of people: a symmetrical, pretty face, with a smile so friendly you think you know me. You’ve ‘seen’ me, you’ve seen thousands of me, and this ‘do I know you?’ tactic often works. But not on this day: the woman shakes her head slowly.
‘I’m sorry. Head like a sieve. Remind me,’ she says.
‘I’m Jake’s wife. We met at dinner at Richard and Kate’s the other week…?’ I falter. ‘At least, I think it was you!’ I laugh again, and shrug. ‘Or have I made a huge mistake? I’m rubbish at faces.’
She tuts and shakes her head. ‘Sorry.’
‘Oh god. No, I’m so sorry. I can be such an idiot!’
Now she’s smiling but it doesn’t reach her eyes. ‘No worries. It’s okay.’ She’s already looking past me, towards the gates of the park.
I thrust out my hand. ‘I’m Taylor, by the way.’
‘Polly,’ she says, giving my hand a limp shake, and I picture myself telling Jake that I’d met a real, live person called Polly. It’s such an English name. There’s something so pure and sweet and rosy about it. It’s like I hit the English-names jackpot. In my head, I fast-forward our friendship like a movie: Polly and Taylor. I imagine nights out, holidays together, us telling our other friends how we met at a walking group ‘way back in the day’. I’ve already said that I lived in my head a lot in those days, haven’t I? Loneliness is a bitch.
‘Glad to meet you,’ I say to Polly, changing the subject. ‘So what’s the deal here? It’s my first time.’
‘Oh, it’s fairly relaxed,’ she says. ‘We sign in with Cath over there…’ she points to a woman with a clipboard, ‘and then we all start walking. It’s about an hour’s walk.’
‘Great. And we end up back here?’
‘Yes. Sometimes we go a different route; Cath tries to show us different parts of the town and park but, yes, we end up back here.’
‘Hi!’ We’re interrupted by a fresh-faced woman who approaches behind me.
‘Hey!’ says Polly. The other woman turns out to be called Bex. And this is where it all goes wrong. From the moment Polly and Bex start talking to each other, two things become clear. One, that this is a weekly date for the two of them; and two, that I’m the gooseberry. I make my excuses, turn around and fall into conversation with a tall man who’s standing behind me: that’s how I come to know Simon.
By the time we get back to the starting point of the walk, I feel as if I know the vast majority of Simon’s life history. It’s not his fault, and I’m not complaining – it’s just I’ve been so starved of conversation since the move that I don’t stop asking the poor guy questions. I don’t ask him how old he is but I’d guess from the greys starting to lighten his hair at the temples, from the crow’s feet that line his face, and perhaps from the self-deprecating maturity with which he talks about his situation, that he’s in his late forties, maybe even just gone fifty. He’s divorced but is ‘fine about it’ because it means he can live with his dad – he’s the only child and pretty much his dad’s full-time carer. The dad, whom he curiously refers to as ‘Father’, has a lot wrong with him. Simon uses technical terms with which I’m not familiar but I imagine his dad being housebound, perhaps even confined to his bed. I can picture Simon bending over him, tending to him with never-ending patience – though maybe he’s not like that at all. Maybe he’s impatient, snapping at his father, resenting the fact that his life’s ebbing away as he wipes dribble from his mouth, shampoos his thin, grey hair, and trims his yellowing nails. Some external carer, a volunteer or something, comes occasionally, and that’s when Simon slips out to do things like go to the library, and walk with this group.
‘I come here for the company,’ he says as we trudge, head-down into the wind, so I ask him who he usually talks to.
‘Oh, no one specific. I just come to be among other people. Not necessarily talking to them.’ He laughs. ‘You’re honoured I’ve put up with you for a whole hour.’
We both laugh then because surely it’s as obvious as day is day that he’s done all the talking.
‘So tell me about you,’ he says. ‘Have you lived here long?’
I open my mouth to reply but am rendered mute by the memory of that evening when Jake had sat me down on Santa Monica beach, the huge, red sun kissing the horizon and the soft air balmy against my skin, and suggested a fresh start in Britain.
‘London!’ he’d said, arcing his hands as if to embrace the entire city, and I’d pictured the lights, the shops, the buzz and the bars of the West End, not exactly Croydon.
‘A smart little townhouse,’ Jake had said, ‘for us and this little one…’ He’d patted my tummy where the baby was then about the