|
They're at the football and everyone around them is cheering. They're cheering too, but they're not quite sure which team it's for. Louis suspects it's not for any team, but for the sake of the argument, he'd say Marseille just to earn the wrath of the man sitting next to him. It doesn't matter though -- it's all worth it in the end, that stupid little cycle of irritation turning to frustration, turning to anger and then slamming doors. They've both become very good at slamming doors in the past year. If there was one of those idiotic competitions where one had to smash a large mallet against a tiny metal platform so the lead weight would smack against the edge of a bell and it'd clang, just like that, making that noise, a CLANG, and then a prize like a big fluffy puppy with plastic eyes about to fall off would be given ... he'd be given one of those too. Except they're not in an amusement park but they can do that next week, if it's agreed to, of course. Television takes up so much of their time now. It's time spent together but it's losing meaning, like fizzy drinks losing their flavour after a certain amount of time until it's just sugar. Indeed, sugary is what they are, all smiles and kisses and je t'aime but what happened to that distinct, tantalising taste he used to receive?
And yet, as he looks across and sees rather than hears the shouting of something incomprehensible, encouragement maybe, he continues to smile. He's better at maths, so he'll take a look at their budgeting for the month and then figure out what they can do with the money they've saved up, a few hundred Euro from this month and the last two months and they'll go away to somewhere exotic, or someplace familiar. Maybe they'll go down the street to the shabby hotel fit only for English backpackers and book a room for a week to find themselves lying in bed, starchy and blindingly white, staring at the ceiling covered with something that looks like paper spaghetti and they'll whisper the world around them.
"Do you hear that? It's the siren of a police car looking for us. Inside the car there are two officers, one is young and inexperienced, but he's got the right idea. He thinks that we may be inside this room, but the other is telling him that no, that's a foolish idea, that we wouldn't be so stupid as to stay in a hotel so close to the scene of the crime."
"Did we steal something?"
"Just their sense of direction. And a couple of hundred Euros."
"Just enough to fund this room for a night."
"Yes, but it's for a night and check-out isn't until ten o'clock tomorrow morning."
Then he'd roll out of the bed and go over to the piss-poor tea and coffee making facilities provided and poke around with the cheap kettle, so used and worn the plastic has hardened and stained into a cracking yellow chip and the boiling water leaks through to pool on the table. He'd make a cup of coffee and a cup of tea for himself, then go back to the bed and they'd laugh about something, something foolish yet ridiculously amusing, like getting their luggage stolen for the sake of getting a Real Experience, and accidentally spill coffee and tea all over the bedsheets. "Fuck, it's all ruined!"
"Does it matter?" he'll ask and they'll shrug before heaving their suitcase over to the window and leaving the thin panel of glass open just a fraction, all the while laughing madly and he can't tell, in this little fantasy, whether they're laughing because it's genuinely funny or because they're desperate for something to laugh at.
"No, it doesn't matter." The words in the dark, long after their grins have faded away and their cheeks don't ache anymore, linger in the otherwise silent room. A blur and whiz of cars thrums steadily by but for the most part, they don't hear it. He shivers for a moment and pulls the blankets up to cover them, the coarse fabric grating against the skin of his back.
"Nothing really matters, does it?"
***
"Hm?" The blue gaze wends itself from the football game, vague inquiry the intention but confusion the result. "If we lose this match? Well .. no, not exactly. We're in the finals, either way. And we're going to win, of course."
Louis smiles and takes his hand. It's lucky that the weather has been so cold lately; they're wearing big jackets and no-one will notice.
"I'll start planning the celebratory dinner."
|
