She’s a neatly-dressed woman, not young. I see her sitting on the same park bench every Saturday, at two. I can’t say exactly when my orbit became synchronised with hers, or why I persist with it now. I could always walk another way to the station. Indeed, I don’t need to walk to the station at all any more. It’s just a habit: catch the train into town, coffee in the corner café. And now her.
What’s most striking is her serene aura. She’s never lost in her phone, like most of us are these days. Sometimes she’s reading a paperback, sometimes she’s feeding the birds. But most of the time she sits and looks out across the parkland, and the pretty little lake. I’ve never spoken to her, not even caught her eye. I walk past, take the train into town, and that’s it.
At first, I was curious. You don’t see many women out on their own. I’ve read that the Internet has turned all the men into perverts. Or at least it’s convinced all the women that all the men are perverts. I don’t want her thinking that about me. But I’m wondering if she ever thinks about me at all, is curious about me, like I’m curious about her, this guy who walks by, every Saturday at two.
I’m not so old I can’t remember the urgent allure of girls, nor the lengths I went to to be with one. You could sit down next to a girl on a park bench in those days and say hello without her calling the cops – well, maybe not the same bench, but the bench opposite, perhaps. Was it that we were all so much younger, and trusting then, still working out what was the right way to enter into the full bloom of being? And somewhere along the way, something went wrong and turned us all into paranoid strangers, fearful of one another.
It was never about sex for me. I wouldn’t have admitted that to other guys, though – guys whose woman-talk never rose above the level of whether so-and-so was a good shag. They didn’t mean it, by the way. Well, not all of them did. That kind of talk used to embarrass me. And now? Well, now the prize would be someone to share a coffee with, someone to come home with, kick off our shoes, make dinner together, and watch TV.
She’s wearing a white shirt-dress today, looks summery and cool, looks like she’s waiting for someone, actually. That’s most likely it. At two-o-five, when I’ve gone by, this guy comes up, and they stroll off arm in arm. Except you wouldn’t arrange a date for two-o-five, would you? It would be two, on the dot. Or am I just over thinking things?
In truth, I don’t know how it goes any more. I met my wife of twenty-five years at work. I can’t remember which of us spoke first. It just sort of happened. It seemed to happen more easily back then. Now it doesn’t. Now you have to go on the Internet and sell yourself. But if you’ve nothing to sell, what then? I was no looker to begin with, and age has hardly improved things. But is that the best way to make a first impression, anyway?
I’ve wondered about saying hello. I mean, that’s still okay, isn’t it? I say hello to other people when I’m out walking, and they say hello back. It’s polite. It’s like saying: I’m a nice person, and you can trust me. And it usually comes with a smile, and you can tell a lot about a person that way. But it needs a bit of eye contact first, and she’s never scanning for it. Her eyes are always in her book, or watching the birds, or admiring the view. So as simple a thing as that might sound, saying hello, it never actually works out.
It would be best to break the habit, I suppose. It’s getting so my Saturday afternoons begin with the tingly anticipation of seeing her in the park, then it all falls flat, and what used to be a pleasant distraction in town suddenly isn’t any more. The train ride, the coffee, maybe a mooch in a bookshop, these things used to be a way of dodging the loneliness. But now they seem only to highlight it, and bring to the fore an aching desire to fix it.
I’m not saying she’s the right person. I mean, who knows? I’d have to talk to her first. But at least the fact I’m attracted to her is a start. Right? Plus, she might be lonely, too, and these Saturday afternoons on a park bench are her way of dealing with that. Maybe she’d like nothing more than for someone to hello. She just never gives that impression. Indeed, that air of serenity speaks of a rock-solid self-containment, and maybe that’s what I’m attracted by – that what she possesses most is the very thing I lack in myself.
Anyway, here we are again, Saturday at two. She must have noticed me. That’s what people do, they recognise patterns. She sits there, same time, same day, and this same guy comes walking by. And if she was at all curious about me, she’d be looking to make eye contact, if only to sound me out as harmless. So, perhaps today’s the day. Here we go: I give her a glance, an opening, so to speak, like I always do. It’s for her to respond, now. I can do no more but, once again, she doesn’t seem to notice me, so I look away, weigh once more the ache in my gut, and ride the train into town.
So,… coffee, in the corner café. I’d thought I was done with all this teenage stuff. I’d thought I was happy on my own, but it turns out I’m still looking for completion in the body and the soul of another, and all that crap. And worse, I also know myself by now, that I’m trapped in this groove, unable to veer left or right to dodge the hurt. And the only way this will work itself out is when I walk by one Saturday, and she’s no longer there. Then I’ll be that free man again, drinking coffee, alone, flicking on his damned phone, but all of that, at least, without this ache in his gut.
Or maybe, just maybe, next Saturday, at two,…
Header image adapted from: here
Footer image adapted from: here
The Rivendale Review 
HI Michael,
I have just finished “A lone a tree falls”. This is by far your best book yet. I understand how difficult it is to work, sometimes for years, on a book, with no feedback, no support, but in your case the effort and perseverance produces a product which is truly exceptional.
Most writing today is aimed at adolescent minds or at least a juvenile intellect. Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, 50 shades of nonsense, have no value as literature regardless of their popularity or monetary success. Their books, as Faulkner wrote of Hemingway, ” [He] has never been known to use a word that might send the reader to the dictionary.” or I might add, cause a reader to have a pause for thought.
All your books exhibit depth and portions can be read over and over because “Some men’s words I remember so well that I must often use them to express my thought. Yes, because I perceive that we have heard the same truth, but they have heard it better.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
A Lone Tree Falls put into words, more clearly and better, dozens of thoughts that I have held for months and years.
The times have changed and Le Carre himself would not be published today, but I can imagine Swifty meeting Smiley and complementing each other in foiling the mandarins in the machinations of the “Circus”.
I understand the reward of the blog, the affirmation that what you say has an audience and an appreciative one at that, I understand that my comment is small payment for the hundreds of hours that you must have put into A Lone Tree Falls and I only wish that there were enough readers like me who appreciate the genius ( and I mean that sincerely) of your books.
The Rowlings and Hemingways get the kudos and money but neither can approach your insight into the human condition or your command of language. Neither can evoke the images and understanding of character that you create.
I will happily send you a weekly eMail if it would induce you to work on a successor to A Lone Tree falls, and I did note that you teased us with such a thought in the final sentence, for I live in hope of another such work.
I can assure you, that particular tree caused a resounding “crash” in this particular reader.
A work such as yours has to be a labour of love. The greatest compliment I had was a reader asking me, “What happens to Tina next?” I am left asking about Amelia, Winona and George what happens in their future, I find I really care.
I have no right to ask of you the sacrifice nor do I have the means to make it financially rewarding but please know that in some small corner of a foreign land there is at least one who eagerly looks forward to your books.
“Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings, so that you shall come easily by that which others have laboured for.”(Socrates)
Your book maintains my small hope that all is not lost.
Thank you very much for that. Such an encouraging response is deeply appreciated. I’m glad you enjoyed the book. It’s more than reassuring that at least one person was able to connect with what at times seemed to me a strange narrative – at least in the writing of it.
In spite of my usual denials, both to myself and in the blog, I suspect there is another book – there always is. There’s such a lot of life to explore, and writing stories is how I feel my way. It’ll take a month or so, but something usually pops up.