Clara Oswald was rushing steadily along the side-walk, her arms around her torso to shield herself from the cold winter breeze. She wasn't in hurry, it was just an habit of hers. In fact, she was terribly early.
She had arrived in London a couple of hours early because she had decided to accompany her father who was going back to Blackpool. He had stayed in the flat she usually shared with a couple of friends for a few days. It had been a refreshing visit, more than she had expected it would be. She hadn't realized how much she needed and missed her old dad. In those days she had appreciated even his political conspiracy theories. She knew how he meant well, and that was all that mattered.
She was doing fine, she thought. When Danny Pink had broken up with her three months back, she had been afraid she would crumble. But she didn't.
Sure, she had been shocked, at saying the least, when it had happened. They had always been the happy couple, and after almost six years together, some of her friends were already joking about their wedding. He had told her he would never leave her, that he couldn't imaging being without her, and she had believed him. Every single time.
She still had some trouble realizing that it had really happened. It was a strange feeling, because she knew perfectly well that they weren't together any more. That sudden void in her life reminded it to her everyday. On the other hand, the precise moment in which he had told her he couldn't be with her any more felt like something surreal, to her. As if it was an experience which had happened to someone else, an experience to which she was nothing more then a simple observer.
The fact was – it had happened completely out of the blue. She had noticed, of course, that their relationship hadn't been exactly the same in the last year. Thinking back at that period she could even gather all the signals she had missed. But all the same, it wasn't enough to justify his behaviour. He hadn't even tried the fix all the problems they might have had. He had just dumped her, without giving her the chance to do anything about it.
In her first moment of lucidity, she had realized that she wasn't so surprised after all. Danny had always been a bit like that. He had been a sweet and kind boyfriend, but when they would fight he always had the tendency to escape the argument by taking the easier path. She wanted to settle the matter, discuss the problem to solve it once and for all, reason together. He never would, though. He had also a tendency to exaggerate everything in those situations. She was the rational one, between the two, strangely enough, since he was the one with a maths degree. And she had been even that fatal day. It was easy to remember which day it was, because it had been the 11th of September – which she thought was quite ironic.
Clara could remember how much he had cried. She had too, but she had also found herself reassuring him. Telling him she would be fine, that everything would be all right. It almost made her laugh, when she though about it. If one of them should have needed comforting that was her, not him.
That, and the way she had dealt with the break up in the following days made her realize how strong she was. For many years she had felt so... mediocre. As if she was lucky to have him, and he was just settling for her, in a way. She now realized that it wasn't like that. She had been a good girlfriend for him. She had been patient and incredibly loving. She had matured for him, while he had refused to make a real effort to improve his mistakes for her until the very end. That made her feel more confident than she had ever been before, even though he had left her because he said he wasn't attracted to her any more. She thought that it was his loss more then hers, and that made her fell OK.
All her friends had told her that they admired how rational she was being. None of them thought they would have managed to cope with the same strength she had. She felt wounded, but the fact that she had learned so much about herself made her almost happy. She was doing good. She had many ways to keep her mind occupied, anyway. For one thing, she had her English major to worry about. All her courses were so beautiful and interesting they almost made her a bit emotional, but the mole of study was huge. She had also had the brilliant idea to start and study Ancient Greek and had began a lecture on La mort le roi Artu in the original d'oc language – just because she already had all that free time already.
She arrived at her University praying all the gods of the Olympus that it was already open. She would have needed to find a new deity to pray to the next time, because it was too early and the main door was locked – of course. She didn't know when it would open, so, defeated, she made her way to her favourite bar, determined to pass the time somehow. It was only a couple of streets away. The warmth she met as soon as the door of the café had closed itself behind her made her feel immediately much better. The place was practically empty, except for a group of three street cleaners, who had a job which demanded them to wake up early. She sat down at a table near to them and ordered a cappuccino with croissant. This cheered her up even more. At home she was used to having a very simple, dry and frankly unsatisfying meal, because usually, so early in the morning, she was too tired to make a real effort. Therefore, the kind of breakfast that she had just ordered felt like a special treat. To anyone else, it wasn't anything special, but it felt to her as she was spoiling herself.
