City-break
A series of interconnected short stories from my 2018 collection "Degrees of Separation"
City-break
(October 2014)
“Montjuic?”
The young man in front of him turned slightly, partially removing his attention from the Receptionist who had herself turned to delve in a drawer for a map of the city.
“I’m sorry,” he smiled at the young man, as if guilty at having spoken. “I couldn’t help but overhear. Montjuic. The best way to get up there is the cable car.”
“That’s what someone told me.”
“You can walk up it - though walking down is better, of course!” Encouraged by the young man’s laugh, Jack hurried on. “I’d suggest you get the tube to Paral-lel and then the funicular up to the cable car station. Some people go across from the harbour cable car to get to the foot of Montjuic, but that’s not so great for getting to the top.”
Having retrieved a map, the Receptionist regained the young man’s attention long enough to hand it over. He turned back to Jack.
“You know Barcelona then?”
Jack smiled knowing that their mother tongue conferred a kind of bond between them, even if the young man’s accent was an Australian one.
“Yes; one of my favourite places in the world. I’m just here for a few days - for a ‘top-up’, if that makes sense.”
“It does,” said the other, sliding the map into a side pocket of his pale green rucksack. “I’m still trying to find places to feel that way about.”
Jack edged forward and handed his room key to the Receptionist. The young man didn’t move.
“Jack,” he said, extending his hand.
“Matt,” said the other, shaking it.
“Look, I’d be happy to show you the way up to Montjuic if that would help.” They had moved together through the foyer and out into another sunny Barcelona morning. For a moment Jack paused, breathing in the air, the sounds, the feel of the place. “I was planning to go up there myself today anyway, and I’d be happy to go now if you’d like some company.”
Matt had the air of a solo traveller; he was certainly not travelling with a female companion. A quick scan of his clothes, his hair, the bruised rucksack and the partially guarded look in his eyes, told Jack as much. He was sure he too had appeared that way once; perhaps the very first time he had visited the city.
Matt hesitated.
“It’s fine, if not. I don’t mean to intrude. After all, I could be some axe murderer for all you know!”
“That I doubt,” said Matt.
Around fifty-five minutes later they were standing in the castle at the top of Montjuic, leaning against a low wall and overlooking the city spread out beneath them. It had been a pleasant journey up, Matt showing the appropriate degree of enthusiasm for the funicular as it rose from the Paral-lel tunnel, and for the cable car ride up the hillside. It was still reasonably quiet and they had managed to secure a gondola to themselves, something which gave Jack the freedom to point out various highlights as they rose: the old fun fair, the Olympic stadium, Barcelonetta. Once at the top, they had headed into the castle, Jack offering to pay.
“Someone once did the the same for me many years ago,” he said, “so I’m really just passing on the favour.”
Matt accepted, suspecting the story to be untrue, a fable concocted to ease his acceptance of Jack’s generosity. As if to even things out, he had bought two bottles of water from the kiosk outside the gates, and they were now both drinking as they admired the view.
“When do you think you’ll decide about your job?” Jack asked, his words aimed at his companion but his eyes fixed firmly on the city, attempting to locate the roof of the El Born Centre.
“As soon as I get back,” Matt replied. “The real question is when will I get back?”
They both laughed.
Matt was - to use his own words - “taking some time out”. Straight out of university he had fallen into a good job with one of the ‘Big Five’ accountancy firms and had thrown himself into it with gusto. He had, by his own admission, done well; his first promotion had come after just over twelve months. Now another was on the table, but it was dependant on him narrowing his field of specialisation - and returning to Australia.
“How much time do you have?” Jack asked.
“Officially another week or so. They gave me three weeks, which was great - and then hinted that if I needed a little more time they could be ‘flexible’.”
“That sounds great. They must really rate you.”
“I guess. And don’t get me wrong, they’re a great firm to work for. It’s just…”
“You’re not sure about going back home?”
Matt laughed.
“That’s an interesting notion. I’m not sure I really know where home is. It used to be Australia until about three or four years ago. And I’ve been in London since then.”
