Read Online A Fool's Alphabet by Sebastian Faulks - Free Book Online Page B

English voice. ‘I hope you don’t mind. I heard you speak to the waiter. It was strange to hear another English voice out here.’
    Pietro looked up from his solitary reverie. Sometimes alone in a foreign country he felt overpowered by the place. In London he barely noticed the pavements and buildings because he impressed his own will on them. Leicester Square was merely a connection between him and his destination; by hurrying through it, thinking only of where he was going, he was oblivious of it and could not have described it to a stranger. Some cinemas certainly; souvenirs on trays, clockwork tumbling puppies with nylon fur, plastic London bobbies’ helmets and Union Jacks; a few trees and benches; a smell of onions and a sticky feeling underfoot from wet leaves, abandoned fast-food cartons and a suspicion of dog. But he could have given no architectural detail or description of shape and colour; no history or analysis of purpose. He had not noticed that from the first storey upward the buildings were still quite dignified. Like most places in London it was to him only a connection between other tube stations, an inconvenience between his starting point and the place where his real life awaited him in the greeting of work or friends.
    Abroad it was the opposite. His eyes would drain each shop sign or building feature of its unintended significance; he was so anxious to orientate himself that he would take from each café, street or apartment block a weight of history and meaning that would have amazed its indifferent owners. The more alone he was, the more receptive, sometimes morbidly so, he became to the signals of place. It was possible for him to be overwhelmed, so that it was not he who printed himself on the place, but the place which subsumed him in its greater identity.
    The presence of someone he knew could halt this process by restoring his perspective. Through his affectionate dealings with other people, he could resume an equilibrium that left him still animated by the sense of where he was, but not overpowered by it. When he was abroad alone, and starting to lose himself, he longed for the sound of his name spoken by someone who knew him. The conversation of the waiter or shopkeeper was better than silence, but was no substitute for the greeting of a friend, of a human voice whose inflexion carried the knowledge of his identity. In a simple greeting such a voice could convey a reassurance that he was valued or familiar in a proper scale of things.
    When he looked up at the sound of the English voice, he was therefore inclined to talk. He saw a man in his early forties, dark, with thick glasses. He wore a soft flannel suit and glowed with self-confidence.
    â€˜My name’s Paul Coleman. Are you from London?’
    Pietro pushed back a chair in invitation and poured some wine. ‘Yes. I’m here on business in Chicago. A friend of mine has relations here in Evanston who’ve lent me their house. They’re back next week. And you?’
    â€˜Business, business. Always business.’ Coleman smiled, his narrow eyes sparkling behind the glasses. He had thick, wavy dark hair and a swarthy skin.
    â€˜Pork belly futures?’
    â€˜There are other things in Chicago. Been out on the lake?’
    â€˜Not yet.’
    â€˜What’s your line of business?’
    â€˜I have a company in London. We deal in photographic equipment,’ said Pietro. ‘My real interest is colour origination and printing.’
    â€˜Picture books, part works, that kind of thing?’
    â€˜Yes.’ Pietro wished Coleman would stop smiling when he spoke. It made him feel nervous. He steered the subject on to families and found that Coleman lived in Hertfordshire. He spoke of his wife and of his daughters. He was generous with information and frank about himself, but seemed to be engaged in something tactical. Pietro couldn’t say what.
    â€˜I’d suggest going to a bar,’