After finishing her more than decent cappuccino and after eating her brioche so full of custard it could hardly contain it all, she wiped her sticky hands with a tissue so to be able to extract her Greek textbook without damaging it. She flipped to the right page and started reading about contract verbs.
She wasn't going to admit it to anyone, but, truth was, she was more than just a bit struggling with the language. She had difficulty remembering all the rules and the declensions. Trying to keep up with her young professor pace meant that the study of that subject absorbed most of her spear time. The only thing that comforted her was that she knew herself well enough to be certain she was strong enough not to give up so easily.
"What are you studying?"
The voice brought her back to reality. She lifted her head from the pages of her book, taking a second to realize what had just happened. She hadn't even noticed that someone had sat in the table right next to hers.
He was a tall, young man, maybe at the end of his twenties, but more probably at the beginning of his thirties. He was quite good looking, in his own, peculiar way. Clara noticed he was wearing a bow tie and his prominent chin – it could poke ones eye out, it he wasn't careful, she thought.
"Excuse me?"
"What are you studying?" he repeated gently, with a smile. She stared at him for a few seconds, before the question sank in properly. It was as if she had already managed to forget what she was so intently doing only a second before that stranger had distracted her.
"Oh! Hem," she hesitated without any apparent reason – apart maybe from the fact that she wasn't expecting an handsome stranger to speak to her that early in the morning while she was studying a dead language in a bar nor that he would ask her that question. "Ancient Greek," she was finally able to tell him, reciprocating his smile.
He chuckled. "Well that is...wow," he looked very impressed at her.
She blushed slightly, dismissing humbly the remark with a wave of her hand. "Yeah, well, I'm not even sure why I did this to myself. It's hard," she confessed.
He shook his head. "You're good enough to even try," he told her kindly. "So are you a university student?"
She dropped her highlighter on the table and straightened up. "I'm an English major," she tried to cover the pride in her voice. "My university is nearby. What about you?"
She realized that her words could have meant that she had assumed he was still in university, which she hadn't, so she added quickly: "I mean, what do you do?"
He pressed his hands to his knees and his body stretched tiredly as it shifted towards her. "I've finished university some time ago. I'm a mechanical engineer."
"Well, that's definitely not my area," she joked.
He laughed quietly. "I'm here on holiday, actually."
Her eyes widened, in surprise. Thinking about it, his accent didn't come across as local. The irony of studying linguistic and still being unable to identifying where people came from by the way they talked, she thought. "You are?" she asked stupidly. "Where are you from?"
"Canada."
They smiled at each other in silence, before Clara asked: "So, do you like it here?"
It was a fairly trivial question, but she had took immediately a liking in him. He was charming, in a way, and seemed very friendly. She felt the need to keep talking to him.
"Yeah," he shrugged. "I'm going to Rome after this. And then Venice, Amsterdam..." He lifted his arms with the palm of his hands facing upwards and shrugged offering her a tentative smile, as to say it wasn't as special as it sound.
She didn't buy his act of humility and stood in awe at the thought."I'm jealous," she sighed, her mind wondering to those distant places, "I've always wanted to travel."
"I'm lucky because I have a job which pays fairly enough. What's stopping you?" he leaned forward, as he asked, making her feel he was genuinely interested. His voice was far from the accusing tone she usually used when she asked herself the same question.
"Money," she gave him her usual excuse. "And time."
Clara felt a bit lame. She didn't want to appear weak to him, as sometimes she accused herself of being. She thought about her six years with Danny. They had never travelled much together, and even then they had always been to the same places, which were usually limited to Brighton and her visits together to Blackpool. They had become more habitual then she cared to admit. She had sometimes felt limited, stuck. She hadn't felt free to go too far away for too long. He had told her so many time he couldn't stay without her. That hadn't stopped him from enrolling in the army a few months before he had broken up with her, though. She had given him her full support of course, standing by his decision and giving him confidence when his determination quivered, even though it silently broke her heart. She had been too patient, she had given too much of herself. If she had the chance to go back, she would have done many things differently, but she didn't think about it too much because she refused regret as a principle. She didn't have a relationship refraining her any more, now, she could do anything she wanted, without worrying of someone else's feelings. She was free, but she didn't feel so, not just yet. She still needed to get used to the idea.
