Food Of Love

I didn’t get into this on purpose. There was this bloke I knew from the pub, he asked me to cover for him one Saturday morning - he told me this on Friday night. I was skint, so I said yes. Showed up with his keys, set everything up and he never came back. Never saw him again. It’s alright. Pretty much I stand next to a high table with an oyster knife, a stack of oysters on ice and a card reader. And worcestershire sauce and lemon slices. I think it’s unusual for a market stall because people ask me loads of stuff about food, which I don't really know that much about, and think I'm really into seafood and that. It’s just a job really. But people don’t like that, especially posh ones. Think i’m supposed to have gone to fish school or something.

That was a joke, cos a group of fish are a school? I got that from finding nemo.

Sometimes I get hired for private parties and weddings so I have to wear a nicer shirt. And they tip you? It’s stupid to give someone a pound or two for opening an oyster but I'm not gonna complain.

Apparently people think it’s impressive because they think it’s hard or dangerous to open oysters? Not really. Just need to know what you’re doing. The right knife, slide it in and a little flick of the wrist and that’s it. Is that skilled labour? I could teach it easily but then I'd be out of a job.

That’s how I met Maisie, at one of the private events. She’s a waitress - they call them servers at catering companies. They all wear matching uniforms and do this thing called synchronised service where they surround a table holding trays and put all the plates on the table at the same time. It looks pretty cool. She is also pretty cool. No, very cool. She’s actually a dancer - not the music video type, but like modern? Or contemporary? Something like that. She says that’s why she doesn’t make any money and needs a day job. She explained it to me but then said the label wasn’t important, that it was about movement. Which i think all dance is, but it seems more important for this type. Sometimes there isn’t even that much music, just random noises. I saw some, it’s weird… but I sort of get it? I think?

Actually some of the dancers are alright - way less pretentious than I thought. Just really into dancing. I thought they’d all be like ballet dancers but they’re not. They dance a lot and they try to pull me into it so I just do a silly YMCA or whatever. People think you’re going to like, reveal a talent or something but that’s not what happens. You’re just not good at things. And you’re gonna look stupid if you try and then mess up.

I did think at first that it wasn’t going to be a big thing - she’s a dancer, she knows loads of arty stuff that I don't know about. All I do is poke knives in things. But she looked good, and kept talking to me, and after a job we stuck around for a bit. And she asked me back to hers. And said something about shucking her oyster. So we started going out. And kept going.

She’s really interesting? And knows loads of stuff, and can explain it well, but isn’t a dick about me not knowing things. And she’s really nice to me, and remembers things I like, so I want to be nice to her and remember things she likes. And I'm really happy when I see her. So this is what a relationship is like. Which is alright, actually. I mean I've had girlfriends before, but I wasn't really that interested in them. Like they were nice girls and all, we had a good time, but mostly we just had sex or went out and watched tv together. Like being a mate but with sex. But not like a mate, like a friend who was a girl.

Once when I was packing up after a party I saw these two people round the back of the venue, together. They didn’t notice me at first.Nothing shocking, they were just holding each other close and talking softly. They jumped apart when they saw me, like city foxes. I apologised and I didn’t know why. Felt like I’d interrupted something personal, intimate. I didn’t realise things could be like that. Like really serious and focused on each other. Sincere. Everything I’d had was light and funny. Silences were awkward.

I didn’t know things could be any different. It’s like… when you go in somewhere and order a coke and they say ‘our coke is pepsi is that ok?’ No! It’s not fucking ok! Your coke is not pepsi; your coke is bullshit. Pepsi would be fine if you’ve only ever had that. But if you’ve had coke, you know the truth. Pepsi doesn’t cut it anymore.

She was only away for a couple of weeks. This touring version of a show she was in last year, actually a pretty big deal. We video called a couple of times, the usual texting, but she’s in rehearsals a lot and then performances are evening and she didn’t want to miss out on time with the other dancers which is fair enough. So she said she’d write me a letter to make up for it.

I thought it was going to be, you know, one of those letters, just something she had to get out at the time. I'd have a good time with it, we’d keep it and pull it out occasionally then make sure the grandkids don’t hide it.

But it was really full-on. Saying that her life was fuller with me in it, the possibilities of the two of us together, that she’d never felt that comfortable and connected with someone. She said deep down our souls were the same. Like some love song shit but not cheesy. She said it felt real and that I was real.

I actually sort of put it down and went for a walk for a bit to get away from it. To digest. I felt like I should be smoking all serious like but I've never been into that. I put it under my pillow, so i didn’t have to look at it. I could hear it crunching as I slept.

And it’s not that I disagree because I don't, at all.

But I don't know if I can do that. Write this huge thing laying out everything. Things don’t even come to me that way.

Why do we even have to say things when we do everything together? Like that song that says love is a doing word. That’s a verb, I know that much. So why do we need to talk about it? Obviously we’ve said we love each other, and we’re exclusive, for more than a year. I’m not good at talking but I’m not an idiot. You need to say things to get what you want.

I did think about it a lot. I thought about it when I was selling oysters, and when I was cleaning up afterwards, and checking my numbers for the day, and I thought about it at a wedding I was working. Which I thought might be helpful, atmosphere and all, but it wasn’t. The couple were too different from me. I couldn’t do what they did. And to me, a lot of the vows couples make up sound a bit… stupid. Maybe I don’t get it. Sometimes guests talk in front of me, because they don’t really see me. So I hear murmurs like ‘he could have tried’ and ‘not for everyone’. Once I heard ‘all bad poetry is sincere’, which was pretty good. I know when people say speak from the heart and all that bollocks they don’t mean that. They want something good, not just nice. I just like watching Maisie lead synchronised service. That’s what the right words will feel like.

We had a call a couple of days later. It didn’t go well.

I said I got the letter.

She said …and?

I said Yeah, I feel the same.

And there was silence. She said so… got anything else to say?

I said something like I agree with you, definitely.

And she said OK.

I asked her if she was alright, because she didn’t sound it. And she said she was and then that the dancers were going out to eat which was definitely a lie because dancers do not do that. And that was that.

I texted her a bit later saying sorry, I’m just really bad with words. She texted back saying that was fine, she just needed to know somehow. She said her last three dances had been about me. Which I did not get. At all. Like at all. There were more arm movements than usual? And that made it worse somehow. That she knew things didn’t have to be in words and did that too! What do I have to give her? Shuck an oyster really well? Dedicate it to her?

Isn’t it enough, for two people to care about each other, to KNOW that they feel it too? That’s insane, that we get to have that. I’m not even sure other people have that - maybe some, there are songs and that but were those based on real things, or were they just written to sound like real things? I don’t even know what I'm saying now.

This is what I do know. Maisie’s a cold glass of coke after a long night. She runs synchronized service like a dance class. She’s better than Pepsi, any day of the week.