Going in Circles

It didn’t take long for Clive to regret storming off away from his wife. It had mean the rest of their weekend had been fraught with a silence and he was relieved Vito had come to meet him after work. Though he found himself unable to share in his friend’s ostensible good mood.

“How has your week been? It must be strange,” asked Clive.

“A bit, mate, but honestly it hasn’t really sunk in. It feels like just another Bank Holiday. Maybe in a week or two it will feel weird. Plus when did I last see you? It must only have been Friday.”

It had been Thursday. Clive worked from home on Fridays so hadn’t seen Vito on his last day of work. Which was just as well as he’d been nursing a hangover from Vito’s leaving drinks the night before.

“Well what did you get up to?” said Clive. “Come on you’re free now. Let me live vicariously through you.”

Vito laughed.

“Why don’t you resign too, Clive? We can both try to do something we love instead of this dull job.”

“Fat chance of that. I have a wife to maintain, you know.”

They were seated opposite each other in the dimly lit upstairs of the pub. A cutlery setting in front of each table was the only tell that the was a room reserved for diners. Indeed, the thick wooden tables and chairs were the same as the one downstairs yet no one seemed to want to broach the rickety staircase by the doorway. It was Vito who had told Clive that if he was willing to have dinner, they would be guaranteed a seating space.

“Clive, I’ve met Claire. She’s a competent and content teacher. I don’t think your job is a deal breaker in your relationship.”

Clive wasn’t ready to sing his wife’s praises yet but what Vito said was true.

“I can’t resign with you,” he said instead. “I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. Not that it’d matter. I’d probably starve, first.”

“Mate, there’s plenty of opportunities out there,” said Vito. “Why don’t you join me with the music? Do you play any instruments?”

He had played the guitar but didn’t share that. He leaned back in his seat. Tomorrow, he would have to make sure he got the reports out for the meeting next week. God, he needed that to go well. He made the mental amendments to the emails he would send as Vito droned in the background.

“I’m going to try music production. It’s been a dream for so many years and I feel we owe it to ourselves to make them happen. I’ve got this idea for an album, check this out. You have riffs that come and go. They’ll be on one song and then they’ll come back in on another. I’m toying with this idea of having the last track feed into the first. What do you think?”

“Huh, sounds great, mate. Anyway, do you remember the time the Accounting Department normally come in in the morning?”

Since Vito no longer worked at Clive’s office there was little reason for them to meet up again near there. The next time they met up, about a month or two later, it was for an after work walk along the river. The night time shrouded the water in a blackness that was only interrupted by the shiny reflections of the odd street light.

“Does it feel real now or still like a holiday?” asked Clive.

After so many years, it was strange not to see Vito in a suit. He had traded up the jeans and hoody from their last meeting for a pair of dark chinos with a woollen turtle neck, that seemed to fend off the could better than Clive’s scarf. It was a fit Clive would have liked to have worn.

“It’s starting to sink in,” said Vito. “But you know, mate, what with all the other things going on, I haven’t given it much thought.”

“How are those things going, mate?” asked Clive.

“Yeah, pretty good, mate. It’s just the start of course so I’m only going down to the studio a little bit. Though I put the band together. Did I tell you I had started a band again? Nothing special, I know performing isn’t where my talent lies but I love it. There’s nothing quite like being on that stage. We’re doing some recording at the moment. The studio let me use it, one of the perks of the job.”

“You have a new job?” asked Clive, feeling the sudden heat in his face.

“Well, not exactly a job, they don’t really pay me but I’m getting the right experience. With some luck it might land me a job in producing, don’t you think?”

“I don’t, mate,” said Clive, surprising himself at how little thought he gave the question before replying. In fact he had given it none, his mind drifting to his work cubicle. No matter how many photos of Claire he put up, the partition’s grey colour found a way to seep through.

“Have you considered you might be making a mistake?” said Clive. “I mean, what if this doesn’t work out? What if you struggle to find a job like the one you had.”

