"I met my old lover on the street last night," sang the diminuitive idiot who thinks that the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls, Paul Simon.
And by some bizarre and incredible coincidence, I met my old lover on the subway today. Well more accurately I met my old someone I'd had a bit of a snog with during one of the Edinburgh Fringes of the late 1990s on the tube today. Edinburgh being what it is, three weeks of drunken debauchery masquerading as an arts festival, this perhaps isn't the most unlikely of things to happen. It is said that wherever you are in the UK you are never more than ten feet away from a rat and similarly wherever I am in the UK I am never more than ten feet away from someone that I've snogged during the Edinburgh Fringe. Often this someone was a rat, which is what helps both the statistics run true. But at least I always use protection when I'm with my rodent friends to avoid getting rat syphillis, unlike Grub Smith (who I met later on today and who told me he'd read about my boat race accusations about him, after googling himself- there's another one for you Grubbo). The problem is that Edinburgh being what it is, three weeks of drunken debauchery masquerading as an arts festival, that most of the time I wouldn't recognise one of my snogees, as I will have not actual memory of even having met them (and one rat looks pretty much like another). But in this case, the person I had snogged had been someone I had been friends with that year outside of the brief locking of mouths(though I haven't seen her again in the intervening six years, not entirely because of the brief locking of mouths, I hope) and so we recognised each other immediately.
Unlike Paul Simon's old lover, my old snogger did not seem so pleased to see me, she just smiled. No, she seemed so surprised to see me, she just looked surprised. She hadn't changed at all. "Wow, you look amazing," I exclaimed, simply because she did; I wasn't trying to hit on her again as I am lucky enough to have romantic interests elsewhere (I know my mum and dad are regular readers here, so I like to drop in the odd bit of personal information to avoid the embarrassment of having to discuss such things with them on the phone. It keeps our weekly conversations to a minimum. "Just check Warming Up if you haven't already. Goodbye!" Soon I hope to communicate solely through text with everyone).
But just in case I was trying to hit on her she quickly interjected, "This is my husband!" A man in a homberg hat standing next to her gave me a little wave that did the job of saying "Hello" and "All right, pal, back off!" at the same time. I gave him a look which replied, "Oh how wonderful, you're a lucky man" and "it's OK, mate I'm spoken for, don't worry." And then a little sneer which said, "Lucky for you, cos I could easily take you in a fight, hat-o!....... Unless your hat has secret concealed weapons in it, like Inspector Gadget. That would certainly help explain why she agreed to marry you. On balance I think we should just leave it. Better to be safe than to be hit on the head by a mallet on the end of a big spring thing."
He responded with a glance that said, "I'm not saying whether my hat has secret concealed weapons in it or not; that is between me and my wife. My philosophy is "speak softly and give the impression that you might be wearing an Inspector Gadget style hat". Everyone always backs down so far."
It was initially weird to think that she was now married. "When did that happen?" I thought, before realising that it was probably at some point in the six years since I had last seen her. Somehow I think because I have remained in stasis and always avoided that kind of commitment that no-one else will have done it either. But six years is a long time and it's not unusual for a woman of around 30 to have settled down. More unusual for a man of 37 to have failed to.
They had recently seen "Jerry Springer:the Opera". "Isn't it fantastic?" she said. I had to agree that it was, because it is.
"I sat there thinking, is Stewart Lee a genius?" she added.
"Well I can clear that one up for you - no, he definitely isn't," I replied disingenuously, but she didn't seem convinced. Even though I must surely be an authority on such a subject. "How about we talk about how great I am for a bit now?" I failed to ask, evermindful of the unknown powers of her husband's hat.
In any case there was no time as they had to get off the tube at the next stop and I didn't. "Look at you all cool with your long hair and your eyes," she concluded. So I guess some things have changed for me too. My hair is longer. Although if there had been time I would have informed her that my eyes were still the same eyes as I had in 1998. There's not much I can do about them. But her husband seemed rattled that this bit of chit-chat might be flirtatious and seemed to be pressing a button on his overcoat and then hitting his hat as if something had gone awry, so I decided I should leave it at a "thanks", a peck on the cheek (no lockage of mouths this time) and bid them adieu.
So we didn't talk about some old times, have ourselves some beers or even really catch up on what either of us were up to at the moment (though at least we both made sure we were up to date on Stewart Lee). But it was still a pleasant surprise to get this brief, but somehow illuminating glimpse into her life. A bit like an extremely truncated version of that 7-Up programme where they visit those people every seven years.
Hopefully I'll bump into her in 2010 and she'll have a couple of kids and we can discuss how Stewart Lee is making a surprisingly excellent job of being Archbishop of Canterbury (it might seem unlikely at the moment, but you mark my words. It's going to happen).
So I never found out if she's still crazy after all these years, but if she noticed the way I was looking at her husband's hat, she will have been able to confirm that I definitely am.
