The Terrible Privacy Of Maxwell Sim Read Online Free PDF Page B

lunch, and was beginning to look even more tired than he did before. The other problem was that, as he grew more and more taciturn, I did the opposite, and – as if terrified by the possibility of silence between us – started to turn garrulous, over-talkative, and began pouring out confessions and confidences to this new acquaintance which I’m sure he must have found boring, if not a little embarrassing.
    It all began when I told him: ‘You’re so lucky, you know – living in Sydney. What an amazing city. So different to where I live … ’
    I left a short silence, which he finally broke with the dutiful question: ‘Don’t you live in London, then?’
    ‘No, not London exactly. Watford.’
    ‘Ah, Watford,’ he repeated. It was hard to tell whether he was investing the word with curiosity, disdain, sympathy or anything else.
    ‘Have you been to Watford?’
    He shook his head. ‘I don’t believe I have. I’ve been to some great cities. Paris. New York. Buenos Aires. Rome. Moscow. Never Watford, for some reason.’
    ‘There’s a lot to be said for Watford,’ I insisted, with a defensive edge to my voice. ‘Not many people know that it’s twinned with Pesaro, an extremely attractive Italian town, on the Adriatic coast.’
    ‘I’m sure it’s a marriage made in heaven.’
    ‘Sometimes,’ I continued, ‘I do ask myself why I ended up living in Watford. I’m from Birmingham, originally, you see. I suppose it came about because I got this job a few years ago with a toy company, based in St Albans, and Watford’s pretty close to there, as you probably know. Or perhaps you don’t. Anyway, they’re right next to each other. Couldn’t be handier, really, if for any reason you wanted to go from one to the other. Mind you, I stopped working for that company pretty soon after moving to Watford, which is ironic, when you think about it, because after that I started working at a department store in Ealing, which is actually further from Watford than St Albans is. Not much further, you understand, just another .… well, ten or fifteen minutes, if you’re driving. Which I usually was, because it’s quite hard to get from Watford to Ealing by public transport. Surprisingly hard, as a matter of fact. But I certainly don’t regret taking that job – the job in Ealing, I mean – because that was how I met my wife, Caroline. Well, my ex-wife Caroline, I suppose she will soon be, because we separated a few months ago. I say separated, but what happened, really, was that she told me she didn’t want to be with me any more. Which is fine, you know, that’s her prerogative, you’ve got to respect that kind of decision, haven’t you, and she’s … you know, she’s very happy now, she’s with our daughter Lucy, they’ve moved back up north, and that seems to suit them, because for some reason, I don’t know why, Caroline never really seemed to take to Watford, she never seemed entirely happy there, which I think is a shame, because, you know, there’s something good to be found everywhere, isn’t there?, which isn’t to say that, living in Watford, you wake up every morning and think to yourself, Well, life may be a bit shit, but look on the bright side, at least I’m in Watford, I mean it’s not as if Watford is the sort of place where the very fact that you’re living there gives you a reason to go on living, that would be overegging the pudding a bit, Watford just isn’t that sort of place, but it does have an excellent public library, for instance, and it does have The Harlequin, which is a big new shopping centre with some … terrific retail outlets, actually, really terrific, and it does also – now I come to think of it, and this will amuse you actually – well …’ (noticing his frozen expression, I wasn’t so sure) ‘… it might amuse you, anyway, it does also have Walkabout, which is a big, sort of themed bar, which has a big sign outside it offering to give you “The Awesome Spirit