“But neither fit the bill?”
“Something like that.” Matt paused. “Which is one of the reasons I’m doing this; touring around, looking at places.”
“To see if you can find somewhere you’d like to live?”
Jack saw a large cruise liner edging away from the docks below them, about to creep back out into the Mediterranean and resume its journey, its passengers able to tick off another city from their itinerary. He envied them. He had been lucky in terms of the places he had seen, he knew that; but without his consent, a line had now been drawn through his bucket list. He would be ticking off almost nothing new from here on in.
“Myself, I’ll probably going on to Italy: Viareggio, somewhere like that,” he said to the ship, “and then Sicily, or Malta, or around and into the Adriatic.”
“You talk as if you know all these places.”
Jack laughed, more to himself than anything.
“I’ve been lucky,” he replied, turning thought into words, “the places I’ve seen. Which is one reason, I think, that I can relate to what you’re going through, the dilemma you face.”
“Have you found your ideal place then?”
“I’d have to say ‘places’ plural, Matt. But yes. Even though I’ve never lived outside of the UK for very long, I know the places where I could happily place my hat.”
“‘Place my hat’? What’s that?”
“Oh, some rubbish translation of a proverb from somewhere I expect! I take it to mean somewhere you could settle. You know, take your shoes off, put your feet up.”
“Like Barcelona?”
“To an extent.”
Jack turned and leant the base of his spine against the wall, now looking across the vast expanse of the citadel’s flat roof on which they stood. It was almost as if he didn’t want the city to hear what he had to say next.
“I love it here - but I’m not sure I could cope with it on a full-time basis. Barcelona demands energy and commitment. I doubt I have the commitment, and I’m certain I don’t have the energy any more!”
It was a statement that seemed layered with meaning. Matt let it go for the moment.
“So if not here, where then? Which places could you live in full-time?”
“If I were your age?”
“No; I mean right now, for you, tomorrow if you had to. And you can’t choose England.”
“Fair enough.”
After Barcelona, Jack would be going home - and doing so knowing that he would never come here again. Worse than that, he knew anywhere he mentioned right now - anywhere - would be little more than a word, an abstract name for a place. He would never again be able to turn those names into sights and sounds and smells. They would never become new experiences; he had to live off the old ones.
“Tuscany, for sure - even though it can get really hot. Lucca, Sienna, and if I wanted to be a bit more remote, a little place called Montecatini Alto. Bruges - but I’d need to ban all the tourists! - Uppsala in Sweden; maybe Ireland, but not Dublin. And almost anywhere in Switzerland, Basel and Lausanne especially.”
“You’d need lots of cash for Switzerland,” Matt suggested.
“You’ve been there?”
“A couple of days in Geneva. Enough to know how expensive it is!”
“There’s the rub,” Jack said with a slight sigh. “Every place has a thing for which you have to compensate. Everywhere has pros and cons. I like Australia actually. I prefer Brisbane to Sydney, but the heat in the summer! Not sure I could take that every year.”
Matt nodded but said nothing. Jack could see him drifting back.
“It’s all a question of balance,” Jack suggested, pulling his new friend back from wherever he was about to mentally head off. “Nowhere’s perfect. Great climate versus hurricane season; fantastic architecture versus hoards of tourists; lakes and streams versus mosquitoes! I don’t envy you your choice.”
“Well right now it’s not much of a choice,” Matt confessed, “seeing as I’ve hardly been anywhere yet. Outside of home and London, there’s just Geneva, Berlin, Paris and here. That’s hardly comprehensive.”
Jack stood momentarily to stretch his legs before easing himself back against the wall. Near one of the corner battlements a group of Orientals had appeared and were singularly preoccupied with taking photographs and selfies on their phones.
“You’re right - and they’re much of a muchness; I mean, large capital-like cities. But I wouldn’t worry about it, Matt. I mean, you’re still young. That list of yours may seem short, but it’ll already be longer than many people your age. And who says you have to choose yet? I don’t think anyone can possibly know what they want until they have lived a little - or a lot. Until they’ve some scars, some disappointments. Until they know what they don’t want. You need to have something else on the end of the scales.”
