Smoking in the Park
Smoking in the Park
“Do you mind if I smoke?”
It was a question which seemed to come to him not so much from the mouth that had uttered the words but from another point in time, almost another world. Did anyone smoke any more? Hadn’t it become frowned upon and virtually outlawed, a private and discrete pastime rather than something shared or - even worse - imposed on others? But some things never change. He remembers how the question had been asked not because it was a genuine enquiry, one whose answer would determine action or inaction, but rather as a matter of convention, delivered as if offering a negative response was inconceivable. And now here he was again, reliving the whole exchange as if he was present there once more, as if the words - thanks to their travelling through time - had managed to drag him backwards, the evidence of his temporal displacement being to imagine Isaac before him with a cigarette between his fingers, lighter poised in his other hand.
Convention then, and not a real question at all.
“I thought you were giving up.”
Isaac laughs.
“Where on earth did you get that notion?” He flicks the lighter and applies the consequent flame to the end of the cigarette which is now between his lips. After an initial drag, he removes it from his mouth while simultaneously burying the Zippo back in his pocket. “And as you can see, I haven’t.”
There had always been something in the manner of Isaac’s smoking he found oddly attractive, seductive almost: the way he pursed his lips as they held the Gitanes, the delicacy bestowed on his fingers when it smouldered between them, even the way in which he would stub the cigarette out under the sole of his shoe. It was clichéd, he knew that, but even so…
“You were never tempted?” Isaac asks, as if applying the question simultaneously to two parallel conversations. It was another of his defining characteristics, this ability to say one thing and refer to another not even tangentially related.
“A long time ago.” He wants to add ‘as you know’ but is unsure of his ground, as if there is some danger he would be making it up, falling into the trap of locating Isaac in a place he had never occupied. Trap or vicarious wish-fulfilment? “And not so much tempted either. I tried it for a while.”
“Really?”
He is unsure whether Isaac’s surprise is genuine.
“I thought it would make me more interesting, you know?” The way Isaac shakes his head tells him he cannot comprehend why anyone would need to do that because he cannot conceive of it for himself. “Gauloises, unfiltered. Or menthol.”
“My, you were trying hard!” Isaac laughs, arcs his fingers, parts his lips, draws again.
“But it didn’t work.”
“In what way did it not work? You make it sound like an experiment from which there should have been concrete, definable and measurable outcomes.”