"But I haven't given up on my dream. I'm still going," she hurriedly added, trying to justify herself. He nodded, gesticulating in an awkward way that made her smile, his eyes telling her he would never think she had. She tried to reassure him by changing the subject: "Are you on holiday alone?"
"No, I'm travelling with a friend, actually," he answered with a yawn.
Clara looked at him curiously. He had circles under his eyes and all his features screamed tiredness. She finally wondered why a tourist such as himself was doing in a bar that early in the morning in that part of London. "And where is your friend, now?"
He laughed, but it wasn't a warm laugh. She felt some bitterness in it. "That's a funny story," he rubbed his eyes, "I don't know."
She laughed in surprise at that. "What, really?"
He rolled his eyes and sighed exasperated. "We spent all night circling town looking for our hotel, completely drunk, until we fell asleep on a bench in the park."
Clara blinked. "You slept outside. On a bench." she interrupted him. "With this cold?"
The young man scratched his wide chin, slightly embarrassed. "...Yeah? Well, anyway," he continued. "When I woke he was gone."
She would have found the story as intriguing as one from her books, if she hadn't been too shocked from the amazing – by her point of view – survival of the man standing in front of her. She thought about her difficulty of getting out of her warm bed in these late autumn mornings and decided that it was already traumatic enough for her. She couldn't imagine spending a night like he had.
"Where did he go?"she eventually asked.
He blushed. "I don't know," he bit his lip, his eyes diverting to the sealing and his faint eyebrows frowning in the effort of giving her a decent answer, "He might have gone to look for our Hotel."
"Haven't you called him?" she inquired.
He moved his hand to the pocket of his trousers and extracted his iphone. "I've sent him a message on facebook. I've been waiting for his reply," he didn't look up as he moved his finger slowly on the touch-screen.
"My stars, he sure seems like a good friend!" she observed sarcastically. This made him laugh and she beamed at him.
"Yeah," he grinned goofily. "Jack is... Yeah."
Clara felt an urge she couldn't explain to learn more about his friend. It probably went hand in hand with her urge to get to know him, to get closer to this man she had just met but to whom she was feeling a unexpected and weird connection – she wouldn't dare use the word attraction. "So why don't you try at the hotel?"
He was silent, for a few seconds, and Clara noticed ha was trying to avoid eye contact with her. "That would be a perfect idea," he scratched nervously the back of his head. "The problem is... I don't know where my hotel is."
Clara giggled automatically, before realising he wasn't teasing her. "You don't know where your hotel is?" she repeated, forcing from her face a mocking grin she knew she would have found annoying if she had been in his same situation.
He shook his head.
"Maybe I can help you find it." She liked helping others. Especially when others was a neutral word for a handsome young man and especially if it meant protract the time she could spend with him. She didn't know what she was trying to achieve, exactly. It was not as if she could hope to start any kind of healthy and enduring relationship with a Canadian. It was bound to never happen. Maybe it was just the desire she had of being liked. Maybe it was just that any interest showed by any man even remotely attractive was enough to get to her head. Truth was, it felt it had been to long. She hadn't felt desired by a man for a while, even while she was still with Danny it had been a while... And she had believed him when he had said that he was just going through a phase, that there was no need to worry just because he didn't feel like sleeping with her in that moment. They were both too busy for her to think too much about it, anyway. She had been so stupid, she thought. "What's it called?"
He laughed nervously in reply.
"Oh come on," she looked at him with wide eyes. "You should at least know the name of the hotel."
"I remember it had the sign Hotel on it, of that I'm sure," he shrugged.