“You mean like the job you have?” Vito shrugged. “Sure, that’s a possibility but I’m not sure it matters. You see, mate, this volunteering work isn’t just about the experience. It’s giving me a new perspective, too.”

Clive shook his head at his smiling friend’s delusion.

“What’s on your mind, Clive?”

Claire was wearing her large overcoat with a fur hat and gloves. It was unnecessary in Clive’s view; Winter never dropped to temperatures to justify this.

It had been a habit of Claire’s and Clive’s to take a walk in their local park after a slow breakfast on a Saturday for years. The tradition had outlived several parks as their relationship had grown from separate flats to a series of rented ones, each as dingy as the last. Though the current iteration involved a lot less noise from passing cars.

“Nothing. I’m just happy to be here with you and talking again.”

Vito wanted to invite Clive to a restaurant he enjoyed. But it was close to where Vito lived and Clive didn’t want to go all that way to meet him so Clive picked somewhere closer.

“This a chain, mate,” said Vito, pulling out a chair. “Surely there’s better places around.”

“Well, they do good pizza. Also its affordable. That must count for something with your current job situation.”

“Actually, mate, things are picking up.”

Around them groups of diners, a lot of them families, clamoured excitedly. Clive grumbled at the absence of complementary breadsticks in the cutlery jar in front of him and scowled at the pool of crumbs in front of the children on the neighbouring table.

“It’s busy for a week night,” said Clive. “I guess that can’t be bad. Also, mate, it changes from that pub we used to go to near work.”

“The one we used to go with the old team?

“No, you know, the one with the trick to go to upstairs. To find seating space.”

Vito stared back at him blankly.

“It was that time you first showed me your guitar. You know, the red Stratocaster.”

Clive hadn’t wanted to to bring up Vito’s guitar but the truth was, it had been on his mind a lot. He was relieved when the main courses arrived and prevented further expansion on the topic.

The restaurant had filled up and they needed to talk even more loudly to make themselves heard. It made the room feel stuffy and Clive tore at his sweaty shirt collar. He regarded Vito’s loose jersey with envy.

“Look, Clive, I wanted to say sorry. About last time by the river. I just talked about my music. I didn’t really ask you about you. I’m sorry about that, mate.”

“It’s fine,” said Clive.

“Well, I want to know how you’re doing. Tell me about it, mate. I’m all ears.”

Clive shrugged.

“There’s really not that much to say. Work is going fine. There’s not much else going on.”

“That can’t be right,” said Vito, “I mean you’ve got hobbies. Take music for instance. Are you doing anything with that at the moment.”

“No, Vito. Music is your thing.”

He signed in the air for the waiter to bring them the bill before even asking Vito if he wanted dessert.

“Clive. I can tell there’s something troubling you,” said Claire. They were once again in the park on a Saturday morning. Clive found he had to squint to see anything against the harsh light. The park just appeared a harsh haze of green.

“Will you stop bringing that up.”

“I’m only doing it because you’re not. You should talk about it, Clive.”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Claire. Work is stressful at the moment. I just need things to quieten down,” said Clive.

“Work has always be stressful, ever since I’ve known you. Have you ever considered doing something you loved instead?”

“Oh don’t you start, too.”

“It’s amazing, there’s about three hundred dials that affect the sound. And that’s before you even add the combinations by changing the instrument’s tone.”

In the dining room above the pub, Vito leaned forwards towards Clive. The sudden proximity of the other man’s face suddenly roused Clive from the various emails swirling around his head.

“It’s like magic, there’s nothing else like it. Also, check this out.”

He turned his phone screen up to me. It was an auction page for a shiny red electric guitar.

“Are you bidding on that, mate?”

“I already have. I bought it last night. It’s a brand called Fender. It’s very well known.”

It was. The model type was called a Stratocaster, Clive could even accurately pin down when it had been made without the description on the auction page giving it away. Clive pressed the “see more” tab so that the guitar’s specs appeared further down the web page.

