10:54 a.m. - 2024-04-11
The Slow Typist

We’ve just boarded our train home and will be bidding goodbye to Kings Cross Station and this cold hard city for the last time ever. That’s a sobering thought, leaving somewhere never to return. But I said the same thing to myself when I left London ten years ago. It feels more final this time.

The Maid is in a chirpy mood today, pleased no doubt that she is going back home. She has noticed the inordinate amount of typing I’ve been doing on my phone but not yet questioned it. Doing D-Land on the move is much more time consuming as I’m a one fingered slow typist when it comes to phones.

I dreamed of Paulina last night. In my dream, I met her on the Thames embankment near the Tower of London on a warm summers day. She was wearing a floral print Laura Ashley summer dress, sleeveless in design with a racy hem line and a plunging wrap-over neck line.

She looked more beautiful than ever. She reached out to me with her arms fully extended and hands open, inviting me to do the same, and I did as she requested. She spoke and asked me if there was anything she could do to make things good between us again. I looked at her left hand and asked her to return the engagement ring I gave her.

At that, both of us began spinning around, arms stretched out and both still holding each other’s hands. Faster and faster we went until the background blurred. I closed my eyes and let go of her and felt myself slowing. When I opened my eyes she was gone and in the palm of my hand was the ring. It was then that I woke up, my right hand clenched in a fist, but there was no ring.

I thought about the dream over breakfast and about the ring I gave to Paulina. I remembered how I’d bought that ring years before I met her as it was originally intended for someone else, ironically also a Londoner not native to London. It was a dream about letting go and leaving the past behind, I have no doubt about that. The ring was a symbol that even in letting go, there are always some things I will never truly let go of.

It was a beautiful ring though, a near three carat flawless natural diamond set in a platinum crown on a band of 24 carat gold. My god, it could sparkle like nothing else. Well, maybe not quite as much as first wife’s ring, hers was slightly bigger but both were super sparklers. In todays money it would be around £25,000 to replace such a ring. I must have been madly in love, deluded, or quite possibly both when I originally bought it and I was reminded of Jennifer's Law.

Strangely enough, we passed by a jewellers store on the way to the station this morning and The Maid stopped briefly to admire the window display. She was looking at the most expensive tray of rings in the window. I promptly dragged her away citing that we had a train to catch and she giggled as I man handled her body in the direction of the station, and away from any thoughts of shiny sparkly things she might desire, but doesn't really need.