A Face in the Crowd

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Ben pats the breast pocket of his suit jacket, then his trouser pocket, his backside and his wrist. Keys, wallet, phone and watch. It’s the new head, shoulders, knees and toes.

‘Got everything?’ I ask, unable to come up with anything better to say.

He checks his trouser pocket once more, removing his phone to make sure it’s definitely there. I don’t like it when he’s nervous; his anxiety feeds mine, a contagion that’s spreading along the hallway of our house.

‘We’re close,’ he says, answering a question I hadn’t asked. ‘If I can just get this bloke to invest…’

He tails off, biting his lip and glancing towards the front door.

‘Train tickets,’ he says to himself, going back through the routine of checking all his pockets.

Keys, wallet, phone and watch; phone and watch… and eyes and ears and mouth and nose…

Ben eventually finds the train tickets in his inside pocket, breathing a sigh of relief. There’s a bead of sweat along his hairline, which he wipes away with his sleeve. He scratches the base of his neck, tugging at the collar of his shirt, where the top button looks as if it’s done up a little too tightly. After that, he rubs the scar that’s underneath his Adam’s apple. He does this a lot when he’s worried. The mark is barely there and, if he’d not pointed it out on our very first date, I’m not sure I’d have noticed it unless I really looked. There’s a narrow trace of squiggly purple that hoops under the bulge in his throat – an old rugby injury, apparently. He needed reconstructive surgery.

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