“That makes sense.”
“I’d suggest that the real question for you is how are you going to accumulate all the ‘stuff’ you need on that other end of the scale, the stuff you are going to balance yourself against. Whether it’s Geneva or here or Timbuktu, you’ll only know when you can see those places measured against something else. Maybe that answers your Australia question.”
“How so?”
“If you go back home, do you know what you’ll put on the other end of the scales? Maybe it’ll be places in Asia, maybe even places in Australia; Melbourne, Perth, Darwin. Christ, it might not even be places at all! Could be something completely different.”
“Such as?”
“I don’t know,” Jack said, actually knowing full well. “Maybe a person. Or something you find you like doing; painting, gardening, building things. People talk about achieving a sense of balance in their lives, but fail to think about the ‘balance’ part. They’re just making choices in isolation rather than conscious decisions. Does that make sense?”
Matt, his own eyes now following a group of young students as they trailed around after their teacher, glanced at Jack and nodded.
“I’m talking too much,” said Jack, lifting his bottle to his lips. “Sorry.”
“What about you, Jack?”
“Me?”
“What’s on the other end of your scales?”
The laugh, involuntary again, was filled with the years of experience that divided them.
“I guess I’ve had different things there at different times. I assume that’s natural. You know, what you want when you’re young, then when you meet someone… Stuff like that. Priorities change. I suspect the only people who never change what they measure themselves against are exceptional.”
“In what way, Jack?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Artists, maybe. Or scientists. People who are possessed by the pursuit of or desire for one thing. Einstein and knowledge maybe, or James Joyce and whatever it was that drove him on.”
“Doubt I could be that single-minded,” Matt said.
“Me neither!” Jack’s confession came with a laugh. He watched the Orientals disappear down the steps towards the citadel exit, wondering where they were off to next; where in the city, where in Europe.
“So?”
It was Matt’s turn to draw him back.
“‘So’?”
“Your balance? I’m guessing - no offence - that you’re not some kind of maniac genius who’s only ever had a single focus in your life.”
“No shit, Sherlock!”
They both laughed, Jack’s colloquialism taking Matt by surprise.
“I’m guessing it would have been work at one time, and then probably a lady at another time.” Jack nodded as he spoke. “But all the travelling you’ve done; what’s that all about? And what about now? Why Barcelona now?”
The change of expression on Jack’s face made Matt suddenly fear that he’d unintentionally crossed a line.
“Hey, I’m sorry, Jack. No need to say, really. I didn’t mean…”
Jack raised his free hand very slightly; it was a gesture designed to stop the younger man in his tracks and it worked.
“Don’t worry. Really. It’s fine.”
Jack paused, turning back to face the city. Matt had a sense that he was about to address a wider audience than just him.
“Job, yes - once. Probably when I was about your age. And then a lady. Well, a couple of ladies actually. I loved - love - them both, of course; and the first one taught me how I should love the second. For a while it got a bit crowded on the far end of my scales there!” His chuckle was soft, understated, private. “But that’s nothing out of the ordinary. As for the travelling - if that’s what you meant - well it was sort of peripheral, never something I did for itself really. I used to have to go places with my work; I enjoyed it. Educated me in what the world was, so that when we went on holiday I was able to make intelligent choices, to know what I’d seen and what I wanted to see. On reflection, it was completely brilliant. If I had to give you one piece of advice, Matt, it would be never stop travelling…”
His voice trailed away, as if it were drifting out across the city, dispersing its syllables like a fine rain on all the places he knew. Matt looked out on the metropolis as if he were watching Jack’s words fly away, magically drizzling on the unsuspecting buildings.
In the sudden silence, conscious that there was still something unsaid, he turned to look at Jack. There was a tear running down his cheek, solitary; almost as if it were the manifestation of something that was lost.
“Sorry,” said Jack, his hand brushing his face roughly as if he were knocking away a spider’s web. “And now? You wanted to know about now?”
