There’s a French film called something like The Red Bicycle, I can’t remember the exact title. I saw it years ago late at night on BBC2 and I was so mesmerised by it I forgot to wonder at the name until weeks later, by which time I couldn’t find any reference to it, to the extent that I sometimes wonder if I dreamt it or if I really watched it.
In the film there is a boy who works in a shop and a girl who cycles past the shop every day on her red bicycle. They nearly meet a hundred times, their paths crossing, but never merging. As the film goes on you get the feeling that they need to meet, that it’s imperative to humanity, that when they do something magical will happen. But still they never do. Then they both board a ferry on an ordinary day. They sit near each other, but still fail to notice each other. Even when the storm rolls in and catastrophe strikes, even when it is obvious the boat is sinking rapidly, even when people are losing hope, still they fail to notice each other. The boat sinks and people are dying, perishing, leaving, but still they are flailing on their own. Then the camera pans out and we are watching the event as news footage. The newscaster is telling us it is the worst maritime disaster in French waters since the war, that it is feared only two people have survived. There is a shaky shot of two people being helped off the upturned hull into a lifeboat. They are the only two people left, and they look at each other, and you know immediately that all it was ever going to take for them was one glance.
And what that means is that sometimes two people need each other so much it is worth sacrificing others to make sure they end up together.
The weather on the morning of V’s wedding was perfect. Blue skies and warm sunshine, neither too hot nor too cold. The air felt like a kiss on your skin and there was a sense of anticipation in the atmosphere, almost as if you could feel the plants growing and the flowers blooming. I had bought a new suit for the occasion, a beige linen which I wore with a white shirt and brown tie. I had been careful in my choice, not wanting to seem like I wanted to stand out, but also making sure that it showed off my body to the best of its advantage. I had also bought some new cufflinks, two old silver coins fashioned into a new purpose. In fact, I had bought two pairs, simply because I had been unable to resist a pair of antique engraved cufflinks I saw in the window of a shop in Burlington Arcade. Their flowing lines were very subtle, but still undeniably in the shape of a V. I had considered wearing them, but decided against it because they were the cufflinks I would wear to our wedding.
I left the house at 11 a.m. sharp because, even though the service was in Sussex at 3 p.m., I couldn’t risk being in any way late. Funnily I was in a good mood.
I knew it wasn’t real, I knew it was all part of our Crave and I was determined to enjoy myself. Apart from anything else, I hadn’t visited V at either work or home since my illness the week before and I was desperate to see her.
As I walked down my path Lottie’s front door opened and Kaitlyn came out. ‘Oh, hello,’ she said.
She had become like some weird presence in my life and she unnerved me slightly. I almost wondered if she had been watching my house from Lottie’s window and had engineered leaving at the same time as me.
‘Bye,’ she called to Lottie, who waved and shut the door.
We fell into step together on the pavement. ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked.
‘We’ve just been to LBT.’ I presumed she meant some sort of exercise class as she was wearing Lycra.
‘Oh, I didn’t know you and Lottie were so friendly.’
She laughed. ‘Yes, we are.’ We walked on and then she said, ‘You look very smart. Where are you going?’
‘A wedding.’
‘No Verity?’ I thought I could hear a note of amusement in her voice, which made me want to slap her.
‘She’s there already. It’s her sister who’s getting married, at their parents’ house in Sussex.’
‘Oh, how nice.’
‘Yes, it’s an amazing house. It’s got its own chapel in the garden, which is where the wedding is taking place. It dates from Norman times and there’s a rumour that there’s a tunnel which runs from the house to the chapel underground.’
‘Oh, right.’ We’d reached the main road and she was turning in a different direction. ‘Well, have fun. See you Monday.’
I felt myself heat up as I continued on to the Tube. What had I been thinking of saying something like that? Now, when V came to live with me, I would have to change jobs, maybe even move house. Because Kaitlyn would no doubt keep popping up and she was just the sort of annoying person to ask V about her sister or the wedding.
I turned and watched Kaitlyn cross the road, almost wishing a bus would speed over the hill and drag her under its wheels.
The train journey calmed me somewhat as we left the urban sprawl and started to glide through quintessentially English countryside. It couldn’t all happen instantly which meant I would be able to secure new employment before V did move in. You couldn’t just get married and then immediately get divorced and, even when you did, it would no doubt take a bit of time. I let my eyes relax as I stared out of the window and the countryside began to blur and merge, until it became a series of soft greens flowing past me.
I still hadn’t worked out exactly what V wanted me to do, which bothered me. Usually I knew my role in a Crave and we played by set rules. I understood that the American incident meant V had changed the rules and that she was punishing me by not revealing them to me. I comforted myself with the thought that at least I knew the purpose or the end game. I knew we were heading towards the inevitability of being together, I just didn’t know yet exactly what was expected of me. All I could be sure of was that it was going to be something big, something which undeniably and irrefutably proved my love for V for ever more.
I arrived nearly two hours early, so went to sit in the village pub I knew so well, before walking up the lane to Steeple Chapel. I ordered a pint and went to sit outside with the paper, even though I knew I wouldn’t be able to read a word. There was a group of people dressed for a wedding already there and their voices rose into the soft air. Angus’s friends, I thought, looking at their bright clothes and tousled hair.
Over the course of the next hour the pub began to fill with more and more people obviously going to the wedding. Lots of people were kissing and greeting each other and women were squealing in a way that made me wonder how any of them could have been invited by V. I was on my second pint by then and as it hit my stomach I became aware that I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. I checked my watch and it was two fifteen, so I stood to begin the five-minute walk to the chapel. But as I did so a woman broke off from one of the groups and came towards me, a broad smile on her face. I knew I knew her, but it took me the whole of her approach to work out she had been one of V’s friends at university.
‘Mike,’ she said, ‘how lovely to see you.’
We kissed on both cheeks in that bizarre way people do nowadays, her hat nearly falling off in the process. ‘Hello,’ I said, not remembering her name, even though I knew we’d spent a fair proportion of time together over the years. She’d been for dinner at our flat, with her boyfriend, whose name I also couldn’t remember.
‘You look well,’ she said. ‘Was America good?’
‘Yes, fantastic.’
‘How long have you been back?’
‘Oh, a few months.’ I shifted my weight, my brain still scrabbling for her name.
‘Come over. James would love to say hello.’
I let her lead me over to a group of people, where a man I recognised as James shook me by the hand. The other people in the group looked at me expectantly. ‘You remember Ben and Siobhan, don’t you?’ James said. ‘What did you read again?’
‘Economics.’ I smiled at the people I didn’t recognise.
‘Oh yes,’ James said. ‘We were all English.’
Louise! It came to me finally.
‘What are you doing with yourself now then, Mike?’ James asked.
‘I work in the City. How about you?’