Bill's Story

Bill was sixteen when he started at James & Forrester. Back then, he referred to his boss as "Sir". That was the way things worked. Now, aged fifty two, he is surrounded by graduates and young people. They want things done bigger, better, faster - yesterday if possible. They all text and shop online, have I-pods and palm tops: Bill has only just mastered double spacing. Everyday he sits in his booth, with little or no need to talk to this generation he cannot comprehend. They used to invite him out for drinks on a Friday, fancy cocktails in a converted mill with petulant bartenders and people wearing sunglasses indoors. He thought they were mocking him but now, even though his answer would stay the same, he wishes they'd still ask. Bill knows they talk about him. He has entered many rooms and heard the conversation suddenly stop. What is the best thing to do in such an instance? He is unsure and so mumbles something inaudible then shuffles, head bowed, back to his booth. They sometimes jokingly address him as part of the furniture. He looks around at the peeling paint and the rickety chairs with stuffing that has been picked away during boring telephone conversations. Yes, he is part of the furniture: decrepit and past redemption. His current boss is twenty years his junior, yet talks to him as if he is an imbecile. Speaking slowly, as if advancing age and an inability to comprehend basic English are one and the same. But Bill is no longer insulted. Instead he shuffles to his booth, head bowed, imagining the witty retorts he no longer has the inclination to utter.

As he waits for the bus, an empty lunch box and local paper under his arm, and thinks of when he was a young man, when the future seemed as if it would roll on forever. Bill's bus stop is not the nearest to his office, but half a mile away. He goes there as a young, female commuter wears a scent familiar to him from years ago. He had a beautiful girlfriend once. They were engaged to marry. Every night Bill stands by the commuter and closes his eyes as all of the forgotten laughter and smiles of his past flood through him. It is as if when he inhales he travels back through time. In this brief moment, Bill is young again and he clutches to it with all he can, clawing through the depths of his mind to retrieve a hidden memory. He can see his fiancé's eyes crinkling and the dimple on the left of her face as she smiles. But, like all memories, the moment is fleeting. His chest tightens and his bursting heart contracts until it has again become knotted and grey. Bill has lost her again. He cannot understand why the happy thoughts are so hard to recall but his pain is constantly with him. It wasn't the cutting remarks or the screaming arguments leading up to the night she left which hurt him the most. It was her voice, her disappointment in him that crushed and cut through him with such ease. She had changed, grown and matured while he believed romantic sunsets were enough. That was nearly 30 years ago. Of course, there had been women since, but nothing of any serious note or worth. His heart was never quite in it. After a while, people learn to accept their lot in life. Bill is no exception. And so, he lives his life day-by-day finding comfort in his routine. He knows exactly when the gas bill will fall on his doormat and precisely how much his telephone bill will cost. Friends and Family? A useful service to many undoubtedly, but to Bill, it is an unnecessary quarterly reminder that his life is empty. His kitchen is filled with small cans of chopped tomatoes, single portion baked beans, a tiny carton of milk. How kind of the marketing people to adapt to his bachelor lifestyle. How kind of the supermarkets to place his frozen dinner-for-one next to the family sized ready meals.

After his bus journey home, Bill climbs the stairs to his little flat. The climb is getting a bit much for him now but he has lived there all of his adult life and so it feels as much a part of him as his creaky limbs. When he was young and naive, it seemed important to buy a two-bedroom place - a potential nursery perhaps? Now the spare room is his office, a place he can retire to in the evening, to play solitaire on his computer, filling in the long hours before bed. From his chair he can see the black and white photos of his family hung on the hallway wall. His Mother and Father stood outside the house on May Day wearing their Sunday Best. Another of him age six or seven looking wary perched atop his Father's shoulders on a beach. Somewhere, he cannot remember where. Bill's childhood is all a bit of a blur now. He vaguely remembers playing in the woods, grazed knees, being picked last in sports. Yet, his formative years feel such a long time ago they are utterly irrelevant to him now. His father was very much a disciplinarian, who believed in strict routine and quiet little boys. They never had a particularly strong bond. When he was dying, Bill had found it strange to see a man he had feared look so frail and small. Had he been upset by his death? Not overly. Bill often felt he should feel things more, that somehow he had been broken by life, a small hairline fracture that, although barely visible, meant a little part of him had been lost along the way. His mother's death had been sudden. One morning she was stood in the kitchen making his school lunch. The next day she had gone. Bill wasn't too sure if his memories of her were real or stories he had heard and imagined, or photographs he had stared at too long. Perhaps he was a constant reminder of the young wife his Father had lost. Perhaps. Still, it made little difference now. Bill had hung their pictures many years ago because it had seemed like the right thing to do.

Some nights when the weather is pleasant, Bill likes to sit by his window. His flat is on the third floor and has a large window overlooking the street below. From it he can see an Italian restaurant he keeps meaning to try but never has done, a trendy wine bar he frequently complains to the council about, and a few small shops. Bill finds television ridiculous and doesn't want to pay the license if he has no ability to determine the schedule. And so, he prefers to look through his window and watch the people wandering by. Sometimes he imagines their life stories what it would be like to live as they do. Every Thursday week, an elderly couple come to the restaurant and sit in the same seats. He cannot tell if they order the same things each visit, as he is too far away, but imagines that they do. As they eat Bill watches them and in the privacy of his room speaks aloud their conversation, imagining the woman's responses to his witty observations. They come to celebrate their life together, one day a week to toast their marriage. Bill likes to imagine they met in this restaurant years ago, when she was waitress and he would wander by on his way home. Slowing down as he passed the window. Hoping to catch sight of her beautiful face. Or long slim legs. And maybe if really lucky, hear her laugh. He has named them Bill and Esther.

Over the years Bill has had many neighbours. A new couple have recently moved into the flat next door. He heard them shifting furniture, hammering together flat pack bookshelves and talking excitedly. At night he hears them having sex. The springs in the mattress squeak and her moans drift through the walls. Sometimes Bill feels as though he is the same room with them separated by some thin, translucent material. In the dark, he lies in bed and stares at the connecting wall imagining their nubile and intermingling limbs. Imagining a soft light emanating from them, illuminating their outline. Sweating. Naked. Locked tightly together as their bodies slowly rise and fall. Each surrendering themselves in a beautiful moment of pleasure. Afterward he hears them whisper, holding one another and feeling as though nothing will ever come between them. Watching the wall like this arouses him. Later, he is filled with disgust at what he has become and vows never to look at the wall again. He decides in the morning to dig out his old headphones and listen to the radio when they begin their lovemaking, but never does. Lying in his bed, alone with nothing but memories of his mistakes, Bill falls asleep.

Sometimes he wakes in the night and stares at the ceiling. Waiting. Desperate for his alarm bell to ring and for tomorrow to begin