She wasn't entirely sure whether he was pulling her leg or not. "It's highly unlikely that the hotel is called Hotel," she told him matter-of-factly, "Don't you have an email from when you booked it or anything?"
He seemed completely lost, as if this sort of practical things didn't concern him in the least. She didn't travel much – in fact, she didn't travel at all – but she knew that if and when she did she would organize everything to the smallest detail. She needed to feel in control of every situation at all times, especially in the specific case of being in a foreign country, many miles from home and everything that was familiar. If she didn't, she knew she would panic. Not that she was a control freak or anything.
On the other hand, apart form some embarrassment, the man in front of her didn't seem to mind particularly. It seemed as though he was leaving many things to chance. He looked tired, it's true, but relaxed at the same time. She had the feeling that she was more concerned for his situation that himself, actually. She wished she could be more like that, at times.
"Well," he said with a tone of voice which implied a "on the bright side". "I do remember it was near to a...Tube station," his excitement faded towards the end of the sentence. Clara avoided asking him which one exactly, of the two hundred and seventy stations there were in London, because she could feel he was already embarrassed enough and she didn't intend to punishing further. Somehow, the lack of detail on his part made her think he didn't know. "Maybe looking at a map of the Tube would help you remember," she suggested, "or just a map in general."
He grinned at her and told her it was a great idea – her desire to make a good impression stopped her from pointing out to him that it was in fact the most natural thing to do – before addressing the waitress. "Excuse me," he said politely. "Have you got some maps of London and the Tube, please?"
"Oh, and two bottles of water, please," he added.
Then he turned to look at her and, leaning forwards, he stretched his hand in her direction. "I'm Matt, by the way."
She reached for it with her own and smiled stupidly at him.
"And you are...?" he asked after a few seconds. She blinked, and then she realised that she hadn't told him his name. She coursed herself internally. He must think I'm so stupid, she thought.
"Oh, yes," she finally managed to say. "I'm Clara."
Much regrettably for her, he let go of her hand and goofy smile crossed his face. "Lovely name, Clara," he made her blush. "You should definitely keep it."
She didn't know what he meant by that, but it certainly sounded good.
Her thought were interrupted by the waitress with the bottles of water and the maps. Matt thanked her, grabbed one bottle and took a sip of water. He swallowed and looked at her. "Please," he pointed to the other bottle. "This is for you."
"Oh, there was no need." He was surprisingly kind. He seemed to confirm what they say about Canadians and this made her smile to herself.
"Of course there was. Everybody needs water." And he moved the water towards her. She accepted it silently while he unfolded a map of the tube. He then moved it closer to her, inviting her to slide in the seat next to her. She watched him scrutinize the names of the piece of paper with the corner of her eyes. She didn't know how it had happened, but they were touching. She was painfully aware of her side slightly brushing his – she wondered if he did, too.
"Ah!" he shouted, making her jump. "Here it is."
They look at each other, grinning, and her eyes followed the finger he kept pressed to the map. She read the name out loud. "That's a relief. It's also not too far from here," Clara told him. "Are you sure?"
"Not a hundred per cent positive," he admitted. "But it sounds familiar."
Clara was already getting used to him. She realized as much because what he said didn't surprise her at all. She laughed, without commenting, and just said: "Well, in any case, it's a start."
He yawned one last time and, very inelegantly, stretched his arms, and then he stood up. He started lazily to put on his coat as she watched him uncertainly. "So that was it? Was it goodbye already?" she wondered. She didn't say it out loud, and instead she asked him: "Will you manage to find your way?"
"Not really," he said, unperturbed by this tiny little detail. As if he didn't concern him directly.
"I could help you," she suggested, automatically. The words were already out before she realized what she was saying. Oh well, it was too late to take them back.
"Really? You would?" he sounded surprise, but his eyes and wide grin told her he was hoping she would say that and how please he was. "You're too kind. I wouldn't want to bother you."
She shook her head, decisively. "No bother," she told him. "I don't have any lessons until half past ten, anyway."
"Thank you so much, then."
He made his way to the counter. She dressed quickly, grabbed her bag and followed him.