Saturday.

“Come on, Clive.”

“Just leave off will you.”

The fur hat pivoted side to side in frustration.

“So you see. There’s this one dial, you can tweak to get the sustain sound working harder. That’s something you do for a certain type of chord.”

“Like an add9 chord.”

“Well, yeah, exactly an add9 chord, actually” said Vito.

He felt Vito turn excitedly towards him and Clive edged further away from him suddenly more interested in the dark, inky river running beside them.

“You seem to actually know a lot about music, mate.”

“Of course I do. It’s a passion of mine,” said Clive.

There was some glee for Clive in the confounded look that struck Vito. For a moment they could actually hear the water lapping the bank besides them.

“I didn’t know that,” said Vito. “I’m sorry, it feels like maybe I should have.”

“Well, you haven’t really asked, mate. You’ve just gone about all the things you’re doing. We get it, mate, you’re on top of the world. Good for you. But we’re not all there. The rest of us have to graft whilst you’re looping the last track of your album to the first or whatever fancy thing it is you are doing.”

“Wow, I mean I suppose. Yeah, you’re right, Clive. About me talking a bit much about it. It’s just exciting to me, that’s all. Anyway, I thought you were content at work.”

“I am,” snapped Clive.

Vito turned to his friend, opened his mouth and closed it again. Since Clive was disinclined to him find a topic of conversation they marched on in silence.

“Clive, If you’re just going to walk there and say nothing I’m going to go straight home.”

Clive still saying nothing slowed his pace.

“I mean it,” said Claire. “Ten years we’ve been doing these park walks and I’ve never seen you look so sullen. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“Stop saying that. It clearly is. Either you tell me or we don’t do these walks again.”

She stopped. It took Clive a few paces to realise and he had to turn back to return within speaking distance of his wife. Although now that she was shouting, he could have heard her from over there.

“It’s to do with Vito, isn’t it,” said Claire.

“What? No.”

“Then why do you get worse every time you see him. How can going out for pizza with a friend last week turn you into...into, well this.”

She waved her hand up and down in his direction.

“This,” said Clive, mocking her gesture, “what’s this supposed to mean.”

“Only that I’ve never known you to be so grumpy for such a long period of time.”

“Oh yeah, and you’ve been so jolly in the meantime.”

“What are you saying, Clive?”

“I’m saying that you complain all the time now. In fact there might be something in what you said about doing these walks alone.”

She yank the hat off her head and threw it at him. It caught him square in the face. He ignored the taste of the fluff against his mouth in the hope appearing indifferent would frustrate her.

“And what are you going to do?” shouted Claire. “Mope around feeling sorry for yourself. Fantasising that someone is going to take pity because they’re not. No one likes a man who drags their feet.”

“Well at least I’m not going to grab the first person I see and complain about my husband first chance I get.”

Clive was walking again now, taking large steps with his legs. Claire had to shuffle to keep up with him.

“What’s gone into you, Clive? Seriously. If you wandered off in the past I’d know you’d listen to music. You’d probably pick something exactly right for your mood. Now you don’t even listen to music any more. You say everything sounds like complaining but would you recognise something if it wasn’t?”

Clive stopped.

“I don’t listen to music any more. It’s not my thing.”

“Of course it’s your thing. I’ve never know anyone who knows more about music that you do.”

“Well I have.”

“What? That doesn’t mean anything. Just because someone else knows more about something doesn’t change anything. There will always be people that know more about something than us.”

“Yes, but it was my dream. My dream,” Clive stabbed his chest hard with his index. “And I did nothing about it. It should have been me and I just sat there and watched.”

“Clive, you’re worrying me. Calm down, please. What are you talking about? Nothing is ever too late.”

“Of course, it is Claire. That’s how it works. You get stuck in a routine and before you know it your time feels like it is going round in circles.”

“Clive,” she shouted. “Oh for heaven’s sake. Clive!”

Clive didn’t turn back as he stormed off.