“I…”
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Jack said quickly, intercepting what he expected would be an apology or an attempt to change the subject. He didn’t need an apology, nor the subject to be changed. He needed to feel the weight of his situation, to understand it, to know what he was facing. And now seemed as good a time as ever.
“There’s only one thing on my scales now, Matt, and that - I’m afraid - is death. The old Grim Reaper has knocked everything else off - everyone else off - and is just sitting there grinning. Grinning and waiting. And because he’s so heavy, I’m right up in the air like the little kid on the wrong end of a see-saw with the big fat school bully on the other. And there’s nothing I can do about it.”
He paused, his words now seeming leaden, not like the fine mist that Matt had so recently imagined they might be.
“I don’t understand,” he said, as uncertain at this moment as he could ever remember feeling.
Jack tried a smile.
“We’re all dying, of course. Nothing remarkable there. But it’s one of those things where we live our lives always thinking that it only happens to the other guy. Do you know what I mean? You’d never dream of seeing death waiting for you, would you; see him drumming his fingers impatiently on the table top waiting for the clock to stop?” He took a drink from his bottle and stood up, this time turning to face Matt square on. “Two weeks ago I got the diagnosis from the Doctor. He was calm, professional, as gentle as he could be. During an appointment such as that it’s funny how you automatically filter out most of the words said. You end up with a sub-set. In my case it was ‘advanced’, ‘terminal’. Oh, and ‘sorry’ - as if it was his fault. I left the surgery with my world turned upside down, not knowing what to do. How can you?”
He looked away, back towards his beloved city.
“Which is why I’m here. He said I’d have a few good months left before things got bad. Suggested that I make the most of them before things started…well. The treatments - which I’ll begin soon enough - will help, but they’ll force me to pay a price too. Pros and cons, Matt; just like everything else.”
“I’m really sorry,” said Matt. “I know that’s useless, but I don’t know what else to say.”
Jack put his hand on the younger man’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze.
“Nothing to be sorry about. You see, like you, I’m ‘taking some time out’; seeing some old friends - Lucca, Sienna, here - for one last time. It gives you a different perspective, I’ll say that! You know, I’ve never had to say goodbye before. Not really. Of course we all think that we say goodbye all the time, but we don’t. Most of the time when we say goodbye there’s always the possibility - however remote - of reconnecting. Well there isn’t for me, not now. This is me and Barcelona, a parting of the ways; me certain that I’ll never be here again, which - let me tell you - is quite something to come to terms with!”
His low-key laugh forced Matt to his feet. He wanted to do something, to display some kind of emotion or understanding that might just help. But having stood up, he found he was paralysed, unable to move; even his voice was struck dumb for a moment.
“But I have to thank you, Matt, for helping.”
“Me?”
“I find myself - I confess - having taken advantage of you. I hadn’t planned on doing so of course, by there you are.”
“How? I don’t understand.”
“You see, until now, no-one else knew. I haven’t told Sharon yet, mainly because I didn’t know how to. I’ve told my inanimate friends, if you like. The main square in Sienna where they run the Palio; the anfiteatro in Lucca. And now here. But you’re my first person, and I thank you for that. It’s a liberty, I know. And - I’m sorry to say - rather an unfair one and just a little bit cruel on my part. But I hope you won’t hold it against me…”
Jack allowed his words to trail away. Matt had a sense that he was suddenly spent, and from somewhere imagined he could hear a rhythmic tapping sound, a sound like fingers rapping on a table top. He turned and scanned the citadel. From nearby there was the odd click of a camera, a stray voice, the sounds of well-heeled shoes on the stone work. A lone gull wheeled over his head, and from out at sea he heard the blast of a ship’s horn.
Turning again to face his companion, he found himself already alone, Jack’s figure retreating towards the stairs. Matt could have called him back, but he knew Jack needed to be alone now. He knew he would forego the cable car and walk back down into the city, to say goodbye properly to the hill and the old ruined fun fair. As he watched him go, Matt thought about Jack, and about fate; about London and Australia; and about not saying goodbye.
For links on where to buy Degrees of Separation, click here.