"I had a cup of coffee and two bottles of water," Matt told the young woman behind the counter, pulling his wallet out of his pocket. "And...", he turned towards Clara. "What did you get?"
It took her a split second to realize what he was asking and why. "A cappuccino and a brioche, but I'll pay for them," she tried to protest.
"...I'll pay what she had, too", he said, before she could stop him. "I insist."
Once they were outside, she looked at him straight in the eyes. "Thank you," she gently caressed his arm to make him stop walking and gain his full attention. "You didn't need to do that. It was very nice of you."
He smiled at her and shrugged. "No big deal. It's the least I can do, since you are helping me so much."
His words made her blush. "Wait to get to the Hotel before being so grateful."
So they walked through town, chatting as old friends. Clara had always been a fast walker, but in this case she slowed down her normal pace. She wanted to prolong their being together and she also wanted not to think about what was the use in acting like that. There was no way it could last, so she shouldn't be interested. She tried to tell herself that she was just enjoying his company. He was a very friendly and nice man, she didn't need to have any other reasons to help him.
Clara loved London. She was proud of being a student in such a wonderful city. She knew that not many people shared this opportunity. She didn't know the city as well as she would have like, too, though. She tended to stay always in the same area of London. She knew that, with Matt, she was pretending to be very familiar with the town, as if she owned it. As if she was a proper Londoner. Luckily, the place they were heading to was easy enough to find, so she could keep up that fragile image of herself. She felt ashamed of the way she was acting around him. She didn't feel as strong as she had thought until just an hour or so ago.
They finally got to the Tube station he had indicated. She asked him if anything was familiar and he nodded, so she gave him the lead and followed him around as he looked for his hotel. They circled the area around the underground station, going up and down the same streets for a few times, before he admitted his defeat.
"It's all quite familiar, but..." he didn't continue, he just sighed in exasperation.
"I'm sorry," Clara reached for his shoulder, unable to find anything else to say. She felt useless. "I don't really know how to help you."
He smiled tiredly down at her and put his hand on hers, sending a shiver down her spine. "It's OK," he spoke calmly. Once again, she wondered how he could manage to be like that. She was more anxious then he was and yet he was the one who was lost. "I think I'll just crash somewhere and figure out what to do after I had some rest."
Clara didn't answer. She was uncharacteristically quite. She just followed him to a hotel he had spotted, uncertain about what she should do. He hadn't said goodbye, so she was still behind him when he entered the warm lounge and crossed the room to get to the concierge which was standing behind a big wooden desk. "One room, please."
The man smiled politely. "For how long, sir?"
"Only one day."
"Certainly, sir," and he started writing on the keyboard of his computer.
Clara staid behind, feeling suddenly very awkward and uncomfortable with the whole situation. Meanwhile, Matt was handing his credit card to the concierge. "How was your day?", he asked.
The girl could help but smile. He was incredibly polite. No English she knew was like that. Probably the man was just as surprised as she was, but it certainly pleased him because he answered quite eagerly.
"Here's your key, sir," he told Matt, "The room is 201. It's on the second floor, last room on the left."
Matt nodded appreciatively and thanked him, but before he could move or do anything, the concierge added: "Before you go, I'm going to need an identity card. And also of the girl. It's standard procedure, you see." He justified himself.
When she heard those words, her entire body stiffened. Was she supposed to go with him? Was he expecting her to? Matt probably sensed what she was thinking because he came closer to her. Very close in fact. He was definitely invading her personal space and this made her breathing more difficult.
"You don't need to go," he told her, softly. "You can stay a bit if you like."
She had always been a very logical, hard to impress, down-to-earth person, but in that moment she found herself unable to reason properly. She had never been in a situation like this before and she didn't know what to do.
"Yes, OK," she said without thinking, but without any conviction either.
Clara went through what happen next as if she was living a dream. She gave her identity card to the nice man behind the desk. She followed Matt up the stairs and along the corridor. She watched him find the right room, put the key in the keyhole and open the door.
And then she followed him inside.